by Matthew Friedman | Oct 23, 2022 | Books, Jewish Life, Reviews
Aaron Samuel TamaresA Passionate Pacifist: Essential Writings of Aaron Samuel TamaresBen Yehuda Press At some point in 1877 or 1878, Aaron Samuel Tamares, then a young Cheder student in Grodno District of the Russian Empire, would to “stand glued for hours” before a...
by Matthew Friedman | May 22, 2022 | Books, Jewish Life, Reviews
The Canvas and Other StoriesSalomea Perl, translated by Ruth MurphyBen Yehuda Press There is always great pleasure in the discovery of a new author – the rush of jouissance upon hearing a new literary voice for the first time, the delicious anticipation of hearing it...
by Matthew Friedman | May 1, 2022 | Books, Essays, Jewish Life
The Original Bambi: The Story of a Life in the Forest Felix Salten, translated by Jack Zipes, with illustrations by Alenka Sottler Princeton University Press “Two leaves fell from the great oak tree at the edge of the meadow.” Thus begins the eighth chapter of Felix...
by Matthew Friedman | Jul 2, 2021 | Books, Jewish Life, Reviews
Lila Corwin Berman The American Jewish Philanthropic Complex: The History of a Multibillion-Dollar Institution Princeton University Press Tzedakah, the obligation to provide for the less-fortunate of the community, is one of the signal ethical values of Jewish life....
by Matthew Friedman | Aug 5, 2019 | Books, Reviews
Tom Sleigh, The Land Between Two Rivers: Writing In an Age of Refugees. Graywolf Press, 2018. 272 pp. In his collection of essays, The Land Between Two Rivers: Writing in an Age of Refugees, Tom Sleigh recalls looking down with astonishment from an airplane window,...
by Matthew Friedman | Jul 29, 2019 | Books, Reviews
Bruce Cornforth and Gayle Dean Wardlow, Up Jumped the Devil: The Real Life of Robert Johnson. Chicago Review Press, 2019. 336 pp. If you know anything about Robert Johnson, it is that he sold his soul to the Devil at the crossroads in order to become the greatest of...