Posted by Naomi Firestone-Teeter

If you weren’t able to make it over to the 92nd Street Y on Monday night for the tribute to Bruno Schulz, or even if you were, you can learn more about Schulz and his art from The New York Times. The Times published the article “Behind Fairy Tale Drawings, Walls Talk of Unspeakable Cruelty” back in February, which discusses the fascination behind this artist and writer, whose life was tragically cut short by the Nazis. Before Schulz’s untimely death, he was forced to illustrate a children’s playroom in a Nazi officer’s home and the article includes a slideshow of these wall drawings, currently on display at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. To read the article, and view the slideshow, please visit here.

And, for more information about Bruno Schulz, please visit:

The Art of Bruno Schulz

Bruno Schulz on Wikipedia

Above photo credit: Bruno Schulz (1892-1942) Self-Portrait, Meczenstwo Walka, Zaglada Zydów Polsce 1939-1945. Poland. No. 175

Posted by Naomi Firestone-Teeter

Just found the speech given by one of the National Jewish Book Award Jewish Book of the Year winning authors Andrea L. Weiss (for the title The Torah: A Women’s Commentary (Dr. Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Rabbi Andrea L. Weiss)). In cased you missed the ceremony in March, you can read her remarks here.

Posted by Naomi Firestone

The New York Times Paper Cuts Blog muses on Goodbye, Columbus on the 50th anniversary of its publication, here.

Posted by Naomi Firestone-Teeter

Just read about an interesting event at the 92nd Street Y tonight on mediabistro. Jonathan Safran Foer and David Grossman will be hosting a tribute to Bruno Schulz. The show starts at 8 pm, and will feature a screening of the Quay Brothers’ animated film Street of Crocodiles–an adaptation of the Schulz short story. Please click here for the complete post from mediabistro.

The event details from the 92nd Street Y are here.

Posted by Naomi Firestone-Teeter

2009 Sami Rohr Prize Finalist Anne Landsman on South Africa, Judaism, and language in The Jewish Week, here.

Posted by Naomi Firestone-Teeter

The New York Times posted an article yesterday on an upcoming title from Indiana University Press called Refugees and Rescue: The Diaries and Papers of James G. McDonald, 1935-1945 (edited by Richard Breitman, Barbara McDonald Stewart, and Severin Hochberg). The article, “Roosevelt and the Jews: A Debate Rekindled,” can be found here.

And, as I read the article, I conveniently received another book which discusses an American president and his relationship to the Jewish people. This title, A Safe Haven: Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel (Allis Radosh and Ronald Radosh), is being published this month by Harper and examines why Harry S. Truman decided to recognize the state of Israel. The authors trace the pros and cons Truman faced while determining whether or not to make the decision to recognize Israel, drawing from archival materials throughout the U.S., Israel, and Great Britain, and bringing to light details that contributed to his ultimate decision. To read more about the title, please visit here.

Posted by Naomi Firestone-Teeter

JTA (with support from the Foundation for Jewish Culture) posted an interview yesterday with 2009 Sami Rohr Prize Finalist Anya Ulinich, here.

And, if you missed our earlier interview with Anya, you can check it out here.

Posted by Naomi Firestone-Teeter

This article isn’t specifically Jewish, but I couldn’t resist sharing…Britain just launched their first book vending machine (Espresso Book Machine), offering readers the opportunity to print over 400,000 titles (many rare and out-of-print) on demand from a vending machine at a bookshop in London. The Daily Telegraph has the complete story here.

Video of the Espresso Book Machine 2.0:

To find an Espresso Book Machine near you, please visit here.

The “Slouching Towards Bushwick” blog outlines recent articles examining New American Jewish Literature, specifically highlighting the earlier mentioned article "The New Yiddishists", here.

Posted by Naomi Firestone-Teeter

Read Israeli writer Gail Hareven’s short story “The Slows” in The New Yorker.

A review of Weber’s most recent title, The Confessions of Noa Weber, will be published in the Summer 2009 Jewish Book World