Post­ed by Nao­mi Firestone-Teeter

We’ve been hard at work here on the spring issue of Jew­ish Book World, which will fea­ture the win­ners of the Nation­al Jew­ish Book Awards, as well as an arti­cle on I. J. Singer by Rebec­ca New­berg­er Gold­stein, an arti­cle on Cyn­thia Ozick by Evan Fal­l­en­berg, a look at the new Hag­gadahs for 2011, an inter­view with Jes­si­ca Jiji, and more. Be sure to sub­scribe by the Feb­ru­ary 14th in order to receive your copy!

And, in oth­er news…last week was a big one for Jew­ish book awards and this one is a big one for unpack­ing all of the box­es on my desk! Sort­ing through the new addi­tions to the shelf, I came across a few goodies…

A”, Louis Zukof­sky (Jan­u­ary 2011, New Direc­tions)
This edi­tion con­tains a new intro­duc­tion by Bar­ry Ahearn, a pro­fes­sor of Eng­lish at Tulane University.

A Dan­ger­ous Woman: The Life, Loves, and Scan­dals of Adah Isaacs Menken, 1835 – 1868, America’s Orig­i­nal Super­star, Bar­bara Fos­ter and Michael Fos­ter (Feb­ru­ary 2011, The Lyons Press)
A pro­tege of Rab­bi Wise (founder of Reform Judaism), a dis­ci­ple of Walt Whit­man, America’s first pin-up, and a mys­te­ri­ous death…need I say more?

The Last Jew of Tre­blin­ka: A Mem­oir, Chil Rajch­man (Feb­ru­ary 2011, Pega­sus)
Elie Wiesel: In its poignant sim­plic­i­ty, Rajchman’s account opens new hori­zons in our per­cep­tion of evil. An impor­tant, heart-rend­ing con­tri­bu­tion to our search for truth.”

Lit­er­ary Pass­ports: The Mak­ing of Mod­ernist Hebrew Fic­tion in Europe , Shachar M. Pinsker (Decem­ber 2010, Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty Press)
Read an excerpt from the intro­duc­tion here.

Odessa: Genius and Death in a City of Dreams, Charles King (Feb­ru­ary 2011, W.W. Nor­ton)
Using archives in Odessa, Lon­don, Jerusalem, and Wash­ing­ton, King weaves togeth­er his­to­ry and anec­dote in order to re-cre­ate the lives of the indi­vid­u­als who have con­tributed to the highs and lows of the city.


Orig­i­nal­ly from Lan­cast­er, Penn­syl­va­nia, Nao­mi is the CEO of Jew­ish Book Coun­cil. She grad­u­at­ed from Emory Uni­ver­si­ty with degrees in Eng­lish and Art His­to­ry and, in addi­tion, stud­ied at Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege Lon­don. Pri­or to her role as exec­u­tive direc­tor, Nao­mi served as the found­ing edi­tor of the JBC web­site and blog and man­ag­ing edi­tor of Jew­ish Book World. In addi­tion, she has over­seen JBC’s dig­i­tal ini­tia­tives, and also devel­oped the JBC’s Vis­it­ing Scribe series and Unpack­ing the Book: Jew­ish Writ­ers in Conversation.