This month Persea Books reis­sued A Cat in the Ghet­to, by Rach­mil Bryks, trans­lat­ed from the Yid­dish by S. Mor­ris Engel, with an intro­duc­tion by Adam Rovn­er. A Cat in the Ghet­to was first pub­lished in 1959 and Bryks’ sto­ries remain some of the most com­pelling accounts of the Holo­caust expe­ri­ence. His work exam­ines the major dilem­mas of the peri­od: action vs. inac­tion, preser­va­tion of dig­ni­ty vs. sur­vival. This new edi­tion includes his well-known novel­las, two short sto­ries, and ear­ly poem, his essay, My Cre­do,” and a new after­word by the author’s daughter.

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.