Lit­er­a­ture is often called a mir­ror of soci­ety; this year, we are remind­ed more than ever of the impor­tance of the writ­ten word in help­ing us to reflect on world­wide events.

Large-scale issues can feel abstract and over­whelm­ing, but read­ing about one character’s per­son­al strug­gle can make these issues imme­di­ate­ly relat­able. Fit­ting­ly, nov­el­ists are increas­ing­ly engag­ing with some of the more press­ing chal­lenges we face today. Israeli writer Ayelet Gun­dar-Goshen and Ger­man writer Jen­ny Erpen­beck take on the ongo­ing immi­gra­tion crises in their respec­tive coun­tries. Kei­th Gessen depicts the com­plex real­i­ty of life in Rus­sia, while Gary Shteyn­gart turns his eye to the strat­i­fied state of Amer­i­ca. An arti­cle by Ranen Omer- Sher­man dis­cuss­es three recent nov­els that probe the fraught nature of rela­tion­ships between queer Jews and Arabs in Israel.

Anoth­er theme that emerges here is the pres­ence of Jews in spaces— both geo­graph­ic and lit­er­ary — not tra­di­tion­al­ly asso­ci­at­ed with them. An excerpt from Adam O’Fallon Price’s forth­com­ing The Hotel Nev­ersink offers a Jew­ish spin on Goth­ic fic­tion. In ​“Frac­ture,” Jane Yolen reflects on retelling clas­sic fairy tales to depict pogroms and the Holo­caust. And three pieces — an arti­cle, a com­ic, and a per­son­al essay com­bined with poet­ry — offer insights into the lives of Jews in America’s rur­al heartland.

Oth­er writ­ers bring new per­spec­tives to an age-old theme: moth­er­hood and women’s place in soci­ety — whether that soci­ety is Israeli (as in a new­ly trans­lat­ed excerpt from Maya Arad’s Our Lady of Kazan, win­ner of the Paper Brigade Award for New Israeli Fic­tion in Hon­or of Jane Weitz­man) or Ortho­dox (as in Karen E. H. Skinazi’s arti­cle, ​“Frum Women in Film”). Pamela S. Nadell describes America’s first Jew­ish women’s book club, found­ed in 1879; Shachar M. Pinsker high­lights the influ­en­tial women of lit­er­ary café culture.

We hope that in the mix of arti­cles, inter­views, art­work, and more you’ll find much that stim­u­lates and informs — and also delights. This, too, (lest we for­get) is one of literature’s most impor­tant roles. Hap­py reading!

— Car­ol Kauf­man, Exec­u­tive Editor