I sus­pect that there are read­ers like me who find noth­ing strange about love and Spin­oza, about Coors Light and Treblinka.

When I write in Yid­dish, I’m plac­ing my own small flag, how­ev­er tat­tered, how­ev­er imper­fect, in the realm of new Yid­dish literature.

The best guide to this strange place called Jerusalem might be Yehu­da Amichai, a poet whose work seems per­ma­nent­ly sus­pend­ed between the sec­u­lar and sacred.