the matter of science fiction is the geography of reason; of horror, the geography of anxiety; of fantasy, the geography of desire. --Gary K. Wolfe, “Evaporating Genres” a tangle of oleander, a watch of nightingales, vestibules, blogs that warp the soul --Shimon Adaf, Aviva-lo Fantasy lovers and American lovers of Israeli literature alike have cause … Continue reading Down the Israeli Rabbit Hole With Shimon Adaf
Month: March 2014
Taking Ourselves Seriously
No Joke: Making Jewish Humor, the latest volume in the Library of Ideas series launched by Princeton University Press and the Tikvah Fund, includes dozens of jokes, classics and rarities. Yet it is, by design, a grim read, and its examples of humor are little lights that flicker in the darkness. For the real subject … Continue reading Taking Ourselves Seriously
Tap Dancing Through Black Holes
I won’t do it anymore. I won’t call Robert Whitehill-Bashan “the Hebrew poet from Texas.” Yes, he did grow up in Texas in an assimilated Jewish family, and his willful and solitary acquisition of Hebrew, beginning in his teens, is something of a literary miracle. And, yes, he is the one major American-born, American-residing Hebrew … Continue reading Tap Dancing Through Black Holes