Michelle Stein
The second grade at my elementary school studied New York City in social studies every year, and fieldtrips, of course, were an ideal way to put our social studies learning in action. Annie Polland’s Landmark of the Spirit was a nostalgic reminder of our trip to the Eldridge Street Synagogue and Lower East Side, replete with a trip to a candy store and to the Lower East Side institution Guss’ Pickles.
At the time of our visit, the synagogue was still undergoing the renovation that was completed in 2007. Writing after the completion of the renovations, Polland looks beyond the Eldridge Street Synagogue’s architecture to the history of its founding and its development as a community institution until 1945, when the mortgage was finally paid and—in celebration—the mortgage papers burned.
Reading Landmark of the Spirit, I was struck by the similarities in Jewish life on the Lower East 
Side in the 19th and first half of the 20th century. The presidents and other congregational leaders of the Eldridge Street Synagogue congregation had to contend with costs of upkeep, the mortgage on the building, the need to attract both cantors and congregants to the Synagogue. The High Holidays (Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur) were so heavily attended as to require tickets, of which there are still copies and reproductions of them in the book. Tickets are still essential to many congregations’ High Holiday services, as depicted in “The Larry David Sandwich,” an episode of the television show Curb Your Enthusiasm, which finds Larry David purchasing tickets for services from a scalper. Of course some things have undoubtedly changed; one of the later chapters discusses women’s contributions to the Eldridge Street Synagogue community, which were not as well documented as those of men in the early years.
The struggle between the Jewish identity that had been cultivated in Europe and creating new communities in New York and the United States as a whole is evident throughout Polland’s text. The Orthodox community of Kahal Adath Jeshurun (later Kahal Adath Jeshurun and Anshei Lubtz) at Eldridge Street Synagogue had to react and stay popular in a city where many were turning to Reform Judaism. This began as early as Eldridge Street Synagogue’s opening, which seemed to act in some ways as a testing ground for maintaining Orthodox Jewish communities.
The congregation also had to contend with the move of many leaders from their congregation uptown. Polland describes the way in which businessmen became the new vision of Jewish male community leaders. But their wealth is also what led them to new neighborhoods uptown. It is also clear though, that Eldridge Street Synagogue remained a grounding point for many, no matter where their lives took them.
Nowadays the idea of maintaining a membership in a synagogue after moving seems quite unlikely. At the same time, this early struggle for identity resonates just as strongly as other elements of Eldridge Street Synagogue’s history. Today, distinctions between Orthodox and Reform communities are well-defined, but Jewish identity is constantly fluctuating, and institutions shift along with new ideas and trends, or remain true to something they see as more traditional. Reading about developing American Jewish identity in the past through one of the institutions that served as a cent
“Aspirations must either lessen and then failure will not be so great, or something must come forth to lessen the burden.” – Eva Hesse
This is the declaration of a troubled individual and a determined artist; of someone who feels a great weight on her shoulders and sees little prospect for relief. By 1960, Eva Hesse was certain of her artistic vocation. She had just graduated from the Yale School of Art and Architecture, had moved to a new studio in New York, and was ready to begin her career as a painter. From the new Eva Hesse Spectres 1960, edited by E. Luanne McKinnon, Helen Molesworth, the chief curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, includes in her introductory essay a photograph of Hesse taken in 1956. Only twenty years old, with soft brown hair, pale skin and a warm smile, Hesse is the figure of youth and beauty; a muse of subtle but erotic flirtation.
Looking at her paintings from four years later, the viewer is wrenched from this superficial complacency, and thrust instead into a world fraught with pain, fear, insecurity, and alienation. As Molesworth notes later in the same essay, these oft-overlooked paintings indicate Hesse’s confrontation not necessarily with the question, “What does it mean to be an artist?” but rather with, “What does it mean to be a person?” After examining the four dozen or so paintings from 1960, the viewer can only shudder at Hesse’s answer. 
The catalog accompanies the exhibition, “Eva Hesse Spectres 1960,” the first retrospective to focus exclusively on the young artist’s paintings from 1960, independently of her celebrated sculptural work from 1965-1970. Curated by McKinnon, the Director of the University of New Mexico Art Museum, the exhibit will be in residence at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles until November 30. A slideshow of images from the Hammer Museum appears here. On New Year’s Day, the collection moves to the University of New Mexico Art Museum, where it will stay until the end of April.
The exhibition itself divides Hesse’s paintings into two distinct groups. The first includes figures that are gaunt, loosely rendered, and standing in groups of two or three. These paintings seem to emerge from an intersection of the sculptures of Alberto Giacometti and the paintings of Willem de Kooning. They straddle the divide of flesh and paint, figure and ground, abstraction and line, proximity and distance. As Molesworth points out in her essay, these figures are ultimately defined by a “logic of human relations”: a system of thought that highlights an emotional (and spatial) disconnect between individuals.
The second group of paintings is oriented around a series of self-portraits. As E. Luanne McKinnon observes in her contribution to the catalog, each of these self-portraits displays “a sense of loss or displacement and pain. More directly stated, in these paintings Hesse’s real beauty was transmogrified into the ghastly.” Claustrophobia and aberrant colors abound; skin is thick and dripping with paint; eyes are sightless and reflect nothing but violence. These self-portraits, as with the paintings that comprise the first half of the collection, are embodiments of emotional turmoil and existential frustration. They are an early index of a tragic figure who would become one of the most celebrated and compelling female art
Earlier this month the UK publication
Jewish Quarterly awarded Adina
Hoffman with the
Wingate Prize 2010 for her new book,
My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happiness. Given
out annually to
an author whose work “stimulates an interest in themes of Jewish concern
while
appealing to the general reader,” this year’s
Wingate
Prize marks an historic
event for Jewish-Palestinian relations.
My
Happiness, the first biography of a Palestinian writer written in
English,
tracks the life of Palestinian poet Taha Mohammed Ali. Anne Karpf, the
chair of
the
Wingate Prize’s judging panel, described
Hoffman’s work as “eloquent and
moving…ultimately an uplifting book, combining meticulous research with
literary sensitivity and a deep humanity: a beautifully written portrait
of
lived resistance.”
Marwan Muasher, the author of The Arab Center, will appear today at 11AM ET on WAMU's The Diane Rehm Show, broadcast nationwide via NPR and Sirius Satellite Radio (you can find a list of participating radios here). Muasher will talk about his twenty-year experience with the peace process in the Middle East and the perspectives for reform and peace in the region, subjects he also covers in his widely praised book. The interview will also be available, for streaming and as a transcript, on The Diane Rehm Show website approximately one hour after the broadcast, around 1PM ET.
By:
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on 5/9/2008
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As Israel, and its millions of supporters world-wide, celebrate its 60th birthday, few realize the important role that Winston Churchill played in the establishment of the State of Israel and the shaping of the modern Middle East.
Michael Makovsky’s groundbreaking Churchill’s Promised Land, brings this and much more to light in his careful and nuanced examination of Churchill’s complex relationship with Zionism.
In exploring Churchill’s evolving and ultimately romantic interest in Zionism, Makovsky offers a fresh, more complete and revealing understanding of this great statesman’s worldview.
Churchill’s Promised Land won the National Jewish Book Award for History (2007) and was a finalist for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature (2008).
Read an excerpt, or view the table of contents. Click here to listen to an interview with Michael Makovsky on the Yale Press Podcast.
By:
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on 5/7/2008
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Under the spotlight of the 60th anniversary of Israeli independence, Benny Morris's recent book, 1948, is a praised as a shining example.
Last Sunday’s New York Times Book Review features David Margolick's review, saying: "Morris relates the story of his new book soberly and somberly, evenhandedly and exhaustively."
The May 5th issue of The New Yorker hit newsstands on Monday with a feature piece by David Remnick. This piece on Israeli history centers around Morris and the publication of 1948, calling it "a commanding, superbly documented, and fair-minded study of the events that, in the wake of the Holocaust, gave a sovereign home to one people and dispossessed another."
Last Monday, David Holahan reviewed the book for the Hartford Courant. 1948, he said, is "a richly detailed and thoroughly researched primer.... A compelling 'aha' book, 1948 brings order to complex, little-understood subjects." He went on to compliment Morris on his "vivid narrative prose and masterly analysis."
Canada's National Post began running excerpts from 1948 on May 5, and will run a total of 5 installments. Read the second and third installments.
By:
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on 3/6/2008
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In the March 12th issue of The New Republic, Noam Scheiber writes of the effect of Richard Thaler's economic theories on Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. Scheiber writes, "Thaler is revered by the leading wonks on Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Though he has no formal role, Thaler presides as a kind of in-house intellectual guru, consulting regularly with Obama's top economic adviser." Thaler and Cass Sunstein recently wrote Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness. Read more about Thaler's influence on Obama here.
Elsewhere in that same issue of The New Republic, Stephen Greenblatt discusses the yikhes--"status or honor" in Yiddish--of playwright Jacob Gordin. Greenblatt positively reviews The Jewish King Lear: A Comedy in America, saying that "the late Ruth Gay's fine and lively translation of Gordin's most famous play, along with the richly informative accompanying biographical and interpretative essays by Gay and Sophie Glazer, enable readers without Yiddish to understand what stirred Gordin's original audience so deeply." Read the entire review here.
The New Republic also extensively reviewed The Origins of Reasonable Doubt: Theological Roots of the Criminal Trial by James Q. Whitman for their February 27th issue. TNR subscribers can read that review here.
Writing for the Middle East Journal, Mark N. Katz favorably reviewed Foxbats over Dimona: The Soviets' Nuclear Gamble in the Six-Day War by Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez. Professor Katz, an expert on Moscow's foreign policy toward the Middle East, was blown away by the book's compelling argument and unique viewpoint. Here's what he had to say:
I was highly skeptical about these bold claims when I began reading this book. “Moscow made us do it” seemed to be too neat an explanation for Israel’s actions in 1967. Long before reaching the book’s end, though, I became convinced that Ginor and Remez have gotten it right....
I must concur ... with Sir Lawrence Freedman’s judgment that Ginor and Remez have presented such a strong case for their argument that “the onus is now on others to show why they are wrong.”
Read more from his review of Foxbats over Dimona after the jump.
This groundbreaking history shatters many assumptions about the Six-Day War of 1967. New research in Soviet archives and testimonies from participants in the Israeli/Egyptian conflict reveal the extent of the Kremlin’s involvement, plans for the use of nuclear weapons in the Mid-East, and willingness to precipitate a global crisis.
Click here to listen to an interview with Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez on the Yale Press Podcast.
Katz went on to say this of Foxbats over Dimona:
Their argument is based on, among other sources, a careful study of Soviet documents—many of which have only recently come to light—as well as interviews with former Soviet officials and servicemen who participated in the June 1967 events. Since the book’s publication in June 2007, many of these individuals have confirmed in the Russian press what they told Ginor and Remez. One of the authors’ most startling claims — that Soviet pilots flew the USSR’s then most ad-vanced military aircraft (the MiG-25 “Fox-bat”) over Dimona in May 1967 was subsequently confirmed by the chief spokesman for the Russian Air Force. Further, Ginor and Remez’s description of Moscow’s behavior in 1967 is consistent with how it has behaved on other occasions.
Read an excerpt from Foxbats over Dimona, or view the table of contents.
Reviewers are praising Richard M. Cook for his recent Yale Press release, Alfred Kazin: A Biography. Here's just a sampling of what they have to say.
In a February 7 review, San Francisco Chronicle complimented Cook on "a fine job in recounting and interpreting his subject's life." They applaud Cook's ability "to produce a much fuller and rounded portrait" than in all three of Kazin's autobiographies. Cook is a "very sympathetic biographer," with a "sure grasp of the issues at stake" in Kazin's life. They especially admired Cook's "sensitive exploration of the touchy topic of Kazin's Jewish identity.... Cook handles this difficult subject with exemplary finesse." Read the entire review here.
The Chicago Tribune's February 2 review similarly commends Cook's biography, saying that "thanks to Cook's exhaustive research -- synthesizing scores of interviews, distilling the thousands of words from the archive of Kazin's journals -- we now have a vivid chronology of the life of a major literary figure in the 20th Century." Read the entire review here.
Bookforum in their review that Cook's work is "fine, able, and intelligent." They compliment "the way Cook lets Kazin speak and think for himself." Later, they say that "Cook's account of Kazin's mature years is rich and laden with anecdotes." Read the entire review here.
Alfred Kazin, the son of barely literate Jewish immigrants, rose from near poverty to become a dominant figure in literary criticism and one of America’s last great men of letters. This book provides the first complete portrait of Kazin, his troubled personal life, his relationships with such figures as Lionel Trilling and Hannah Arendt, and his prodigious contributions as a public intellectual.
Two Lives by Janet Malcolm made the National Book Critics Circle's Good Reads Long List for Nonfiction. The list is comprised of "the nonfiction titles which received multiple votes" from the NBCC. It was announced this morning on the NBCC blog here, where you can find the entire list, along with other NBCC Good Reads lists for Fiction and Poetry.
Malcolm’s Two Lives, a remarkable work of literary biography and investigative journalism, turns on the mysterious survival of Stein and Toklas, as Jewish lesbians in Occupied France. Also a fascinating illumination of the world of Stein scholarship, and a stunningly perceptive work of criticism.
The New York Times Book Review named Two Lives an Editors' Choice and said, "Sharp criticism meets playful, absorbing biography in this study of Stein and Toklas."
Read an excerpt, or view the table of contents.
Richard M. Cook's Alfred Kazin: A Biography, about one of the most important literary critics of the 20th century, has in turn become the subject of articles by literary critics from The New York Sun, The Los Angeles Times Book Review, and The New York Times Book Review.
In his Jan. 23 review for the New York Sun, Adam Kirsch praised Cook's biography, despite Kazin's complex character: "Mr. Cook has a judicious appreciation of Kazin's work as a memoirist and literary critic, and he has mastered the tempestuous literary-political milieu of the New York intellectuals to which Kazin uncomfortably belonged." Kirsch found especially interesting the period of Kazin's life in the 1920s and '30s.
On the other hand, Richard Eder, writing a review for The Los Angeles Times Book Review, delighted in "the complications of this genial, acerbic figure." He finds it admirable that what "Cook brings out, appealingly, is his subject's mix of brashness and humility." He finds that "Cook is best at tracing Kazin's growing use of his Jewishness in his books."
William Grimes, in his Jan. 2 review for the New York Times Book Review , would agree with Eder, finding that "Cook amply documents" Kazin's life with an "even-tempered, judicious biography of this notoriously prickly critic." With a "discerning eye" and a "deft hand," Cook "introduces... hundreds of illuminating passages from Kazin’s unpublished journals to round out the picture.... In Mr. Cook’s hands Kazin emerges as an arresting hybrid."
Novelist Brian Morton wrote on the book as well for the Jan 27 New York Times Book Review. Morton, when he met Kazin, "could only envy the astonishing vitality of his mind." He thinks that "Cook’s biography, the first that has appeared of Kazin, is a respectable effort, well written and well researched."
Born in 1915 to barely literate Jewish immigrants in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, Alfred Kazin rose from near poverty to become a dominant figure in twentieth-century literary criticism and one of America’s last great men of letters. Biographer Richard M. Cook provides a portrait of Kazin in his public roles and in his frequently unhappy private life. Drawing on the personal journals Kazin kept for over 60 years, private correspondence, and numerous conversations with Kazin, he uncovers the full story of the lonely, stuttering boy from Jewish Brownsville who became a pioneering critic and influential cultural commentator.
Upon the appearance of On Native Grounds in 1942, Kazin was dubbed “the boy wonder of American criticism.” Numerous publications followed, including A Walker in the City and two other memoirs, books of criticism, as well as a stream of essays and reviews that ceased only with his death in 1998. Cook tells of Kazin’s childhood, his troubled marriages, and his relations with such figures as Lionel Trilling, Saul Bellow, Malcolm Cowley, Arthur Schlesinger, Hannah Arendt, and Daniel Bell. He illuminates Kazin’s thinking on political-cultural issues and the recurring way in which his subject’s personal life shaped his career as a public intellectual. Particular attention is paid to Kazin’s sense of himself as a Jewish-American “loner” whose inner estrangements gave him insight into the divisions at the heart of modern culture.
Congratulations to Elisabeth Sussman and Fred Wasserman, authors of Eva Hesse: Sculpture, which is a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award in the Visual Arts category.
Each year, the National Jewish Book Awards honor some of the best and most exciting authors in the field of Jewish literature. After more than fifty years of presenting these awards, hundreds of books have received the prestigious National Jewish Book Award, including titles by the top authors on the American Jewish literary scene.
The work of Eva Hesse (1936–1970), one of the greatest American artists of the 1960s, continues to inspire and to endure in large part because of its deeply emotional and evocative qualities. Her latex and fiberglass sculptures in particular have a resonance that transcends the boundaries of minimalist art in which she had her roots. Hesse’s breakthrough solo exhibition—Chain Polymers at the Fischbach Gallery in New York in 1968—was a turning point in postwar American art.
Eva Hesse: Sculpture focuses on the artist’s large-scale sculptures in latex and fiberglass and provides a rare opportunity to look at Hesse’s artistic achievement within the historical context of her life in never-before-seen family diaries and photographs. Essays consider Hesse’s art from a variety of angles: Elisabeth Sussman discusses the sculptures shown in the 1968 solo exhibition; Fred Wasserman delves into the Hesse family’s life in Nazi Germany and in the German Jewish community in New York in the 1940s; Yve-Alain Bois examines Hesse’s works within the context of the art and aesthetic theories of the 1960s; and Mark Godfrey analyzes the importance of Hesse’s celebrated hanging sculptures of 1969–70. In addition to color reproductions of the artist’s sculpture, the book features a copiously illustrated chronology of the artist’s life.
For the full list of winners and finalists, click here.
BandofThebes.com has put up this excellent picture of Yale Press author Janet Malcolm at a reading for her book Two Lives in Chelsea on Wednesday night.
Stephen Bottum, the blogger behind BandofThebes.com, likes Two Lives for the "many fascinating revelations in the slim book, which manages to say something new and important about the nature of biography, the quirks of writing, the work of reading, the unknowability of human actions, the ways in which biographers 'use' their minor characters, and how a scholar's overwhelming fear of not living up to early promise can ultimately prevent him from completing any work." He called the book "always engaging."
You can read his entire blog post here.
By: Yale University Press,
on 12/12/2007
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Michael Makovsky, author of Churchill's Promised Land: Zionism and Statecraft, has been named one of five finalists for this year's Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature. The Jewish Book Council, who administers the award, considers Churchill's Promised Land to be "a book of exceptional literary merit that stimulates an interest in themes of Jewish concern." One of the finalists will receive the $100,000 prize next spring. For more information on the prize, click here.
This book is the first to explore fully the role that Zionism played in the political thought of Winston Churchill. Tracing the development of Churchill’s positions toward Zionism and the Jewish people throughout his long career, Michael Makovsky offers a fresh and balanced insight into one of the twentieth century’s greatest figures.
Michael Makovsky has a Ph.D. in diplomatic history from Harvard and is foreign policy director of the Bipartisan Policy Center, a think tank based in Washington, D.C. He lives in Washington.
Read an excerpt. View the table of contents. Listen to an interview with Michael Makovsky on the Yale Press Podcast.
By: Yale University Press,
on 12/3/2007
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Here is just a sample of some titles that editors and websites have picked in their year-end lists.
William Grimes at the New York Times assembled a gift guide of 15 perfect books for this holiday season, including Bears: A Brief History by Bernd Brunner. Grimes warmly recommends "this little gem."
The Washington Post put out their list of the best books of 2007, featuring four YUP titles. They called Hugh Brogan's Alexis de Tocqueville a monumental achievement. West from Appomattox, an "engaging" book by Heather Cox Richardson, also made the list. Ali A. Allawi brings "a valuable new voice to the ongoing debate" in The Occupation of Iraq, they said. And they praise Janet Malcolm's Two Lives as a "lucid and elegant meditation on literature and morality."
In addition, the Washington Post rounded up a list of art gift books. Among them are Picturing the Bible: The Earliest Christian Art by Jeffrey Spier, and George Stubbs, Painter, the catalogue raisonne by Judy Egerton.
Library Journal has named Hotel: An American History, by A. K. Sandoval-Strausz a December Best Book Pick. Along with having a "sound historical method," Sandoval-Strausz writes with "that rare blend of erudition and clarity that most of us can only dream of possessing."
Also, the Yale Holiday Sale has been extended. Free shipping is available for all web orders through December 31, 2007, and select titles are 50% off. And don't forget to check out our Holiday Selections.
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