2011: A Year in Books

The holidays are over, the coffee-table books have all been unwrapped and set aside, and winter isn't going anywhere for a while. In short, it's time to settle in for some good reading. The literary critic D. G. Myers here presents the 38 best Jewish books of 2011, all of which merit your attention.

2010: A Year in Books  D.G. Myers,  Jewish Ideas Daily.  From the popular to the scholarly, a reader's and buyer's guide to 34 of the best books of 2010.  SAVE

Retrieving American Jewish Fiction  D.G. Myers,  Jewish Ideas Daily.  A historical symposium of some neglected classics, and an introduction to the avot and imahot of American Jewish writing.  SAVE

SAVE "2011: A Year in Books"

In Search of the Moderate Voice

Rabbi Haim Sabato is a unique figure on the Israeli scene, both head of a yeshiva and a prominent Hebrew writer. His best known work, the novel titled Adjusting Sights, won Israel's most prestigious literary award and was made into a movie.

From the Four Winds  Haim Sabato,  Toby Press.  In one of Sabato's novels, a young Egyptian immigrant to Israel meets his Hungarian neighbors—and learns, for the first time, about the Holocaust.  SAVE

D’varim: Weeping for the Generations  Moshe Sokolow,  Jewish Ideas Daily.  Exegesis from Haim Sabato, performing his day job.  SAVE

The Romance of Gush Etzion  Aryeh Tepper,  Jewish Ideas Daily.  Lichtenstein's yeshiva inhabits a community with a storied past and a vibrant present.  SAVE

SAVE "In Search of the Moderate Voice"

Photo by Natalie Weinberg.

Rosh Hashanah with the Chief Rabbi

Ten years ago, the first day of Rosh Hashanah—the two-day Jewish New Year—fell on September 18. That was one week after September 11, 2001, when almost 3,000 people were killed by Muslim terrorists. On that Rosh Hashanah, rabbis did not lack for sermon topics.

Endless Devotion  Hillel Halkin,  Jewish Review of Books.  Prayer, says Sacks, is the "language of the soul in conversation with God."  But the struggle to keep it from becoming routine is intrinsic to every religion in which prayer is a regular duty.  SAVE

The Chief Rabbi's Achievement  David Wolpe,  Jewish Review of Books.  Sacks has a gift for providing plausible, if not entirely sufficient, interpretations of the most problematic questions of theology.  SAVE

Where Faith is Weak, Life is Weak  Jonathan Sacks,  Jewish Chronicle.  Intermarriage, assimilation, and vulnerability are not the causes but the symptoms of a transcendent malaise affecting a people once aflame with devotion.  SAVE

SAVE "Rosh Hashanah with the Chief Rabbi"

Enmity; or, Yiddish in America

He was irascible, neurotic, self-obsessed, and socially inept; a brilliant misfit and misanthropic dilettante. Upon his death in July 2010, Harvey Pekar's few close friends insisted that the underground comic-book writer was also a gem in the rough, an out-of-date socialist naïf.

“I’ve been aggravated . . .”  YouTube.  Harvey Pekar gained notoriety for his clownishly antagonistic appearances on NBC’s David Letterman Show.  More from a formidable Pekar video archive here and here.  SAVE

“Whadya think?”  Harvey Pekar, Tara Seibel,  Jewish Review of Books.  A comic review of R. Crumb’s Book of Genesis, in which Pekar attests to the artistic versatility of his long-time collaborator.  SAVE

SAVE "Enmity; or, Yiddish in America"