Sephardi women take centre stage in two new coming-of-age novels reviewed by Hannah Srour-Zackon
KantikaElizabeth Graver(Metropolitan Books) The Marriage BoxCorie Adjmi(She Works Press) When I think about the English-language Jewish literary landscape, I also notice what’s missing: the stories of Sephardi Jews. Few people are aware that the very first Jews to come to North America were of Western Sephardic background. And yet, despite a centuries-long presence, there has […]
Jewish novels that explore lives shattered and rebuilt: Moriel Rothman-Zecher’s ‘Before All the World’ and Dani Shapiro’s ‘Signal Fires’
Before All the World by Moriel Rothman-Zecher (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) Ikh gleyb nit az di gantze velt iz kheyshekh: I do not believe that all the world is darkness. This is the central refrain at the heart of Moriel Rothman-Zecher’s thought-provoking novel. Before All the World is told from the perspectives of Leyb and […]
A dive into the newest Canadian Jewish non-fiction—from Moshe Safdie on architecture to Christopher Silver on music in North Africa
If Walls Could Speak: My Life in Architecture by Moshe Safdie (Grove Press/Atlantic Monthly Press) As a child in my native Ottawa, I always admired the elegance of the National Gallery of Canada. A particularly striking feature is the long ramp with exposed glass through which natural light shines and where one can gaze at […]
The CJN’s book columnist reads some poetry by Stuart Ross, a memoir by Judith Kalman and a novel by Shelly Sanders
This week we’re featuring some great books by Canadian authors in three different genres. The Book of Grief and Hamburgers by Stuart Ross (ECW Press) During the week of shiva we are meant to share memories of the person whom we are mourning. We laugh, we cry. We recall the good and the bad. We […]
The CJN’s book columnist Hannah Srour looks at memoirs and fiction that explore the Holocaust
The Boy in the Woods by Maxwell Smart In a memoir published May 3, 2022, this Montreal-based artist recounts his story of survival during the Holocaust. Born Oziac Fromm in 1930, Maxwell Smart grew up in the town of Buczacz (located now in western Ukraine). Following the Nazi invasion in 1941, he spent years hiding […]
The CJN’s book columnist Hannah Srour looks at three recently translated novels that examine the Holocaust and its legacy of antisemitism
I’d Like to Say Sorry, but There’s No One to Say Sorry To by Mikołaj Grynberg, translated by Sean Gasper Bye First published in Polish in 2017, this is both Mikolaj Grynberg’s first work of fiction, and his first book in English translation. (Polish-language readers may be familiar with the author’s previously published books of […]
The CJN’s new book columnist looks at ‘All the Shining People’ by Kathy Friedman and Jonathan Papernick’s ‘I Am My Beloveds’
In this new book review column, Hannah Srour will explore recent and upcoming publications of specific interest to readers of The CJN. All the Shining People by Kathy Friedman For her debut, Kathy Friedman puts Toronto’s South African Jewish community in the spotlight. In a dozen loosely connected short stories, she weaves a colourful and […]
