The publication of a previously unreleased short story by Sylvia Plath is big news in the literary world. As Harper Perennial released Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom to much fanfare and debate in January, I realised that – to my shame – I had never read any Plath. I decided to begin with Ariel (1965), written just before her suicide in 1963, and edited, along with her journals and letters, by Ted Hughes. (Hughes burnt the last of her journals. He was able to do all this because their divorce was not yet final. His actions obscured his abuse, which has become clearer since his death.) Readi ..read more

Earlier in February, 56 faith leaders, including five Rabbis, signed an open letter to the Department of Education urging that “irrespective of the type of school they attend, all children are supported and allowed to thrive through education that actively promotes respect”. This was a response to pressure from some strictly-orthodox figures to dilute schools’ requirements to promote diversity, ie. not teach children about LGBT people. The letter’s signatories, who included Rabbi Laura Klausner and Rabbi Danny Rich, cited “reports that the Department for Education is planning to… no longer sti ..read more

Françoise Frenkel, a woman of Polish Jewish origin, and an unabashed Francophile, gamely opened her French language bookstore in Berlin in 1921 after completing her studies at the Sorbonne. Rien où poser sa tête or, as it has now been published in English, No Place to Lay One’s Head, is her memoir, written from the safety of Switzerland, where it was first published in 1945. A copy which was rediscovered in France only decades later in a charity jumble sale found its way to French publishers Gallimard in 2015. And Frenkel’s voice, together with a moving Preface by Nobel laureate, Patrick Modia ..read more

Here at the JQ we try to avoid themed issues. Yet sometimes, despite our best efforts, a theme just… emerges.  Having assembled the very best in fiction, poetry, memoir, essays and reportage from the corners of the known (Jewish) universe – and beyond, since Rafael Behr’s short story takes place in the not-too-distant future – […]^ UNLOCK ALL ARTICLES FREE NOW ^ Choose from: 2 DAYS FREE ACCESS >> No payment taken. Simply create a password 3 WEEKS FREE TRIAL + a FREE PRINT COPY of the current issue >> Cancel at no costThe post From The Editor appeared first on Jewish Quarterly ..read more

The Finns have a word – kaukokaipuu – which means a feeling of homesickness for a place you’ve never been to. I’ve been living in two places all my life; the England I was born in, and the lost world of my Iraqi-Jewish family’s roots. I am telling their story in a graphic memoir called The Wolf Of Baghdad. Based on my family’s recollections of their life in Baghdad, the memoir is also performed as a motion comic (slideshow) accompanied by a live band (including me) playing music of Iraqi and Judeo-Arabic origin. I am a musician but also an accidental cartoonist and illustrator. My cartoons ar ..read more

Amos Oz, who died in December, once laid to rest the difficult definition of literary fiction. A thriller, he said, might be a day in the life of a Mossad agent, but literary fiction concerned itself with the Mossad agent’s first day of retirement. So it was galling to find his own life condensed by the obituaries to that of a peace activist. For Oz, ordinary life was not to be found in petitions and demonstrations and open letters but in the internal landscape of fantasy, boredom, desire, self-deception, memory and loss. He was often asked by foreign readers how he could write in such a febri ..read more

As we begin a new year, my iPhone is very keen I remember new years past. ‘You have a new memory,’ it tells me, insistently, like an automated pensieve conjuring up old dinner parties and the lurch back to work. Presumably it’s worried I myself am incapable of remembering relevant memories at relevant times. Or maybe this is an act of benevolence on the part of our phones, an understanding that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. It works, of course. The anxious ding-ding-ding of memories does make me look back. New Years Eve 2016, we were all thankfully bidding farewell to Brexi ..read more

Rama Burshtein traverses two worlds like an ethereal being. She is, on one hand, an international jet-setting director, competing at film festivals and picking up awards; on the other, she is an Orthodox Jewish mother and grandmother, deeply spiritual and family-orientated. For most, this would be a life of contradictions, but for Rama it is the only way that makes sense. Rama’s career has been a recent success, but a long time in the making. She was born in New York, and moved to Tel Aviv aged one. Growing up, she was secular and aspired to be a filmmaker. After leaving the renowned Sam Spieg ..read more

Themes of identity, history, faith and family run through the 2019 JQ Wingate Literary Prize long list.   This year’s 13-strong list includes two rediscovered works and a debut novel among the seven works of fiction and six non-fiction books.   Now in its 42ndyear, the annual prize, worth £4,000 and run in association with JW3, is awarded to the best book, fiction or non-fiction, to translate the idea of Jewishness to the general reader.  The 2019 long-listed books are:    1947: When Now Begins by Elisabeth Asbrink (translated by Fiona Graham) – Scribe The Immortalists by Chloe Benjami ..read more

In August, I had the honour of appearing on a panel with Sjón, the brilliant – in the old-fashioned, glitteringly genius sense of the word – Icelandic writer at Edinburgh International Book Festival. Sjón’s novel CoDex 1962  has been translated (equally brilliantly) by Victoria Cribb for Sceptre. It’s hard to tell you what CoDex 1962 is about, because it’s capacious enough to fit in every known genre, and a few more besides, in a feast of storytelling traditions. But I can say it’s about a man called Leo, who escapes the Nazis, smuggling out a lump of clay that will become his son in 1962, rip ..read more