Forward.com

The Transformative Tale of ‘GI Jews’GI Jews: How World War II Changed a Generation By Deborah Dash Moore Harvard University Press, 368 pages, $25.95. * * *Contemporary Jewish thought has been shaped by the Holocaust, the creation of the State of Israel and the transformation of the American Jewish community from a distant, peripheral outpost into the hub of the Jewish world.…Read more

A Terrible, Awful Novel Of Great ImportanceSiegfried By Harry Mulisch, translated by Paul Vincent Viking Press, 180 pages, $22.95. ——-When galleys for the massive Stalin biography by Montefiore first made the rounds, I got hold of a copy for my father, thinking that the subject would interest him as a survivor of Auschwitz and a former Bundist. He’s read many, if not most,…Read more

Tragedy; Or, Yiddish in the Postwar WorldFoiglman By Aharon Megged, translated by Marganit Weinberger-Rotman Toby Press, 277 pages, $19.95. * * *For those readers acquainted with the torrent of novels, story collections, reportage and histories pouring out of Israel, it is hard not to be struck by the wrenching re-examination of the past that characterizes much of it. It is a…Read more

Underneath Cliches About Art, Hidden Wells of HistoryTales of Grabowski By John Auerbach The Toby Press, 307 pages, $19.95.The Owl & Other Stories By John Auerbach The Toby Press, 306 pages, $19.95. * * *although it’s common for critics to dismiss the link between an author’s biography and his fiction, novelists and storytellers well know that the ties between work and…Read more

History Comes Rushing In: An Author InterviewLast week, A.B. Yehoshua sat down with the Forward to discuss “The Liberated Bride,” his ambitious new novel weaving together influences such as William Faulkner and S. Y. Agnon along with “One Thousand and One Nights” and “The Dybbuk.” A soft-spoken yet passionate speaker, with a shock of gray hair and lively,…Read more