Library Corner

Proving the Angels Wrong

March 23, 2026

Saul Golubcow’s Were the Angels Wrong? is both a marvelous whodunit and a moving meditation on the lingering aftermath of the Holocaust. This is the third book in Golubcow’s mystery …

Memoir as Comedy

February 23, 2026

Edward Hirsch is a celebrated American poet and the author of many notable books, both poetry and prose. He is also very funny, as shown by his wisecracking and witty …

The Film Director’s Tragic Bargain

January 20, 2026

The Director by Daniel Kehlmann (translated from German by Ross Benjamin) is a powerful, darkly comic World War II novel about art, ego, and bad choices. The “Director” of the …

Was Shakespeare a Jewish Woman?

December 17, 2025

More than four centuries after they were first performed, the plays of William Shakespeare continue to dazzle and inspire. But as to Shakespeare himself, a vocal minority has long contended …

Fear No Pharaoh: American Jews and the Civil War

November 20, 2025

In 1860, there were 150,000 Jews living in the United States. How did this small minority, comprised mostly of recent immigrants, react to the fierce national debate over slavery? Richard …

American Maccabee: Theodore Roosevelt & the Jews

November 4, 2025

President Theodore (“Teddy”) Roosevelt (1858-1919) is famous as a conservationist, a “trust-buster” of business monopolies, an advocate for consumer protections, and the inspiration for the beloved stuffed toy, the teddy …

Risking Life for Art

November 4, 2025

The iconic World War II film, The Train, asks whether it is moral to risk human lives to save art. In an early scene, a French Resistance leader initially refuses to …

A Bittersweet Novel of Israel

August 19, 2025

Lihi Lapid’s bestselling Israeli novel, On Her Own, is now available in English, translated by Sondra Silverston. As the book opens, a terrified eighteen-year-old girl, Nina, is cowering in the stairwell …

Herzl & Friends: When Zionism Was New

June 10, 2025

When Rachel Cockerell set out to write a history of her very British family, she was amazed to discover that her great-grandfather had played a crucial role in an early …

Trust and Betrayal in Brussels

May 29, 2025

In the 1990s, American playwright and screenwriter Alice Austen was working as a lawyer in Brussels. Some elderly neighbors in her elegant Beaux Arts apartment building befriended her, inviting her regularly …