Monday Media: Gail Levin on Lee Krasner

As spring turns to summer, we bring you a final podcast from last fall’s Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival. In this talk, Professor Gail Levin discusses her fascinating book Lee Krasner: A Biography.

This first-ever biography of Lee Krasner brings her out of the shadow of her formidable husband, the renowned painter Jackson Pollack. Levin reveals that Krasner was an independent woman of uncompromising genius, as well as a significant artist in her own right. Levin, an art historian and personal friend of Krasner, examines the evolution of a woman whose life was as dramatic and intriguing as her art.

Right click and “save link as” to download as an MP3
Or listen online here

Monday Media: Charles King’s Odessa

Last fall Professor Charles King came to the DCJCC to discuss Odessa: Genius and Death in a City of Dreams as part of the Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival. This free event was The Bernard Wexler Lecture on Jewish History for 2011.

The port city of Odessa has been a gathering place of geniuses, villains, aristocrats, artists and political insurgents of every nationality, religion and social class. King traces the history and myths that have made the city one of the world’s most important multicultural centers for nearly three centuries, unfolding a mesmerizing tale that dramatizes the conflict between cosmopolitanism and nationalism, acceptance and ethnic zeal.

Right click and “save link as” to download as an MP3
Or listen online here

Monday Media: Jay Michaelson’s God vs. Gay

Hot on the heels of the recent decision of the Conservative Rabbinic Assembly’s decision to allow its rabbis to officiate over same-sex marriages, we bring you a podcast from the Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival featuring Jay Michaelson speaking on his book God vs. Gay: The Religious Case for Equality.

This program was presented in partnership with the DCJCC’s GLOE: Kurlander Program for GLBT Outreach & Engagement. In his book, which recently came out in paperback, Jay tackles the contentious “God vs. gay” divide, arguing that religious communities should favor gay rights because of religion, not in spite of it.

As both a gay rights activist and religion scholar, he explores the moral principles that favor acceptance of GLBT people, contending that these values outweigh the ambiguous verses so often cited by conservatives.

Right click and “save link as” to download as an MP3
Or listen online here

Telling It Like It Is: Jews, Sports and Writing

With baseball season in full swing, enjoy this podcast from the Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival, Telling It Like It Is: Jews, Sports and Writing.

Former New York Times columnist and Emmy-winning television host Robert Lipsyte, author of the memoir An Accidental Sportwriter; historian John Bloom, author of the biography There You Have It:  The Life, Legacy, and Legend of Howard Cosell; and moderator Dan Steinberg of The Washington Post’s “D.C. Sports Bog” discussed sports, culture and modern media.

This event was part of the The Chaim Kempner Author Series, which brings authors of recently published books to the 16th Street J for the learning and enjoyment of the entire community, and was presented in partnership with the 16th Street J’s Sports Leagues.

Right click and “save link as” to download as an MP3
Or listen online here

Podcast: Israel, Loose Nukes and the End of the World

With all the discussion around Israel, Iran and “the bomb,” this seems like the perfect time to share this riveting panel discussion, Israel, Loose Nukes and the End of the World, from the 2011 Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival.

Professor Avner Cohen, author of The Worst-Kept Secret: Israel’s Bargain with the Bomb, and journalist Ron Rosenbaum, author of How the End Begins: The Road to a Nuclear World War III, sat down with distinguished journalist and former network correspondent Marvin Kalb to discuss the history and risks of Israel’s nuclear ambiguity and worst-case-scenarios in an age of atomic anxiety.

Right click and “save link as” to download as an MP3
Or listen online here

Media Monday: Alicia Oltuski’s Precious Objects

Today’s podcast from the Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival features Alicia Oltuski’s fascinating talk on Precious Objects: A Story of Diamonds, Family, and a Way of Life.

Alicia Oltuski, a 26-year-old journalist and daughter of a diamond dealer, takes readers behind-the-scenes to reveal the shrouded inner workings of the diamond industry and some of its most fascinating characters. Combining interviews with family, friends, dealers, craftsmen, gemologists, scientists, detectives and entrepreneurs with historical research, Oltuski lifts the curtain on the extraordinary world of diamonds.

Right click and “save link as” to download as an MP3
Or listen online here

Monday Media: Ursula Hegi Podcast

We’re excited to begin offering a new batch of podcasts from our 2011 Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival. In this recording from Saturday, October 29th, 2011, author Ursula Hegi talks about her newest book Children and Fire. Like her bestseller Stones from the River, the book is set in the fictional town of Burgdorf, Germany in the early days of the Third Reich. Hegi illuminates the beginnings of the iron fist of Nazism over Germany and its people, examining how one joyful and gifted teacher can become seduced by propaganda and encourage her 10-year-old students to join Hitler Youth.

Right click and “save link as” to download as an MP3
Or listen online here

Seven Questions For: David Bezmozgis

David Bezmozgis comes to the Hyman S. and Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival this Sunday along with Nadia Kalman (The Cosmopolitans) and Haley Tanner (Vaclav and Lena) for the panel discussion “Glasnost’s Children” which examines new fiction on the Russian-Jewish experience. Bezmozgis has been getting lots of acclaim ever since his debut collection of short stories, Natasha and in 2010 was named to the New Yorker’s list of “20 Under 40” highlighting the most promising fiction writers under the age of 40.  What about his new novel The Free World? Well, The New York Times said:

Might it be overstating the case to include this first-time novelist in the same sentence as such fine writers as Mr. Roth and Mr. Michaels? Well, Mr. Bezmozgis’s taut 2004 debut collection “Natasha and Other Stories” suggested that he might well be of those authors’ caliber; “The Free World” goes a long way toward confirming this status.

We asked him the Seven Questions over email and got the following. I’m willing to bet he’ll be more loquacious at the panel discussion.

1)    How would you describe what you do to someone from the 19th Century?

The problem isn’t describing it to someone from the 19th century, the problem is describing it to someone in the 21st century.

2)    What did you want to be when you grew up?

Remarkably, this.

3)    Is there a book you’re embarrassed to admit you’ve never read?

Many. But I’ll go with Proust.

4)    Woody Allen, Pro or Con?

Pro, pre-1990s; con, post-1990s.

5)    What’s your favorite non-English word?

Basta

6)    What issue do you wish other people knew more about?

How about the definitions of fascism and socialism? Those words get thrown around a lot. Often interchangeably.

7)    Historical figure, living or not, that you’d want to share a bagel with and what kind of bagel?

You mean we’d have to split one poppyseed Montreal bagel? Well, somebody ancient. Cleopatra. Or King David. Or Socrates.

Read all of the Seven Question interviews.

What We’re Listening To: A Religious Case for Equality

One of The Forward’s “fifty most influential Jewish leaders in America,” Jay Michaelson tackles the contentious “God vs. gay” divide. He argues that religious communities should favor gay rights because of religion, not in spite of it. As both a gay rights activist and religion scholar, he explores the moral principles that favor acceptance of GLBT people, contending that these values outweigh the ambiguous verses so often cited by conservatives.

Click here to listen to Jay’s recent interview on WAMU’s Interfaith Voices. Jay will be at the Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival on October 23rd.

Our Annual Post In Which We Ask Who We Have To Sleep With To Get Philip Roth The Nobel Prize In Literature

Seriously?

We’ve complained in this space before that the Nobel committee isn’t the greatest fan of American literature. We’ve bemoaned the fact that Philip Roth probably isn’t going to win a dearly deserved Nobel Prize for Literature. In being denied this honor, one of Roth’s characters would probably observe that he would have had a better shot if he had grown up to be a doctor. Or a chemist. Or a physicist. Or an economist. Or whatever. Or just not Philip Roth.

Whatever. He didn’t win.

Again.

In the end, perhaps it is better that he doesn’t win. It’s not like he’s lacking for awards. The short list: Pulitzer, National Book Award (twice), Pen/Faulkner (three times), Pen/Saul Bellow Prize, the Man Booker International Prize. It’s not like his legacy needs validation from a bunch of cold Swedish fish. And it’s not hard to imagine a Roth-esque character: smart, accomplished, libidinous, persistent, lauded and yet still carrying the chip on his shoulder he’s been lugging around since the day he took his first step in the Weequahic section of Newark, New Jersey; who relishes the annual rejection from Stockholm; who needs to not win the Nobel prize every year;  who needs to have at least that one door still closed to him in order to retain that sense of remaining on the outside. Sven and Gunnar aren’t impressed with the forging of identity in post-war America? Well screw them. Horace Engdahl and company don’t think a literary output producing compelling works more than fifty years apart warrants the Nobel? They can suck his StiegLarsson.

Nathan Zuckerman, Neil Klugman, Alexander Portnoy — those guys would have been bemused that the Nobel committee wants nothing to do with them.  (And yet. With the same breath that they dismissed ever needing, ever wanting, ever coveting a Nobel; they admit to themselves that it wouldn’t be undeserved, wouldn’t be grandiose to expect, wouldn’t be beyond the scope of reasonable aspirations to think that one morning when, slumbering in the pre-dawn the phone pierces his slumber, and in the moment he catapults his half-dead arm — some sort of cramp from sleeping funny — he wonders as it arcs toward the handset, could this be the call from Stockholm, and if it is, will it be rude to ask them to wait while he runs to the bathroom to pee, because, frankly it is normally the highlight of his morning and while Nobels are fine, certain rituals ought to be respected and observed.) Those guys would rebound from Nobel rejection by sleeping with someone inappropriate — and likely not Jewish.

So, it’s another year with no Nobel for the seminal American-Jewish author of the last century and it turns-out a decent chunk of the current century as-well. That’s fine.

He’s doing just fine without it.