Rosh Hashanah Reading Roundup 5785/2024

I write this in what is known as the “days of awe” in the Jewish calendar, a period of reflection, repentance and general betweenness. In these periods and in trying to grow generally, books are an essential resource. I am currently reading Ta-Nehisi Coates’ The Message, a book which is about writing and its possible force as much as anything else. What interests me most is Coates’ elaboration of the space between “my own private space of book making” and acting within the world. Within the days of awe, there is a call to move to a quiet and private space of reflection. It is worth hearing it.

Here are some book recommendations to accompany you on your journey. I have read some fully, parts of others, some I hope to read.

Next Stop by Benjamin Resnick: This is a well written, surreal and often surprising post apocalyptic story about a sudden eruption of antisemitic sentiment after a series of holes emerge across the globe swallowing Jews. It is worth reading, not just as a Jewish story, but as a narrative of how ostracism functions within the world.

Carrying a Big Schtick by Miriam Eve Mora and Write Like A Man by Ronnie A. Grinberg: In the academic consideration of Jewish masculinity, it has been a exciting year! Grinberg’s book covers the function of ideologies of masculinity across the writing of the New York Intellectuals while Mora discusses more expansive trends in American history.

A Cold War Exodus by Shaul Kelner and To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement by Benjamin Nathans: These two books cover different aspects of the Soviet dissident movement. In Kelner’s book, the focus is on American Jewish solidarity activist movement. In Nathans’ expansive text, the subject is more broadly the development of the Soviet dissidents. In dynamically showing how change happens, these books are compelling.

Translating the Jewish Freud: Psychoanalysis in Hebrew and Yiddish by Naomi Seidman: Rather than trying to ‘out’ the Jewish Freud, Seidman takes the side angle of looking at how his relationship to Judaism has been read and what desires informed it. I highly recommend my colleague Evan Goldstein’s review of the book.

The Unseen Truth by Sarah Lewis: Lewis has already been impressive in moving for a more equal and just art history with the Vision and Justice project. This book offers thickly researched discussion of how the Caucasian war shaped visual culture and oppression in the US.