The Newsletter of Fig Tree Books

April 2024: Issue #53 --- Fredric D. Price, Founder & Publisher

VIDEO: Bari Weiss: Why Are Feminists

Silent on Rape and Murder?

JEWS OF DIFFERENT HUES: Ladino Revival

This Israel-born musician is spearheading a Ladino revival, from Taiwan to Toronto. Taking her show on the road, singer and trombonist Nani Vazana brings a lost language and culture to audiences familiar with it and to newcomers alike

In recent years, Israel-born singer and trombonist Nani Vazana has taken on the mission of reviving a dying Ladino language — at least as much as a musician can. On the road 200 days a year, she’s attracting a substantial and still-growing following, with locals from Taiwan to New Orleans flocking to her performances eager to hear ancient tunes and new compositions.



She’s also had some recent high-profile gigs performing at the US Library of Congress, festivals in North Carolina and Indiana, and a Rosh Hashanah event at the Israeli Embassy in Washington.

POETRY BOOK: Wonder Wheel, by Harriet Shenkman

Review by Barbara Josselsohn

At times exhilarating, at times terrifying, sometimes predictable but always uncontainable – is there any better metaphor for life than the Wonder Wheel on Coney Island? And could there be any better name than Wonder Wheel for Harriet Shenkman’s astonishing new poetry collection, an evocative and engrossing expedition through the recognizable and transformative moments of a twentieth century Jewish life? 

Shenkman’s use of language is deceptively spare, its impact rich and the imagery mesmerizing. Her tone is at once confident and warm, taking the reader by the hand on this tour of the lifecycle of an extended Jewish family, earning the reader’s trust that the trip will be well worth it. Hints of the Holocaust are never far off, reminding us of its still-fierce grip decades later. In “The Best There Is,” she recalls eating corned beef on rye with her father, who, as an elderly man, relived escaping through the woods. “…we found crusts of bread under his pillow in the morning,” she writes.

Shenkman has a talent for bringing moments and events together in unexpected ways, as in her eye-opening poem “C’mon Baby,” in which she considers how she and Chubby Checkers were born the in same year—the very year when Hitler declared “The Final Solution.” We are left with the stunning impact of that confluence of events. 

And there’s heartbreak, too, as there must be in the story of any life. In “Dementia Unit,” she observes her husband’s growing confusion during a visit. “I wish there was a prayer for slow withering,” she writes, and it’s impossible to overstate the way that poem, that line, lands on reader. This was one of the many times while reading that book that I audibly sighed and paused before continuing.

Shenkman is a beautiful poet at the top of her game. This slim collection is not to be missed. 

Harriet Shenkman earned a Ph.D. from Fordham University. She is a Professor Emerita at City University of New York. Her poetry awards include the Women’s National Book Association 2013 Annual Writing Contest in Poetry and the Women Who Write 2013 International Poetry and Short Prose Contest.

MEMOIR: Hugging My Father's Ghost, by Zack Rogow

In this memoir, Zack Rogow tries to solve the mystery of the father he never knew. Lee Rogow was a widely published fiction writer, drama critic for the Hollywood Reporter, glamorous man-about-town in Manhattan of the 1950s, captain of a submarine-chaser in World War II-and he died tragically in a plane crash when his son Zack was only three years old.

For decades, grief kept Zack from looking closely at his father's writings. In Hugging My Father's Ghost, Zack delves into his father's unpublished work and unearths treasures. The memoir includes Lee Rogow's most intimate writings that have never seen the light of day. Those pages reveal intriguing secrets about Zack's parents and their complex connections to the couple their children knew as godparents. The memoir intersperses Zack's father's writings, Zack's reflections on his parents and the Greatest Generation, and imaginary conversations between his father and himself. The book blends laugh-out-loud humor with sharp pathos, while dealing with the pressures on immigrant families and how those impacted the fates of his parents.

Zack Rogow is the author, editor, or translator of more than twenty books or plays. His ninth book of poems, Irreverent Litanies, was published by Regal House. He is also writing a series of plays about authors. The most recent of these, Colette Uncensored, had its first staged reading at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, and ran in London, Catalonia, San Francisco, and Portland. His blog, Advice for Writers, features more than 250 posts on topics of interest to writers. He serves as a contributing editor of Catamaran Literary Reader and as the dramaturg of the Yiddish Theatre Ensemble. 

GUEST EDITORIAL: The Black, the Blue and the Jews

 by Thane Rosenbaum

Thane Rosenbaum is a novelist, essayist, law professor and Distinguished University Professor at Touro University, where he directs the Forum on Life, Culture & Society. He is the legal analyst for CBS News Radio. His most recent book is titled “Saving Free Speech … From Itself.” 

With rising incitement against Jews globally, American Jews are feeling betrayed by former allies—those who are outspokenly antisemitic, and those who remain silent.

ARTICLE: Berkeley Moshav reimagines Jewish communal future

When Berkeley Moshav breaks ground next year it will be the realization of a vision that began 8 years ago in a living room in California. But, for Berkeley Moshav’s founder, Roger Studley, the dream goes back even further.

“This idea of Jewish communal living has been with me for as long as I can remember. As Jews, it’s so innate in us to want to live communally and multi-generationally. We want Berkeley Moshav to be a place where families with kids, people without kids, and folks of all ages can all really enjoy the benefits of living in a shared environment.” Studley said

BOOK REVIEW: I Must Be Dreaming, by Roz Chast

"It perhaps comes as no surprise that the cartoonist Roz Chast―into whose unique and zany mind readers of The New Yorker have peeked, via her instantly recognizable, beloved cartoons―has some weird dreams. Now, fans can see these dreams illustrated, along with an exploration into the history and meaning of dreams as we know them." - The New Yorker, "Best Books of the Year"

"[Chast] has proved herself to be one of the funniest and most acute observers of modern urban living's insanities and anxieties. Now she has turned her gaze away from the streets and characters of her beloved New York City and toward her own sleeping mind . . . But Chast is Chast, and the sleeping world she depicts is only somewhat more absurd – and equally as funny and profound – as waking life." - David Marchese, New York Times Magazine