Anne Roiphe
By Anne Roiphe
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The Schmooze How Philip Roth Won the Battle for the Jews
This month Anne reads “The Conversion of the Jews,” by Philip Roth In 1959, Philip Roth published a novella and five stories. The collection was called “Goodbye, Columbus,” and it won that year’s National Book Award. Everybody was talking about the new young writer who had a brash, unconventional, authentic voice and a thumb-in-your-eye spirit….
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Culture In Delmore Schwartz’s Stories, a Reader’s Responsibilities Begin
This month Anne reads: “In Dreams Begin Responsibilities,” by Delmore Schwartz In the first issue of The Partisan Review in 1935 Delmore Schwartz age 21 published this remarkable short story and was instantly recognized as a writer of unusual quality. The story, “In Dreams Begin Responsibilities” is as powerful today as it was at the…
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Culture I.L. Peretz’s Bitter Critique of Passivity
This month, Anne reads “Bontche Shweig,” by Isaac Loeb Peretz (1852-1915) Did the Enlightenment come to the Jewish world like a thunderclap? Like a mist drifting in? Like an alarm clock penetrating a deep sleep? It doesn’t matter. It came, and with it a writer who could stand outside and inside at the same time….
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Culture Nathan Englander’s Masterful Parable of Occupation
This Month Anne Reads: “Sister Hills” by Nathan Englander, from his collection of short stories “What we Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank.” This is a heart-flipping horror story about us, about everything Jews hold dear. It is a prophesy in the Amos and Jeremiah sense, and it is a diagnosis in the…
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Culture Bernard Malamud’s “The Magic Barrel”
This month Anne reads: THE MAGIC BARREL (1958) By Bernard Malamud What could it mean, this strange story by Bernard Malamud? Who is he talking to, and what is he talking about? And do I care? Post sexual revolution, post feminism, at a time when too much assimilation, not too little, worries us, should we…
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Culture Introducing Our New Column: ‘Reading With Roiphe’
Everyone says we are The People of the Book. This is true enough, and rather comforting, but we are also The People of the story. From the beginning we have told tales, short tales, of what is and what was and who hated whom and why, who loved whom when perhaps they shouldn’t. (Oh, poor…
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Opinion How Can We Call Ourselves Jews and Bar Syrian Refugees?
When the Islamic State group attacked Paris on November 13, the photos stunned us with their horror. We mourned the loss of life. We stood with the French in their shock and sadness. And then we heard speculations that one of the terrorists had arrived on European shores, hidden among the wave-drenched Syrian refugees. Soon,…
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Opinion Why Jews Will Vote Democrat Again
Milton Himmelfarb, essayist and thinker, once famously quipped that “Jews earn like Episcopalians, and vote like Puerto Ricans.” There is some truth to this, and that’s why it prompts a laugh even from liberals. But what is this about? As the midterm elections approach, it’s worth contemplating why a resounding majority of us vote Democrat,…
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