Aviya Kushner is the Forward’s language columnist and the author of Wolf Lamb Bomb and The Grammar of God. Follow her on Twitter @AviyaKushner.
Aviya Kushner
By Aviya Kushner
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Culture How Oakland Turned Into a Heaven for Literary Translators
More than four hundred translators working in several dozen languages attended the American Literary Translators’ Association conference in Oakland this past weekend. The conference, known as ALTA, is probably the only event in America where you can go from a Russian translators’ dinner to a Kurdish-English poetry reading to a book fair consisting entirely of…
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Culture Why Reading Is a Lot Like Sailing
Travels in Translation: Sea Tales at the Source of Jewish Fiction By Ken Frieden Syracuse University Press, 389 pages $29.95 For centuries, Jews dreamed of elaborate sea voyages. After the destruction of the Second Temple, in 70 C.E., and the ensuing exile, wandering became the norm, as did trade involving long distances. Pilgrimages to Israel…
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Culture Why Dead Languages Like Akkadian Still Matter
I grew up hearing the Code of Hammurabi read out loud, in Akkadian, at the dining-room table. I did not know that my graduate-student mother was one of Akkadian’s few regular readers. The language of the ancient Akkad region, or modern-day Iraq, is considered a “dead language,” just like Ugaritic and Phoenician. All these dead…
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Culture How in the World Did Cuneiform Cookies Become a Thing?
Cuneiform cookies? Yes, they are a thing. Though it has been centuries since Akkadian was spoken, cuneiform writing has had an unexpected burst of popularity as a cookie decoration. The idea started with Katy Blanchard, the Fowler/Van Santvoord Keeper of the Near Eastern Collections at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, in…
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Opinion Republicans Want To Teach the Bible in Public Schools. But Which Bible, Exactly?
The Republican Party’s new platform calls for teaching the Bible as literature in public schools. But which Bible, exactly, would the Republicans approve of? The idea of the Bible taught in public schools has a fraught Constitutional history. For the Jewish community, it can bring back memories of “prayer in the schools” or mandatory participation…
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Culture Bernie Sanders Takes a Bite out of Bible With Attack on ‘Usury’
As election season heats up, candidates tend to turn to God, and specifically his favorite book, The Bible. Bernie Sanders put it this way Tuesday on the campaign trail: “In my view, it is unacceptable that Americans are paying a $4 or $5 fee each time they go to the ATM. It is unacceptable that…
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Culture Love and the Grammar of God
In her forthcoming book, ‘The Grammar of God,’ Aviya Kushner — a graduate of the nonfiction writing program at the University of Iowa and a creative writing professor at Columbia College Chicago — draws on lessons she has learned while collecting bibles and assessing the disparities in meaning that exist in its many translations. Through…
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News Africa Question Puts Ross on Hot Seat in Iowa
DES MOINES, Iowa — Dennis Ross, America’s point man on the peace process during the 1990s, came to Iowa last week to talk about the Arab-Israeli conflict. But his speech, made to 450 people at a local Conservative synagogue, took an unexpected turn when a tall man in traditional African garb approached the microphone during…
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