Ops & Blogs | The Times of Israel » Van Wallach

A Literary Exchange: Encyclopedia for Tshijevo Yitzkor Book

Van Wallach — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 17:49:29 +0000

For several weeks I’ve had a complete set of the Encyclopedia Britannica in the back seat of my car. An elderly couple no longer wanted the set, printed in 1953, so I took it and found a good home for the EB with an artist who could use materials in her projects. To my surprise, [...]

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My Life as a Torah Barfly

Van Wallach — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 03:29:51 +0000

In her novel White Teeth, English author Zadie Smith writes of O’Connell’s Pool House in London, O’Connell’s is the kind of place family men come to for a different kind of family. Unlike blood relations, it is necessary here to earn one’s position in the community; it takes years of devoted fucking around, time-wasting, laying-about, [...]

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Isaac Babel: Nathan Englander Pays Tribute to the Master

Van Wallach — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 03:44:59 +0000

Last month I wrote about the frequent appearances of Soviet-Jewish writer Isaac Babel in novels and plays. I can now add short stories to the healthy post-mortem canon. This time, writer Nathan Englander gives Babel his due in the story “The Reader” in his collection What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank. In [...]

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Fateful Numbers, Each an Individual

Van Wallach — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 18:11:05 +0000

The numbers from the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut last Friday are numbing: 20 children, at least one Jewish, six adults, including the killer’s mother. We know the names and lives of the dead, their parents, the adults’ sacrifices to save children. Behind the numbers are individuals. We see and know them in their particulars. I’ve [...]

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Isaac Babel: Living Well While Dead is the Best Revenge

Van Wallach — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 04:54:27 +0000

I imagine the World to Come as a place where Jewish artists hang out with friends, ply their crafts and keep tabs on what’s going down in this imperfect place. Anne Frank and Sholem Aleichem take quiet satisfaction in the ongoing respect and study of their works; high school theater departments worldwide would go dark [...]

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And the Sukkah Will Fall

Van Wallach — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 00:34:08 +0000

(I wrote this in 1999. The lessons still apply.) My wife called me at the office one October morning with the bad news: a ferocious windstorm had blown down our sukkah in suburban Connecticut. What seemed sturdy the day before had collapsed into a heap with all the decorations, a long table — everything. [...]

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Ritual and Violation: Jamestown, Warsaw, Benghazi

Van Wallach — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 10:52:13 +0000

The new 9-ll attack in Libya and its aftermath sickened me with images of the death of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and reports of the violation of his body, dragged through the streets of Benghazi. Seeing the bloody handprints of Americans on a pillar reminded me of the photo from the 2000 lynching of two IDF [...]

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It’s the Little Things That Count

Van Wallach — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 19:02:08 +0000

Yesterday I gave this dvar Torah at my shul, Beit Chaverim in Westport, Connecticut, on the topic of “It’s the Little Things That Count.” Here is the text, which might be useful for individuals seeking renewal or connection with Judaism as the New Year begins. —————————————————————————————– My book, “A Kosher Dating Odyssey,” covers a lot [...]

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Tales of the Book Collector: Finds from 1938 and 1899

Van Wallach — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 10:22:58 +0000

Library book sales typically are strong on mysteries, romances and children’s books. That’s what people like and discard. They rarely excel at Judaism, because the relative population of the People of the Book is small and I like to think families hang on to Jewish books. The Westport, Connecticut Library Sale that started this weekend [...]

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Tales of the Book Collector, Judaica Edition

Van Wallach — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 13:08:59 +0000

My enthusiasm for collecting books on Jewish themes soared on a recent vacation that included a stop in downtown Kerrville, Texas. Dropping by a used bookstore, I found a volume I’d never seen before in decades of visits to stores and tag sales. This encounter with the printed word supported my long-time belief: you never [...]

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“Don’t Freak Out!” Or, Dating Rabbis and Therapists

Van Wallach — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 10:34:49 +0000

The longer I did online dating, the more I realized that the Jewish women I liked fell into distinct categories. Some were visually striking – zaftig, auburn-haired beauties who looked straight off the boat from Odessa – and others were intellectually appealing as graphic designers, teachers, artists or writers. And one group was truly remarkable [...]

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“Forget it, Yaacov” – Re-Imagining “The Human Resources Manager”

Van Wallach — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 10:45:10 +0000

Knowing nothing about it, I pulled 2010’s “The Human Resources Manager” off the movie shelf at the local library and gave it a spin – I’ll watch any Israeli movie. Director Eran Riklis had impressed me with “Lemon Tree” and “The Syrian Bride,” so I was eager to view this one. Riklis teased and gripped [...]

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Judaism is for (language) lovers

Van Wallach — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 03:52:12 +0000

I grew up as a typical American, speaking only English. I should have learned Spanish, since I lived three miles from the Mexican border in Texas and my home town of Mission was 90 percent Hispanic. But Anglos didn’t learn Spanish – the others had to learn English. I stumbled through Spanish in junior high [...]

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