This is Gundar-Goshen’s fourth novel and her first set in the U.S. It is a very American novel in its examination of antisemitism, racial tensions and greed. But it is an unmistakably Israeli novel, too.
Russian history has long provided rich source material and inspiration to Jewish writers, especially fiction writers, from Isaac Babel to Elana Dkyewomon to Gary Shteyngart.
“It’s not kosher to show the film,” Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb of Berkeley told J. “How would we feel if it were about Harvey Weinstein? It wouldn’t even be a question. So how is this different?”
Paul Canin was captured and held for eight months in a POW camp in northern Germany for American and British officers, an experience he documented in a series of watercolors.
“Tupac was a kid, and he needed a lot more guidance,” Steinberg said. “I was too young to understand what I know now. I wish that I could have had more influence, because I always stayed connected to him.”
