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Daniela Gerson is the author of 'The Wanderers.' (Kait Lavo via JTA)
Interview
Author tracing family’s Holocaust survival finds partner’s ancestors took same path
By Shira Li Bartov
Daniela Gerson says that like her grandparents, most of the 300,000 Polish Jews who lived through the war were not in camps, ghettos or forests, but in the mountains of Siberia
Composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim gestures during a gathering at Tufts University in Medford, Mass., Monday, April 12, 2004. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
May 23, 2026, 11:52 am
New biography hits the high and low notes of Broadway legend Stephen Sondheim’s life
Author Daniel Okrent doesn’t miss a beat analyzing the music, lyrics — and complicated personality — of the extremely secular Jewish maverick who revolutionized American musical theater
By Renee Ghert-Zand
Illustrative: A woman lays out tarot cards in the back of her shop in Norfolk, Virginia, June 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Ben Finley)
May 20, 2026, 6:17 pm
Did medieval Jews hide a ‘secret synagogue’ in tarot cards? Boston exhibit turns over clues
‘Torah in the Tarot,’ named for researcher Stav Appel’s book of the same name, runs through June at the Vilna Shul, makes claim the deck was created by early crypto-Jews
By Rich Tenorio
Sally Rooney takes part in a panel during the Winter 2020 Television Critics Association Press Tour on January 17, 2020, in Pasadena, California. (Richard Shotwell/ Invision/ AP)
May 20, 2026, 8:49 am
Sally Rooney to publish novel in Hebrew with ‘BDS-compliant’ Israeli publisher
Anti-Israel Irish literary star says publishing ‘Intermezzo’ in Hebrew through November Books is compatible with the boycott campaign, after declining to translate her previous book
By Andrew Silow-Carroll
Daniela Gerson is the author of 'The Wanderers.' (Kait Lavo via JTA)
May 16, 2026, 4:09 am
Author tracing family’s Holocaust survival finds partner’s ancestors took same path
Daniela Gerson says that like her grandparents, most of the 300,000 Polish Jews who lived through the war were not in camps, ghettos or forests, but in the mountains of Siberia
By Shira Li Bartov
Dory Manor, left, and Moshe Sakal of new Hebrew publishing house Altneuland. (Courtesy via JTA)
May 6, 2026, 8:14 am
New Hebrew press in Berlin seeks to build literary home outside of Israel
Founders of Altneuland, the first such publishing house since the Jewish state’s inception, embrace Israeli writers – and readers – while spurning government funding
By Shira Li Bartov
Three new books draw on Jewish examples in providing advice for would-be protesters. (Crown; Wicked Son; Mariner Books; illustration design by Grace Yagel/ JTA)
May 5, 2026, 1:23 am
Jewish authors borrow from the past in new ‘mini-genre’ of ‘how-to’ activism literature
Arriving at a moment of protest fatigue and political polarization, three books for would-be dissidents draw on a long tradition of making good trouble
By Andrew Silow-Carroll
British author Howard Jacobson (Courtesy)
May 2, 2026, 7:06 am
With gallows humor, UK author Howard Jacobson takes on post-Oct. 7 ‘bloodlust’ for Jews
A Jewish teacher slowly unravels as he sees the world’s reaction to the barbarity of Hamas’s assault, in new novel ‘Howl,’ that finds the comically absurd in today’s darkest events
By Robert Philpot
Cathryn J. Prince, author of 'For the Love of Labor: The Life of Pauline Newman.' (Courtesy)
April 26, 2026, 6:13 am
From child laborer to union leader: Too-relevant story of 20th-century immigrant Pauline Newman
In ‘For the Love of Labor,’ ToI contributor Cathryn J. Prince follows the Lithuanian-born labor activist who blazed trails fighting sexism and classism in her new homeland, America
By Rich Tenorio
Charlie Scheidt and Kat Rohrer are the co-authors of 'Inheritance: Love, Loss and the Legacy of the Holocaust.'(Rutgers University Press via JTA)
April 22, 2026, 4:11 pm
Son of Holocaust survivors and granddaughter of a Nazi confront their separate inheritances
Charlie Scheidt and Kat Rohrer forge unlikely partnership to pen ‘Inheritance,’ a memoir about his family’s harrowing escape from the death machine her grandfather was committed to
By Andrew Silow-Carroll
A 2015 image of Rachel Goldberg-Polin and her son, Hersh. (Courtesy)
April 21, 2026, 12:12 pm
Rachel Goldberg-Polin’s new memoir piercingly articulates the ordeal of losing a son
‘When We See You Again’ is a dive into ‘The Before’ and ‘The After’ of life as mother to Hersh Goldberg-Polin, the 23-year-old taken hostage by Hamas terrorists and murdered in captivity
By Jessica Steinberg
French artist Henri Matisse works on his 'Grand Intérieur Rouge' canvas in his Villa le Rêve studio in Vence, circa April 1948. (Louis FOUCHERAND / AFP)
April 18, 2026, 7:52 am
Was Henri Matisse’s sojourn in Vichy France de facto collaboration or quiet resistance?
In his new book ‘Matisse at War,’ Christopher C. Gorham explores the renowned artist’s troubled but prolific life under the Nazis during WWII, and his family’s role in the French underground
By Rich Tenorio
Jewish thinkers, giants in their fields. From left to right: Moshe Davis, Mordecai Kaplan (center) and Hillel Bavli (Inset from an image courtesy of the Mordecai Kaplan Center)
April 6, 2026, 8:53 am
How an upstart rabbi was excommunicated over his prayer book for a ‘new US Judaism’
Mordecai Kaplan’s vision of a unified, reconstructed religion for American Jews was plagued by backlash but launched a new denomination. Now he’s the subject of a new biography
By Rich Tenorio
Friedrich Torberg signs a book on April 19, 1951, in Vienna. (Public domain)
April 3, 2026, 4:43 pm
A lost 1943 novel envisioned the still-unfolding Holocaust. Now, it has been recovered
In ‘Vengeance is Mine,’ Austrian refugee Friedrich Torberg painted an accurate picture of Nazi camps, though he’d never been in one. His portrayal is being translated for the first time
By Shira Li Bartov
Hannah Senesh with her older brother Gyuri in Tel Aviv. After being stranded in France during the war, Gyuri finally made it to Palestine the day his sister was shipping out to Egypt for training for her mission. This photo documents this meeting. (Public domain via Wikimedia Commons)
March 24, 2026, 4:56 pm
Certain death, small chance of success: The pre-state parachuters who jumped into Nazi Europe
Matti Friedman’s new book, ‘Out of the Sky,’ breathes life into British intelligence operatives who became Zionist heroes despite — or because of — failing at their real mission
By Renee Ghert-Zand
Author Judy Blume at BookCon in New York, May 31, 2015. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)
March 21, 2026, 5:09 pm
For generations of Judy Blume fans, long-awaited biography does not disappoint
Realistic kids’ and teen fiction pioneer introduced readers to relatable characters and plots, not to mention unforgettable lines like, ‘We must, we must, we must increase our bust!’
By Renee Ghert-Zand
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