YOM KIPPUR AND BEYOND
Great Books About Jewish Holidays
Why the work of Philip Roth, Sholem Aleichem, and other authors transcends labels like ‘Jewish fiction’
Jewish writers — from my perspective as an off-the-rack Presbyterian and book critic — have advantages and disadvantages in publishing.
They can tap into a well-organized network of Jewish literary events— about 1400 a year — that includes fairs, festivals, and book-club meetings.
Jews are also better educated than any other major religious group, Pew surveys have found, with a high literacy rate that helps books by Jewish authors find readers. And publishing has long honored their talents: Nearly 75 years ago, Philip Roth won a National Book Award for a short story collection with explicitly Jewish themes.
In the past half century, all but one of the American winners of the Nobel Prize for literature, Toni Morrison, have been Jewish: Saul Bellow, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Joseph Brodsky, Bob Dylan, and Louise Glück, although Dylan embraced evangelical Christianity for a time.
But the effect of antisemitism on Jewish authors is incalculable. Add to that the publishing industry’s fixation on pigeonholing writers, and hidden biases may offset the advantages of…