L IFESTYLE /C ULTURE
Continued from Page 18
www.jewishexponent.com LEGAL SERVICES
ATTORNEYS! documented, personal scorn
of Richard Nixon, Gershom
Scholem and Nicole Kidman?
Regardless, Bailey succeeds
in this respect, writing with a
grace and skill that makes 800
pages fl y.

Roth was 26 when he published
his first novel, “Goodbye,
Columbus,” and given the heavy
overlap between Roth’s personal
and artistic life — a theme that
Bailey returns to frequently — it’s
a fool’s errand to speak of Roth’s
life, career and fi ction as cleanly
distinct from one another.

Roth tried in vain to make
that distinction even as he wrote
book aft er book about philan-
dering Jewish writers from
Newark, occasionally named
Philip Roth. He never made a
convincing case; from “Th e Ghost
Writer” to “Portnoy’s Complaint”
to “I Married A Communist,”
plot points and characters are
clearly taken from his personal
life, and his protagonists’ insights
are imbued with unmistak-
able Roth-ness in content and
articulation. Books
Continued from Page 18
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26 APRIL 15, 2021
fi nds his country shunning
him at every turn. Determined
to fi nd answers, he begins
boarding train aft er train,
crisscrossing the place he once
thought of as home.

Th us, the story has some
eerie insight into the centrality
of the train in what was to come.

Th e sometimes-frantic prose is
a testament to the period of its
composition — the weeks aft er
Kristallnacht — but there are
fully formed ideas, characters
and stories here.

“The People’s Painter:
How Ben Shahn Fought for
Justice with Art” (April 20)
Written by Cynthia
Levinson; illustrated by
Evan Turk
JEWISH EXPONENT
And so when he publishes
“Goodbye, Columbus,” and
becomes Philip Roth, novelist,
the distinction between writer
and person that was easier to
make about a Ph.D. student
evaporates. When the book was
lambasted by the ADL, the
Rabbinical Council of America
and countless letter writers,
accusing of him of having
sullied the name of American
Jews in the name of self-ha-
tred, enrichment or some other
nefarious reason, he reacted as
if he was personally insulted,
because he had been. When
foes at Th e New York Times
passed down negative reviews
of his novellas without passing
judgment on him personally,
he also reacted as if he’d been
personally insulted.

Roth as Misogynist, a label
that dogged him as a person and
a writer for his entire career, is
given an extensive hearing, and
for good reason: He did a lot of
hateful things toward women,
and the women in his novels
could be broadly drawn sex
objects, nags or shrews.

His relationship with Claire
Bloom, chronicled in her explo-
sive 1996 memoir, accused
him of emotional abuse and
manipulation, among other
off enses. Roth worried that her
book would be the fi nal word
on the subject of his relation-
ship toward women, and given
Bailey’s partisanship in this
arena, this book can occasion-
ally read like Roth’s personal
riposte to Bloom and all women,
as when Bailey calls the journal
of Roth’s fi rst wife “a pretty
insipid piece of writing.”
Th ere’s so much more to be
said on all of these subjects.

Every U.S. literary magazine and
newspaper with a books section
has written about this book in
the past few weeks, but no single
review has widened the lens
enough to capture the fullness
of Roth’s life and work. Th ere
is too much to be said about his
qualities as a writer, as a Jew, as a
man, as a celebrity.

Luckily, there was one guy
with the space to say it, so this
really is a book worthy of being
called “Th e Biography.” ●
Th is is a sweet, beautifully illus-
trated book. Turk takes Shahn’s
art as a clear inspiration without
mimicking the source material
too closely, and Levinson’s story
of a growing political and artistic
conscience seems pretty acces-
sible to young readers. For the
budding Ben Shahn in your life.

A mysterious message from a
stranger throws it all into fl ux. ●
“At The End of the World,
Turn Left” (April 20)
Zhanna Slor
I came into this book
knowing nothing about the
writer or her work and came
out wanting to know a lot
more about both.

Slor’s novel is about a pair
of Jewish sisters born in the
USSR but still trying to fi nd
their place in the world. One
of them thinks it’s Israel, and
the other one has no idea what
it might be, except that it isn’t
her hometown of Milwaukee.

jbernstein@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0740
jbernstein@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0740
Courtesy of Agora Books
Roth Courtesy of Abrams Books
for Young Readers
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C ommunity
COMMUNITYCALENDAR SATURDAY, APRIL 17
Trivia Night
Join jkidphilly’s 10th birthday
celebration with a Zoom trivia night
for adults. Play on your own or one
team per screen. Event starts at
8:30 p.m. and cost is $36. Contact
jkidphilly@jewishlearningventure.org for more information.

SUNDAY, APRIL 18
Fling into Spring
Congregation Beth Or’s Sisterhood
hosts its premiere Outdoor Spring
Fling from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Come
for shopping, snacks, summer camp
information and a raffle. Located
at 239 Welsh Road, Maple Glen.

Free parking available. For more
information, call Sherry Spector at
215-378-1454. Nashirah at Gratz
Learn about the history of the only
auditioned Jewish choral group in
Philadelphia during this Gratz College
webinar. Choir members will share and
discuss several pieces of music, and
the conductor and artistic director of
the choir, Julia Zavadsky, will discuss
conducting and active listening. Zoom
is at 11 a.m. and cost is $10. Contact
mcohen@gratz.edu or 215-635-7300,
ext.155, for more information.

Jewish Festival
Join Bucks County Kehillah at
noon for a virtual baking lesson with
Chana Weinstein and at 1 p.m. for
a virtual pickling lessons from the
Kosher Pickle Factory. Call 267-872-
9202 or email buckscounty@kehillah.

jewishphilly.org for more information.

Service and Dialogue
Join Beth Am Israel Congregation
at 2 p.m. for an interfaith day of
service and dialogue with service
projects and panel discussions on
Zoom and meet-ups in real life for
collections and community garden
cleaning. Call 610-667-1651 for more
information. Maccabeats
Congregation B’nai Jacob of
Phoenixville will host a celebration
honoring Rabbi Jeff Sultar at 7 p.m.

with a Zoom live concert featuring
the internationally acclaimed a
capella group, the Maccabeats.

For donation and reservation
information, visit congbj.org/
maccabeats. TUESDAY, APRIL 20
Virtual Author Series
Jewish Family and Children’s
Service and Beyond the
Bookends host a series of intimate
conversations with award-winning
authors. This week’s selection is
Melrose Ronald H. Balson’s “Eli’s
Promise,” a historical fiction novel
that spans Nazi-occupied Poland,
postwar Germany and Chicago at
the height of the Vietnam War. For
questions or more information,
contact Sharon Schwartz at 267-256-
2112 or sschwartz@jfcsphilly.org
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 21
Workshop for Moms
Transformational Breathwork
practice facilitates the integration
and transformation of negative
beliefs into feelings of self-love,
acceptance and joy. Join Jewish
Family and Children’s Service and
Spirit Medicine virtually at 8 p.m. to
experience this practice. For Zoom
link, contact Sarah Waxman
at swaxman@jfcsphilly.org or
267-804-5888. l
N E W S MAKE R S
On April 6, the Groen family
shared the story of their family’s
violin. Though its original owner,
Bram Rodrigues, was killed in
Auschwitz, the violin survived,
hidden away by a friend of
Rodrigues’ in Amsterdam.

In 2019, the violin was finally
returned to the Groen family.

For Yom HaShoah, some family
members presented the story of
the violin at an event sponsored
by numerous synagogues and
schools. From left: Marcel Groen and
Kenneth Sarch
Photo by Stacey Salsman
U.S. Sen. Bob Casey joined
MAZON: A Jewish Response to
Hunger and the Jewish Community
Relations Council of the Jewish
Federation of Greater Philadelphia
on April 7 to discuss “the crisis of
hunger in the wake of COVID-19
and what policy solutions must
advance to spark, support, and
sustain the national recovery.”
U.S. Sen. Bob Casey
Courtesy of Jewish Community
Relations Council of the Jewish
Federation of Greater Philadelphia
Gladys Fink, owner of Nana’s
Kitchen & Catering, gave an
empanada-frying demon-
stration to celebrate National
Empanada Day on April 8.

The segment aired on PHL17.

Gladys Fink
Photo by Malena Senderowitsch
What’s going on in Jewish Philadelphia?
Submit an event or browse our online calendar to find out what’s
happening at local synagogues, community organizations and venues!
Submit: listings@jewishexponent.com
Online: jewishexponent.com/events/
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APRIL 15, 2021
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