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So Help Me Word
Shalom Auslander reads from his new memoir—and waits for calamity to strike
Three times during his wife’s first pregnancy, Shalom Auslander deleted all or part of the memoir he was writing. It wasn’t that he didn’t like what he’d written; rather, he was convinced that his unflinching portrait of his Orthodox family would provoke God to cast misfortune upon him—his wife, he feared, would miscarry or die in childbirth, or the baby would be born with some devastating defect.
Now that the memoir, titled Foreskin’s Lament, is finally out, Auslander can breathe more easily. Or can he? He joins us to discuss that question, as well as his views on his father, Our Father, and Samuel Beckett.
Illustration by Aaron Artessa.
Ben-Gurion
Sounding Off
Note to some of my fellow progressives: If we can’t argue about Israel without using anti-Semitic tropes, then the debate is lost before it even begins
Cheap Eats
An entrepreneur opened a Jewish-themed restaurant in Lviv, Ukraine. Chopped liver is on the menu, but not its price—diners get to haggle over it.
Grace Notes
Orthodox klezmer and bluegrass virtuoso Andy Statman and evangelical country star Ricky Skaggs cross genres and faiths to form a mighty duo
Goodbye to All That
For generations, the Jews of Caracas had idyllic weather, prosperity, and vibrant communal organizations. Things have changed under Hugo Chávez.
