This film is not covering entirely new turf. In 2001, Sandi Dubowski’s Trembling Before G-d also profiled gay Orthodox men and women. But DevOUT’s subjects are are settling down, raising families, and forcing their communities to come to terms with their existence, with varying degrees of success.

Neille, from South Africa, and Gulzar, from Pakistan, made the film while master’s students at the Columbia University School of Journalism. Neille spoke to Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry from her home in Johannesburg, about the movie, the difficulties their subjects have faced, and how these two non-Jewish, straight women made such a powerful film on such a sensitive topic. [Running time: 18:13.]

Brooks joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry on the podcast to discuss the perils of dressing up like a zombie on Halloween, the particular horrors that a zombie infestation represents to Jews, and the origins of his own zombie fears—traced to one fateful night circa 1985 when Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft opted not to hire a babysitter. [Running time: 14:40.]

With the help of journalist David Landau, Peres has written a new biography of Ben-Gurion, his mentor: Ben-Gurion: A Political Life, available now from Nextbook Press. Landau, a former editor of Haaretz and Israel correspondent of The Economist, spoke to Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry about Ben-Gurion, his realpolitik approach to leadership, and what lessons his example can provide to Israel’s leaders today. [Running time: 30:09.]

The statue was dedicated 125 years ago this month. To mark the anniversary, Nextbook Press has produced an interactive version of the Lazarus’ poem, “The New Colossus,” annotated by the Princeton English professor Esther Schor, who wrote the biography Emma Lazarus for the Nextbook Press Jewish Encounters series. In 2006, Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry went to the Statue of Liberty ferry terminal to talk to visitors about Lazarus and solicit from them a group reading of her poem. Here’s a reprise of that installment. [Running time: 4:38.]

How, then, does a religious Jew who is deeply concerned about threats to the environment galvanize her community? Evonne Marzouk, the founder and executive director of Canfei Nesharim, a Jewish environmental organization, addressed that question for Vox Tablet. She spoke to host Sara Ivry about rabbinical and Torah-based justifications for making environmental sustainability a priority, her own journey to environmental advocacy, and the unique skills Orthodox Jews can bring to the challenges of sustainable living. [Running time: 19:38.]

For Vox Tablet, Fruchter and Jeremy Brown, Pitom’s violinist, played a stripped-down version of the track “Neilah,” and they explained to host Sara Ivry why a jazz-metal-rock take on the Day of Atonement seemed like a good idea. [Running time: 15:09.]

Inna Grade died last year. In the ensuing months, Yiddishists have thrilled to the possibility that they will finally gain access to her husband’s extensive archive and perhaps come upon an unpublished gem of a manuscript. For now, though, the hunt is on hold, as the public administrator of the Bronx has yet to determine which of six competing institutions will inherit Grade’s papers. Meanwhile, the archive is in the provisional custody of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. YIVO Executive Director Jonathan Brent spoke to Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry about the reasons for Chaim Grade’s relative obscurity, the ghosts lurking in the volumes he left behind, and his towering significance as a writer—Grade is to Vilna, Brent says, as William Faulkner is to the American South. [Running time: 26:21.]

Now she has written a second memoir, The Arrogant Years: One Girl’s Search for Her Lost Youth, that offers a loving and often devastating portrait of her mother and all that she sacrificed to keep her family intact, both in Egypt and in the United States. It also delves into Lagnado’s own painful experiences growing up, first as the daughter of protective Egyptian parents trying to find her way in 1960s America, then as a critically ill teenager (she was diagnosed with Hodgkins lymphoma at 16 and spent the better part of a year undergoing radiation treatments), and, finally, as a young journalist making her way in the world.

Lagnado spoke to Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry about the high price of American assimilation, the difficulties of writing this book, and the ties that have bonded mothers and daughters in her family together across generations. [Running time: 25:16.]

Gainsbourg was a mostly washed-up artist when he died at 62 of a heart attack, in 1991. But that’s not what Sfar wishes to remember in his first feature film, Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life, which opens next week in the United States. Rather, Sfar revels in Gainsbourg’s crash-and-burn approach to life as an outsider, from his cavalier embrace of the yellow star in 1941 to his 1978 recording of a reggae remix of the French national anthem. The film takes creative license with Gainsbourg’s life, just as Gainsbourg was prone to do, and includes some of Sfar’s favorite things: puppets, caricature, Jewish themes, and sex.

Vox Tablet’s Sara Ivry spoke to Sfar about Gainsbourg’s life, his love-hate relationships with France and with Jews, and Sfar’s own provocations as an artist and filmmaker. [Running time: 19:07.]

Hoffman is also the deputy editor of Nextbook Press, the book imprint affiliated with Tablet Magazine. He joined Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to talk about the book, how his two careers—novelist and editor—influence one another, and his own experience finding acceptance as a gay Jew. [Running time: 16:09.]

Hypochondria is a staple of Jewish humor, but the neurotic disorder is by no means the exclusive domain of Jews, nor is it necessarily funny. Those who suffer from it are consumed by anxiety over the imagined progression of illness in their bodies and obsessively take note of symptoms real or imagined. It disrupts work and family life. And it taxes the healthcare system, as hypochondriacs seek second, third, fourth, and fifth opinions and demand test after test.

This week Vox Tablet presents the radio documentary “Living With Hypochondria: The Real Costs of Imagined Illness,” written and produced by Karen Brown and first aired on WFCR in New England. It takes an in-depth look at the disorder, from the perspective of those who suffer from it to clinicians studying its impact on individuals, families, and society. [Running time: 28:01.]

As the 20th century reached its midpoint, tunesmiths moved elsewhere. (The Brill Building, famously home to later generations of songwriters, is just north of Times Square.) Old buildings came down while new ones went up, and our portion of West 28th is now a bustling commercial hodge-podge bookended by the flower district to the west and the perfume district to the east. To learn more about our new neighborhood—where Emma Goldman founded her anarchist magazine, too, and Zero Mostel had a painting studio—Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry spoke to Jim Mackin, a New York City historian and tour guide, about West 28th Street, how specialized commercial districts come into being, and Irving Berlin’s first big hit. [Running time: 16:17.]

By the late 1930s, things had changed dramatically. Puerto Barrios’ indigenous charms had been all but eradicated, replaced by filth and destitution. It was inhabited mostly by Afro-Guatemalans and West Indians who worked on the docks for pitiful wages; those with means were advised to get out of town as fast as they could.

It is here that we meet Samuel Berkow, the well-to-do German Jewish bachelor at the center of The Price of Escape, a new novel by David Unger. Berkow arrives in Guatemala from Hamburg, where the Nazi noose had begun to tighten around him. Berkow expects his arrival to mark the beginning of a new and exciting life. Instead, in just three days, Puerto Barrios—with its demons, drunks, and thugs—nearly finishes him off.

Unger, a Guatemala-born, Brooklyn-based writer, speaks with Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry about the relationship of Samuel Berkow’s history to his own, about the appeal of creating only semi-sympathetic protagonists, and about why most of his relatives refuse to read his work. [Running time: 15:16].

Greenberg made his major league mark in the 1930s and ’40s, playing primarily for the Detroit Tigers. He was a first-baseman and a phenomenal batter. In 1938, in a single season, he hit 58 home runs. He made the All Star team five times, was twice named American League MVP, was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1956, and still holds the American League record for runs batted in by a right-handed batter in a single season: 183 in 1937. Over this entire career, he had a whopping 1,276 RBIs.

Like Koufax, Greenberg sat out a game that fell on Yom Kippur; in Greenberg’s case it was during the 1934 pennant race. It sealed his fate as Jewish hero in an era that was virulently anti-Semitic at home and abroad. Greenberg accepted this role graciously but with some discomfort. Writer Mark Kurlansky has a new biography out about the star. It’s called Hank Greenberg: The Hero Who Didn’t Want to Be One. Kurlansky speaks with Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry about Greenberg’s improbable status as a Jewish icon (he was far from observant), the challenges he faced as arguably the highest profile Jewish sportsman in the mid-1930s, and why he is not better remembered by baseball fans today. [Running time: 15:41.]

As the curtain rises on Baby It’s You, a new musical celebrating Greenberg’s life and work, Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry speaks with Slate Magazine music critic Jody Rosen about the obstacles Greenberg might have faced as a pioneering woman, about her ability to identify voices and styles that others didn’t think America was quite ready for, and about the real meaning of the song “Say a Little Prayer for You.” [Running time: 20:05.]

Exodus

The flat bread
that scratched

our throats
was not symbolic.

We left too quickly
to bring the symbols.

Neither did the bread
portend of manna.

It was bread.
We left

with the skin
on our backs,

with the imprint
of whips.

The symbols
came after,

finding us the way
a lost dog,

crossing deserts,
pinpoints the master

who can’t
live without him.

—Andrea Cohen

Macaroons

I get it now.
You’re dead.
You can’t do
everything
you used to.
Reruns instead
of new episodes.
I get it.
You can’t send
macaroons this Passover,
those dense confections
without flour, conforming
to the rules
of kashrut, the rules
of engagement, which
in the case of our people,
involved fleeing, trading
slavery for the desert.
The land of milk & honey
was a kind of paint-
by-numbers kit
everybody lugged
in his head through
sandy ditches. It’s
best not to commit
directions to Nirvana
to paper: they could be
stolen or confiscated, or
worse: the place itself
obliterated. Forty
years is a long time
to get where you’re going.
Where are you promised?
In the end you spoke
of a boat ride, of
booking passage second-
class, on a vessel that lacked
a rudder, an engine, a sail.
Kaput, you said.
You were looking
for a solution.
Why now? someone
asked—less question
than demand. You
had to go. I
get it. We prepped
you for a journey,
because the mind
gets stuck on the speed
bumps of Fin, of Finito.
The mind insists
on one more
road, one more hello.
I get it: you won’t
be posting macaroons
this year. No problem,
mom. Just send the recipe.

—Andrea Cohen

Paschal

Easter was the old North
Goddess of the dawn.
She rises daily in the East
And yearly in spring for the great
Paschal candle of the sun.

Her name lingers like a spot
Of gravy in the figured vestment
Of the language of the Britains
As Thor’s and crazed Woden’s
Stain Thursday and Wednesday.

O fellow-patriots loyal to this
Our modern world of high heels,
Vaccination, brain surgery:
May the old Apollonian flayers
And Jovial raptors pass over us—

Those ordainers of suppers
Of encrypted dishes: bitter, unrisen,
Infants as bricks for the taskmaster
Quota. Fruit and nuts ground
In wine to recall the mortar:

On the compass platter, traces
Of the species that devises
The Angel of Death to sail
Over our legible doorpost
Smeared with sacrifice.

—Robert Pinsky, from Gulf Music, (Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 2007)

Refuge Event

was them in motion
beside the open cart on steel wheels
drawn by a tawny mule in the
modern day having bartered
for cart and animal in
motion beside orchards
bordering the receding town
receding crows on the roof and a boy watching
them above his shovel in his pose
animal poked with a stick
between lurid exhalations and
a finch flicking itself at
gnats in the air
in motion and the crate or cart
mounded with leathers
tools from the workshop
drill press/lathe/iron forms/dyer’s vat
them bartering in syllables
anonymously in August
in wool coats and hats in the
documentary evidence in stiff polished
boots laced high and
unbroken-in
spring rain
had rutted the road
with a gap in motion
in eventual summer
axle needed mending
bucket needed washing
with the wash and the boiling water
(good-bye mother with her bag of wash)
in a surge of details past
slumbering countryside
in a past tense
wing or cargo hold

—Mark Levine, from The Wilds, (University of California Press, 2006)

In Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza, new from Nextbook Press, poet and translator Peter Cole and essayist Adina Hoffman recount the history of the Cairo Geniza and the scholars who dedicated their professional (and sometimes private) lives to its holdings. Cole and Hoffman spoke to Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry about how such a remarkable collection of documents came to exist, the many characters—from Schechter to a woman from the Middle Ages known as “Wuhsha the Broker”—associated with it, and what its contents reveal about historical celebrations of Passover. [Running time: 25:54.]

These and other issues form the basis of The Eichmann Trial, a new book by Emory University historian Deborah E. Lipstadt from Nextbook Press. Lipstadt is no stranger to the courtroom or to the perils of anti-Semitism. In 1996, she was sued by David Irving, who’d accused her of libeling him by calling him a Holocaust denier. Lipstadt won her case at trial in 2000. She joined Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to talk about the importance of survivor testimony, about the controversy surrounding the 1961 trial, and about how her courtroom experience changed the way she thinks of Eichmann’s. [Running time: 21:26.]

But does it matter if a celebrity gets drunk and utters something offensive? Might it be counterproductive to call attention to every stupid remark? Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry asked Anti-Defamation League chief Abraham Foxman, Atlantic national correspondent and blogger Jeffrey Goldberg, New York magazine cultural critic Emily Nussbaum, and public-relations guru Matthew Hiltzik. [Running time: 16:05.]

Read an except from How the End Begins here.

Menken lived only 33 years, but in that time she had five husbands and a string of lovers, including the writer Alexandre Dumas and the poet Algernon Swinburne. She gambled, posed semi-nude, and made headlines across the country. And, as Michael and Barbara Foster reveal in their new biography, A Dangerous Woman: The Life, Loves, and Scandals of Adah Isaacs Menken, 1835-1868, America’s Original Superstar, she was also a committed Jew and frequently published poems and essays defending her people.

The Fosters join Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to speak about Adah Isaacs Menken’s political allegiances, her public liaisons, and her ethnic pride. [Running time: 17:14.]

Now Dinnerstein is releasing a new album, titled Bach: A Strange Beauty, on Sony Classical. The recording includes both solo and orchestral works, plus cover art by her father, renowned painter Simon Dinnerstein. Vox Tablet’s Sara Ivry visited Dinnerstein to talk about her journey to classical music stardom—from her art-centric childhood to her encounters with the Goldberg Variations while pregnant. [Running time: 18:27.]

But in this particular instance, Ivry does find something, if not completely, at least a little bit different. “It is that kind of whimsical choice, a tonal shift, which sets her apart,” Ivry argues of Kalman. “Brezhnev-like dybbuks and talking hankies suggest that Kalman, with her penchant for the charmingly absurd, owes a debt more to the contemporary likes of Etgar Keret in stories like “Fatso,” for instance, than to S. An-sky, so often credited with introducing dybbuks into literature, or even than to the other writers in her ethnic peer group.”

Western Promises

In conversation with Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry, Hazony warns against dismissing these ancient pronouncements as simple or obvious. Rather, he says, they are worthy of study, and of being followed—even the one about not coveting our neighbor’s ox. [Running time: 20:26.]

Chef Melissa Petitto, a private chef in New York City, has opened up the gustatory possibilities for Hanukkah with four recipes below. (In the above video, you’ll see her cooking two of them with Vox Tablet‘s host Sara Ivry.) You’ll find a colorful winter salad tossed with walnut oil; an inventive gelt coin made out of cheese instead of chocolate (a hat tip to the tradition of eating dairy on this holiday); apple fritters with two different toppings; and latkes made out of sweet potatoes and parsnips, all of which do well to remind us on Hanukkah that light, too, is being honored along with the miracle of oil.

Wild Arugula Salad With Asian Pears, Honey-Glazed Walnuts, Ricotta Salata, and Walnut Oil Vinaigrette

4 cups wild arugula
1 Asian pear, julienned and kept until needed in a bowl of water along with the juice of half of a lemon
¼ cup pomegranate seeds
1 cup walnuts
¼ cup honey
1 teaspoon fleur de sel
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
½ cup ricotta salata, shaved
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon honey
¼ cup apple cider vinegar
½ cup walnut oil
sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper

1. In a medium sauté pan, combine walnuts, ¼ cup honey, fleur de sel, and cayenne over medium heat. Allow the walnuts to caramelize and become golden brown, about 4 minutes. Transfer them immediately to a piece of foil sprayed with cooking spray and allow to cool completely.

2. In a small bowl, combine Dijon, honey, and apple cider vinegar. Slowly whisk in the walnut oil and season with salt and pepper. Set aside.

3. To assemble the salad, arrange the arugula on a platter, top with the drained julienned asian pear, the cooled honey-glazed walnuts, the pomegranate seeds, and the shaved ricotta salata. Right before serving, drizzle with the walnut oil vinaigrette.

Yield: 6 Servings

Hanukkah Cheddar Gelt Coins

8 ounces sharp Cheddar cheese, shredded (about 2 cups packed)
½ cup (1 stick) butter
1 cup all purpose unbleached white flour
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons onion powder
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 cup sesame seeds

1. Place cheddar cheese, butter, flour, Worcestershire sauce, onion powder, and cayenne pepper in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade. Blend until a dough forms.

2. Divide dough in half and shape each into a log about 1 inch in diameter and 12 inches long. Roll logs in sesame seeds to coat. Wrap each log tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 4 hours or overnight.

3. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper, nonstick foil, or Silpats.

4. Slice dough into ¼ inch-thick rounds and place on prepared baking sheets. Bake 10 to 12 minutes until lightly browned and firm. Let rest for 5 minutes and move to wire racks to cool. Store in an airtight container to keep them fresh and crispy.

Yield: 7 dozen

Hanukkah Apple Donut Fritters

1 cup all purpose flour
¼ cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon kosher salt
1/3 cup milk
1 large egg
zest of half of a lemon
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large Granny Smith apple, cored, peeled, and diced
Canola oil for frying

Cinnamon Sugar Mixture
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Cinnamon Apple Glaze
1 cup powdered sugar
½ teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons apple juice

1. In a large bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.

2. In a medium bowl, combine the milk, egg, zest, lemon juice, and vanilla.

3. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add the mixed wet ingredients and stir together well. Add the diced apple and stir to combine.

4. In a deep fryer or large saucepan, pour the canola oil to a depth of 2 inches and heat over medium heat until a thermometer reads 360 degrees. Test a bit of dough to ensure it is the correct temperature. When the oil is the correct temperature the dough will bubble immediately and rise to the top. If the oil is too cold, the dough will sink to the bottom; if it’s too hot, the dough will immediately turn brown.

5. Using a 1-inch cookie scooper, drop about 4 to 5 scoops of the batter into the hot oil. Be sure not to overcrowd the oil. The fritters should float to the top and puff to about double their size. Deep-fry until dark golden brown on the first side, about 2 minutes, and then using a slotted spoon or tongs, flip over and cook for an additional minute. Remove with a slotted spoon and transfer to a baking sheet lined with paper towel to drain.

6. Repeat with the remaining dough.

7. Let cool if you are going to glaze and use a wire rack to let excess glaze drip. If you are going to make a cinnamon sugar mixture, then dip fairly soon after removing from the oil so the sugar mixture sticks.

8. For the cinnamon sugar, mix together and roll warm donuts in the sugar to ensure it sticks all over.

9. For cinnamon apple glaze, add sugar and cinnamon together and stir. Then add the apple juice and whisk together until smooth.

Yield: 24 fritters

Sweet Potato Parsnip Latkes

2 pounds Garnet sweet potatoes, peeled
1 pound parsnips, peeled
1 large sweet onion, peeled
6 large eggs, beaten
¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons matzoh meal
1 tablespoon coarse Kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
olive oil for frying
sour cream
applesauce

1. Using the coarse side of a box grater or a food processor fitted with a medium coarse grating disk, grate the potatoes, parsnips, and sweet onion. Toss together in a large bowl.

2. Add eggs, matzoh meal, salt, and pepper to potato mixture and toss to mix well.

3. Pour ¾ inch of oil into a 10 to 12 inch frying pan (with sides at least 2 inches high) over medium high heat. When oil reaches 350 degrees, scoop 1/3 cup of potato mixture from bowl and shape into a patty about 1/3 inch thick, then gently slide the pancake into hot oil. Cook 3 or 4 pancakes at a time (do not overcrowd pan) until edges are crispy and well browned, 2 to 3 minutes. Gently turn and cook until other side is golden brown, 2 to 3 minutes longer.

4. Transfer pancakes to a baking sheet lined with paper towels and drain briefly, then keep warm in a 200 degree oven while you cook the remaining pancakes. Serve hot with sour cream and applesauce.

Yield: 18 Latkes

Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry spoke to Weidenbaum about some of the album’s tracks, about making remixes, and about how he, a non-musician, got into the remixing business in the first place. [Running time: 14:15.]

Listen to the interview:

Weidenbaum also commissioned remixes of the Vox Tablet theme song, originally composed by Jewlia Eisenberg and performed by Red Pocket. You can listen to several versions here:

Remix by Paula Daunt:

Remix by Mystified (aka Thomas Park):

Remix by Cedar AV:

Now Safar has produced a Sephardic Music Festival compilation album, which captures the sounds of the festival even for those who couldn’t be in New York for it. It includes songs by well-known musicians Matisyahu, Yasmin Levy, and Galeet Dardashti, along with less-familiar artists, like DeScribe and Shmoolik, who team up for a reggaeton-meets-Middle East pop track in French and Hebrew.

For Vox Tablet this week, Rob Weisberg, the host of WFMU’s Transpacific Sound Paradise—“New York’s peerless world music show,” according to Time Out—took a look at the album. [Running time: 15:33.]

Ari Y. Kelman, a professor of American studies at the University of California, Davis, is one of the study’s authors. He joined Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to discuss his findings, including the fact that the Internet is weakening denominational differences among Jews, that “non-establishment” young Jewish leaders come from surprisingly “establishment” backgrounds, and that the economics of Jewish life deserve a closer look. [Running time: 16:40]

Kamenetz spoke to Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry about the two men, about the relationship each had to the Haskalah, the Jewish Enlightenment, and about how Nachman’s fable about a turkey responds to Kafka’s tale of an insect. Running time: 17:57.

On Vox Tablet this week, host Sara Ivry presents Rakoff, a Tablet Magazine contributing editor, with three scenarios generally deemed to be good fun and asks him to present his more cautious take on them. (Sound designer Jonathan Mitchell helped her in the project.) Rakoff also discusses the origins of his pessimism and how he copes with a life-threatening illness—while writing the book, he learned he had cancer and is now undergoing chemotherapy—without the armor of positive thinking.

Though uttered some 2,000 years ago by the great Talmudic rabbi, Hillel, that advice is still apt today. Its astuteness has so impressed Rabbi Joseph Telushkin over the years that Hillel has become one of Telushkin’s personal heroes. Now Telushkin has written a book about Hillel for Nextbook Press. It’s called Hillel: If Not Now, When? and Telushkin joins Sara Ivry on Vox Tablet to talk about the Talmudist’s approach to conversion; his chief rabbinical rival, Shammai; and about how Hillel would rather sit in the snow than risk missing a good Torah lesson.

In a new memoir, Half a Life, Strauss writes about the crash and its aftermath. He joined Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to talk about how this tragedy has shaped his life, about guilt and doubt, and about his fears for his children.

Vox Tablet’s Sara Ivry joins Gordon, Winograd, and Fruchter in Winograd’s bedroom-turned-studio to talk about their debut eponymous EP, out this week, and to play a little music on the fly.

Illustration by Paul Rogers

Novelist Steve Stern wasn’t raised in a traditional Jewish home—indeed, he says, his childhood in Memphis was virtually devoid of “heritage.” But he has made up for that as an adult, delving deeply into Jewish history, fiction, liturgy, and mysticism in his work. All of that comes into play in The Frozen Rabbi, his ninth work of fiction, which Tablet Magazine begins serializing today. The story begins in the basement of one Bernie Karp, a pimply and spiritually bereft teen who, intent on pleasuring himself in the liver-aided manner of Alexander Portnoy, gets distracted when he discovers at the back of the meat freezer a 19th-century rabbi from the Pale of Settlement. From there, we are transported between the past and the present, along the way encountering shtetl kabbalists, Lodz peddlers, Lower East Side gangsters, New Age hucksters, and more. Stern spoke to Vox Tablet about Charles Dickens and Isaac Bashevis Singer, libel suits, and how he came to write this comic-tragic tale of modern European Jewry. The Frozen Rabbi will be published in May.

Joy Ladin’s third book of poetry, Transmigration, was published last month by Sheep Meadow Press.