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Sundown: Jews and Arabs Unite!

Plus losses, a warning, and a literary reunion

by
Hadara Graubart
October 08, 2009

• When you see a headline that starts with “Jews and Arabs unite,” you can be sure there’s comedy to follow; in this case, their common enemy is the proposed construction of an ultra-Orthodox town in Northern Israel. [Jewish Chronicle]
• Writer and professor Raymond Federman died just weeks before a series of events celebrating his 80th birthday; a former student remembers Federman’s tale of surviving the Holocaust as so inspirational that “no one in the room that day has probably ever felt since that his or her problems were enough to end it all.” [Artvoice]
• Another sad loss: Ruth Brin, community activist and writer of poetry, liturgy, and more, is dead at 88. [Forward]
• Israel’s Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, who recently made waves with his anti-Shabbat elevators proclamation, reiterates that it’s bad form—both halachically and politically—for Jews to visit the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. [JPost]
• 50 years after publishing the magnificent children’s novel The Phantom Tollbooth, writer Norman Juster and illustrator Jules Feiffer are collaborating on another book, The Odious Ogre, due out next fall. [PW]

Hadara Graubart was formerly a writer and editor for Tablet Magazine.