Our blog features essays, book reviews, coverage of FTB titles, and noteworthy news of American Jewish experience by our publisher.
Meeting Mozart – Mini Book Review
Posted on April 3, 2021
I can’t get over Meeting Mozart (amzn.to/3llZBrb). This astonishingly wonderful multi-generation novel of Mozart’s librettist, the Jewish born, fallen away Catholic priest, Lorenzo Da Ponte, and his modern-day descendants is an extraordinary thrill ride through the centuries that seamlessly blends fact and fiction, opera and espionage, wars and romance, family and the cruel twists of […]
What should be the Jewish response to ‘Cancel Culture’?
Posted on March 6, 2021
It seems as if we read something new each day about cancel culture — the phenomenon that is about one group or another attempting to take down living or dead people for real or supposed sins committed against individuals or groups. Oftentimes, it’s not just cultural, it’s political. Should we remove statutes of Abraham Lincoln […]
We’re soliciting short stories and essays for Fig Tree Lit, our monthly literary newsletter
Posted on February 15, 2021
We started Fig Tree Books LLC in 2013 with the idea to publish only fiction, but expanded the list to include memoirs — Angela Himsel’s A River Could Be A Tree); and Abigail Pogrebin’s My Jewish Year: 18 Holidays, One Wondering Jew—as well as a non-fiction book: Thane Rosenbaum’s Saving Free Speech … from Itself. […]
Biotech and literary fiction
Posted on January 31, 2021
I’ve reconnected with friends from the past during the pandemic, mostly over Zoom, sometimes over the phone. It’s been a wonderful experience, but I have to confess to one significant regret. I wished I’d kept up with these people years ago, as they are a remarkably talented group of individuals, not simply measured in terms […]
Predictions
Posted on January 18, 2021
We asked a group of our readers what their predictions were about what life would be like for Americans in general and American Jews in particular in 2021. What follows is an amalgamation of their responses, which are, in a word, pessimistic. Question – What is your set of predictions for Americans in general and […]
Anno Horribilis
Posted on December 31, 2020
Well-known cultural anthropologist Wade Davis wrote a provocative article for Rolling Stone in August, titled ‘The Unraveling of America’. You can read it here: http://bit.ly/2Mftf3z. Among other pull-out quotes, this one stands out as the basic set-up of his message: “The COVID pandemic will be remembered as such a moment in history, a seminal event […]
How to Fight Anti-Semitism – mini book review
Posted on December 10, 2020
I have some friends who think we are living in a period of deja vu that relates to what was going on in Germany just prior to Hitler assuming the chancellor’s position in 1933. Other think that this is a wild exaggeration, that we are going through a period of ‘lone wolf’ attacks that are […]
Thanksgiving 2020
Posted on November 25, 2020
Thinking about some of the myths about our country that have been raised during the shouting leading up to and after the recent election (which I won’t go into now as I’m finally able to take a deep breath and calm down) has got me thinking about the myth of Thanksgiving, coming up tomorrow. Yes, […]
Can we reduce the chasm of the great partisan divide in the US?
Posted on November 22, 2020
From Guest Blogger Yoel Magid What can we do from a communications point of view to reduce the chasm of the great partisan divide in the US? As so many commentators have noted, the divisions within our country are to a large extent a product of differing sources of information and the growing role of […]
Salute to my maternal grandfather
Posted on November 4, 2020
November 1 would have been the 130th birthday of my maternal grandfather, Bill Hirshberg. He was born in the States in 1890, and was a major presence in my life. So much so that when I adopted a pseudonym as an author, I chose his last name. (I use the first name of my father-in-law, […]