S.Y. Agnon

Jan 22, 2024 | jewishreviewofbooks.com | S.Y. Agnon |Jeffrey Saks |Ruby Namdar |Amos Yadlin

This war just goes on and on. If it doesn’tstop soon, the world will be nothing but ashes, God forbid. It’s like a wild beast, this war—it’s devoured the best of our young men. I tell you, it’s the end of the world!—S.Y. Agnon, To This DayHaving spent the years of the Great War in Berlin, Leipzig, and elsewhere in the Second Reich, Agnon came to his aversion to war and militarism honestly.

Jul 9, 2023 | jewishreviewofbooks.com | Shai Secunda |S.Y. Agnon |Ruby Namdar |Shari Saiman

Last spring, I became inexplicably fixated on a distant, autumnal detail: whether I would be able to build a sukkah in Berlin. An unexpected invitation to spend a fellowship year working on my next book at a distinguished institute near the wooded edges of the city was almost too good to be true. Yes, it was far from my family in Israel, but it was closer than the Hudson Valley in upstate New York, where I normally teach.