(Courtesy of Congregation Anshe Sholom) Congregation Anshe Sholom of New Rochelle is happy to congratulate its own Rabbi Evan Hoffman and esteemed member Cynthia Ozick on the publication of their respective books. For Rabbi Hoffman, this is his first published book and the culmination of nearly a decade of writing weekly essays on the parsha. For Cynthia Ozick, this new novel is the most recent in her long and storied career as one of American Jewry’s best fiction writers.
“Parashah Themes in Historical Perspective,” by Rabbi Evan Hoffman. Gefen Publishing House. 2021. English. Hardcover. 628 pages. ISBN-13: 978-9657023402.
Parashah Themes in Historical Perspective is a two-volume collection of Rabbi Evan Hoffman’s essays, arranged according to the annual Torah reading cycle. For each essay, a biblical verse or passage serves as the point of departure for an exploration of broader themes in the history of the Jewish people or the evolution of Jewish thought and practice. Classical rabbinic texts as well as external and non-canonical sources are examined in a spirit of free inquiry. The author seeks to understand the historical context in which the sages and early exegetes offered their respective interpretations. For the layman accustomed to exclusively traditional methods of interpretation, these essays offer entrée to the realm of academic Jewish studies. Scholars, too, will benefit from those essays in which the author breaks new ground. For anyone who has wondered how certain Jewish customs came to assume their current forms, or how other biblical rites ceased altogether to be operative in contemporary Judaism, this work will be of particular interest.
“Antiquities,” by Cynthia Ozick. Knopf. 2021. English. Hardcover. 192 pages. ISBN-13: 978-0593318829.
From a preeminent writer, a tale that captures the shifting meanings of the past and how our experience colors those meanings:
Lloyd Wilkinson Petrie, one of the seven elderly trustees of the now defunct (for 34 years) Temple Academy for Boys, is preparing a memoir of his days at the school, intertwined with the troubling distractions of present events. As he navigates, with faltering recall, between the subtle anti-Semitism that pervaded the school’s ethos and his fascination with his own family’s heritage—in particular, his illustrious cousin, the renowned archaeologist Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie—he reconstructs the passions of a childhood encounter with the oddly named Ben-Zion Elefantin, a mystifying older pupil who claims descent from Egypt’s Elephantine Island. From this seed emerges one of Cynthia Ozick’s most wondrous tales, touched by unsettling irony and the elusive flavor of a Kafka parable, and weaving, in her own distinctive voice, myth and mania, history and illusion.
