David Cesarani
A People’s Path
By Jonathan Freedland
Hamish Hamilton 389pp £16.99 order from our bookshop
Since the Enlightenment opened the way for Jews to enter European society, Jewish thinkers have been trying to explain what it means to be a Jew in a secular world and to justify adherence to a tribal faith in an era of universalism. Once Jews ceased to be an alien nation kept apart by discriminatory laws, where did they belong? Should they merge with mainstream society or preserve some differences?
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I have just spent a wonderful few minutes re-reading the best book review of the year in my opinion. It's by Piers Brendon in September's issue of @Lit_Review. Beautifully captioned as 'Jack the Lad', Brendon takes Fredrik Logevall's JFK: Vol.I apart! It's a laugh a minute. Ouch!
'Perhaps the real modern polymaths are the hidden ones who do not themselves grab the limelight but have the expertise to bring together different fields of knowledge: librarians, teachers, editors of literary journals…'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/masters-of-none
Jan Morris, who died last week, was a much-loved contributor to our pages. In 2017, she wrote a characteristically witty article about the different winds, their various personalities and how they had touched her life: https://literaryreview.co.uk/let-it-blow.