Jewish Geography
“Jewish civilization is rich and broad and deep and includes literature and art in addition to rabbinic learning and historical scholarship.”
a boycott of Israeli literary insti- tutions and a blacklist of “Zion- ist” authors began circulating. “We’re living in an era where Jewish writers are having a hard time getting into writers’ pro- grams, getting published even,” she said. “And if they do get into a program, they are reticent to do so and they’re not sure how [their writing] will be received.” The American-Jewish nov- elist Jonathan Safran Foer will serve as the program’s found- ing advisor. Other “creative ad- visors” listed by JTS include the novelists Shalom Auslander and Nicole Krauss (who used to be married to Safran Foer), comedian Alex Edelman, This American Life creator Ira Glass, actor Liev Schreiber, singer- songwriter Regina Spektor, and Deborah Treisman, the fiction
faculty and assets that have been the seminary’s calling card, including learning from classical Jewish texts and the treasures in the institution’s library. She sees the MFA as a reminder that “Jewish civiliza- tion is rich and broad and deep,” and includes literature and art in addition to rabbinic learning and historical scholarship. Schwartz said Safran Foer reached out to her when the idea was germinating to share his concerns about the mar- ginalization that Jewish writ- ers were experiencing and his thoughts about the role that JTS could play in addressing them. She said the writer’s enthusi- asm for the project convinced her that the program could be viable. A writers’ festival is also being planned for each year of the program. Keret, best known for his col- lections of short-short stories as well as the film Jellyfish , said in a statement about the new pro- gram that he learned about the power of storytelling from his mother, a Holocaust survivor. “I don’t know if the capacity to tell a story was what saved my mother’s life, but I can say beyond a doubt that it did save her soul,” he said. JTS has turned out fiction writers in the past, although not by design. They include Milton Steinberg, author of the 1939 novel As a Driven Leaf ; Chaim Potok, an ordained rabbi and author of the best-selling 1967 novel The Chosen ; and Rabbi Burton Visotzky, an emeri- tus faculty member and author of the 2008 novel A Delightful Compendium of Consolation . JTA
Singer-songwriter Regina Spektor (left) and novelist Nicole Krauss (right) are among the advisors to the new program for Jewish writers.
editor for The New Yorker . The advisors reflect Keret’s notion that storytelling includes nu- merous formats, Schwartz said. The chancellor said she was inspired by the idea that a fic- tion writer or other storytell- er could take advantage of the
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