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For an Orthodox Jewish rabbi, Shmuley Boteach has a deeply unorthodox streak.

The best-selling author and TV host has written books on “Kosher Sex,” “Dating Secrets of the 10 Commandments” and his relationship with the late pop star Michael Jackson.

But nothing he has done in a career as one of America’s best-known rabbis has caused quite the stir of his latest book. Even before its publication this month, Boteach came under withering attack in his own Orthodox community, with critics accusing him of exploiting controversy to boost sales and some going so far as to accuse him of heresy.

The title of Boteach’s book? “Kosher Jesus.”

The book focuses on the Christian savior’s Jewishness, portraying him as a hero who stood up to Roman rule of Palestine and paid with his life. In keeping with Jewish theology, it does not accept his resurrection or his divinity. And it emphasizes Boteach’s belief that the New Testament intentionally deflected blame for the crucifixion from the ruling Romans and redirected it – unfairly, Boteach believes – on the shoulders of the Jews.

Source: Appeal-Democrat

by Heidi Estrin

The passing of these two authors is certainly sad, but I have to disagree with Kolben's contention that their deaths mark the end of Jewish kidlit, and I also disagree with her overview of the state of the genre. I drafted a response to leave as a comment at The Forward, but it exceeded the 3000 word limit. Thus, my response is posted here at The Book of Life. I urge you to visit  http://forward.com/articles/150253/ to read the original article, to consider my points posted here, and to add your own responses either at The Book of Life or at The Forward. Thousands of secular children’s books are published each year. Some of them are terrific; many of them are  only so-so. But the numbers are so large that even this small percentage of good books offers a reasonable  selection.  The niche of Jewish kidlit, on the other hand, is small. Probably between 100-200 Jewish interest titles for kids of all ages are published each year....

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by David Herman

Granta, £25

'Half madman, half corpse" is how Joseph Roth described himself in 1936. He was in a terrible state: an alcoholic, in poor health, married to a chronic schizophrenic, a refugee, struggling to make a living. Three years later, he died of pneumonia, still only 44. But he had written more than a dozen novels, many short stories and thousands of articles, which established him as one of the great writers of the interwar years.

Never as famous as other German-speaking writers like Kafka and Thomas Mann, Roth disappeared without trace after his death until a handful of independent publishers and translators rediscovered him. The key figure is the poet and translator, Michael Hofmann, who has now produced this superb edition of Roth's letters, which follow his life from his late teens, on the eve of the First World War, to his death in Paris, just months before the Second.

Roth was born in Galicia, on the edges of eastern Europe, in 1894. Both parents were Jews but his father disappeared and died, insane, when Roth was 16. Soon after, what Hofmann calls Roth's "westward trajectory" began, taking him to Vienna and, after the First World War, to Berlin, where he established himself as a journalist, and then Paris. During the 1920s and early '30s he was one of the best-paid journalists in Europe. In the mid-1920s he started his career as a prolific novelist. He spent his life on the move. Perhaps his only permanent home was the German language and even that was thwarted when it became impossible to be published in Germany and then Austria.

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