February 24, 2005
by Reb Yudel |
Daniel Schifrin takes on Wendy Shalit in a New York Jewish Week essay, The Superficial Reader
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I would assume Shalit would not begin a review of the Torah in the New York Times by saying, 'The stories of Genesis portray Jews in a poor light. How God could write a book where incest and a lack of parental respect are represented as Jewish values is beyond me.'
I am writing about this controversy for a college paper and so I feel in a good position to comment, because I've read a lot of material on it including the original article which is no longer available online. I didn't see it as the issue of portraying Jews in a poor light but that too many caricatures makes the literature not as good. In my literature class we also learned that realism and not caricatures makes a book better, unless it is supposed to be a parody.
Do you think that people are upset at her because she was saying that writers are writing about communities they aren't part of? That is my theory.
Thank you for your response, you can write to me at this email address, lemanniki8@yahoo.com and if you know of anyone else who could give me their opinion they can write to me too.
Posted by: niki at April 7, 2006 4:52 PM