Literature

'Emily Saw a Door': Learning to create spaces for each other with creativity, acceptance - review

A story that encourages and empowers children to find the right place for them, or even to create their own.

EMILY’S JOURNEY in the land of doors. Artwork by Orit Magia
From right: 2025 Sapir Prize debut winner Roni Partchek, honored for her novel “Sitara,” with Mifal HaPais CEO Adv. Beni Dreyfus, judging committee chair Dr. Ruth Calderon, Mifal HaPais board chair Itzik Lari, and 2025 Sapir Prize winner Amir Harash, awarded for “Bereavement and Failure and Zombies.

Amir Harash wins Sapir Prize for 2025; Roni Partchek takes debut award

“Neshama,” Marcella Pixley’s novel-in-verse, won the gold medal for Jewish children’s literature for middle-grade readers from the Association of Jewish Libraries.

Stories of ghosts, grief and Shabbat gladness win top prizes in Jewish children’s literature

‘The seventh Plague of Egypt,’  hail and fire, by John Martin, 1823.

'Disasters of Biblical Proportions': From ancient Exodus to lessons in fear and faith - review


'Abraham': A literary reading of the Bible's famous story - review

In some circles, literary readings of the Bible are seen as controversial, but good literary analysis can enhance the Bible’s message about God and human beings.

 ABRAHAM AND the King of Sodom, Genesis 14:22.

UPenn to host slew of ‘antisemitic’ speakers at Palestine Writes literature festival

A number of the speakers to appear at the UPenn event

Roger Waters, draped with a Palestinian keffiyeh

A new memoir tries to mend the pieces of the author’s broken Cuban-Jewish family

Three generations of her family, beginning with her paternal grandfather’s arrival from Transylvania, lived in Cuba — which was still taking in Jews when the United States had closed its doors.

 A street in Havana, Cuba.

Beloved Jewish children's writer Mary Ann Hoberman dies at age 92

She co-founded and performed with “The Pocket People,” a children’s theater group, and “Women’s Voices,” a group giving dramatized poetry readings.

 Mary Ann Hoberman was the author of dozens of children books, including "Strawberry Hill" and “All Kinds of Families!”

The 11th international writers festival celebrates the power of the written word


Roald Dahl Museum installs plaque to acknowledge author's antisemitism

The famed children's book author had once famously said “Even a stinker like Hitler didn’t just pick on them for no reason.”

Roald Dahl

It’s ‘Hanukkah in the summer’ as New Yorkers raid the Jewish Book Council’s shelves

Jewish Book Council’s annual “Raid the Shelves” event, which, for $25, allows members of the public to take home as many of the nonprofit’s spare books as they can carry.

 CHILDREN BROWSE books at the Cairo International Book Fair, with the participation of about 51 countries in the 54th edition of this fair, in Egypt, Jan. 31.

New program aims at fostering the art of Hebrew translation


Novel by Meir Shalev translated into Belarusian for the first time

 Meir Shalev

Placing children’s literature at the head of the class

SASA Setton is engaged in a range of activities to promote the creation of original Hebrew literature for children and increased Hebrew literacy throughout Israel.

 2022 Winners of SASA Setton Children’s literature prize with SASA Setton officials and then-culture and sport minister Chili Tropper.