The People of the Book in the World of Books is a Russian bimonthly publication for serious readers with Jewish interests. Our English website includes only the summaries of the published articles. To access the complete text of them, please visit the Russian version of this website.
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This issue of the magazine includes: • In Memoriam: The Truth of Those Who Were Wrong Our memorial to Israeli writer Amos Oz (1939–2018) opens as follows: "The death of the Israeli writer Amos Oz has provoked a number of contradictory responses. Debt has been paid to his outstanding gifts as a writer, but the writer's memory has also been assaulted because of his political convictions. Oz advocated a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Some regarded Oz's politics as an attack on Israelis who built and inhabit the settlements in the Occupied Territories. He had written friendly letters to Palestinian terrorists in Israeli prisons. His principles could be seen as evincing courage and wisdom. But there were those who called him a traitor. His death has not changed their minds. None of this would be worth mentioning now were it not for the fact that political debates, accusations, and traumas were the lifeblood of his work as writer." The article reviews Oz’s major works in Russian translation, including the novels My Michael (1968), Black Box (1987), To Know a Woman (1989), and Judas (2014). The reviewer concludes Oz never judged who was right or wrong in political disputes and ideological conflicts. "He was interested in people in their moments of uncertainty, confusion, error, and failure. He was completely uninterested in who was right and who was wrong. What mattered to him was the bitter truth of those who were wrong," the author of the article writes. • Looking through Russian Literary Magazines: Novels and Articles of Jewish Interest • Jewish Calendar of Significant Dates: March–April 2019 • Bibliography: Forty New Books |
