Michael Shnayerson— By the age of twelve, Siegel was essentially spending his days as he pleased—but what he pleased to do, more than play games, was embark on petty crime. Ben learned to hit up pushcart peddlers for protection; those who declined to pay a weekly fee might find their
David Mikics— We usually don’t remember that Stanley Kubrick made movies about marriage, but he did. Three of his films center on a married couple, and all of them are masterpieces: Barry Lyndon, The Shining, and Eyes Wide Shut. Kubrick had half a century of experience of married life, and
David Biale— While researching my biography of the historian Gershom Scholem for Yale’s Jewish Lives series, I came across virtually unknown evidence that Scholem fell in love in 1934 with a friend named Kitty Steinschneider. What was I to do with this evidence that appeared in his unpublished diary from
Hasia R. Diner— Balancing the choices open to them—staying put; going to a big city in Europe, the Ottoman Empire, or North Africa; or emigrating to the new world— consumed the Jews in the old one. Joseph Austrian was born in 1833 in a small village, Wittelshoffen in Bavaria. His
To celebrate the launch of the new Jewish Lives series website, you can get 25% off purchases of books in the series and enter for a chance to win all 35 books. The Jewish Lives series is a major series of interpretative biography designed to illuminate the imprint of Jewish figures upon
David Ebony— An eccentric heiress with an all-consuming passion for avant-garde art and artists, Peggy Guggenheim (1898-1979) just happened to change the course of 20th-century art during her tumultuous lifetime. She befriended, sometimes bedded, and often financially supported some of the most important artists and writers of her day. She
David Ebony— An eccentric heiress with an all-consuming passion for avant-garde art and artists, Peggy Guggenheim (1898-1979) just happened to change the course of 20th-century art during her tumultuous lifetime. She befriended, sometimes bedded, and often financially supported some of the most important artists and writers of her day. She
“Biographers, Freud knew even as a young man, spoke on other people’s behalf—like parents, doctors, rabbis, and politicians. Psychoanalysis was to be a medical treatment which enabled people to speak on their own behalf.”—Adam Phillips, Becoming Freud In his biography of Sigmund Freud’s early life, Becoming Freud: The Making of
How do you write a biography with only one source of information? Such is the challenge for Yair Zakovitch, author of Jacob: Unexpected Patriarch,who takes on the role of biblical biographer and, consequently, literary archaeologist. Rather than dig deep in the earth for clues of the past, Zakovitch dives into
Take our Posen Library Survey and get 15% off Yale University Press books! This fall, Yale University Press and the Posen Foundation will launch The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, a ten-volume series that collects more than 3,000 years of Jewish cultural artifacts, texts, and paintings, selected by