
Feathers
Haim Be'er(Author)
Brandeis University Press
Published on 1. January 2006
Book
Paperback/Softback
272 pages
978-1-58465-535-0 (ISBN)
Description
Be'er portrays the world of a deeply religious community in Jerusalem during the author's childhood and adolescence in the 1950s and 1960s. The novel is filled with vivid portraits of eccentric Jerusalem characters, chief among them the book's main character, Mordecai Leder, who dreams of founding a utopian colony based on the theories of the nineteenth-century Viennese Jewish thinker Karl Popper-Lynkeus. Similar high-flying dreams inspire the family of the narrator, strict Orthodox Jews with impractical minds and adventurous souls - men such as the narrator's father, who periodically disappears from home on botanical expeditions meant to prove that the willow tree of Scripture is in fact the Australian eucalyptus. This is one of the National Yiddish Book Center's 100 greatest works of Modern Jewish literature.
Reviews / Votes
"Always magical, occasionally bizarre, and often funny, this is a precious snapshot of an era. Recommended for all libraries." - Library Journal "Be'er's superbly textured prose, ably guided by both unstinting honesty and unmistakable love, trusts the past, with its unexpected yields, more than the future, which knows only the certainty of oblivion. Its not inconsiderable art lies in tempting memory to speak and - what may amount to much the same thing - in bestowing on the temporal something of the eternal." - The Forward "Feathers resonates as an authentic biographical and cultural account of what it was like to grow up as a child in home where the father was always off on arcane theological quests." - Jewish Book World"More details
Series
Edition
New edition
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Edition type
New edition
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-58465-535-0 (9781584655350)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Person
HAIM BE'ER was born in Jerusalem in 1945 to an Orthodox family. He is an editor at Am Oved Publishers. A writer of prose and poetry, he has received several literary awards, including the Bernstein Prize, one of Israel's most prestigious literary prizes. He has published three novels (including The Pure Element of Time, UPNE 2003), one book of poetry, and one work of non-fiction. HILLEL HALKIN is a well-known translator of Hebrew and Yiddish. A writer, essayist, and critic, he has published two books and appears frequently in such publications as Commentary and the New Republic.