Literature

Jews have been an integral part of the literary life of the West for many centuries. The Museum will develop a library of works by Jewish writers and hold lecture series on these authors, and on the significance of their works.

The Museum will collect an array of first-edition works reflecting the range of Jews in particular, Jewish Americans who have enriched the literature of the world in the past century from Anza Yezierska’s immigrant classics to Phillip Roth’s magisterial and bemused self-reflections, from Isaac Asimov’s science fiction world to Isaac Bashevis Singer’s mystical and magical world of Polish Jewish peasants and city slickers to Norman Mailer’s synthesis of journalism and the novel into a new genre.

These will be brought to life through audio booths in which prominent actors read selections from these writers’ works. There will also be a series of programs featuring living writers.