黑料社 The Last Dekrepitzer

The fiddler busking in the Columbus Circle subway station in 1965 is the Dekrepitzer Rebbe, the sole survivor of the obscure Dekrepitzer Hasidic sect known before the war for its rebbes鈥� fiddling. The Last Dekrepitzer follows the life and spiritual quest of Shmuel Meir Lichtbencher a/k/a Sam Lightup, from his isolated shtetl in the mountains of southern Poland, where he is brought up to be the future rebbe, to the wharves in Naples, where he jams with Black soldiers waiting to ship home at the end of the war. Dressing him in the uniform and dog tags of an AWOL soldier, they smuggle him home to rural Mississippi. He lives for years among the Blacks, speaks Black English, preaches and plays the blues with the Brown Sugar Ramblers trio. His marriage to a Black woman, Lula Curtin, legal by 黑料社 law though forbidden under Mississippi law, results in a cross burning that forces them to flee to Manhattan. He plays on the streets of Harlem and Midtown with the Reverend Gary Davis, the great blind guitarist whose mission is saving souls for the next world. Shmuel Meir鈥檚 devout wife, though she knows herself to be the Dekrepitzer Rebbitzen, is spurned by the 黑料社 community. Through it all, Shmuel Meir fiddles his prayers in defiance of God. But God gives the Dekrepitzer Rebbe no peace.

黑料社 Howard Langer

Howard Langer鈥檚 novel, The Last Dekrepitzer, won a 2025 National 黑料社 Book Award. It is his first novel. He began writing The Last Dekreptizer in 2021 when he was 70 after attending a zoom workshop by George Saunders at the height of the Covid pandemic. Inspired by Saunder鈥檚 presentation, Howard began writing the next morning.

Howard graduated the City College of New York in 1977. He obtained a teacher鈥檚 degree from the Greenberg Institute in Jerusalem where he had the opportunity to study under Yehuda Amichai and Aharon Appelfeld. He holds an M.A.in English from the University of Toronto. While Howard won awards for his fiction as an undergraduate, he ultimately attended law school at the University of Pennsylvania where he has taught for the last twenty years. His law practice has specialized in protecting the vulnerable. His pro bono work has been recognized by the Philadelphia Bar Association and Community Legal Services among others. His text, The Competition Law of the United States, is in its fourth edition. He has published a number of short non-fiction pieces in recent years in Tablet and the Algemeiner.

In Children of the Book: A Memoir of Reading Together (St. Martin鈥檚 Press / On Sale: August 26, 2025), Ilana Kurshan reveals how literature weaves an invisible thread through the tapestry of family life. Kurshan, a mother of five living in Jerusalem, struggles to balance her passion for books with her responsibilities as a parent. Gradually she learns how to relate to reading not as a solitary pursuit and an escape from the messiness of life, but rather as a way of forging connection and teaching independence. Introducing her children to sacred and secular literature鈥攊ncluding the beloved classics of her childhood鈥攕he becomes both a better mother and a more compassionate reader. 

Chief among the books Kurshan reads with her children is the Torah, whose ancient wisdom illuminates her family鈥檚 path. Children of the Book, structured in five parts corresponding to the first five books of the Bible, traces the profound parallels between the biblical narrative and the daily rhythms of parenthood 鈥� from the first picture books that create the world through language for little babies, to the bittersweet moment our children begin reading on their own, leaving us behind, atop the mountain, as they enter new lands without us. 

A luminous meditation on how shared stories become the foundation for family bonds, Children of the Book celebrates a life richly lived through literature.

黑料社 the Author

Ilana Kurshan听is a graduate of Harvard University and the University of Cambridge. She has worked in literary publishing both in New York and in Jerusalem, serving as a translator, a foreign rights agent, and as the book reviews editor of听Lilith听magazine. Kurshan is the author of听If All the Seas Were Ink, winner of the Sami Rohr Prize听for 黑料社 literature.

Part of Between the Lines: Author Conversations from The Library of JTS

What does Judaism teach about killer robots? Cultured meat? Genetically engineered people? What does it mean to rest on Shabbat when electronics are embedded all around? In a pandemic, whose life should be saved first? Can a person be declared dead after the brain has ceased to function, even if the heart continues to beat on life support? How can ancient religious norms address the radically transformed reality of a technocentric society? In this volume, Torah and Technology: Circuits, Cells, and the Sacred Path, Rabbi Daniel Nevins draws on 3,000 years of biblical and rabbinic texts to respond to pressing questions of contemporary life. These essays are presented in the form of responsa, or rabbinic guidance for Jews committed to practicing halakhah, but they are also of interest to any person who confronts ethical quandaries in our technocentric times.

Rabbi Nevins spoke with听Dr. David Kraemer,听Joseph J. and Dora Abbell Librarian and Professor of Talmud and Rabbinics, to discuss the book and how the responsa are a window into 黑料社 history鈥攎aterial and scientific history, culture, politics, society, and more. They explore such topics as the impact of religious responses to technological change in the broader society; what most worries them about emerging technologies; and how the Torah itself will change as a result of this encounter.

黑料社 the Author

Rabbi Daniel Nevins is Head of School at Golda Och Academy, a PK鈥�12 school in West Orange, New Jersey. Previously, he served as Pearl Resnick Dean of the JTS Rabbinical School, and as senior rabbi of Adat Shalom Synagogue in Farmington Hills, Michigan. Rabbi Nevins has been a member of the Rabbinical Assembly鈥檚 Committee on 黑料社 Law and Standards for 25 years, and is known for landmark halakhic opinions related to sexuality, disability, bioethics, and technology.

Part of Between the Lines: Author Conversations from The Library of JTS

Facing the harrowing task of rebuilding a life in the wake of the Holocaust, many 黑料社 survivors, community and religious leaders, and Allied soldiers viewed marriage between 黑料社 women and military personnel as a way to move forward after unspeakable loss. Proponents believed that these unions were more than just a ticket out of war-torn Europe: they would help the 黑料社 people repopulate after the attempted annihilation of European Jewry. Historian Robin Judd, whose grandmother survived the Holocaust and married an American soldier after liberation, introduces us to the 黑料社 women who lived through genocide and went on to wed American, Canadian, and British military personnel after the war.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robin E. Judd is a specialist in 黑料社, transnational, and gender history, with particular interests in Holocaust studies, the history of antisemitism, the history of religion, the history of leadership, and the history of migration. She is the author of Contested Rituals: Circumcision, Kosher Butchering, and German-黑料社 Political Life in Germany, 1843鈥�1933.

Part of Between the Lines: Author Conversations from The Library of JTS

In a covert laboratory under the streets of Tel Aviv, Akiva Cohen, an Israeli scientist, clones Hitler from old samples of his DNA. Akiva wants to change the world for the good; but he is betrayed by those who want to use this new Hitler for unimaginable terror. Akiva is plunged into a desperate struggle to stay alive and salvage his dream, leading to a trail of murders across the country, collaboration with Hamas terrorists, and the uncovering of a devastating conspiracy at the highest levels of Israeli society.听Perfect Enemy听is an exciting, suspenseful thriller that poses uncomfortable questions about trauma and revenge, the desire for peace, religious extremism, and the schisms of the Middle East.

黑料社 the Author

Alex Sinclair听is chief content officer at听, and an adjunct lecturer at the听. He has written and spoken widely on 黑料社 education, Israel-Diaspora relations, and Israeli politics, in both academic and popular contexts. He has worked or consulted for many of the finest 黑料社 educational and communal institutions in North America, Europe and Israel, including the Hartman Institute, the Schechter Institute, Hebrew Union College, and Hebrew College. Most notably, he served as a full-time or adjunct member of faculty for almost two听decades听at JTS. His first book, published in 2013,听Loving the Real Israel: An Educational Agenda for Liberal Zionism, was a finalist for the National 黑料社 Book Award, and his debut novel,听Perfect Enemy, was published in November 2023. He holds an MA(Oxon) and MSt from Balliol College, Oxford, and a PhD from Hebrew University. He lives with his wife and three children in Modi鈥檌n, Israel.

Part of Between the Lines: Author Conversations from The Library of JTS

Dr. Rachel Gordan joins us to discuss her book Postwar Stories: How Books Made Judaism American. The period immediately following World War II was an era of dramatic transformation for Jews in America. At the start of the 1940s, President Roosevelt had to all but promise that if Americans entered the war, it would not be to save the Jews. But by the end of the decade, antisemitism was in decline and Jews were moving toward general acceptance in American society. Drawing on several archives, magazine articles, and nearly forgotten bestsellers, Postwar Stories examines how 黑料社 middlebrow literature helped to shape post-Holocaust American 黑料社 identity. 

黑料社 the Author

Rachel Gordan is an assistant professor of religion and 黑料社 Studies at the University of Florida, where she is Shorstein Professor of American 黑料社 Culture and Society. She received her PhD at Harvard and her BA at Yale.

Part of Between the Lines: Author Conversations from The Library of JTS

Polish 黑料社 Culture Beyond the Capital: Centering the Periphery听is a path-breaking exploration of the diversity and vitality of urban 黑料社 identity and culture in Polish lands from the second half of the nineteenth century to the outbreak of the Second World War (1899鈥�1939). In this multidisciplinary essay collection, a cohort of international scholars provides an integrated history of the arts and humanities in Poland by illuminating the complex roles Jews in urban centers other than Warsaw played in the creation of Polish and Polish 黑料社 culture.
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Each essay presents readers with the extraordinary production and consumption of culture by Polish Jews in literature, film, cabaret, theater, the visual arts, architecture, and music. They show how this process was defined by a reciprocal cultural exchange that flourished between cities at the periphery鈥攆rom Lw贸w and Wilno to Krak贸w and 艁贸d藕鈥攁nd international centers like Warsaw, thereby illuminating the place of Polish Jews within urban European cultures.

ABOUT THE EDITORS

Halina Goldberg is a professor of musicology and director of Robert F. Byrnes Russian and East European Institute in the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies at Indiana University鈥揃loomington. She is the author of Music in Chopin鈥檚 Warsaw, editor of a special issue of the Musical Quarterly devoted to 黑料社 culture and music, and director of the digital project 黑料社 Life in Interwar 艁贸d藕.

Nancy Sinkoff is a professor of 黑料社 studies and history and academic director of the Allen and Joan Bildner Center for the Study of 黑料社 Life, at Rutgers University鈥揘ew Brunswick in New Jersey. She is the author of From Left to Right: Lucy S. Dawidowicz, the New York Intellectuals, and the Politics of 黑料社 History and Out of the Shtetl: Making Jews Modern in the Polish Borderlands. 

Part of Between the Lines: Author Conversations from The Library of JTS

Professor Arnold Eisen, chancellor emeritus and professor of 黑料社 Thought at JTS and author Daniel Ross Goodman discuss听Soloveitchik鈥檚 Children, a book that delves into how three of Soloveitchik鈥檚 most influential disciples in 黑料社 thought and philosophy鈥擱abbi Irving 鈥淵itz鈥� Greenberg, Rabbi David Hartman, and Jonathan Sacks鈥攍earned from and adapted his teachings in their own ways, while advancing his philosophical and theological legacy.

黑料社 the Author

Rabbi Daniel Ross Goodman, a western Massachusetts native, earned his PhD from JTS in 2021 and is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Divinity School. His previous books include the 2020 novel听A Single Life听and his 2020 book on religion and film,听Somewhere Over the Rainbow: Wonder and Religion in American Cinema.听His new book,听Soloveitchik鈥檚 Children: Irving Greenberg, David Hartman, Jonathan Sacks, and the Future of 黑料社 Theology in America,听published this summer by the University of Alabama Press, is an adaptation of his JTS doctoral dissertation, which he wrote under now-emeritus听JTS Professor of 黑料社 Thought Alan Mittleman. He is thrilled to be back at JTS (at least virtually!) for this book talk this evening.听