Andrew Furman - Böcker

While many Jews pick Florida as the perfect place to retire, Matt Glassman has chosen it as the place to begin his adulthood. Perhaps that's because the pressures of life have always reminded him of his grandfather, who mysteriously disappeared from the family twenty years ago. Now, while he tries to begin a family of his own, Glassman also builds a relationship with the one person, his grandmother, who might know the truth about his grandfather's disappearance. She's remained stubbornly reticent on the topic all these years, but when a familiar old man shows up at Glassman's office he thinks he may finally get some answers.

Examines eight Jewish-American writers—Meyer Levin, Leon Uris, Saul Bellow, Hugh Nissenson, Chaim Potok, Philip Roth, Anne Roiphe, and Tova Reich—who have "imagined" Israel in their work.CHOICE 1997 Outstanding Academic BooksAnalyzing a wide array of Jewish-American fiction on Israel, Andrew Furman explores the evolving relationship between the Israeli and American Jew. He devotes individual chapters to eight Jewish-American writers who have "imagined" Israel substantially in one or more of their works. In doing so, he gauges the impact of the Jewish state in forging the identity of the American Jewish community and the vision of the Jewish-American writer.Furman devotes individual chapters to Meyer Levin, Leon Uris, Saul Bellow, Hugh Nissenson, Chaim Potok, Philip Roth, Anne Roiphe, and Tova Reich. To chart the evolution of the Jewish-American relationship with Israel from pre-statehood until the present, he considers works from 1928 to 1995, examining them in their historical and political contexts. The writers Furman examines address the central issues which have linked and divided the American and Israeli Jewish communities: the role of Israel as both safe haven and spiritual core for Jews everywhere pitted against its secularism, militarism, and entrenched sexism.While the writers Furman examines depict contrasting images of the Middle East, the very persistence of Israel in occupying that imagination reveals, above all, how prominent a role Israel played and continues to play in shaping the Jewish-American identity.

Through stories of nature near at hand, a South Florida writer offers a unique view of humans and the environment amid development and change   Wings and talons clatter against a windowpane. Foxes den under a deck. Pines stand in quarter-acre lots, recalling a vanished forest. In this book, Andrew Furman explores touchpoints between his everyday suburban life and the environment in South Florida, contemplating his place in a subtropical landscape stretching from the Everglades to the warm Atlantic coast. Transportive vignettes of encounters in the natural world blend with ordinary, all-too-relatable stories of home and family life in these chapters. Puzzled and fascinated by the plants and animals he meets while continually preoccupied by busy domestic routines, Furman illustrates the beauty of his “suburban wilderness.” He also reckons with changes and threats to the surrounding landscape. How, he asks, should humans go about living in what is simultaneously one of the most overdeveloped and most naturally beautiful states in the country?Furman’s meditations give rise to an environmental ethic that challenges distinctions between nature and culture, wilderness and civilization, solitude and family life. Rather, with humor and hope, he encourages readers to engage in life with the mindset that the human and non-human are inextricably connected—and to ask how they can better belong together.Of Slash Pines and Manatees is a creative and memorable example for anyone seeking to live responsibly and richly in a world impacted by human activity. Furman inspires readers to focus fiercely on the local, to conduct their own adventures in the ecosystem outside their front doors, and to see that even in the most overdeveloped areas, what is wild persists.   Funding for this publication was provided through a grant from Florida Humanities with funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent those of Florida Humanities or the National Endowment for the Humanities.