By Southern Illinois University Press

Over the course of American history, Jews have held many American leaders in high esteem, but they maintain a unique emotional bond with Abraham Lincoln.
From the time of his presidency to the present day, American Jews have persistently viewed Lincoln as one of their own, casting him as a Jewish sojourner and, in certain respects, a Jewish role model.
The first volume of documents to focus on the history of Lincoln’s image, influence, and reputation among American Jews, this pioneering compendium considers how Lincoln acquired his exceptional status and how, over the past century-and-a-half, this fascinating relationship has evolved.

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Posted on November 24, 2014

Plus: Grandma Gatewood & Chris Chelios

“On Wednesday, November 19, the Guild Literary Complex hosts the final Palabra Pura literary event of 2014 with a special trilingual program (English/Spanish/Portuguese) that will examine the territory of ‘Latina/o’ literary designations,” GLC director John Rich writes.
“A full press release is attached detailing Palabra Pura: From the Margins of the Margins, which will feature Daniel Borzutzky and Justin Petropoulos in an evening curated by Paul Martinez Pompa.
“It is sure to be an electric, and possibly contentious, night of poetry and dialogue as notions of marginality are presented and debated.”
Indeed. Here is the press release:

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Posted on November 14, 2014

By G.K. Moore

“Alessandro is the unwilling heir of a Chicago crime family. Intent on leaving the life set out for him, he decides to run as fast and as far away as possible. His plans crumble when one girl crash lands in his life.
“He should hate the daughter of his father’s mistress, but it’s near impossible when he finds that they are alike in more ways than one.”

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Posted on November 5, 2014

Plus: The Eternal Thank You

“The most comprehensive study to date on the roots of crime found that the central factor in how people perceive the safety of a neighborhood is not disorder or even the presence of boarded-up stores and abandoned buildings, but the number of African-Americans (and to a lesser extent Hispanics) who live there,” Michael Greenberg writes in the New York Review of Books. “This perception was true for blacks and whites alike.”
That study? “The Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, a recently completed, decade-long study on the roots of crime.”

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Posted on November 3, 2014