Best known, perhaps, for her short-lived romance with Saul Bellow—who remained her friend and confidant for the remainder of his life—Bette Howland, who died in 2017 and is little remembered today, had a promising career as a writer of criticism and fiction. The recently published Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage collects a novella of the same name, some of her short stories, and a previously unpublished work. Calling Howland a “brilliant 20th-century Jewish American woman writer,” Rachel Shteir describes her career and oeuvre:

Yesterday, eleven months of political stalemate in Israel appeared to have come to an end as the sitting prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his main rival, Benny Gantz, agreed to form a unity government together with some of the smaller parties. This development has fractured Gantz’s Blue and White party into its constituent factions. Meanwhile, the resignation of Yuli Edelstein as interim Knesset speaker—a position meant to be occupied for just a few hours, but which he has held for nearly a year—has allowed the Knesset to resume business as usual.