A visit to Joseph Roth’s hometown of Brody.

“The Story of My Family.”

“Help! I Am Dr. Morris Goldpepper.”

Eighteen short stories, rendered from so many languages.

“Short Friday.”

Ruthless cosmopolitans.

Reading between the lines.

Robert Nathan’s Road of Ages.

Immanuel of Rome.

Beauty, brevity, and uncanny vulnerability.

Clarice Lispector, anti-Semitism, and Macabéa.

Shmuel the Statesman and dark side of the Golden Age.

While asserting that anti-Semitic persecutions usually don’t go too badly for the Jews.