Ezra Glinter
The accusation that Jews are a backwards, self-isolating tribe is one of the oldest tropes in the history of anti-Semitism. The idea goes back to Hellenistic times, wends its way through centuries European Christendom, and now sneaks into contemporary debates about Israel. Ancient Greek historian Hecataeus of Abdera, characterized Judaism as “a misanthropic and inhospitable way of life,” and former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke, writes that “no group is more ethnocentric and more organized for their perceived interests than are Jews.” But vile as such pronouncements are, Orthodox Jewish separatism has not helped eliminate them. In North After 78 years of life, 14 collections of short stories, and prizes too numerous to list, it’s not surprising that Canadian writer Alice Munro should turn her attention towards old age and death. The characters that populate the 10 stories of her latest collection are mostly women—though a few are men—who are not yet incapacitated by old age, but who have many more years behind them than they have ahead. Thoughts of mortality have crept into much of Munro’s work over the years; in this case, however, death not only lurks in the dark spaces of her stories, but prowls