When the Dead Come Back to Life as Literary Critics

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Rodger Kamenetz recently wrote a joint portrait of Franz Kafka and Reb Nachman of Bratslav for Nextbook. D.G. Myers reviewed said book, unfavorably, in Commentary (which you have to pay for in order to read). Then things got strange. Apparently, Reb Nachman, is capable of sarcasm, and also writing, even though he's been dead for 200 years. Nachman sent a letter to Myers through Jonathan Rosen, Kamenetz's publisher. Read the review, and the letter, and also the book, by the way; I'm reading it right now and learning things I didn't previously know. Here's a portion of Reb Nachman's letter from the beyond the grave:

I am writing about your review of Rodger Kamenetz's Burnt Books, a review which depressed me very much, and believe me I was depressed to begin with, even before I died 200 years ago--though since dying I am no longer so manic as I used to be. Also I've learned English.

Before you stop reading let me say quickly that this is not the letter of a crazy person. You will be happy to know that death has rendered me completely sane. I am no longer Chasidic--which is a form of madness all its own; I now go to a Conservadox shul, which is very easy in olam habah (the afterlife) since nobody drives anyway. Also you cannot die of boredom because, thank God, you are already dead.

Briefly, I want to congratulate you on your review in Commentary. For Burnt Books is a dangerous book that deserves destruction! And you did an admirable job.
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Jeffrey Goldberg is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and a recipient of the National Magazine Award for Reporting. Author of the book Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror, Goldberg also writes the magazine's advice column. More

Before joining The Atlantic in 2007, Goldberg was a Middle East correspondent, and the Washington correspondent, for The New Yorker. Previously, he served as a correspondent for The New York Times Magazine and New York magazine. He has also written for the Jewish Daily Forward, and was a columnist for The Jerusalem Post.

His book Prisoners was hailed as one of the best books of 2006 by the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Slate, The Progressive, Washingtonian magazine, and Playboy. Goldberg rthe recipient of the 2003 National Magazine Award for Reporting for his coverage of Islamic terrorism. He is also the winner of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists prize for best international investigative journalist; the Overseas Press Club award for best human-rights reporting; and the Abraham Cahan Prize in Journalism. He is also the recipient of 2005's Anti-Defamation League Daniel Pearl Prize.

In 2001, Goldberg was appointed the Syrkin Fellow in Letters of the Jerusalem Foundation, and in 2002 he became a public-policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.

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