André Aciman (January 2, 1951)

I've enjoyed one or two books and articles by André Aciman, and once heard him do a reading of Proust (I think) as part of a concert. His book Out of Egypt is both a personal memoir and a history of the end of Jewish life in his native Egypt, written with both chilling realism and delightful humor. He's both a scholar and an interesting writer on many subjects, not just on Jewish subjects. Here's a quote from him that I found somewhere: "I am a provisional, uncertain Jew. I am a Jew who loves Judaism provided it’s on the opposite shore, provided others practice it and leave me to pursue my romance of assimilation, which I woo with the assiduity of a suitor who is determined to remain a bachelor."

A Wandering Jew

Interesting article by André Aciman: "Convivencia: A plaintive Gypsy song, possibly of Ladino origin, is hybridized and reinterpreted, then viewed on the Internet, where roots and homelands blur." Aciman's writings on Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewish wanderings in the twentieth and now twenty-first century are always fascinating.