A new series of Jewish short stories featuring the voices of Hollywood celebrities will soon air over the National Public Radio network.
Authors represented in the 18-hour series, which will begin in December, range from Yiddish masters Isaac Bashevis Singer and I.L. Peretz to modern novelists Cynthia Ozick and Philip Roth and younger writers such as Allegra Goodman.
Leonard Nimoy is the series narrator. Readers include Hollywood stars Ed Asner, Richard Dreyfuss, Elliott Gould, Julie Kavner and William Shatner.
Not all of the talent is Jewish. Charlton Heston of “The Ten Commandments” will again be the voice of Moses, but this time as Moses Herzog, Saul Bellow’s classic 20th-century Jewish intellectual.
The series will have an edgier and more contemporary tone than its popular 1995 predecessor, “Jewish Short Stories From Eastern Europe and Beyond,” says Sarah Spitz, spokeswoman for radio station KCRW in Los Angeles, which produced both programs.
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