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Remembering Harold Bloom — Lover Of Literature, Defender Of The Western Canon

JL;DR SUMMARY Harold Bloom, the influential Jewish literary critic known for his defense of the Western canon, has passed away at 89. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

Jewish IdentityInterfaith DialogueControversyLiterary CriticismHarold BloomBible As LiteratureCultural LegacyWestern CanonSecular Rabbi

Places mentioned

Cincinnati, Ohio, United States
"In a book published in 2007 by Fordham University Press, Peter Du Brul, a Jesuit from Cincinnati, expressed himself on the genius and the wisdom of Harold Bloom."
Vermont, United States
"plans, announced in 2003, to donate his personal library over 25,000 books to St. Michaels College, a small Catholic college in Vermont."
Bronx, New York, United States
"Bloom developed affinities with American Catholics, as if consciously refuting his early childhood experiences in the East Bronx, fighting anti-Semitic Irish Catholic gangs described in Bradley Harts Hitlers American Friends."
Washington, Washington DC, United States
"as when he told The Washington Post in August 1985 that the critics Hilton Kramer, Joseph Epstein, and Norman Podhoretz were sublime asses."
Latvia
"As Bloom told a Latvian interview in October 2005, he could never bring himself to travel to Eastern Europe because my parents families were slaughtered there, so I stayed away."
Israel
"impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse."

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Retrieved 2025-04-24 05:31:19 UTC
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