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Editors’ Pick

January 23, 2026

A New Story from Cynthia Ozick Recalls Some Old Themes

“The Wife.”

In her most recent work of fiction, a short story titled “The Wife,” Cynthia Ozick depicts the widow of an admired thinker. The protagonist bears more than a passing resemblance to the late Nina Grade, the wife of the Yiddish novelist Chaim Grade, himself the putative inspiration for an earlier Ozick novella. A reader might also detect a mirror-image of Ozick’s teaching that Judaism is defined by its capacity for making distinctions. Herewith, the opening lines: 

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January 23, 2026

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    “The Wife.”