Celia Gurevitch Jewish Community Library

The subtitle of Sadie Rose Weilerstein’s K’Tonton in the Circus, a Hanukkah Adventure is slightly misleading. Only 8 of the book’s 85 pages are centered on Hanukkah. But that section is well integrated into the rest of the story that details Ktonton’s, a 4 inch tall boy’s adventures, when he was taken to a traveling circus. If you haven’t read any K’tonton book you are in for a treat. Weilerstein teaches Judaism, by intertwining Torah, haggadah, midrash, and even halakhah with other subjects, in this case the life of a circus. The reader learns about both, through the perspective of the boy who keeps kosher, says his prayers and even manages to celeberate Hanukkah with his newfound friends as the first Jewish person amongst them. There is even a reasonable (and Jewish) explanation why he seems so content and not missing his parents terribly. For a while.

A small line drawing of a circus animal by Marilyn Hirsh’s starts off the chapters and she did a half or full page illustration for each of the 15 chapters. The book is not just educational in both areas (Judaism and circus life), but also a great and fun read. Enlightened readers might object to the living conditions and exploitation of the circus animals (and performers for that matter), but you might view the subject matter differently if you remember that it was written almost 30 years ago.

As I mentioned Friday I spent the weekend in San Jose at the annual conference of the California Library Association. If I manage to find the time I plan to write up my impressions and insights on my personal blog. Here I would like to cover only those points that relate to Judaica one way or another.

First of all the keynote speakers for the opening general session were Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman. (See my picture of them below.) As you know Chabon is the Pulitzer Prize winning of author of many novels including “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union” and “The amazing adventures of Kavalier and Clay“. (We just added the latter to our collection.) What you may not know that his wife Ayelet Waldman is an author on her own right, having written 9 novels so far. Together on stage they talked about on what it means and how it works for them on being married to a writer. I admit they didn’t touch on any specifically Jewish topic, but as some of their work relates to it I found worthwhile to mention how delightful their conversation with each other was. They seemed passionate, knowledgeable and likable people. For those of you who liked The Yiddish Policemen’s Union I have good news: The Coen brothers are planning turning it into a movie.

One of the sessions I visited was titled “Cultural Diversity on the Shelves: Authors’ Perspectives on Blending Latinos, Asians, and Others into Children’s Literature.” The panel consisted of five authors, who wrote children books with multicultural characters, plots and/or locations. I went there primarily to listen to the Jewish participant, Susan Goldman Rubin , the one on the right the picture below. She authored many books for young people on arts and artists, such as Matisse, Warhol, Thiebaud, Hopper and Degas. She also wrote six books related to Jewish themes. I purchased one of them for the library and asked her to sign it. “Fireflies in the Dark: The Story of Friedl Dicker-Brandeis and the Children of Terezin” is a book about the Holocaust for children that is not as terrifying visually as most books with pictures on this topic. The book won eleven prizes including AJL’s “Honor Book in the 2000 Sydney Taylor Book Award for Older Readers.” I am hoping that this book will be borrowed by the children who visit our library.

Ms. Goldman Rubin’s other books include “Searching for Anne Frank: Letters from Amsterdam to Iowa,” L’Chaim! To Jewish Life in America! Celebrating from 1654 until Today,” ” The Flag With Fifty-Six Stars: A Gift From The Survivors of Mauthausen,” “The Cat with the Yellow Star: Coming of Age in Terezin,” “Haym Salomon: American Patriot.” One of her upcoming books, “The Anne Frank Case: Simon Wiesenthal’s Search for the Truth” is about Simon Wiesenthal’s (successful) search for the Nazi officer responsible arresting Anne Frank. Currently she is working on a book about Mengele.

During her 15 minute talk I learned about how she grew up in the Bronx, where she thought that being Jewish is nothing spectacular, but later in life she learned to appreciate the uniqueness of her culture and background. She also shared the organic process how she got involved in writing about Jewish topics. She spoke about the importance of teaching the Holocaust to the younger generations, who have less and less chance to talk to survivors themselves.

The conference had not other Jewish themed panel, but on the exhibition floor I found a few items. There were several companies offering books on CD, tapes or MP3. But only one of them displayed any item of interest for us. Blackstone Audio Inc, has Geraldine Brooks‘ “People of the book“, which is on our discussion group’s schedule. It is a bit pricey, so I haven’t decided whether to purchase it or not. Finally “I’d Bark But You Never Listen: An Illustrated Guide to the Jewish Dog” by Harold Kimmel looked funny.

Living in sunny California it is easy to forget what real winter is about. In this situation Diana Cohen Conway’s Northern Lights: A Hanukkah Story can come to the rescue. In it a Jewish girl is stranded for Hanuakkah in Alaska by the weather and is hosted by an Inuit family. There real cultural exchange happens as she tells them the story of Hanukkah and they share with her bits of their culture, both material and literary. Meanwhile on every page we encounter stunning watercolor paintings by Shelly O. Haas, mostly in light blues and yellows, showing not just the two young girls developing friendship, but attempting to capture the atmosphere of northern lights. It is a simple story, for simple times with simple lesson about the value of multicultural sharing and discovering our similarities.

The Jewish Early Childhood Educators’ Exchange’s discussion and activity suggestion related to this book is below:

This story is a terrific provocation to a discussion and activities about winter nights, light and shadows. Sara tells her friend the story of Chanukah by candlelight using her hands’ shadows as the storytelling tools. Set up an overhead projector in your classroom and encourage the children to experiment with shadows. Use various types of “screens-” the wall, a sheet, butcher paper, etc…. You may also give children different sizes and strengths of flashlights. After children have made discoveries with the flashlights, place different colors of cellophane with the flashlights. See if children create their own Northern lights! See where the children’s excitement leads!

I admit I could barely focus on the narrative of Fran Manushkin’s Latkes and Applesauce: A Hanukkah Story, because the illustrations (by Robin Spowart) were so gorgeous that they grabbed my attention. See the first one below. Even showing a blizzard it using such soft tones and shapes that you can imagine (or not) how warm they are later, when depicting the family around candlelight. After I went through the whole book and admired every one of the paintings I went back and read the story. That is equally beautiful. It is about a poor family, who barely has enough to eat and cannot get out procuring more food, because of the snowstorm. But their generosity extends to a stray cat and dog wondering in to their house. Their good deeds and hearts are rewarded by the end, of course. Suggested age group is 4-8 year olds.

The author explains how she wrote this book on her home page in these words:

Years ago, I came upon a wonderful essay by Cynthia Ozick about the importance of the holiday of Hanukkah. Her excitement inspired me to try writing about the holiday too. Until then, I’d never written any story about Jewish life; I was too intimidated. I had very little Jewish education as a girl, and I thought I needed to be a sage with a long, white beard to contribute to our literature. Happily, doing research about the holiday and reading a lot of Yiddish stories calmed me down and gave me more confidence. I was particularly fascinated by the rabbinic injunction that on Hanukkah we must not mourn or fast. This is what gave me the Judaic theme of the story; my love for cats and dogs and latkes helped me do the rest! In writing LATKES AND APPLESAUCE I discovered my Jewish “voice” for the first time. It is highly influenced by Sholem Aleichem, whose stories I treasure. The character of Mr. Menashe was inspired by a tailor named Shmuel, who appears in one of my favorite books, NUMBER OUR DAYS, by Barbara Meyerhoff.

This Sunday I, Gabor, won’t be in the library. If you come in (and please do), you will have the pleasure of meeting by Susan Miller or later Susanne Batzdorff. Meanwhile I will be at the annual conference of the California Library Association in San Jose. I hope to bring back new ideas, inspiration, contacts and energy for the library.

Louis D. Brandeis was born 152 years ago today, on November 13, 1856. Here is his very short biography from the “This day … in Jewish history” blog,

Southern born, Harvard educated; Brandeis pursued a successful legal career as a champion of the underdog. He was an ally and confidant of President Woodrow Wilson. Wilson appointed Brandeis to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1916. This was a milestone in American history and Jewish history. Brandeis was the first Jew named to the high court. He was also the first of whole group of minorities who would eventually take their place on the court including African-American and women. The Brandeis nomination was contested by anti-Semites and the American business community. Brandeis served on the bench until 1939. Brandeis was also a committed Zionist and a leader of the movement in the United States. He passed away in 1941.

For further reading I would like to refer to the two books we have on this man pivotal to American Jewry’s history.

Alfred Lief wrote “Brandeis; the personal history of an American ideal” in 1936, five years before Brandeis passed away. Its 500 pages contain these chapters:

Before the curtain
The beginnings of a lawyer
Conservatism and first doubts
Public works
The tactics of attack
His “greatest achievement ”
Enemies are born, not made
Free to fight the new haven
The tilt with Taft
A national figure in 1910
Girding against the trusts
Politics: La Follette and Wilson
Preoccupations of a publicist
Washington and the house of Morgan
Liberal or conservative
Zionism … and new work
The nomination fight (1)
The nomination fight (2)
First years on the bench
The states, the nation, and depression
Experiments toward the future

Philippa Strum’s “Louis D. Brandeis, justice for the people” was published in 1984. The publisher, Harvard University Press, described the book with these words,

This lively account of Brandeis’s life and legacy, based on ten years of research in sources not available to previous biographers, reveals much that is new and gives fuller context to personal and historical events. The most significant revelations have to do with his intellectual development. That Brandeis opposed political and economic “bigness” and excessive concentration of wealth is well known. What was not known prior to Strum’s research is how far Brandeis carried his beliefs, becoming committed to the goals of worker participation–the sharing of profits and decision making by workers in “manageable”-sized firms. So it happened that the man who was sometimes dismissed as an outmoded horse-and-buggy liberal championed a cause too radical even for the New Deal braintrusters who were quick to follow his advice in other areas

Strum charts Brandeis’s development as a kind of industrial-era Jeffersonian deeply influenced by the classical ideals of Periclean Athens. She shows that this was the source not only of his vision of a democracy based on a human-scaled polis, but also of his sudden emergence, in his late fifties, as the leading American Zionist: he had come to regard Palestine as the locus of a new Athens. And later, on the Supreme Court, this Athenian conception of human potential took justice Brandeis beyond even Justice Holmes in the determined use of judicial power to protect civil liberties and democracy in an industrialized society.

The wackiest Hanukkah story I read is Brian P. Cleary’s Eight Wild Nights: A Family Hanukkah Tale. The rhymes it is written in, the characters depicted both in words and pictures and the story are all off-beat in a good way. On every page it introduces one or more new family members (in one case 17) as they enter the host family’s little world. They are all loud and all sorts of wild, but children appropriate, events are happening. Don’t despair though, in the midst of the great cavalcade the usual Hanukkah staples are eaten, games are played, ceremonies observed. By the end you are also treated to a genuine miracle that anyone can appreciate.

Without David Udovic’s witty illustrations the book would be less than half the fun. They cover the whole pages and the 4-6 lines of text on each page are inserted into the pictures. This and the chaotic nature of the story make the book appealing beyond the 4-8 year olds it is created for

The Jewish Film Festival’s next film, titled Souvenirs will be showing today and tomorrow. See details below

The winner of the Israeli Academy Award for Best Documentary, Souvenirs is a charming, funny and touching father-son journey in search of the ’souvenirs’ the father may have left with two Dutch women during his service in the Jewish Brigade while stationed in Amsterdam during World War II. With humor and compassion, Souvenirs exposes a complex father-son relationship and raises universal questions about the myth of bravery and the gap between memory and historical truth. 75 minutes, in Hebrew with English subtitles.
Wed., Nov. 12, 7:15 p.m., Boulevard Cinemas, Petaluma
Thu., November 13, 1:00 p.m. & 7:15 p.m., Rialto Cinemas Lakeside, Santa Rosa

Speaking of The Netherlands, if you ever plan to visit I recommend to check out A guide to Jewish Amsterdam by Jan Stoutenbeek and Paul Vigieveno. Its 156 pages are filled with hundreds of pictures and informative text about its history, architecture, language, customs… The book covers nine walks in the city and two excursions outside of it. The index and series of maps will help you navigate through Amsterdam. I wish I had this book when I visited the city 2 years ago. I only managed to the Frank house (as in Anne Frank) and the synagogue complex of the High German community, containing the smaller Grote Shul and the larger Neie Shul. Now I know that there is so much more in the city’s Jewish history to visit. Maybe next time.

The Association of Jewish Libraries, of which our library is a proud and accredited member of, launched a podcast series. Right now these six podcasts are available from the site.

• Bergson, Steve: From Tintin to Migdal David: Representations of Israel and Israelis in Comic Books, Comic Strips, and Graphic Novels
• Frankel, Ellen: How the People of the Book Became the People of the Book Business: A History of Jewish Publishing in America
• Kampen, John: The Changing Face of the Study of the Qumran Texts
• Levitin, Sonia, Carol Matas & Margo Rabbl: Real Life, Real Teens: Jewish Literature for Life’s Challenges
• RAS Awards Committee: The 2007 Reference, Bibliography & Body-of-Work Awards
• Sydney Taylor Award Committees: The 2008 Sydney Taylor Book Award & Manuscript Award

I hope many of our patrons will listen to these and future recordings. Below is the program’s official press release:

ASSOCIATION OF JEWISH LIBRARIES LAUNCHES PODCAST
For more info, contact: Heidi Estrin, AJL PR Chair heidi@cbiboca.org
For immediate release–November, 2008

Author talks, lectures on Jewish literature, panel discussions, and workshops are among the offerings of the newly launched Association of Jewish Libraries Podcast. Available at www.jewishlibraries.org/podcast, the program provides audio that enhances and enriches the listener’s appreciation of Jewish book culture.

The podcast will include material recorded at the Association of Jewish Libraries annual convention, as well as recordings of Jewish literary events across North America. A wide range of topics will be covered, from the academic to the hands-on, from children’s literature to technology.
“Jews are book lovers, and Jewish librarians even more so,” says Susan Dubin, President of the Association of Jewish Libraries. “The AJL Podcast gives us a way to share our enthusiasm with others, without geographical or scheduling restrictions. Now everyone can learn and enjoy!”

New podcast episodes will be posted every few weeks. Listeners can hear the show online at www.jewishlibraries.org/podcast, subscribe via iTunes or other feed readers (using the feed http://feeds.feedburner.com/ajlpodcast), receive episodes by email via FeedBlitz, or listen by phone at (651) 925-2538.
To celebrate the launch of the podcast, AJL is offering a Jewish book give-away. Forward this press release or post its contents on a blog or web page to be entered into a drawing for five Jewish interest books from Hachette Book Group. Be sure to CC jewishlibraries@gmail.com on any forwarded messages or to send a message about any posts to that same address. Complete contest rules and information about the give-away titles can be seen at jewishlibraries.org/podcast - click on the Contest page in the sidebar. Deadline for entry is December 12, 2008.

Yesterday with the help of Kyle Marsh (Thank you!) and his new(ish) truck (pictured below) we brought over the new shelves from Bradley video store to the library. After I cleaned it thoroughly I installed it in the library (see the second picture.) I still may rearrange its content, but for now you can see that on its top we have the new arrival of fiction and non-fiction books, on the top shelf we have our DVDs and the others shelves host all of our VHS tapes. Finally they can be all together, displayed in a way that allows easy browsing of all the titles.