Celia Gurevitch Jewish Community Library

The library just produced its first bookmark using the images of painted tiles of one of our volunteers, Susan Miller. You can see the front and back design below, pick up printed copies in the library or at the Sonoma County Book Festival on September 20, or print your own using this PDF file.

You might have heard two weeks ago that the Dead Sea Scrolls finally will be more accessible, because it will be put on the internet. That in itself is great news, considering the decades of politics behind the project governing who had access to which part. However there is no set date for the project, so I do not know when will you are I be able to browse through the pages, ahem scrolls, online. The more important news is the precursor of the publication: the new imaging project the Israel Antiquities Authority started. (You can read the IAA’s announcement itself or CNN’s summary. ) The essence of the project is that using the most modern infrared photography techniques scientists hope to reveal all the hidden text of the scrolls and make it more visible and accessible.

If you cannot wait for the results of the above the library already has ten books analyzing and commenting on the Dead Sea Scrolls. Here is the quick list of what we have, hoping that either the titles or the authors’ name will intrigue you enough to check them out:

• Allegro, John. Mystery of the Dead Sea Scrolls revealed. New York: Gramercy pub. co, [1964].
• Baigent, Michael and Leigh, Richard, jt. auth. The Dead Sea Scrolls deception. New York: Summit, [1991].
• Burrows, Millar. The Dead Sea Scrolls. NY: Viking, [1955].
• Eisenman, Robert H and Wise, Michael, jt. auth. The Dead Sea Scrolls uncovered. Shaftesbury, Dorset: Element, [1992].
• Pfeiffer, Charles F. The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible. New York: Weathervane books, [1969].
• Rabin, Chaim. Qumran studies. New York: Schocken, [1957].
• Schonfield, Hugh J. Secrets of the Dead Sea Scrolls. New York: Yoseloff, [1957].
• Shanks, Hershel, ed. Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls : A reader from the Biblical Archaeology Review. NY: Random house, [1992].
• Wilson, Edmund. Israel and the Dead Sea Scrolls. New York: Farrar, [1978].
• Yadin, Yigael. The message of the scrolls. New York: Grosset, [1962].

In case you missed Susanne Batzdorff’s announcement in the Shofar.

Once again we invite you to participate in a book discussion series that has attracted many folks who love books that stretch your mind and challenge your imagination and to discuss them with like-minded people. We meet at Congregation Beth Ami on the first Wednesday of each month at 10 a.m. beginning in November. Here is our schedule. However, the order in which these titles will be read may change.
2008
November 5 Obama, Barak • Dreams of my Father
December 3 Shalev, Meir • A Pigeon and a Boy (from JSF)
2009
January 7 Yellin, Tamar • The Genizah of the House of Shepher
February 4 Scliar, Moacur • A Centaur in the Garden (from JSF)
March 4 Anton, Maggie • Rashi’s Daughters, Bk 1: Yocheved
April 1 Mortenson, Greg • Three Cups of Tea
May 6 Dische, Irene • Empress of Weehawken (from JSF)
June 3 Sofer, Dalia • The Septembers of Shiraz (from JSF)
July 1 Brooks, Geraldine • The People of the Book

We will receive the 4 titles with the note (from JSF) on loan from the Jewish Library of S.F.

The remaining 5 can be purchased at a 25% discount. Please return the form from page 12 of the Shofar to register for the coming season by no later than October 1 and indicate the titles you wish to purchase. Please include payment of $ 13.00 per title you wish to purchase.

36 years ago, on September 5, 1972 Israeli athletes, who were in Munich for the Olympic games were taken hostage by members of the Black September group. BY the end of the ensuing drama 11 Israelis were killed. Israel retaliated with several operations. These are the center of the 2005 film titled Munich, directed by Steven Spielberg. The library purchased a copy of the 2 hour and 44 minutes long, R-rated movie. Here is the trailer, so you could decide to check it out or not. I hope for the former.

As you know Simcha Sunday is coming up on Sunday, October 26. (If you don’t know about it, learn more at the JCC’s site.) The library will have its own table where we will have materials (bibliographies, bookmarks, flyers…) to take home. We are also planning to sell used books benefiting the library. For this latter cause we would like to ask you to donate your unwanted Judaica books. It can be any book related to any aspect of Judaism, but we do take only books that are in “sellable” condition. A good measure for this is whether you would buy the book. If it is too degraded, wrinkled, dirty… then we would respectfully decline of taking them. But we welcome any books that are in “acceptable” condition. Please drop the books of at the library during our hours (Monday-Thursday 2-6PM, Sunday 9-12.30)

Thank you in advance.

The religious school will start this Sunday, September 7. Therefore the library will also switch to its regular schedule at the same time. From Sunday on we will be open:
Monday – Thursday: 2 PM – 6 PM
Sunday:                   9 AM – 12.30 PM

Al Batzdorff sent me a link a few days ago to an amazing site: panoplanet.net/synagogues (Click on each synagogue to open it to the full screen. Click and move cursor around to get panoramic view. Right-click and move cursor to go up and down. )

It reminded me of the book the Batzdorffs donated to the library a few months ago. It is titled “The architecture of the European synagogue,” by Rachel Wischnitzer. The website above is a true multimedia experience on the diversity of the synagogues around the world. The book is a different kind of experience with its black and white blueprints, drawings and photographs (See one below from Budapest). But the book also gives you a lot of background information in hundreds of synagogues in the Old World. I for one enjoy the touch, look-and-feel, end smell of old books, like this one that was published 44 years ago. I think most of you would also appreciate what you can learn about not just architecture, but the history of European Jewry from this book.

As a person, whose relatives passed in front of Mengele in a concentration camp I have a hard time reading this article, in which a retired Israeli Mossad officer in his eighties, recounts how they had a chance to capture Mengele, but opted not to do so. On one hand, I can understand his reasoning that it would have jeopardized taking Adolf Eichmann, who was personally responsible for the execution of the “final solution”. On the other hand, my emotional side cannot get over the fact that there was a chance to capture, set trial for and punish Mengele, the infamous, sadist “doctor.” I cannot imagine appropriate punishment for him, but I still think he should not have let go.

To learn more about Mengele’s antics I recommend today 80629: A Mengele experiment by Gene Church. There are two other reasons for recommending this book. First it is well written. Second , it is triumphant.

This is the true story of Jack Oran, who survived the inhuman experimental surgeries of Dr. Josef Mengele, Auschwitz’ infamous Doctor of Death. It was a cold December morning in 1942 when Jack, then known a Yakoff Skurnik, and his family were loaded onto a “resettlement train,” in Mlawa, Poland. When the train stopped, Jack found himself at Auschwitz. For an interminable time, he survived the horrors of the camp. Using his wits, cunning, and inordinate will to live, he escaped from the Nazis during the Auschwitz death march in which the Nazis marched 58,000 prisoners from the camp before its liberation by the Russians on January 27, 1945. Overcoming incredible odds, Jack built himself a new life filled with success and accomplishment. This is the story of a man who is living proof that with persistence, determination, and belief in oneself, all things are possible.

We are inviting every child and parent at the religious school, students at the Sunday morning adult classes, members of the synagogues and interested members of the public once a month for breakfast. One the following days from 8.45 till 10:30 AM we will have bagels, shmears and juices at the library. We will have a chance to talk about our new books, news in the world of Jewish books or any other topics you are interested in.
Please join us for breakfast on

September 21
November 2
January 25
February 22
March 29
April 26
May 17

I read today (via BB) that

Researchers have found evidence of a 3,000 year old beekeeping operation in northern Israel. The apiary, consisting of somewhere between 75 and 200 beehives, contains the oldest human-made beehives ever found. (Hebrew University archaeologist Amihai) Mazar’s team has so far uncovered 25 cylindrical containers for bees in a structure that is centrally located in the ancient city at Tel Rehov. High brick walls surrounded the apiary. Beehives sat in three parallel rows, each containing at least three tiers. Each beehive measured 80 centimeters long and about 40 centimeters wide. (See picture)

I checked our collection and did not find any books on honey or beekeeping. We have a number of books though with either or both of these words in their title. From this list I selected A drizzle of honey: The lives and recipes of Spain’s secret Jews, by David Gitlitz, to introduce. The book won the National Jewish Book Award, and has gorgeous typography, albeit the pictures are all drawings and not photographs. Nevertheless, the effect of paging through the book is still mouthwatering. Recipes include salads and vegetables, eggs, fish, fowl, beef, lamb and goat, sausages, meat and fish pies, breads, desserts and snacks, and holiday foods.

I was curious to find whether the first part of the title refers to a specific quote or just a cooking expression. Fortunately Amazon.com allowed me to search the entire text of the book. I found three recipes where honey needs to be drizzled, but nothing else. This means that the introductory chapters, that include pages about Jews and “conversos”, Sephardic cuisine and the inquisitions, and eating in Late Medieval Iberia did not refer to the title phrase. The first part of the book closes with a tractate on how to cook medieval in a modern kitchen.

I am afraid I cannot finish this review, I have to go and find something to eat fast…