Celia Gurevitch Jewish Community Library

The Jewish Publication Society is one of the most prestigious publishing house in the US. The published hundreds of books throughout their 120 year old history, including their  deservedly famous TaNakh. They have a monthly email newsletter. In order to encourage people to sign up they are sending a $25 gift certificate to everybody who does so till the end of the month and stays on the list for three months. Their pitch: “Be the first to receive special discounts and sales offers on JPS books and gift certificates. Get news about our JPS Mitzvah Project and Legacy Libraries, new JPS titles, author events, and more.” There are no strings or other requirements so I encourage you to do so if you are interested in their offerings and can use $25.

Sign up here: http://www.jewishpub.org/contact/mail.php

Last week Henry Roth would have been 103 years old as he was born February 8, 1906. He is most known for his 1934 novel “Call it sleep.” He wrote many short stories, but only a few more novels, the first of those 50 years after his first novel. We also have one volume of his final tetralogy, “Mercy of a Rude Stream.”

“Call it sleep” has sold over 1million copies. Time magazine listed it as one of the 100 best English novels from 1923 to 2005. It is a masterpiece on immigration set in the Great Depression era. Instead of trying to entice you to read the novel with a short summary, let me just copy the opening lines. I hope it will show you the literary qualities of the work;

Standing before the kitchen sink and regarding the bright brass faucets that gleamed so far away, each with a bead of water at its nose, slowly swelling, falling, David again became aware that this world had been created without thought of him. He was thirsty, but the iron hip of the sink rested on legs tall almost as his own body, and by no stretch of arm, no leap, could he ever reach the distant tap. Where did the water come from that lurked so secretly in the curve of the brass? Where did it go, gurgling in the drain? What a strange world must be hidden behind the walls of a house! But he was thirsty.
“Mama!” he called, his voice rising above the hiss of sweeping in the frontroom. “Mama, I want a drink.”
The unseen broom stopped to listen. “I’ll be there in a moment,” his mother answered. A chair squealed on its castors; a window chuckled down; his mother’s approaching tread.

Betty Friedan passed away three years, on February 4, 2006 on her 85th birthday. To understand her role in the feminist movement I recommend Justine Blau‘s biography of eponymous title, written for young adults. The 100 page book contains many black and white pictures and covers Friedan’s life in 8 logical and chronological chapters. Friedan as the author of The Feminine Mystique and founder of NOW was the most influential feminist in the US. The last lines of the book sums up her significance:

Friedan has already taught millions of women–and men–to understand the ideas that constrained them and thus has helped them to change themselves, as well as the laws and attitudes of America, so that women now are closer than ever to living in full equality with men. In doing so, she has fundamentally altered the course of life in America. Throughout her career she has moved from analyzing her personal experience as a woman and as an aging American to thinking, writing, and teaching about larger public issues that affect all women and the aged.

She and her work deserves to be remembered. Read the book and be awed how much has changed thanks to her efforts.

Yesterday was Martin Buber‘s birthday. He was born February 8, 1878 and became undoubtedly one of the most influential 20th century Jewish thinker, theologian, author educator. Before listing the 20 books we have written or edited by him (and the 9 books about him.) Let me quote from the introduction of Pamela Vermer‘s short biography of Buber:

He himself emphatically refused to accept that he was a philosopher at all… He similarly rejected the suggestion that he was a theologian… Was he a mystic? Many think so. He undeniably passed through a phase in which mysticism was deeply attractive to him… Another question which may reasonably be asked is whether Buber was basically a teacher. This would seem difficult to contradict. Yet he wished to make sure that his role was interpreted as that of a guide rather than an instructor. Was Buber then a biblical scholar? … Buber aimed primarily at an existential understanding of the text, and thought cold critical methods by themselves to be inadequate for such a task. … At least there can be no doubt that Buber was a Zionist. Can he have been a Hasid?

As you can see from the short excerpt above he was a complex character. But beyond reading about him, let me recommend his books themselves.

• A believing humanism: My testament, 1902-1965
• Between man and man
• Eclipse of God
• For the sake of Heaven
• Good and evil
• Hasidism and modern man
• I and thou
• Israel and the world; essays in a time of crisis
• The knowledge of man
• The legend of the Baal Shem (We have it as a book and as an audio tape.)
• Moses: The relevation and the covenant
• On Judaism
• On the Bible
• Origin and meaning of Hasidism
• Paths in Utopia
• The prophetic faith
• Tales of the Hasidim
• Ten rungs
• Two types of faith
• The way of response

Our books of/about Buber

• Vermes: Buber
• Brown: Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Buber and Barth
• Friedman: A dialogue with Hasidic tales; hallowing the everyday
• Friedman: Martin Buber and the eternal
• Friedman: Martin Buber; the life of dialogue
• Herberg: The writings of Martin Buber
• Hodes: Martin Buber, an intimate portrait
• Rothschild: Jewish perspectives on Christianity
• Schaeder: The Hebrew humanism of Martin Buber

Tomorrow is Tu B’shvat. Many of you will celebrate in ways using or eating fruits and nuts. If you have children I would like to recommend a cookbook for them that has four recipes specifically related to this holiday. “The animated children’s kosher holiday cookbook” is done in the same style as the other books in the “animated” series, meaning that some of the images are photos claymation scenes. In this book the characters from the other books of the series return on the side cooking for all major and some minor Jewish holidays. For Tu B’shvat you, and your children can make granola treats, date delight, “date a nut” and fruity jello. The recipes are simple and fun for all.

Greg Mortenson, the author of Three Cups of Tea, the book our discussion group will talk about in April, will be speaking at Marin Civic Auditorium on Thursday, February 19 at 8:00. There is a reception (a fundraiser for the Marin County Library Foundation) prior to his presentation. Tickets for the presentation are sold out, but there are some tickets available for the reception+presentation ($125 per person). If you’re interested, let me know and I can get you in touch with a board member of the foundation to get your ticket.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, morning at 10 AM we will gather again to discuss an interesting book. This time we will dissect Moacyr Scliar‘s “The Centaur in the Garden.” The book is listed by The National Yiddish Book Center as one of the 100 Greatest Works of Modern Jewish Literature. Instead of me trying to create a short review, let me quote the opening of an essay by Judith Bolton-Fasman.

Moacyr Scliar’s fabulist novel, The Centaur in the Garden , is an extended Midrash replete with biblical references and mystical allusions. The book is narrated by the droll Guedali Tartakovsky, a Jewish centaur whose Russian immigrant parents are the only Jews homesteading in Rio Grande de Sul, Brazil. The family arrives there under the sponsorship of a wealthy European Jew. But rather than settle into their new life, the Tartakovskys are more like the ten spies who come back from the Promised Land with reports of doom and gloom. They act like tourists – too tentative to assume ownership of the land and therefore setting themselves up as perennial outsiders.

I recommend the page I quoted above from the The National Yiddish Book Center, because it has additional resources related to the book such as an interview with the author and questions to discuss. Who knows we might touch upon them tomorrow. Come and join us even if you didn’t read the book.

One of my favorite holidays is Tu B’Shevat, and this year it falls on February 9. I like it because it inspires me out of my sedentary lifestyle and into nature, to enjoy and appreciate a taste of spring. On this day I surely have my recommended amount of daily fruit.

However, I also have an ambivalent relationship with this holiday. It is about celebrating trees and as a librarian I surround myself with fallen trees, in the form of books. I feel guilty because a large number of trees had to be cut down to create the books that fill our library. I console myself in two ways.

First, I hope that more trees are planted than the ones that were cut down. Israel is a leading force in this regard, their tree-planting programs were essential in turning the desert into a living and livable place. I also enjoy planting trees myself, but I admit not doing it as often as I wish or should!

Second, as there is nothing I can do for the trees that were already turned into the books in the library I want to make sure that their sacrifices were not in vain, but to try to interest you in reading these books. The more books you, dear readers, borrow and read the less guilty I have to feel. In this spirit let me recommend the four very different items we have on Tu B’Shevat itself.

Our 30-page picture book for toddlers and olders, titled Tu Bi-Sh’vot: The New Year’s Day for Trees, follows two children throughout their day of celebration at home with their family and in school with their classmates. We also offer two different Seders for the holiday to help you celebrate it. One of them–written by Appelman and Shapiro–is full of joyful illustrations and is geared for 8-11 year olds. The other, by Adam Fisher, is richer in content suitable for all ages. It contains more songs, blessings, stories, and poems for your pleasure.

Finally, if you really want to be engaged with Tu B’Shevat check out our thick (500 page long) anthology titled Trees, Earth, and Torah. Its three editors, Ari Elon, Naomi Mara Hyman and Arthur Waskow, did a superb job of selecting essays covering the holiday from every imaginable angle, including its growth in history, its roots in biblical and rabbinic Judaism, its connection to Kabbalah, Hasidism, Zionism and Israel and its development into eco-Judaism. The last third of the book has everything you would ever want to know on how to celebrate it and why.

Let me end now with the opening words of the introduction to Trees, Earth and Torah.

“I hope more than any other Jewish festival, Tu B’Shvat is the celebration of Becoming. There is no halakha, no legal structure, to define it. It springs wholly from the spiritual depth and growth of the Jewish people in relation with the One Who always beckons us to grow and in relation with the earth where all things grow.”