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Archive for the ‘Books’ Category.
28th April 2010, 03:00 pm
Last time I visited Budapest, my home town, I learned that there is an old velodrome, stadium for bicycle races, just a few blocks from the bus stop where I got off from the bus when I went to high school. I never knew of its existence. It opened I 1896, but has been unused for decades. (Now it functions again.) Similarly I didn’t know anything about the Velodrome d’Hiver in Paris. Tatiana de Rosnay‘s book “Sarah’s Key” brought its dark historical legacy to the foreground. Now the building would stand as a memorial to the French Jewry and as a reminder of how French policeman-not German invaders-evacuted Jews and sent them to deathcamps. But the building no longer exists.
A movie about this episode of the Holocaust premiered in France last month, titled La Rafle (The Roundup) Although that movie is based on a different book, but I thought you might enjoy its trailer:
 Rosnay’s book initially runs on two threads, but they meet in the book’s middle. In our discussion group some found the two thread approach confusing, others enjoyed the intermixing of the two eras, stories. One thread was about an America journalist who lives in Paris with her French husband and pre-teen daughter. She digs herself into the story of the roundup of 28,000 Jews on July 16, 1942. Many of those who were rounded up were stationed in inhuman condition in the aforementioned velodrome for eight days and many of them were women and children. Vast majority of them were killed in Auschwitz after they stopped over in an internment camp Drancy. The other leg of the story follows one such family, more specifically Sarah, the daughter. The journalist gets obsessed with her fate and eventually tracks down that she survived the Shoah. Telling more of the story would be cheating you out of the joy or learning for yourself what happened to the protagonist and what was the secret of the key. I cannot guarantee you though that it will be a joyous discovery though.
After the two threads met in the middle the book flattened. The excitement of the anticipation of what’s going to happen was mostly gone for me, although I faithfully read the book till the end. The personal dramas covered in the second half didn’t compare to the historic ones in the first. The ending was particularly disappointing for some in our group. Nevertheless the book was educational for all us, uncovering a forgotten part of the Shoah.
The book @ Amazon.com.
31st March 2010, 06:00 pm
 After returning home from last night’s Seder at the synagogue I felt inspired to sit down and read a book about what happens after a miraculous escape. Margarita Engle‘s “Tropical Secrets: Holocaust Refugees in Cuba” provided me with that kind of narrative and more. It even had a Pesach reference on page 99 that talked to me:
I was taught that there are four
kinds of people in the world –
wise, wicked, simple,
and those who do not yet know
how to ask questions
I was taught that questions
are just as important as answers
I was a child when I learned these things,
Now I am old, but I still know
that life’s questions
outnumber life’s answers.
As you can guess from the subtitle of the book it follows the fears and quest of a new life of a Holocaust refugee. Daniel was barely bar-mitzvah-ed in 1939 when his parents purchased a ticket (using up all their money) for ship to New York. But the ship was not allowed to port in Canada or in New York, so it ended up in Cuba. There Daniel befriended a local girl of the same age, Paloma and an older Jewish man, who himself escaped from pogrom in Ukraine years ago. The book centers about their problems, perspectives and mutual support for each other.
It is made up of mostly one page long poems, most of them are internal monologues. The lines of the poems are short and the rhymes are varying. This combination makes the whole book with its staccato rhythm enjoyable. As you are reading the book tell your eyes to not to skip the very first line of the pages, which are differently typeset. That’s where we learn whose voice we read on the particular page, thus it is an important, integral part of the book.
The personal histories of these three characters reflect a part of history that most people didn’t know about: how successful the Third Reich’s spies, whom they sent to Cuba to incite anti-semitic feelings, were. How only the shock of Pearl Harbor turned the country against the Nazis. Another tragic tidbit of history of the island was how in their neophyte zeal they turned against Germany to such an extent that they had put every Germans, who were not Jews, onto a camp on a remote island. The book shows one fictional couple’s story, who have been married for 60 years, but as one of them was not Jewish they would have been separated by this short-lived law.
The book’s target audience is teenagers and it won the 2010 Sydney Taylor Book Award for the teen category. However everybody would enjoy it who is interested in history, life, big questions and enjoys poetry. I purchased it for our library with the hope that many of us will pick it up. I read it in an hour, but thought about it all day afterward. It is a well-crafted work in a nice presentation.
The book @ Amazon.com
25th March 2010, 04:00 pm
 We recently added aslim short story collection to our library. One of the many Jonathan Tel‘s talents is that he can use different voices. Every single one of the 17 short stories, none of them longer than ten pages, in “Arafat’s Elephant” is written from a different perspectives and covers a different area of life than then others. I have to admit I haven’t been reading many short stories recently for two reasons. One of them was, because coming from a single author the stories often were to similar to each other. This book proved that they don’t have to be. The other reason for me not reading much short fiction was that I want to avoid disappointment. If I like a character or a story I want to enjoy them for the length of a book. I was afraid that short stories would rob me from this satisfaction. (And if I don’t like them, than why bother?).
Tel’s stories however were rich enough not necessarily wanting more. They all told an interesting story AND they had something to think about too. I will list below all the stories with a short summary. I will not share the ending or the secret in them, so I would not fully spoil your appetite for this book. But I will put down in a few words what I think the worthy idea was in them. If you think it might ruin enjoying the book for you stop reading now.
- A story about a bomb – about a story written from the perspective of a suicide bomber – question of responsibility in literature
- Ibrahim Kuttan is innocent – about a Jewish boy who pretends to be an Arab to avoid the draft – a question of identity
- Beautiful, strong, and modest – a young orthodox woman walks to the first date with her future, arranged husband – the definition of shame
- I may be a ghost but I’m not a slut – a woman wants a paramedic sitting in a cafe to deliver her suicide note – recognition of desperation
- Alte zakhen – a woman attends a Saturday afternoon ball in a hotel in Jerusalem in June 1948 – looks can be deceiving
- Her hero – a woman travels around the world to find the man she served with in the army and who is supposed to be dead – the idea of a hero lives in us and not outside
- Hatikvah – two Jewish youth from different part of the world meet in Israel but then their paths diverge – how the national anthem is a connection in world Jewry
- Mr. Fig and Mr. Pinapple – a man regularly buys fruits from a grocer and has a female shopping buddy – innocence is in the eye of the beholder
- Love and coffee – tracking down the woman who works in the factory that supplies coffee for the army, because she puts short poems in the coffee boxes – the world’s response to you depends on how you approach the world
- The chair at the edge of the desert – a man takes care of two old women, the only people left at an abandoned kibbutz – people’s motivations are mysterious and ever changing
- Shabah – a man working at a warehouse that gives chairs to new immigrants tells the story of how a torturer buys a chair – sometimes a chair is more than a chair
- The camel-hair-coat – two guys who are in the army reserve are called back for duty soon after one of them became and internet millionaire – easy come, easy go
- Spleen; or, the goy’s tale – an orthodox man buys some treif (non-kosher) meet when he learns that according to halacha (Jewish religious law) he is not Jewish – friendships can be found at unorthodox places
- Did Moshe Dayan have a galls eye? – a treatise made up mostly of testimonies about the existence, nature, color and other attributes of the glass eye that might have been behind Dayan’s eye-patch – the authority of some sources is questionable
- Shaking hands with Theodor Herzl – Herzel stays with a family in Israel and every member of the family has an agenda with him – famous people can have private life too
- A tooth for a tooth – dentist tells the story while treating a patient on how and why he extracted the healthy teeth of a Moroccan Jew – strict interpretation of biblical commandments does not always coincide with everybody’s common sense
- Arafat’s elephant – a wealthy Palestinian tells the story of how his ancestors took care of the Sultan’s elephant – the futility of self-sacrifice
I enjoyed the variety of these stories. These little nuggets didn’t paint a comprehensive picture of life in Israel, but they sure covered enough territory and lifestyles to get a sense of it.
The book at Amazon.com
23rd March 2010, 09:00 am
 A few months ago our books discussion group read Paul Auster‘s “The Brooklyn Follies”. It has a photo of Brooklyn street corner, where every person is looking to the side, nobody facing the photographer/reader or even each other. There is one exception, the central figure, who looks like he could be the central character of the novel itself too. He is looking down into a plastic bag, surveying its content.
On one hand this scene depicts quite well what’s happening in the book, despite that the people on the cover do not directly correspond to the people between the covers. But for the most part it seems that they pass each other without really caring or even noting. The book is a rollercoaster ride, where so many things are happening to so may people, that you may get dizzy. On the other hand if you think that the main character is looking for depths you would be mistaken. The shopping bag is more of a symbol that the author went to the writers’ supermarket and bought a lot of techniques, characters and trick and through them together in the attempt of trying to make a single book. While I enjoyed the ride, but won’t remember much o iit later as there is not much to remember beyond the events.
However that maybe the point of the book. On page 158 he writes, “Why do I linger over these trivial details? Because the truth of the story lies in the details, and I have no choice but to tell the story exactly as it happened.” It seems that Auster’s intention is to comply with post-modernist ideals and grab the surface of events before they disappear. Then on page 303 we found these lines,
“Most lives vanish. A person dies and little by little all traces of that life disappear… My idea was this: to form a company that would publish books about the forgotten ones, to rescue the stories and facts and documents before they disappeared—and shape them into a continuous narrative, the narrative of life.”
I love the idea and would love to be involved in such a process. (For example at the book club where we discussed the book we remembered and read the obituary of a former book club member, whose life covered a multitude of countries, languages and eras. The little I know about her makes me think that her life story would have been fascinating to read.) The problem is that Auster’s novel is not a real life story but a segment of his imagination. I haven’t read any of this other books, but I’ve been told this fast-paced novel full of comic elements is not his usual style. Maybe he should return to his more solemn prose.
P.s. A quick summary of the story: Nathan Glass, a life-insurance salesman, retires to Brooklyn after he divorced and got terminal cancer. There he encounters Tom Wood, his lost cousin, who works in a used books tore, owned by a(n ex-?)criminal who got out of prison for forgery. Nathan gets entangled with with characters of his neighborhood and his family members in other parts of the country, this his idea of dying peacefully gets dissolved in the lives of others. As a result he gets a new life through the lives of others and eventually of his own.
18th March 2010, 09:00 am
 Isaacs, Ron. Have a Good Laugh: Jokes for the Jewish Soul. Illus. by Franklin Feldman. Jersey City , NJ : Ktav, 2009. 185 p. Paperbound. (ISBN-978-1602801301).
In seven chapters the author groups jokes by subject: Israel , Theology and God, Family, Bible, Rabbis, Humor from Chelm, and last but longest, Potpourri of Jewish humor. Though many of the jokes are well-worn and familiar to older readers, there is always a new generation to entertain and surprise. When you sit in your armchair all by yourself and read funny stories, they may not seem so funny, but if you are a good story-teller, you may add some of these to your repertoire and use them at an appropriate moment in a social setting or to enliven an otherwise serious speech. Illustrations are few but inject sparkle into this volume.
Recommended for collections in need of more anthologies of jokes.
Susanne M. Batzdorff, Celia Gurevitch Jewish Community Library, Congregation Beth Ami, Santa Rosa , CA .
14th March 2010, 09:00 am
 Kaplan-Mayer, Gabrielle. The Creative Jewish Wedding Book. 2d ed.; a Hands-on Guide to New and Old Traditions, Ceremonies & Celebrations. Woodstock , VT : Jewish Lights,
2009. paperbound. 261p., illus. $19.99 (ISBN-13: 978-1580233989).
This is a very complete overview of the many varieties of Jewish weddings, from orthodox to barely religious, from traditionally Jewish to marriage of two people belonging to different faiths, but also not shying away from marriage between two persons of the same sex. Traditions and customs are explained, writing your own texts for wedding rituals is encouraged. Altogether the author empowers the marrying couple to decide what style of wedding is best for them and their family situation. A step-by-step plan facilitates what could be a daunting process. Choice of foods, music, chuppah, decorations are discussed in detail, with many suggestions included. Besides the general index, the book includes a14 page list of websites and (how old-fashioned!) a 4 page bibliography for further study. This title should be a welcome addition to your collection as a very practical and up-to-date guide to this important life-cycle event.
Susanne M. Batzdorff, Celia Gurevitch Jewish Community Library, Congregation Beth Ami, Santa Rosa , CA
16th August 2009, 10:00 am
The book discussion’s group yearly planning meeting was held Thursday morning. 20 books were suggested for consideration to be included in the program. See the full list below, out of which nine will be selected to be read by the group.
8th March 2009, 10:00 am
You may not be aware of this, but today, March 8, is International Women’s Day. In former Communist countries it was a day officially dedicated to celebrate women. I still remember how to say the name of the holiday in Russian. The event was established in 1911 by Clara Zetkin, who married a Russian Jew.
Commemorating this holiday I would like to recommend a splendid title, “Four centuries of Jewish women’s spirituality” edited by Ellen Umansky and Dianne Ashton.
 Gathered in this volume are writings by North American, European, and Israeli Jewish women of different ages, sexual orientations, and educational and socioeconomic backgrounds. The voices of women from all four modern Jewry’s major religious movements – Orthodoxy, Conservativism, Reform and Reconstructionism – are represented here as well as those of women who identify their spirituality as Jewish, but are not part of a particular movement.
Divided into chronological sections, each with a historical introduction, the book mirrors the experience of Jewish women in society as well as their spiritual lives. Early sections include such personal documents as a woman’s letter to her husband, written in 1619 from the Prague ghetto, and a mother’s farewell letter to her son on the occasion of his emigration to America n 1880. Among the nineteenth-century selections are writings by prominent Jewish women such as Emma Lazarus and Rebecca Gratz, as well as lectures, minutes, and addresses that reflect the proliferation of local Jewish women’s organizations in the late 1800′s Zionism, educational reform, and women’s suffrage are among the social and political issues touched on their writings.
3rd March 2009, 10:00 am
Arthur Koestler passed away 26 years ago today. He is most famous for his “Darkness at noon“, a novel giving an inside view of Stalin’s purges of the 1930′s USSR. Koestler was Jewish, lived in a kibbutz in the 1920′s, but had an antagonistic relationship to his Judaism. In a Jewish context Koestler is mostly known more for “The thirteenth tribe; the Khazar empire and its heritage.” In it he advocated the idea that contemporary European Jewry are descendents of the Khazars. According to his theory the Khazars, people form the Caucasian region converted to Judaism en masse in the 8th century. More recent scholarship disputed his theory. Nevertheless we have the book and it is a very interesting read even if proven unfounded later.
25th February 2009, 05:29 pm
Rabbi Benjamin J. Segal is an author and as you can see from his brief bibliography at the end of this post has served the Jewish community in many functions throughout his life. His latest book, a translation and commentary on Shir haShirim, titled “The Song of Songs: A Woman in Love” will be published in March. Rabbi Segal will be with us the whole weekend as our scholar-in-residence.
- Friday evening he will give the drash titled “Must Israel Do T’Shuvah-Morality While Living with Terror” (Services start at 7:30 PM)
- Shabbat morning we will have “Lunch and Learn” session with him on the topic of “Politics and Peace–After the Election.” (Services start at 9:30 AM, potluck lunch around 12:30.)
- Sunday morning at 11 AM Rabbi Segal will give a book talk and we will have a chance to talk with him about the book.
His book can be purchased on Sunday or ordered on Saturday and picked up on Sunday.
The official description of his book from the publisher’s site (Gefen) reads:
 A love poem as old as the Bible, as contemporary as today…
One love poem–the Bible’s Song of Songs – continues to be read and to inspire after thousands of years. Using the best of biblical scholarship and sharp literary analysis, Benjamin Segal’s new translation and commentary reveal a picture of ideal love so appealing that it became for centuries the monotheistic model of human-divine attachment. Here one also finds a rare ancient effort to capture the female voice. Segal’s literary analysis captures the pulsating rhythm of the poem, and allows the reader to confront its ever-contemporary and challenging view of love.
Information on Rabbi Segal:
Benjamin J. Segal is the past President of Melitz, the Centers for Jewish and Zionist Education, in Jerusalem, and most recently has created within that context the major Jewish learning festival of Sukkot in Jerusalem, “Gateways.” A past President of the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, the academic and educational center of Masorti Judaism in Israel, he previously served for nineteen years as the Director of the Ramah Programs in Israel, He is former Chairman of the Masorti Movement in Israel and, for many years, served on the Expanded Executive of the World Zionist Organization. He is the chairman of the Executive of the Meimad Political Party in Israel, and serves on the boards of several non-profit enterprises.
In addition to authoring the book, Returning: The Land of Israel as Focus in Jewish History, he is the author of two study texts: Missionary at the Door: Our Uniqueness and Midrash: The Quest for a Contemporary Past. His translation and commentary, The Song of Songs: A Woman in Love, is now being published. He has also published various articles on biblical, educational and Zionist issues, including the (Hebrew) booklet, “A People and its Land,” an ideological statement on the Jews and Israel. Recent articles include: “The Liberated Woman of Valor”, “The Land of Israel in the Torah” (an appendix to the new Torah commentary, Etz Hayim), “Terms of Endearment: Toward a Clearer Horizon for Israeli Masorti Judaism,” “Psalm 126: Of Dreams, Prayer and Fulfillment” and “Anger and Old Age: An Appreciation of Psalm 90.” He was a member of the committee which wrote “Emet Ve’Emunah,” the ideological statement of the Conservative Movement.
Rabbi Segal was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, in 1969, and served as a pulpit rabbi in Congregation Kol Emeth, Palo Alto, California for four years. He made aliyah in 1973, and now lives in Jerusalem with his wife Judy and their family. Since moving to Jerusalem, Rabbi Segal has served as scholar in residence and visiting rabbi (high holidays) for numbers of congregations abroad. The Segals have five children and 11 grandchildren.
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Rosnay’s book initially runs on two threads, but they meet in the book’s middle. In our discussion group some found the two thread approach confusing, others enjoyed the intermixing of the two eras, stories. One thread was about an America journalist who lives in Paris with her French husband and pre-teen daughter. She digs herself into the story of the roundup of 28,000 Jews on July 16, 1942. Many of those who were rounded up were stationed in inhuman condition in the aforementioned velodrome for eight days and many of them were women and children. Vast majority of them were killed in Auschwitz after they stopped over in an internment camp Drancy. The other leg of the story follows one such family, more specifically Sarah, the daughter. The journalist gets obsessed with her fate and eventually tracks down that she survived the Shoah. Telling more of the story would be cheating you out of the joy or learning for yourself what happened to the protagonist and what was the secret of the key. I cannot guarantee you though that it will be a joyous discovery though.
