With a title like "People Love Dead Jews," one has to ask why. Dara Horn sure does deliver the goods and it's no wonder that her seminal book on the sWith a title like "People Love Dead Jews," one has to ask why. Dara Horn sure does deliver the goods and it's no wonder that her seminal book on the subject of loving dead Jews--believe me, there will be more--was winner of the National Jewish Book Award, a New York Times notable book of 2021, Publishers Weekly's Best Book of the Year, and on it goes. I was expecting the author to be a great comic or a master of the horror story genre. Actually, Dara Horn is both. And the sad truth is that the essays that set out her convincing argument that people love dead Jews is hard to refute. The essays here, which read like stand-alone articles from various sources of her journalistic and academic background, cover events both recents and a thousand years ago.
The point she brings home is that anti-semitism doesn't go away, because interestingly enough Jews, or let's say Torah-abiding Jews, are held up by society as moral standard bearers. And when in Horn's words we're "cast in the role of civilization's nagging mothers, loathed in life, and loved only once safely dead." That is the compact version of Horn's thesis for why anti-semitism doesn't go away. It morphs into ever more virulent and dysfunctional forms by the very people who are supposed to be protecting us in democratic, enlightened, or fill in the blank to any society that you would put on the better end of the bestial spectrum.
I couldn't put this book down, which is to say that Dara Horn weaves a great personal narrative into an extremely well-researched and well-visited world of hatred against Jews by folks who love of what we represent. One of the funniest chapters comes from China, reporting from the ground from Harbin, the chilly bastion of Jewish early 20th century life, which utterly depopulated, has been resurrected as a tourist attraction. The author makes her opinions on this and many equally bizarre subjects with a laugh-out loud knack for her digging deep into buried archives and revealing a version of world history unknown to most of us. She does this armed with an impressive bibliography and enough website links to keep us busy for the next two years.
I'm going to read People Love Dead Jews again to make sure I didn't miss anything. Although the author writes not once, but twice, that she wishes that her children will grow up to live in a world where they don't have to read such a book as this one. It's her gift for grasping irony, seeing humor in the cracks, and finding time to write a masterpiece of a book while raising her children that puts me in awe.
As a sought-after expert on the subject of Jewish-hatred, she has covered this topic in too many op-eds, to the point where she couldn't any longer. This book then, seems to be what I'm sure Dara Horn would want to be her last word on the subject. A theme that runs through Horn's argument and her reframing of history is a scarily simplistic truth: that most in society are afflicted with an inability to think for oneself.
Horn's way of dealing with the onslaught of antisemitic attacks is to take a deep-dive in Talmudic learning, which if this is any sign of a book to come, will be good news for all of us who could use a Talmudic reminder why its okay for we Jews to not just hold on proudly to our traditions. But to observe them. But to avail of the ability to think....more
What draws Jews to Israel, like the love-struck protagonists? Here we meet a married couple, David and Miri, longing to be parents from their home in What draws Jews to Israel, like the love-struck protagonists? Here we meet a married couple, David and Miri, longing to be parents from their home in Indianapolis, and Ariye and Arielle, a couple experiencing the pangs of high chemistry in early courtship— while desperately trying to refrain from going all the way with their unrequited passion. In the Messiah Chronicles, Rivkah Horowitz makes these two very different couples’ plights dovetail in a story as old as Torah itself that asks the question: where is the Messiah that is the bedrock of our beliefs? What if he were here and we didn’t even know it? The author takes us through this intriguing scenario on the streets of Jerusalem and begs us to think about the role of mass skepticism in the Messiah’s delayed arrival. At the same time, she takes us behind the scenes of life in Israel, from the joy and community of mouthwatering Shabbos meals, to ordinary college life on the Hebrew University campus, where looking good and fretting over love and attraction are intertwined with a real passion for Jewish ceremony, ritual and finding one’s tribe. This book is braided by memory, sensuality and especially the song, charisma and ecstatic frenzy whipped up by the thinly veiled eponymous Rabbi Shlomo Carlbach, presented here as Rabbi Yehuda. The Messiah Chronicles is a fascinating read for anyone who is curious to know about the striking shades of modern and traditional Orthodoxy that can ignite a relationship or end it — when one partner feels a yearning to stay in Israel while the other feels pulled by the practicalities of education and career to return to America. The author leaves us hanging, and I wanted to keep reading, as the stories of these charming two couples and their friends and families could go further in the sequel promised by Part 1” in the well-chosen title of this book....more
Akira Kitade spent his career working for the Japan Tourism Bureau and it was while he was clearing out his desk upon retirement that he came across aAkira Kitade spent his career working for the Japan Tourism Bureau and it was while he was clearing out his desk upon retirement that he came across a 75-year-old scrapbook by his former boss filled with photographs of Jews and non-Jews fleeing the Nazis during World War II. This scrapbook would change Kitade's life and many, many other unrecognized heroes in the Chiune Suighara "visas for life" story, the subject of books, movies, and an even an upcoming symphony. While much is known about the righteous deeds of Sugihara, who went against his superior's orders by issuing transit visas to desperate Jews from his post as Japan Consul in Lithuania at the onset of World War II, very little is known about the many other heroes that made it possible for Sugihara's transit visas to actually succeed in giving Holocaust refugees a temporary safe haven in Japan. Since 2004 Kitade has devoted himself to tracking down other diplomats and ordinary citizens, both Japanese and European Holocaust refugees, to piece together a story that is riveting, deeply moving, and multi-generational in its scope. The photographs of the survivors and Kitade's more recent meetings with them or with their offspring, are beautiful accompaniments to this fastidiously researched book, a service of the heart that took the author around the world in search of the faces and back stories attached to government stamps, telegrams and other official documents. This is a fast read that I couldn't put down and will be of interest to anyone interested in comprehending how many heroes were actually part of the Chiune Sugihara story. Clearly, this is a work in progress. There are more survivors and more heroes to track down, and if anyone can rise to the task, it's Akira Kitade. This is his second book in this pursuit. Kitade put himself in almost every photograph with the people he met in the course of researching this book. This might make some squirm, but given that he traveled the world on his own dime to track down people who had never told their stories before, fair enough. In a charming literary voice, Kitade makes it known that, without a doubt, this is now his story too....more
The life story of New York State Attorney General Robert Abrams is entertaining and high drama. It's not hard to imagine a Hollywood movie made from hThe life story of New York State Attorney General Robert Abrams is entertaining and high drama. It's not hard to imagine a Hollywood movie made from how he rewrote the job description in the Big Apple, with more than sixty counties in his jurisdiction. From humble beginnings as the son of Russian Jewish immigrants who ran their own luncheonette in the Bronx, he grew up in a lively household where it was the thing to debate politics and get even his grandmother involved in helping him run for political office. As a high-octane Bronx borough president, then NY State District Attorney, and ultimately NY Attorney General, Robert Abrams tells an inspirational story about how he juggled making underrepresented people's legal battles his battles. On a personal note, he learns to bring his workaholic lifestyle to a halt on Friday nights, bending toward his Orthodox Jewish wife's religious requests for his presence at the Shabat table when raised with mahjong as the Friday night religion. He made me laugh out loud at his description of what it was like to work tables in the big Jewish summer resorts in the Catskills, where fresh-squeezed orange juice came out of a can, and his job was to pour mounds of orange pits to make the juice look fresh and the customer into a total fool. Those planted juice pits just about summed up the life of political service ahead for him. Who was ultimately going to be the fool? Through dogged determination and by hiring the top legal minds of his times, Abrams fought back against political and corporate giants of his times and, more often than not, won cases that became banner newspaper headlines. The many complexities of trials he oversaw are detailed here, from protecting the underrepresented, women and their right to bodily autonomy, gay rights, and improved health and education for his Puerto Rican and African Americans, chief among them. His record for championing victims of corporate greed and toxic waste dumping of real estate fraud are graphically described in this account of the daily fight and slog to represent his enormously varied constituents some thirty years ago. Reading The Luckiest Guy in the World, I feel I've just gotten to know one of New York's most loved and influential politicians. Now that he has some luxury of time in his life to be more reflective, I hope Robert Abrams will write a sequel that parlays a life full of extraordinary experiences into advice and wisdom for generations of lawmakers to come....more
Elijah has to be one of the most intriguing mystical characters in Judaism, the likes of which most of us know through his delightful invisible appearElijah has to be one of the most intriguing mystical characters in Judaism, the likes of which most of us know through his delightful invisible appearance at the Passover seder table when a cup is set out for his arrival. In Eliezer Shore's fascinating collection of short stories, these encounters with Elijah are told from first-hand experiences and the author's own recollections. Until reading Meeting Elijah, I had no idea that the appearance of an anonymous man or woman, who is passing through life at just the right moment to perform a life-saving act and then quietly disappear into thin air, never to be seen again, was indeed none other than Elijah. Some may call this serendipity. Or in Israel where the author lives, hashgacha pratis. Divine Providence. Some stories in Meeting Elijah had such a great impact - especially during the Holocaust - that they had been passed down from generation to generation. The oldest among these stories dates back to the origin of Chassidism in the late 18th century when it was common knowledge that the founder, The Baal Shem Tov, was both the recipient and dispatcher of Elijah's blessings. Rabbi Shore includes stories or people in Israel, where the authors live, and who were saved from death in terrorist attacks through the appearance of Elijah at just the propitious moment to ward off death. There are less dramatic but equally implausible stories about people stranded on the sides of roads at just the right moment to be picked up by drivers who happen to be heading home after a long shift to exactly their destination. I found this collection to be a soothing way to end the day. Meeting Eliijah reminds us that however tough life may be, Elijah is waiting in the wings and on a prayer. ...more
Imagine agreeing to help a Holocaust survivor take a lifetime of notes and memories and turn them into a gripping memoir. Well, many have done that. BImagine agreeing to help a Holocaust survivor take a lifetime of notes and memories and turn them into a gripping memoir. Well, many have done that. But how many can actually say that they've fallen in love with their elderly protagonist? This is precisely what happened to Julie Gray and Gidon Lev, a charming couple with all the quirks and asymmetries that go along with their 30 year age gap. Yet instead of trying to eradicate or deny that gap, the two celebrate it in a memoir that defies simple categorization as a Holocaust survivor’s story. It’s that and a lot more. Their romance becomes the center of a story that leads to retracing the steps of Gidon’s life from Czechoslovakia, where he was born and imprisoned in a concentration camp when he was barely five years old. How he survives, how he loses most of his family and at the end of the war finds himself in the US, then Canada, before heading with tremendous excitement to be a kibbutznik in Israel gets to the heart of how this book was created—one memory at a time.
Julie goes beyond the call of duty of any biographer or memoir collaborator. She plays a deeply therapeutic role that comes across on every page of this book.
Gidon and Julie did plenty of traveling to create the scenes and lively dialogue for this book — back to Czechoslovakia, to the USA to retrace his younger life there, and to areas in the north of Israel where Gidon fought in the 1967 war and where he built a home and a large family with Susan, his beloved wife of 40 years. He was a widower until Julie appeared in his life to help him produce this book. I loved the raw honesty in this memoir, and I laughed in places at Gidon's antics and the roll-your-eyes way that Julie described them. But I also took in Julie's poignant message. As not only Gidon's biographer but his friend and “Loving Life Buddy,” she writes that she sometimes felt a loss of her own identity in order to do so.
In Japanese Bunraku puppetry, the puppeteers go on stage dressed in black. You can see them move around their puppets deftly bringing their art form to life. They are meant to be seen in the way a shadow is seen—a discrete presence. I think Julie has masterfully cast herself in a role akin to these Bunraku puppeteers. You can feel her presence on every page, but she remains discrete throughout, keeping her own life story to the shadows in order to throw a spotlight on Gidon Lev. It’s an incredible accomplishment and makes me want to know Julie Gray’s own story all the more....more
When Dr. Azriela Jankovic sat down to write the introduction to Beyond All Things, we lived in a world where Coronavirus had yet to be incubated and tWhen Dr. Azriela Jankovic sat down to write the introduction to Beyond All Things, we lived in a world where Coronavirus had yet to be incubated and the connectedness of all beings on earth was easy to pay lip service to and hard to put into practice. That makes the introduction to Beyond All Things all the more astonishing and timely as the world adjusts to breathing almost in fear of what we will pick up or spread next. "Visualize the air around you for a moment and notice how it flows inside of our lungs, throughout our body, and then cycles back out into the world." A few paragraphs later, she asks her readers to notice "this connectivity, imagine an invisible thread running through all of life, linking us in ways which we cannot physically sense. This thread is an invisible spiritual connection that flows around us. When we move, even in seemingly small ways, it moves."
Beyond all Things is a slim yet profound book of Torah comfort, perfect for turbulent times. Slim in the sense of modest and easy to read. But otherwise, Azriela Jankovic has condensed thousands of years of Torah wisdom and the wise sayings of its great leaders, rabbis and fearless women into personal vignettes, often touching, and comes from her own life as a seeker, a mother, a wife, an educator in service to the spiritual awakening of others.
In 50 insightful lessons, she gives us food for thought to digest in our upended post-Coronavirus social-distanced and, by default, much more reflective lives--not that any of these lessons will become irrelevant once this too passes. The evergreen wisdom is powered by Torah truths that provide comfort by those who lived and survived times much worse than this one. She tells the story of 92-year-old Dr. Edith Eva Eger, who survived Auschwitz because of her skill as a dancer, called upon to entertain the Nazi soldiers. "To be a victim is to be a prisoner of our mind. To be a victor, we can find meaning in suffering and transform that suffering into an opportunity to discover the power within us." For Eger, that power came from sharing her extra rations with the women dying of starvation around her. For us, what do we have to share in these strange times? Now more than ever, it's time to share wisdom and optimism, as Dr. Jankovic does here, and make it a daily practice. Beyond All Things reminds us how....more
**spoiler alert** Reading the true story of a Jewish Holocaust survivor doesn't get easier the more memoirs are published. In fact, I think it gets ha**spoiler alert** Reading the true story of a Jewish Holocaust survivor doesn't get easier the more memoirs are published. In fact, I think it gets harder. We expect more. It's not enough to relive Nazi atrocities and sigh in relief every time an angelic Righteous Gentile intervenes to save a life. We're at the stage now in World War II Holocaust literature where it's the children of the survivors whose turn it is to tell their stories. Which makes Getruda's Oath quite unusual. Michael Stolowitzky, the orphaned son of a wealthy Polish Jewish parents who both perished in the Holocaust, is alive and wanted to offer thanks to the woman who saved his life. Gertruda Babilinska is the Polish Catholic woman who takes it upon herself to save Michael. She had been nanny to him in pre-Nazi Warsaw, and remains a saint from start to finish. The little boy she saves and raises in Israel remains an adoring adoptive son from start to finish. The problem with Gertruda's Oath is that the characters are predictable from start to finish. The dialogue is out of sync here. Terrible things happen. Reactions are often missing. Humiliations, acts of violence, rape, starvation, hiding Jewish identity and recurring death threats would be enough to send any ordinary mortal to an early grave. The resilience that mother and child show raises more questions than are answered here--unless we are to believe that love alone is enough to save them from Nazi savagery, illness, starvation and impoverishment that are their constant companions for seven years. I want to believe that love is so powerful that it can save lives. Honestly I do. Hmm. I wish that I came away feeling more for Getruda than I do. Successful biographies can and should be offered in the spirit of immense gratitude. We feel that adoration from Michael, the little boy who was saved. Michael is approaching 80 now. Gertruda is long gone. Michael eventually will grow up and leave Israel and Gertrude won’t follow him to a new life in the USA. This I find fascinating and disturbing after all they went through together. I'll spare the details because the story has to be read to reach your own conclusions. I could be over-reacting to this point because there is so much rich and essential European World War II history packed into this memoir--and especially the harrowing trials of the Exodus ship carrying 4500 camp survivors to British Palestine including Gertruda--who had to fight for her right to accompany Michael. It's almost inconceivable that they could ever have left each others’ sides. But children do grow up and leave home. Michael reached adulthood and he apparently left too. This memoir, regrettably, leaves us in suspense as to how he outgrew his completely reasonable emotional attachment to Gertruda, and what were his feelings that allowed for this right of passage to take place while Gertruda advances in age all alone in Israel. It just doesn't add up for me. Gertruda Babilinska, courageous and righteous as she was, remains an aloof, enigmatic saint....more
I naively thought that the drug epidemic in the USA burst like a firework into the 1960s out of the hippie culture, but as I learned in the Fix, a truI naively thought that the drug epidemic in the USA burst like a firework into the 1960s out of the hippie culture, but as I learned in the Fix, a true story lightly masked in novel form, nothing could be further from the truth. When Sara, the eldest of 3 children of a solidly middle class Jewish family from Brooklyn, discovers her father is doing heroine in the 1950s, she is told by her grandparents that she must persuade her father to stop. Sara will learn much closer to her father's death in 1963 that he had been a drug addict for nearly thirty years. His heroine habit began while night clubbing in Harlem in 1939, where Joe sought refuge from anti-semitic bullying at his high school back in Brooklyn. What's a nice Jewish boy who speaks Hebrew, Yiddish, German, French and can earn a living with his outstanding harmonica playing, doing shooting up? We're already drawn into the book by the unfathomable premise--that a nice Jewish boy from Brooklyn could become a desperate, and demonic junkie. We learn that Joe came back from serving in WWII, he marries his high school sweetheart Helen, fathers three children, runs a butcher shop with his brother that pureys the best cuts to NYC restaurants. Joe comes across as a loving father who happens to have a tragic habit. Sara grows up dreading to hear the clink of his paraphernalia in the bathroom sink. Sara is the family member who is often required to hold up the sanity in her parents' absence, when her father is sick, injured, hospitalized, in rehab, or worse. Her mother comes across as totally committed to getting her husband off the drugs, but uses Sara to vent off her frustration at the way life turns out for the family. Sara and her siblings could survive this sort of childhood because of loving grandparents, aunts and uncles who are aware of what's going on with her father. She comes across as a serious student, an exemplary older sister, beloved by her father, browbeaten by her mother, yet misunderstood by friends and her own teachers. There's a somewhat gauzy retro feeling to reading this memoir. You're there with the family, and you know that Joe's demise is inevitable with every turn of the page. You know that Sara is the wounded child. But what's missing is a sense of who Sara is today. Writing about a life that took place more than 50 years ago affords perspective, healing and the luxury of 20-20 hindsight. Perhaps there's another book that needs to follow this one, highlighting the woman she became, a college writing professor, a successful writer, and now an advocate for young heroine addicts on Cape Cod, which has one of the highest heroine addiction rates in the nation. By writing this brave story, she encourages other families, especially child survivors, to come out and not be ashamed, and never be afraid, to talk about what happens behind closed doors when a loved one is seriously, tragically on a suicidal drug mission they want to stop but can't....more
Solly Ganor's name is perhaps best known in connection with Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese consul stationed in Kauna, Lithuania who happened to catch 1Solly Ganor's name is perhaps best known in connection with Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese consul stationed in Kauna, Lithuania who happened to catch 12 year old Solly's eye in the confectionary store owned by his aunt. A wink, a smile, a kindness that Solly even as a young boy recognized, prompted him to invite Consul Sugihara to his home for Chanuka. This would be Sugihara's first encounter with Jewish people but not his last. In the months ahead, as the situation for Jews in Europe became more dire, the fleeing Jewish refugees began lining up outside Sugihara's home pleaing for transit visas through Japan. Sugihara issued well over a thousand that led to saving more than six thousand lives. Tragically, Solly and his own family waited to late and were trapped inside Lithuania, thrown out of their own home, forced to live in squalor in an overcrowded Jewish ghetto that became nothing more than a holding pen on the way to grim execution and mass graves. Solly Ganor writes in Light One Candle about how he managed to survive the war under the most dangerous of conditions. The courage of his mother, the heroism of his brother, the fearlessness of his maternal sister, the survival instincts and organizational genius of his story-telling father, the talents of his countless aunts and uncles and innocence of his younger cousins are the unforgettable lights in this memoir. Solly Ganor withholds nothing of their momentary triumphs against evil or the tragedy that most in his dear family endured on the way to their deaths. Beatings, tortures, loathsome dogs trained to kill, the humiliations, rapes, the child beatings, the mass graves, the firing squads, the starvation and frostbite, the betrayal of friends among friends, the clutching to survive in overcrowded camps and ghettos, the match, the light, the burning down of a hospital filled with Jews locked inside. In such a hard-to-read graphic memoir, its only the heart of the author Solly Ganor's beating steadily that allowed me to proceed. I entrained with Solly's heart and his hope throughout the hellish four year ordeal that yes, justice would prevail, that the evil of the Nazis and too many European citizen collaborators would come to an end. Somehow with the help of God, you know that he is going to come out of this hell alive. But how? The courage, coupled with a survival instinct, tripled by a sheer love of life, quadrupled by a revulsion for the evil before his eyes that he loathed but hardly feared, all help Solly endure. "I promised Jakob that I would deliver the guns to Fima, and I intend to do that." I didn't tell them the guns were under our own house. "But darling, you are only a boy! It is too dangerous!" Mother cried. "Yes, Mother. It is too dangerous to be a a boy. Unless I become a man I will die like the other boys in the ghetto." She looked shocked at my bluntness. "I will make it," I added more softly, and gave her a kiss. She took me in her arms and cried quietly, gently rocking me from side to side lie she used to when I was small. This powerful memoir is lit from within by candle after candle. Soul after soul. Gripping and shocking. I couldn't put it down....more
Pnina Granirer's memoir speaks up for a generation of post-war European refugees who fled to Israel but couldn't manage to settle there amidst economiPnina Granirer's memoir speaks up for a generation of post-war European refugees who fled to Israel but couldn't manage to settle there amidst economic struggle, geopolitical woes and dangers.
I found it thrilling to discover that Granirer is from the same tiny blip on the map of Rumania -- the once prosperous, cosmopolitan and economically strategic Danube river town of Braila -- where my father came from.
But first and foremost, the author is an artist. This memoir chronicles Granirer's high octane life as a refugee, a mother with an art studio, a budding feminist whose voice strengthens as she takes her place as an elite and fiesty Canadian artist who is not afraid to challenge even those commercial galleries that sell out her works on the first day of her exhibitions.
This gifted artist writes of her many styles and intuitive expressions, from woodblock carving to working on clear Mylar cellophane sheets. I loved the way she described the way art springs from her imagination and how she explains her intuitive techniques.
"Lines flowed from my pen with a life of their own. The drawings had nothing to do with reality--they just materialized on the paper. The hours spent on intricate and textured patterns became a hypnotic, meditative process. For no reason at all, as if guided by an unseen master, shapes would appear on the white sheet. Most of these images related to nature, to the flora and fauna that give us life and sustenance."
What a gorgeous description of the intuitive process! Now in her eighties, very much engaged in life as an artist, a writer, a world-traveler, and matriarch, Granirer offers plenty of recollections to the times in her life when things were very much less so. At 30, her "self-confidence wavered like a newly-minted trapeze artist, precariously perched on the thin line between doubting that I was a true painter and the occasional flashes of absolute belief in my vocation. If my first priority was my family, how could I pretend to be a professional? On the other hand, how could I eve stop making art?" Oh, the difficulties of reviewing a book where every line you nod your head and say yes. I can relate.
This memoir covers the fascinating maturation process of one who is keenly aware that as a successful woman artist, her story needed to be told. For her dedication to her art, to the writing, I am so grateful. It's not easy to write a memoir at any age. To publish one as an octogenarian that is not only eminently enjoyable, but will remain an important document of a post-war Jewish artist's success, is a major lifetime achievement....more
"When it comes to lived life, I am a deeply private person. But when it comes to written life -- to life refracted through artistry--I unclasp the wha"When it comes to lived life, I am a deeply private person. But when it comes to written life -- to life refracted through artistry--I unclasp the whalebone stays and turn away with lowered eyes as my loosened bodice rustles to the floor." Whew! And I thought Talmudic study was dry and unsexy? This brilliant young happily married mother of four melds two passions—a love of poetry and for studying Talmud, into an eminently readable tale that covers the seven and a half year cycle in which she kept to an ambitious daily schedule of learning Talmud before and after a full day of work at the literary agency where she read books, tons of books. I had no idea before reading “If All the Seas Were Ink,” that Talmud—the Oral Torah, written down by rabbinical sages who lived through the devastating destruction of the Second Temple 2,000 years ago, could be so relevant to daily life today. Ilana has a gift for nailing universal themes of what it means to lead a happy life in the midst of an unhappy situation—a first marriage that never made it to a first anniversary. What could have been a really sad tale definitely isn’t because the author reflects on her life through the spiritually uplifting, and sometimes downright humorous insights she finds in her daily Daf Yomi Talmudic learning. “ To me it seems that the most meaningful way to study Torah is by searching for the interconnections and resonances between Torah and the rest of one's reading, learning and living,” is one of the many beautifully self-observed lines. “The Hasidic Sage Rabbi Levi Yitzhak," the author writes, "would go to bed each night and examine his thoughts and deeds for that day. If he found fault with them, he would say to himself, "Levi Yitzhak will not do this again. Then he would chide himself...I can relate. I tell myself that by writing and reflecting on my life, I will become a better person." Torah is a fundamental part of identity, and a personal tool for self-awakening for Ilana Kurshan, and by extension for her readers as well. You can't help but be swept away by the soul-searching that goes on in this deeply felt memoir. What Kurshan has done is brought a wonderful feminine and feminist sensibility to her Talumudic learning which she shares in lyrical languages and gutsy intelligence, dispelling any notion along the way that Talmudic learning is dry or irrelevant....more
Ilana Kurshan is not one to shy away from extremes of living, and her riveting memoir set in Jerusalem when she was newly divorced in her twenties is Ilana Kurshan is not one to shy away from extremes of living, and her riveting memoir set in Jerusalem when she was newly divorced in her twenties is the kind of feel-good book that offers inspiration to the lonely of heart. Yes, there's hope! Fantastic hope. When Kurshan, an avid book reader prone to walking into utility poles with her latest read, joins a friend in Daf Yomi, the Orthodox practice of learning one page of Talmud a day, she enters a world two thousand years old and through wonderful anecdotes lifted out of the text, she relates her learning back to her own life. I was almost tempted to start a Daf Yomi practice myself. But learning Talmud is not for the meek of heart, or the slow reader, or those who prefer learning on their own. Talmud is designed for partner learning, and this too becomes fascinating to learn how the joy of Talmud is in hair-splitting details with as many interpretations as there are wise men. And women. ...more
Shulem Deen's gripping memoir is about walking away from the kind of Jew your parents fashioned you to become, and even harder, the kind of husband exShulem Deen's gripping memoir is about walking away from the kind of Jew your parents fashioned you to become, and even harder, the kind of husband expected of a wife from the ultra-frum New Jersey community of Skver Hasids. Deen's story starts with his excommunication, the ultimate rejection for someone who was educated, married, now rearing five children, and so sheltered that his idea of a big thrill is ilicitly turning on the radio, buying a computer, a television, and helping himself to understanding what for most New Yorkers is ordinary life.
The way Deen describes his discovery of the world outside New Square, where he and the rest of his reclusive community reside, makes for a fascinating read. How to apply for a job, how to dress for an interview, what glasses to wear, how to practice arranging his tie by viewing youtube tutorials. . . in many ways Deen is discovering what this generation of children already know by the age of seven. Except he's around 30 when his journey toward assimilation and ultimately downright rejection of Skver Hasidism begins in earnest. Branded a heretic--one who encourages others to their spiritual downfall along with him--this is where the story begins to unravel for me. Deen just can't convince himself that God truly exists. Or that Moses for that matter did. Or that the Torah was written by God.
Raised by Ba'al Teshuva (returning back to faith) parents who chose to give him an ultra-Orthodox education, Deen especially adored his father and admired his gifts as a speaker in front of large groups of not especially religious Jewish communities extolling Torah values and the joy of believing in Hashem. Deen writes admiringly of his father's gifts to bring assimilated Jews closer to Torah values. His father's sudden death from an eating disorder leaves the author torn apart from not having had the opportunity to say goodbye.
Is this enough to lead to a disavowal of faith? Or a failure to see everyday miracles that occur whether you're Hasid, Orthodox, or the non-observant Jew Shulem Deen eventually becomes? I loved so much about this memoir. The crisp, polished, heartfelt language and explanations about what Skver Hassids do inside their reclusive communities, inside the shul, and even in their own bedrooms. This memoir is a feat that Deen accomplished without ever going to college or enrolling in a writing course, and interestingly, one that he himself attributes to the refined thinking behind the Talmudic and Torah education he received. Never mind that his English reading skills were behind. He more than caught up to the rest of us. And an impressive bibliography at the end of the memoir speaks volumes about his quest to master writing by reading from the world’s literary masters.
But for me, as a Jew going through the opposite side of the revolving door, returning to a more observant way of life, as the author's parents did, I can't quite understand why he had to throw away the baby with the basket. Literally. The author wins his freedom to wear jeans, smoke marajuana, and live among Jews who have rejected Orthodoxy. But giving up Shabbat? Giving up Kashrut? Not believing in God? Not being able to respect his wife's religious beliefs and her requests on precious alternating Shabbats when his adored children were allowed to visit him? This makes me wonder whether the author's self-saboteur, the yetzer hara, is not the victor in this story. I wouldn't be surprised if this is the subject of his next eloquent and beautifully reasoned followup book: next up a triumph of the spirit....more
Edmund de Waal, a highly accomplished ceramic artist, creates works sought out by museums. In this memoir with the gripping pull of a who-dun-it, the Edmund de Waal, a highly accomplished ceramic artist, creates works sought out by museums. In this memoir with the gripping pull of a who-dun-it, the artist turns his eye for detail and the aesthetic to revisiting the Paris, Vienna, and Tokyo homes of his Jewish ancestors. He searches for clues to find out why a collection of prized Japanese netsuke, ivory and boxwood hand-sculpted objects, so small they fit in the palm of a hand, were moved, puzzlingly, from generation to generation across national borders.
Thanks to the fame, fortune and accomplishments of his elite family, De Waal was able to document the rise of the Ephrussi family from humble Russian Jewish shtetl origins. Their aim was to assimilate and become full-blooded nobility of their adopted countries of France and Austria. Spoiler: think Hitler.
Covering nearly 150 years of family history, and wealth on a par with the Rothschilds, the vitrine of netsuke that De Waal inherits motivates his search to understand who these art collecting, assimilated ancestors of his actually were. To millions of Jewish families who lost not only their possessions but their lives to the Nazi's failed plan to eradicate all Jewish life from Europe, the Ephrussi’s suffered immensely as families were divided, humiliated and ultimately close relatives murdered. De Waal's memoir offers a collective sigh of sorrow too, for the reparations that many families still wait from European governments whose museums still hold onto their family artworks. But weirdly, the Ephrussi family themselves were never shown by De Waal in a sympathetic enough light to feel disturbed by their fate. This I found troublesome.
De Waal admits that the task of sorting out his motivation in the writing of this memoir got actually harder the further he pursued this two year project. "I no longer know if this is a book about my family, my memory, or myself, or is it still about small Japanese things."
Well, he needn’t be so hard on himself. De Waal has written a complex book about netsuke that delivers more than even the author imagined—a book that leaves at least one reader wanting to know how he himself feels about not only the loss of his family’s wealth but his own Jewish identity.
How nice if De Waal turned his writing talents to explore what so many European survivors of World War II have inevitably come to face: that the extinction largely through intermarriage of all ties to Judaism doesn’t diminish the yearning to know their Jewish ancestors and carry a piece of their history in their pockets. In fact, the loss of spiritual identity seems to make the yearning to hold onto anything Jewish all the stronger. ...more
Even though I've been the recipient of a thousand kindnesses from Chabad emissaries of Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, and even though I've visited Even though I've been the recipient of a thousand kindnesses from Chabad emissaries of Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, and even though I've visited Chabad Houses in at least ten cities around the globe, until reading Rebbe: The Life Teachings of Menachem M Schneerson I would have been hard-pressed to describe who he was. Yes a charismatic leader of the Lubavitch movement. Yes, the one and only Rabbi who was sought out for advice by heads of state, presidents and army generals--and not just of Israel.
To grasp who the Rebbe is--even his devoted emissaries would need a leisurely day to explain. And like their master, their Rebbe, there is no time to tarry. My impression of Chasidic rabbis was that they were thoroughly immersed from early childhood in Torah learning exclusively. But the Rebbe was educated at three of the top universities in St Petersburg, Berlin and Paris in the pre-World War II years. Another myth that was shattered had to do with his arrival in America and going straight to work for his esteemed father-in-law, the Frierdiker Rebbe, when in fact he spent many years in the Brooklyn Navy Yard putting his advanced electrical engineering know-how to work by supervising the wiring of many of the great battle ships heading to Europe to fight Hitler. I had also assumed that given his grueling schedule and existance of very little sleep, he must have had little contact with his wife. But nothing was farther from the truth.
Even though the Rebbe met visitors in his office till 2:00 am or later, he maintained a loving relationship and deep friendship with his college-educated wife of sixty years, Chaya Mushka. Though the couple were childless, they cultivated a generation of "children," the young married couples learned in Torah, who committed to serving the Rebbe's "army," as spiritual warriors to speak These emissaries took the Rebbe's weekly Shabbat message and translated it into action--by opening Chabad Houses. A tall order, but remarkably, the Shluchim (emissaries) on difficult assignments to cities, towns and college campuses around the world now number in the thousands. They are in at least 48 states in the USA and 80 countries, following the Rebbe's orders that no Jew be without Shabbat candles or an opportunity to pray in Teffilin. The Rebbe oversaw the establishment of all sorts of support services--publishing houses, magazines for children and teens, day camps, and the use of cutting technology. One of last and greatest acts was to stand outside the 770 headquarters when he was already in his late eighties distributing brand new dollar bills to upwards of 8,000 people each Sunday.
From contemporary US society he took franchise concepts and cartoon heros and anything else he perceived had caught the imagination of assimilated Jews, like I once was, ambivalent about my identity. But here... I digress. The influence of the Rebbe I am intimate wth stems from me and my children being on the receiving end of Chabad emissary's influences for nearly 2 decades. As I am slowly coming to grasp, all I knew was the tail of the elephant. Author Joseph Telushkin lays out exactly why it is not far-fetched to think of the Rebbe as a leader of the generation and not just the leader of Chabad. The book can be redundant in places. But the life being examined is so remarkable that hearing the stories twice if not three times anchors them in both the reader's memory and heart....more
As chief rabbi of Israel, Meir Lau traveled the globe to meet not just heads of state but the luminaries of our times. In Brooklyn Rabbi Lau recounts As chief rabbi of Israel, Meir Lau traveled the globe to meet not just heads of state but the luminaries of our times. In Brooklyn Rabbi Lau recounts a midnight meeting with Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, in which the Rebbe admits a problem that had been perplexing him for some time: why was it that the Jewish people who are so often at the helm of change and revolution in the Diaspora, so resistant to changes in leadership now that they have their own nation, Eretz Yisrael?
Rabbi Meir Lau's answer spokes volumes about his own journey: Having been through so much, perhaps its because Jews are tired and just want a little peace.
Lau speaks from experience --for himself and the nation he headed for many years as chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of Israel. He was one of the youngest survivors of the Buchenwald concentration camp, freed at age 8 by US soldiers, among the first of Holocaust survivors to emigrate to Israel in 1945, when it became sadly clear that his parents, siblings, grandparents and dozens of other relatives had perished in murderous Nazi concentration camps.
In Israel, Rabbi Vogelman, his last surviving uncle, adopts him and sees to it that the young boy attends Yeshiva so that he can fulfill his parents' dying wishes--that an esteemed 38 dynasty rabbinical lineage continue through him. Meir Lau is youngest son of one of Poland's greatest prewar Jewish orators and Torah scholars, the Rabbi Moshe Chaim Lau.
Years later when the young Yeshiva graduate is being introduced to his future father-in-law, Rabbi Yitzhak Frankel shocked him with the admission of concern about what kind of husband and father would become of a boy whose memories of family life ended abruptly -through no fault of his own--at age five. Lau takes this as a personal challenge, to prove that going through such hardships was no handicap, and in fact made him more compassionate toward all whom he met.
Perhaps this is why encounters in his book with the great spiritual leaders of our times the Dali Lama, Karol Wojtyla--Pope John Paul II, Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Tutu, to name a few, make for such a fascinating read into a meeting of minds of world luminaries who either endured profound hardships or have dedicated their lives to speak out on behalf of suffering masses .
To be a rabbinic leader of Israel in a post-Holocaust world comes with a responsibility to speak out for the voices that were silenced. To speak from his own Holocaust memories, created a revolution in dialogue. Whereas his own much loved father, the Rabbi Moshe Chaim Lau was a very much at the center of Jewish life in Poland, the author's work in this life would be unimaginable to those of his father's generation--bringing the Jewish way of life, the dialogue about healing ourselves, healing the world, to the farthest corners of the gentile world. Even at the top of Mount Hiei in Japan, a meeting with the Most Venerable Etai Yamada, head of the Tendai Sect of Mahayana Buddhism culminates in an apology for his nation's alliance with Germany, thereby prolonging the war and reducing the number of US soldiers available to fight on the European front against Naziism. But is Rabbi Lau in a position to grant forgiveness? Citations directly from Torah, Psalms, and Talmud deliver a divine response on every page. Through humility and self-reflection, Rabbi Lau is a a brilliant teacher. I couldn't put this book of profound life lessons down.
I loved this book. Abigail Pogrebin, a producer at 60 MInutes, had carte blanche access to the biggest Jewish names in America and for this book, withI loved this book. Abigail Pogrebin, a producer at 60 MInutes, had carte blanche access to the biggest Jewish names in America and for this book, with her not so hidden agenda of making peace with her own Jewish identity, she interviewed celebrities about a part of their lives that is rarely discussed or even known in the media -- their Jewishness. About sixty assimilated Jews -- who form the backbone of this collection -- define for the author their take on being Jewish. It's typical here for Jewish identity to become a minor appendage to their mighty careers, but in some fascinating stories, like director Steven Spielberg, actor Dustin Hoffman and New Republic literary editor Leon Wieseltier, Judaism is more than a pastrami sandwich at Second Avenue Deli. It is the cart before the horse, the cart that carries their spiritual life, creative aspirations and intellectual activities to new heights. Some stand out stories, include Joan River's showing up late for HIgh Holiday services, being refused entry into the shul. So what does the queen of the Shopping Channel do? She self comforts at Bergdorf. ...more
Nobody wants to have their most dirty laundry aired in public, especially one of the most secretive, mysterious and easily misunderstood Chassids in aNobody wants to have their most dirty laundry aired in public, especially one of the most secretive, mysterious and easily misunderstood Chassids in all of Judaism--the Satmar sect, who derive their name from a town in Hungary called Santa Maria. After the Holocaust, a group of survivors from their community led by their esteemed and eccentric Rebbe immigrated to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where they flourish, continue to be fruitful and multiply to this day.
Because of their long-standing policy of avoiding "the goyim," as well as other Jews who are not as ultraorthodox, Deborah's book makes a fascinating read because she does precisely what the Satmar community have assiduously avoided --to live in American society as if they were invisible. Deborah takes us on a guided tour of both culinary wonders and intellectual depravations to be found in the once elegant but crumbling Brownstone where she was raised by her grandparents--owing to her gay mother's excommunication from the Satmar community and her father's mental illness.
We learn as a child, the author was bright, precocious, curious about life. Deborah seeks out a corner of a library 30 minutes bus ride from home where she proceeds to educate herself in a way that was completely against the values and aspirations of her grandparents and the rest of the Satmar community. Education proves to be her passport to another life. Sarah Lawrence College provides her ticket out. But it's a tradeoff that results in the unraveling of family relations and her short marriage to man that she only met once before tying the knot at the Chuppah after she turned 17.
This is no ordinary tale. Deborah speaks to us through her love affair with the English language--which was denied her throughout her Yiddish-speaking childhood. She writes lusciously and sensually. She observe and remembers scenes from a life she sadly can no longer return to; she burned that bridge by writing this book.
Do I believe everything that Deborah tells us--especially the harrowing sex scenes? Did it happen to the extremes that the author purports? Did Deborah violate the inviolable Torah law (Loshon Hora) against speaking ill of others by including derogatory and almost caricature portraits of her own family members? There are many questions that remain unanswered. To find them, I keep returning to the start of the book and reading it over. I've read Unorthodox 3 times now and each time as I go further into the retelling, I feel that this version of Deborah's early life will require an update by the young author as she matures, wizens, and comes to appreciate the extraordinary gifts her sheltered childhood had provided her with. Great job Deborah. I applaud you. I wish you only happiness....more
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