Shalom. Welcome to Ofrah's Jewish Book Club, hosted by MyJewishBooks.com
Please browse my recommendations and selections, read a review, or add your own review by clicking an icon or bookcover. The orders are fulfilled by amazon.com; net proceeds are donated to tzedakah. If you want to recommend a charity, please send me an email at Admin@myjewishbooks.com
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Ahhh.. if only it were true. No?
OFRAH'S APRIL 2004 SELECTION
So ... nu... did you hear? Liev Schreiber, who optioned the film rights to EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED by Jonathan Safran Foer,
will direct the film project of this book.. And who will play the hero? Who will play Master Foer? None other than that hobbit, Elijah Wood. He makes for a good Princeton Jew, no? The Warner Independent Pictures movie starts shooting June 14, 2004, in Prague.
Hey Liev, Elijah, and Jonathan... I'll meet you in that bar near the Altneuschul. First round is on me. I'm even willing to overlook that you smoke your cigarettes from between your 2nd and 3rd finger. Maybe I can play the dog?
By the way.. did you hear that Mel Gibson is thinking of making his next film about The Maccabees? The rabbis played down the battles and played up the miracles... maybe Mel will do the reverse.
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THE OUTSIDE WORLD
A novel by Tova Mirvis
March 30, 2004. Knopf
From the best-selling author of The Ladies Auxiliary, a new novel about two Orthodox Jewish families brought together by the marriage of their children. Tzippy Goldman, or more so, her mother, have been planning Tzippy's wedding since before she was born. Her four younger sisters want her to marry the crown prince of Boro Park, a scholar and cute young man. But Tzippy is 22. To her frum community, she is an over the hill spinster. Her friends already have kids. She CANNOT STAND another date at the lobby of the Brooklyn Marriott (why should the boy pay for dinner if it isnt going to work out, so let's meet in the lobby to chat first). Tzippy is hungry for experience and longs to escape the suffocating expectations of religious stricture and romantic obligation. But Tzippy's mother secretly grew up in Rochester in a non-frum household. If she can make a good shidduch, she can prove to herself that she really BELONGS. Bryan Miller's family lives in a liberal New Jersey community. Like modern-Orthodox Jews anywhere in the world, they spend Saturdays in shul, but Sundays at Little League. But to Bryan, this middle road looks more and more like hypocrisy. He longs for conviction, for the relief of absolutes. He longs for the black-hat over the knit kippah and Yankees cap. He moves to Brooklyn. In the courtship of Bryan and Tzippy, and in the progress of their highly freighted love affair and marriage, Tova Mirvis illuminates these worlds providing insight and humor. Click the book cover above to read more.
OFRAH'S MARCH 2004 SELECTION
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WOMEN OF THE WALL
Claiming Sacred Ground at Judaism's Holy Site
Edited by Phyllis Chesler and Rivka Haut
January 2004. Jewish Lights Pub
Includes 27 pictures, including the one in which a make worshipper throws a chair at the women.
This passionate book documents the legendary grassroots and legal struggle of a determined group of Jewish women from Israel, the United States, and other parts of the world--known as the Women of the Wall--to win the right to pray out loud together as a group, according to Jewish law; wear ritual objects; and read from Torah scrolls at the Western Wall. Eyewitness accounts of physical violence and intimidation, inspiring personal stories, and interpretations of legal and classical Jewish (halakhic) texts bring to life the historic and ongoing struggle that the Women of the Wall face in their everyday fight for religious and gender equality. Marcia Welsh wrote: "On the morning of December 1, 1988, an international, multidenominational group of Jewish women approached the Kotel (formerly known as the Wailing, or Western, Wall) in Jerusalem to conduct a women's prayer service. The women-including editors Chesler (a psychotherapist and author of Women and Madness) and Haut (coeditor of Daughters of the King: Women and the Synagogue)-were jeered at, cursed, threatened, and assaulted: "proper" Jewish women do not pray aloud in public, carry or read from the Scroll, or wear ritual objects. WOW-Women of the Wall-was born. For the next 14 years, they fought for their right to continue prayers at the Kotel in this way, which is not prohibited by Jewish law but was banned by Israeli law because it caused such a riot. This is the story of WOW's continuing struggle. Divided into four sections, it contains thoughtful personal accounts by participants, keen legal and political analysis, various denominational views, and discussion of halakhic theory and ritual objects. This is the first book-length treatment of this landmark case in Jewish women's spirituality, feminism vs. Orthodox tradition, pluralism in Israeli society, and basic human rights." Click the book cover above to read more.
OFRAH'S JANUARY 2004 SELECTION
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Beautiful as the Moon, Radiant as the Stars
Jewish Women in Yiddish Stories
An Anthology
by Sandra Bark
November 2003. For fans of Jonathan Safran Foer, Nathan Englander, Cynthia Ozick, and Anita Diamant comes one of the first collections of stories about Yiddish women writers. Written by both male and female writers, the stories in this anthology focus on the female Ashkenazic experience during the 19th and 20th centuries. The women in these fascinating, often shocking, stories range from rebellious daughters and reluctant brides to cunning businesswomen and vengeful midwives. The issues they face, while particular to their place in history, will still resonate with modern readers. Assimilation and anti-Semitism are hot-button debate topics; themes of love, family, and loss are universal. This extensive collection contains the original stories that inspired Fiddler on the Roof and Yentl; an early Yiddish story by Dvora Baron, the first modern Hebrew writer; a story by Isaac Bashevis Singer and one by his sister, Esther Singer Kreitman. Click the book cover above to read more.
OFRAH'S DECEMBER 2003 SELECTION
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Sins of Omission
The Jewish Community's Reaction to Domestic Violence
by Carol Goodman Kaufman
September 30, 2003. Westview
Published a few days prior to Yom Kippur 5764, this is a unique and compelling investigation of the Jewish community's reaction - or non-reaction - to domestic violence.
Concerned with the sins of the community more than the sins of the abuser, Carol Goodman Kaufman finds that the Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform rabbis and community leaders are not doing enough and are not informed enough to help the abused women in their congregations get the support, protection, and guidance they need.
Covering the subject from sociological, religious and legal viewpoints, supplemented by an exhaustive analysis of interviews with survivors, rabbis and lay leaders in the Boston area, Goodman Kaufman argues that many abused women see their rabbis as unapproachable on the subject. Some rabbis have even invoked the Jewish ideal of shalom bayit, of maintaining peace in the home, as justification for sending a woman back to her abuser. The author notes that while a few organizations, such as Hadassah, have responded to this problem on a national level by, say, supporting the Violence Against Women Act, there is little action at the community level. Kaufman suggests that organizations work together to forcefully attack this problem by offering premarital education, encouraging rabbis to speak out and providing Jewish safe houses. The author takes a hard look at the Jewish community, its rules, regulations, and followers, and discovers the ways in which it helps and hinders victims of abuse. Click to read more.
OFRAH'S NOVEMBER 2003 SELECTION
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Mystics, Mavericks, and Merrymakers
An Intimate Journey Among Hasidic Girls
by Stephanie Wellen Levine (Tufts University), Carol Gilligan
November 2003.
NYU PRESS
To read the introduction for free..
please copy and paste this address into your browser
http://www.nyupress.org/webchapters/081475192Xintro.pdf
Do young women in a Lubavitch community have a free voice? Is their vibrancy in a strict religious upbringing? Are unfinished souls (prior to marriage) filled with energy? Are Lubavitch women meek baby makers, downtrodden, and subservient to their dark garbed husbands and sons? If adolescence is a time to push one's limits, how do Hasidic teens behave and rebel? In gender-segregated schools, do teenage girls remain demure, or do some take the role of the loudmouthed, prank-pullers, a role that is usually associated with teenage boys. Are single sex experiences helpful? Just in time for Jewish Book Month, this absorbing book arrives. Much of the research was done by Levine while she was doing her field research for a PhD from Harvard, under the guidance of the esteemed Carol Gilligan. From the ardently religious young woman who longs for the life of a male scholar to the young rebel who visits a strip club, smokes pot, and agonizes over her loss of faith to the proud Lubavitcher with a desire for a high-powered career, Dr. Stephanie Wellen Levine provides a rare glimpse into the inner worlds and daily lives of these Hasidic girls. She enlightens us to this misunderstood world of long skirts and covered hair. She tells us how these girls rebel (from socks instead of stockings, and tighter skirts than normal, to the bitterness of outright rejection of belief, or doubt, or a desire to not marry and raise kids), and the ramifications of their rebellions. Levine spent a year living in the Lubavitch community of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, as a participant observer, participating in the rhythms of Hasidic girlhood. Drawing on many intimate hours among Hasidim and over 30 in-depth interviews, Mystics, Mavericks, and Merrymakers offers rich portraits of individual Hasidic young women and how they deal with the conflicts between the regimented society in which they live and the pull of mainstream American life. Perhaps counter-intuitively for those who envision meek, religious girls confined within very structured roles, Levine finds that on the whole, these young Hasidic women seem more confident and have a greater sense of self than many of their mainstream peers. Levine explores why this might be the case, and what we can learn from their example for girls' positive development more generally. Click to read more.
OFRAH'S OCTOBER 2003 SELECTION
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Triangle
The Fire That Changed America
by David Von Drehle
September 2003. Atlantic Monthly Press
On March 25, 1911, a fire broke out in the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in New York's Greenwich Village. Firemen who arrived at the scene were unable to rescue those trapped inside: their ladders simply weren't tall enough. Desperate workers jumped to their death. The final toll was 146 people -- 123 of them women. The book follows the waves of Jewish and Italian immigration that inundated New York in the early years of the century, filling its slums and supplying its garment factories with cheap, mostly female labor. It portrays the Dickensian work conditions that led to a massive waist-worker's strike in which an unlikely coalition of socialists, socialites, and suffragettes took on bosses, police, and magistrates. Von Drehle shows how popular revulsion at the Triangle catastrophe led to an unprecedented alliance between idealistic labor reformers and the supremely pragmatic politicians of the corrupt Tammany Hall political machine. Click the book cover above to read more.
OFRAH'S SEPTEMBER 2003 SELECTION
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AN HOUR IN PARADISE
Stories
by Joan Leegant (Harvard)
August 2003. WW NORTON.
A wonderful new voice combining the offbeat sensibility of Nathan Englander and the compassionate eye of Allegra Goodman. In settings from Jerusalem to Queens, from Hollywood's outskirts to Sarasota, Florida, the characters in this mesmerizing debut collection are drawn to the seductions of religion, soldiering on in search of divine and human connection. A former drug dealer turned yeshiva student faces his past with a dying AIDS patient. A disaffected American in the ancient city of Safed ventures into Kabbalist mysticism and gets more than he bargained for. A rabbi whose dying morning minyan is visited by a pair of conjoined twins considers the possibility that his guests are not mere mortals (do they count as one or two in a minyan?). An aging Jerusalemite chronicles his country's changes during the biblical year of rest. A rabbi has three daughters who reject his lifestyle and pursue their more unorthodox ones. In "Accounting" we learn that it is not the sins of the father that weighs down the sons, but it is the errors of the son that brings down the father. In "Henny's Wedding", a bride's sister learns the consequences of desire, shame, and passion. By turns poignant and comic, unflinching and compassionate-with a dose of fabulist daring-An Hour in Paradise explores the dangers and unforeseen rewards of our most fundamental longings. The book has recently been selected by Barnes & Noble for their Discover Great New Writers program for this fall. You may recall her winning pieces in Moment Magazine. "The Lament of the Rabbi's Daughters" and "Seekers in the Holy Land", as well as her writings in Shma (Shma.com) Click to read more.
OFRAH'S AUGUST 2003 SELECTION
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SEVEN BLESSINGS (Sheva Brachot)
A novel
by Ruchama King
August 2003. St Martins Press.
This is going to be the Jewish blockbuster of 2003. At least that is what I think. It already has blurbs from Stephen Dubner, Naomi Ragen, Thane Rosenbaum, and Alice Elliott Dark. The author lived in the yeshivish world of Jerusalem and resided with matchmakers. After her dates, she would debrief with them. Using this as experience, she has set out to write a transformative novel, a novel about searching for a bashert in life, in romance, and in the spiritual realm. Two matchmakers strive busily to marry off their neighbors in contemporary Jerusalem. Tsippi's own marriage is rocky, yet she keeps an eye out for single customers at her husband's makolet grocery store. Lately, she has been stocking spices for her new Mizrahi and Sephardic customers. Judy, a glamorous mother of six, fits in her matchmaking around her studies at a yeshiva for women, where she is taking Torah classes, looking for deeper meaning in life. Beth is a 39 year old American virgin, an independent Orthodox woman from Pittsburgh. Having dated everyone in NYC, she has come to Jerusalem. She lives among Mizrahi Jews, yet doesn't eat over their homes for fear that their standards of kashrut are not hers. She volunteers to help schizophrenics who believe they are biblical characters; and she has dropped out of her own bible study classes due to her anguish over the laws of sacrifice and other uncomfortable practices. Judy and Tsippi see Beth (or Bet, they pronounce it like "house") as a challenge. When Tsippi sends her on a date with Akiva, a house painter and student of the Torah, Beth is hopeful, but Akiva is afflicted by a disconcerting twitch. Judy sets her up with Binyamin, a handsome American artist, a Ba'al Teshuva filled with arrogance. King tracks the dating fates of Beth, Akiva and Binyamin, but pays equal attention to the sociology of Orthodox people in Jerusalem and the spiritual searching of each of the characters.
Click to read more.
OFRAH'S JULY 2003 SELECTION
Hello from Los Angeles, where I am attending the Book Expo America as well as the Israel Film Festival. I am loading up on books for the Summer and Fall and will let you in on who I meet when I return. I can't wait to tell you all about the Book Expo. You cannot shake a lulav without hitting a Jewish Book Fair representative. They are everywhere. I ran into the head of jbooks.com, and Lev Raphael, and Carolyn Hessel. I met reps from the Jewish JCC Book Fairs of Indy, LA, St Louis, Rockville, and places in between. There were booths from JPS, Jewish Lights, Gefen Publishing, the Mosaic-Press.com, Merkos Publications, Devorah Publishing, Pitsopany Press, and even the Kabbalah Center. I met lots of authors, and Steve Bochco (LA Law, Hill St Blues) met me and said, "This is MY Jewish book," while signing his newest novel. When I met Joel Siegal of ABC TV, he reiterated that he actually did invent German Chocolate Cake Ice Cream at Baskin Robbins. I also learned about a cool Jewish magazine called ZEEK.net by Matthue Roth. Very hip!
Hot titles for the Fall include a new Jewish Study Bible from the Oxford University Press. Edited by Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler, it uses the JPS Tanakh translation, and is going to be heavily promoted. The Seal Press was hawking The Flying Camel, forthcoming essays on Jewish identity by Mizrahi women, edited by Loolwa Khazzoom. Kathleen Sharp made an appearance for Mr and Mrs Hollywood, a bio on Lew and Edie Wasserman. Rothstein by David Pietrusza will come out in October and tell the real story of Arnold Rothstein and the 1919 World Series. The Stanford University Press was highlighting it's two volume Pritzker Edition of The Zohar, translated by Daniel C. Matt (Fall 2003).
Jewish Lights had a dozen very interesting Fall releases. Among them is a new book of Commentary from Rabbi Elyse Goldstein, this one is a Women's Haftarah Commentary, a companion to the Women's Torah Commentary. They will also release a collection of personal essays, based on Danny Pearl's last words, "I Am Jewish." Red Rock had two forthcoming books by Marvin Korman about the Jewish Bronx. Gefen has "50 Jewish Messiahs" and a book on the Israel astronaut, Ialn Ramon, titled, "Journey of Hope." Among the Fall books displayed by Stewart, Tabori & Chang was, The Lights of Hanukkah," a coffee table book of menorahs. Barbara Fradkin will publish her third Jewish mystery book in the Inspector Green series, this Fall.
Jennifer Kushell was signing a very interesting book, The Secrets of the Young and Successful." She portrays many teens and their various successes. A Jewish book? "Sure," she told me, many of those portrayed are Jewish. Many? More like a significant portion! Speaking of success, Professor Sherry Ortner (Columbia) will publish her study of class in America, using as her base of study her 304 classmates of a Newark High School (Class of 1958), classmates who were overwhelmingly Jewish. The Book is titled, "New Jersey Dreaming."
Lauren F. Winner, who wrote a book (Girl Meets God) on converting to Orthodox Judaism at Columbia University and then finding Jesus, and becoming Christian, was hawking a new book titled "Mudhouse Sabbath: Twelve Spiritual Practices I Learned from Judaism." Six years after becoming a big-time Christian, it is about the 12 things she misses about Jewish Sabbaths, weddings, burials, kashrut, and holidays, and why she thinks these practices can enrich her Christian life.
Other highlights of the Book Expo were; Harvard University Press' "Making Americans: Jews and the Broadway Musical" by Andrea Most (Univ Toronto); "Hana's Suitcase" by Karen Levine; "The House of Klein" by Lisa Marsh; "Musically Speaking: A Life Through Song" by Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer (U of P Press... they served bagels at her signing); "Wedding Song: Memoirs of an Iranian Jewish Woman" by Farideh Goldin (Brandeis); "The Case for Israel" by Alan Dershowitz (Wiley); "Values Propsperity and the Talmud - Business Lessons of the Ancient Rabbis" by Larry Kahaner (Wiley); "Joining the Sisterhood: Young Jewish Women Write Their Lives" by Tobin Belzer and Julie Pelc (Suny); and a very very peculiar book: "The Secrets of the Jews" by Roger Sabbah.
For July, I recommend:
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A PALESTINE AFFAIR
A novel
By Jonathan Wilson
May 20, 2003. This swift and sensual novel of passion and politics transports us to British mandate Palestine, where the Arabs, Jews and Brits mingle. It is 1924, and Mark Bloomberg, a disillusioned London painter, arrives in Jerusalem to take up a propaganda commission for the government. When he and his American wife, Joyce, accidentally witness the murder of a prominent red haired Orthodox Jew near their cottage, they become embroiled in an investigation that will test their marriage and their characters. The contradictory man, Jacob De Groot (modeled after Jacob Israel de Haan??), dies in Bloomberg's arms, when Bloomberg goes outside, post coitus, naked, to investigate the noises he hears. Is the murderer his teenage Arab lover? Joyce, a non Jew is a dilettante and ardent Zionist, is pulled into an affair with Robert Kirsch, the British policeman investigating the case, while Bloomberg, transfixed by the glare of the Middle Eastern sun and desert light, attempts to capture on canvas the complex, shifting truths of the region. He is an artist, and therefore does not commit. Like Kirsch, whose brother was killed in France in 1918, all of the characters here have come to Palestine to escape the grief of the First World War, and are forced to confront their principles and their hearts in the midst of a culture in the throes of painful emergence. Writing in the Washington Post, Gershom Gorenberg wrote, "For both Kirsh and Bloomberg, not belonging is apparently the heart of Jewishness, and the passins of Palestine threaten that identity. Or perhaps I am judging them only as an impatient Israeli is inclined to judge present-day visitors. Like the best historial fiction, Wilson's story is placed in an imagined past, but it is really happening right now." Click to read more.
OFRAH'S JUNE 2003 SELECTION
For June, I am recommending two books, two books about parenting, but they are by men. Then will make you laugh and make you cry. Yes, this is a cliché, but it is honest. I especially enjoyed Wong, when he said honestly that at times, it was all about me me me.. not about his child, but about him. Here they are, enjoy.
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Following Foo:
(the electronic adventures of The Chestnut Man)
by B.D. Wong
May 2003. HarperEntertainment. The author Robert Lipsyte wrote that when you are sick, you go to the Country of Illness, a place where time and actions differ, your priorities change, your career takes a back seat, the kindness of strangers is realized, the lives of health care workers are suddenly noticed. It is to this country that the author and his family traveled on Memorial Day Sunday, May 28, 2000 (23 Iyar, 38 L'Omer). It is on this evening that the actor/singer B.D. Wong and his talent agent partner, Richard Jackson, became fathers in Modesto, CA. Their twin sons were born woefully, dangerously, nearly 3 months premature. Over the next several months, Wong kept his friends informed of the roller coaster progress, ups and downs, through a series of emails. These introspective, mesmerizing, hopeful, honest emails got passed around, and have been compiled to create this book. At times it elicits chuckles, sometimes you will thank god for unsung heroic healthcare workers, and at other times your eyes will well with tears. The book is an adventurous journey into fatherhood, Jewish and Chinese American families, medical miracles, social work, gynecology, as well as sprinkling asides into life in television and film acting. The words are presented in a variety of fonts and styles to add drama to the reading. Graphics from the Milton Bradley games of Operation and Ka-boom also drive home some messages. Wong also includes some of the songs he wrote, such as his ode to Poop.
The book is impossible to put down, as you hunger to learn whether first-born Boaz Dov Wong (Boaz: the swift, strong, giving biblical character who rescues Ruth and fathers the ancestors of King David; Dov: the quiet strength of a peaceful bear) and younger Jackson Foo Wong (Jackson/Yohanan: for his father's surname, graciousness of god; Foo: wealth, for his grandfather) will survive and thrive. For readers who need linear stories, start with Update 8; all other can begin with the Preface. Click to read more.
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LESSONS FOR DYLAN:
FROM FATHER TO SON ON MY LIFE AND YOURS
By Joel Siegel
May 2003. Publicaffairs. Nothing makes you more devout than a bout with cancer. Siegel, an entertainment critic for ABC's GMA, faced a terminal illness, and has created this story of his 58 years of life. At the age of 54, movie critic Joel Siegel became a father for the first time and learned that he had cancer. Now, in Lessons for Dylan, Siegel shares all the things he wants his son to know--in case he's not around to tell him--about his family history and Jewish heritage, life's pleasures and sorrows, the challenges of growing up (at any age), and, most important, who his father is and what he values. Threaded throughout are stories from Siegel's extraordinary life: he was born in East LA in 1943; his path from an immigrant neighborhood to national television; his work in the civil rights movement, and his career as a critic. Siegel's grandmother survived the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911. Joel, in 1965, delivered a bag containing $800 in cash to a minister named Martin Luther King. He ended up working for King that Summer. Siegel says he invented several Baskin Robbins flavors, including German Chocolate Cake (my favorite) and Pralines and Cream. He was also nominated for a Tony for his musical about Jackie Robinson. Siegel landed a gig writing for Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, and witnessed Kennedy's assassination in Los Angeles. Siegel candidly addresses the more difficult passages of his life, including the end of his marriage (his third) to Dylan's mother and the experience of having cancer. Jerry Della Femina bought pot for Siegel during his chemotherapy. But he also shares great stories from show biz (featuring Orson Welles, Marlene Dietrich, Paul Newman, Brad Pitt, Stevie Wonder, all four Beatles, and many more); lays out the History of the Jewish People in Four Jokes; and offers fatherly advice on sex ("ask your mother"), work, and what to cook for Rosh Hashanah (recipes included). Full of humor and wisdom, common sense and self-revelation, Lessons for Dylan offers lessons for all of us about what really matters in life. He is co-founder (with Gene Wilder) and president of Gilda's Club, a non-profit support facility for cancer patients.
Dear Dylan,
One day you might remember--maybe triggered by a photograph, or a sense memory of a texture or a color--the soft, grey cashmere sweater I bought for you for your second birthday. As an adult you may wonder, "What kind of schmuck buys a cashmere sweater for a two year-old boy?"
The answer is: A schmuck who tempts fate. I knew a cashmere sweater was a stupid thing to buy a two year-old, but I was feeling so good that if the call about the MRI results had come when I was walking down Park Avenue in front of the Mercedes place, I would've walked in and bought Dylan a car. The next day a CT-scan showed a small, black spot on the lower lobe of my left lung...
Click to read more.
OFRAH'S MAY 2003 SELECTION
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Rosalind Franklin:
The Dark Lady of DNA
by Brenda Maddox
Harper Collins. Fall 2002. Remember high school Biology class, and the double helix and Watson & Crick? What we never learned is that Watson & Crick actually borrowed a lot of their Nobel winning work from Rosalind Franklin and Linus Pauling, but mostly from Rosalind. History is written by the victors, and especially not by Jewish women when they are insulting to shamefully anti-Semitic Anglo scientists. Franklin was the daughter of an affluent British Jewish family; she was a focused, caustic, female genius who was renowned for her study of virus structures. Her photographs of DNA were called "among the most beautiful X-ray photographs of any substance ever taken." But Rosalind Franklin never received due credit for the crucial role these played in the discovery of DNA's structure. She died from cancer before learning that Watson & Crick had actually seen and stolen her research. In this biography, Maddox argues that sexism, egotism and anti-Semitism conspired to marginalize a brilliant and uncompromising young scientist who, though disliked by some colleagues, was a warm and admired friend to many. After beginning her research career in postwar Paris she moved to Kings College, London, where her famous photographs of DNA were made. These were shown without her knowledge to James Watson, who recognized that they indicated the shape of a double helix and rushed to publish the discovery; with colleagues Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins, he won the Nobel Prize in 1962. Deeply unhappy at Kings, Rosalind left in 1953 for another lab, where she did important research on viruses, including polio. Her career was cut short when she died of ovarian cancer at age 37 (maybe due to all her x-rays). Drawing on interviews, published records, and a trove of personal letters to and from Rosalind, Maddox takes pains to illuminate her subject as a gifted scientist and a darkly complex woman.
OFRAH'S APRIL 2003 SELECTION
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The Women's Passover Companion:
Women's Reflections on the Festival of Freedom
by Sharon Cohen Anisfeld (Editor), Tara Mohr (Editor), Catherine Spector (Editor)
Jewish Lights. February 2003. A powerful--and empowering--gathering of women's voices transmitting Judaism's Passover legacy to the next generation. The Women's Passover Companion offers an in-depth examination of women's relationships to Passover as well as the roots and meanings of women's seders. This groundbreaking collection captures the voices of Jewish women--rabbis, scholars, activists, political leaders, and artists--who engage in a provocative conversation about the themes of the Exodus and exile, oppression and liberation, history and memory, as they relate to contemporary women's lives. Whether seeking new insights into the text and tradtions of Passover or learning about women's seders for the first time, both women and men will find this collection an inspiring introduction to the Passover season and an eye-opening exploration of questions central to Jewish women, to Passover, and to Judaism itself. Contributors include: Martha Ackelsberg Judith R. Baskin Ruth Behar Esther Broner Kim Chernin Phyllis Chesler Judith Clark Tamara Cohen Dianne Cohler-Esses Ophira Edut Leora Eisenstadt Merle Feld Lynn Gottlieb Leah Haber Bonna Devora Haberman Susannah Heschel Norma Baumel Joseph
Chavi Karkowsky Janna Kaplan Ruth Kaplan Erika Katske Sharon Kleinbaum Lori Lefkovitz Haviva Ner-David Carol Ochs Vanessa L. Ochs Judith Plaskow, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Lilly Rivlin, Judith Rosenbaum, Sandy Eisenberg Sasso, Leah Shakdiel, Ela Their, Judith Wachs, Margaret Moers, Wenig, Jenya Zolot-Gassko, and Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg
OFRAH'S MARCH 2003 SELECTION
I am waiting to get my hands on "Sham Yesh Shoshanim" (There are Roses There), an Israeli anthology from Alpha Press which includes essays by 23 Israeli women on the characterization of the female erotica experience in Israel today. The title is taken from the poem "Sham Yesh" by the late Yona Wallach. Hagar Yanai is the editor. The book includes work by Savyon Liebrecht, Yehudit Katzir, Mira Magen, Shulamit Hareven, Suzan Adam, Leah Eini, Shoham Smitg, Ilana Bernstein, Noa Manheim, Natalie Wieseltier, and Vered Tuchterman.
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HIDE AND SEEK
JEWISH WOMEN AND HAIR COVERING
Edited By Lynne Meredith Schreiber
FEBRUARY 2003. Urim
Includes contributions by Rivkah Lambert Adler, Miriam Apt, Ruth Ben-Ammi, Chaya Devora Bleich, Erica Brown, Khaya Eisenberg, Tehilla Goldman, Joseph J. Greenberg, Mirjam Gunz-Schwarcz, Viva Hammer, Julie Hauser, Devorah Israeli, Rachel (Karlin) Kuhr, Batya Medad, Esther Marianne Posner, Barbara Roberts, Fagie Rosen, Lynne Meredith Schreiber, Leah Shein, Rivkah Slonim, Shaine Spolter, Susan Tawil, Yael Weil, Susan Rubin Weintrob, and Aviva (Stareshefsky) Zacks. Some are haredi, others are BT's and FFB's. Some took on the practice to increase their feelings of religious observance, others never gave it a second thought. Traditional Judaism considers the hair of a married woman erotic. As a result, married Jewish women are generally EXPECTED by their communities to cover their hair, except in front of their husbands, and sometimes in the company of other women. For most of Jewish history this practice was NOT DISPUTED - mainly because society at large also considered it immodest for women to let their hair down in its city streets. However, as the general definition of modesty has changed in the last two centuries, Jewish women have followed suit, debating the necessity of covering their hair in a world that remains "uncovered." Today, many observant, married Jewish women cover their hair in some way (sometimes spending thousand of dollars on wigs that are more erotic than their natural hair) although a vocal minority declines to do so at all. Hair covering has, therefore, become the bellwether for religiosity, turning practice into politics. Sources dispute the when, why, and how of hair covering, but nearly all agree on one thing: among the traditional Jews, it is the obligation of married Jewish women to cover their hair in some manner. This collection of essays explains the law (briefly), considers the customs, and includes the voices of women from around the world who are very much moved by the nature of this challenging observance. Essentially it is an "anecdotal"collection, and not a scholarly cultural anthropology on the practice. Among the personal reflections are the stories of the bride who realizes that covering her hair with a at is a royal pain; another woman loses her identity by losing her signature hairstyle. In other stories, one woman can no longer jog on the beach with the wind in her uncovered hair; another puts on her hat in the middle of the night to go to the toilet, lest a male guest see her in the hall with uncovered hair. The traditional Jewish community has long been silent on the very personal, yet also public, matter of married women covering their hair with hats, scarves, and even wigs. Hide and Seek is the first book to discuss this topic. Click to read more.
OFRAH'S FEBRUARY 2003 SELECTION
The year is going fast, and I am behind in my reading. Rather than focusing on a book, I spent the last month reading THE MICHIGAN QUARTERLY REVIEW's Special Issues on "JEWISH IN AMERICA." The standout book that I recommend for February is Rabbi Tirzah Firestone's latest, The Receiving.
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THE RECKONING
RECLAIMING JEWISH WOMEN'S WISDOM
By Rabbi Tirzah Firestone
FEBRUARY 4, 2003. Harper San Francisco
For those of you who read her earlier autobiography, With Roots in Heaven, you know the Rabbi Firestone is a teacher, author and Jungian therapist in Boulder. She is a leader in the Jewish renewal movement. She was raised in an Orthodox home in St. Louis, Missouri. Determined to find freedom, Rabbi Firestone forcefully rejected her Jewish upbringing and embarked upon a journey that took her around the world and into the very heart of counterculture spirituality: from Kundalini ashrams to Hindu cults to radical New Age philosophies. After years of seeking, she settled in Boulder, Colorado, first as a student, then as a psychotherapist. She then found her path back to Judaism and the rabbinate, receiving smicha from Rabbi Schachter-Shalomi, Rabbi Gershon Winkler, Rabbi Shoshana Leibowitz and Rabbi Akiva Mann in 1992. I am still amazed by her skill at massage in which one can find an emotional release through touch. In this, her third book, Rabbi Firestone, focuses on "Receiving." Receiving is the literal translation of the word Kabbalah, the body of Jewish mysticism that has been passed down from men to men for centuries. Ironically, the art of receiving, that is, opening to the divine spirit as it manifests in the here and now, is one of the undocumented mysteries of women's spirituality. In what might be called an act of spiritual archaeology, Firestone searches for the traces of the divine feminine in the Jewish tradition in order to answer the question, "What is a woman's way to God?" Drawing on the remarkable stories of seven historical holy women--who, despite tremendous obstacles, found ways to embrace the sacred feminine in their lives--Firestone teaches us the mysteries of Jewish Kabbalah from a woman's vantage point. The women are Hannah Rachel of Ludomir (1815-1905); Beruriah (2nd Century); Malkah of Belz (c 1780-1850); Asnat Barzani (1590-1670); Dulcie of Worms (c 1170 - 1196); Leah Shar'abi (1919-1978); and Francesca Sarah (16th Century). My favorite is the story of Beruriah's "other sister." This book empowers women to reclaim their connection to the mystical lineage within Judaism. This is a provocative work of scholarship and passion that restores the forgotten voices of Jewish women mystics, using their remarkable journeys as a springboard into the feminine mysteries that have been hidden from women's use for millennia. Click to read more.
OFRAH'S JANUARY 2003 SELECTION
Hmm... I didn't select a January book yet.. but I have several February ones lined up. Check back in a few days
OFRAH'S DECEMBER 2002 SELECTION
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JANE AUSTEN IN BOCA
A novel by Paula Cohen
November 5, 2002. St Martins Press
I'll wash the Viagra down with a decaf Sanka please. In the 1990's, Drexel Professor Paula Marantz Cohen, 47, visited her mother in law in Boca Raton from her home in South Jersey. She met upscale, elderly, retired Loehmann's shoppers dressed in pink, gold and turquoise. She came back with the idea for a book, Pride and Prejudice set not in the closed English countryside, but in the closed world of a Jewish retirement community. The Bennett daughters of Pride and Prejudice are recast as elderly Jewish widows in Boca. May Newman, a sweet woman in her 70s, is happily settled at the Boca Festa retirement community in Boca Raton, Florida. She enjoys the companionship of her best friends, Lila Katz, a pragmatic redhead in search of a well-off husband, and Flo Kliman, a sharp-tongued retired librarian. May Newman's pleasant daily routine is disrupted when her matchmaking New Jersey daughter-in-law, Carol Newman, visits and introduces May to recently widowed Norman Grafstein, a particularly eligible, wealthy senior. Despite herself, May finds she enjoys Norman's company, but Flo takes an instant dislike to Norman's best friend, cranky English professor emeritus Stan Jacobs. Then Flo's great niece, Amy, arrives on the scene. Amy is a film student at NYU Tisch, and she is determined to capture everything on celluloid (see JewishFilm.com)... Like Jane Austen, Cohen has a flair for observations and dry humor. Carol, who is a force of nature, is seen by May as "the incarnation of a good fairy in the guise of a suburban yenta." On noticing another friend's "unusually extensive cleavage," Flo thinks, "breasts, beyond the age of forty-five, she took to be assets best kept under cover. Flo was distinctly in the minority among her peers in Boca Raton, however, where cleavage was as common as Bermuda shorts and often worn with them." You may be old and retired, but the rules of love never change. The Austen parallels are cleverly drawn and culminate in a class on Pride and Prejudice offered by Stan, who discovers that the Boca Festa women identify with the meddling Mrs. Bennett rather than heroine Elizabeth. But you will have read the book to find out whether May and Norman find happiness. Or if Flo will succumb to the charms of the suavely cosmopolitan Mel Shirmer (Elizabeth and Darcy) ? And what about Amy? Will her film win at the NYU student film competition?
OFRAH'S NOVEMBER 2002 SELECTION
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Burnt Bread and Chutney:
Memoirs of an Indian Jewish Girl
by Carmit Delman (agent=Jennifer Rudolph Walsh)
September 2002. Carmit Delman, 27, is descended from the Bene Israel, an ancient community of Indian Jews. American-born, raised in Cleveland, she studied at a Jewish day school, Brandeis University and Emerson College. In the politics of skin color, Carmit Delman is an ambassador from a world of which few are even aware. Her mother is a direct descendant of the Bene Israel of Western India. Her father is an American-born Jewish man of Ashkenazi descent. It was bagel and chutney. They met while working the land of a nascent Israeli state. Bound by love for each other and that newborn country, they hardly took notice of the interracial aspect of their union. But their daughter, Carmit, growing up in America, was well aware of her uncommon heritage. She was a dark Jew among "White Jews." Carmit Delman's memories of the sometimes painful, sometimes pleasurable, often awkward moments of her adolescence juxtapose strikingly with mythic tales of her female ancestors living in the Indian-Jewish community. As rites and traditions, smells and textures intertwine, Carmit's unique cultural identity evolves. There is a point in the book when Carmit and her grandmother (Nana-bai) burn a chapati bread on the stove. Nana-bai reprimands Carmit. Carmit wanted to throw away the burnt chapatti. Nana-bai said it was still edible, even if the men would not eat it. Nana-bai scraped the carbon off the bread, spreads it with homemade mango chutney and ate it with Carmit. "I want you to always remember how it tastes," she told her. Nana-bai's secret was to appreciate the unexpected nature of pleasures. It is coming of age in Jewish summer camps, materialistic synagogues, and at KISS concerts - and the inevitable combination of old and new: ancient customs, conformity, and modern attitudes, Jewish, Indian, and American. When she moved to Israel, she found that it is even worse when it comes to racial strictures. Her reflections on Nana-bai (based on a diary her grandmother kept), an unloved second wife, will make this a must read for most Jewish reading groups. Carmit Delman's journey through religious traditions, family tensions, and social tribulations to a healthy sense of wholeness and self is rendered with grace and an acute sense of depth. Burnt Bread and Chutney is a rich and innovative book that opens wide a previously unseen world. Click to read more.
OFRAH'S OCTOBER 2002 SELECTION
Hello from Hong Kong! The editor and I are traveling through Asia (Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand), and I am getting some good reading done. My recommendation for the month is from the author of White Teeth:
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The Autograph Man:
A Novel
by Zadie Smith
October 1, 2002. Random House. Alex-Li Tandem, a half-Chinese/half-Jewish autograph trader, sells autographs. He is a 27 year old on a quest, but a small blip in a huge worldwide network of desire. His business is to hunt for names on paper, collect them, sell them, and occasionally fake them-all to give the people what they want: a little piece of Fame. He has issues with intimacy. But what does Alex want? Only the return of his dead father, the reinstatement of some kind of all-powerful, benevolent God-type figure, the end of religion, something for his headache, three different girls (including girlfriend Esther), infinite grace, and the rare autograph of 1950's movie actress Kitty Alexander. Kitty is sacred to Alex-Li. The Autograph Man is a deeply funny existential tour around the hollow things of modernity: celebrity, cinema, and the ugly triumph of symbol over experience. Through London and then New York, searching for the only autograph that has ever mattered to him, Alex follows the paper trail while resisting the mystical lure of Kabbalah (is Adam's pot filled search for the shards and godhead similar to Alex-Li's search for the elusive autograph?) and Zen, and avoiding all collectors, con men, and interfering rabbis who would put themselves in his path. Pushing against the tide of his generation, Alex-Li is on his way to finding enlightenment, otherwise known as some part of himself that cannot be signed, celebrated, or sold. Click to read more.
OFRAH'S SEPTEMBER 2002 SELECTION
Hi readers. How can the Summer season be over so soon. I haven't done anything, I still have forty books to read! And now it is Labor Day, and the Holidays, and soon I will be jetting off to China for Sukkot. There are so so so many books this September, how can I select just one? I can't, but let me ask you to at least start with this one:
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TALKING TO GOD
Prayers for Times of Joy, Sadness, Struggle, and Celebration
by Rabbi NAOMI LEVY
August 2002.
This book provides simple, direct and intimate prose prayers; it's as if you are chatting with a loved one, namely God (or G-d or G!d).
Many of the prayers are preceded by a poignant story from Rabbi Levy's life. The prayers are sectioned as follows: In Part 1, there are Daily Prayers for Morning, Driving, Difficult Days, Food on Our Table, Seeking the Ability to Pray, Finding mentors in the least likely places (learning from others humbly), nighttime, and a prayer for the parent to say to a child at night. Her prayer for Bad Days is preceded by the story of the day she moved homes, had a car accident, had to bid farewell to a dying congregant, and found the tallis given to her by her dean being used as a drop cloth by painters. Part 2 contains prayers for love and marriage, including prayers for finding love, sexuality, rekindling passion, breakups, marriage, troubles, anniversaries, guidance after unfaithfulness, healing from divorce, preparing for the wedding ceremony, and the second marriage. The prayer for fighting sexual temptation is preceded by a hilarious story about how the rabbi's phone number became confused with that of an internet prostitute. She decides to call back one of the men who leaves her a message, who turns out to be a Jewish studio exec seeking some post-partum sexual release. God works in mysterious ways, and she counsels him to greater fidelity (or so she thinks, but let's get serious, he works in Hollywood).
In Part 3 are prayers for Pregnancy and Childbirth, including prayers for conception, pregnancy and strength, and birth.
In Part 4, there are prayers for parenthood and adoption, and a story about how the rabbi learns to face the challenges of parenting a special needs child. In Part 5, there are prayers for healing, healers, overcoming illnesses and addictions, overcoming breast cancer, surgery, and living with disabilities. Part 6 contains prayers for work and employment unemployment, career changes, interviews, and the incumbent challenges.
Part 7 contains prayers for comfort and strength in difficult times, embracing silence, and being resilient. A prayer to be said after losing a pet is preceded by a story about Martin Buber and pets.
In Part 8, there are prayers for special occasions, new homes, birthdays, rests, and brushes with death. In Part 9, there are prayers for Aging, including retirement, menopause, the fear of retirement, the fear of becoming dependent or a burden to others, and a prayer for the child who must care for an aging parent. In Part 10, there are prayers of Death and Mourning, including prayers for those who succumb to violence and prayers for those murdered on 9/11/2001.
Part 11 contains prayers for Living Up to the Best in Our Souls, including a prayer to abstain from gossip, overcoming jealousy, prayers for wrongdoing and repair, healing troubled relationships, and for guidance and wisdom. The final chapter, Part 12, has prayers for Peace, Tolerance, our Country and the World. After each chapter, there are a couple of pages in which to joy down your own words and prayers for yourself and posterity. :-) Click for more information. (note, this review was co-written by Ofrah and Larry)
OFRAH'S AUGUST 2002 SELECTION
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THE ASCENT OF ELI ISRAEL: And Other Stories
by Jon Papernick
July 2002. You could not ask for a better timed book. It is surreally dark in nature. Papernick, a Toronto journalist in Israel (a Canadian who now lives in Brooklyn), offers unique insights into Israeli life through his collection of stories (nearly as manic as the works of Etgar Keret). In "The Art of Correcting" a rabbi gets converted by a chiropractor. In "The King of The King of Falafel," there is a competition between Jerusalem falafel shops o King George Street, but then the kids of an unsuccessful shop owner take matters into their own hands. In "an Unwelcome Guest".. well let's just say, it is an awful nightmare about Yossi Bar-Yosef, living on the West Bank, having moved from America with his wife Devorah, who wakes in the middle of the night and finds some unwanted visitors (one named Youssif), while his wife is asleep in the bedroom. He must enter into an intense backgammon game with the man in his kitchen as the number of unwelcome guests grow. In "Lucky Eighteen", a photographer photographs the grisly remains of a murderous bus bombing. In "The Ascent of Eli Israel", a soldier, speaking to Eli Haller, a West Bank settler, remarks, "Why is it that all the scum of the world [read Brooklyn] comes to Israel?" Click to read more.
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CANCER SCHMANCER
By Fran Drescher
May 2002. Comedian Fran Drescher (THE NANNY) relates her bout with uterine cancer, and how after two years of visiting doctors, she finally got the proper diagnosis, dealt with fatigue, had the hysterectomy, and survived and healed with the help of her family, friends, dog, and post-divorce, young'in boyfriend. Click to read more.
OFRAH'S JULY 2002 SELECTION
I couldn't decide, so I am left with two books to recommend for July are:
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SUNDAY JEWS
by HORTENSE CALISHER (STILL WRITING AT AGE 90!!)
May 2002. NOVEL. At the center of this novel is a Jewish family with the surname of DUFFY. Professor Peter Duffy, a retired university teacher of philosophy, is collapsing mentally. His wife, Zipporah Gold Duffy, the mother of their 5 children whisks him off to Italy to hide his degeneration. An Israeli nurse, Deborah Cohen, mysteriously appears to help care for Peter. In the second part of this masterful novel, Zipporah is a widow who inherits a lot of money from her neighbor and friend, Norman. A grandmother, she takes a lover, Foxy Mendenhall. In the final portion of the novel, we focus on ZIpporah's relationship with her favorite grandson, Bertram, a rabbi without a pulpit, who tracks down Debra Cohen and her mystery. The beach read of the Summer.
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THE WOMAN WHO DEFIED KINGS
The Life and Times of Doña Gracia Nasi
A Jewish Leader During the Renaissance
by Andree Aelion Brooks
June 2002. This is the first biography of Doña Gracia Nasi to be based upon original 16th century documents. The other books on her have either been fiction or based upon secondary sources. Her main efforts were to save the lives of thousands of victims of the Inquisition by supporting an escape network. Doña Gracia Nasi (Beatrice de Luna Mendes), a Jewish woman (1510-1569) in the 16th Century, fled from the Inquisition (to Lisbon to Antwerp to Venice to Ferrara to Venice to Constantinople) and became one of the top businesspeople of the period. She loaned to the Church and monarchs, and set up an Underground railroad for escaping converso Jews.
OFRAH'S JUNE 2002 SELECTION
Move over BEE SEASON and THE RED TENT, for there is a new book in town, that should be read by every book reading club.
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EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED
by Jonathan Safran Foer
April 16, 2002. Houghton Mifflin.
I took some time off from masticating, and bought this highly touted, super buzzed novel. We were drawn to this novel since it spoke to us; we connected with it. It felt so real, there was a feeling of recognition, as if we had lived parts of it. For, we, too, did the solo heritage roots tour, and took a trip to Eastern Europe, and hired a translator, but at least our trip was a tiny bit better planned. Our grandfather didn't have a dead arm, and we never used the F word, even when "arrested" in Poland.
Is everything illuminated? Or is nothing illuminated? Do we ever really hear each other, even with the best translator? Are we like seeing eye dogs, who see for the un-blind and bark gibberish? Can astronauts from space see a spark of love from 150 years ago, or do they just see that we are products of our ancestors, no matter how good or bad they were? This book is so good, so funny, so sad, so true. It is filled with fun insights, like Eskimos having 400 words for snow and Jews have as many for schmuck and putz.
Reviewers have said: passionate, perverse, and moving. "Exuberant and wise, hysterically funny and deeply moving, Everything Is Illuminated is an astonishing debut novel.
In the summer after his junior year of college, a writer-also named Jonathan Safran Foer-journeys to the farmlands of Eastern Europe. Armed with only a yellowing photograph, he sets out to find Augustine, the woman who might or might not be a link to the grandfather he never knew-the woman who, he has been told, saved his grandfather from the Nazis (this really happened). Guided by the unforgettable Alex, his young Ukrainian translator, who writes in a sublimely, butchered English, Jonathan is led on a quixotic search across a devastated landscape and back into an unexpected past. Braided into this story is the novel Jonathan is writing, a magical realist fable of his grandfather's village in Ukraine, Trachimbrod, a tapestry of startling symmetries that unite generations across time. In a counterpoint of voices blending high comedy and deep tragedy, the search moves back in time, the fantastical history moves forward, and they meet in a heart-stopping scene of extraordinary power. Passionate, wildly inventive, and marked by an indelible humanity, Everything Is Illuminated mines the black holes of history and is ultimately a story about searching: for people and places that no longer exist, for the hidden truths that haunt every family, and for the delicate but necessary tales that link past and future."
The big footed Princeton grad (Joyce Carol Oates and Jeffrey Eugenides were his thesis advisors), Jonathan Safran Foer, 25, in an interview, said he did not intend to write a Jewish novel. He thought it would be a non fiction chronicle of his ill conceived, poorly planned five day trip to the Ukraine four years ago, at age 20. Foer wrote, "The novel's two voices - one "realistic," the other "folkloric" - and their movement toward each other, has to do with this problem of imagination. The Holocaust presents a real moral quandary for the artist. Is one allowed to be funny? Is one allowed to attempt verisimilitude? To forgo it? What are the moral implications of quaintness? Of wit? Of sentimentality? What, if anything, is untouchable? With the two very different voices, I attempted to show the rift that I experienced when trying to imagine the book. (It is the most explicit of many rifts in the book.) And with their development toward each other, I attempted to heal the rift, or wound." Foer said, "I was twenty when I made the trip - an unobservant Jew, with no felt connection to, or great interest in, my past. I kept an ironic distance from religion, and was skeptical of anything described as "Jewish.".... I was talking to a friend on the phone the other day. I think of myself as one of the least Jewish people I've ever met, unobservant. But very shortly, a lot of people are going to think I'm VERY Jewish."
The Jewish Book Council has already anointed him as the next Philip Roth. How can you dislike a young guy who owns a set of Encyclopedia Judaica? I personally cannot get the image out of my mind of a forest of trees each carved with love notes. So buy this book and have a laugh and a cry.
OFRAH'S MAY 2002 SELECTION
I am in the middle of reading EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED by Jonathan Safran Foer. (Whenever I see the name Safran, I am reminded of Nadav Safran from Harvard, but I digress). Of course, I recommend Everything is Illuminated. It is 35% better than the works of David Grossman. But until I finish Foer's book, I must settle by recommending the following book:
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ELVIS IN JERUSALEM
Post Zionism and the Americanization of Israel
by Tom Segev, Haim Watzman (Translator)
May 2002. Holt. A very quick read
In Israel, collectivism is dead, Americanism is thriving. Private parties now supplant group celebrations. If Paul Newman were to reprise his role as Ari Ben Canaan from the 1961 film, Exodus, he might portray a capitalist in Ramat Aviv Gimmel, and not a committed Kibbutznik. More people pay homage to the Elvis statue at an Elvis Diner on the road to Jerusalem, than to a Herzl statue that stands outside of Herzliya, a bastion of prosperous capitalism. Tom Segev, a revisionist New Historian, and a master at challenging long held myths of Israel's history, offers a lively polemic against cherished and rigid notions of Israel's national unity and culture. Aside from the thesis, the book is worth reading if only for the bounty of tidbits of social history and the voices of Israel's scholars that are included. See the May 2002 page or click for more information.
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ALEPH BET YOGA
By STEVEN A RAPP
March 2002. Jewish Lights Press. Hatha yoga meets the Jewish alphabet (aleph bet). Rap explains the 29 yoga forms that resemble Hebrew letters (22 letters plus final forms plus the vowels of kamatz and patach). The lamed... wow. He goes on to explain yoga and Jewish spirituality in the context of the letter. FLAT LAYING BINDING to help you when doing yoga. For each letter there is a Hebrew verse and English quote upon which to reflect. Includes a bibliography. Click to read more.
OFRAH'S APRIL 2002 SELECTION
How can anyone read given the events in Israel over Pesach? But you must continue and not despair. Did you hear the OPRAH is giving up on the book club?? Well, baby, OFRAH is still going strong! ... Which brings me to my selection for April. American seek justice, not revenge; but sometimes, a little revenge needs to be exacted:
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Revenge: A Story of Hope
by Laura Blumenfeld
April 4, 2002. Simon and Schuster. In 1986, the father of Washington Post reporter, Laura Blumenfeld, was shot by a 25 year old Palestinian gunman in Israel, in the walled Old City of Jerusalem. The shooter was part of a PLO faction, and his family was part of the PFLP and sees suicide bombers as 'seeds of peace.' Laura was a student at Harvard, and Rabbi Blumenfeld's wife, Norma, was in Hawaii with her lover at the time of the shooting (Okay...). Anyway, Laura vowed revenge against the gunman, Omar al-Khatib. Twelve years later, in 1998, the shooter was to be released from jail and Laura decided to exact her revenge. Posing as a journalist (which she is), she traveled to Sicily (to learn the fine art of revenge), Iran, and Bosnia. She collects stories of revenge. Should revenge be carried out in court? With the words of the poet? Or with a gun and knife? Can you exact the best revenge when you know your enemies Achilles heel? Is revenge psychological, physical, or can it be a reversal of power? Is it enough to humiliate and shame a Palestinian, or is success the best revenge? Laura interviewed the family and parents of the terrorist (she draws her father's initials in the dust of their dining room table as they chat), and she became a pen-pal of her father's shooter. And then one day......
OFRAH'S MARCH 2002 SELECTION
An amazing Feminist book on a life and survival in Nazi death camps. I highly recommend this for this month
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Still Alive:
Coming of Age During the Holocaust and Beyond
(The Helen Rose Scheuer Jewish Womens Series)
By Ruth Kluger (Professor Emerita, UC-IRVINE)
November 2001, Feminist Press. Move over Elie Wiesel, and make room for Professor Kluger. What was a childhood under the Nazi's in Austria like? How about a school art project of making swastikas with colored paper? Born in 1931, this is the story of the destruction of her high-German, utterly rational Viennese Jewish family from 1938-1945, followed by her new beginnings in Germany and New York, an her mother's death at home in California. IT HAS ALREADY BEEN A BEST SELLING BOOK IN GERMANY. Kluger survived a childhood in the children's barracks at both Theresienstadt and the Birkenau Auschwitz Gross Rosen death camps, where she, like everyone else, became subhuman self-hating trash. The fear of death pervades. Kluger, an unbeliever, became a Jew during her 19 months at Theresienstadt, a place of utter awfulness, which forced her to learn to become a social animal and lose her neurotic tics. Everyone knew that "being sent east" to Poland meant death. The kids knew not to take showers (gas). Her portraits of her paranoid mother are astounding. Her mother taught her by example how to remain a person in an awful senseless cruel paranoid place, as she showed compassion to another woman who broke down into insanity on a transport. But at the same time, you read about mother-daughter tensions even in the face of life in a death camp. Her chapter on the last days of her mother, nearly a century old, are utterly amazing to read.
OFRAH'S FEBRUARY 2002 SELECTION
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ME TIMES THREE
by Alex Witchel
(A New York Times reporter, and wife of Frank Rich, the former Butcher of Broadway for The Times)
January 2002. Everything's going right for Sandra Berlin. She is living in Manhattan, climbing the editorial ladder at ultra-chic fashion magazine Jolie!, (ELLE) and she's just become engaged to Bucky Ross, her high-school sweetheart. Bucky's her knight in shining WASP armor (she is from Polish Jewish stock), a successful ad executive and a descendant of Betsy Ross, and their future promises a life of comfortable suburban bliss: the Tudor mansion, the beautiful children, the country club. And then, three weeks later, at a party at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Sandy meets Bucky's other fiancée. Who tells her about Bucky's third fiancée. Which begins Sandy's journey through the unfamiliar world of heartbreak and betrayal-and the most excruciating blind dates in the history of singledom. As she tries to piece her life back together, she relies on the common sense and compassion of her best friend, Paul-a rising young film agent, gorgeous, gay, and moneyed-to keep her sane. But even Paul has his secrets, and soon Sandy is forced, on her own, to reexamine her past and, more important, what she wants for her future. Me Times Three is comic and tender, outrageous and wise-a shrewd, dead-on portrait of a certain slice of New York life. It's a story about wished-for ideals versus hard realities, about being who you are versus the desire to fit in, and, finally, about how love can surprise us in the most unexpected ways. Click to read more.
OFRAH'S JANUARY 2002 SELECTION
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CHAINS AROUND THE GRASS
A novel by Naomi Ragen
Fall 2001. The Jerusalem Post said "Chains around the Grass, is the kind of book that you never want to end. It is a timeless tale that not only offers real insight into human character and family relationships but also generously offers the reader a way to relate to at least one aspect or one character in the story." Set in the 1950's in New York City, CHAINS AROUND THE GRASS is a portrait of a Jewish-American family that glows with affection, tenderness, and courage when tragedy changes the lives of all those are left behind. A passionately personal and heartfelt book, based heavily on autobiographical material, this is the book Ms. Ragen says that she became an author to write. Sara is barely six years old when her beloved father unexpectedly vanishes from her life. Her mother, Ruth, a dreamy and reluctant housewife, is now left with three small children to bring up, and the knowledge that she will somehow have to pick up the pieces, if she is to survive and fend for the family. But Sara takes up a vigil at the window of their dismal apartment, refusing to accept that her father won't be coming back. She searches the movements of other men for traits of her father. Throughout the book, she likens herself to the child character played by Shirley Temple in the The Little Princess. Numerous times, Sara describes how she refuses to believe her father is really gone forever. To this bittersweet and moving tale of childhood and the loss of innocence, the author brings the added intensity of a personal memoir. There seems no way out of the family's poverty or their life in a low-income housing project. Jesse, the older brother, is beaten by the situation only adding to the family's burden. While Sara deals with the pain internally, becoming an introverted little girl and a virtual prisoner in her own home, content to looking out the window at the chained off grass below. The family is not strictly Orthodox Jewish at first, but after the death of her father, Sara is enrolled in a private, Jewish day school not far from her home. Sara feels inadeuqte at the affluent school, but in her study of Judaism she is slowly able to help her family to overcome the death of her father, and even give her mother and siblings strength. This is Naomi Ragen at her best, her writing charged with a searing, emotional truth as she unravels a tale of childhood, betrayal and the unending resilience of family love. Click the book cover to read more.
OFRAH'S DECEMBER 2001 SELECTION
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What Makes Women Sick? Maternity, Modesty and Militarism in Israeli Society
by Susan Sered
Anthropologist Susan Sered examines Israeli society and the health of its citizens. Her most recent book, What Makes Women Sick? Maternity, Modesty and Militarism in Israeli Society, analyzes the cultural causes of the poor health of Israeli women. Exploring the implications of religious, medical, political and military attitudes and policies, Sered argues that Israeli women are - literally - sickened through systematic exclusion from positions of power and authority at the same time that they are extolled for their maternal role. Professor Sered currently directs the Religion, Health and Healing Initiative at Harvard University and also is affiliated with Bar Ilan University in Israel. Scrutinizing the Israeli military, medical, and religious establishments, Susan Sered discloses the myths, policies, and pressures that encumber and endanger Israeli women in their roles as soldiers, brides, and mothers. Framed by the question of why the life expectancy and health status of Israeli women is poor in comparison to women in other developed countries, What Makes Women Sick conjoins medical anthropology, gender studies, and women's health to show how female bodies in Israel are controlled through public policy, symbolic discourses, and ritual performances. Looking at issues such as disputes over women serving in combat, the rape of a former "Miss Israel," and government incentives for bearing children, Sered develops a passionate ethnography of Israeli society that resonates universal truths about women, power, and authority. Click to read more.
OFRAH'S NOVEMBER 2001 SELECTION
This month, I started to read a book on FDR and his imprisonment of Japanese Americans (By Order of the President), as well as the new Humash from the Masorti Movement (Etz Hayim). My recommendation for the month of November 2001 is by a classic Jewish author, Chaim Potok:
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OLD MEN AT MIDNIGHT
By CHAIM POTOK
October 2001. Knopf. 304 pages. Chaos Theory Meets The Novel
Chaim Potok, the master of the fictional clashes between cultures and countries (My Name is Asher Lev, The Chosen, the one about Kyoto, Wanderings), JTS Grad, and celebrated author, has written three related novellas about one woman who touches the lives of three men. (but is the story about the woman? Or is it actually about the stories of the men she meets?) Ilana Davita Dinn is the listener to whom three men relate their lives. In the first story, it is 1947, and Ilana is as a young 17 year old woman. She listens to the story of Noah Stemim, the Ark Builder, a man who builds torah arks for synagogues and what happened when the Nazis invade his Polish town. He is the only survivor from his town. In the next story, she is a newly minted teacher at Columbia University in the 1950's, and reads the story of a KGB agent, Leon Shertov, who as a young man during the Russian Civil War is saved by a doctor who he later meets during the Kremlin doctors' plot. Shertov sends Ilana three long letters. In the third story, Ilana is a famous writer and neighbor to an elderly, distinguished Professor of military warfare, Benjamin Walter (you mean Walter Benjamin?), who is trying to write his memoirs who gets distracted by Ilana's presence over the rhododendron hedge and the illness of his wife. Benjamin Walter is famous for being able to detect connections and patterns across historical periods and geographies (kind of like Potok). Yet he is unable to find the patterns and connections of his own life. But, secretly, as you read this novel, you find that you know little of Ilana; the portrait of her is withdrawing as you get deeper into the book. (Is she secretly the shechina? Should Leonard Nimoy take a picture of her female presence?)
OFRAH'S OCTOBER 2001 SELECTION
I would like to retreat to a children's book for this month:
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DAUGHTERS OF FIRE
HEROINES OF THE BIBLE
By Fran Manushkin. Illus by Uri Shulevitz
September 2001. Age 9-12. From Eve to Esther to Yael, full page illustrations, with insightful stories on biblical women. Biblical stories of valorous women-from who have helped shape the human character and spirit. Rarely, though, has the essence of these heroines been revealed as poignantly as it is in Daughters of Fire. Fran Manushkin's sensitive retellings of stories from the Bible and Jewish tradition portray strength and honor, but also jealousy and fear, and Caldecott Medalist Uri Shulevitz's heroic illustrations highlight the bold, passionate essence of each woman and her world. The result is a collection of tales with heroines who are, above all, human
OFRAH'S SEPTEMBER 2001 SELECTION
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LESBIAN RABBIS
THE FIRST GENERATION
Edited by Rebecca T. Alpert, Sue Levi Elwell, and Shirley Idelson
August/September 2001. Rutgers. PAPERBACK EDITION.
Lesbian Rabbis: The First Generation documents a change in Jewish life as 18 lesbian rabbis reflect on their experiences as trailblazers in Judaism's journey into an increasingly multicultural world. They were leaders in school and on the pulpit. In honest essays, they discuss their decisions to become rabbis and describe their experiences both at the seminaries (RRC and HUC will ordain lesbians as rabbis, JTS and Orthodox seminaries will not ordain an openly lesbian or gay student) and in their rabbinical positions. They also reflect on the dilemma whether to conceal or reveal their sexual identities to their congregants and superiors, or to serve specifically gay and lesbian congregations. The contributors consider the tensions between lesbian identity and Jewish identity, and inquire whether there are particularly "lesbian" readings of traditional texts. These essays also ask how the language of Jewish tradition touches the lives of lesbians and how lesbianism challenges traditional notions of the Jewish family. The book was born in 1997 at a meting of B'not Esh, a 21-year-old women's collective. Fifty rabbis were invited to contribute essays. All were recetive, except for one who wrote that lesbianism had nothing to do with her profession or Jewish practice. Rabbi Rebecca T. Alpert is a rabbi and codirector of the women's studies program at Temple University. She is the author of Exploring Judaism: A Reconstructionist Approach and Like Bread on the Seder Plate: Jewish Lesbians and the Transformation of Tradition. Rabbi Sue Levi Elwell is a rabbi and director of the Pennsylvania Council of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. She is the editor of the Jewish Women's Studies Guide. Rabbi Shirley Idelson is a rabbi who serves as associate chaplain at Carleton College and associate for Jewish Life at Macalester College.
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HOW I FIND HER
By Genie Zeiger
2001, A daughter writes of her life with her mother, afflicted with Alzheimers. This tender memoir explores the complex shifts in relationship between mother and daughter as an elderly mother slowly declines. Zeiger takes an uncompromising look at the caretaker`s dilemma as a vibrant mother deteriorates into illness and dementia. `How I Find Her` articulates a daughter`s grief, the struggle of letting go, and the unexpected gift of redemption following her mother`s death.
OFRAH'S AUGUST 2001 SELECTION
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BREAST CANCER WARS
Hope, Fear, and the Pursuit of a Cure in Twentieth-Century America
by Barron H Lerner MD (Columbia College of Surgeons)
(May 2001).
When Dr Lerner was an undergraduate, his mother discovered she had breast cancer. She quietly had it treated, and quietly recuperated. Lerner thought that was how it was done. When he aged and became a physician and historian, he learned that there was more to breast cancer, its treatment, its politics, and its support groups than he and his family were aware. This may be a controversial book. Survivors and physicians and families have deeply held, emotional views on the treatment of breast cancer, particularly the societal embrace of a "war on cancer" rather than an emphasis on prevention. Lerner focuses on the rise and fall of the radical mastectomy pioneered by surgeon William Halsted. To prevent what he theorized was the centrifugal spread of cancer to the lymph nodes, Halsted determined that it was necessary to remove not only the breast but also the nodes and two chest-wall muscles, leaving the patient feeling disfigured and with serious side effects. Lerner details CLEARLY the arguments that many in the scientific community made against this eventually DISCREDITED theory and against radical mastectomy, including those advanced by surgeon George Crile. Crile favored less aggressive operations and disagreed with the cancer establishment's relentless publicity campaign for early detection. He and others were convinced that it was the biology of the cancer, rather than how early it was diagnosed, that determined whether or not a tumor would metastasize. Dr. Lerner provides excellent portraits of the players in this controversy and helps you to understand why they chose their paths and beliefs. Lerner also explores the strong impact the 1970s women's movement had on cancer treatment, with women demanding more information from physicians and input into their treatment options. Pub Weekly calls it "Provocative and highly engaging."
OFRAH'S JULY 2001 SELECTION
Hi readers and Happy July. Is your Summer going well? Has anyone seen the books on the 2000 Presidential election by Alan Dershowitz and Richard Posner? They both analyze the outcomes of Bush v Gore. Alan Dershowitz's "Supreme Injustice" describes what he thinks was the "corrupt" Supreme Court's hijacking of the election. Taking the other point of view is Federal Judge Richard Posner's (Seventh Circuit) "Breaking the Deadlock" in which he argues that the court was pragmatic and honorable. I am in NYC this month and am looking forward to July 10, when Joshua Bell and the NY Philharmonic (NYPhilharmonic.org) will give a free concert in Central Park of Bernstein selections. At the HRW Film Festival (HRW.org) last month, I picked up a brochure for a post graduate Certificate program in International Trauma Studies at NYU (Refsource.org). It sounds enticing, doesn't it? I was too late to apply for this Fall, but maybe next year. While I wait, my selection for July is:
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HIGH MAINTENANCE
by JENNIFER BELLE
May 2001. Ms Belle has followed up her successful novel, GOING DOWN. The author of the outrageous, hilarious Going Down-named Best New Novelist by Entertainment Weekly-returns with her second novel: the story of an obsessive love affair between a woman and an apartment. High Maintenance is another brilliantly twisted New York story that is as funny, sad, painful, ridiculous, wild, daring, and lovable as its predecessor. Set in the manic world of New York real estate, it tells the story of Liv Kellerman, a young woman who's just left her husband and, more importantly, left their fabulous penthouse apartment with its Empire State Building view. On her own for the first time in her life, she relocates to a crumbling Greenwich Village hovel and contemplates her next move. Before long she finds her true calling: selling real estate. With her native eye for prime properties and an ability to lie with a straight face, Liv finds success and soon is swimming with the sharks-the hardcore, cutthroat brokers who'll do anything to close a deal. Along the way she picks up a maniacally ardent architect who likes to bite her, a few hilarious bosses, strange and exasperating clients, and a gun, and brings them with her on her search for the one thing she's really after-a home. Belle's gift for creating strange and winning characters and her acute observations of both the absurd and the poignant in everyday life are the hallmarks of her fiction. High Maintenance is generous and unsparing, tough and exciting and terrifically smart-a hot new property on the market.
OFRAH'S JUNE 2001 SELECTION
Well, the Reform Movement canceled its youth tours to Israel this Summer, and as I write this, there is talk of a diluted Maccabiah Games in July. Therefore, if you can't make it to Israel this Summer, I am recommend the following book below for June 2001. As for what I am currently reading, I tried The Conscience of a Liberal by comrade, I mean Senator, Paul Wellstone.
I am only in the first part, so I am not ready to tell you what it is about. I also started Changing Places. A Journey With My Parents into Their Old Age by Judy Kramer. As she writes, there is nothing remarkable about the lives and deaths of her parents, only that she shares her feelings about her journey and that of her late parents, Milton and Evelyn (Stemberg) Lieberman, into frailty and dependence.
I am also browsing The Sovereigns. A Jewish Family in the German Countryside by Eric Lucas. It is about Lucas' family and their deportation from Germany to Poland in 1941. Lucas died in 1996, having written this after WWII. Also, I am glancing at An Algerian Childhood, edited by Leila Sebbar. It is a collection of auto-bio's of arab, jewish, kabyle, and French childhoods in Algeria.
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DISCOVERING NATURAL ISRAEL by Michal Strutin
The flora and fauna of Israel, a place where there over 500 species of birds, about seven times as many as nest in Europe, and 2700 species of plants (twice as many as in Egypt). Michal Strutin has been involved with nature writing from her time as an editor at Outside and National Parks magazines. In Discovering Natural Israel: From the Coral Reefs of Eilat, through the mountains above Eilat, to the Emerald Crown of Mount Carmel (Where Haifa's mountains meet the Sea), to Gamla in the Golan, Michal Strutin shows travelers natural wonders often obscured by political realities: from Rosh Hanikra to Gamla to Ein Gedi, from Makhtesh Ramon, (Israel's Grand Canyon) to the hot springs of Gader. Strutin encounters two-foot long parrot fish grazing on coral in the Red Sea; wafer-thin, often motionless gazelle camouflaged in the Negev Desert; colonies of griffon vultures in the Golan; skinks; fringe-toed lizards; hyraxes and countless other mythic-seeming beasts. And no politicians.
OFRAH'S MAY 2001 SELECTION
Hi friends. I am happy to recommend this new book by Debra Nussbaum Cohen, a good Jewish journalist, and if I recall correctly, a former member of Telem(?). The book is so good, it makes one want to get pregnant and give birth, just so it can be applied.
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Celebrating Your New Jewish Daughter:
Creating Jewish Ways to Welcome Baby Girls--New and Traditional Ceremonies
by Debra Nussbaum Cohen
Jewish Lights Publishing. 2001. 192 pages.
The introduction opens with, "Mazal Tov, You've Had a Baby Girl!"
Each child comes with your hopes and dreams. Everybody is familiar with a bris, or brit milah circumcision ceremony and in modern times, a festive celebration, for healthy baby boys on their eighth day after birth. But what do you do when you have a daughter? What are they, chopped liver? Since the early 1970's, Jewish parents have been celebrating their daughters in original ways (Ezrat Nashim published the first ceremonies in 1977, and the havurah and renewal movements wrote about theirs dating back to 1973). Debra Nussbaum Cohen, a resident of Park Slope Brooklyn, and mother who has known the joy of birth and the pain of loss, has created this essential guide to new and traditional ceremonies with which to welcome your new daughter to the world, the covenant, and the Jewish people. It's about time. And it will be a welcome addition to your Jewish bookshelf and life. Just consider, what you create today will be a "tradition" for your descendants! Cohen started collecting organic Simchat Bat ceremonies when she was pregnant with her first child. It is an inclusive book that has ceremonies crafted for adherents to traditional Orthodoxy, traditional Sephardic rite, contemporary rites, contemporary Orthodox, humanism, and modren mikveh rites. Part One introduces you to welcoming ceremonies and Jewish tradition, including the idea of covenant, brit milah, and the custom of gomel. Part Two consists of about four dozen pages on seriously practical considerations for your ceremony. It includes chapters on how to involve your non-Jewish loved ones or spouse, if necessary (through acknowledgement and readings); what to do in cases of adoption and cross-cultural adoption (remember, Moses was an adopted child, and Mordechai was probably an adoptive parent); and gay and lesbian parenthood (since both parents will be fathers or mothers, or should you pray for your child to make it to the chuppah, or just to be in a loving relationship). Part Three focuses on planning the event, creating programs, sanctifying the space, and deciding when to have the Simchat Bat (eighth day, 30th day, etc.). Part Four contains over 150 pages of sample ceremonies, and hundreds of readings and elements from which you can pick and choose. It includes selections for welcoming, naming, prayers of thanksgiving, parental blessings, acrostics, psalms, readings for relatives and friends, blessings for wine and bread, and rituals for brit nerot (light), brit mikvah (immersion), brit rechitzah (footwashing/handwashing), brit tallit (enfolding her into the covenant), brit kehillah (community), brit melach, and brit havdalah (transitions). The book succeeds so well, one wishes all the babies were girls (or maybe some things can be borrowed for future boys).
OFRAH'S APRIL 2001 SELECTION
I am preparing for Pesach, and am really enjoying Joan Nathan's FOOD OF ISRAEL cookbook, and I have been browsing through some new Haggadahs. Of course, I am never too busy for at least one novel. My suggestion and selection for April is below. By the way, if you are riding in a NYC taxi, always wear your seatbelt. I learned the hard way.
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Secret Love
by Bart Schneider
March 2001. A new novel by Bart Schneider, the author of Blue Bossa. The book's title (Secret Love) comes from the Doris Day song in the movie "Calamity Jane." The book is set in San Francisco, in the 1960s. The summer is approaching, and Barry Goldwater will be nominated top run against LBJ. Lenny Bruce is on the scene, as is Cassius Clay, Tang OJ mix, the race to the moon, Camus, and Mario Savio. Our hero is Jake Roseman, a Jewish prominent civil rights lawyer and agitator for urban renewal, who is in love with a beautiful black activist, Nisa. Jake, who dresses in Bermuda shorts, is in his 40s at a time when 40 was middle aged. Nisa Boehm (as in La Boheme?) is younger, an actress, and the daughter of a white socialite and a black father who vanished long ago. Nisa's annoyance grows from her Chinatown apartment, as Jake keeps her at arms length from his family. Jake is conflicted. Jake's wife, Inez, has recently committed suicide, and he has two kids. His curmudgeonly senile father is a vile racist. Over the course of their sensually passionate and sexually satisfying affair, Nisa draws Jake out of his remorseful depression and mourning. As their affair continues, we meet Peter, a handsome Jewish actor, who has of course changed his surname to make it in the business. Peter also finds love. After meeting in a foggy spot, Peter enters into a relationship with Simon Sims, a young black som of a minister. Simon, has fallen from his father's faith and taken up with the teachings of the Nation of Islam. So here are Jewish Peter and Muslim, closeted, gay, black, literary, janitor Simon, in love, and on their way to a civil rights march. You can see how the stories get interwoven. Click the cover to read more.
OFRAH'S MARCH 2001 SELECTION
I found my selection below to be especially timely and poignant, in light of the problems in Israel and the PA and the new elections. My suggestion and selection for March is below.
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MARTYRS CROSSING by Amy Wilentz
Simon and Shuster. March 2001. Amy is the former Jerusalem correspondent for The New Yorker, and a specialist on Haiti. In this novel, a young Palestinian woman, who wants to get her 2 year old child to a hospital in Israel, begs a checkpoint soldier for permission to enter Israel. This is not just any mother. It is the wife of a jailed Hamas terrorist, Hassan Hajimi. Lt Ari Doron calls his superiors, but as he does, Marina's child dies. The answer was no. Lt Doron is plagued with guilt and seeks absolution in Ramallah. At the same time, the Palestinian politicians use this case as a cause du jour. Into this mess arrives Doctor George Raad from the USA. The child's grandfather and a successful cardiologist. Click to read more extensive descriptions of the plot.
OFRAH'S FEBRUARY 2001 SELECTION
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House of Windows: Portraits from a Jerusalem Neighborhood
by Adina Hoffman (Jerusalem Post Film Critic)
A beautifully designed book that paints a rich portrait through slice of life vignettes of the Musrara neighborhood in Jerusalem, as seen from the point of view of a single apartment and the American immigrant author. Musrara is a gentrified neighborhood that houses tensions between the old timers and newcomers. Some of her neighbors are open, others closed; some are bigots, others are accepting. There is the mystery of the original residents of the building. There is Sa'adia, a founder of the Sephardi Black Panthers, and his younger brother Meir, the grocer. There is Ahmed the gardner, and Rafi, a lame loner. Nahama must deal with her drug addicted son. Dvora knows much more than she lets on. An excellent book, but take her idealistic politics with a grain of salt.
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Razor Scooter: Clear Wheels and Black Handlebars by Razor USA LLC
THE Hottest Toy around the shuls in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Tokyo, and Tel Aviv's Sheinkin Street. Speed safely down the street to the park to read your latest Jewish Books. The Razor--which supports persons up to 224 pounds (100 kilograms)--collapses down to a mere 23 by 5 by 7 inches and weighs just 6 pounds, making it a cinch to carry or pack. Its supershiny, 100 percent aluminum alloy structure is well engineered and dent resistant, and has a simple, stylish design.
Click here to order or to read more about it.
OFRAH'S JANUARY 2001 SELECTION
AND THE FLAMES DID NOT CONSUME US
A Rabbi's Journey Through Communal Crisis
by Rabbi Gary Mazo
Paperback - 172 pages. On November 1, 1994, Carol Neulander, the wife of Rabbi Fred Neulander was found murdered in Cherry Hill NJ. What is shock to the community. The wife of a leading rabbi was brutally killed. Rabbi Gary Mazo, who came to Congregation M'kor Shalom four years prior to study with his mentor, Fred Neulander, was aghast. But then the suspense grew when Rabbi Neulander was fingered as the primary suspect. Was he guilty? Is he guilty? Instead of taking sides in the debate and ongoing murder trial, Gary tells how he helped lead the synagogue's 4000 members through the process of rumour control and mongering, pondering, questioning, doubting, and crisis. This concise, eloquently-written book relates Rabbi Mazo's journey through storms of a magnitude he never expected to face. Crisis reveals character. Despite his youth and lack of experience, despite advice from colleagues to leave the perilous situation, he made the commitment to stay and bring healing to his community.
Click here to order this book from Amazon.com, read more reviews, or to add your own review.
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