The Story of The Lost Shtetl

 

Try to figure out: a shtetl called Kreskol tucked in the middle of the forest, somewhere in Poland, a ´happy peaceful town´ protected against all the terrible catastrophies and events of the last century. There were no memories of Shoah, and not the post-war anti-Semitism, the ardent communists did not tried to change the sould of its inhabitants and afterwards accuse them for being anti-nationals either. It´s only a absurd occurence which has to do with some unexpected unhappy ending of a marriage that will take the shtetl out of its a-historicity.

Wait, wait, wait....but such an event and therefore  is practically impossible. Let´s say that living without indoor plumbing for such an impressive amount of time it is real, but not connecting with the outside world for so many decades and still surviving it´s a logical unlikelihood. It´s what an academic, later in the story of The Lost Shtetl, the debut of Max Gross, will haughty assess at a scholarly conference, echoing my unbeliver´ mind of someone who tried to kill the story - any fiction story actually - with cold reasonable arguments. This academic echoed my own mind at the very beginning of the book, when I was trying to figure out the pace of the novel and maybe get in sync with its story. After all, they may need to get from somewhere those materials to process thoaw sheep skin for the handwritten notes, isn´t it?

Being Jewish means at a very great extent being a storyteller as telling stories - some of them happy, many sad though - and I am happy to discover lately a couple of good (and very good) Jewish novels that confirm those skills while using the historical format of the old maizes in a modern, secular context. 

I had access to The Lost Shtetl in audio format, narrated by Steven Jay Cohen, which made the literary experience even more interesting as it requested an additional focus and made the dialogues between the many characters even more lively and real in their world created for them by the author. 

It is a woman, Pesha - ´a woman of peculiar appetites´ - that will take over the veil over 100 years of a-history in Kreskol, but in fact every chapter can be read as a story in itself. And how else is history made if not of many disparate stories of people, some but not all of them intertwined. As in the case of any good story, there is love, greed, hope, friendship and a bit of suspense. Kreskol is like a portal to another world which - I am very relieved to inform my readers - is not at all a perfect, idyllic world, a projection of a superficial assumption about how Jewish life used to be in a shtetl, a replication of a simplified anti-historical reality. 

The writing is so fresh and the story is taking so many unexpected, often hilarious turns, that I hardly want it to finish. It´s the magic that a good story can always achieve, including by taking even the more skeptical reader out of his/her average predictable and logically understandable world with a promise of pure adventure. Most probably I can spare some time to listen to the book once again.

As for the ending, is one of the best I´ve read in a very long time...but I will not let my fingers share anything about it.

A short note on the cover which is both ironic and mysterious in its simplicity. 

Something is going on lately in the world of Jewish literature and it looks like there are many good good books out lately with a very intelligent creative touch.

Rating: 5 stars

The Last Book of Adana Moreau: some thoughts

Every single month, I am reading an impressive amount of books and novels with a Jewish topic, young or mature authors, men and female, modern or classical stories, for children, young adults, middle grade or a wider audience. Some are published in English, but also in German, French, Hebrew or Italian. Many relate on topics pertaining to Jewish life, the rift between religious and secular Jews, finding love out of the tribe, longing about a lost home country that will never feel as home, making - or refusing to make - aliyah. There is a comperehensive list of topics that repeat themselves over and over again. Therefore, is there any chance to change and challenge the ways in which Jewish novels are written?

The Lost Book of Adana Moreau by Michael Zapata, that I have access to in audio format narrated by Coral Pena, seems to be an inspiring place to start a discussion about the future of Jewish-themed novels. I haven´t been surprised at such a great extent by a book since discovering Jorge L. Borges, many many springs away. 

The book is mindblowing by its complexity of the story and its references: both historical - Jewish and universal - as well as pertaining to the world. And it´s populated by an enormous amount of characters as well, that the author is playing skillfully as a puppeteer with his feet steady in the middle of the world. Among them, a one-arm businessman from Columbia, a (Jewish) pirate, Sicilian soldiers, a physician interested in parallel universes, Adana Moreau who wrote and published a SF book that got lost in New Orleans after her premature death in 1929 and recovered during our common era through an accident of sorts.

The search for Adana´s son turns into a quixotic journey, which connects, as patches of colourful but diverse pieces of fabric, Jewish stories from all over the world, flowing seamlessy through centuries. The paradigm of the parallel universes resonates with the complexity itself of the Jewish lives, caught between present and the heavy - unbearable sometimes - past. Jumping from a parallel quanta to another, the story within the stories can be read as the the paradigm of Jewish narrative as well. Too diverse to be said into one story, very much connected with disparate geographical references from all over the world, never complete without the (un)safe details of the wider social spectrum. It sounds as a post-modern chaos and listening to the story I had to stop and listen again a fragment or another, but all comes together as a story. 

The Last Book of Adana Moreau is bold in its embrace of diversity of all kinds, but it also creates a happy literary precedent where creativity is highly at work and there are no limits for its courage to say all and everything.

Book Review: City of A Thousand Gates by Rebecca Sacks

For a long time I haven´t devoured a book on a Jewish/Israeli topic with such a pleasure and curiosity...

I´ve spent my every single free time this weekend listening to City of Thousand Gates by Rebecca Sacks, narrated by Lameece Issaq. I am reading a lot of literature produced in Israel or on Israeli/Jewish topics (the regular blog posts on my blog are the testimony), but I´ve been rarely impressed either by the topic or the literary depictions. This book succeeded though to deeply impress me. 

With an impressive cast of characters, covering a wide variety of individualities, among both Jews and Arabs in Israel, City of Thousand Gates brings people together and separate them, following the unknown destiny´s ways.

The cast of characters is impressive: from the West Bank anglos to the Palestinian academic, the bio mom from America married with an Israeli to the young religious teenager freshly engaged that want to have a taste of the secular dating game. There is also Vera, a German journalist interested to report about Hebron and Palestinian topics, that used to snort coke with Israeli in Berlin and moved to Israel for almost the same reasons Israeli are - or used to - moving to Berlin (minus the price of Milky). There are also Palestinians applying for Israeli passport, checkpoints and tattooed soccer players, both Jewish and Arabs.

Sacks spent a couple of years in Israel, particularly the West Bank, and through the characters, their interactions - ways of talking - and the descriptions of their locations I´ve felt instantly back in Israel. This includes also the various ´anglo´ slangs as well as those used in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. There are real people we are talking about, not some dolls-like inanimated golems brought to life for the sake of answering the market requirements when it comes to topics pertinent to Israel. There are all those contradictions, denial - as in living in a place and gently refusing to ignore its realities and hardships - and the humour, the best medicine for the everyday life under those conditions. 

From the literary point of view, the author manages admirably the art of switching POWs and portraying people through their interactions and human reactions. Although the humanity is what makes us all, members of the human race, the specificities of the geography, history - both global and personal - as well as the language make us individuals with special features and particular reactions to life encounters.

Made up of different short stories with characters whose destinies intertwin - after all, it´s a small country - City of Thousand Gates maps the humans of Israel and their everyday existence in a world where history doesn´t let you breath normally. It may turn grotesque sometimes, as in the case of Emily, that shortly after escaping a terrorist attack, makes a selfie at the location of the explosion. But more grotesque is sometimes the view of people from outside, anyone, misreading facts and looking for symbols where there is none.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Book Review: An Unorthodox Match by Naomi Ragen

 

For me, Naomi Ragen is one of the Jewish authors writing Jewish stories that I can hardly put down. What I love about her books is how she is creating stories that sound so close from home, populated with authentic characters with deep and complex psychologies.

An Unorthodox Match - which I had in audiobook format - contrary to the literary and movie trends, is about a young woman, Lola/Leah, who decides to become religious and move to Borough Park and live, work and marry within a religious community. There is drama, but not that kind of drama the fans of Unorthodox - the book and the Netflix movie - are expecting. Of course, when you leave your secular life, everyone - especially your parents - are in shock. Of course that on the other side, the grass is not green and in addition to being suspicious, there is always the risk of being considered a second class Jew - even this is so anti-halachic and contrary to the very basis of our religion (what about Avraham avinu who was himself a idol worshipper, or Ruth the Moabite the great-greatmother of King David from whose lineage Mashiah will descend. A baal teshuva - BT - needs help and support and have to be half-deaf to not hear all the lashon hara that is said on his or her back.

Lola/Leah is going through her personal Gehenom as she is set on dates with people with serious mental disabilities or with other physical and personal issues. A kind woman with a golden heart she is helping in the house of Yaakov, a widower with five children who is pushed to have a new start by his energetic mother-in-law. His intention to marry Lola/Leah are welcomed with shock by the community and Yaakov´s own daughter, who is afraid that such an alliance will damage her chances of finding a good Torah scholar.

As in other book by Naomi Ragen I had the chance to read, the characters are going through complex personal transformations and choices. They unfairness of the shidduchim process and its incumbent crisis, the unfairness of the judgmental attitudes of the community, the pressure for role conformity and the unwelcoming attitude towards difference and deviants, as well as the terrific stigma of mental health are topics the people in the book - that can be easily identified with real people in any small or big Orthodox Jewish community - are reflexive about. 

Without taking stances, the book shows the complexity of people and issues affecting religious Jews, but also the need to search for a meaning, no matter your religious orientation, but a meaning which does not exclude the other and especially those who are not following your own interpretation of things.

A lot to think about for this Shabbes or for the rest of the holy month of Ellul. The King is in the fields and the yom ha´din of Yom Kippur is coming soon...

Rating: 4 stars

The Spiritual Revolution of Rav Kook

One of the most important religious Jewish thinkers of the past century, Rav Kook is equally one of the most misunderstood. All Jewish denominations avoid him - unless when the case is for random use of his thoughts for their own use. The relative confusion and misunderstanding are due also to the limited access to his writings: he haven´t left massive commentaries or writings, and most of the references attributed to him are based on his diary writings edited by his son Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook and his student, ´The Nazir´, Rav David Cohen. In addition to this, his poetic Hebrew is not easily accessible therefore translations need to rely on more than a simple knowledge of the literal sense of the words but on a deeper religious meaning.

In The Spiritual Revolution of Rav Kook. The Writings of a Jewish Mystic, Ari Ze´ev Schwartz took upon himself the mission to translate into English the thoughts of the Rav, covering a variety of topics that are starting from the individual until the connection to the natural and the animal world.

The chore of the book relies on the ´four part song´: there are four types of people, each sing a different song of Jewish spirituality: 1. There is the song of the individual (through which a personal connection to one´s own soul, Gd, Torah, meaning of life, spiritual growth, prayer and creativity is made); 2. The song of the nation which has to do with topics of Jewish identity such as the Messianic times, the Zionism, the rebuilt of the Temple; 3. The song of humanity is the Jewish rendition on issues such as faith, science, liberal and progressive values and the relationships with other religions; 4. The song of creation, which embraces also details regarding animal rights and vegetarianism. All those four songs are supposed to be united into one person, as the creation itself is unique.

For each aspect and topic approached, the author makes a short overview and adds the selected quotes as direct proof the reader can use for further understanding. This perspective offers a comprehensive overview of Rav´s thinking, and may explain at a certain extent the frequent misuse of his thoughts: although the results of a subjective selection of the book author, those fragments are an extraordinary insights of the complexity of his perspective, that goes beyond the limited group thinking. 

One of the most important lessons Rav Kook offered was the kindness towards all fellow Jews, regardless the degree of religiosity, including the atheists. The righteous individual, the rabbi, should find the right way to communicate instead of excommunicate, through a higher understanding of the human nature. ´The purest tzaddikim (righteous individual) do not complain about evil, bjut instead increase righteousness. They should not complain about atheism, but instead increase faith. Do not complain about ignorance, but instead increase wisdom´. The complex knowledge of his religious perspective allows him to tolerate and learn the lessons from the non-religious, including by understanding that sometimes, the atheists are the best believers and their disappointment with religion has to do in fact with the unflexible approach of the religious institutions. ´We need to develop a spiritual outlook that will not focus on the negativities in secular values, but instead concentrate on transforming them into a more spiritual and beautiful form´. What a wise outlook in so dire need nowadays...

Rav Kook, with a Hasidic/Chabad background on his mother´s side, and a Litvish father, had extensive relationships with and knowledge of the literary and artistic world, as a friend of Shai Agnon and Bialik and supported the creation of Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design. In his opinion, the religious world needed the creative inspiration from the artistic realm. 

Noteworthy is also the complex outlook when it comes to the need on considering on an individual basis the different aspects of Jewish thought and law, including in organising the educational system: some individuals are more suited for halakha (legal) studies, while for the others, a different direction of thought of Judaism is more suited. Finding the right balance requires a vision and a deep knowledge of the human nature.

There are so many new pathways the book open through the selected translation of quotes. I´ve personally found inspiring the ones related to prayer. 

Here are the most significant ones: 

´The goal of prayer is not to change the will of Gd, since Gd cannot be subject to change. Instead, the goal is to be uplifted by the changes that happen to one during prayer so that one will be in line with the will of Gd´.

´Where one requests something in prayer, one must be careful that one´s intention is to remove evil and darkness from the world and to strengthen divine food and light´.

According to this point of view, the prayer is in itself a spiritual revolution that we are part thereof by every single word that we utter. With every prayer we make one step further towards self-acceptance and love, a significant step towards opening towards our fellow Jews and humans in general.

There is so much left from Rav Kook heritage to learn about and it is important to be aware of his complex revolution whose seeds are waiting to be planted. 

The book by Ari Ze´ev Schwartz is a valuable contribution towards the rightful understanding of the complexities of Rav Kook thoughts, beyond the sectarian approaches and simplifications. The spiritual revolution the Rav started is just at the beginning and the correct references are the most useful tools in moving forward on the right path, both at individual and especially at national levels.

Rating: 5 stars

Book Review: The Covenant by Naomi Ragen

Esther, Leah, Maria and Ariana survived Auschwitz and made a covenant to always be ready to help each other. When the husband of Leah's granddaughter and their daughter are kidnapped by terrorists belonging to Izzedim al-Qassam terrorists in Israel, the four ladies reunite both their prayers and their connections and financial resources to save the two innocent lives.

There are many ways one can read The Covenant by Naomi Ragen, probably one of the best books I've read by this author so far: as an international thriller involving international actors; as a book about the torments of Jewish life in Israel and abroad; as a book about frienships cemented during terrible times. All reading are correct, in my opinion and it makes the book interesting and entertaining. Personally, I've read it in one sitting, curious about how the kidnapping case will evolve, as well as about the human interactions in time of crisis. 

The covenant uniting the four women, not all of them Jewish, is what separates humanity from lack of it, fear from the risk taken of never being helpless. It has to do more with human understanding and unity against evil, wherever it comes, regardless its justifications.

In the end, what kept me passionately reading this book was its obvious sparkle of humanity.

Our 'Talibans'

Based on his direct experience as a lawyer, Yair Nehorai wrote a poetry-novel telling the story of a child growing up in an abusive household. 

Lev Tahor is a cult counting around 200 people that lately set up headquarters in Bet Shemesh in Israel, its distinctive feature being a burqa-like dress for the women. Nehorai, which is criminal lawyer, defended the son and the husband of a woman leader of the group, that was charged with child abuse. This is not the only 'unusual' case Nehorai dealt with, as he frequently defends members of extreme anti-Zionist groups like Neturei Karta.

Translated in German - this is the version I've read - as 'The Child of the Taliban Woman', it was published in Hebrew as 'Vtahiyeh li ima keveri' ('And my mother would have been my grave'). 

The block of verses are organised per years, and one can notice the increasing tension shared by the protagonist, the growing up child telling the story of his alienation from his more and more extreme mother. We have here the usual 'we' vs. 'them' contrast, which is anyway typical for a certain isolationist mindset, with a depreciative take to everything that has to do with modernity and people adopting it. But, in addition, there is a very extreme and aggressive take, which has to do with the corporal punishment and verbal abuse against children that do not conform to the unrealistic standards set by the parents. In this case, without any normal connection with the Torah learning and education, but just the result of people in high need of a psychological support. There are individuals lost in the intricacies of spiritual promiscuity and superstition, that lost the love and humanity that the word of Torah might bring in the life of people. 

Unable to know any other world and surrounded by people with similar problems, the little child is going through a stage when he acknowledges the need for punishment, agrees with the need to be treated in this way. Until his world grows up and his perspective on the world changes as well. He can see the difference and realize that he is a victim.

The poetic form of expressing this story is unique, but makes the story even more interesting and dramatic at the same time. 

I've seen many reviews in German trying to outline that this is a typical 'Ultra-Orthodox' story, but obviously it ignores the very specific cult-status of this group, which is rejected by many representatives of the strict religious groups in Jerusalem and abroad. The stories of abuse surrounding not few people belonging to this very small group are indeed shocking for everyone, but a basic knowledge and background of the group will avoid generalisations. 

Rather Laugh Than Cry: Stories from a Hassidic Household

With a detachement and a sense of humour only someone having to deal with an overwhelming daily challenge could have, Malka Zipora is sharing her wisdom and experience about being a Jewish Orthodox mother. Far from being a memoir, her short stories collected under Rather Laugh Than Cry. Stories from a Hassidic Household, are not only interesting for the information shared - from little cooking tips to parenting and insights about the observant life - but also for the good waves and inspiration sent to the reader.

At the very big sense of the world, the stories could be considered short fragments of a memoir, with personal accounts being the base of her writing. But even if you take them as just stories and personal accounts, it does not diminish at all the quality of the writing. 

Born in Israel to Hungarian Shoah survivor parents, Malka Ziporah lived in Australis and New York before settling to Montreal where she is raising her family. Her book was on my to-read list for a long time, first because I was very curious to check a woman author with a very traditional background. Although in the last years, more women from Hassidic families are taking the challenge of becoming writers, many of them might share mostly their religious and personal struggles. 

Malka Ziporah also has lots of struggles to cope with round the day, but her emunah and resilience place her on the other side of the stories, where life was accepted already as it is and her desire to write doesn't contradict her status of a Hassidic woman. Her faith is a source of inspiration and strength and by sharing her experiences she is opening up her usually reclused world to an universal audience. The authenticity of her voice is part of her contribution as a writer to displaying an unique sparkle worth being included to the literary experiences. 

My biggest regret was that the book finished and there are not other books by Malka Ziporah I can keep reading to remain in this world, in her world.

Boychiks in the Hood, an inaccurate Hasidic travelogue

I hesitated for a long time in which category to include Boychiks in the Hood, by Robert Eisenberg, a book I had for a long time on my reading list. 

The book was published in 1996, when Hasidism was rather considered a path of life followed by a rather exotic group of people, and I finished reading it in 2018, when Hasidism is still considered a path of life followed by a rather exotic people, but relatively widely present into the everyday media and literary, also academic approaches. For instance, there are more people who've heard about Satmers and about Jews going to Uman, in Ukraine, on Rosh Hashanah. However, checking facts and adding information to the field of research or to the overall knowledge about a specific topic could be done at any time, as what changed meanwhile since the publication of the book was only the frequency of the information about the topic. People belonging to the Satmer branch of Hasidism will hardly change in their approach to belief in the next 100 years or until Moshiah will come.

Therefore, the book can hardly be considered a research, and there are more than once facts and statements which slightly or roughly contradict the documented realities. For instance: 'A large proportion of the Satmar Hasidim perished during World War II, but not to the same extent as did Polish Jewry. Adolph Eichmann's liquidation machine didn't get around to the destruction of Hungary's Jews until the final months of the war, and then they found little official enthusiasm for the project among their Hungarian allies'. Or the fact that there is a serious connection between Kasztner and the Satmer Rebbe, and although his was a not good, and a Zionist, Kasztner had a contribution to saving Rav Teitelbaum's life. Even at the level of the 1990s, there was for sure enough knowledge, especially among Shoah survivers from Hungary that would help a more refined and serious approach. 

Robert Eisenberg travels from Israel to Monsey, Florida to Antwerp and to Uman to meet Jews of all colours and believes, born religious or religious by choice. They share their experiences mostly by using Yiddish, the 'dead language of Judaism which is so much alive nowadays. There are stories which reveal new and interesting things, or facts that are - again - hardly if ever developed or researched beyond the direct declarations of the dialogue partners. For me, the book is mostly a travelogue, with plenty of comparisons between the people he meet and movie characters, singers and actors, most of them not making any sense for the nowadays non-US reader. 

Although Boychiks in the Hood is an useful reading for anyone interested in Hasidic/post-WWII Jewish histories and stories, it has too many flaws to make it into a top 20 books about Hasidism you should read. 

Rating: 2.5 stars

Book Review: When We Danced on Water, by Evan Fallenberg

Two artists, Vivi and Teo, she in her 40s, he in his late 80s, she an artist still looking for her creative identity, he, a national brand nd the creator of the ballet school in Israel, meet in a coffee in Tel Aviv. Vivi is the waitress there and he is usually having his coffee there. Slowly slowly, they are connecting not only through their creative searches, but by their individual personal stories.

I couldn't leave the first half of When We Danced on Water, by Evan Fallenberg and I cannot clearly mention one single reason for that. The writing flows beautifully with extraordinary descriptions of dance and debates about art, but there is also the impulsive artistic ambiance of Tel Aviv that I miss so much once in a while. 

But as I was advancing through the second part, my disappointment grew as I started to see story flaws everywhere. First, Vivi's Berlin failed love story: it takes place too fast, seems just to fill up some narrative space before the most important story - which actually occupies the most place - Teo's, takes place. On the other hand, Teo's story, which takes place during the war while he is kidnapped by a sadistic German official with whom will share a villa in Grunewald for a couple of years, apparently the same villa where Vivi lived during her Berlin adventure, would deserved a larger space and is what really matters in the story. It would have been worth a book in itself. 

The last quarter is also taking place too fast and looks equally artificial. The events leading up to the end seemed for me just added up details with a kitschy soap opera taste. I grew up more and more disappointed, although sparkles of brilliance were still spread all over the book, such as Vivi's artistic idea to recreate life stories based on pictures, material memories, in addition to personal narratives. 

When We Danced on Water is a book that has many interesting ideas and make you think about the destinies of the characters, but personally would have expected a more coherent story. Although, after so many literary approaches, writing a fiction novel with episodes taking place during Shoah is becoming more and more difficult and requires a lot of creativity to produce a good yet literary balanced story.

Rating: 3 stars

Jewish New York - The Remarkable Story of a City and a People

'This volume narrates the history of the New York Jews, with an eye to their distinctive story as well as consciousness of how Jews embedded their particularity within the city's contentious past'. Jewish New York is nowadays a reality of the diasporic Jewish history and present, and this book, based on serious historical and sociological data, might create at least one more topic for a further academic investigation. For instance, the issue of American Zionism, and therefore the ways in which American Jews are positioning themselves in relation with the state of Israel and the everyday political struggles from the country.

The evolution of the Jewish community is analized back in the 17th century, which makes this volume a valuable source of information for recreating a process of creating mentalities and social patterns. It also offers a multi-layered approach, which goes back and forth from the economic, cultural, social and citizens rights perspectives, creating a pretty accurate landscape where people are relocating continously, adapting their habits from the Old Country while maintaining a certain degree of individuality. With more than a million Jews living in New York, the city is considered a symbol of Jewish life in the diaspora but at the same time, at least in the last 2 decades, there are Jewish communities in many other locations in the USA, which increases the diversity of Jewish life. Although the book has the focus on NYC, a short comparison would have even better outline the specificities of the city. Another omission of the book in my opinion is that it ignores the strong Israeli community in the city, which although remains a distinctive group among the various Jewish communities, it has its own dynamic and specific influence on the cultural patterns and habits of the bigger group as such.

The book is a recommended read to anyone looking to become familiar, in an academic way, with the Jewish history of New York, either for academic or pure knowledge purposes. 

Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Book Review: The Septembers of Shiraz, by Dalia Sofer

Set in the aftermath of the Iranian revolution, the debut roman of Dalia Sofer, The Septembers of Shiraz is a story well-told of rise and fall of a merchant family. Isaac Amin, a precious stones trader is taken away from his office by the Revolutionary Guards and hold for six months without trial under the accusation of being a 'Zionist' spy. 

Although the accusations are not proved, Amin a non-religious Jew is going through the hell of humiliation, while his family is witnessing little by little the disappearance of their old world as well as the escape of relatives out to the free world. In Brooklyn, the oldest son of the family, Parviz, faced with poverty, starts to work for a Chabad hut-maker and get acknowledged with a world where the material goods are less important compared to the goods of the spirit. 

There is something fantastic about how the balance between spiritual and material world is delicately achieved in this book, the inspiration for a motion picture released last year, starring Adrien Brody and Salma Hayek. It seems that the entire existence of the Amin family was set around material possessions: jewelleries, esmerald-coloured cars, expensive silks and tea services. This pampered world was a cocoon to hide from the outside world, but they were so well hidden that they haven't noticed the changes taking place and the risks encountered once the Shah was away. The regime change left them completely over-exposed and made them into easy target for the new politics of revenge. Sometimes, this new situation can be a trigger to the memory bringing back questions of identity. For Parviz, the fervor of the new Chassidim is foreign to him, but their good deeds and celebration of identity, despite the everyday hardships is intriguing and opens its mind to a different (Jewish) reality.

Besides the historical interest for the Iranian Jews - I have more books to review on this topic in the next months - the book is worth reading for its literary qualities. The author has a special art of creating ambiances and describing both environments and emotions. Although I've read the book in a German translation, those features of the book remained highly outlined.

Rating: 4 stars  

Book review: Trail of Miracles, by Smadar Herzfeld

Told in the slow pace of a Hasidic story, Trail of Miracles is the story of Gittel, born in the lands of Ukraine, daughter of a Torah scholar and daughter-in-law of the famous Maggid of Mezeritch. Written as a first person memoir, the story focuses on Gittel's account of a life in shadow, a pioneer of her own kind, married as a 12-year old who decided to follow the dream of her youth and go all by herself to Jerusalem.

The Jerusalem she discovered is a faint copy of her dreams but it is the last step of her ladder towards self-discovery and the litmus test of her ability to take over her destiny. Always living in the shadows of men, not encouraged to learn enough because not a boy, she is there all on herself, anonymous, her past left far behind but strong enough to start over and over again. Because this is life, swimming through hardship. 

The writing is beautiful, the words creating beautiful images, talking in dreams that you need to take a break from the book to decipher. Gittel is sharing her experience from the bottom of her heart and at a great extent it is not easy to see her account as familiar as it resonates with some opinions regarding the women's role in religious communities. Only the individual example can demonstrate that there is room for balancing roles. 

My only disappointment is that the story finishes too early, exactly when I was in the perfect mood to discover new stories. 

Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

The story of Israel Philharmonic Orchestra told to children

Telling to nowadays children stories about the past, especially about history, is quite a challenging task. You need to find your way smoothly towards their preferences and sensibilities and interests, and when it comes to books, the challenges are even higher. However, a good book telling a good story is always a win, and regardless how much your kid loves playing network games on the computer, he or she will always find some time for listening to a quality narrative.

A Concert in the Sand tells beautifully, both through text and very inspiring images, the story of the first performance of what will later be Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, in 1936. Created by the once child prodigy Bronislaw Huberman, it gathered the best European Jewish artists, and their performance in Israel meant bringing back warm memories from the 'old country'. 

Through a very personal story, between a grand mother and her nephew, an entire world is delicately created, without teaching on purpose or aiming to lecture. The historical details are coming along smoothly and the beautiful images helps to fix it in the long term memory.

This book is recommended to any history lover kids. It brings to life a story less known and unjustly forgotten from the history of Israel, whose European culture remains an important asset through decades. 

Rating: 5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher

Book review: Women's Minyan by Naomi Ragen

I had Naomi Ragen on my to-read list for a long time, but fate wanted that my first real encounter to be not a novel, but a play. Based on a real story of a haredi woman who was blocked from having access to her children, it continues the usual discussion regarding the disregard towards women among some Haredi groups. Although women are celebrated and appreciated for their dedication to bringing children to the world, taking care of the house and most often also working while the men are learning in the yeshivot, the moment when a women is requesting her right to think and decide, the pressure of the community often turns against her.

It is not necessarily the rule, but such things happen and it can be enough to offer inspiration to the writer. I really liked the idea of the physical absence of men in the play, while they continue to be the background noise and the constant reference - both as a source of fear and source of authority - for the women characters assuming that: 'We are just women. There are things we can't understand. We're not on their level'.

The play has a more optimistic note than the reality, as the destitute Chana fights for and wins the chance of being heard, in the front of a 'minyan' of 10 other women, among which her daughters and mother-in-law. The open heart breaks the barriers the men rose for women to keep them weak. 'They enforce marriage and divorce laws that keep us chained like prisoners to men we despise'. 

From the literary point of view, I particularly liked the first part of the play, where tensions and symbolic details are added in order to create a crecendo of expectations. Unfortunately, the closer we are from the end, the slower the pace and the dialogue is less dramatic. 

Although I am fully aware of many of the realities of the daily wife within Orthodox communities presented in the play, I always pledge for nuances and more colours than black and life. However, this play increased my interest to discover more works by Naomi Ragen.

Rating: 3 stars

Those fine chains of sand that bind us

I finished reading this book in one long night, but took me some more weeks until all the impressions and ideas started to get together, less emotional and more clearly. 

Written from the perspective of British, sometimes too liberal, Jew - see the discussions about Israel and the religious compromise in a mixed family - it explores the identity stories of young Jews and Israeli, during the last war in Israel. If for an Israeli born and breed like Udi, being Jewish and Israeli is an identity to carry on with, for the successful banker Daniel from London, making aliya and eventually going to the Army is the confirmation of an identity that cannot fully develop outside Israel. For Daniel, taking part to a pro-Israeli manifestation in support of the three yeshiva kids kidnapped by Hamas, although confronting animosity and anti-Semitism, was this way to show his support. For Udi, in a British hospital after surviving a terrible car accident, facing the animosity of some of the nurses, was a part of life. 'But he knows that there will be always be those who hate Israel, and most of the staff are friendly and welcoming and blessing-sent'. And there is also Daniel's mysterious artist girlfriend.

There are a lot of discussions and cruel social realities, about Israel and the everyday tensions and the need to break free of all the drums of war, in a quiet sanitized European city. But somehow, those fine chains of sands are bringing us together or around the same (Pesach) table, everyone with its own truth. 

The book is well written and keeps you awake and curious to find out the rest of the story. The characters have depth and the tensions between idetities and love stories make it a captivating story. It is a book that makes you think a lot about your own identity, sometimes in a provocative, not always convenient, way.

There is an inaccuracy in the book, as the Iraqi Jews do not speak Farsi, but an Arabic dialect. I did find the choice for using 'yamaka' instead of kippa a bit awkward. 

Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher via NetGalley.com

Teaching children gratitude: Yitzi and the Giant Menorah

This is not a book about Hanukah, but about being grateful and thankful for the gifts we are given and, in general, for good things that are happening to us. Aimed for preschool and first grade children, this very beautifully illustrated work of writing tells a story taking place in the famous - for the Jewish world - village of Chelm, in Poland. This place was known for the less gifted minds of its citizens, but being intelligent does not make you automatically a better human. The - Jewish - mayor of  Lublin sent to the people of Chelm a giant menorah for Hanukah, and they were all the time thereafter trying to find solutions about what to send him in exchange. At the beginning, they are not very lucky about that: the delicious latkes made by Rivka the Cook are eaten before delivery, the giant ice is melting. Finally, they decide about something more symbolic: they all get together and lit the menorah, with all the beautiful lights reaching as far as Lublin, where the mayor was invited to watch the gratitude show from a hill. This was the most beautiful gift, worth all the material presents because it magnified the gesture creating a bigger, majestic effect. And this is the essence of the holiday of Hanukah, to be grateful for the wonderful small things that happened to us.

This book can be used as the starting point of a long discussion about gratitude and interacting with the others peers, either at home or at school. The language is simple, and the illustrations are inspiring - either colourful, with a Chagall touch, or very strong black graphics.
At the end of the book, the holiday of Hanuka is explained at length.

The author, Richard Ungar, is an artist with a lawyer background that authored and illustrated many books, including a series based in Chelm.
The book will be available on Amazon beginning of September, which makes it a great gift for the Rosh Hashana or Hanuka.

Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher via NetGalley.com, in exchange of an honest review.

Walking through old Brownsville with Alfred Kazin

I have a weakness for post-war books about Jewish Brooklyn, describing with acriby the old and the news, the changes between generations while some things still stay the same. It is that combination between sadness and despair and hope that impresses me. 

Kazin's A Walker in the City has not only a clear literary value due to its beautiful and vivid descriptions, but also a sociological and anthropological importance, documenting the life of various generations of immigrants and their interactions with the outside world. It studies with the journalistic acriby people coming and going, the new generation and the old residents, or the social and religious network. 

The success of the residents of Brownsville's part of Brooklyn was confirmed by their departure from here. 'We were at the end of the line. We were the children of immigrants who camped at the city's back door, in New York's rawest, remotest, cheapest ghetto (...)', he described his native neighbourhood. When new people are coming, like the mysterious Solovey family, chosing this place after a life in big cities in France or Italy, there are soon to enter the big family of failures. 

He describes his school years, learning with rigid teachers, or the bar mitzvah preparations, reduced by some learning by heart practice. Although he is a socialist believer, and part of a secular family, he is curiously looking for some chasidim that might be a diversion to the distant religious practices, but there is no one around. But despite this, there is a feeling of togetherness shared at the family table every Friday evening: "We had always to be together: believers and non-believers, we were a people. I was of that people. Unthinkable to go one's own way, to doubt or to escape the fact that I was a Jew. I had heard of Jews who pretend they were not, but could not understand them". As he will outline later on: "Jews were Jews. Gentiles were Gentiles. The line between them had been drawn for all time". In later public appearances, he will said: "I was by temperament created for the idea of revolution, in the sense of making the world over and creating a new society".

The most terrible word is aleyn, alone. "Socialism would be one long Friday evening around the samovar and the cut-glass bowl laden with nuts and fruits, all of us singing tzuzamen, tzuzamen, ale tzuzamen!"

The first American born of the family, he is supposed to over achieve as a confirmation that the efforts of the parents of moving in this strange land, far away from der heym, were not in vain. "It was not for myself alone that I was expected to shine, but for them - to redeem the constant anxiety of their existence". Different perception of der heym shows the dramatic differences between generations and explains the strong American identity of 2nd or 3rd generation of Jewish immigrants. For Kazin, it was a 'terrible word". "I associated with that old European life only pain (...) and hopelesness". 

His life in Brownsville involves going out of the ghetto often searching for books, sharing his long love for reading and literature. As he will later confess: "Literature has been my lifework, my passion and oddly enough my 'profession'". "My idea of heaven is to settle down in a jet with a book, a notebook and a Martini" he said in an interview and he shared to the world his part of heaven through his books and literary analysis. 

Book review: The Gospel according to Judas, by Amos Oz

Amos Oz represents for me a typical case of an author whose writing I like very much, and to whom I am indebted a lot in terms of literary development, but whose ideas are at the very very other end of my own thinking. I've read most of his books and I am always curious about new releases, but it seems that from a book to another, I am more and more disappointed.

The last two days I tried tremendously to finish a book who is greatly appreciated in Germany, Judas, as it was translated, or The Gospel According to Judas, according to some variants. It tells the story of a small microcosmos at the end of the 1950s Israel, made of Shmuel Ash, one of the best portrayed intellectuals in Oz's writings to date, the old Gershon Wald he is hired to take care of and entertain for couple of hours in exchange of boarding, and his daughter-in-law of his deceased son, Atalya Abrabanel. Following the bankrupcy of his parents company, Ash has to leave Haifa and his studies and find some work. Meanwhile, his girlfriend left him and he is left in the middle of a dramatic existential crisis. Atalya, a woman in his mid-40s, whose hands are obsessively described quite often - always as looking older than the rest of her appearance - was the daugher of a deceaed leader of the Zionist movement, who was in favour of a separation of the land with the Arabs. Ash is kind of falling in love with, accompanying her shyly to her pretended different detective work assignments, and the game of feelings is one of the best parts of the book.

Hoping in an eventual return to academic studies, Ash is using his time when not dating Atalya or entertaining Wald, to work to his graduation thesis, about Jesus from the Jewish perspective. The development of his ideas, his references and the discussion about them are actually the main part of the book. The thesis is that, in fact, Judas, is the one who played the most important role in spreading Christianity because he is the fact the one that was the agent of history whose treason made things happened. It seems that Oz himself is trying to come to right terms with his own history - his intelligence involvement with a British sergeant and his constant position since 1967 on behalf of Palestinians. The interpretation of Judas' personality resonates with the various discussions about the Abrabanel's radical separation from Zionism, with his final pledge against the very creation of a Jewish state. 

How far you can go?

The questions are: What are you about to do in order to achieve your ideas? What you do when your dream is fulfilled: you keep dreaming or you build another dream? 

In an interview for Israel Hayom with Eshkol Nevo, Oz explains that: 'sometimes, the title of traitor can be wear as a badge of honour', giving as diverse examples as Ben Gurion who accepted the partition plan, or Rabin or Ariel Sharon. He said that 'This book emerged from the pit of my Jewish stomach for all haters of Israel, for all those who creed Judas and drove the dagger into us and burned down the synagogue with the Jews alive inside it'. However, the problem is that the interpretation of the traitor cannot be separated from this new version of Judas and this is simply hard to digest. With a couple words and using his authority of star writer, Oz just turn everything in his favour. I can understand that he tries to publicly explain his own history and image in Israel but still, this sounds very false and in fact, excuses any treason, because, of course, the reason behind it was more noble than it looks at the first sight. Somehow, there is no middle way here: those who are weak and leftist will clap their hands and find a new rationale while those who understand why they are doing this, will never accept it. End of the story.

Deceived by the dream

'Israel was born out of a dream, or an entire spectrum of dreams. Every dream that is fulfilled leaves behind a taste of partial disappointment. The only way to maintain the purity of a dream is not to fulfill it. This holds true when it comes to building a house, writing a novel, traveling the world or fulfilling a sexual fantasy. Israel is a dream fulfilled, and thus necessarily leaves behind a slight taste of disappointment, despite the fact that it is still a fascinating fulfillment of some of the dreams', he said in the same interview. In other words, his apparent detachment and extreme positions that can be assumed as a traitor's are in fact the cri de coeur of too much love and intellectual instability.

With words, everything can be explained and justified, whatever the reason. Should it be a moral limit to it? Here to, it is a matter of choice and, after all, of intellectual honesty. 

This book was expected sooner or later, but left me very deceived because it just prove once again some personal assumption that great minds are not necessarily honest. 

Book Review: Growth through Tehillim, by Rabbi Zelig Pliskin

I am reading regularly at least a couple of kapiteln of Tehillim for a long time already. Either on the road or at home, while taking a break from other writing or while the food is in the oven, sometimes even when I am in the train back home, I am taking my small book of Artscroll and have my private spiritual moments. This happens for almost 3 years now, and if by laziness or superficiality it happens to miss this meeting, I feel poor and often my spirit is low. Every day of Tehillim helps me to grow and get the strength that I need so much sometimes to go through the day.

Rabbi Zelig Pliskin beautiful book Growth through Tehillim is important though not only because outlines our need of spirituality and explain how to use it. For me, it brings into light an aspect of spirituality often forgotten: our goal to be better people. 

And I will explain what it is all about. For a long time, I was worried that I used to pray without kavanah, just reading words forming sentences, without a real spiritual concentration on the prayer. I need to keep praying till I was finally able to achieve a higher spiritual level from time to time. It works the same in the case of Tehillim. I am reading and focusing on the words but the realization of the spiritual message might came later in the day or even in life. 

Trying to be a better person and achieving that high level of spirituality and wisdom when you are able to consider everything is going on into your life as a blessing and you have the capacity to learn from everyone takes more time. Personally, I had to cope with a huge challenge of having around me people with toxic attitudes, very often self sufficient and over critical against everyone except themselves. Whatever efforts you strive to make for being a good person, when those around you are focused on the negative parts and refuse to be wise, it is hard to resist the temptation to follow your example.

Growth through Tehillim brought me back to some well practised habits in the last years when I made tremendous efforts to say 'good bye' to my negative attitude against my fellow humans and cultivate kindness and understanding for every human being. Every chapter of the book develops around a verse of Tehillim, with samples of Torah learning ending up with life stories that have the strength to inspire even more, because always we are curious to hear and read what other people from our times will do in similar situations with us. 

It is written in a simple yet inspiring way, and gives a lot of food for thought and reasons to decide that from tomorrow on, will try at least to be a much better person, with a positive attitude, thankful to Hashem for everything that we receive in our life and careful to count and be grateful for our gifts.