The World That We Knew...

´But life now depended upon luck, not reason´.

The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman is a gentle story about the intricacies of good and evil taking place during the terrible years of the WWII in France and Germany. It is also a story about strong resilient women and everlasting love that is stronger than the cruelty of death and goes far beyond it. 

Lea Kohn, guarded by Ava the Golem, and Ettie and Marta, rabbi´s daughters, are leaving the Nazi Berlin to France. Giving up a God that has forsaken her, inspired by Queen Esther, Ettie will join the Jewish Resistance to revenge the death of her sister. ´Vengeance was just beneath her skin, a shadow self, her true self, the one who had been holding her sister´s hand, the one who ran into the woods, who wanted to learn everytrhing she could be taught, starting now´. Ava, created by Ettie at the plea of Lea´s mother, was not made to have emotions, but she is developing slowly her own identity. I am not personally an expert on this topic, but I haven´t heard until now about a woman Golem. Ava´s character is evolving from  a clay-made creature assigned to exclusively serve his/her master to a curious being embracing life and dancing with her friend, the heron (a bird I´m almost sure I´ve encounter in a previous novel by Alice Hoffman I´ve read many years ago, but I cannot remember which one exactly), when no one is looking. 

When tragedies, both at the personal and historical level, unfold, staying alive is the most important achievement. There is no time for drama or overthinking. Running away at the right moment is life-saving. This is how the characters in this book survive, until the end of the war or just until the next incident. The Angel of Death is out in the fields and one must be faster than him. This quality of the characters, most of them young teens that are dramatically threw up from the childhood nest to the horrific realities of the fighting to stay alive when their parents are taken to death, is what makes the book a genuine realistic read. What would you do when you are given the chance to stay alive? Run for your life without never looking back.

Reading about encounters with death are emotionally exhausting, but Alice Hoffman is telling the story with such a beautiful voice, that one can come to accept life as it is, with humans the ways they are. A story which is first and foremost a Jewish story about terrible times that we are still trying to reckon with. 

Rating: 5 stars

How Are We Missing the Point

´An Orthodox Jew isn´t so much one who keeps Shabbat, kosher, and/or other rules and laws; an Orthodox Jew is one who strives, through halacha and beyond to develop a character that is more God-aware, more God-driven, and more God like. It is a lifelong project, enhanced by all Jewish observants, but cannot be allowed to be lost in the welther of them´. 

I openly recognize that I had a hard time going through this book by Rabbi Dr. Gideon Rothstein, whose shiurim a had the chance to attend a couple of times. We´re Missing the Point. What´s Wrong with the Orthodox Jewish Community and How to Fix It was challenging not because of the ideas exposed, but because more than once I had the feeling that the wording is way too complicated than needed. Exposing simple and strong ideas does not necessarily require complex sentences. 

The topics outlined are serious enough to start a throughout discussion about new shifts - both philosophical and from the pedagogical point of view - of the everyday practice of the Orthodox Judaism. Both the ways in which schools and synagogues operate require a complete change, which does not mean to add more but to reconnect to the genuine sources of belief. It is a return from the secondary and customary sources to the main framework, often obliterated by the dry everyday practice: ´People can become accustomed to any sequence of actions and make them an end of their own, forgetting the larger framework into which they were supposed to be integrated´.

Although going through this book took me a long time - to be read months - it was worth doing, especially for ideas in the second part of the book. Hopefully one day all those strong voices within the Orthodox Judaism will get together on one voice for a noteworthy change that will correct the current perspective missing so many important points.

Book Review: Kaddish.com by Nathan Englander

When a parent dies, the oldest son has to recite the Kaddish - prayer for the dead - for the next 11 months in a synagogue with a minyan - a quorum of ten Jewish adults. It is a religous obligation of honoring the parents and it´s aimed at elevating the soul of the deceased. When not possible, a shaliah mitzva - someone that can do the obligation - can be delegated instead, in exchange of an amount of money.

This is the main topic of kaddish.com, Nathan Englander´s last book. With his usual mix of irony, sarcasm and his deep atheistic religious knowledge he delves into the world of religious obligations and the difficulty - if not impossibility of separating from one´s past. 

There is a thought, or two, that I´ve come along myself more than once: how can someone think that once you are becoming religious or non-religious, your past and thoughts and encounters is simply deleted and replaced with your new life? I don´t think it is humanly possible. It´s just the projection you want to have that, in fact, you can start anew when you want, as you want.

Meet Larry, devastated by the death of his dear father, that he loved dearly. He decided to break up with religion long ago and now is sitting the shiva - the seven days of mourning - in his Orthodox sister´s house in Memphis (there are Jews there too, Orthodox too, read Tova Mirvis books for more details). He wants to honor his father in his own way, and rebelliously refused to stick to his religious obligations (`A stupid chair isn´t what makes it mourning´ allusion to the fact that during shiva the mourners are sitting on lower chairs). When told he needs to say the kaddish for the next 11 months, he evades the obligation, find a website kaddish.com (which actually exists in reality), found someone to do it instead (`It was like a JDate for the dead`), and navigates later on a porn website. As her sister Dina said, he was living a gornisht - worth nothing, in Yiddish - life. 

By designating someone else to do his mitzva, he did a transfer of rights, a kinyan. Remembering his father was someone else´s job now. Remember Esav? He also trader his birthright for a bowl of lentils because he despised it.

Fast forward 20 years after, Larry is not Shuli, made tshuva - repentance - and is an Orthodox rabbi in the fictional Brooklyn´s Royal Hill neighbourhood. This flipping transition is a bit superficially featured, as we have no idea what exactly happened and how and other details. After a discussion with a kid from the school going through a rebelious phase - eating non-kosher, ignoring religious obligations - Shuli is suddenly haunted by his past, by his demise of his obligation as a Jewish son. He is becoming anxious, especially after obsessive messages sent back to the kaddish.com website are left unattended. (`What if I can´t get my birthright back?`). He desperately wants to finish his teshuva and leaving his family behind, he embarks on a mystery trip to Jerusalem, tracing the website and trying to find the person who said the kaddish for his father. 

In shock, he will acknowledge that, in fact, the entire story of the website was a hoax and no one ever said the kaddish for his father. It reminds me of a story I´ve been told of someone from America who for a long time, used to send tzeddakah - charity - to a foundation and once he made aliya to Israel, wanted to visit the recipients of his donations. In reality, it was no foundation and the money were used for some personal use - like dowry for a daughter - by the recipients. Does it make his mitzvah less worthy? Not at all, as he sent the money with the good intention and the aveirah - the transgression - belonged to the person who misused the funds.

After the deception of the Dinner at the Centre of the Earth, kaddish.com brought back my interest for Englander´s reading. Truth to be told, his chiseled art of creating world through words goes in most of the cases better with short stories - which I love - and might fail once in a while the art of the novel. But sometimes depends of how large the list of topics is. In Dinner..., it was way too much, and although I can understand that modern Jewish authors feel the obligation to have their word - and novel - on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it doesn´t guarantee that they are successful in this approach. On the other hand, the list of subjects featured in kaddish.com are better outlined, hence, there is a coherence and simplicity of the frame yet allowing a complex construction of the novel and an elaborated array of symbolic layers. 

Rating: 4 stars

Jewish Book Review: The Sisters Weiss by Naomi Ragen

If the Saturday Wife was largely a disappointment, The Sisters Weiss by Naomi Ragen brought back the pleasure of reading from this author.

The novel takes place in the 'Ultra-Orthdox' part of Brooklyn, starting in the 1950s, where the two sisters Pearl and Rose are growing up in a modest religious family. Their life options are clear and relatively limited: they are going to school and learn some basics until they reach the age when the search for a shidduch (match) starts. Once there is one, the path of motherhood and childbearing/rearing while the man is studying Torah is what a wooman is offered. This system means stability, continuity and it's the traditinal way.

However, after Rose is exposed to the library of a French colleague, her life changed. A photography book considered 'dangerous' will seal her destiny. She is send to stay with her grandmother and enrolled in a very conservative Bais Ruchel Satmer school, where even the religious learning offered to girls is superficial and extremely limited in terms of knowledge.

But Rose keeps going her dangerous way and enrolls for a photograhy class. Matched to a mediocre yet with good-yichus (family background) she is running away the day of her wedding leaving behind an ashamed family and starting her way that will make her a famous photograher.

Four decade later, Pearl's daugher, Rivka, will do the same and her first contacts in the outside world will be her cousin, Hannah, Rose's secular daughter. The story repeats itself, but only the context is the same, as there is no guarantee for happy endings. Rivka will feel fully the dramatic consequence of his radical decision, which also means being cut from a warm community of traditions and celebrations. Even the strong Rose felt the alienation and the childhood family memories of being together with people sharing the same values will be always cherished. 

The Sisters Weiss is a realistic depiction of what really does it mean to leave the Hasidic community, and a traditional way of life in general. The strong ties cannot be cut automatically, on both sides and the heartbreak is not only on the side of those who left, but those who remain do also have their share of sadness. Another aspect the novel features very well is the hardship of adapting to the non-traditional way of life. Rivka's mistake in considering a sexual encounter a relationship comes from the culture she belongs to, where women and girls do not have 'boyfriends': all their life they are prepared to be ready to fulfill their role as wives, spending the rest of their life with a husband. Those women are simply not prepared to understand the accidental and short-term relationships in the secular world.

Another layer of the narrative features women stories. Each of the women that appear in The Sisters Weiss do have a story to tell, which made it into the bigger Jewish women story. From women to surrender to their husbands to rebelious women who are searching for an authentic soul mates. 

There is no happy ending and it is one of the many things I've liked about this book. The author found the best tone and non-emotional approach which suits such stories whose emotion resides in the strength of the characters.

For me, it was by far one of the best OTD (off the derech) reading in a long time, overcoming many of the relatively memoirs on this topic I've read in the long time.

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: By Light of Hidden Candles by Daniella Levy

A story of fight and resilience, By Light of Hidden Candles goes back and forth across centuries from the time of the forced conversions of Jews during the Spanish Inquisition to the current hi-tech era of digitalized archives. Alma and Manuel are apparently belonging to two different worlds: She is the observant Jewish daughter of a family of Spanish descent, he is a Catholic boy from Spain considering becoming a priest. Their paths cross accidentally in the Judaica store of Alma's grandmother, and later on, at the NYU, where Alma is getting involved in a genealogy project, where she hoped to find the Spanish roots of her family. 

A couple of centuries earlier, her ancestor is faced with the choice of converting to Christianity or leaving Spain, or marrying a non-Jew or leave to unknown lands. The story has everything: from heavy historical content, to insights into everyday observant Jewish life - although I've found sometimes the observations about kashrut a bit too artificious, as it happens when you are trying to explain some of the concepts to a foreign audience on an easy note - and a little bit of romance too. 

I liked that both Alma and Manuel do have a very complex personality and even more complex family story, but bringing them together as a match and the later discovery of Manuel about his Jewish roots - that I was expecting a bit from the very beginning - sounded a bit stereotypical for me. I also appreciate the idea of dialogue between religions, but it doesn't need to be done whatever the reason and in a way that simplifies at extremis concepts. 

Despite its ups and downs, By Light of Hidden Candles is a book of interest for anyone who loves historical Jewish novels and which shed some light into the complicated histories of Spanish conversos. 

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

Book Review: The Book of Separation

When the Jewish divorce is pronounced, the Biblical term for the get document given to the woman is sefer kritut, in translation, the book of termination or the book of separation. In her memoir, Tova Mirvis retraces her journey from the moment when her separation process started - not only from her husband, but from her Orthodox life - until she climbs her own mountain and tries to set up her free life, the original version of herself. 'After years if trying to silence the voice inside her that she did not agree, did not fit in, did not believe, she strikes out on her own, to discover what she does believe and who she really is'. 

I've previously read and reviewed another book by Tova Mirvis and liked both the approach and the writing. Her memoir to be released in a couple of months, flows beautifully, streaming through the various tensed and even anxious life moments, while trying to put herself and the scattered fragments of her life together. 

After 17 years of marriage and three children, the lines between herself and the community, the path of the tradition and her own path are blurred and where other could easily find comfort and peace she is tormented by questions. Her incessant questioning marks her progressive taking off, starting from getting away from the community pressure - 'we were taught, we were told, we were watched' -, following her voice as a writer, ending up her own struggles with observance and reconciling her old and new ways with her new situation as a divorced woman partly in charge with the education of her children, with a father remaining Orthodox. 

Sometimes, making choices is much easier although painful and difficult, than being accepted for what your choices made of you. 

I loved everything about this book, but especially the honesty and the genuine way she opens her heart. Is that kind of book that I would not have anything against reading twice.

Rating: 5 stars

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

Book review: This is not a love story, by Judy Brown

I till remember how shocked and deeply moved I've been by Hush, written at the time under the pseudonym of Eishes Chayil - a woman of valor.  After the book created controversies and awe at the time in the Hasidic community, faced publicly with a reality often hidden under the carpet, there were rumors about the real identity of the writer, but Brown decided to make the revelation during another dramatic moment: the murdering in Brooklyn of the 8-year old Leiby Kletzky. 

Part of a long lineage of Rabbis, Brown who is no more Hasidic nowadays, returns under the lights of the literary world with an equally beautifully written memoir, focused on the acceptance and lessons of loving her 'cursed' brother 'crazy as a bat'. When a child with special needs is born in a religious family, everyone seems to have its own explanation, like they just called Gd and got the answer. Either the family is not religious enough, or, in this case, the parents met directly not through a shadchan - matchmaker -, or they are cursed for old and hidden sins. Although nowadays the situation changed as there are much more children with Down Syndrome or various ADHD and autism-related needs, the perception remains, but at least the social services and assistance for families - and even the degree of acceptance, improved. Children with special needs are no more given away 'as a disposable', but integrated in special classes, undergoing therapy or taken care in the advanced and highly efficient health and therapy system created for decades in Israel. 

But at the time Judy Brown was growing up in America: 'Being sick was a much better thing (...) than being sick'. The curious Menucha wants to know why her brother Nachum is not 'normal', why Gd is not answering her prayers and doesn't reward her attempts of fasting. 'If I were Gd, I'd keep things much more simple and straightforward. Then I wouldn't have to listen to so many tearful prayers'. The misunderstandings around Nachum is a source of tension not only among children, but also for the parents. A terrible episode is describing the father trying violently to convince Nachum to say a blessing. He was unsuccessful, but kept shaking the poor speechless boy. 'My father couldn't stop. It was as if he was ripping down the wall around my brother's mind with his bare hand, trying to tear my brother out of there, and drag him over to our side, where he belonged'. The fear of the unknown and incomprehensible - the poor Nachum unable to defend or say something, like we all do - is always there and can explain, without justifying certain behaviors: 'where there are no words, there is always fear'.  

It is an emotional, well written, from the point of view of a small girl and a grown up, wiser, teenager, book, depicting perfectly deep feelings, contradictions and sadness, but also curiosities and funny childhood moments - I personally loved the sweets bargaining.

I first recommend reading this book because it is a good book, but also for the story of love and acceptance and growing out of social and religious borders and finding a voice and the own path. And sharing stories with the world. I can't wait for her next book, as Judy Brown is a writer to include on the Jewish literary radar in the years to come.