A Corrupt is a corrupt is a corrupt

When someone is corrupt, it does not compensate that he or she is a good parent or had good grades or has a large family to feed or has a bright strategic mind. The compensation of midot rarely works, meaning if you give a lot of charity, it doesn't absolve you from the fact that you mistreat your employees. Even if he prays three times the day, a thief is a thief and he must pay accordingly.

The news that an Yid is not more in a federal prison and he can return to his family, although he is not pardoned - the decision of being freed does not vacate the conviction and the substatial restitution remains - is a good news for the family and those who love him. But instead of a humble attitude for finally being able to walk free after 8 years - the severity of the punishment is one thing, but the facts are facts regardless what the law said and they happened for a long time without anyone to try to stop it before the police raided the precincts of Agriprocessors - I've watched in shock dvar Torah moments and never ending celebrations and a bit of Gematria explanations. No way that Moshiach is coming any time soon...

Underskin, by Orit Arfa: It is more than the milky challenge

After The Settler, a book which I greatly enjoyed for the inquisitive challenges and painful dilemma raised after the Gush Katif episode, Orit Arfa is back with an equally interesting literary investigation. A Berlin-Tel Aviv love story between Nilly, the 'settler' girl with a Shoah survivor grandmother and Sebastian, the handsome German.

The two of them met accidentaly on a beach but feel 'some twisted way' of being connected 'by our tragic history'. The past, but also the weight of the present and the political views and mishaps are shadowing the relationship and at a certain extent it makes the communication almost impossible, and this is not because the mother tongues are different. However, there are ways to put on hold the non-stop historical buzz: over the food and by developing the physical relationship. Or through music. After all, does it matter to be 'politically aligned with a romantic partner'?

What really matters at the end of the story - at least for now - is that every generation is writting its own story, although the past is always and will always be there. I really loved that this book is creating, for the first time, a framework for discussion about what might really mean a relationship in the everyday life between an Israeli and a German, especially for Jews of European descent. And if the young people themselves are carefree and careless, their parents and relatives are not. For me, it is one of the most noticeable contribution to the discussion about the 'Israeli exodus' to Berlin written in the English language - although, a community of Israeli living in Berlin and in Germany in general exists since the late 1970s in fact, but as far as I know, without a significant literary presence. 

The book also has a noticeable erotic component, and it is labelled accordingly, but I would rather consider that this aspect is just part of the story, but not the story itself. 

A book recommended to anyone looking for some fresh, bold voices and point of views about the human German-Israeli story.

Rating: 4 stars

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

Salomon Herz, the Jew who put Wittenberge on Germany's industrial map

Wittenberge, in the German state of Brandenburg, can be compared, at a different scale, of course, with UK's Manchester, as an example of the advantages of industrialization to a relatively anonymous town. Before the launch of the rail line Berlin-Hamburg, to which Wittenberge was part thereof, this little town was a sleepy place, without a noticeable local identity. However, the efforts of putting it on the big map of the industrialized 19th century Germany are also the merit of a Jew, Salomon Herz, in whose memory, the square in the front of the train station was given his name, since 2007.

Although Herz spent most of his life in Berlin, he saw Wittenberge as an interesting business opportunity. In 1823, he founded here Germany's first oil trading house, which was later inherited by his son. With his money, the modernization of Elbe's harbour in 1835 was possible.

Nowadays, the former oil mill is hosting a hotel complex, with a beach bar area and a climbing wall. The red bricked buildings, a typical material used for both institutional and industrial constructions in the area are a legacy of the past that maybe nowadays doesn't bring too much profit and guarantees jobs, but which represent the basis of what Wittenberge is nowadays.