Passage from Aden by Sarah Ansbacher

Israel is a country of stories par excellence. Stories of remote past, survival and just human connections. Sarah Ansbacher, a writer whose passion for stories I featured before, gathered her encounters with the visitors of Aden Jewish Heritage Museum in Tel Aviv where she works, adding so much colour and information about the life of a community who remains only in the memories of those who once left there.

This book is however not only a good source of information for anyone looking to learn more about the Adeni Jews. It also bring into the context of Jewish life, stories from all over the walks of Jewish life, but also those from just curious non-Jewish visitors, from all over the world, from Germany to America.

I loved the brievity of the stories, focusing on the main encounters, while elegantly covering so many topics and encounters, including the Jewish geography and unexpected connections. In most cases I recogized the enormous human web and stories that make Israel such an inspiring place.

Unfortunately, I haven´t visited the museum so far, but I promise to add it on my list the very next time I am back in Tel Aviv.

The Story of the Jewish Bund. Here Where We Live is Our Country by Molly Crabapple

Inspired by the story of her great grandfather the artist Sam Rothbort and looking to connect worlds, Molly Crabapple spent around seven years researching The Story of the Jewish Bund. Worh to mention the word ´story´ and not ´history´ which shows already the limitations and the subjective point of view this book was researched and written. 

Don´t take me wrong: the book is very well researched and is sharing a lot of atmospheric and subjective episodes from the history of the Bund that are rarely remembered those days. The Bund belongs to a period of hardship in the European Jewish history, where they grew up alongide with other intellectual and ideological Jewish movements - like Hashomer Hashair, and various brands of Zionism. 

While the book is so focused in documenting lifes of Bundists, it misses several points when it comes to connecting the Bund with the general history of ideas at the time, and their eventual ideological motivations. However, it is doing the very ´faux pas´ when connects instead with currrent ongoing events trying to present the Bund - currently belonging to the history books, as an example of Jewish dissent. 

As a historian, I find largely dishonest to try such an intellectual juggling, as it does not add arguments, but diminishes the credibility of the approach. It may follow a Marxist flow of thought but nevertheless  completely irrelevant from the historical point of view.

I enjoyed discovering the troubled story of Bund and especially of some Bundists, but my interests ended within the given space. I don´t see any connection with the present and I see no future, and Bundism ended with the world it belonged. 

Also, if you hear the audio version of the book, just a warning: the pronunciation of some foreign - Yiddish or not - is horrendous, the worst music for the ears.