Book Description

Reviews (5)

An Amazing book
Reading this book is a great intelectual adventure. There are a lot of information and the author has a very clear and envolving writing, always creating expectative over what's coming next. The author also mixes narrative with a lot of opinions and analysis about the facts. There are, as well, many quottings from other works about Jobotinsky, along with several transcriptions of classified official documents that shed light into controversial facts. The author is not afraid of polemics and gives new perspectives over matters treated as tabu, like Ben Gurion, Weizman, The Zionist Organization and the Histadrut. Much enfasis is given to Jabotinsky's unstopabble fight for the jewish rights in palestine and abroad, as well as his unfearing steadfastness against anyone who denied the goal of creating a jewish state. The book will give a complete understanding of the Revisionist movement, the British Rule in Israel, the internal Zionist Organization politics and its blunders, the arab behavior, among others. By reading this book you will also be able to better understand contemporary israeli politics and the relationship with the arab countries. The book, although very pleasant, takes quite a bit to be read, but it is a must for anyone who wants to know one of the greatest zionist and jewish leaders ever and get into the politics of the pre-state period.

History as it was being made
This book is a real eye opener. It completly changed my perspective on the history of the Middle East and how the British, who so often have come accross as the "white knight" was in fact the dirty thief.

The book is a monster in size and in the amount of information it presents. It documented and footnoted to a degree that one would expect from a work of this nature.

I highly suggest it to anyone who wants to find out about the history of modern Israel and how the wolrd powers did what they do best, exploit. I truly learned much!

A great book about a great man
Zeev (meaning wolf, in hebrew) Jabotinsky was one of the greatest leaders ever, and the greatest liberal Zionist leader. His works can not be denied. Because of his many deeds, he was admired by many - and hated by the rest. And he is the subject of this book, like many other books and articles. But this one is special - the auther spent 7 years of his life reserching and writing it, and those seven years have beared fruit. The writing is of a very high quality, and the contence is extensive. Itws like no other book about Jabotinsky I know. After reading, you will enrich not only your mind - but also your spirit, by knowing this great man. Highly recomended, for all people - Zionists, students, and anyone seeking pure knolage and feeding.

Unapologetic
An unapologetic biography of a controversial figure in Jewish/Israeli history. Mr. Katz's book is painstakingly well documented. It is more than the history of a single person; it provides a detailed look at competing Jewish ideologies and their role in the formation of Israel. Though biased, it is on the whole, well balanced.

a great read
you get a full knowledge how he wanted to form a strong Isreal, he never sat down to anti semitism, and u can see what a fighter he was, reads very fast for a 1700 page book ... Read more

Book Description

The best-selling author of The Search for God at Harvard continues his spiritual quest in this heartfelt and poignant account of the year he spent saying kaddish for his father.

The day after Ari Goldman celebrated his fiftieth birthday his father died of a heart attack, and Goldman began the ritual year of mourning required by Jewish law. There were the obligations (the daily recitation of kaddish in a
synagogue quorum of ten), the prohibitions (no listening to music or buying new clothes), and the self-examination that the death of a parent and the mourning rituals triggered. Death meant coming to terms with a father he loved but never fully understood, in part because of his parents’ divorce and its stormy aftermath.

Goldman explores the emotional and spiritual aspects of spending a year in mourning, as he examines its effects on him as a husband, father, and member of his community. Left without parents (his mother died four years earlier), he is no longer a son to anyone, but he comes to understand that through the daily recitation of kaddish, he can both connect with and honor his mother and his father in a way that he could not always do during their lifetimes. And in his daily synagogue attendance—usually near his Manhattan home but also, during the course of his travels in Israel, the Catskills, and France—he finds his fellow worshipers to be an unexpected source of strength, wisdom, and comfort.

Living a Year of Kaddish is a deeply affecting journey through grief, loss, and acceptance—a book that will resonate for people of all faiths who struggle with the inevitability of losing the ones they love. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

The Value of Religious Rituals in Confronting Grief
This is a lovely book which shows how the Jewish ritual of Kaddish helped the author come to grips with his father's life and death, as well as his own life. Being an Episcopalian married to someone whose Mother was Jewish (but did not attend temple), I found the author's description of his shul, the life within it, and the practice of prayer to be extremely powerful and informative. And the spiritual journey that the author embarked upon in the process was engaging. I had read his early book about his sabbatical at Harvard Divinity School, and was inspired by that work as well. The sharing of personal stories helps all of us live. Thanks to this author for again helping us on our own journeys.

More than a memoir...
Living a Year of Kaddish portrays one man's search to come to terms with the loss of his father. But it does more than that: it shows, with vivid and stirring vignettes, how the most painful pages of a life (divorce, estrangement, and death are some of the ones Goldman grapples with) need not be turned with the bitterness of a victim, but can be read with the openness of a student who is willing to learn, and to grow. Goldman is an Orthodox Jew, and as the title of his book makes clear, he draws first and foremost on the religious and cultural traditions that have shaped his family for generations. But he does not write for fellow believers alone. A keen-eyed observer with a gift for distilling the universal from the particular, he speaks in terms that will resonate with a wide and varied readership.

a prayer renews him; a book renews you
When Ari Goldman was six, his parents divorced. They were as different as the North and South poles. Goldman remained part of each of their lives through his commitment to 1950's-style Orthodox Judaism. In September 1999, Ari Goldman turned fifty. He had a party. The next morning he got a call. His father, 77, was dead in Jerusalem. The funeral would be in a few hours, since Shabbat would soon begin in Israel. Goldman tore his shirt and began to mourn. He sat shiva for his father only one day, since Sukkot started the next day. He went on to mourn for his father for the required 30 days, and then the full 11 months. Ari inherited his father's tallit (which he wore and made his own). In this memoir, he tells the reader about the people he touched and those who touched him during his year of saying kaddish. He writes that while the kaddish will not bring back the dead, it will bind one to the community horizontally, and redeem a death vertically. Ari finds that so many people have their own kaddish stories to share with him, and he shares some with us. In this book, he knits a story being an "avel", of mourning, of loss (loss of parents, loss of one's regular seat in the synagogue). He writes about mentoring, on modeling an upright life to his kids, and his brand of Fifties-style Judaism. There are also asides on the various people he meets when he seeks out shuls in which to say kaddish on the road. He explores his daughter's conflicts when she is forced to move to the women's side of the mechiza at the age 12. He reflects upon the power of the kaddish and how the passage of time changes his approach to the prayer and the process. He honestly asks himself why he tells people he is mourning. Is it a badge on his lapel? Is he seeking some sort of status? Comfort? Honor? It is a story of loss, of growth, as well as the fascinating story of how his neighborhood shul became resurrected. ... Read more

Amazon.com

It has only been since the mid-1970s that any attention has been paid to the persecution and interment of gay men by the Nazis during the Third Reich. Since that time, books such as Richard Plant's The Pink Triangle (and Martin Sherman's play Bent) have illuminated this nearly lost history. Heinz Heger's first-person account, The Men with the Pink Triangle, was one of the first books on the topic and remains one of the most important.

In 1939, Heger, a Viennese university student, was arrested and sentenced to prison for being a "degenerate." Within weeks he was transported to Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp in East Germany, and forced to wear a pink triangle to show that his crime was homosexuality. He remained there, under horrific conditions, until the end of the war in 1945. The power of The Men with the Pink Triangle comes from Heger's sparse prose and his ability to recall--and communicate--the smallest resonant details. The pain and squalor of everyday camp life--the constant filth, the continuous presence of death, and the unimaginable cruelty of those in command--are all here. But Heger's story would be unbearable were it not for the simple courage he and others used to survive and, having survived, that he bore witness. This book is harrowing but necessary reading for everyone concerned about gay history, human rights, or social justice. --Michael Bronski ... Read more

Reviews (14)

A must read for every gay man...profoundly moving
For anyone who has ever wondered what life was like for the millions who were sent to the death camps of Nazi Germany, this is a truly insightful book. Heinz Heger describes what life was like in one of those camps in vivid detail, and you can't help but imagine yourself there among the dead and dying. Everything from the political structure in the camps to how the prisoners were arranged and organized is all portrayed with terrifying richness. His stories of the SS guards and other prisoners tell a tale of horror and cruelty, but also of love and kindness in the midst of it all. While reading this book, I asked myself many times if I would have had the strength to survive. Would I be willing to do whatever it takes so I could have a meal to eat or so I wouldn't be sent off to die? Let's hope none of us have to answer those questions.

A classic holocaust biography.
Heinz Heger's book has become the definitive story of life as a 'pink triangle' in a concentration camp. Sadly this is partly because the Nazi's deliberate policy of murder of this group ensured few survived and also due to the understandable fear of those who did survive to tell their story. If you have read Primo Levi you should read this. It is more immediate than Levi's writings, and there is less analysis, making it all the more horrifying. He simply tells what happened, mentioning only his amazement at the hypocrisy and cruelty exhibited by his German captors. The only other book that comes near to it is 'Liberation Was For Others', by Pierre Seel, an autobiographical tale of life in Schirmeck-Vorbruch. Seel continues his story to the post-war period, pointing out that for homosexuals suffering did not end in 1945.

A Moving and Powerful True Account of Survival
A sodomy law had been on the German law books since 1871, a law known simply as Paragraph 175. Only a few people were ever sentenced under this obscure law until June of 1935 when, after the rise of Hitler and Nazism, the Nuremberg laws were enacted and the consequences of Paragraph 175 strengthened. Where once before, you had to be caught in the act of same sex relations, now simply receiving a letter or the spreading of idle gossip would have you sent to a concentration camp.

"The Men with the Pink Triangle" is one anonymous man's account of the harshness and cruelty faced by gay men at the hands of the SS and the ruling Nazi party, as well as by the other prisoners -- criminals, politicals, emigrants -- who viewed "filthy queers" as lower than the rest of them. They were distinguished by the large, pink triangles sown onto their prison outfits, making them easy targets for taunts and punishments. Also, homosexuals labored through the worst of the work details and "volunteered" for medical experimentation, which usually resulted in their deaths.

Some advantages also appeared for gay men. The "Capos" who were in charge of the prisoner barracks, often made lovers of some of the prisoners, giving them some protection and better rations and clothing. As is says in the book: "Homosexual behavior between two 'normal' men is considered an emergency outlet, while the same thing between two gay men, who both feel deeply for one another, is something 'filthy' and repulsive." The anonymous man used this to his advantage and survived the camps and the threat of being sent to the front lines.

Ths is a moving and powerful story about survival and about the right to be who you are, during one of the darkest times in world history. Highly recommended.

One Man's Story
Although short, this man's story could have benefitted from some thoughtful editing. Powerfully recounting his persecution at the hands of the Nazi regime, a full picture could have been painted had the author continued to tell its affects on the rest of his life AFTER World War II. An important book, no doubt, and definitely to be included in any Holocaust library.

A story that needs told more
I figure we teach school kids about the Jews suffering in the Holocaust, and the blacks struggle for Civil Rights. It would make sense that kids learn the dangers of homophobic bigotry, by reading this book. It will open your eyes! The same anti-gay stereotypes then, are the same ones now.

This book is about a gay man who survived the Pink Triangle, and took him over 25 years to tell his story, as their were still many anti-gay laws on the books there. This man never wanted any public or economic gains from telling his story. In fact the Nazis had more contempt for the gays than they did the 'inferior racial groups' they persecuted. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Gripping story
The power of this book comes from the pity one feels for Stella, despite that she is guilty of a thousand betrayals of her fellow Jews.

She was an ordinary person caught in an extraordinary circumstance.Might any one of us have behaved better?The author seems to understand this perfectly.

I came away from this book with the feeling that Stella was as much a victim of Nazi Germany as any other Jew.It was Nazi Germany that created her; twisted her.

Very powerful book & highly recommended. For the other side of the coin, I also recommend "When Courage was Stronger Than Fear".

where is my review????
I wrote a review already, where is it? how come it's not listed? you let people write reviews with no intention of putting it there? ... Read more

Book Description

New insight into the girl whose diary changed the world

Few people know that Anne Frank and her sister, Margot, had pen pals in the United States: Juanita and Betty Wagner, of Danville, Iowa. Although the girls corresponded only briefly, their letters capture a poignant moment in Anne's life, before the Nazis arrived.

Through interviews with people who knew Anne, Margot, Juanita, Betty, and their friends, author Susan Goldman Rubin skillfully contrasts the realities of life in rural America and urban Holland through the duration of World War II. Packed with firsthand reports, photographs (many never before published), and intriguing new information, Searching for Anne Frank provides a vivid look at lives torn apart by war-a subject that has great relevance for today's readers. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Offers unique insight into Anne Frank's famous Diary
Published in association with the Simon Wiesenthal Center-Museum of Tolerance Library and Archives, Searching For Anne Frank: Letters From Amsterdam To Iowa by Susan Goldman Rubin surveys the correspondence between Anne Frank and ten-year-old Juanita Wagner of Danville, Iowa. Juanita chose Anne's name off of a list provided by her teacher for a pen-pal experience; each girl was to see a very different view of the horrific events unfolding in World War II. This poignant look at the brief correspondence between two young girls, filled with black-and-white and color photographs, offers unique insight into Anne Frank's famous Diary, and is a highly recommended addition to personal, academic, and community library 20th Century Biography collections and Holocaust Studies reading lists.

This Is An Amazing Book
I would rate this book higher than 5 Stars if I could! This is an amazing book. Every young person and every person for that matter should see these photographs and read the text together with the "Diary of Anne Frank". This is a definitely must see. Congratulations to the author on such an important work. The drums of war were sounding in the background as these young pen pals began their correspondence. Who could have imagined the horrors yet to come? That Anne Frank had a pen pal in the United States and that the letters and photos were preserved is just astounding. Through this book, readers can feel Anne Frank's world and return for just a moment to the days just prior to the Nazi Hell to feel more strongly what was lost. I recommend this book to all and especially for young people learning about the Holocaust in a synagogue or church setting. ... Read more

Book Description

Over the years, Rabbi Bernice Kimel Weiss has shepherded hundreds of non-Jewish students into the family of the Jewish people. For most, the interest in Judaism is sparked by a decision to marry a Jewish man or woman. But that is only the beginning. In the gentle hands of a teacher who has witnessed and understands their turmoil, their conflicts, their tears, they bare their personal struggles. What emerge are amazing,powerful, soul-stirring stories of re-creation - the extraordinary adventure of becoming a Jew at the turn of the 21st century.

An Asian-American whose father owns a Japanese restaurant marries a secular Jew but leads him to Orthodox Judaism; a Belgian raised by nuns meets a Jew and finds her faith in Israel; a former Sunday school teacher from a small farm town falls in love with a Jewish girl and with her faith as well; an African-American woman lawyer, a Harvard graduate, discovers Judaism and keeps kosher in a small southern town: their varied stories and eight more are revealed in these pages. The twists and turns and the direction their lives ultimately take are a source of inspiration to those contemplating Judaism, and to all in search of faith. They are a gift to the Jewish people.

Reviews (1)

fast moving stories of faith
The book is very fast moving with personal testament from people who converted to Judaism. Some of these people wanted to create a more spiritual environment for the spouse and future family. Some never found meaning in their own religion. I think that the interesting part is that the stories are so personal and real. It's possible to relate. ... Read more

Book Description

Available here for the first time in English, this eyewitness account by one of Freud’s earliest students has been rediscovered for twenty-first century readers. Isidor Sadger’s recollections provide a unique window into the early days of the psychoanalytic movement—the internecine and ideological conflicts of Freud’s disciples. They also illuminate Freud’s own struggles: his delight in wit, his attitudes toward Judaism, and his strong opinions concerning lay, non-medical analysts.

As a student, Sadger attended Freud’s lectures from 1895 through 1904. Two years later Freud nominated Sadger to his Wednesday Psychological Society (later called the Viennese Psychoanalytic Society).Sadger, however, was not part of Freud’s inner circle, but more a participant observer of the early years of the psychoanalytic movement and of Freud as teacher, therapist, and clinician.

Sadger was considered one of the most devoted followers of Freud and hoped to become one of Freud’s "favorite sons."At the First Psychoanalytic Congress held in Salzburg in 1908, Sadger was chosen to be one of the principal speakers along with Freud, Jones, Adler, Jung, Prince, Riklin, Abraham, and Stekel, an honor that bespeaks Sadger’s early role in the movement.But Freud and many of his disciples were also openly critical of Sadger’s work, calling it at various times overly simplistic, unimaginative, reductionist, orthodox, and rigid.

In 1930 Sadger published his memoir, Sigmund Freud: Persönliche Erinnerungen.With the rise of Nazism and World War II, the book became lost to the world of psychoanalytic history.Recently, Alan Dundes learned of its existence and mounted a search that led him around the world to one of the few extant copies—in a research library in Japan. The result of his fascinating quest is Recollecting Freud, a long-lost personal account that provides invaluable insights into Freud and his social, cultural, and intellectual context. ... Read more

Amazon.com

When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Victor Klemperer (1881-1960), honored as a frontline veteran of World War I, was a distinguished professor at the University of Dresden. A scant few months later he was merely a Jew, protected from deportation to a death camp only by his marriage to an Aryan. He suffered every other indignity to which German Jews were subjected, from losing his job to having his driver's license revoked to being denied permission to own a pet, and all are recorded with bitter clarity in his diary entries, which cover the years 1933 to 1941. (A second volume continuing through 1945 will be published in English in 1999.) The German edition of this book caused a sensation when it was published in 1995, and it's easy to see why: the relentless, quotidian nature of Nazi racism comes through forcefully in Klemperer's litany of daily humiliations and insults, a painful chronicle of situations in which readers can readily imagine themselves. Like Anne Frank, but with a more adult understanding of political fanaticism and human weakness, he makes the abstract horror of genocidal persecution very intimate, very personal, and very real. --Wendy Smith ... Read more

Reviews (36)

A diamond in the sandbox of Holocaust literature.
My review refers to the german original edition of the Klemperer diaries from 1933-1945. In the german edition, the diaries are not published in two parts. It must be hard for the english reader to stop 1941 and wait. Klemperer wrote more than 5000 typoscript pages of diary during the nazi period. The german original edition with many cutbacks has more than 1800 pages (1933-1945), the english translation about 500 (1933-1941), so I expect more cutbacks in the english version - most likely around Klemperers language studies about LTI-lingua tertii imperii, the language of the 3. Reich - more interesting for german native speakers. For the english reader, which had yet only read the diary until 1941 I will give the warning, that the 1942 diary is really the most depressing one.

The Klemperer diary is definitely the best book I ever read about the nazi-time. (second one: Hans Fallada, 1947: "Jeder stirbt für sich allein" (Everybody dies for himself), English title: ?)

As a German I grew up with an endless amount of information, literature, books, documentations, discussions and history school lessons about the 3. Reich, but the most refer only to long known facts and their problem is, that they are written with the look of the survivers, the next generation or the history view which sorts and interprets the facts with the knowledge of the ending. I believe, that nobody can understand the system, who has not read "first-hand" impressions. The Klemperer diary is, what I always was looking for: An uncommented inside view to the all day life in germany in that days and the evolution of the unthinkable. A first-hand information about the terrorism not in the concentration camps, but in "normal" life.

Klemperer shows on nearly every page of his book, how many germans didn't follow Hitler's antisemitic view. He noticed the meanings, conversations, wishes, anxiety of the german population and always wondered about the opinion of the majority - is it pro or contra Hitler? He noticed the endless list of restrictions for the jews - simple and little things, which are forgotten and pressed to the background by the horror of the concentration camps, but new for us today. He noticed, how people divide in heroes and opportunists. By reading about the nazi-time we always ask ourself "What would I have done?" Would I had helped the people who needed me despite of the danger of loosing my own life, or would I had taken care only for my own security.

It's hard to imagine, that someone can register, analyse und document all this on an unbelievable level of quantity and quality under the circumstances of starving, illness, pressure work und humiliation. He wrote not only a diary, he wrote high level literature - espessially his description "Zelle 89" about his 8-day prisonary on a level like "Schachnovelle" (Chess novell) from Arnold Zweig (highly recommended!). Around Victor Klemperer his (and the readers) friends are murdered or make suicide and he expects his own death every day but he wrote a real thriller like nobody else. We know, that he survived, but nearly everybody else, who was introduced to the reader didn't. A fiction thriller can not be a better page turner.

After reading this diaries I decided to buy also his memories from 1881-1918 and the diaries from 1918-1932 to read how life was during World War I and how the republic turned to dictatorship and his diaries from 1945-1959, to read why he decided to stay in East-Germany and join the communist party - in contrast to his liberal political opinions. Together all four books must be the best inside view to german history during these important periods.

The book is a memorial for all the nameless, who decided to be a hero (espessially Eva Klemperer) and for the six million, which would not have lost their life, if there had been more heroes. It brings us back a remembrance to at least a few of the six million precious human beings Europe lost forever and brings us back, that the nazis really killed a main part of the elite of european culture and society by killing the jews.

Buy it and read it.

A Jewish Past in Nazi Germany
As a Jewish American born after World War 2 with no knowledge of any family members who lived in Europe during the holocaust I have nonetheless always been fascinated with those times. As a college student I worked in a resort hotel where I met German Jewish survivors. To this day what struck me most was what one such survivor told me when I asked him what he remembered of his childhood in Germany. He told me it was just like being in America. German cities were modernized. Jewish people participated in civic life with small attention paid to their heritage unless they wished otherwise. Victor Klemperer's book "I Will Bear Witness," underscores what I had been told by that survivor. Life in Germany before January, 1933 was not, for Jews, particularly distinguishable from life for non-Jews. In fact, one might argue that the kinds of insidious prejudice rampant in the United States in the first half of this century were more virulent than that experienced in pre-Nazi Germany. The beauty of this book is how Professor Klemperer bears witness to the slow but relentless descent into hell by people who did not perceive themselves different from their countrymen. His descriptions of the day to day activities of paying taxes, arguing with the bureacracy over one's pension, and seeking out rationed foods bring to life the experience of those times. I must admit that I, like most Jewish Americans of my generation, view a Jewish person professing Protestantism somewhat uncharitably. And yet, the professor's consistent adherance to a world view in which one's ethnic background does not determine one's fate is quite palatable. Yet the fatal attraction of German culture, in this case, becomes the downfall of many German Jewish citizen. Perhaps we learn through this book and others like it that powerful forces of demagoguery once unleased may render even the most apparently "enlightened" society into a middle ages horror.

How Germany descended into madness one step at a time
You probably remember the old folk wisdom that a frog plunged into boiling water will hop out immediately, while a frog placed in cold water that is slowly heated will stay put even as it's boiled to death. The latter method was applied to Germany's Jews beginning in 1933, when Hitler became Chancellor and effectively ended the Weimar Republic overnight. Victor Klemperer, the irascible philologist who kept a diary for most of his adult life, is a most discerning frog. This volume of his diaries stretches from Hitler's ascent to power to the outbreak of World War II. During that time, Klemperer and his fellow Jews in Dresden saw their civil liberties slowly stripped away from them, along with their property and money.

What makes this such a fascinating read is Klemperer himself. By turns depressed, anxious and furious, this gentle, learned man discovers that his pride in being a true German is misplaced. Although Klemperer has converted to Christianity out of sincere solidarity with what he perceives as his true culture, this does nothing to make him anything but a Jew in the eyes of National Socialism. His shock at this discovery is soon matched by a determination to outlast his tormentors or, at least, avoid a terrible fate at their hands for as long as possible.

Why Germany fell prey to such atypical thuggery will remain a bone of contention for historians for centuries to come. But Victor Klemperer's diaries make it clear that, from the start, the Nazis intended to live down to their reputation. It is equally clear that, for Jew and Gentile alike, many Germans found themselves unable to fathom the evil of Hitler's regime until it was much too late.

Getting to know Klemperer through his diary is an enjoyable experience. He can be short-tempered and moody, yet also sardonic and brilliantly prescient. He's human and World War II at this late remove doesn't give us too many mere humans thanks to the pain of remembrance, which too often demands heroes. Klemperer's day-to-day existence is a testament to the will to outlast and outwit evil. It is not heroic in scale, but it is honest.

The human impact of Nazi anti-Jewish policies
This poignant book is quite unique. Written as a diary, and not intended to be published, Klemperer's book is like no other I have read in conveying the impact upon one couple of the Nazi's repressive regime. Virtually day after day, Klemperer recounts how he and his wife (who was not Jewish) bear the brunt of an endless array of irritating and debilitating Nazi policies. For example, he loses his teaching position; he is divested of his car; his house is "rented" to an Aryan; the couple is forced to move into and share a home with other Jewish individuals; his bank accounts are frozen; the couple's food and clothing rations are cut; and on and on in and endless procession of indignities. The human dimension of these repressive Nazi practices emerges with such startling force one simply is amazed that the couple surived at all. A moving and valuable addition to the literature of the period.

Incredible, moving account!
I could not put this book down! The reader is drawn into the horrible Nazi atrocities and yet the author keeps his perspective fresh and clear. Every holocaust account is a mortal tragedy but this one ranks high on the scale and should be required reading for students the world over. A beautiful, touching, and heart-breaking account! ... Read more

Reviews (2)

A provocative account of the life and work of Irving Howe
This is an excellent book, illuminating both the life and intellectualdevelopment of Howe, one of this country's foremost literary critics, andthe world of New York's literati much throughout the twentieth century. Itgives insight not only into the thoughts and work of this serious,idealistic, and highly intelligent man, not only into his complicated,social, religious, and intellectual background, and his encounter with thenew world, at times clashing against the values of his ancestors, but alsointo the riveting history of Jewish socialist ideas, stemming directly fromthe Pale, shaping the American political, intellectual landscape throughoutthe century. In the process, it reveals the widening split within theJewish community, the potential of the developing "kulturkampf,"and the winding path of the bitter struggle, still characterizing thepolarized groups of the more traditional and the more radical academics ofour time. Reading Alexander's work, one learns not only to appreciateHowe's vision and moral development but also to place them in the contextof the history of Jewish intellectual thought in search for the Messianicage. One may even note some of the crucial commonalities between thissearch and that of a number of European Jewish literati in our century. Ofcourse, Howe's paradoxical attachment to the "world of ourfathers" was not an option there. As true children of theEnlightenment, some of the European intellectuals remained simply detachedand alienated from the tradition; others became communists or"Catholic socialists," following the instructions of the PopularFront and struggling against the transgressions of Franco rather thanpaying attention to the threat against Jewish life and being in NaziGermany. Howe was more complicated and more "Jewish" than that(of course, he also had both more freedom to be Jewish and later more timeto learn about, and recognize the consequences, of the Holocaust). Yet theprocess of living in, and the difficulties of assimilating to, a hostileworld in need of redemption show deep-seated commonalities between thesegroups. They also reveal the ramifications and the price of such processand such need. While aware of the power of these forces, Alexander treatshis subject truthfully and sympathetically. And despite his critique ofHowe's initial opposition to both US involvement in World War II and thecreation of the State of Israel, Alexander remains true to his task totrace Howe's steps and penetrate his ideas and imagination as truthfully aspossible. The result is that he paints his subject as a great tragiccharacter, vulnerable, torn by contradictions, intelligent, insightful, anddespite everything, "better than ourselves."This is anexcellent book, beautifully written, moving, exhilarating, and dramatic.

Outstanding critical biography of Irving Howe
Edward Alexander is not going to win the hagiography (lives of the saints) award of the year but he just might capture the critical biography prize because his tripartite study of the intellectual condominiums that co-mingled in the mind of Irving Howe is work of meticulous scholarship, felicitous writing style and a literate feistiness.The latter is perhaps the most endearing part of this absorbing book: Alexander has chosen to write a biography of a man whose political views, historical understanding and religious thinking (or lack thereof) he does not share. In fact, in a personal communication with his future biographer, Howe once referred to Alexander as my favorite reactionary. It is therefore a tribute to Alexander's skill th! at he has been able to reconstruct Howe's remarkable contributions to the American socio-political agenda and the Jewish component thereof while at the same time offering his, Alexander's, editorial strictures of Howe's political, literary and cultural myopias and tunnel vision.In his youth adolescence and early 20s - a period that coincided with the rise of Nazism and the outbreak of World War II - Irving Howe (né Horenstein) pledged his troth to the Trotskyite vision of the world, that is to say, an anti-Stalinist yet totalitarian form of communism which filtered the all political events through the doctrinaire lenses of the party line. The contrition which Howe expressed later in life about this part of his career could not be anticipated in the ferocious advocacy he advanced in his numerous articles in Labor Action about a version of history in which only the workers' causes and the class struggle had any validity. In this shameful and embarrassing period Howe was able!to analyze World War II as a unidimensional clash between!two capitalist systems. Alexander has gone through the painstaking and undoubtedly masochistic exercise of reading the articles that Howe wrote under his own name and under a pseudonym in order to document the vapidity of Howe's incredible ability to write about the most seismic events of the twentieth century - World War II and the Holocaust - without mentioning the uniqueness of Hitler's racial policies and, the targeting of Jews. There is no better example of ideological blindness filtering out unpleasant truths that might alter the rigidities of one's political beliefs. The ideological straitjacket which immobilized Howe's not inconsiderable intellectual potential was seen especially in the Partisan Review magazine crowd, among which Howe was a distinguished representative. The love affair which the largely Jewish coterie of Jewish intellectuals attached to that journal carried on with the American-English poet T.S. Eliot is a curious and archival example of the syndrome ! known as self-hate. Alexander notes with irony and some delectation the affection displayed by Howe and other Jewish intellectuals for a poet whose anti-Semitism was as unsubtle as his poetics was refined. Author Alexander also faults Howe for his inability in the late 1940s to register the importance of what Winston Churchill called an event of world history that would require two or three thousand years to conjure with - the creation of the State of Israel. For Howe and his ideological brethren Israel's re-birth was to be seen only under the rubric of fighting British imperialism. Even as late as 1982 when Howe was ready to celebrate Israel's creation, he made it a point to note that acceptance of the State did not imply any Zionist commitment. In his many digressions in this biography, Alexander rejects the use made by Howe and other (including this reviewer) of the term "Arab-Israeli conflict," as if it implied some kind of equalizing of responsibility. Says Ale! xander: "It's the Arab war against the Jews - period.&! quot; Alexander calls one of the chapters in his book The Request of Jewishness, by which he means Howe's slow and painful re-insertion into the Jewish orbit of history. In some ways it was predictable because Howe was a kind of Yiddish-speaking Marrano who despite heroic efforts to submerge his "parochial" heritage, found it bubbling to the surface in the soft cadences of the first language he spoke as a child in the Bronx and in the warmth he remembered in the image of his virtuous, hard working parents and the thousands of other simple Jewish immigrants who people the world of his youth. Later in life when he was reviewing a major book by a feminist critic, he conjured up the picture of his parents as an antidote to the rigidities of feminist theory. Howe's odyssey from Marxist ideologue to secular Jewish guru was neither smooth nor without its troughs and depressions. It began in the 1950s with his interest in editing Yiddish short stories and poetry, an exercise!in which he exhibited skill, sensitivity and sober judgment. It continued with Howe's entry into the university world, where, despite the absence of a Ph.D. in English literature and in a discipline notoriously prejudiced against Jewish scholars he achieved more than a modicum of success teaching at Brandeis, Stanford and Hunter College of the City of New York. The early 1960s was probably the turning point in terms of Howe's Jewish loyalties, as he himself hinted in his 1982 autobiography. Alexander details the controversy which swirled over Howe because of his unhappiness with Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem, a book which first appeared in serial form in The New Yorker. Howe organized a forum under the banner of his journal Dissent, during which the book was dissected asnd repudiated. Critics later argued that Howe had led a lynch mob against Arendt's book - a description which Howe and his supporters vigorously denied.By 1976, the bicentennial of the American revol!ution, Howe had come full circle with the publication of hi! s most famous book - World of Our Fathers. Alexander wryly observers that in 1940 none of the Partisan Review crowd could ever have conceived that their union-organizing, Trotskyite polemicist cum literary critic, would produce an affectionate, absorbing and best-selling volume about the hundreds of thousands of Jewish immigrants who had come to New York City beginning with the turn of the century. In publishing this extraordinary document Howe digested a library of Yiddish books, memoirs, letters, newspapers and other archival materials in order to tell his story and to let the participants of his drama speak out to history. Alexander recognizes the incisiveness of Howe's reconstruction of the Jewish immigrant community, its cultural riches and linguistic treasures. But he also advertises the book's weaknesses - its preoccupation with secular Jewishness at the expense of its religious dimensions. Howe's main argument was that Jews came to American for non ideological reaso! ns - to save themselves from persecution at worst and to make a better living for their families at best. Alexander does not contest this point but observes that there were thousand of other Jews who fled Czarist Russia and went to Palestine for ideological reasons. In the last decade of his life, before he was felled by illness Irving Howe injected himself in numerous political and literary skirmishes and Alexander is there giving us a lively play-by-play account of the victories, defeats and draws. Some of Howe's best critical works pivoted around the claims of the new university curricula where the books of "dead white males" are now denounced as holdovers from a despised canon. Howe would have none of this nonsense. Perhaps the best of Howe's writing was Holocaust memoirs and the difficulty of establishing esthetic criteria for a literature aages@interlog.comthat had no precedents and which "succeeded only when it failed." If there are any faults in A! lexander's stimulating biography they flow from a surfeit o! f its virtues. In an effort to be thorough Alexander has read virtually everything that Howe wrote and what others wrote about Howe. However, this reviewer found the parts about Howe's struggle with defining his Jewish of much greater interest than those parts dealing with Howe's interest in the esoterica of literary criticism, American ethnic politics, black writing and the American novel. Others will undoubtedly disagree. -30- ... Read more

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Personal Witness revisited
After completing Paul Thompson's History of the Jews, I revisited my first reading in '95 of Personal Witness. This reading was much more meaningful in light of Thompson's outstanding work. Eban's cogent testimony of Israel's struggle for nationhood was filled with dextrous gems of awesome and often droll prose.

Eban's book also gives valuable insight into the workings of the United Nations and its genuine as opposed to perceived role in world government. His insights on the character of national leaders and venerated diplomats is frosting on the cake.

Highly recommend this difficult to lay down book for some eye-opening lucidation on Israel and its struggle against absurd obstacles.

Richard A. Macales, columnist, "Mac's Facts"
Known as the man with the "golden tongue," Eban recounts his years in Washington and at the U.N. as Israel's first envoy, and later as foreign minister. As the saying goes, he has been there, seen it and met with everyone who is anyone among the world's leaders in Israel's formative years. ... Read more

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Grandfather telling stories...
To enjoy listening to stories told by grandfather, you don't necessarily have to be a child! As a matter of fact, it is a life virtue to enjoy these stories told by Isaac Bashevis Singer, regardless of age. They are set in the now vanished Hassidic community of pre-II World War, but their moral content transcends time and space, and although they are soaked in Jewishness they equally appeal to the open-minded reader. Beware that out of the seventeen tales in this editon, 14 are included in "My Father's Court," by the same author. ... Read more

Book Description

Derived by the author from interviews and oral histories, these eighty-nine original Hasidic tales about the Holocaust provide unprecedented witness, in a traditional idiom, to the victims' inner experience of "unspeakable" suffering. This volume constitutes the first collection of original Hasidic tales to be published in a century.

"An important work of scholarship and a sudden clear window onto the heretofore sealed world of the Hasidic reaction to the Holocaust. Its true stories and fanciful miracle tales are a profound and often poignant insight into the souls of those who suffered terribly at the hands of the Nazis and who managed somehow to use that very suffering as the raw material for their renewed lives." -- Chaim Potok

"A beautiful collection." -- Saul Bellow

"Yaffa Eliach provides us with stories that are wonderful and terrible -- true myths. We learn how people, when suffering dying, and surviving can call forth their humanity with starkness and clarity. She employs her scholarly gifts only to connect the tellers of the tales, who bear witness, to the reader who is stunned and enriched." -- Robert J. Lifton

"In the extensive literature on the Holocaust, this is a unique book. Through it we can attain a glimpse of the victims' inner life and spiritual resources. Yaffa Eliach has done a superb job." -- Jehuda Reinharz ... Read more

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Religious Jews whose faith the Nazis could not break
As far as I know, this book was the first collection of Hasidic responses to the Holocaust to make it out of the "Jewish literary ghetto" and into the mainstream, where it remains a popular read in both Jewish and non-Jewish theological circles. It was also the first collection of stories about Jews who did NOT lose their faith during the Holocaust (most of them, anyway -- there are one or two exceptions in the book.) Prior to this, religious Jews in the Holocaust were portrayed by the media as as "cowards who didn't fight back" rather than the religious martyrs that they were. (Most typical of this anti-religious period is the infamous line from the movie version of Leon Uris's EXODUS: "The only god I believe in is a gun.") I won't go into the politics of it here, but, suffice it to say, the post-Holocaust Zionist movement was more interested in freedom fighters than saints.

The Hasidim, however, had a different view of their suffering during the Holocaust. God had not deserted them, even if He seemed hidden in a time of darkness. The Hasidim were telling their own Holocaust stories around the Sabbath table or at community gatherings but, because most of this telling was oral and in Yiddish, it was unknown to the general public. Enter Yaffa Eliach. As a professor of English literature at Brooklyn College, she began hearing these tales from her students. Brooklyn College had/has a high percentage of Hasidic students and, through them, Eliach got to know their parents and other Holocaust survivors, including some of the Hasidic Rebbes. The result is a fine collection of true Holocaust stories that will forever change the way you view Hasidic Jews. Courage, as this book demonstrates, doesn't always mean grabbing a gun. It can also mean hiding a child, sharing your food when you yourself are starving, or meeting death with your human dignity intact. To maintain one's faith under such adversity, to continue studying Torah and doing the mitzvahs even in a concentration camp -- these were acts of true resistance that shine through every page of this book. I give it ten stars!

A Welcome Addition to the Holocaust Literature
The gold standard by which Holocaust literature is judged is Elie Wiesel's Night/Dawn/Day trilogy. If that is 24k this is 22k gold. Does that mean 4 or 5 stars? I'm no mathematician, only a humble mechanical engineer, so I gave it 4 stars, on the grounds that Amazon.com predicted I would!
These tales are mostly short and so, emminently readable. Above all, one remains in my mind. It is the story of little Shachne Hiller, Mr. and Mrs. Yachowitch, and a young Polish priest. Schachne is 4 years old when he is given up by his Jewish parents into the care of the dutiful and trustworthy Catholic Yachowitchs. The Hillers are careful to instruct the Yachowiths that they wish Shachne to be brought up Jewish. Time passes and the Yachowiths come to love little Schachne dearly. Mrs. Yachowitch takes the little boy to a young priest, explains the situation and asks that the boy be baptized. The young priest refuses. That priest, who is Karol Wojtyla refuses and eventually becomes Cardinal and is then elected Pope. The boy comes to America, becomes a successful businessman and a devout Jew. According to the Grand Rabbi of Bluzhov, Rabbi Israel Spira, "God has mysterious, wonderful ways unknown to men. Perhaps it was the merit of saving a single Jewish soul that brought about his election as Pope. It is a story that must be told."
As for the rest of the stories, I was brought the point of tears by some, rendered incredulous by others, and rarely if ever bored by any. This is great book and highly recommended by a tough grader.

Powerful! A must for all who study the Holocaust!
A powerful and compelling testament to the unsung heroes of the Holocaust - the men and women that did not allow the horrific conditions to dampen their love of G-D. A must read.

Magical and Horrifying
Eliach gathers together stories which range from the magical to horrifying. Present in all the stories is the strength and faith of the participants as well as the mystery of survival. I have told some of these stories to my students and read some at Passover seders. Everyone is always fascinated.

A Beautiful Work
As a folklorist, I make my living studying the way people tell stories and cope with life through creativity. Eliach has gathered a superb collection of stories that will alternately amaze you, break your heart, and leave you with a deep admiration for the tenacity of the human spirit. ... Read more

Reviews (6)

This is a must-use for any middle school classroom!
This true story written from the perspective of an 11-year-old immigrant, truly sums up the immigrant perspective. My 4th grade students, journaled each day as if he or she were the central character, and begged for each of the five chapters. This book alone, replaced a 4-week unit that I had used previously to emphasize the impact of immigration on our state. Written by the author's daughter, with photos showing then and now, it is wonderful. FYI: We used, as the final journal entry, an account written by Yehuda when he finds his journal 70 years later and recounts the years since arriving in America.

Character traits nicely parallel our school's program.
The story reads well for any student needing to understand the trials and tribulations of people immigrating to the U.S.Important character traits are developed and their importance in reaching a goal are emphasized. The artwork makes a dramatic statement to anyone who opens the book. Elementary students should be attracted by this outstanding feature. As a school director and recently retired teacher, I purchased a copy for each of our elementary libraries because of the qualiy of this book.

Great book for all ages!
This review is from Debbie,Paul,Ryan and Melissa. We all modelled for the illustrator,Laurie McGaw, of this book. It was a wonderful experience since some of our grandparents left Russia and Poland because of the war and we felt we could relate to the people in the book.The book has been presented to the our childrens' school in conjunction with the Holocaust unit. Teachers and kids alike found the book to be very interesting and beautifully illustrated. We recommend it to all nationalities and ages.It is not only a book about Jewish people, but also a book about what any immigrants coming to North America might have experienced.

An absolute treat!
A wonderful story with fabulous illustrations. A must read for all ages

Great book
Well i actually got this book for reaserch for a projet and i think it helped me a lot because it told me that familys strugle to enter america.I would reccommend this book to anyone doing an interview with an immagrant i know it helped me a lot. ... Read more

Download Description

In 1941 Janusz Bardach's death sentence was commuted to ten years' hard labor and he was sent to Kolyma--the harshest, coldest, and most deadly prison in Joseph Stalin's labor camp system--the Siberia of Siberias. The only English-language memoir since the fall of communism to chronicle the atrocities committed during the Stalinist regime, Bardach's gripping testimony explores the darkest corners of the human condition at the same time that it documents the tyranny of Stalin's reign, equal only to that of Hitler. With breathtaking immediacy, a riveting eye for detail, and a humanity that permeates the events and landscapes he describes, Bardach recounts the extraordinary story of this nearly inconceivable world.The story begins with the Nazi occupation when Bardach, a young Polish Jew inspired by Soviet Communism, crosses the border of Poland to join the ranks of the Red Army. His ideals are quickly shattered when he is arrested, court-martialed, and sentenced to death. How Bardach survives an endless barrage of brutality--from a near-fatal beating to the harsh conditions and slow starvation of the gulag existence--is a testament to human endurance under the most oppressive circumstances. Besides being of great historical significance, Bardach's narrative is a celebration of life and a vital affirmation of what it means to be human. ... Read more

Reviews (23)

Outstanding Narrative of Human Survival with a Twist
What a great story. I couldn't put the book down. It is a view of WW II and Soviet Terror told from a unique perspective. I was enthralled to read the first hand accurate descriptions of human suffering and maladies. Then to my suprise the Author revealed himself to be one of my professors during Medical School! He never talked about this part of his life during my brief and peripheral association with him, and was a hard but just teacher with glimpses of remarkable human tenderness.

The first hand description of vitamin deficiencies was insightful.

Buy this book and read about human courage and survival

A chilling tale of survival
Having never read a book on the Soviet gulags may make me a neophyte on this subject, but Dr. Bardach's story has educated me. The story of a Polish Jew with a certain admiration for the Soviet way of life, this curiosity comes to a bitter end when in battling Nazi invaders with the Red Army, Dr. Bardach is arrested, court martialed and sentenced to death for a "crime" for which he was scapegoated. In the ensuing years,he is subjected to beatings, threats of death, horrific working conditions and the loss of freedom. But in surviving this living nightmare, Dr. Bardach will inspire you when he finally finds his freedom and becomes a successful surgeon in the U.S.

Archetype of the American Dream
I grew up in Iowa City around the corner from Dr. Bardach. I delivered his newspaper when I was a kid and used to see him and his wife at local tennis clubs. That's all I knew about him-until I was 30 and my parents were reading his book. When they told me what it was about, I was stunned! I couldn't put the book down. His story is riveting. How on earth does a Polish Jew in WWII go from a hard labor camp in Siberia to being a renowned surgeon at a large teaching hospital in the middle of Iowa? It puts life into perspective and will remind you that anything is possible. Dr. Bardach truly lived the American dream.

From a Former Patient
You won't be dissapointed! I had no idea that 30 years ago when I was a 14 year old child, I was being operated on by a fomer Russian Officer condemned to death in a concentration camp! What I remember is a very kind doctor/man who encouraged an Iowa boy with a cleft lip to be all he could be. It was just last year when I was grieved to find out that the doctor who gave me a new face had died. Only later did I find out and become amazed at all he had gone through. I just had to buy the book, and found it VERY difficult to put down, not just because he was the man who operated on my lip/nose 30 years ago, but also because he wrote very well from a first person point of view. I only wish I had an autographed copy of his book! Rest in Peace, my friend! May the Lord richly bless you!
-rickmauderer@charter.net

Outstanding Narrative
I've read many books on the subject but this one had it all : well-written amazing story with all the details of what he'd seen and felt. A unique narrative of an incredible journey into a reality that everybody should know to not let it happen again. ... Read more

Book Description

Even among scholars of Jewish literature, Jewish American women writers have been largely neglected, despite the enormous contribution they have made. This volume explores the extraordinary achievement of Jewish American women novelists, poets, and playwrights who have written in English. A reference work, composed mainly of entries arranged alphabetically by writer, the book provides a biography, bibliography, and survey of criticism for each, along with a critical analysis. ... Read more

Book Description

A charming penpal correspondence between a grandmother and her eight-year old granddaughter.

Eight-year old Hope's summer project for school was to become the pen pal of a senior citizen. When her assigned pen pal failed to write back, Hope's mother suggested she write to her grandmother. The result was a two-year correspondence.

This book is a collection of the letters in which Hope's grandmother reveals the stories of her childhood, including the difficulties growing up in turn-of-the century St. Louis. Ultimately, the correspondence teaches readers of all ages some wonderful and joyous insights about human hearts. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Letters of Love
I picked up "Dear Hope ... Love, Grandma" because it was so beautiful with a photo of Grandma as a child on the dust cover.I sat in the bookstore and read it cover to cover before buying it.The book is non-fiction.Grandma Hilda and Hope are real people. Each chapter is a story.I couldn't put it down.

"Dear Hope ... Love, Grandma" makes you realize the possibilities of grandmother-granddaughter relationships.Nine-year-old Hope and her grandma write from their hearts.Through their letters, Grandma tells Hope the story of her life.Grandma Hilda was the youngest of five children.Her mother was an immigrant Jewish widow who barely spoke English, yet she managed to impart to all of her children a love of family, loyalty to one another, a love of God, and a healthy dose of humor to see them through the hard times ahead.

Grandma Hilda writes affectingly.She never talks down to Hope and hence not to us either.This is a small gem from an obscure publisher that deserves our attention.It is cautionary tale as well.If we do not save our family stories, our elderly relatives will take them to their graves, and we will lose untold treasures.We doubtless already have.

There is much to be learned from this beautiful volume.I highly recommend it to grandchildren and grandparents alike.What a treasure for you to share together.

Connecting the Generations
This is one of the most moving books I have ever read ... because it's true.Grandma Hilda is the grandmother we all wish we had had.She's warm, she's loving, she's kind, she's funny, she's generous, and above all, she's real.

Through her letters to her granddaughter Hope, Grandma Hilda tells the story of her life.Born in 1902 in the Jewish ghetto of St. Louis, Hilda was the youngest of 5 surviving children. Her father died when she was 2.She was raised by her mother who barely spoke Engish, and yet her mother managed to convey to her children her values of love of family, love of God, honesty, loyalty, devotion, and a liberal dose of humor to wash it all down.

Above all, this book is a cautionary tale to save our family stories before it's too late.If Hope had not cared enough to write to her Grandma, these wonderful stories would have gone with Grandma Hilda to her grave.How many family stories could be saved if we all took the time to do what little 7-year-old Hope did?After I read this book, I followed Hope's example.Now my own mother is dead and just like Hope, I have her stories.

Bravo DEAR HOPE ... LOVE, GRANDMA!Everyone needs to read this book. ... Read more