WINTER 2005 RECOMMENDED JEWISH BOOKS

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WINTER 2005 BOOK READINGS

Dec 01, 2004: Discussion of Cynthia Ozick's THE PAGAN RABBI AND OTHER STORIES, NYC 92nd St Y
Dec 02, 2004: Rabbis Lawrence Kushner and Nehemia Polen, NYC 92nd St Y
Dec 05, 2004: Irshad Manji and Asra Nomani, NYC 92nd St Y
Dec 08, 2004: Novel Jews reading series. KGB Bar, 85 E 4th St, East Village NYC 7PM
Dec 12, 2004: Alan Dershowitz (RIGHTS FROM WRONGS), NYC 92nd Street Y
Dec 14, 2004: Dara Horn speaks on SIBLING REVIVALry - The Singers of Warsaw (I.B., I.J. and their sister Esther Kreitman). Part of the Nextbook series. Washington DCJCC
Dec 26, 2004: Klezkamp 20, 20th Annual Yiddish Afolk Arts Festival. Hudson Valley Resort and Spa. NY, see LivingTraditions.org

Jan 06, 2004: David Margolick speaks on STRANGE FRUIT. Part of the Nextbook series. Washington DCJCC
Jan 11, 2004: Gary Shteyngart reads. Part of the Nextbook series. Washington DCJCC
Jan 13, 2005: Novel Jews reading series. Cynthia Ozick. KGB Bar, 85 E 4th St, East Village NYC 7PM
Jan 23, 2005: A Day of Jewish Silent Meditation. 14th St Y of NYC, edalliance.org with Elat Chayim
Jan 25, 2005: Andre Aciman reads. Part of the Nextbook series. Washington DCJCC
Feb 02, 2005: Pearl Abraham reads from THE SEVENTH BEGGAR. Bn.com Nyc UWS
Feb 09, 2005: Pearl Abraham and Steve Stern. Speak at NOVEL JEWS at KGB BAR. East Village NYC 7PM
Feb 13-18, 2005: 22nd Jerusalem International Book Fair. JerusalemBookFair.com
Feb 15, 2005: Judaism Today with Richard Joel (YU), Rabbi David Ellenson, Rabbi Ismar Schorsch with Gary Rosenblatt. NYC 92nd St Y. 8 PM $15
Feb 17, 2005: Dr. Laurence Roth talks about Detective Stories, Graphic Novels and Contemporary Amiercan Jewish Culture. Upenn Center of Advanced Judaic. Temple Emanuel NYC 7PM
Feb 17, 2005: Jeffrey Shandler speaks on ALIENS IN THE WASTELAND: THE HOLOCAUST AND SCI-FI TELEVISION. Part of the Nextbook series. Washington DCJCC
Feb 19-21, 2005: From Gaza to Negotiations. The Role of American Jews. Temple Israel NYC. BtvShalom.org
Feb 20, 2005: Fourth Annual EDAH Conference in NYC www.edah.org
Feb 20, 2005: Judaism Encounters Modernity. 2 day conference. Penn Hillel. Phila. PA
Feb 23, 2005: Spinoza and The Quest for Meaning NY Kollel Huc.edu NYC 6:30 PM
Feb 28, 2005: Susan Stamberg (NPR) hosts an evening of readings. Part of the Nextbook series. Washington DCJCC
Mar 01, 2005: SF Chronicle and the World Affaris Council present Dr. Yossi Beilin. ItsYourWorld.org, SF
Mar 07, 2005: Savyon Liebrecht reads. Part of the Nextbook series. Washington DCJCC
Mar 09-13, 2005: Israel Non-Stop. Five Days of Cutting Edge Israeli. JCC Manhattan. Discovering Elijah (dance); Yehudit Ravitz (music); Yehudit Katzir; photography; film, wine and food.
Mar 13-14, 2005: Choosing Limits, Limiting Choices. Conference at Brandeis. Jofa.org Waltham MA
Mar 13-14, 2005: Choosing Limits, Limiting Choices. Conference at Brandeis. Jofa.org Waltham MA
Mar 13-14, 2005: UCLA Center for Jewish Studies: Jewish Messianism in the Time of Jesus. Messianism in The Greco-Roman World; Messianism Past and Present; and Messianism and Suffering
Mar 15, 2005: The actor Gene Wilder reads from his new book. B&N Rock Center NYC 1PM
Mar 17, 2005: Franklin Foer speaks on AWAY GAME: SOCCER AND THE JEWS (Hakoah of Vienna Austria in 1925). Part of the Nextbook series. Washington DCJCC
Mar 17, 2005: Kurt Eichenwald reads from his Enron Book, Conspiracy of Fools. B&N Union Sq NYC 7PM
Mar 23, 2005: Keep On Lifting Me Higher. NY Kollel Huc.edu NYC 6:30 PM
Mar 24, 2005: Makor Film NYC: Shivah for My Mother, with Yael Katzir
Mar 24, 2005: James B. Stewart reads from DISNEY WAR, B&N Lincoln NYC 7PM
Mar 29, 2005: Makor Film NYC: Finding Eleazar
Mar 29, 2005: Makor Film NYC: Finding Eleazar
Mar 29, 2005: A Movement Transformed; Women's Ordination... with Abby Joseph Cohen, Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin, Rabbi Amy Eilberg, Rabbi Susan Grossman, Rabbi Joel Roth amd Rabbi Gordon Tucker. JTSA. 6:30 PM
Apr 06, 2005: Makor NYC - Metropolitan Klezmer with Los Mas Valientes
Apr 07, 2005: An Evening with Zeek Magazine, with Hal Sirowitz, Aaron Hamburger, and others. Makor NYC 7:30 PM
Apr 07, 2005: Jacqueline Osherow speaks on YIDDISH POEMS IN AMERICA. Part of the Nextbook series. Washington DCJCC


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DECEMBER 2004







Heavenly Torah
As Refracted through the Generations
By Abraham Joshue Heschel
edited by Gordon Tucker
with Abraham Joshua Heschel and Leonard Levin
December 23, 2004,
Continuumbooks
41 chapters and over 700 pages
This is one of the most significant Jewish books of Fall 2004
To understand Heschel is to understand Judaism. If people would forego the Zohar and Kabbalah fad and actually read this book, we would be in better touch with our Jewish theology.
If a dwarf were to sit on the shoulders of a giant, who would see farther? The dwarf would.. Reading this book allows we dwarves to sit on a giant's shoulders, and perhaps see what he saw.
Known most widely for his role in the civil rights and peace movements of the 1960s, Abraham Joshua Heschel made major scholarly contributions to the fields of biblical studies, rabbinics, medieval Jewish philosophy, Hasidism, and mysticism. Yet his most ambitious scholarly achievement, his three-volume study of Rabbinic Judaism, is only now appearing in English. Heschel's great insight is that the world of rabbinic thought can be divided into two types or schools, those of Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Ishmael, and that the historic disputes between the two are based on fundamental differences over the nature of revelation and religion. Furthermore, this disagreement constitutes a basic and necessary ongoing polarity within Judaism between immanence and transcendence, mysticism and rationalism, neo-Platonism and Aristotelianism. Heschel then goes on to show how these two fundamental theologies of revelation may be used to interpret a great number of topics central to Judaism. Gordon Tucker is senior rabbi of Temple Israel Center in White Plains, New York, and Adjunct Professor of Jewish Philosophy at Jewish Theological Seminary, New York City. Click the book cover above to read more.







THE INEFFABLE NAME OF GOD: MAN
Poems in Yiddish and English
By Abraham Joshue Heschel
Translated by Morton Leifman, Introduction by Edward Kaplan
December 23, 2004, Continuumbooks.com.
These 66 poems, here in English and Yiddish on facing pages, were collected in the first book Abraham Joshua Heschel ever published. They appeared in Warsaw in 1933 when Heschel was 26 years old and still a doctoral candidate in philosophy at the University of Berlin. Written between 1927 and 1933-and never published in English before-this is the intimate spiritual diary of a devout European Jew, loyal to the revelation at Sinai and afflicted with reverence for all human beings. These poems sound themes that will resonate throughout Heschel's later popular writings: human holiness, a passion for truth, awe and wonder before nature, God's quest for righteousness, solidarity with the downtrodden, and unwavering commitment to tikkun olam. In these poems we also discover a young man's acute loneliness, dismay at God's distance, and dreams of spiritual and sensual intimacy with a woman. Cynthia Ozick writes, "To discover that the religious philosopher Abraham Joshua Heschel was a poet in his youth is both startling and indelibly self-evident-startling because the poems have so far eluded the anthologies; and at the same time familiarly manifest, in that Heschel's metaphysical writings themselves carry the impress of poetry. Like Herbert, like Donne, like Blake, he is God-haunted; his lyrics are steeped in the mystic's longing to tear away the curtain that conceals the divine radiance and (sometimes) God's tears." Arthur Hertzberg writes, "Abraham Joshua Heschel's first calling as a writer was to become in his early twenties a major poet in Yiddish. In this earliest work, Heschel stated all the themes of his later development as a religious thinker and passionate Jew. This work is now translated magnificently, in a way that is sensitive to Heschel's Yiddish, by Morton Leifman. Taken together, in the original Yiddish and in contemporary English, this book is a classic." People's eyes wait for me / Like candle wicks for a light
Shamed brothers beg my help / Deceived sisters dream of consolation And it seems to em that I will, in time
Move on through this earth
With the brightness of all the stars
In my eyes

Click the book cover above to read more.










Michael Chabon Presents
. . .The Amazing Adventures Of The Escapist Volume 1
. . .The Amazing Adventures Of The Escapist Volume 2
by Brian Vaughan, Kevin McCarthy, Marv Wolfman, Matt Kindt, Mike Mignola
Hanukkah 2004. Dark Horse (Volume 2) .
Passover 2004. Dark Horse (Volume 1)
Volumes 1 and 2 of the comic book made famous by Michael Chabon.
Master of Elusion, foe of tyranny, and champion of liberation - The Escapist! Operating from a secret headquarters under the boards of the majestic Empire Theater, the Escapist and his crack team of charismatic associates roam the globe, performing amazing feats of magic to aid all those who languish in oppression's chains. The history of his creators, Joe Kavalier and Sam Clay, was recently chronicled in Michael Chabon's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. The best of the Escapist's adventures are now collected into one volume for all to enjoy! This thrilling volume of Michael Chabon Presents...The Amazing Adventures of The Escapist collects the first two issues of the comic book and features an original story penned by Michael Chabon, the comics debut of novelist Glen David Gold, a new story written and drawn by Howard Chaykin, the painted artwork of Bill Sienkiewicz, and a wraparound cover by Chris Ware!
Click the book cover above to read more.









Blood Libel
The Damascus Affair of 1840
By Ronald Florence
University of Wisconsin Press
In Damascus, in February 1840, a Capuchin monk and his servant disappear without a trace. Rumors point at the local Jewish community. Within weeks, the rumors turn to accusations of ritual murder-the infamous "blood libel." Torture, coerced confessions, manufactured evidence, and the fury of the crowds are enough to convict the accused Jews. By the time the rest of the world learns of the events in Damascus, the entire leadership of the Jewish community is awaiting execution. Vicious charges of ritual murder had been heard in Europe for centuries and are heard in the Middle East today-but everything else here was turned around. The accusers of the Jews were not the Muslim majority. The French consul was the chief prosecutor, aided by the British consul, with the support of the American consul. The affair became a cause célèbre in Europe and the Americas, the priorities of diplomacy intervened, and the fabric of a society that had once stretched to tolerate minorities finally burst in an outrage of fears turned to fury. The legacies of that torn fabric, and the continuing myths, feed and sustain the fervor of anti-Semitism today. Click the book cover above to read more.









Support Any Friend
Kennedy's Middle East and the Making of the U.S.-Israel Alliance
by Warren Bass
Oxford University Press; New Ed edition (December 30, 2004). Paperback
At the Cold War's height, John F. Kennedy set precedents that continue to shape America's encounter with the Middle East. Kennedy was the first president to make a major arms sale to Israel, the only president to push hard to deny Israel the atomic bomb, and the last president to reach out to the greatest champion of Arab nationalism, Egyptian President Jamal Abdul Nasser. Now Warren Bass takes readers inside the corridors of power to show how Kennedy's New Frontiersmen grappled with the Middle East. He explains why the fiery Nasser spurned Washington's overtures and stumbled into a Middle Eastern Vietnam. He shows how Israel persuaded the Kennedy administration to start arming the Jewish state. And he grippingly describes JFK's showdown with Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion over Israel's secret nuclear reactor. From the Oval Office to secret diplomatic missions to Cairo and Tel Aviv, Bass offers stunning new insights into the pivotal presidency that helped create the U.S.-Israel alliance and the modern Middle East. Click the book cover above to read more.









BETHLEHEM ROAD MURDER
A Mystery by Batya Gur
December 2004. HarperCollins.
This is the last published mystery by Ms Gur, prior to her death from cancer at the age of 57 in May 2005. Batya Gur viewed Michael Ohayon, the hero of her detective series, as a kindred spirit: outwardly tough, but soft, sensitive and cultured from within. A contemplative and caring man. "I am Michael Ohayon in a woman's body," she used to tell her interviewers. "He grew like me, slowly and laboriously, until he found his place." Gur (nee Mann) was born in Tel Aviv to Holocaust survivors. At the age of 39 she turned to writing. She began her literary career with a detective novel, "A Saturday Morning Murder" (Keter, 1988), which was warmly received. This was the birth of detective Michael Ohayon, who developed into the protagonist of a six-part series published between 1989 and 2004, and televised for Israel's Channel 2. Gur's novels achieved widespread success in Israel and abroad, serving as a mirror for Israel political, social and economic problems. No part of Israeli reality escaped her eye: ethnic discrimination, poverty and unemployment, the life of new immigrants and all those at the margins of society.
In this mystery, the body of a young woman with her face ruined is discovered in the attic of a house in the Baka neighborhood of Jerusalem, on Rehov Bethlehem. Michael Ohayon is called to the scene to investigate. But this involves more than a crime scene and murder, it involves the place of an old love and unfinished romance. The criminal investigation is set in the complexities of Jerusalem, the tension between Mizrahi Jews and European Jews, Jews and Arabs, the intifada, and the allegedly kidnapped Yemenite children of the 1950's. Click the book cover above to read more.









THE ROAD TO MARTYR'S SQUARE
A Journey into the World of the Suicide Bomber
by Anne Marie Oliver
January 2005, Oxford.
Combining in equal measure the critical and the compassionate, the tragic and the absurd, this memoir chronicles two interlocking, often clashing journeys--an exploration of the cult of martyrdom in the underground media of the intifada, on the one hand, and on the other, the struggle for friendship across seemingly impossible divides. The authors lived for six months with a Palestinian refugee family in the Gaza Strip at the beginning of the intifada, and then for the next six years, collected graffiti, videotapes, audiocassettes, posters, and other street media in over one hundred towns in the West Bank and Gaza. Their book is based on these primary materials (with 66 illustrations included) as well as dozens of interviews with leaders and followers, including a rare interview with a Hamas suicide bomber whose bomb failed to explode on an Israeli bus in Jerusalem. Dispensing with the cliches and platitudes surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the book provides access to materials hitherto unavailable and presents in a new and compelling voice the master scripts of the intifada and the rise of the suicide bomber. Disseminated by nationalists and Islamists alike, these materials make it clear that the suicide bomber is not just an Islamist phenomenon but rather a widely shared fantasy that skips across religious and political divides. Indeed, the fantasy of the suicide bomber, the authors suggest, is global in scope. Here is an important and timely work that will challenge the way we think about the intifada, suicide bombers, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. . Click the book cover above to read more.









THE STAR OF REDEMPTION
BY FRANZ ROSENZWEIG
December 2004. Reissue. University of Wisconsin.
The reissue of the classic book by Rosenzweig (1886-1929), the co-founder of the Lehrhaus. One of the greatest modern works of religion and philosophy. The major themes in The Star are birth, life, death and the immortality of the soul; Eastern philosophies and Jewish mysticism; the relationship between God and the world and humanity over time; and revelation as the real biblical miracle of faith and path to redemption. The Star of Redemption is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding religion and philosophy. Fusing philosophy and theology, the book assigns both Judaism and Christianity distinct but equally important roles in the spiritual structure of the world and finds in both biblical religions approaches to a comprehension of reality. Franz Rosenzweig (1886 ­ 1929) helped establish Das freie jüdische Lehrhaus (Free House of Jewish Learning) in Frankfurt-am-Main. Rosenzweig is one of the greatest contributors to Jewish philosophy in the twentieth century. Click the book cover above to read more.









PALESTINIAN ARAB MUSIC A Maqam Tradition in Practice
by DALIA COHEN and RITH KATZ
December 2004. University of Chicago Press.
A comprehensive analysis of Palestinian music, which is based in the classical style of maqam, is highly improvised, includes text, and is highly connected to the traits of individual performers. Uses the Cohen-Katz Melograph (1957). Click the book cover above to read more.









THE PRUNE BOOK
TOP MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES FOR PRESIDENTIAL APPOINTEES
December 2004. Brookings.
This is an essential book for those Jewish people who will be appointed to the new federal administration after the January 2005 inauguration of John Kerry. The PLUM Book was famous as a listing of top 7,400 appointed positions available in DC. The PRUNE book is the required tool that describes the selection process. This edition has a section on the leadership challenges facing presidential appointees. This chapter looks at elements of leadership competence in the executive branch, including personal qualities such as people skills, accessibility, intellectual independence, objectivity, and commitment. Insights into federal positions are provided. If you want to perform your best, read this book. Click the book cover above to read more.







THE TREE OF LIFE
A TRILOGY OF LIFE IN THE LODZ GHETTO
BOOK 1: ON THE BRINK OF THE PRECIPICE, 1939
By Chava Rosenfarb, Translated from Yiddish with Goldie Morgentaler
December 2004. Wisconsin.
The lives of 10 protagonists in the Lodz Ghetto. The author is a survivor of Lodz, Auschwitz, and Bergen Belsen. Click the book cover above to read more.







THE MANOR AND THE ESTATE
By Isaac Bashevis Singer
December 2004. Wisconsin.
Two novels by Singer, about Polish Jews in the late 19th Century, during a time of industrialization, and the move from the shtetl to prominence in Polish society. Click the book cover above to read more.







A TALE OF LOVE AND DARKNESS
A Novel By Amos Oz
December 2004, Harcourt
Publishers Weekly writes: This memoir/family history brims over with riches: metaphors and poetry, drama and comedy, failure and success, unhappy marriages and a wealth of idiosyncratic characters. Some are lions of the Zionist movement-David Ben-Gurion (before whom a young Oz made a terrifying command appearance), novelist S.Y. Agnon, poet Saul Tchernikhovsky-others just neighbors and family friends, all painted lovingly and with humor. Though set mostly during the author's childhood in Jerusalem of the 1940s and '50s, the tale is epic in scope, following his ancestors back to Odessa and to Rovno in 19th-century Ukraine, and describing the anti-Semitism and Zionist passions that drove them with their families to Palestine in the early 1930s. In a rough, dusty, lower-middle-class suburb of Jerusalem, both of Oz's parents found mainly disappointment: his father, a scholar, failed to attain the academic distinction of his uncle, the noted historian Joseph Klausner. Oz's beautiful, tender mother, after a long depresson, committed suicide when Oz (born in 1939) was 12. By the age of 14, Oz was ready to flee his book-crammed, dreary, claustrophobic flat for the freedom and outdoor life of Kibbutz Hulda. Oz's personal trajectory is set against the background of an embattled Palestine during WWII, the jubilation after the U.N. vote to partition Palestine and create a Jewish state, the violence and deprivations of Israel's war of independence and the months-long Arab siege of Jerusalem. This is a powerful, nimbly constructed saga of a man, a family and a nation forged in the crucible of a difficult, painful history. Click the book cover above to read more.






Occupied By Memory
The Intifada Generation And The Palestinian State Of Emergency
by John Collins
December 2004. NYU PRESS.
Occupied by Memory explores the memories of the first Palestinian intifada. Based on extensive interviews with members of the "intifada generation," those who were between 10 and 18 years old when the intifada began in 1987, the book provides a detailed look at the intifada memories of ordinary Palestinians. These personal stories are presented as part of a complex and politically charged discursive field through which young Palestinians are invested with meaning by scholars, politicians, journalists, and other observers. What emerges from their memories is a sense of a generation caught between a past that is simultaneously traumatic, empowering, and exciting-and a future that is perpetually uncertain. In this sense, Collins argues that understanding the stories and the struggles of the intifada generation is a key to understanding the ongoing state of emergency for the Palestinian people. The book will be of interest not only to scholars of the Middle East but also to those interested in nationalism, discourse analysis, social movements, and oral history. Click the book cover above to read more.







ARROWS IN THE DARK
DAVID BEN GURION, THE YISHUV LEADERSHIP
AND RESCUE ATTEMPTS DURING THE HOLOCAUST
by TUVIA FRILING
December 2004. Wisconsin.
Analyzes the efforts to aid and rescue Jews by the Jewish community of Palestine. Click the book cover above to read more.








THE JEWISH RADICAL RIGHT
REVISIONIST ZIONISM AND ITS IDEOLOGICAL LEGACY
by ERAN KAPLAN
December 2004. Wisconsin.
The lasting effects of Revisionist Zionism on Israel today. The Revisionists of the 1920/1930s under Ze'ev Jabotinsky offered a different view of Jewish history and a vision of the future. The author views the Revisionists in light of other right wing movements of the 1920s. Click the book cover above to read more.








Yahweh Versus Yahweh
The Enigma Of Jewish History
by Jay Y. Gonen
December 2004. Wisconsin.
Yahweh Versus Yahweh is a vivid description of how the founding myths of Judaism have conditioned Jewish expectations from history. Jay L. Gonen unveils the collective psychology that underlies Jewish psychohistory. The enigmatic God of Gonen's study brings to the Jewish people periods of construction and bounty but also periods of destruction and hopelessness. This duality, according to Gonen, runs throughout Jewish lore, literature, morality, the Kabbala, and Hassidism. It serves as the unifying factor in Jewish history--as it informed and influenced the establishment of the State of Israel, the history and future of Zionism, the debate over the Holocaust, the belief in the coming of the Messiah, and the current conflict in the Middle East. Gonen is at his best when portraying the intricate and highly dialectical interactions within the Jewish psyche among the themes of Messianism, Zionism, and the Holocaust. His penetrating analysis of how shared group fantasies molded Jewish responses to ongoing events is a must read for all persons who are interested in the intersection of religion, politics, and psychology in history. Click the book cover above to read more.







The Jewish Life Cycle
Rites Of Passage From Biblical To Modern Times
(Samuel and Althea Stroum Lectures in Jewish Studies)
by Ivan G. Marcus (Yale University)
University of Washington Press; (December 31, 2004).
In this original and sweeping review of Jewish culture and history, Ivan G. Marcus examines how and why various rites and customs celebrating stages in the life cycle have evolved through the ages and persisted to this day. For each phase of life-from childhood, adolescence, adulthood, to the advanced years-the book traces the origin and development of specific rites associated with the events of birth, circumcision, and schooling; bar and bat mitzvah and confirmation; engagement, betrothal, and marriage; and aging, dying, and remembering. Customs in Jewish tradition such as the presence of godparents at a circumcision, the use of a four-poled canopy at a wedding, and the placing of small stones on tombstones are discussed. In each chapter, detailed descriptions walk the reader through events such as early modern and contemporary circumcision, wedding, and funeral ceremonies. In a comparative framework, Marcus illustrates how Jewish culture has negotiated with the majority cultures of the ancient Near East, Greco-Roman antiquity, medieval European Christianity and Mediterranean Islam and with modern secular and religious movements and social trends to renew itself through ritual innovation. In his extensive research on the Jewish life cycle, Marcus draws on documents on various customs and ritual practices, offering reassessments of original sources and scholarly literature. Marcus's survey is the first comprehensive study of the rites of the Jewish life cycle since Hayyim Schauss's The Lifetime of the Jew was published in 1950, written for Jewish readers. Marcus's book addresses a broader audience and is designed to appeal to scholars and interested readers . Click the book cover above to read more.







Bummy Davis vs. Murder, Inc.
The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Mafia and an Ill-Fated Prizefighter
Ron Ross
December 2004.
St Martins Press.
. Click the book cover above to read more.









How to Feed Friends and Influence People
The Carnegie Deli...A Giant Sandwich, a Little Deli, a Huge Success
by Milton Parker, and Allyn Freeman
with help from Sandy Levine (MBD, married the boss' daughter)
John Wiley & Sons (December 17, 2004).
TO BE READ WITH CEL-RAY TONIC
The last page of the book is a cutout coupon for a free slice of cheesecake at the Carnegie Deli.
In the 1950s, New York boasted over 300 of Jewish delicatessens. Today, only a handful (about 30) remain; and of those few, the Carnegie Deli stands out as an icon of lost times. How to Feed Friends and Influence People tells the fascinating and funny story of the little deli that became one of New York City's biggest attractions. World renowned for its absurdly large "gargantuan" sandwiches, the Carnegie Deli is more than a restaurant with a good gimmick-it's a family business that succeeded thanks to tried-and-true business principles. The sandwiches weigh over a pound each, and nearly ALL diners leave with a doggy bag (the deli is kosher style... not kosher... the serve bacon and cheese with meat)
Starting out as a nondescript hole in the wall, the Deli has become the delicatessen of choice for presidents, celebrities, at least one sultan, and millions of other (extremely) hungry diners from around the world. Yet, amazingly, it has never invested in advertising or promotions. At first glance, the Deli's success might seem unlikely, but it's a success built on a set of timeless business values embraced and promoted from day one by owner Milton Parker: Keep it simple; Do one thing and do it better than anyone else; Create a family atmosphere among the staff; Promote from within; Listen to staff and customer comments; Make everything yourself-in-house; Own the premises; Management is always responsible; Don't be greedy; Have fun working.
These are the core business ideals that keep the Deli thronged with customers, and they apply to every business in every industry. But just as the Deli's gargantuan corned beef is much more than just a sandwich, this is much more than just a business book. It also includes funny and strange anecdotes from the Deli's history-from reminiscences on longtime Deli fan Henny Youngman to the "Pastrami Wars" of 1988. Even more delicious, the book also features original recipes from the Deli's kitchen-including chopped liver, Brooklyn egg cream, brisket of beef, and matzoh ball soup! Full of insightful business wisdom, hilarious anecdotes, and tasty recipes, How to Feed Friends and Influence People is a savory story that gourmands and businesspeople alike will dig into with gusto.
MILTON PARKER was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1919. He cofounded the Carnegie Deli with Leo Steiner in 1978 and became sole owner in 1988. ALLYN FREEMAN is a writer whose credits include television episodes of M*A*S*H and Hart to Hart. He holds an MBA from Columbia University Business School. Click the book cover above to read more.









Oskar Schindler
The Untold Account of His Life, Wartime Activities, and the True Story Behind The List
by David M. Crowe
Westview Press (November 1, 2004)
Deborah Lipstadt writing in The Washington Post's Book World: "David Crowe devoted seven years, conducted scores of interviews and did research on four continents in order to write the definitive biography of Oskar Schindler. That's the good news. The bad news is that this definitive account is buried in a massive text. Crowe would have been served by a good editor, one with a relentless red pencil. Schindler, a man with many flaws, risked his life and his fortune to save more Jews during the Holocaust than anyone else did. While the young Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg saved a larger number of Jews, he had the assistance of an entire team of people and the financial support of American Jews. In contrast, Schindler had only the assistance of his wife, Emilie. Moreover, Schindler performed his heroic deeds only a short distance from Auschwitz... ... In contrast to the impression given by Steven Spielberg in "Schindler's List," Crowe discovered that the famous list was not compiled by Schindler but by one of his Jewish administrators, Marcel Goldberg. There is, Crowe reveals, a seamy side to this story. Aware that inclusion on the list could mean the difference between life and death, Jews bribed Goldberg to get themselves on it. In certain cases, entire families were listed, while people of lesser means were dispatched to Auschwitz and other camps... Schindler did not create the list, but, motivated by a deep sense of compassion for these people and revulsion at the Germans' actions, he did feel responsible for keeping these people alive, particularly during the harrowing final months of the war... Schindler's saga did not end with Germany's defeat. After the Holocaust, Yad Vashem initially refused to honor him as a Righteous Gentile. How, it wondered, could it balance his membership in the Nazi Party with his efforts to save Jews? Those Jews whose factory he had expropriated protested to Yad Vashem that he acquired the considerable sums he spent to save his workers through the Aryanization of Jewish property and the use of slave labor. They tried to take legal action against him. CLICK TH EBOOK COVER ABOVE TO READ MORE.






LIBERATION ROAD
A NOVEL OF WORLD WAR II AND THE RED BALL EXPRESS
A novel by David Robbins
December 2004. Bantam Books.
PW Writes: In his latest WWII novel, Robbins powerfully integrates the theme of racial bigotry from Scorched Earth with the successful formula of his previous three combat novels (The End of War, etc.). The 688th Truck Battalion is part of the famed Red Ball Express, which struggles to supply the fast-moving combat following D-Day as American forces fight through the French hedgerows and villages toward Paris. In recounting the battalion's heroic saga, Robbins's tale unfolds from several perspectives-that of Ben Kahn, an aging Jewish army chaplain from Pittsburgh, who fought as a doughboy in the trenches in WWI; Joe Amos, a young, black, college-educated truck driver; and "White Dog," a shadowy, corrupt downed B-17 pilot profiteering on the black market in German-occupied Paris. Bolstered by desperate hope he might find his son-a B-17 pilot shot down over France-Kahn lands on Omaha Beach five days after D-Day and hitches a ride to the front on a GI two-and-a-half ton Jimmy (GMC truck) with Amos. Both men are quickly seasoned by the horrors of war as Kahn heads for a showdown in Paris and Amos makes sergeant and finds romance with a Frenchwoman after shooting down a German plane. Although this isn't quite up to the standard of Robbins's best work-it's occasionally slowed by overwriting and repetition-it's a fine effort from an ambitious storyteller. Click the book cover above to read more.









Iron Tears
America's Battle for Freedom, Britain's Quagmire: 1775-1783
by Stanley Weintraub
Winter 2005, Free Press
For generations, Americans have been taught to view the Revolutionary War as a heroic tale of resistance, exclusively from the perspective of the Continental army and the Founding Fathers. Now, in Iron Tears, master historian Stanley Weintraub offers the first account that examines the war from three divergent and distinct vantage points: the battlefields; the American leadership under George Washington; and -- most originally -- that of England, embroiled in controversy over the war. Colonial America was England's Vietnam. Weintraub's multifaceted analysis will forever change and expand our view of the struggle. Although Washington's army, with France's help, won the war, it is equally significant -- both then and now -- that Britain lost it. The British found themselves overwhelmed by the geographic and time constraints that prevented their military from holding on to the eighteen-hundred-mile length of the thirteen colonies, from across three thousand miles of ocean during the cumbersome era of water travel. Many in London realized that American independence was only a matter of time. Yet the British were enveloped in a fantasy world of self-delusion as the war trudged along. The unyielding George III, who ultimately threatened abdication; his lethargic prime minister, Lord North; the First Lord of the Admiralty, the corrupt Earl of Sandwich, better remembered for his paired slices of bread; and the Secretary for America, Lord George Germain, an arrogant ex-general court-martialed for cowardice in an earlier war, formed a quartet that played out of tune. As opposition to and frustration with the failing war gradually increased in parliament, in the press, and in the afflicted mercantile sector, so did pacifist sentiment for and sympathy with their American cousins. Click on the cover above to read more.






JANUARY 2005

HEDWIG AND BERTI
by FRIEDA ARKIN
St Martins; (January 2005)
Thirty-five years after publication of her first novel, The Dorp (followed by other works on cooking and gardening), Frieda Arkin returns to the world of fiction to give us another darkly humorous novel, Hedwig and Berti. Hedwig and Berti is a saga of the totally unlikely marriage of a grandly Teutonic woman, Hedwig Kessler, and her diminutive cousin Berti, two upper-class German Jews forced to leave their homeland during the rise of the Nazis. They flee to London, then to New York City, and from there, finally, to a university town in Kansas. In London, Hedwig gives birth to a daughter whose broodingly dark construction and immense genius for the piano point back in time to the tragedy of her bloodline. This is a story of prejudice taken to extremes, both within the domain of a severely class-conscious German-Jewish family and beyond it. The characters are subtle, and finely-honed, and their story is told with grace and unexpected humor. Like Penelope Fitzgerald, Frieda Arkin possesses a rare gift for combining love, wit, and dark realism in the reactions and behavior of her characters in the several cultures they are forced to adapt to.. Click the book cover above to read more.









THE GUGGENHEIMS
A FAMILY HISTORY
By Irwin Unger and Debi Unger
HarperCollins; (January 2005)
From Publishers Weekly: A biography of an illustrious family can be like a cassoulet: lots of delicious bits that combine beautifully but no tastes that fully stand out. Such is the case with this remarkably researched history of the Guggenheims. Pulitzer Prize-winner Irwin Unger (The Greenback Era) and his wife, Debi (coauthor, with Irwin, of LBJ: A Life), assemble an extraordinary collection of letters, interviews, memos and contemporary documents to tell the story of the family's rapid rise and slow decline, a saga marked by a combination of "profound Americanism" and Jewish "old world heritage." The sheer size of the Guggenheim family-the Ungers note that the "legion" descendants of Meyer (1828-1905), the family patriarch, are "impossible" to follow through time-means that no one member of the clan stands out, though the feisty Harry, "fighting entropy" in the family for much of the 20th century, burns brighter than many of his relatives. The scintillating Peggy Guggenheim, known for her patronage of modern art and her robust sex life, gets ample play here, but her story is told more thoroughly in recent biographies by Anton Gill and Mary Dearborn. Readers looking for a broad, appetizing sweep of American life will find it here, but those hungry for sharp, burning flavors may skip to the next course. Click the book cover above to read more.







THE WHITE ROSE
By Jean Hanff Korelitz
Miramax; (January 2005)
From Publishers Weekly Korelitz, known for her intelligent thrillers (The Sabbathday River, etc.), strikes off in a new direction with this mordant story of aging, love and self-discovery, a re-imagining of the Strauss opera Der Rosenkavalier set in upper-class Jewish New York City. Marian Kahn, gracefully aging at 48, is a respected history professor at Columbia, author of a bestselling book of popular history and solidly ensconced in a satisfactory if not brilliant marriage when suddenly she's swept away by the wild but dangerous joy of an affair with the son of her oldest friend. Twenty-six-year-old Oliver, owner of a flower shop called the White Rose, is truly in love, but when he meets graduate student and heiress Sophie Klein, the fiancée of Marian's pompous cousin, Barton Ochstein, he's blindsided and must question his still strong love for Marian. Sophie is swept away, too, by the knowledge that she may want something more out of life than the academic satisfaction she derives from the study of her own White Rose, a group of German dissidents who agitated against the Nazis. The belief that love always involves sacrifice and is worth the sacrifice it demands drives this warm, worldly novel. Even when their own comfort is at stake, Korelitz's characters succumb to generous impulses, making this a satisfying, emotionally rich read. From the West Village to the Upper East Side, from the Hamptons to Millbrook, The White Rose is at once a nuanced and affectionate reimagining of Strauss' beloved opera, Der Rosenkavalier, and a mesmerizing novel of our own time and place. Click the book cover above to read more.






The Bible's Top Fifty Ideas
The Essential Concepts Everyone Should Know
by Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins, with Abigail Treu
S.P.I. Books (January 1, 2005)
The author's theory is that if one knows 50 verses of the 5000 in the Torah (1%), the reader will begin to grasp the essence of the Bible This is a revolutionary approach. Finally, a book about the Bible that is accessible, which focuses on its great moral principles, and not about passages which relate long genealogies, and complicated priestly rituals at the altar. "What Rabbi Elkins does in this one volume window in the heart of the world's greatest Book is truly amazing. His discussions are engaging, inspiring, comprehensive and scholarly. I have found his book to be exceptionally accurate, thorough and comprehensive. This is a veritable treasure. I cannot praise this wonderful book enough." Prof. Shalom Paul, Chair, Department of Bible, Hebrew U. of Jerusalem. * "Dov Peretz Elkins continues to educate and inspire us all. His unique talents and knowledge allow him to present the most important values and concepts found in the Bible to a wide audience of persons in a characteristically intelligent and accessible manner. This book is a jewel." Rabbi David Ellenson, President, HUC-JIR. Click the book cover above to read more.









Jewish Girls Coming Of Age In America, 1860-1920
by Melissa R. Klapper
January 2005. NYU PRESS.
Jewish Girls Coming of Age in America, 1860-1920 draws on a wealth of archival material, much of which has never been published-or even read-to illuminate the ways in which Jewish girls' adolescent experiences reflected larger issues relating to gender, ethnicity, religion, and education. Klapper explores the dual roles girls played as agents of acculturation and guardians of tradition. Their search for an identity as American girls that would not require the abandonment of Jewish tradition and culture mirrored the struggle of their families and communities for integration into American society. While focusing on their lives as girls, not the adults they would later become, Klapper draws on the papers of such figures as Henrietta Szold, founder of Hadassah; Edna Ferber, author of Showboat; and Marie Syrkin, whose book Blessed Is the Match: The Story of Jewish Resistance is believed to be the first work in English about Jewish resistance under the Nazis. Klapper analyzes the diaries, memoirs, and letters of hundreds of other girls whose later lives and experiences have been lost to history. Told in an engaging style and filled with colorful quotes, the book brings to life a neglected group of fascinating historical figures during a pivotal moment in the development of gender roles, adolescence, and the modern American Jewish community. Click the book cover above to read more.







The Ransom of the Jews
The Story of Extraordinary Secret Bargain Between Romania and Israel
by Radu Ioanid
Afterword by Elie Wiesel
Ivan R Dee; (January 2005)
From Publishers Weekly: Ioanid (The Holocaust in Romania) sheds light on an extraordinary, little-known and shameful episode that explains some mysteries of international affairs, such as why Romania was the only Soviet bloc country to maintain relations with Israel after the Six-Day War. Drawing on interviews and on highly classified Romanian documents, Ioanid relates how Romania in the 1950s and '60s demanded payments in cash and goods from Israel in exchange for the emigration of Romanian Jews to the Jewish state. A historian at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Ioanid places these events in the context of a cash-starved Romania, turning away from Russia and eager for Western trade, oil-drilling equipment and agricultural goods. In the late 1960s, the human trade allowed dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his family to build their private bank accounts. "Jews, Germans, and oil are our best export commodities," the dictator said in the mid-1970s. He insisted the payments per Jew be determined by his or her "education, profession, employment, and family status." Ioanid carefully follows all the ups and downs in negotiations and relations between Israel and Romania, and the impact of protests from Arab countries and Western demands for human rights. Ioanid does a service in reporting on this sordid tale of exploitation and the trade in human beings. Click the book cover above to read more.






Little Edens: Stories
by Barbara Klein Moss
WW NORTON; (January 2005)
An elegant and richly evocative collection about the nature of paradise and the complexities of desire. These eight magical stories are about the Edenic spaces that people create in their lives and the serpents that subtly inhabit them; in each case a form of revelation accompanies the threat of expulsion from the earthly paradise. In "Rug Weaver" (selected for Best American Short Stories 2001), an Iranian rug dealer makes a paradise of his prison cell by weaving an elaborate rug in his mind. Grieving parents in the title story transfigure an exotic luxury subdivision in southern California into a vision of heaven. In "Interpreters" a couple working in a re-created colonial village find that the roles they play are more seductively real than their lives outside. For all these men and women, the apple is only the beginning. And in every story there is a tension between inner and outer worlds as the characters leave a place that grows greener, lusher, and more perfect as they look back. In the novella, "The Palm Tree of Dilys Catheart" is an unlikely love story between a lonely English piano teacher and an Orthodox Jewish butcher who hears heavenly music in his head. Click the book cover above to read more.






A JEWISH FAMILY IN GERMANY TODAY
AN INTIMATE PORTRAIT
by Y. MICHAEL BODEMANN
Duke; (January 2005)
Immediately after the Holocaust, it seemed inconceivable that a Jewish community would rebuild in Germany. What was once unimaginable has now come to pass: Germany is home to one of Europe's most vibrant Jewish communities, and it has the fastest growing Jewish immigrant population of any country in the world outside Israel. By sharing the life stories of members of one Jewish family-the Kalmans-Y. Michal Bodemann provides an intimate look at what it is like to live as a Jew in Germany today. Having survived concentration camps in Poland, four Kalman siblings-three brothers and a sister-were left stranded in Germany after the war. They built new lives and a major enterprise; they each married and had children. Over the past fifteen years Bodemann conducted extensive interviews with the Kalmans, mostly with the survivors' ten children, who were born between 1948 and 1964. In these oral histories, he shares their thoughts on Judaism, work, family, and community. Staying in Germany is not a given; four of the ten cousins live in Israel and the United States. Among the Kalman cousins are an art gallery owner, a body builder, a radio personality, a former chief financial officer of a prominent U.S. bank, and a sculptor. They discuss Zionism, anti-Semitism, what it means to root for the German soccer team, Schindler's List, money, success, marriage and intermarriage, and family history. They reveal their different levels of engagement with Judaism and involvement with local Jewish communities. Kalman is a pseudonym, and this anonymity allows the family members to talk with passion and candor about their relationships and their lives as Jews. Click the book cover above to read more.






THE SETTING OF THE PEARL
VIENNA UNDER HITLER
by THOMAS WEYR
Oxford University Press; (Winter 2005)
When Adolf Hitler seized Vienna in the Anschluss of 1938, he called the city "a pearl to which he would give a proper setting." But the setting he left behind seven years later was one of ruin and destruction--a physical, spiritual, and intellectual wasteland. Here is a grippingly narrated and heartbreaking account of the debasement of one of Europe's great cities. Thomas Weyr shows how Hitler turned Vienna from a vibrant metropolis that was the cradle of modernism into a drab provincial town. In this riveting narrative, we meet Austrian traitors like Arthur Seyss-Inquart and mass murderers like Odilo Globocnik; proconsuls like Joseph Buerckel, who hacked Austria into seven pieces, and Baldur von Schirach, who dreamed of making Vienna into a Nazi capital on the Danube--and failed miserably. More painfully, Weyr chronicles the swift destruction of a rich Jewish culture and the removal of the city's 200,000 Jews through murder, exile, and deportation. Vienna never regained the global role the city had once played. Today, Weyr concludes, only the monuments remain--beautiful but lifeless. This is not only the story of Nazi leaders but of how the Viennese themselves lived and died: those who embraced Hitler, those who resisted, and the many who merely, in the local phrase, "ran after the rabbit." The author draws on his own experiences as a child in Vienna under Nazi rule in 1938, and those of his parents and friends, plus extensive documentary research, to craft a vivid historical narrative that chillingly captures how a once-great city lost its soul under Hitler. Click the book cover above to read more.






COMING TO OUR SENSES
HEALING OURSELVES AND THE WORLD THROUGH MINDFULNESS
by JON KABAT-ZINN
Hyperion; (January 2005)
Mindfulness, or Kavanah
Woven into eight parts, Coming to Our Senses uses anecdotes and stories from Kabat-Zinn's own life experiences and work in his clinic to illustrate healing possibilities. At its core, the book offers remarkable insight into how to use the five senses -- touch, hearing, sight, taste, and smell, plus awareness itself -- as a path to a healthier, saner, and more meaningful life. This is about the connection between mindfulness, health, and our physical and spiritual well-being. Kabat-Zinn sets out to awaken us to the true potential and value of a gift that most of us take for granted: sentience. Our lack of awareness of our impact on the rest of the world amounts to "a kind of auto-immune disease of the earth." Borrowing an analogy made by the neuroscientist Francisco Varela, Kabat-Zinn compares the way our immune system senses the whole of our bodily self to our potential for a mindful awareness. That is, the practice of cultivating this conscious, heightened sentience leads to the realization of our wholeness, as we begin to realize that we don't live just within the envelope of our own senses, sensations and thoughts but within the whole of all that is. Click the book cover above to read more.






The "JEW" In CINEMA
From The Golem To Don't Touch My Holocaust
(The Helen and Martin Schwartz Lectures in Jewish Studies)
by Omer Bartov
January 2005. Indiana University Press
An analysis of the Jew in cinema. Click the book cover above to read more.







AUSCHWITZ
A NEW HISTORY
by LAURENCE REES
January 2005. Public Affairs
Laurence Rees is Creative Director of History Programs for the BBC and author of five books. Published for the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-a devastating and surprising account of the most infamous death camp the world has ever known. Auschwitz-Birkenau is the site of the largest mass murder in human history. Yet its story is not fully known. In Auschwitz, Laurence Rees reveals new insights from more than 100 original interviews with Auschwitz survivors and Nazi perpetrators who speak on the record for the first time. Their testimonies provide a portrait of the inner workings of the camp in unrivalled detail-from the techniques of mass murder, to the politics and gossip mill that turned between guards and prisoners, to the on-camp brothel in which the lines between those guards and prisoners became surprisingly blurred.
Rees examines the strategic decisions that led the Nazi leadership to prescribe Auschwitz as its primary site for the extinction of Europe's Jews-their"Final Solution." He concludes that many of the horrors that were perpetrated in Auschwitz were driven not just by ideological inevitability but as a"practical" response to a war in the East that had begun to go wrong for Germany. A terrible immoral pragmatism characterizes many of the decisions that determined what happened at Auschwitz. Thus the story of the camp becomes a morality tale, too, in which evil is shown to proceed in a series of deft, almost noiseless incremental steps until it produces the overwhelming horror of the industrial scale slaughter that was inflicted in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. Click the book cover above to read more.




Kaddishel
A Life Reborn
by Aharon Golub, Bennett W. Golub
January 2005. Devorah Publishing, Pitsopany
Aharon Golub was born in Ludvipol, Poland. He survived, and was orphaned by the Holocaust. As a legal immigrant to Palestine in 1946, he actively worked towards Israel's independence. Moving to the US in 1954, Golub married and started a family. Bennett W. Golub, Aharon's son, is a co-founder of a leading investment and risk management firm based in New York. In KADDISHEL-A LIFE REBORN, Bennett Golub assists his father Aharon with documenting his personal history, to both better understand himself and to preserve these experiences for future generations. In doing so, the reader is given a first-hand look at three major historical eras-traditional Jewish life in a small Polish town, the mindless horrors of the Nazis, and the formation of the state of Israel. It is an indication of Aharon's strength that even after witnessing the death of his family members, his resolve is not rage or hatred but rather, the deep conviction that the Jewish people need their own homeland and the power to protect themselves the world over. Aharon's journey leads eventually to America where he raises his own family and has his own Kaddishel to live on and help him tell his story. Click the book cover above to read more.







Filling Words with Light
Hasidic and Mystical Reflections on Jewish Prayer
by Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, Rabbi Nehemia Polen
Jewish Lights, January 2005
Engage Body and Soul with the Holy Words of Jewish Prayer . From personal gratitude as we greet the day, to affirming in community Judaism's steadfast devotion to God, prayer encompasses the expanse of our daily lives. In Filling Words with Light, Lawrence Kushner and Nehemia Polen offer new interpretations, flashes of insight, stories, and reflections on the words that compose the Jewish liturgy and enrich our understanding of how and why we pray. Following the order of the traditional prayer book, Kushner and Polen examine the concepts, phrases, and words of prayer, including: * Acts of love * Serving in joy * Blessing * Commandments * Repentance * Healing * Torah study * Reverence * Sabbath lights * Yearning ...and much more. Click the book cover above to read more.






The Lost Princess & Other Kabbalistic Tales Of Rebbe Nachman Of Breslov
Edited by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan and Rabbi Chaim Kramer
Jewish Lights, 2005
Discover the hidden secrets of Torah and Kabbalah through the captivating stories of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov. "Rabbi Nachman's stories are among the great classics of Jewish literature. They have been recognized by Jews and non-Jews alike for their depth and insight into both the human condition and the realm of the mysterious." -from Aryeh Kaplan's Translator's Introduction. For centuries, spiritual teachers have told stories to convey lessons about God and perceptions of the world around us. Hasidic master Rebbe Nachman of Breslov (1772-1810) perfected this teaching method through his engrossing and entertaining stories that are fast-moving, brilliantly structured, and filled with penetrating insights. This collection presents the wisdom of Rebbe Nachman, translated by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan and accompanied by illuminating commentary drawn from the works of Rebbe Nachman's pupils. This important work brings you authentic interpretations of Rebbe Nachman's stories, allowing you to experience the rich heritage of Torah and Kabbalah that underlies each word of his inspirational teachings. Click the book cover above to read more.






The Rebbe's Army
Inside the World of Chabad-Lubavitch
by SUE FISHKOFF
January 2005, NOW IN PAPERBACK
From Publishers Weekly: This remarkable ethnographic profile goes behind the scenes of Lubavitcher Judaism to explore how the movement's enthusiastic young emissaries, or schlihim, carry the Rebbe's message throughout the world. Armed with pamphlets, Shabbos candles and the dream of making all Jews more observant, these idealistic young married couples set up shop in unlikely locales like Peoria, Ill.; Anchorage, Ala.; or Salt Lake City, Utah. There they will tirelessly teach and fundraise-not just for a year or two, but for the rest of their lives. Fishkoff, a regular contributor to Moment and The Jerusalem Post, draws upon dozens of interviews with these schlihim, their supporters and their detractors. Traversing the country to do her research, she attended Shabbos dinners, mikvah demonstrations, Friday afternoon street proselytizing sessions and even a star-studded Chabad telethon in Los Angeles. (The telethon, Fishkoff rightly points out, is the perfect symbol for the way these Hasids have simultaneously eschewed and engaged with American culture, using technology to further their outreach.) Most interestingly, she includes interviews with Reform and Conservative Jews who, surprisingly enough, are often the chief financial backers of local Chabad initiatives. Though Fishkoff makes an effort to include some individuals' critiques of the movement, this is by no means an expos‚; one leaves the book sharing her own tender admiration for the energetic dedication of the Rebbe's followers. Fishkoff writes robustly and engagingly, and her portrait of Chabad is not only profoundly respectful, but also poignant and full of joy." Click the book cover above to read more.




Code Names
Deciphering U.S. Military Plans, Programs and Operations in the 9/11 World
by WILLIAM M. ARKIN
January 2005,
Do you want to feel in the know about the US Military and Israel, too??
Israel receives about $2.3 billion in US military aid (20% of Israel's public defense budget), under the FORMIL Financing Program. It allows Israel credits to purhcase American made military equipment, such as F161's and Appache Longbow's. By reading this book you can sound like you are a CIA agent.. hehe.. You will find out that Israel comes under the U.S. EUCOM, MOV agreements on training, and JPMG for joint planning. You'll find out about U.S. pre positioned equipment based in Israel, and shared munitions and WRS-I, as well as Naval medical stocks and USAF stocks managed out of Aviano. You can also look up the details on 20 Israel related code names, including Infinite Moonlight, Have Nap, Anatolian Eagle, Reliant Mermaid, and Shining Presence
The war on terrorism and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have led to a secrecy explosion. In the 9/11 world the U.S. military and intelligence organizations have created secret plans, programs, and operations at a frenzied pace, each with their own code name. In a perfect world, all of this secrecy would be to protect legitimate secrets from prying foreign eyes. But in researching Code Names, defense analyst William M. Arkin learned that while most genuine secrets remain secret, other activities labeled as secret are either questionable or remain perfectly in the open. The sheer volume and complexity of these operations ensures that the most politically important remain unreported by the press and shielded from the scrutiny of the American electorate. From "Able Ally" to "Zodiac Beauchamp," this book identifies more than 3,000 code names and details the plans and missions for which they stand. Code Names is divided into five distinct parts: Introduction: Will explain to the American public, for the first time, just what the explosion in the creation of secret code names after 9/11 reveals about overall strategies in the war on terror; Cast of Characters: A brief description of all relevant federal departments, agencies, commands, and organizations; Country-by-Country Directory: Details worldwide U.S. military and intelligence operations and relations; The Code Names Dictionary: An alphabetical listing of more than 3,000 code names; and Acronym List and Glossary. Click the book cover above to read more.




The Diaspora and the Lost Tribes of Israel
by Amotz Asa-El
Hugh Lauter Levin Associates
Coffee-table booksd are usually notable for their pictures, and Amotz Asa-El's "The Diaspora and The Lost Tries of Israel" certainly does not disappoint in this regards, filled as it is by nearly 300 pages of photographs of Jewish life spanning six continents. But the accompanying text has a special claim on our attention. Mr. Asa-El, the executive editor of the Jerusalem Post, vividly captures both the creativity and the nomadic quality of the Jewish people. More important, he offers an engaging history of the Jewish experience by tracing he history of the Jewish Diaspora. Mr. Asa-El's historical narrative begins with the post-biblical wanderings of the Jews from the first exile in 730 B.C.E., when thousands of Jewish refugees were forcibly relocated by ther Assyrians into what is today northeastern Syria. The second exile, some 150 years later, came in the aftermath of the Babylonian conquest of the First Temple. By the time of the Second Temple's destruction by Rome in C.E. 70 and the final rebellion against the Romans in 135-the dates most frequently cited as the beginning of the Diaspora-a majority of Jews were already residing outside the land of Israel. .... Click the book cover above to read more.




Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress
by Susan Jane Gilman
Warner Books (January 1, 2005)
Gilman, 40, has written this memoir of growing up on Manhattan's upper Upper West Side in the '70s., a time that people wished they were Puerto Rican and not Jewish. Gilman didn't really realize she was Jewish until the sixth grade, when she was told that she could not play the role of the Virgin Mary in the school play. Gilman was once a young reporter for New York's NY Jewish Week newspaper, and ate lobster while interviewing an Orthodox rabbi. OOPS.. She never knew lobster wasn't kosher. The book starts slowly but gathers momentum. Readers who find themselves drifting during Gilman's reveries on lying during show-and-tell will find themselves pleasantly riveted by the time she's getting in touch with her roots as a reporter for the Jewish Week. Gilman, author of 2001's Kiss My Tiara, a women's self-help guide, makes common scenarios fresh with humor and wry social commentary; on the first day of school, she quickly learns "boys might be fighters, but girls could be terrorists." Gilman's ear for dialogue is dead-on. When her brother asks their dad why their Jewish family celebrates Christmas, she doesn't miss a beat: " 'Because your grandmother's a Communist and your mother loves parties,' said my father. 'Now eat your supper.' " These one-liners don't detract, however, from a serious and moving look at one family's efforts to keep itself intact through divorce and other life challenges. After her parents separate, Gilman, then in her mid-20s, fears she and her brother had spent their childhoods in happy oblivion while their parents were "spellbound with misery." Probably not: Gilman's recollections of moving bumpily toward adulthood are keenly observant. . Click the book cover above to read more.






The Anatomy of Hope
How People Prevail in the Face of Illness
by JEROME GROOPMAN, M.D., holds the Dina and Raphael Recanati Chair of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School and is the chief of experimental medicine at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston
Random House Trade Paperbacks (January 11, 2005)
Is hope a vital organ in humans that aids in recovery. How did this Harvard professors patients over the past 30 years overcome cancer through hope and attitude? Why do some people find and sustain hope during difficult circumstances, while others do not? What can we learn from those who do, and how is their example applicable to our own lives? The Anatomy of Hope is a journey of inspiring discovery, spanning some thirty years of Dr. Jerome Groopman's practice, during which he encountered many extraordinary people and sought to answer these questions. This profound exploration begins when Groopman was a medical student, ignorant of the vital role of hope in patients' lives-and it culminates in his remarkable quest to delineate a biology of hope. With appreciation for the human elements and the science, Groopman explains how to distinguish true hope from false hope-and how to gain an honest understanding of the reach and limits of this essential emotion. Click the book cover above to read more.








FEBRUARY 2005

From My Father's Shabbos Table
A Treasury of Chabad Chassidic Stories
by Rabbi Yehudah Chitrik
Translated by: Rabbi Eliyahu Touger
1991, MozNaim Press
On December 7, 2004, The New York Times profile Rabbi Citrik, the father, at age 105 and living in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, NY. This is the book the mentioned. At 105, he had heard and told countless Hasidic stories and tales. This is a small collection of a few of those tales. Having been blessed by three successive Lubavitch rebbes with long life.. at age 105, he is a touchstone and wellspring. This anthology is a collection of Chabad Chassidic stories or stories of other Rebbeim told from a Chabad perspective - that of "wisdom, intellect, and knowledge", the unique approach of Chabad which is distinguished from other Chassidic movements, which place a greater stress on the emotional impact of Chassidus - the transcending of the soul over the intellect. These stories relate to multidimensional living truths in a manner with filters these truths through the intellect. Each story is a teaching which can influence and enhance our behavior. Click the book cover above to read more.






A NEW KABBALAH FOR WOMEN
PERLE BESSERMAN
February 2005, Palgrave
From Publishers Weekly: "From an early age Besserman rebelled against the idea, fostered in her ultra-Orthodox yeshiva (school), that "Jewish women served God by having sons and being 'footstools' to their husbands in heaven after they died." She didn't want to be anyone's footstool-she wanted to see God. Unfortunately, because she was female, those men with the answers refused to acknowledge, much less answer, her questions on spirituality and mysticism, leading her to seek answers in hatha yoga, Zen, the Bhagavad Gita and other Eastern texts, until she finally met a rabbi willing to teach her. Besserman has spent a lifetime honing, teaching and writing of a deep intrinsic spirituality that has gripped her soul from childhood-expertise that shines through in this step-by-step Kabbalah guide for women. She recognizes that for women to be empowered with a strong sense of self, they must overcome the illusions they've been fed of inferiority, as well as remember the "Talmudic claim that the ways to Truth are as numerous and varied as human faces." There is an everywoman quality to Besserman's quest-one that instills an instant camaraderie among women readers seeking spiritual answers, and that makes her meditations and suggested paths seem natural and intuitive. Don't judge this book by its pop iconic cover-it's thoughtful, insightful and deeply spiritual." Click the book cover above to read more.






Israel A Spiritual Travel Guide
A Companion For The Modern Jewish Pilgrim
by Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman
Jewish Lights Publishing; SECOND EDITION (January 29, 2005)
It is the must companion for any traveler to Israel. The blurb says it best, "the other travel books tell you how to get there, Hoffman tells you why to go and what to do when you're there." Hoffman, a Professor of Liturgy at HUC-JIR, is best known for his book, "What Is A Jew?" His travel guide is in four sections. The first contains eighteen (chai) meditations to be read before embarking on one's trip to Israel. The second section is on preparations for "the eve before the trip." Section three focuses on "How to prepare while on the way." And Section four is filled with 25 specific pilgrimage destinations for the traveler. For each site, such as The Kotel or a Kibbutz, Professor Hoffman provides THE FOUR A's -- four sections on "Anticipation," "Approach," "Acknowledgment," and "Afterthought." In Anticipation, one reads an overview of the sight; Approach contains biblical, rabbinic and other writings about the site; Acknowledgment is filled with prayers or readings for you to recite at your destination; and Afterthought provides a blank space in which you may record your feelings, emotions, or just plain journal entries that you can keep forever. This is an excellent companion for a trip to Israel." Click the book cover above to read more.
If you are leading a trip, contact Jewish Lights and get the version of this book for trip leaders.





Jugar a Matar (Zona Libre)
By Marcelo Birmajer
IN SPANISH
Yes, perhaps Cervantes (Don Quixote) was descended from converso Jewish family in Spain, but I will leave that issue for a PhD dissertation. But if you want to read a book by the hottest Jewish author in Argentina, look no further than Marcelo Birmajer. Each summer as a child, Marcelo Birmajer went with his parents to Miramar, a beach resort that is for the Jews of Argentina what the Catskills once were for the Jews of New York. There, his father would tell stories about the people who paraded by as the family sat on the sand or, as dusk fell each day, relate the plot of whatever novel he happened to be reading. Today, Birmajer is one of Argentina's most prolific and praised young writers of fiction. But he traces both the birth of his vocation and his desire to portray his country's Jewish community, at more than 300,000 the largest in Latin America, back to those summer days and the simple fact that "my father, an accountant for the state gas company, was a great storyteller." At 38, Birmajer has already written more than 20 books, many of which focus on life in the Jewish barrio here, known as El Once. The grandson of Romanian, Polish, Lithuanian and Syrian immigrants, he grew up in the neighborhood, which he describes as a fascinating blend of Askenazi and Sephardic traditions, with Jews rich and poor, religious and secular, living side by side.
"Not only was I born in Once, but the studio where I still write is there," he said. "It's a place that I prefer not just for reasons of class, but for metaphysical or mythical reasons as well. I like to just walk around and see the ebullience of commerce, the money changing hands, to eat in the Sephardic restaurants. It's the place that has the vitamins that allow me to write." A recurring character in Birmajer's fiction is Javier Mossen, a sexually voracious and sometimes repugnant journalist who some regard as Birmajer's alter ego. In three acclaimed short story collections, called "Stories of Married Men," Mossen manages to transform nearly every contact with a woman into an erotically-charged encounter. In stories like "An Interview With Kissinger," Birmajer, who is married and has two children, also uses Mossen to comment humorously or satirically on the worlds of politics and journalism. Birmajer is "one of several younger writers who have really moved in a nonconfrontational manner away from the baroque style of García Márquez, Vargas Llosa and Fuentes," said the translator Edith Grossman. "His is a more straightforward kind of narrative, something entirely different from the older generation." In a country whose modern literary tradition is based largely on fabulists and experimentalists like Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortázar, critics seem not to know quite what to make of Birmajer. So he often finds himself being compared to writers who are Jewish and American - "a sort of Woody Allen of the Pampas" and "David Mamet in Spanish," as he has been described. And while Birmajer admits the importance of American Jewish writers and comedians, from Bernard Malamud to Jerry Seinfeld, in molding his work, he cites others as his primary influences, including Philip Roth but especially Isaac Bashevis Singer.
"Even though by time and circumstance I am closer to Roth, if I had to choose a single master, without a doubt it would be Singer," he said. "I am absolutely devoted to him, have all of his books and have translated some into Spanish. He is a disenchanted mystic and a seer, the son and grandson of rabbis who knows the Torah by heart but is won over by the profane, not the sacred." Others of Birmajer's short stories and novels, including "Being Human and Other Misfortunes" and "Not So Different," have been translated into German, Italian, Portuguese and Dutch. Thus far, though, none of his work has appeared in Hebrew, and only one of his short stories, "A Christmas Carol," has been translated into English. In the story, Mossen, a nonobservant Jew, drifts from one Christmas Eve party to another, hoping to find and seduce Raquel, a woman he has long lusted after. On the street, he rescues his Uncle Boris from a group of skinhead punks only to have his Orthodox uncle reproach him for not practicing their faith. "It's really a knockout, with that poignant, bittersweet quality you find in Yiddish writing, and brilliant in the way he finds a link between a failed love affair and what is going on in the streets," said Grossman, who translated the story. Birmajer has also written a pamphlet on "Being Jewish in the 21st Century," yet he has never referred directly - by design, he said - to the 1994 bombing attack on a Jewish community center here, the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in the world since World War II
Yet, he said "it is always present, in the form of an atmosphere in which something can always happen. It is a theme that seems to me, like the Shoah, that you end up bastardizing if you take away its sacrosanct nature and use it as a theme for fiction."
As a Jewish Argentine, "I have felt anti-Semitism all my life," Birmajer continued. "But to the extent that I have been successful, Judaism has been one of the foundations of my career. It's a paradoxical situation: Anti-Semitism exists here, but at the same time, this country is livable and quite sweet." Click the book cover above to read more.






History on Trial
My Day in Court with David Irving
by Deborah E. Lipstadt, Emory University
February 2005, Ecco
In 1993, Deborah E. Lipstadt, a professor of Jewish Studies at Emory University, published the first comprehensive history of the Holocaust denial movement. In this critically acclaimed account, Lipstadt called David Irving -- a prolific, respected, and well-known writer on World War II who had, over the years, made controversial statements about Hitler and the Jews -- one of the most dangerous spokespersons of the denial movement.
A year later, when Irving sued Deborah Lipstadt and her publisher, Penguin UK, for libel in a London courtroom, the media spotlight fell on Deborah Lipstadt and, by extension, on the historiography of the Holocaust. Five years later, when David Irving lost his case after an intense ten-week trial, Lipstadt's resounding victory was proclaimed on front pages of newspapers worldwide. The implications of the trial, however, were far from over.
History on Trial is Deborah Lipstadt's personal, riveting chronicle of the legal battle with Irving, in which she went from a relatively quiet existence as a professor at an American university to being a defendant in a sensational libel case. This blow-by-blow account reveals how Lipstadt fund-raised $1.5 million for her defense, which included a first-rate team of solicitors, historians, and experts, among them Anthony Julius, a literary scholar who is better known as the late Princess Diana's divorce lawyer. Lipstadt describes how in forced silence she endured Irving's relentless provocations, including his claims that more people died in Senator Kennedy's car at Chappaquiddick than in the gas chambers at Auschwitz, that survivors tattooed numbers on their arms to make money, and that nonwhite people are a different "species." She also reveals how her lawyers gained access to Irving's personal papers, which exposed his association with neo-Nazi extremists in Germany, former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, and the National Alliance, which wants to transform America into an "Aryan society." In the course of the trial, Lipstadt's legal team stripped away Irving's mask of respectability through exposing the prejudice, extremism, and distortion of history that defined his work, even his once highly regarded account of the Dresden bombing.
Part history, part edge-of-your-seat courtroom drama, History on Trial goes beyond the historiography of World War II and the Holocaust to reveal the intricate way in which extremism and deliberate historical distortions gain widespread legitimacy and help generate hatred. An inspiring personal story of perseverance and unexpected limelight, here is the definitive account of the trial that tested the standards for historical and judicial truths, a trial that the Daily Telegraph of London proclaimed did "for the new century what the Nuremberg tribunals or the Eichmann trial did for earlier generations." Click on the bookcover above to read more.
By the way... HBO and Ridley Scott's production company was working on a film on the case. Ronald Harwood wrote the screenplay. But when HBO asked him to add some fictional elements to the story to jazz it up, Harwood refused. How could he add fictional elements to a story that is about the truth. The film project therefore died a quiet death





THE SEVENTH BEGGAR
PEARL ABRAHAM
Feb 2005, Riverhead
Set in the Chasidic world of Monsey, New York, a brilliantly original, provocative novel about storytelling and the limits of creation. The Seventh Beggar begins with a contemporary young man's obsession with the legendary nineteenth-century Chasidic master, Nachman of Bratslav-kabbalist, storyteller, and charismatic whose cult following persists to this day. The legends and life of Nachman inform the novel, in particular Nachman's famously unfinished "Tales of the Seven Beggars," which serves as the inspiration for Pearl Abraham's own bold and probing story about the glories and pitfalls of originality. A translation of Nachman's tales from the original Yiddish is included in full in the novel itself. Abraham staked her literary claim in the groundbreaking novel The Romance Reader, which took readers for the first time into the Chasidic world through the eyes of a woman. Now she returns to that world, with an even more ambitious work that upends the conventions of storytelling, thwarts expectations, and yet all the while compels us with its lovable characters, its narrative momentum, and its creation of a familiar yet dreamlike landscape, in which imagination simultaneously triumphs and destroys.
Reminded me slightly of the play by Yehuda Hyman, the mad dancer. Pearl Abraham grew up in a Hasidic household. Her father and her brother are writers also. Her maternal grandfather was a Bratslav Hasid. The book has three themes, Nahman, eroticism, and the creation of artificial life. Joel Jakob tries to create a female (shekhina) while his nephew at MIT, Jakob Joel tries to create a robot. Click the book cover above to read more.






Counterculture Through the Ages
From Abraham to Acid House
by KEN GOFFMAN, (R. U. SIRIUS) and DAN JOY
Villard
Abraham was the first counter culture leader. He heard a voice in his head, called it God, became monotheistic, and moved to another place to begin again. Booklist writes, "Although typically defining themselves in opposition to dominant cultures--hence the name--countercultures through history have more in common with each other than previously supposed. In fact, argues this book, breaking with tradition is itself a longstanding tradition, distinguished by Promethean antiauthority impulses, often accompanied by some sort of libertine humanism and individualism (although often conflicted about the merits of technology). Less a history of movements than of moments, Goffman's narrative hits Socrates and Sufism, among select others, en route to a more detailed parsing of the various countercultural moments of the twentieth century; at times, it reads reminiscent of an old-fashioned intellectual history, mapping influences catalyzed in heady Paris or Haight-Ashbury. Yet Goffman steers clear of overtheorizing, keeps readers hooked with hip contemporary comparisons (declaring Calvin Coolidge the Reagan of the early 1900s, for example), and, for decorum's sake, keeps his evident zeal for certain figures (Timothy Leary, for example, a posthumous contributor to this book) more or less in check. Always engaging, often inspiring, and certainly not just for nostalgic boomers." Click the book cover above to read more.






AL-JAZEERA
THE INSIDE STORY OF THE ARAB NEWS CHANNEL THAT IS CHANGING THE WEST
by HUGH MILES
February 2005, Grove Press
Al Jazeera has been broadcasting from Quatar in 1996. It became infamour since 9/11. Miles monitored Al Jazeera for Australia's Sky News for the past few years. Now, in anticipation of Al Jazeera's launch of an English language channel, Miles has written this infomrative account of the news station that will try to be the CNN and BBC and Sky News of the Arabic speaking world. Click the book cover above to read more.






Harvard Rules
The Struggle for the Soul of the World's Most Powerful University
by Richard Bradley
HarperCollins (February 1, 2005)
It is the richest, most influential, most powerful university in the world, but at the beginning of 2001, Harvard was in crisis. Students complained that a Harvard education had grown mediocre. Professors charged that the university cared more about money than about learning. And everyone worried that Harvard's outgoing president, Neil Rudenstine, epitomized an unhappy trend: the university president as full-time fund-raiser. Harvard may have possessed a $19 billion endowment, but had the university lost its soul? The members of the Harvard Corporation, the ultra-secretive governing board established more than three centuries ago, knew that they had to act. And so they made a bold pick for Harvard's twenty-seventh president: former Treasury Secretary and intellectual prodigy economist Lawrence Summers (Son of Larry Summer and Anita Summars, and nephew to Ken Arrow and Paul Samuelson.. the man who was born to be an Economist... a guy whose parents allowed the kids to bid on which tv show to watch and tried to actually place oa value on what the view from their house was worth) Although famously brilliant, Summers was a high-stakes gamble. In the 1990s he had crafted American policies to stabilize the global economy, quietly becoming one of the world's most powerful men. But while many admired Summers, his critics called him elitist, imperialist, and arrogant beyond measure. Today Larry Summers sits atop a university in a state of upheaval, unsure of what it stands for and where it is going. His allies believe that Harvard needs shaking up and appreciate Summer's blunt language and unabashed displays of power. His foes accuse the new president of tearing apart a venerable institution simply to remake it in his own image. At stake is not just the future of Harvard University, but the way in which Harvard students see the world -- and the manner in which they will lead it. Written despite the university's official opposition, Harvard Rules uncovers what really goes on behind Harvard's storied walls -- the politics, sex, ambition, infighting, and intrigue that run rampant within the world's most important university. Click the book cover above to read more.








Chicken Soup with Chopsticks
A Jew's Struggle for Truth in an Interfaith Relationship
By Jack Botwinick
Paper Spider (February, 2005)
The moment Jack Botwinik became enamoured of Belinda Cheung, he began to reflect seriously on his Jewish heritage and identity. Confronted with an ancient, rich and fascinating Chinese tradition that he knew nothing about, and that threatened to eclipse his own, Jack was challenged to identify what was ultimately special about his Jewishness. While embarking with his Chinese girlfriend on a sincere quest for Truth across religions, Jack was keenly aware of his bias: he feared being cut off from his family and friends and from his ethnic roots, and hoped that Belinda would convert to Judaism. In seeking to show Belinda the beauty, depth and meaningfulness of his religion, Jack came to discover these things himself. And as Belinda was being drawn to the teachings of Judaism, it helped Jack validate his own changing worldview and way of life. Jack Botwinik grew up in a culturally rich environment, speaking five languages. He attained a Master of Arts degree in Political Science from McGill University in Montreal. He worked in Toronto for a few years in the city's welfare department, before landing a job with the Correctional Service of Canada. Jack's experience in dealing with destitute and under-privileged people, and his re-examination of his religious heritage, significantly altered his outlook on life. Jack enjoys family time with his wife and two young children. Click the book cover above to read more.






Fall Of The Sun God
by Henye Meyer
Pitspopany Press (February, 2005)
Reading level: Ages 9-12 Paperback: 336 pages
Set against the background of the First Crusade, the novel follows the development of Martin as he learns to navigate the treacherous highways and byways of ancient Constantinople, the seat of Christianity in the Middle Ages. After Martin's parents are killed by bandits, he gives up his Judaism and goes on a pilgrimage to find himself. Ultimately, as Martin evolves, he finds a place for himself, a place he never thought existed, a place that holds an age-old message: The Torah is the ultimate shield and sword in a world filled with barbarism; it is the lamp and the staff that leads every Jew to his people. Click the book cover above to read more.






Biblical Narrative And The Death Of The Rhapsode
(Indiana Studies in Biblical Literature)
by Robert S. Kawashima, PhD
Indiana University Press, 2005
Finalist for the Koret Foundation Jewish Books Award 2005.
An analysis of the novelty of biblical prose narrative and its break with oral traditions. Informed by literary theory and Homeric scholarship as well as biblical studies, Biblical Narrative and the Death of the Rhapsode sheds new light on the Hebrew Bible and, more generally, on the possibilities of narrative form. Robert S. Kawashima compares the narratives of the Hebrew Bible with Homeric and Ugaritic epic in order to account for the "novelty" of biblical prose narrative. Long before Herodotus or Homer, Israelite writers practiced an innovative narrative art, which anticipated the modern novelist's craft. Though their work is undeniably linked to the linguistic tradition of the Ugaritic narrative poems, there are substantive differences between the bodies of work. Kawashima views biblical narrative as the result of a specifically written verbal art that we should counterpose to the oral-traditional art of epic. Beyond this strictly historical thesis, the study has theoretical implications for the study of narrative, literature, and oral tradition.
PL writes: Does the Hebrew Bible show signs of being a product of long oral tradition? In Biblical Narrative and the Death of the Rhapsode (Indiana University Press), Robert S. Kawashima argues that it does not. He believes that the Bible manifests a very different narrative art from the epic tradition of both the ANE and ancient Greece, and sets out to explain the difference. He argues that the difference lies primarily in the fact that epic is an oral narrative art, while the Bible is (and was from the beginning, he argues) a written narrative: The difference of biblical narrative "resides in the simple fact that writing allows an author to edit, to rewrite, whereas speech exists instantaneously and irrevocably in the act of its utterance. The ability to manipulate language and, more generally, narrative form gives rise in written narratives to techniques foreign to the traditional, improvisational art of epic, techniques premised on the impulse to innovate." He challenges the notion that writing was widely unknown in ancient Israel. On the contrary, "the world of biblical narrative exhibits a thoroughgoing and . . . mundane familiarity with writing without parallel, moreover, in Homeric, Ugaritic, and Mesopotamian narrative traditions." He cites Judges 8:14, where Gideon makes a young captive write the names of the leaders and elders of Succoth. The Bible does not give clear indications of the extent of literacy, however. ..... . Kawashima cites Shemaryahu Talmon, who writes, "The outstanding predominance in the Bible of straightforward prose narration fulfills the functions for which other literatures revert to the epic genre: heroic tales, historiography, even myth and cosmology. The phenomenon is too striking to be coincidental. It appears that the ancient Hebrew writers purposefully nurtured and developed prose narration to take the place of the epic genre which by its content was intimately bound up with the world of paganism and appears to have had a special standing in the polytheistic cults. The recitation of epics was tantamount to a reenactment of cosmic events in the manner of sympathetic magic. In the process of total rejection of the polytheistic religions and their ritual expressions in the cult, epic songs and also the epic genre were purged from the literary repertoire of the Hebrew authors." Kawashima argues that even when the Bible uses techniques found in epic, it flagrantly violates the conventions, out of all recognition. He focuses on the issue of "type scenes," introduced from Homeric into biblical scholarship by Robert Alter, and particularly discusses various examples of the "annunciation type scene" in the Hebrew Bible. He points out, for instance, that the annunciation of Isaac's birth in Genesis 18 is separated from the fulfillment of the promise in chapter 21 by the events of Sodom and Gomorrah. A type scene into which another type scene intervenes (the destruction of a city) is not likely to arise in an oral narrative,... Click the book cover above to read more.






DisneyWar
by James B. Stewart
Simon & Schuster (February 22, 2005)
Drawing on unprecedented access to both Eisner and Roy Disney, current and former Disney executives and board members, as well as thousands of pages of never-before-seen letters, memos, transcripts, and other documents, James B. Stewart gets to the bottom of mysteries that have enveloped Disney for years: What really caused the rupture with studio chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg, a man who once regarded Eisner as a father but who became his fiercest rival? How could "charming, intelligent and funny" Eisner have so misjudged Michael Ovitz, a man who was not only "the most powerful man in Hollywood" but also his friend, whom he appointed as Disney president and immediately wanted to fire? How did Eisner tell all those fact free lies to Ovitz? What caused the break between Eisner and Pixar chairman Steve Jobs, and why did Pixar abruptly abandon its partnership with Disney? Why did Eisner so mistrust Roy Disney that he assigned Disney company executives to spy on him? How did Eisner control the Disney board for so long, and what really happened in the fateful board meeting in September 2004, when Eisner played his last cards? Click the book cover above to read more.






A Thread of Grace
A Novel
by Mary Doria Russell
Random House (February 2005)
Italian citizens saved more than 43,000 Jews during the last 20 months of World War II. Russell has transmuted this little-known history into an expansive, well-researched, and compelling novel. As the story opens, the mountainous region of northwest Italy has been relatively untouched by WWII, and even Jews have been safe. When Italy breaks with Germany in 1943 and pulls out of southern France, thousands of Jewish refugees cross the mountains in search of safety. But the German occupation of Italy poses a new threat. Even with the list that's provided, it can be hard to keep track of all the characters--Catholics and Jews, priests and rabbis, Germans and Italians, old and young, Nazis and Resistance fighters. But Russell is good at presenting the human story while never using the war merely as a backdrop for personal dramas. In fact, to mirror the arbitrary nature of survival during wartime, she has said that she flipped a coin to determine who among her characters would live and who would die. Click the book cover above to read more.






PIZZA
A SLICE OF HEAVEN
By Ed Levine
Rizzoli Universe, February 2005
Pizza is the single most popular food in the world. We consume an estimated $33 billion worth of pizza annually from the 63,873 pizzerias in America. That's a lot of slices. This year's pizza centennial is a milestone laid claim to by Lombardi's Pizza, which opened its doors in New York in 1905. Celebrating this anniversary is Ed Levine's A Slice of Heaven: The Ultimate Pizza Guide and Companion, in which Levine and some of America's best writers and cartoonists set out to answer every cosmic question involving this beloved food: Is Chicago pizza really more of a casserole? What makes New York pizza so good? Is the pizza in New Haven better than anything found in Naples? Is the best pizzeria in the world found in Phoenix, Arizona? What and where is the Pizza Belt? How good can homemade pizza be? Why was Nora Ephron petrified that her very first date would take her to a pizzeria? How did someone named Fats Goldberg end up being New York's preeminent thick-crust pizza maker? Is there an American pizza aesthetic? How does one go about judging pizza? Is there such a thing as a good frozen pizza? All these questions and more will be answered in A Slice of Heaven by Levine, along with some of his favorite writers, including, among others, Calvin Trillin, Ruth Reichl, Roy Blount, Jr., Arthur Schwartz, Mario Batali, Jeffrey Steingarten, and Eric Asimov. Click the book cover above to read more.


THE ORIENTALIST
SOLVING THE MYSTERY OF A STRANGE AND DANGEROUS LIFE
By TOM REISS
February 15, 2005; RANDOM HOUSE
Lev Nussimbaum was born in Baku in Azerbaijan in 1905, and was raised as the son of a Jewish oil millionaire. He was pampered, and he was protected from kidnappers from an early age. Afte rthe revolution he ended up in Paris and then Berlin, where he converted to Islam at age 17. He became a prominent author and journalist, before dying in 1942 in Italy of an infection, as Essad Bey. Booklist writes: Lev Nussimbaum fabricated a life that in its brief arc encompassed the whole of the Western and Near Eastern culture of his time. A Jew from the Caucasus, born in the first throes of the Russian Revolution, he styled himself a Muslim prince. As Kurban Said, he wrote a best-selling novel that made him the toast of Nazi Germany. Inventing and reinventing himself, he left a confused and perplexing trail. Reiss pursues two great narratives, one recounting Nussimbaum's life itself, the other following the author's quest to ferret from among myths and outright lies the truth of this man's life. Along the way, readers absorb much about oil-rich Azerbaijan, the Russian Revolution, the rise of fascism, and the centuries-old clashes of cultures and religions in the Caucasus and Middle East. Digressions abound because of Nussimbaum's intricate, multicultural encounters. In the hands of a less adept writer, such complex history might grow opaque and tedious, but Reiss' storytelling flair and the utterly compelling character of Lev Nussimbaum turn this biography into a page-turner of epic proportion. Click the book cover above to read more.




Do You Hear What I Hear?
Religious Calling, the Priesthood, and My Father
by Minna Proctor
February 2005; VIKING
Proctor's parents-a nonobservant Catholic father and a nonpracticing Jewish mother who divorced when she was in her teens-reared her without religion. So it is a surprise when her father tells her that he is applying to become an Episcopal priest. Her quest to come to terms first with her father's calling, and then with the rejection of his candidacy, leads to a multifaceted consideration of the ordination process, church history, and comparative theology, and also to stringent self-examination. Cosmopolitan and secular, Proctor discovers a wistful envy of her father's faith and a touching indignation when his proffered service is turned down: "I don't think I believe in a God who sends psychic messages through bureaucratic processes." Based on lengthy conversations with her father, interviews with clergy and religious scholars, and readings of classic faith narratives from Augustine to Simone Weil, Do You Hear What I Hear? is a broad-minded and fascinating exploration of a very human phenomenon in the light of cultural shifts over the last three decades







Jewish Ritual
A Brief Introduction For Christians
by Rabbi Kerry M. Olitzky, Daniel Judson
Jewish Lights Publishing, February 2005
A window into the meaning of Jewish rituals throughout history and today-written especially for Christians. Ritual moments and opportunities guide the daily life of practicing Jews. These spiritual practices give expression to Jewish identity and reflect Judaism's core beliefs and values. But what can they mean to Christians seeking to understand their own faith? In this special book, Rabbis Olitzky and Judson guide you through the whys and hows of nine specific areas of Jewish ritual.
* Observing the Sabbath * Keeping Kosher * Putting on Tefillin (Prayer Boxes) * Wrapping the Tallit (Prayer Shawl) * Covering the Head * Studying Torah * Praying Daily * Saying Blessings throughout the Day * Going to the Ritual Bath
Providing you with the biblical and historical background of each practice, insight i