FALL 2006 RECOMMENDED JEWISH BOOKS

FALL 2006 BOOK READINGS

Sep 10, 2006: Conference on Organ Donation and Jewish Law. Featuring Rabbis Moshe Tendler, Avrham Steinberg, et al. Yeshiva University. 12-6 PM go to www.Yu.edu/medicalethics
Sep 11, 2006: Second Annual Jewish Music Awards in NYC. MJH in NYC
Sep 13, 2006: Lenny Bruce and Free Speech, featuring Lewis Black, Jeff Gartlin, Jonathan Ames, Judy Gold, and more. NYC 92nd St Y.
Sep 14, 2006: Dr. Steven Cohen speaks on Unaffiliated but Engaged, the emerging identities and Connections among young Jewish adults. HUCJIR. NYC 6:30PM huc.edu
Sep 14, 2006: Elie Wiesel speaks on Tolerance in the Talmud, NYC 92ndsty.org
Sep 14, 2006: Jfunders.org Jewish Funders Network Special Day on Grantmaking in Israel for Philanthropists.
Sep 16, 2006: Selichot Services in various synagogues on Earth.
Sep 17, 2006: JewzaPalooza in NYC. Featuring over a dozen bands/performers. Riverside Park. Oy!hoo festival.
Sep 20, 2006: Rabbi Niles Goldstein reads from GONZO JUDAISM. B&N Astor Place NYC 7 PM
Sep 22, 2006: Rosh Hashana 5767 begins at sundown, Friday.
Sep 23-24, 2006: Rosh Hashana
Sep 25, 2006: Keep mistakenly writing 5766 on checks.
Sep 26 2006: Jewish Journalists American Journalism, featuring Franklin Foer, JJ Goldberg, Clyde Haberman, William Kristol, Judith Shulevitz, David Marolick. YIVO NYC
Sep 27, 2006: Fifth Annual Political Book Fair, Trover Shop, Wash DC. 5:30 PM
Sep 27, 2006: Daniel Mendelsohn reads from The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million. B&N UWS NYC 7 PM
Sep 28, 2006: The Art Directors Club Big Brand conference (adcglobal.org)

Oct 01, 2006: Yom Kippur begins at sundown, Sunday
Oct 02, 2006: Book of Jonah... read in synagogues worldwide on Yom Kippur
Oct 03, 2006: Daniel Mendelsohn reads from The Lost. Border in Tysons Corner VA
Oct 07-08, 2006: First two full days of Sukkot
Oct 10, 2006: David Rosenberg speaks on Abraham, NYC 92ndsty.org
Oct 10, 2006: Daniel Mendelsohn reads from The Lost. Princeton Univ Bookstore

Oct 15, 2006: Simchat Torah, begins at Sundown on Oct 14.
Oct 15, 2006: NEW YORK TIMES GREAT READ IN THE PARK - Bryant Park, NYC. Featuring readings by authors including" Elinor Lipman, Jules Feifer, Frank Rich, Laura Zigman, Daniel Mendelsohn, Ira Rosen, Ron Rosenbaum, Francine Prose, Clyde Haberman, Richard Cohen, Rhea Perlan, Robert Lipsyte, Sam Roberts, T Cooper, Eve Ensler, Florence Fabricant, Steven Gaines, JENNIFER GILMORE, Michael Gross, Sara gruen, Susan Isaacs, David Kamp, Herbert Krosney and Bart D. Ehrman
Oct 15, 2006: Daniel Mendelsohn reads from The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million. Bryant Park NYC

Oct 17, 2006: Daniel Mendelsohn reads from The Lost. Books & Books, Coral Gables
Oct 18, 2006: Daniel Mendelsohn reads from The Lost. Books & Books Bal Harbour
Oct 23 - Nov 21, 2006: Jewish Social Action Month. A month of Jewish unity.
Oct 26, 2006: Rabbi Lawrence Kushner reads from KABBALAH: A LOVE STORY. NY Kollel, NYC, 6PM at Huc-JIR visit HUC.edu

Nov 01, 2006: Daniel Mendelsohn reads from The Lost. JCC of Houston
Nov 02, 2006: Dr. Daniel Hillel speaks on the Natural History of the Bible. HUCJIR. NYC 6:30PM huc.edu
Nov 05, 2006: Daniel Mendelsohn reads from The Lost. JCC of San Francisco
Nov 12, 2006: UJC General Assembly GA starts in Los Angeles.
Nov 12, 2006: Bikur Cholim 19th Annual Conference in NYC. See BikurCholimCc.org











HEY.. NOW YOUR CAN SEARCH OUR SITE, INSTEAD OF JUST SEARCHING AMAZON. TRY IT OUT...

Search:

search tips sitemap

Overcoming Life's Disappointments
by Harold S. Kushner
AUGUST 2006. Knopf.
Barbara Jacobs, writing for From Booklist, wrote: "Rabbi emeritus Kushner, author of, among other titles, When Bad Things Happen to Good People (1981), scores another hit with book number 10, which is based on the theme and philosophy of his previous best-sellers. His idea is to explain the inexplicable in terms that turn negatives into ways of coping. Kushner skillfully uses the tale of Moses to manage the oh-so-true statement, "Nobody gets everything he or she yearns for." Forbidden to enter the Holy Land? Having wandered for 40 years and endured complaints and rebels, Moses was tired; another leader deserved to take the lead. Plus, reading into the Bible and other religious tomes, the author finds that Moses ignored his family--a critical element comprising the complete life. Moses is not the only example used. Abraham Lincoln was weighed down by depression--or, in his case, what doesn't kill us makes us strong. Sondheim's second act of Into the Woods underscores the importance of assessing broken dreams and forging new ones. Joseph Campbell of mythology fame is cited, as are Tevye and wife from Fiddler on the Roof, among many others. In all, the universal lessons for overcoming disappointment remain simple yet profound: remember who you're working for, substitute new dreams for old, keep promises, be humble, maintain life's priorities, forgive and forgive, and always dare to dream. Amen." Click the book cover to read more.








This isn't a Jewish Book, but it is by a nieghbor and a former Accounting classmate who left a Finance career to become a Jesuit priest, editor and writer:
My Life With the Saints
by James Martin, S. J.
2006. Loyola Press.
James Martin has led a thoroughly modern life: from a lukewarm childhood Catholicism, to the Wharton School of Business, to the executive fast track at General Electric, to the Jesuits, to a media career in Manhattan. But at every step along the way he has been accompanied by special friends-the saints of the Catholic Church. These holy men and women are not just historical figures to him. Martin's attachment to them is real and personal. The saints have guided him. He convincingly shows how the saints can be our friends too. Martin's saintly friends come from the whole of Christian history-from St. Paul to John XXIII- and they include Thérèse of Lisieux, Joan of Arc, Ignatius Loyola and other beloved figures. They accompany the author on a pilgrimage that includes stops in a sunlit square of a French town, a quiet retreat house on a New England beach, the housing projects in inner-city Chicago, the sprawling slums of Nairobi, and a gorgeous Baroque church in Rome. As James Martin's inspiring, witty, and surprising account unfolds, we see how saints can help us to find our way in the world. Click the book cover to read more.








Jewish Cooking For All Seasons
Fresh, Flavorful Kosher Recipes for Holidays and Every Day
by Laura Frankel (Skokie IL, chef/co-owner of Shallots)
AUGUST 2006. WILEY.
From Publishers Weekly: "You can say one thing for this collection of modern kosher recipes"it ain't chopped liver. That fatty, flavorful favorite is replaced with fancy-schmancy fare like Artichoke Confit and Fava Bean Salad. Frankel, owner of Shallots restaurant in Chicago, deserves credit for widening the horizons of kosher cooking, as she incorporates novelties such as venison (Ginger-Marinated Venison Loin with Purple Sticky Rice and Spring Pea Salad) and bison (Bison, Lettuce and Tomato sandwiches). Dishes are grouped by season, but despite the promising subtitle, there are no holiday menus included. Chatty prose abounds in sidebars ("It may sound a little silly to say that I am passionate about salmon. Nevertheless... I am!"). There's nothing especially Jewish about Grilled Marinated Short Ribs with Spicy Fruit Barbecue Sauce or Herbed Roasted Chicken with Quinoa-Mushroom Pilaf except that they can be prepared to meet the laws of kashrut. Even without a strong hook, though, bubbe would approve, and the two million kosher households in the U.S., as the publisher figures, will likely be grateful for these new recipes." There are now two million kosher consumers in the U.S., but even cooks who don't keep kosher will love these inspired recipes for Jewish holiday feasts and everyday meals. Grouped by seasons, the 150 recipes in Jewish Cooking For All Seasons reflect a refreshing approach to Jewish cooking and emphasize freshness and real, flavorful ingredients. Recipes range from Braised Veal Shanks with Acorn Squash Gnocchi (Autumn) to Dry-Roasted Short Ribs with Horseradish Mashed Potatoes and Caramelized Onions (Winter) to Herb-Crusted Sock-Eye Salmon (Spring) to Chilled English Pea and Mint Soup (Summer); 16 gorgeous color recipe photos tantalize. This chef and mother of three has creatively adapted her restaurant classics for the home cook, offering inspiration and guidance for memorable meals with family and friends. Click the book cover to read more.








Jewtopia
The Chosen Book for the Chosen People
by Bryan Fogel, Sam Wolfson
September 2006. Warner
In time for Rosh Hashana. From the creators of Jewtopia, the off broadway show, Jewtopia, this a a funny illustrated guide to Judaism. Includes a timeline of Jewish expulsions and quizzes. Click the book cover to read more.








As many of you may know, we started MyJewishBooks.com in 1997 while we worked on a book on management insights from the weekly Torah parshat / parshah readings. Similar to Mintzberg on Management, our book was going to be Moses on Management. Alas, our book was never finished or published, but this one is a good replacement to our vision. Go and Learn:
Moses And the Journey to Leadership
Timeless Lessons of Effective Management from the Bible And Today's Leaders
by Rabbi Norman J. Cohen, Phd, Provost HUC JIR
September 2006. Jewish Lights
What can the most celebrated yet solitary hero of the Bible teach you about the vision, action and skills you need to be a successful leader? One of the most troubling aspects of modern society is that we are suffering from a lack of inspiring leadership. There is a dearth of leaders who not only possess vision and strength but also live with integrity based on lasting values. So where should we turn for models of leadership for our diverse communities? We can find inspiration in the enduring texts of Jewish tradition and in the life of Moses, the most important and celebrated character in the Hebrew Bible. By highlighting his struggles, failures and triumphs, this book offers Moses as an exemplar of leadership who not only empowers his people to act on their responsibilities but makes them believe they possess the ability to do so. Along with exploring the most powerful and intriguing stories of Moses's life, Cohen shows what Moses's actions reveal about the nature of leadership and human interaction, and how his examples can be applied to the dynamics of modern-day leadership in religious, business, political and other arenas. Click the book cover to read more.








The Adventures of Rabbi Harvey
A Graphic Novel of Jewish Wisdom and Wit in the Wild West
By Steve Sheinkin
Fall 2006. Jewish Lights
A fresh look at Jewish folktales-wise, witty, hilarious After finishing school in New York, Rabbi Harvey traveled west in search of adventure and, hopefully, work as a rabbi. His journey took him to Elk Spring, Colorado, a small town in the Rocky Mountains. When he managed to outwit the ruthless gang that had been ruling Elk Spring, the people invited Harvey to stay on as the town's rabbi. In Harvey's adventures in Elk Spring, he settles disputes, tricks criminals into confessing, and offers unsolicited bits of Talmudic insight and Hasidic wisdom. Each story presents Harvey with a unique challenge-from convincing a child that he is not actually a chicken, to retrieving stolen money from a sweet-faced bubbe gone bad. Like any good collection of Jewish folktales, these stories contain layers of humor and timeless wisdom that will entertain, teach and, especially, make you laugh. Click the book cover to read more.








FIVE GERMANYS I HAVE KNOWN
By Fritz Stern, Columbia University
August 2006. FSG
Provost Stern's father served the German Kaiser valiantly in WWI like so many other German Jews. Stern was the son of assimilated German Jews -- so assimilated, in fact, that they had converted to Christianity. His paternal grandparents converted as adults. His maternal grandparents never converted but had their children baptized -- among them Stern's mother, born in 1894. His parents and grandparents' closest friends were all converts, too, or else Jews intermarried with Christians. No one thought this odd: He was made aware of his Jewishness only after Hitler came to power. This is his memoir.
From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. In 1944, upon visiting the desolate ruins of Stalingrad, Gen. Charles de Gaulle reportedly said, with a touch of awe, "Quel peuple!" He was referring not to the Russians but to France and Russia's mutual enemy, the Germans. According to Stern (Einstein's German World), former provost of Columbia University and among the most venerable of America's German historians, de Gaulle grasped the "deep ambiguity that hovers around German greatness": Germans were not only the destroyers of historic Europe but also its creators. In this fascinating memoir, Stern looks back over the "five Germanys" his generation has seen-the Weimar Republic, Nazi tyranny, the post-1945 Federal Republic, the Soviet-controlled German Democratic Republic and, lastly, the reunited Germany of the present-and explains how he came to reconcile himself with his birth country (which his Jewish family fled in 1938) as it has come to terms with its new place in today's more cohesive and peaceful Europe. His history, says Stern, can be read as "a text for political and moral lessons, as a drama in dread and hope." The book's intriguing structure makes it a wonderful combination of history, memoir, analysis and even poetry. Click the book cover to read more.


















SEPTEMBER 2006


No! No!
Why is MyJewishBooks.com highlighting this book below?
Don't tell me, say it isn't so... Yes, Yes, it's true
Jason Fogle is a MEMBER OF THE TRIBE:
Will he be going on a lecture tour of JCC's ??
Is he more than just a shill for the Subway franchise system?

Jared, the Subway Guy
Winning Through Losing: 13 Lessons for Turning Your Life Around
by Jared Fogle, with Anthony Bruno
September 2006. St Martins
Jared S. Fogle, (b. 1978), a.k.a. "Jared the Subway Guy", is a spokesmodel for Subway. In the Spring of 1998, Fogle, a student at Indiana University, weighed 425 pounds. He began a 1,000 calorie a day diet consisting of nothing but the food available at his local Subway sandwich shop. Less than a year later he weighed 190 pounds. So at 6ft2 and 190, he was the same height and weight as the editor of MyJewishBooks.com (body mass index - 24.5). Subway sandwich company hired Fogle as its spokesman, and he appeared in countless commercials, was parodied, and even appeared in SUPERSIZE ME (which was directed by the Jewish filmmaker, Morgan Spurlock.
Now about the book: Jared Fogel has appeared thousands of times on national television as the spokesperson for Subway's Eat Healthy Platform; and he's slated to continue in this role indefinitely. In fact, Subway worried that he might be getting overexposed and decided to discontinue him. Sales fell off. Jared was quickly rehired. But to keep him from being overexposed, Subway's program runs Jared for six or eight weeks every three months. His book is not so much a diet book (his diet was pretty simple to grasp - eat Subway sandwiches) but it's more a motivational, self-help book which offers hope to people who want to change their lives. Jared's lessons include: Find Your Own Personal Spark, One Size Doesn't Fit All, Change Your Mind to Change Your Life, See the Big Picture, Change is for Life The Harder You Work, the Luckier You Get. Click the book cover to read more.




FORGIVE US OUR SPINS
MICHAEL MOORE AND THE FUTURE OF THE LEFT
By JESSE LARNER
September 2006. WILEY
A liberal writes why Michael Moore is just as bad as right wing pundits, when he bases his arguments on silliness and emotion and not facts.. Click the book cover to read more.








Welcome to JesusLand!
(Formerly the United States of America):
Shocking Tales of Depravity, Sex, and Sin Uncovered by God's Favorite Church, Landover Baptist
by Chris Harper, Andrew Bradley, Erik Walker
September 2006. Warner paperback
LandoverBaptist.org
An outrageous collection of church newsletters that skewers the religious right. Includes bible quizzes and sidebars. Click the book cover to read more.








Never Despair
Sixty Years in the Service of the Jewish People and of Human Rights
by Gerhart Riegner
Sept 2006. Dee
This is an essential book for students of the Holocaust and of the Jewish role in world affairs from World War II to the end of the century. There were many important and fascinating episodes in Riegner's life of service, told now in Never Despair, his memoir. He recounts his youth in a cultivated, middle-class Jewish family in Germany, and as a young lawyer in Leipzig who fled to Switzerland after Hitler's rise to power in 1933. In his memoir he recounts his efforts behind the scenes and offers a firsthand estimate of many of the leading international figures of the past century. Click the book cover to read more.







OY !
THE ULTIMATE BOOK OF JEWISH JOKES
BY AVID MINKOFF
SEPTEMBER 2006. THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.
www.awordinyoureye.com
Minkoff began collecting jokes almost 50 years ago when he was 13. Six years ago, he launched his U.K.-based Web site awordinyoureye.com as "a repository for my vast collection of Jewish jokes." When Minkoff's jocularity brought popularity, his avocation turned into "a full-time job which required a lot of maintenance." With the site mushrooming to more than 1,760 jokes, it became the main source for this comprehensive collection, first published in London last year by Robson/Chrysalis. These Jewish japes and jests run the gamut from deft definitions, one-off one-liners, pithy puns, quizzes and ribald riddles to satirical songs and full-page humorous stories. Fresh, familiar or unfamiliar, all the jokes have been rewritten by Minkoff into his own style, and he has grouped gags thematically into various categories and subcategories. Spanning birth to death, the 86 topics feature more than 1,000 jokes: On circumcision: " 'It won't be long now,' said the rabbi as he circumcised the little boy." Marriage: "Q: Why are many Jewish girls still single these days? A: They have not yet met Dr. Right." Jewish telegram: "Begin worrying. Details to follow." On the 23rd Psalm for Jewish princesses: "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He leadeth me into Bloomingdale's." The lack of cartoons may disappoint some readers, but even they will find that this clever kosher compilation generates giggles galore. Click the book cover to read more.








Also available on Audio CD
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
A novel by John Boyne
September 2006. David Fickling Books
Readers of MyJewishBooks.com will remember this as a book that was so hot, that we redirected readers to a British bookstore to get this book in 2005. Now for Fall 2006, it is available in the USA
Don't let anyone tell you about this book. It is best read on your own, so you can discover it for yourself.
Berlin 1942
When Bruno returns home from school one day, he discovers that his belongings are being packed in crates. His father has received a promotion and the family must move from their home to a new house far far away, where there is no one to play with and nothing to do. A tall fence running alongside stretches as far as the eye can see and cuts him off from the strange people he can see in the distance.
But Bruno longs to be an explorer and decides that there must be more to this desolate new place than meets the eye. While exploring his new environment, he meets another boy whose life and circumstances are very different to his own, and their meeting results in a friendship that has devastating consequences. Click the book cover to read more.







Somewhere in Germany
A Novel
by Stefanie Zweig, Marlies Comjean
September 2006. David Fickling Books
From Publishers Weekly. Published in Germany in 1996, this autobiographical sequel to Zweig's noteworthy Nowhere in Africa follows the Redlichs as they return to Germany in 1947 after 10 years in exile from National Socialism on a Kenyan farm. Walter is so desperate to practice law again that he uproots his complaining wife, Jettel, his clever, nurturing daughter, Regina, and baby Max to Frankfurt, where gentiles either make snide anti-Semitic comments or claim that they saved Jews and used to have many Jewish friends. Zweig has a deft hand with telling anecdotes. A gas company employee and his wife are evicted when they lack the necessary clout to defend themselves against political charges. In the deprivations of postwar Frankfurt, steel helmets become saucepans and a care package containing American foodstuffs elicits joyful tears. Also vividly described are bighearted Walter's staunch belief in the existence of "the decent German" and budding journalist Regina's meeting with Otto Frank, who tells her how much she reminds him of his daughter, Anne. Although its setting isn't the exotic Kenya of the original novel and Comjean's translation is stiff and prolix, this is a worthy meditation on homelessness, exile and belonging. Click the book cover to read more. Also... if you want to see the film:









The Tree of Life
A Trilogy of Life in Lodz Ghetto
Book Three: The Cattle Cars Are Waiting, 1942-1944
by Chava Rosenfarb
September 2006. Wisconsin
From Publishers Weekly: Originally published in Yiddish in 1972, this final volume of a trilogy depicting daily life in the Lodz ghetto recreates the frantic desperation as thousands of Jews were forced to board cattle trains bound for Auschwitz. Revisiting characters from the first two books, Rosenfarb-herself a Lodz ghetto and concentration-camp survivor-gets very close to the horror. Adam Rosenberg, who once owned the biggest factory in town, hides under an assumed name and shovels excrement for a living until he is found out and becomes an informant, identifying other Jewish industrialists and sniffing out their hidden valuables. The poet Bunim Berkovitch discovers that his wife and children, including a newborn, have been arrested while he was out fetching their potato ration. And the hated leader of the Jewish Council who composes the dreaded transport lists can't save himself or his loved ones when the ghetto is "liquidated." In this third volume, the prose is denser, the translation more ungainly, and the plotting more chaotic than in the previous two volumes (also available from Wisconsin), but it carries potent witness. Click the book cover to read more.
See also:
http://www.jewishtoronto.net/content_display.html?ArticleID=185793











TOLSTOY LIED
A LOVE STORY
BY RACHEL KADDISH
SEPTEMBER 1, 2006. Houghton Mifflin
FROM THE AUTHOR OF "From a Sealed Room" comes a new story. Tolstoy famously wrote, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." To Tracy Farber, thirty-three, happily single and headed for tenure at a major university, this celebrated maxim is questionable at best. Because if Tolstoy is to be taken at his word, only unhappiness is interesting. Happiness must be as placid and unmemorable as a daisy in a field of a thousand daisies. So Tracy sets out to prove that happiness and the search for happiness can be, must be, a complicated mission. But little does she know that her best proof will come when she meets George, who will sweep her off her feet and challenge all of her old assumptions. Love may be the ultimate cliché, but in Rachel Kadish"s hands, it is also a morally serious question, deserving of our sober attention as well as our delighted laughter. Click the book cover to read more.








One of our favorite books for late Summer:
Golden Country
A Novel
by Jennifer Gilmore
September 2006. Scribner
Golden Country, Jennifer Gilmore's masterful and irreverent reinvention of the Jewish American novel, captures the exuberance of the American dream while exposing its underbelly -- disillusionment, greed, and the disaffection bred by success. As Gilmore's charmingly flawed characters witness and shape history, they come to embody America's greatness, as well as its greatest imperfections. Spanning the first half of the twentieth century, Golden Country vividly brings to life the intertwining stories of three immigrants seeking their fortunes -- the handsome and ambitious Seymour, a salesman-turned-gangster-turned-Broadway-producer; the gentle and pragmatic Joseph, a door-to-door salesman who is driven to invent a cleanser effective enough to wipe away the shame of his brother's mob connections; and the irresistible Frances Gold, who grows up in Brooklyn, stars in Seymour's first show, and marries the man who invents television. Their three families, though inex-tricably connected for years, are brought together for the first time by the engagement of Seymour's son and Joseph's daughter. David and Miriam's marriage must endure the inheritance of not only their parents' wealth but also the burdens of their past. Epic and comic, poignant and wise, Golden Country introduces readers to an extraordinary new voice in fiction. Click the book cover to read more.








Disobedience
A novel
by Naomi Alderman
September 2006. S&S Touchstone.
From Publishers Weekly: Alderman draws on her Orthodox Jewish upbringing and current life in Hendon, England, for her entertaining debut, which won the Orange Prize for New Writers after it was published in the U.K. in March. In writing about the inhabitants of this small, gossipy society, Alderman cleverly uses a slightly sinister, omniscient "we" to represent a community that speaks with one voice, and her descriptions of Orthodox customs are richly embroidered. Alternating with this perspective is the first-person narrative of Ronit Krushka, a woman who has left the community and is now a financial analyst in New York. After the death of her estranged father, a powerful rabbi, Ronit returns to England to mourn her father and to confront her past, including a female lover. But Ronit's shock that an Orthodox lesbian would marry a man rings false, as does her casually condescending attitude toward the community. By the time of the theatrical, unrealistic climax, Ronit's struggle between religious and secular imperatives gets reduced to cliché ("all we have, in the end, are the choices we make"), but Ronit works well as a vehicle for the opinion that even the most alienated New York Judaism is preferable to the English version, where "the Jewish fear of being noticed and the natural British reticence interact.
For Ronit Krushka, thirty-two and single, who lives on Manhattan's Upper West Side, Orthodox Judaism is a suffocating culture she fled long ago. When she learns that her estranged father, the pre-eminent rabbi of the London Orthodox Jewish community in which she was raised, has died, she leaves behind her Friday night takeout, her troublesome romance, and her boisterous circle of friends and returns home for the first time in years. There, amid the traditional ebb and flow of the community -- the quiet young women returning from their kosher shops and the men with their tightly clutched prayer books -- Ronit reminds herself of her dual mission: to mourn and to collect a single heirloom -- her mother's Shabbat candlesticks. But when Ronit reconnects with her complex and beloved cousin Dovid and with a forbidden childhood sweetheart, she becomes more than just a stranger in her old home -- she becomes a threat. Driven by wit and beautifully rendered detail, Disobedience pulls back the curtain on a devout and closed world. Set at the crossroads of tradition and modernity, of personal desires and the demands of God, Disobedience is about the importance of moving on and what we lose when we do -- and it is about the tendency toward disobedience that we all have. Click the book cover to read more.








I Feel Bad About My Neck
And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman
by Nora Ephron
AUGUST 2006. KNOPF
Why Ms. Ephron is not sampling baked goods, or eating cupcakes at San Francisco's Miele bakery, she feels bad about her neck (cuz do get a neck job, u also have to have a face lift, so she is living au naturalle instead). At age 65, she is so wise, yet so much is going wrong. As she said, "You're so happy to be alive and yet you're so sorry that you have a new wrinkle."
With her disarming, intimate, completely accessible voice, and dry sense of humor, Nora Ephron shares with us her ups and downs in I Feel Bad About My Neck, a candid, hilarious look at women who are getting older and dealing with the tribulations of maintenance, menopause, empty nests, and life itself. The woman who brought us romantic comedies, such as When Harry Met Sally...; Sleepless in Seattle; You've Got Mail; Julia and Julia; and Bewitched, and the author of best sellers Heartburn, Scribble Scribble, and Crazy Salad, discusses everything-from how much she hates her purse to how much time she spends attempting to stop the clock: the hair dye, the treadmill, the lotions and creams that promise to slow the aging process but never do. Oh, and she can't stand the way her neck looks. But her dermatologist tells her there's no quick fix for that. Ephron chronicles her life as an obsessed cook, passionate city dweller, and hapless parent. She recounts her anything-but-glamorous days as a White House intern during the JFK years ("I am probably the only young woman who ever worked in the Kennedy White House that the President did not make a pass at") and shares how she fell in and out of love with Bill Clinton-from a distance, of course. But mostly she speaks frankly and uproariously about life as a woman of a certain age. Utterly courageous, wickedly funny, and unexpectedly moving in its truth telling, I Feel Bad About My Neck is a book of wisdom, advice, and laugh-out-loud moments, a scrumptious, irresistible treat. Click the book cover to read more.








Radiant Days, Haunted Nights
Great Tales from the Treasury of Yiddish Literature
by Joachim Neugroschel
AUGUST 31, 2006. OVERLOOK
A unique and rich anthology of Yiddish folk tales that have never before been available in English, compiled and translated by the award-winning Joachim Neugroschel, Radiant Days, Haunted Nights reveals the enormous breadth and depth of the Yiddish tradition. Set at the intersection of the oral folk tale and the European tradition of printed fiction, these stories provide a fascinating glimpse into four centuries of Jewish cultural life. The collection includes not only original tales, but Yiddish retellings of biblical stories, and unexpected examples of cultural osmosis such as a Yiddish version of Sir Gawain. This utterly original compilation unlocks a unique genre of literature-perfect for English speakers looking to reclaim their lost Yiddish heritage, and for any reader interested in folk literature. Click the book cover to read more.
Hannah Meyers writes: "...Joachim Neugroschel's second book of translated Yiddish folktales, Radiant Days, Haunted Nights, is a fun departure from the polished, sterile and non-judgmental crud of Disney's fairytales. These folktales are openly didactic, teaching the values of a specifically observant Jewish life, and include unexpected characters and indelicate plot twists. The stories are organized by source; some are anonymous and the rest have short biographies before their tales. I particularly enjoy the section of work from the 18th century Dubno Preacher, who ended each tale with a clearly delineated moral (e.g., "If a man seeks respect, he should be ready to pay for it."). All of the folktales have an organic tone, without the predictable, smooth transitions of a modern children's book. Instead, you feel you can actually see the storyteller's face light up with a sudden invention for the plot. A new character will appear out of nowhere, or someone will unexpectedly die, and the reader just follows the author's imagination as it spins....."
"...The narrators don't mind adding in colloquial expressions, with which they assume their readers will feel at home. The anonymous author of "The Story of Bovo" exclaims, "Now when the king's uncle, Count Oyglin, heard about the betrothal, he hit the roof!" While that's not a Yiddish expression, Neugroschel did a wonderful job translating the feel of the idiom. I like when the storyteller puts in conventional storyteller quips. One story ends with the line, "and if they haven't passed away, then they are still alive today." This is not the tone of an anonymous author speaking to an anonymous audience; it creates a much more familiar setting. Other authors put in irony-tinged morals, such as: "We Jews are the prince. Our father, the king of the universe, saw that we were not obeying the doctors and servants-the priests, the Levites, and the teachers. So He sent us into exile, among the non-Jews, who do not know the Good Lord, and these Gentiles are supposed to cure us with harsh hands." He uses a folktale to describe a grim reality, a religious ideal of devotion and a humorous cringe at both. In the middle of one of his tales, Shmuel Bastomski says, "The rule is: He who does business is smart, for he constantly converses with merchants. However [the characters in this story] had always been in the forest. That's why their minds had dulled." Asides of this sort, as much the narrator's passing observations on life, make the tale richer. We get of a sense of the storyteller and his surroundings and experiences. The twisting storyline and host of strange characters (e.g., The Oldster, The Wanderer, The Owl) in the tales of Der Nister, a Ukrainian mystic, reminded me of Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra. Another story, in which the hero gets trapped in a one-eyed ogre's cave and escapes by poking the ogre's eye with a burning poker and sneaking out hidden under a sheep's belly, had a clear connection to Homer's The Odyssey....




The Kids' Fun Book of Jewish Time
by Emily Sper
2006. Jewish LIghts.
A unique way to introduce children to the Jewish calendar--night and day, the seven-day week, Shabbat, the Hebrew months, seasons and dates. Slide the sun down Pull the tab to "light" Shabbat candles Turn the wheel to watch three stars come out Play with reflections in the Havdalah candle's flame Rotate phases of the moon to find the new month Match the seasons Lift flaps to learn Hebrew dates With this fun and engaging book children will gain an understanding of the structure underlying Jewish holidays throughout the year. Click the book cover to read more.








The Righteous Men
by Sam Bourne
September 1, 2006. William Morrow.
From Booklist: Our pop-cultural obsession with The Da Vinci Code continues to breed more religious-historical thrillers. Bourne's novel, which draws its inspiration from the Jewish rather than the Christian tradition, is one of the better ones. Sent to cover two seemingly unrelated murders--of a New York City pimp and a Montana militiaman--ambitious journalist Will Monroe discovers something that piques his interest: both victims had a secret. Despite brutal deeds in life, each had done extraordinary good. Then Monroe's wife is kidnapped. His search for her takes him into the Hasidic Jewish community of Crown Heights in Brooklyn, where he first hears the legend of the 36 righteous men whose selfless acts allow the rest of us to exist--and learns that they are being systematically killed. Always twisting and turning, Bourne's novel takes readers on a dramatic, full-throttle adventure, which ultimately offers a timely spin on the question, "Can the end ever justify the means?"
Click the book cover to read more. (95,000 copies in the first printing!)








Klezmer
Tales of the Wild East
by Joann Sfar
SEPTEMBER 2006. First Second
From Publishers Weekly: In The Rabbi's Cat, Sfar showed a knack for slightly tweaked and jokey mystical fables, a talent he updates with a harsher edge in this first volume of a new series about a band of itinerant Klezmer musicians. While Cat reflected its drowsy, lugubrious North African setting, this tale is darker, edged with a tragic, Eastern European jocularity, a mix of the fantastic and cruel. In Sfar's expressive art, bright splotches of color overflow his wildly looping drawing. In the violent opening, Noah (nicknamed "The Baron of My Backside") narrowly escapes the massacre of his bandmates by rival musicians. Later in the book, after extracting some revenge, he puts a new band together with the misfits who roam through the intervening pages. They include a pair of former yeshiva students exiled for theft; the baron's voluptuous love interest, Chava; and Tshokola, a less than truthful gypsy on the run from Cossacks. Much of the book has the feel of a goofy, somewhat twisted vaudeville routine, with Sfar's characters meeting under bad circumstances and making light of it via some bad jokes. Deeply suffused with Jewish religious and ethnic identity, the book is profane, messy, jagged and wildly enthusiastic, much like klezmer itself.
Click the book cover to read more.












FOLKTALES OF THE JEWS
VOLUME 1: TALES FROM THE SEPHARDIC DISPERSION
Edited and with Commentary by Dan Ben-Amos
With DOV NOY as the Consulting Editor
SEPTEMBER 2006. Jewish Publication Society JPS, 600 pages
MONUMENTAL!
Tales from the Sephardic Dispersion begins the most important collection of Jewish folktales ever published. It is the first volume in Folktales of the Jews, the five-volume series to be released over the next several years, in the tradition of Louis Ginzberg's classic, Legends of the Jews. The 71 tales here and the others in this series have been selected from the Israel Folktale Archives (IFA), a treasure house of Jewish lore that has remained largely unavailable to the entire world until now. Since the creation of the State of Israel, the IFA has collected more than 20,000 tales from newly arrived immigrants, long-lost stories shared by their families from around the world. The tales come from the major ethno-linguistic communities of the Jewish world and are representative of a wide variety of subjects and motifs, especially rich in Jewish content and context. Each of the tales is accompanied by in-depth commentary that explains the tale's cultural, historical, and literary background and its similarity to other tales in the IFA collection, and extensive scholarly notes. There is also an introduction that describes the Sephardic culture and its folk narrative tradition, a world map of the areas covered, illustrations, biographies of the collectors and narrators, tale type and motif indexes, a subject index, and a comprehensive bibliography. Until the establishment of the IFA, we had had only limited access to the wide range of Jewish folk narratives. Even in Israel, the gathering place of the most wide-ranging cross-section of world Jewry, these folktales have remained largely unknown. Many of the communities no longer exist as cohesive societies in their representative lands; the Holocaust, migration, and changes in living styles have made the continuation of these tales impossible. This volume and the others to come will be monuments to a rich but vanishing oral tradition. Click the book cover to read more.








The JPS Dictionary of Jewish Words
by Joyce Eisenberg, Ellen Scolnic
September 2006. Jewish Publication Society JPS, 250 pages
From one of the most trusted names in Jewish publishing comes an indispensable reference to the most common Jewish words and terms in use today derived from - Yiddish, Hebrew, Aramaic, and English. The JPS Dictionary of Jewish Words contains over 1,000 entries for Jewish holidays and life-cycle events, culture, history, the Bible and other sacred texts, and worship. Organized in A to Z format for easy reference, words can be quickly found without having to know their meaning or exact spelling. Each entry has a pronunciation guide and is cross-referenced to other related terms. The introduction serves as an excellent primer on the history of Jewish words, their transliteration, and pronunciation. And the indexes at the back, arranged by categories, help you find the words you want. The JPS Dictionary of Jewish Words is a very handy resource not just for Jews, but for anyone who encounters Jewish words and wants to check their meaning, spelling, and/or pronunciation.
For example:
mensch n. Yiddish (MENCH) Literally, "person." A caring, decent person-man or woman-who can be trusted. It refers in a much larger sense to acting in an honorable, proper way. The term is bestowed as a compliment on someone who has done the right thing without asking for thanks or credit. For example, "Larry is a real mensch. Before he returned Peter's car, he filled the tank with gas!
Click the book cover to read more.








The Subject in Art
Portraiture and the Birth of the Modern
by Catherine M. Soussloff
Summer 2006. Duke
Challenging prevailing theories regarding the birth of the subject, Catherine M. Soussloff argues that the modern subject did not emerge from psychoanalysis or existential philosophy but rather in the theory and practice of portraiture in early-twentieth-century Vienna. Soussloff traces the development in Vienna of an ethics of representation that emphasized subjects as socially and historically constructed selves who could only be understood-and understand themselves-in relation to others, including the portrait painters and the viewers. In this beautifully illustrated book, she demonstrates both how portrait painters began to focus on the interior lives of their subjects and how the discipline of art history developed around the genre of portraiture.
Soussloff combines a historically grounded examination of art and art historical thinking in Vienna with subsequent theories of portraiture and a careful historiography of philosophical and psychoanalytic approaches to human consciousness from Hegel to Sartre and from Freud to Lacan. She chronicles the emergence of a social theory of art among the art historians of the Vienna School, demonstrates how the Expressionist painter Oskar Kokoschka depicted the Jewish subject, and explores the development of pictorialist photography. Reflecting on the implications of the visualized, modern subject for textual and linguistic analyses of subjectivity, Soussloff concludes that the Viennese art historians, photographers, and painters will henceforth have to be recognized as precursors to such better-known theorists of the subject as Sartre, Foucault, and Lacan. Click the book cover to read more.








The Holy Vote
The Politics of Faith in America
by Ray Suarez
SEPTEMBER 2006. Rayo
An interesting story. An important read for any Jewish person who wants to understand the future of the national electorate. Click the book cover to read more.








Abraham's Bind & Other Bible Tales
of Trickery, Folly, Mercy And Love
by Michael J. Caduto
September 2006. Skylight
New retellings of episodes in the lives of familiar biblical characters explore relevant life lessons for today's world. Abraham and Sarah; Jacob and Esau; Joseph with his coat of many colors-these biblical characters and the stories surrounding their lives may be ancient, yet they continue to yield surprisingly fresh and relevant spiritual lessons for life in the modern world. With insight, thoughtfulness and wit, Caduto re-imagines these characters and many more, retelling their stories and highlighting their foibles and strengths, their struggles and joys. Readers will learn that God has a way of working for them and through them even today, even when life seems less than perfect: Barren and despairing Sarah becomes pregnant-learning that nothing is impossible.; Jacob the trickster is, in turn, tricked into marrying the wrong wife-learning that what goes around comes around.; Joseph is sold into slavery by his brothers, only to rise to wield the power of life and death over them-learning that patience and integrity will win out in the end. Provocative and entertaining, these retellings offer readers the chance to discover these ancient biblical stories-and themselves-anew. Click the book cover to read more.







CAPTURING JONATHAN POLLARD
How One of the Most Notorious Spies in American History Was Brought to Justice
by Ronald J. Olive
SEPTEMBER 2006. USNI Navel Institute Press
FROM THE COVER: "Jonathan Jay Pollard, an intelligence analyst working in the U.S. Naval Investigative Service's Anti-Terrorist Alert Center, systematically stole highly sensitive security secrets from almost every major intelligence-gathering agency in the United States. Over the course of eighteen months in the mid 1980s, he took and subsequently sold to Israel more than one million pages of classified material, enough to fill a six-by-ten-foot room stacked six feet high. No other spy in the history of the United States has stolen so many secrets, so highly classified, in such a short period of time. Ronald J. Olive, the author of this book was the assistant special agent in charge of counterintelligence in the Washington office of the Naval Investigative Service who led the whirlwind investigation against Pollard. Olive interrogated Pollard and garnered the confession that led to his arrest in November 1985 and eventual life sentence. During the twenty plus years that Pollard has spent in prison, many questions have arisen about the case because it never went to trial and so much information surrounding it remains classified. Most of the books and articles that have been written about Pollard denounce his life sentence as unjust. This book tells the other side of the story. It is an account from deep inside the espionage investigation that gives details of Pollard's confession immediately following his arrest and describes Pollard's interaction with the author before and during the time suspicion about his activities was mounting. Revealed are countless other details that have never before been made public. Calling the Pollard story an extreme case of a counterintelligence failure, Olive writes that mistaken assumptions and leadership failures enabled Pollard to ransack America's defense intelligence long after he should have been fired. The author hopes the vital insights his book offers will serve as a lesson in history and prevent similar problems in the future and provide an antidote to the uncertainty that has fueled speculation, rumor, and lies surrounding the Pollard case." Click the book cover to read more.








The Garden of Eden and Other Criminal Delights
by Faye Kellerman
Summer 2006. Warner Books
From Booklist: Kellerman may be best known for her Rina Lazarus-Peter Decker mysteries, but she's also written numerous short stories, 18 of which are collected in this rather varied anthology. Not all of the stories fall within Kellerman's usual crime beat. "Luck of the Draw," for example, a collaboration between Kellerman and her daughters (at the time, 11 and 15), is a pleasant tale in which a sudden windfall causes a close-knit family to reassess its economic priorities. On the other hand, "Mummy and Jack," which Kellerman wrote with her author-playwright son, Jesse, is a dark psychological thriller. Rina and Peter appear in several stories, and Kellerman includes a tale starring one of her first PI characters, Andrea Darling. Greed, dashed hopes, and boredom, occasionally leavened with a touch of humor, are the stuff of many others. A brief note about how each selection came to be heads each tale. Click the book cover to read more.








QUESTIONS CHRISTIANS ASK THE RABBI
By Rabbi Ron Isaacs
September 2006, KTAV.
Rabbi Isaacs pulls together questions and answers from the web site: www.RabbiRon.com . Click the book cover to read more.








The Builders Daughter
by Naomi Karz Jacobs
Summer 2006
A memoir by Jacobs who received her M.A. from UCLA. She is the author of several plays produced in Los Angeles, including What A Racquet and Next Year In Jerusalem. A native of Los Angeles, she spent many years in Baltimore where she served on the boards of Jewish Education and the Citizen's Committee for Recreation, and was President of the Baltimore Hadassah. Back in Los Angeles, she has served on the board of the American National Theatre Academy (West) and been active in a wide range of organizations including The Dramatists' Guild, Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights, First Stage, Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop, Actors' Forum, World Affairs Council, and the Sierra Club. Click the book cover to read more.








The Shakespeare Wars
Clashing Scholars, Public Fiascoes, Palace Coups
by Ron Rosenbaum
September 15, 2006. Random House
*Starred Review* New York Observer columnist Rosenbaum has built a career on refusing to give easy answers to difficult questions; see, for example, his Explaining Hitler (1998). Here he attends to the mysteries and controversies in contemporary Shakespearean scholarship. He begins this well-researched, nicely written tome with a discussion of Peter Brook's groundbreaking production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, a production he credits with changing how he thought of Shakespeare's work, before turning to such current battles as the one raging over which, if any, of the three extant early versions of Hamlet is the "definitive" one, a subject he discussed in a New Yorker article. The beauty of Rosenbaum's work lies in his ability to discuss complex intellectual issues lucidly and often wittily in a manner that is the very antithesis of opaque, postmodern academic prose. You may not know by the end of the chapter on King Lear which of the two existing endings is the one "Shakespeare intended"--it isn't Rosenbaum's intention that you do--but you will know the full spectrum of opinion on the topic and also how the current "stars of the academy" align on the subject.
What's Jewish about this? His analysis of the changing views on Shylock are quite interesting. Click the book cover to read more.








Love, with Noodles
An Amorous Widower's Tale
by Harry Freund
September 2006, Carroll & Graf
Stockbroker Dan Gelder (60) has a posh Fifth Avenue address, is two years a widower, and remains faithful to his deceased wife. Numbed by grief, he is annoyed-not flattered-by the attentions of the women introduced to him by friends. Then he meets Violet Finkel. And Susan Klein. And Myra Cox. And Tatiana Andrevsky. Violet tempts him with limitless luxury and then with truly profound affection, which he discovers on a journey with her to Jerusalem. But plumpish, pretty Susan offers him cookies in her kitchen, while Myra, an activist dedicated to the cause - and jewelry - of Native Americans, tests the strength of his lower back. Exotic Tatiana weds beauty to mystery, and grace to pride, as she strives to overcome a Russian immigrant's poverty for herself and her young son. Dan's son, Eric, meanwhile, is facing bankruptcy, which Dan can handle more readily than Eric's marriage proposal to the non-Jewish Carol Hoffman. Forced to examine this unexpected crisis in terms of his own faith and his Jewish heritage, Dan at sixty finds that more than his libido has been renewed. This comic, yet wise, delightful novel views the follies and fallibilities of romance at a certain age-serving up love deliciously, with noodles. Click the book cover to read more.









Parenting With Fire
Lighting Up the Family with Passion and Inspiration
by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach
SEPTEMBER 2006. NAL
According to Shmuley Boteach, father of eight, author of Kosher Sex and host of TLC's Shalom in the Home, transmitting passions, motivating children with shared goals, and getting them excited about values are the most important things any parent can do. With great humor and insight, Boteach shows parents how to take their child to life's mountaintop-and create a parent-child bond based on vitality, exuberance, and mutual respect. He recommends that parents firght vulgar popular culture, and that they themselves become the central figure in their children's lives. He focuses on PLANT: PROTECTION, LOVE ACTIVITY, NOVELTY, and TRADITION. Click the book cover to read more.








Inside Intermarriage
A Christian Partner's Perspective on Raising a Jewish Family
by James Keen
SEPTEMBER 2006. Union for Reform Judaism Press
The author of this much-needed book is a Christian father helping his Jewish wife raise Jewish children. Together, they have made many tough decisions. It's no secret that interfaith marriages are complicated, especially when both partners are connected to their own religious faiths and communities. Using a healthy dose of humor and insights gleaned from his own experience, Keen provides couples with practical advice and solutions for how to give children a clear Jewish identity while maintaining a comfort level for both parents. Any family, no matter what the faiths of its individual members, can find his approach relevant. Interfaith homes come in all shapes and sizes; no two are alike. However, the foundations that will help them thrive are the same, and Keen's straightforward ideas are sure to help. Includes perspectives from professionals who work with interfaith families.. Click the book cover to read more.








The Price of Admission
How America's Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges -- and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates
by Daniel Golden
September 2006. Crown
In this explosive book, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Daniel Golden argues that America, the so-called land of opportunity, is rapidly becoming an aristocracy in which America's richest families receive special access to elite higher education-enabling them to give their children even more of a head start. Based on two years of investigative reporting and hundreds of interviews with students, parents, school administrators, and admissions personnel-some of whom risked their jobs to speak to the author-The Price of Admission exposes the corrupt admissions practices that favor the wealthy, the powerful, and the famous. In The Price of Admission, Golden names names, along with grades and test scores. He reveals how the sons of former vice president Al Gore, one-time Hollywood power broker Michael Ovitz, and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist leapt ahead of more deserving applicants at Harvard, Brown, and Princeton. He explores favoritism at the Ivy Leagues, Duke, the University of Virginia, and Notre Dame, among other institutions. He reveals that colleges hold Asian American students to a higher standard than whites; comply with Title IX by giving scholarships to rich women in "patrician sports" like horseback riding, squash, and crew; and repay congressmen for favors by admitting their children. Click the book cover to read more.








The Theocons
Secular America Under Siege
by Damon Linker
September 2006. Doubleday
George W. Bush has gone out of his way to blur the line between religion and politics in America-this is acknowledged by his strongest supporters no less than by his most strident critics. The most common explanation of the president's religious agenda points to the rise of evangelical Protestantism. Yet as Damon Linker demonstrates in his groundbreaking book, an exclusive focus on the role of evangelicals misses the heart of the story. At its core, the Bush administration's overt religiosity represents the triumph of an ideological movement that for the past several decades has devoted itself to fashioning a theocratic governing philosophy for the United States-a governing philosophy rooted in Roman Catholicism. Led by Father Richard John Neuhaus, this group of "theoconservatives" has actively sought to roll back the division of church and state in American life. Their aim is to transform the political and cultural landscape of the country to such an extent that the separation of church and state as we have known it will cease to exist. The election of 2000 brought the theocons to the peak of political power and influence in Washington. Their ideas inspire the most controversial and divisive policies of the Bush administration-policies whose ultimate goal is nothing less than the end of secular politics in America. . Click the book cover to read more.








A History of the End of the World
How the Most Controversial Book in the Bible Changed the Course of Western Civilization
by Jonathan Kirsch
SEPTEMBER 2006. Harper SF.
From Publishers Weekly The question of how and when the world will end has captivated thinkers for centuries. Wars, natural disasters, social upheaval and personal suffering often send believers back to the writings of their prophets and seers, whose gift is to bring satisfying answers to such questions. The book most studied in the Western tradition is Revelation, the last entry in the Christian canon. Kirsch, an attorney and book columnist for the Los Angeles Times, takes the reader on a delightful 2,000-year journey as he explores a text he describes as "a romantic tale, full of intrigue and suspense" and shows how churches, philosophers, clergy and armchair interpreters have promoted their political, social and religious agendas based on their belief that the end was imminent. Some of this history can be quite sobering, as the powerful have waged wars and built societies based on their varying perceptions of Revelation's message. However, consistent with Kirsch's earlier literary efforts, in particular The Harlot by the Side of the Road, the author exercises great care while treating his material with both sobriety and a healthy sense of the ironic. Written clearly and for a general audience, this is a fine book that merits wide readership. Click the book cover to read more.








The Littlest Hitler
Stories
by Ryan Boudinot
September 2006. Counterpoint / Perseus
In the title story, a little boy dresses as Hitler for Halloween. The girl who he fancies dresses as Anne Frank. Ummm. O. Henry never thought up stories like these. In another story, teens in the future must kill their parents (preferably with ice picks) to get accepted into the colleges of their choice. Is this the influence of Yaddo. Such are the stories of Mr. Boudinit (author, and employee at Amazon.com) Click the book cover to read more.








The Dissident
A Novel
by Nell Freudenberger
September 2006. Ecco
A famous performance artist and political activist accepts an artist's residency in Los Angeles, where he is to be hosted by a wealthy Beverly Hills family. As the dissident becomes increasingly entangled in their lives, Freudenberger opens the door on his past in Beijing, revealing an artistic subculture at the height of its influence. The Seattle Times remarked that Freudenberger possesses "a merciless and often hilarious eye for family dynamics, and an equally sharp eye for cultures in collision." These talents and many more are on full display in this extraordinary first novel. Click the book cover to read more.








The Lost is the most gripping, the most amazing true story I have read in years. ...
THE LOST
A SEARCH FOR SIX OF SIX MILLION
By Daniel Mendelsohn
September 2006. Harper
Many of you might hae followed parts of this, or the seed for this, book in Slate.com. "Even later, after I was old enough to have learned about the war... it was hard to imagine just how they had been killed.... When? Where? How? With guns? In the gas chambers?" This is the odyssey. After discovering letters written by his grandfather in 1939, the author embarks on a hunt for what happened to six of his relatives. He travels to three continents and 12 countries. Along the way he creates a moving story of suspense and mystery and an eloquent discussion on memory and history and the stories families tell.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19292
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19350
From Booklist: As a boy, Mendelsohn was not only entranced by the stories his grandfather told about growing up in the little Galician town of Bolechow but also attuned to the sorrow that shadowed every tale: his grandfather's oldest brother, Shmiel, his wife, and their four daughters had been killed by the Nazis. So affected was Mendelsohn by his legacy, he eventually embarked on a quest to find out exactly what happened to his six lost relatives. A classicist and formidable literary critic, Mendelsohn performs extraordinary feats of factual and emotional excavation in this finely wrought, many-faceted narrative, a work best described as Talmudic. Autobiography is entwined with revelatory commentary on the Torah, while his affecting chronicle of his journeys to Israel, Australia, Stockholm, Vienna, and, most movingly, Bolechow itself set the stage for Mendelsohn's sometimes perplexing, always intense conversations with his newly discovered cousins. Shmiel, Ester, Lorka, Frydka, Ruchele, and Bronia gradually come into focus, as does a shocking vision of the hell Bolechow became as neighbors tortured and murdered neighbors. Mendelsohn's tenacious yet artistic, penetrating, and empathic work of remembrance recalibrates our perception of the Holocaust and of human nature.
MacArthur Fellowship recipient Charles Simic, writing in The NY Review of Books, adds: "...The Lost is the most gripping, the most amazing true story I have read in years. It tells about the search for six of the author's relatives and the solution to the mystery of their disappearance in the Holocaust. Daniel Mendelsohn grew up in a family troubled by their unknown fate, close to a grandfather for whom the loss of his brother, sister-in-law, and four nieces was the greatest tragedy of his life. Neither he nor anyone else had any clear idea of what happened to them. After the war, there had been vague and conflicting rumors, but nothing since. When he was a little boy, Mendelsohn writes, elder relatives at family gatherings used to burst into tears because of his resemblance to the missing Uncle Shmiel. That would start them whispering, but since they talked in Yiddish, a language the boy could not understand, when he did learn something, it was long afterward.
Once he heard someone mention four beautiful daughters. They were all raped, his mother blurted out on another occasion. He understood his grandfather to say that they were hiding in a castle. This didn't make much sense, for judging from other family stories, Bolechów, a village of a few thousand people in eastern Poland, from which they all came, was not a kind of place one would expect to find castles. There were still other versions of the events, how they were betrayed by their Polish maid or how one, or possibly two, of the daughters had escaped into the woods and joined the Ukrainian partisans. As Mendelsohn grew older, these scraps of information about the lost relatives, too fragmentary to make the barest outline of a story, began to interest him more and more. He started asking his grandfather and other members of the family questions about their background. They in turn were pleased to have someone so young be interested in something so old and were ready to tell him everything they knew, except when it came to Uncle Shmiel and his family, they didn't even know the years of their deaths.
It wasn't just the dates he needed. He wanted stories about the people in the few photographs the family still had of them, some little anecdote that would rescue them from their anonymity, their generic status as victims, and restore to them their reality as particular human beings. What Mendelsohn sets out to uncover about the past would not be a simple undertaking even in emigrant families with no connection to the Holocaust, but with their own epic journeys from country to country. I, for instance, know next to nothing about my great-grandparents in Serbia and the people I could have asked about them were scattered all over the world and are now dead. It is sobering to realize that one little story can keep someone living on in a descendant's memory. Once even that is forgotten, the person vanishes as if he never existed. There are many books written about the search for relatives lost in the Holocaust; what makes this one unique, among other things, is the amount of time that has elapsed. Can one solve a crime that is more than sixty years old? I didn't think so until I read The Lost..."
Click the book cover to read more.




MENDEL'S DAUGHTER
A MEMOIR
By Martin Lemelman, Kutztown University
Free Press (October 10, 2006)
'My precious Martin,' [my mother] said, 'you now have 52 years. This is the same age from my father when he was murdered. Listen to me, Mattaleh! Sometimes your memories are not your own.' " This is the story of Martin's mother, Gusta Schechter, her bravery, her perseverance, her youth in Poland and her escape after hiding... all recounted in graphic novel form, all recounted to Martin after a frozen chicken broke Gusta's foot, and forced her to stay off her feet.. and thus... tell her son her life story. He videotaped her story, and then forgot about it, until, after her death in 1996, she spoke to her son in a dream.
From Publishers Weekly: In what is clearly a labor of love, artist Lemelman has created a "memoir" told in the voice of his mother, Gusta, a survivor of the Holocaust. With the characteristic phrasing of one who comes to English later in life, Gusta's is a gritty eyewitness report on the great upheaval of eastern Europe in the 1930s and '40s, based on Lemelman's recording of his mother in 1989; at the harshest moments, the reader can take a small bit of comfort that Gusta survived to live a long life in the U.S.A. Her tale begins with her childhood in the town of Germakivka, Poland (in the current-day Ukraine), and kicks into high gear when the Nazis bring war into her village, destroying an entire way of living. Her voice rolls on inexorably, a stark account of human weakness and fear, tragic missteps with fatal consequences, and unimaginable hardships as she survives for two years with two brothers in a hole in the ground. Lemelman's subdued art gives the story its heart; with a combination of charcoal drawings and photographs, he creates a sense both of an almost mythical time gone by and the very real lives that were snuffed out Click the book cover to read more.








Sala's Gift
My Mother's Holocaust Story
by Ann Kirschner, PhD (Dean, CUNY)
November 2006, Free Press
See also: http://letterstosala.org/
"In rare moments of retrospection, my mother would tell us about her arrival in the United States.... But even as a child, I was unconvinced. My mother was substituting a happy ending for an untold story."
For nearly fifty years, Sala Kirschner kept a secret: she had spent five years in seven Nazi work camps. It was not until 1991 that she showed her daughter a priceless collection of more than 350 gripping and poignant letters and a diary that revealed the astonishing story of her survival in Hitler's Germany. After volunteering to take her delicate, older sister's (Raizel) place for what she thought was a six-week stay in one of the first Nazi work camps in 1940, Ann Kirschner's mother left her parents and a large extended family of siblings, nieces, nephews, and in-laws, to take a train away from the Polish city of Sosnowiec that had been her entire world. Little did she know that the six weeks would stretch into five years of slavery. She survived thanks to extraordinary luck, and help, and by the war's end only she and two sisters remained alive. Sala Kirschner's odyssey, documented in precious letters, photographs, and keepsakes, lay hidden in a cardboard box as she built a new life in America. Only when faced with heart bypass surgery at the age of 67 did she make a gift to her daughter: of letters, of memories, and of an identity whose rediscovery has challenged and deepened their relationship in surprising ways. There are letters to and from more than 80 people that were preserved. Sala was actually saved from emotional collapse by Ala Gertner, another young woman, who was later killed in the final days of the war at Auschwitz for organizing an armed uprising there. One of the last great survivor narratives, Sala's Gift is as moving and unforgettable as The Diary of Anne Frank. Click the book cover to read more.








The Ziz And the Hanukkah Miracle
by Jacqueline Jules, Katherine Janus Kahn (Illustrator)
September 2006. Kar ben
. Click the book cover to read more.








Goodnight Nobody
A Novel Now in Paperback
by Jennifer Weiner
September 2006. Paperback ediition.
For Kate Klein, a semi-accidental mother of three, suburbia has been full of unpleasant surprises. Her once-loving husband is hardly ever home. The supermommies on the playground routinely snub her. Her days are spent carpooling and enduring endless games of Candy Land, and at night, most of her orgasms are of the do-it-yourself variety. When a fellow mother is murdered, Kate finds that the unsolved mystery is the most exciting thing to happen in Upchurch, Connecticut, since her neighbors broke ground for a guesthouse and cracked their septic tank. Even though the local police chief warns her that crime-fighting's a job best left to the professionals, Kate launches an unofficial investigation -- from 8:45 to 11:30 on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, when her kids are in nursery school. As Kate is drawn deeper into the murdered woman's past, she begins to uncover the secrets and lies behind Upchurch's picket-fence facade -- and considers the choices and compromises all modern women make as they navigate between marriage and independence, small towns and big cities, being a mother and having a life of one's own. Click the book cover to read more.








Life, Death & Bialys
A Father/Son Baking Story
by Dylan Schaffer
September 2006. Bloomsbury
A mystery writer and his strange (and estranged) father bake their way to truth, reconciliation, and forgiveness.
In 2002 Flip Schaffer asked his son to join him in an intensive bread class at a fancy French culinary school in New York City. At, first, the idea seemed considerably less than half-baked. The two hadn't spent much time together-not since Flip left Dylan and his siblings in the care of their mentally ill mother thirty years before (his mother would frequently inform him and his siblings that she would probably be dead on the bathroom floor when he came home from school). Neither knew the first thing about making bread. And, Flip's end-stage lung cancer was expected to kill him long before the class began.
But Flip made it. The two spent seven days at the French Culinary Institute becoming artisanal bakers and seven tumultuous nights in a shabby Bowery hotel getting to know each other. And to their mutual astonishment, just in time, they came to something like terms of forgiveness. As moving as it is irreverent, Life, Death & Bialys is about how an imperfect father said goodbye to his son and to his city and how a reluctant son discovered the essence of forgiveness. Dylan Schaffer is the author of the award winning legal thrillers Misdemeanor Man, which won Mystery Ink Magazine's 2004 Gumshoe Award for best debut, and I Right the Wrongs, both of which were Booksense picks. In his spare time he is a criminal defense lawyer who has served as appellate counsel in hundreds of cases ranging from drunk driving to multiple murders. He lives in Oakland, California, with many animals and one wife.
Als drait zich arum broit un toit It all comes down to bread and death-Yiddish proverb
Click the book cover to read more.








Nonviolence
25 Lessons from the History of a Dangerous Idea
by Mark Kurlansky
September 2006. Random House
In this timely, highly original, and controversial narrative, New York Times bestselling author Mark Kurlansky discusses nonviolence as a distinct entity, a course of action, rather than a mere state of mind. Nonviolence can and should be a technique for overcoming social injustice and ending wars, he asserts, which is why it is the preferred method of those who speak truth to power. Nonviolence is a sweeping yet concise history that moves from ancient Hindu times to present-day conflicts raging in the Middle East and elsewhere. Kurlansky also brings into focus just why nonviolence is a "dangerous" idea, and asks such provocative questions as: Is there such a thing as a "just war"? Could nonviolence have worked against even the most evil regimes in history? Click the book cover to read more.








THE SECRET WORLD OF KABBALAH (for kids)
By Rabbi Judith Z. Abrams
FALL 2006. KAR BEN
Ages 11 and up
As if kids don't have enough to deal with... This is a book to explain the celebrity infused Kabbalah for kids.. but seriously, she will tell you why people are into the fad of wearing a red string wristband. Click the book cover to read more.








Speaking of red strings and Kabbalah water, let's pile on the band wagon and grab some of the disposable income of kids.. with....
The 72 Names of God for Kids
A Treasury of Timeless Wisdom
by Yehuda Berg, Dev Ross
FALL 2006. Kabbalah Center Water Company and Publishing BEN
Ages 4 - 8
A follow-up to the best-selling The 72 Names of God. Purports to be an inspiring book provides a way for children of all ages to gain a deeper understanding of their innate spiritual selves and find self-esteem, true friendship, love, and light. Click the book cover to read more.








From a book above on nonviolence... to a book by someone violent
JUST IN TIME FOR YOM KIPPUR and KOL NIDRE
I, Goldstein
My Screwed Life
by Al Goldstein of screw magazine fame
with Josh Alan Friendman and Richard Jaccoma
September 28, 2006. Thunder
The key distinction between Al Goldstein and Hugh Hefner is that the last thing on earth Al would be caught doing is taking himself seriously. Otherwise, given the amount of trouble Al has seen, his autobiography reads more like a tragedy than the absurd, uproarious comedy it is. Like a fat tiger with nine lives, Al Goldstein constantly collides with his own mortality, yet has survived for 69 years, so far.
Recently, after finally succeeding in cannibalizing his entire fortune, Goldstein toughed his way through a full year homeless on the streets of New York -- merely his latest accomplishment. His list of priors involve two dozen arrests, four ex-wives, Mafia hit contracts, thousands of death threats, innumerable medical procedures, and constant legal attack throughout his 34 years publishing Screw. Al's blood enemies include politicians, D.A.'s, CEO's and religious officials. When Goldstein was acquitted on pornography charges in Wichita, Kansas, in 1978, he flew the entire jury to New York to celebrate at Plato's Retreat (The Sex Club), and took them all out to dinner on the anniversary of his acquittal. This landmark victory thereafter insured the right of Americans to view naked sex with or without redeeming social value. Click the book cover to read more.








FROM THE AUTHOR OF "TWO JEWS ON A TRAIN"
One Must Also Be Hungarian
by Adam Biro, with Catherine Tihanyi as the Translator
September 2006. University of Chicago Press
The only country in the world with a line in its national anthem as desperate as "this people has already suffered for its past and its future," Hungary is a nation defined by poverty, despair, and conflict. Its history, of course, took an even darker and more tragic turn during the Holocaust. But the story of the Jews in Hungary is also one of survival, heroism, and even humor-and that is the one acclaimed author Adam Biro sets out to recover in One Must Also Be Hungarian, an inspiring and altogether poignant look back at the lives of his family members over the past two hundred years. A Hungarian refugee and celebrated novelist working in Paris, Biro recognizes the enormous sacrifices that his ancestors made to pave the way for his successes and the envious position he occupies as a writer in postwar Europe. Inspired, therefore, to share the story of his family members with his grandson, Biro draws some moving pictures of them here: witty and whimsical vignettes that convey not only their courageous sides, but also their inner fears, angers, jealousies, and weaknesses-traits that lend an indelible humanity to their portraiture. Spanning the turn of the nineteenth century, two destructive world wars, the dramatic rise of communism, and its equally astonishing fall, the stories here convey a particularly Jewish sense of humor and irony throughout-one that made possible their survival amid such enormous adversity possible. Already published to much acclaim in France, One Must Also Be Hungarian is a wry and compulsively readable book that rescues from oblivion the stories of a long-suffering but likewise remarkable and deservedly proud people. Click the book cover to read more.








HIGHLY RECOMMENDED,, Judaism Unplugged?
GONZO Judaism
A Bold Path for Renewing an Ancient Faith
by Rabbi Niles Goldstein
FALL 2006. St. Martin's Press
When Rabbi Niles Elliot Goldstein isn't smashing toilet fixtures, running The New Shul in Greenwich Village, serving as a rabbi to federal police officers, traveling to Alaska, or writing books, including Lost Souls: Finding Hope in the Heart of Darkness (Crown, 2002), and God at the Edge: Searching for the Divine in Uncomfortable and Unexpected Places (Crown, 2000, he is promoting his message for soul-filled Judaism. In this book, Niles Goldstein rethinks Jewish identity, community, holidays and rituals. He urges readers to study the basics of Judaism, the nuts and bolts, before moving on to study the hyped mystical aspects of the religion. Click the book cover to read more.








TIKKUN READER
THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY
Edited by Michael Lerner
FALL 2006. Rowman and Littlefield
Some of the best essays from Tikkun, which, if you like the journal, is a good thing. Click the book cover to read more.








Goy Crazy
A novel by Melissa Schorr
September 2006. Hyperion
A young adult novel
HILARIOUS NOVEL ABOUT FALLING FOR THE WRONG GOY Rachel Lowenstein can't help it. She's got a massive crush on a goy: Luke Christensen, the gorgeous star of the basketball team at St. Joseph's prep. But as the name implies, he's not exactly in Rachel's tribe. Rachel just knows her parents would never approve. Then Rachel's Jewish grandmother issues a stern edict--"Don't go with the goyim!"-- sealing Rachel's fate and presenting her with a serious dilemma. Everyone's got an opinion-from her annoying neighbor Howard to her newly social-climbing best friend. Should Rachel follow her heart and turn her back on her faith? Or should she heed her family's advice and try and find a nice Jewish boy? With an unforgettable cast of characters and razor-sharp wit, Melissa Schorr's debut novel is an engaging comedy about a girl's decision to go goy crazy. Click the book cover to read more.








YES, BUT IS IT GOOD FOR THE JEWS
BY JONNY GELLER
FALL 2006. BLOOMSBURY
I remember that Jewish newspaper that headlined: Earthquake in Mexico.. No Jews Hurt. We are a Jewish-centric people, and now this author has spun our focus into a book:
From the Amish to Zoolatry, this hilarious tour of world history and culture will answer the question on everyone's lips this Chanukah: "Yes, but is it good for the Jews?" Jews have long evaluated everything from current events to dinner menus through the prism of "Yes But is it good for the Jews." Finally, there is a method by which to evaluate this burning question-the ancient art of Judology. It's easy: Add "Anti-Semitic Potential" (an open and obvious threat to the Jews) + "Impact on the World" (10 years or more) x "The J-Factor" (level of "jewishness")= Tzurus (Yiddish word for trouble), and divide by the Mystical Kabalistic number "Seven." Readers will no longer be tortured by such decisions as: where to vacation (Micronesia good, Venezuela bad), what television to watch (Desperate Housewives no, Eurovision Song Contest yes), which celebrity to marry (Scarlett Johanssen yes, Joaquin Phoenix no), whether it's okay to use Google, enter a spelling bee, and much more. Extras include: the "How Jew Are You" quiz, handy lists such as "Jews Who Switched"; the "Six Degrees of Larry David" games, plus timelines, charts, and graphs. We guarantee you won't find this valuable info in either the Torah or the Kabbalah.
From Publishers Weekly: London literary agent Geller revolves his mock science of Judology around an equation that weighs the potential for anti-Semitic backlash, links to Jewish culture and worldwide cultural influence to determine whether a given subject is, as the old saying goes, "Good for the Jews" or "Not Good for the Jews." Of course, the numbers turn out to be largely meaningless, as the real substance of Geller's evaluations lie in his idiosyncratic commentaries. In some cases, the effort to find a Jewish connection feels strained, and most of the discussions are lightweight. The Godfather films, for example, are Good because they diverted attention from Jewish gangsters, while Nigella Lawson's love of ham and pork dishes make her Not Good. But there are thoughtful discussions of subjects like eBay's policy against allowing auctions of Nazi memorabilia and the impact of TiVo on Orthodox TV viewing. A lengthy section toward the end assesses various countries for their suitability as vacation spots, and a recurring sidebar presents a world history timeline from a Jewish perspective (the Louisiana Purchase is dubbed "a sweet kosher deal"). Unfortunately, there's really only one joke here, and though it's amusing in small doses, it can't sustain the entire book. Click the book cover to read more.








The SCar of David
A Novel
by Susan Abulhawa
FALL 2006. NewSouthBooks.com
Set within one of the 20th century's most intractable political conflicts, The Scar of David is historical fiction about a Palestinian family from the village of Ein Hod, which was emptied of its inhabitants by the newly formed state of Israel in 1948. Three massacres and two major wars provide the foundation to a love story and the eventual reunion of family members lost to each other for two decades. This story reveals Palestinians with the undaunted will to take their place among the nations as human beings, worthy of human rights, and the basic dignity of heritage. Click the book cover to read more.








THE ONE FROM THE OTHER
A BERNIE GUNTHER NOVEL
by Philip Kerr
FALL 2006. Putnam
Germany, 1949: Amid the chaos of defeat, it's a place of dirty deals, rampant greed, fleeing Nazis, and all the intrigue and deceit readers have come to expect from this immensely talented thriller writer. In The One from the Other, Hitler's legacy lives on. For Bernie Gunther, Berlin has become too dangerous, and he now works as a private detective in Munich. Business is slow and his funds are dwindling when a woman hires him to investigate her husband's disappearance. No, she doesn't want him back-he's a war criminal. She merely wants confirmation that he is dead. It's a simple job, but in postwar Germany, nothing is simple-nothing is what it appears to be. Accepting the case,Bernie takes on far more than he'd bargained for, and before long, he is on the run, facing enemies from every side. Click the book cover to read more.








EMMA LAZARUS
by Esther Schor
FALL 2006. A Schocken Nextbooks Jewish Encounters title
Booklist writes: From Booklist Writing with great enthusiasm, Schor confirms that the author of "The New Colossus," the sonnet ensconced in the base of the Statue of Liberty, was no one-hit wonder. Until the 1930s, "The Banner of the Jew," a rallying song for establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine, was her best-known composition. Lazarus (1849-87) was also controversially famous for the prose "Epistle to the Hebrews," expounding her ideas about Jewish identity as well as Palestine. Spurred by the crisis of the pogroms following Czar Alexander II's 1881 assassination, Lazarus set aside the gentility of her wealthy upbringing to advocate for the thousands of Jews whose flight for life left them destitute in New York. Her encounters with shtetl refugees and her trust in American freedom confirmed her belief that Judaism should be secular and universal, committed to justice, freedom, and revolution. She anticipated Zionism and, as a radical who didn't embrace socialism, much of non-Marxist Jewish politics. Moreover, Schor argues with engrossing persuasiveness, she "invented the role of the American Jewish writer." Click the book cover to read more.








Water from the Well
Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Leah
by Anne Roiphe
September 2006. Morrow
Water from the Well is a journey four thousand years back to the time of Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Leah. These biblical matriarchs and their fascinating stories come alive in the hands of renowned author Anne Roiphe, whose graceful prose captures the biblical landscape and makes it take flight. As each story unfolds, we find that the matriarchs had to overcome the same devastating obstacles women face today, such as infertility, lust, abandonment, and uncertainty. Roiphe demonstrates how the lives of Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Leah helped to lay the foundation of womanhood in the Western world. Though these women lived many years ago, their lives bear a striking resemblance to our own. They suffered the same pressures and pitfalls, enjoyed the same pleasures and activities, and shared the same responsibilities as today's wives, mothers, and daughters. What is more, they managed to cope with betrayal, death, sacrifice, and jealousy while dealing with the emerging reality of a new faith period. Little of the drama in the Bible is seen from a woman's perspective. Would Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Leah share the same point of view as contemporary women? With life having changed so drastically from the days of the Bible, what can we really know about the women who appear in one of our most sacred text? In Water from the Well these questions and many others are addressed in a most enriching fashion, allowing us to discover that women played larger roles in biblical history than many care to acknowledge. Roiphe opens a window onto the distant past and presents it, through the tales of four remarkable women, to the modern reader with relevant observations and allegories. Combining the deep insight of Bruce Feiler with the narrative skill of Antonia Fraser, Roiphe delivers a fascinating work that deftly brings these four biblical matriarchs into our own age. Click the book cover to read more.







Is It Good for the Jews?
The Crisis of America's Israel Lobby
by Stephen Schwartz
FALL 2006. DOUBLEDAY
Schwartz has written for THE FORWARD and THE WEEKLY STANDARD. Okay folks.. please read the following with that in mind.
In 2005, two then-officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee were indicted for handing over classified information to a foreign power. That the power in question was assumed to be Israel brought fresh credibility to a conspiracy theory that had been floating around Washington for years: that a powerful "Jewish lobby" controls U.S. policy in the Middle East. The run-up to the Iraq war had provided new grist for this theory. A group of largely Jewish neoconservatives were among the architects of the war, and their motivations for removing Saddam Hussein were alternately ascribed to oil interests and the need to protect Israel. The allegations against these neoconservatives-especially former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz-echoed the case of the notorious Jonathan Pollard who pled guilty of spying for Israel in 1986. In this biting and incisive polemic, journalist and author Stephen Schwartz confronts the myth of a Jewish lobby head on, asking questions that no one else has dared to pose. What is the "Jewish lobby"? How powerful is it? What was its involvement in the preparations for war in Iraq? Was there really a "cabal" of neoconservative Jews in the administration of George W. Bush? How did AIPAC officials come to be accused, in 2004, of espionage? Above all, what is good for the Jews, and who decides it? Many of us forget that in the 1930s, a genuine home-grown fascist movement arose in America. At that time, Schwartz reminds us, it was not the official representatives of the Jewish community that stood up to the fascist goons of New York City, but Jewish socialists-the antecedents of today's neoconservatives. Likewise, today, it has not been the meek and timid leaders of the supposedly all-powerful Jewish Lobby that have defended the Jews but the reviled "neocons" in the Bush Administration. Their strategic vision projects a foreign policy that is both good for America and good for the Jews. As a result, Schwartz predicts an increasing turn for Jewish voters away from their dysfunctional marriage with the Democratic Party and toward the Republicans. Ultimately Schwartz concludes that in today's America, a "Jewish lobby" may no longer be necessary. In the face of the threatened collapse of the Lobby, he argues, American Jews should openly and proudly assume their proper role as moral and religious exemplars for their fellow Americans and cease acting like a frightened minority. Click the book cover to read more.






Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel
The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life
by Jon D. Levenson, Professor of Jewish Studies, Harvard University
September 2006. Yale
This provocative volume explores the origins of the Jewish doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. Jon D. Levenson argues that, contrary to a very widespread misconception, the ancient rabbis were keenly committed to the belief that at the end of time, God would restore the deserving dead to life. In fact, Levenson points out, the rabbis saw the Hebrew Bible itself as committed to that idea. The author meticulously traces the belief in resurrection backward from its undoubted attestations in rabbinic literature and in the Book of Daniel, showing where the belief stands in continuity with earlier Israelite culture and where it departs from that culture. Focusing on the biblical roots of resurrection, Levenson challenges the notion that it was a foreign import into Judaism, and in the process he develops a neglected continuity between Judaism and Christianity. His book will shake the thinking of scholars and lay readers alike, revising the way we understand the history of Jewish ideas about life, death, and the destiny of the Jewish people. Click the book cover to read more.






CAUGHT IN THE THICKET
CHAPTERS OF CRISIS AND DISCONTENT IN THE HISTORY OF HASIDISM
By Professor David Assaf (TAU)
2006. Mercaz Shazar
The leading Historian of Hasidism has written this book that reveals a dark chapter in the early history of the Hasidic movement, a chapter that many would prefer was never discussed. There are seven chapters, one for each of the seven suppressed events. The biggest scoop in the book has to do with the conversion to Christianity of Rabbi Moshe Schneerson in 1820, the youngest son of Rabbi Shneor Zalman of Ladi, the founder of what is now Lubavitcher Hasidism. The affair was known and dealt with in a heated debate among the Maskilim and after them the academic researchers, who tried to blur and even deny the story. Assaf's discovery should put an end to the debate. There was a letter from Moshe to the priest in his town, Oula, requesting conversion, the baptism certificate that was prepared for him and letters from his two brothers to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church in which they state that their brother is mentally ill and ask, in the light of this, to revoke the conversion to Christianity as a step that was taken when he was of unsound mind and that exploited his illness (a description with which Assaf agrees). Chapter Two: 'The Mitnagdim Laughed that He Was Drunk': The Fall of the Seer of Lublin, concerns how one rabbi fell from a window on Simchat Torah. Was he drunk? Most likely it was an attempted seuicide. Chapter Three: 'Happy Are the Persecuted': The Struggle Against Bratslav Hasidism focuses on the persecution of the Breslav Hasidim by other Hasidim in the Nineteenth century. Chapter Four is 'Heretic, Who Believes Not in the Great Leaders of the Time': The Struggle Over the Honor of the Book Or Ha-Hayyim" Chapter Five: 'Excitement of the Soul': The World of Rabbi Akiva Shalom Chajes of Tulchin; Chapter Six: 'How Much Times Have Changed': The World of Rabbi Menachem Nahum Friedman of Itcani; and Chapter Seven: 'Confession of My Tortured Soul': The World of Rabbi Yitzhak Nahum Twersky of Shpikov. Click the book cover to read more.






DISOBEDIENCE
A novel
By NAOMI ALDERMAN
September 2006, Simon and Schuster / Touchstone
From Publishers Weekly: Alderman draws on her Orthodox Jewish upbringing and current life in Hendon, England, for her entertaining debut, which won the Orange Prize for New Writers after it was published in the U.K. in March. In writing about the inhabitants of this small, gossipy society, Alderman cleverly uses a slightly sinister, omniscient "we" to represent a community that speaks with one voice, and her descriptions of Orthodox customs are richly embroidered. Alternating with this perspective is the first-person narrative of Ronit Krushka, a woman who has left the community and is now a financial analyst in New York. After the death of her estranged father, a powerful rabbi, Ronit returns to England to mourn her father and to confront her past, including a female lover. But Ronit's shock that an Orthodox lesbian would marry a man rings false, as does her casually condescending attitude toward the community. By the time of the theatrical, unrealistic climax, Ronit's struggle between religious and secular imperatives gets reduced to cliché ("all we have, in the end, are the choices we make"), but Ronit works well as a vehicle for the opinion that even the most alienated New York Judaism is preferable to the English version, where "the Jewish fear of being noticed and the natural British reticence interact." Click the book cover to read more.






WIDE AWAKE
A Novel by
David Levithan
September 2006, Knopf
Ages 9 and up
From Booklist In Boy Meets Boy (2003), Levithan created a town where being gay is no big thing. In his latest, he imagines a future America--after the Reign of Fear, after the Greater Depression, the War to End All Wars, the Jesus Revolution, and the Prada Riots. Living in this not quite but almost believable America are Duncan and his boyfriend, Jimmy, who start out the book rejoicing that Abe Stein, both gay and Jewish, has been elected president. Unsurprisingly, however, the governor