1 comments about He Also Spoke As A Jew: The Life of James Parkes (Parkes-Wiener Series on Jewish Studies).

1. This work is a detailed and beautifully written biography of one of the best friends the Jewish people ever had, Reverend James Parkes.
   The veteran American - born Israeli writer Haim Chertok has carefully researched Parkes long trail, from lonely isolated Guernsey youth to world- renown as foremost Christian spokesman against Anti-Semitism.
   Chertok delves deeply into the psychological problems Parkes faced when orphaned of his mother at the age of fourteen, and when left alone with his not especially sympathetic father after both his siblings a brother and sister were lost in the First World War.
   Chertok follows Parkes through his own difficult Army service in which he too faced the horror of trench -warfare. He traces his gradual identification with the much maligned isolated Jewish people, and with the flowering of his research on Christian Anti- Semitism.
   Chertok enriches the narrative with stunning comparisons of other English contemporary lives ,as for example in this instructive passage comparing the lives of Orde Wingate and Parkes.
   
   " General Charles Orde Wingate 's background demonstrates both the waywardness of the paths of Philo- Semitism and the potency of the impulse. At his public school he too totally shunned games, and he too was shunned in turn by his mates. His, however was suffering with a contrary spin: whereas Parkes would have given a great deal to romp with the other boys on th playing fields young Wingate's Calvinist upbringing forbade him to play games, regarding them as frivolous and sinful. Because he acted out of conviction, even as a youngster Wingate never lacked self- esteem. The sober, God - fearing boy on Guernsey, on the other hand, was so unassertive and timid that, as he puts it ' had you asked(me)in 1913 to say 'Boo to a goose, I think I would have been uncertain of my ability to do so.
   Wingate was so drawn to Jews and the Zionist cause that when on active duty in Palestine in the late 1930's he secretly trained squads of kibbutzniks to take the offensive on nightly raids against the Arabs.In effect, he became a living embodiment of the romantic hero rising in defence of the Jews on the field of battle.On the other hand, Parkes field of activity was, for the most part, intellectual : he took up the pen instead of the sword".
   And in this Parkes too saw himself as a kind of romantic hero defending the Jewish people. Chertok shows how in doing this Parkes comes to identify with the Jewish people totally. Parkes never leaves his Christian faith, but he demands of Christianity that it recognize the people of Israel and Judaism as an authentic people and faith. He fights against the doctrine of supersessionism , and in standing for the Jewish people in its historical tests comes to speak ' as a Jew'.
   Chertok tells too of how at least part of the Jewish world came to honor Parkes. For Parkes being made President of the British Jewish Historical Society' was one of the great moments of his life.
   Parkes and his wife Dorothy also were visitors to and supporters of the fledgling state of Israel. Parkes understood more deeply even than many contemporary Jews the deep historical and religious connection of the Jewish people to the land of Israel.
   Chertok tells the story of a very noble and yet suffering human being who made a serious contribution to the transformation in Christian- Jewish relations which climaxed perhaps in Pope John Paul Second 'Nostra Aetate'.
   This book is not only a magnificent piece of research , its writing is so rich and enthralling that I literally could not put it down and read it through on two full non- stop days of reading.
   I don't recommend everyone do this.
   But I do recommend that they buy and read this great and moving story of a great and moving human being.

5 comments about Esther's Story.

1. Esther's Uncle Mordecai is the gate keeper.He raised Esther from a baby. My favorite part of the story is when Esther becomes queen of Persia. My favorite part of the story is when he laughed. When he was done laughing, he said "Esther, you are now queen of ersia". I like the book Esther because it is taken from the Bible. The comments are the same as in the Bible. If you really like the Bible story, I insist that you read this book!



2. Esther's Uncle Mordecai is the gate keeper.He raised Esther from a baby. My favorite part of the story is when Esther becomes queen of Persia. My favorite part of the story is when he laughed. When he was done laughing, he said "Esther, you are now queen of ersia". I like the book Esther because it is taken from the Bible. The comments are the same as in the Bible. If you really like the Bible story, I insist that you read this book!



3. I like this book of Esther because it is all what God knew what was going to happen. My first favorite part is when the king crowned Esther Queen of Persia. That was God's plan. Later, a man named Haman wanted all the Jews killed. God wanted Esther to save her people. My second favorite part is when Esther shows up to the king uninvited. Esther had the courage to do that. But, will Esther save her people in time? Read this book to find out.



4. Esther was an ok book. It is easy to read. It was about
   this girl named Esther and how she became a queen and
   saved her people. I recommend this book to anyone.



5. I have read dozens of Jewish books to my kids, and this stands out as one of the few that I am going to keep for THEIR kids. The reason? It portrays Esther as a real person that girls can truly identify with, while not straying from the honest Torah understanding of the holiday. Additionally, the combination of realistic text (presented in the form of Esther's diary) and stunning illustrations make this book a literary treat. I wish this author-illustrator team would get together to create stories about all the Biblical heroines!

1 comments about An Uncertain Hour: The French, the Germans, the Jews, the Klaus Barbie Trial, and the City of Lyon, 1940-1945.

1. I have read a lot about France during W.W. II, but much of it (the politics in particular) had baffled me until I read this book. Morgan takes very dense information and makes it understandable! A very readable and very educational book.

2 comments about Will to Live.

1. This is a remarkable book. It is different from many books on the Holcaust because the main characters do not end up in a concentration camp or death camp. Instead, they remain in Poland and try to survive by maintaining Christian identities. Without giving anything away, the method that the parents select for their baby daughter to escape the ghetto is not to be believed. The book also provides a stunning first-hand account of the conquest of Poland by Germany and the Soviet Union.



2. I justy read this book and it was very informative and interesting. Such hardships by all but informative as well. I just recently visited Dauchau Concentration Camp in Germany and it makes me appreciate what they went through so much more. Everyone should read some of the books on the Holocaust.

3 comments about On the Border.

1. In this memoir, Michel Warschawski does a very good job of laying out the history of the radical left movement in Israel, through his own involvement in it. Not as bold as "Toward an Open Tomb," I think, but very readable and educational.



2. From time to time ossified positions assumed over the Israel-Palestine conflict get a good rattling, and light pours in. Juliano Mer Khamis' film "Arna's Children" forces its viewers to look beyond rigid certaintiesand boundaries, and Michel Warchawski's "On the Border" has a similar effect on readers.
   
   Warschawski's reflective journey from the insulated Jewish community of Strasbourg where his father was chief rabbi to Jerusalem to pursue Talmudic studies becomes what he call a "long march" along the borders that divide not just Israelis and Palestinians, but Jews of Europe and Jews of the Orient, and the religious from the secular. This beautifully crafted memoir charts his evolving consciousness from the 1960s to the start of the second Intifada. Weaving together probing observations of Israeli society and its colonizing mission with a description of his own political choices and their consequences, he conveys faith in a future in which the term "Israeli-Palestinian" does not immediately invoke the word "conflict." The more this book is read, the more likely we are to get there.



3. There have been revolutionaries for ages. And there will be revolutionaries in the future. What impresses me about many of them is the arbitrariness of their causes. That's the feeling I have about this book in particular.
   
   Can left-wingers fight against human rights? Can they be colonialists? Albert Memmi, in his book, "Portrait du Colonise," says they can. And the author quotes Memmi here, and agrees with him. However, Warschawski portrays Memmi and his fellow Zionists as the colonialists!
   
   I guess I can play this game as well, and say that the author is a colonialist. But I'm not sure what the author means by that word. In any case, I think the author is trying to protect the world from human rights. He dismisses Jewish attempts to protect their rights to life, liberty, and property as "tribalism." However, these rights are actually universal, not tribal. These rights ought to apply to all humans in a colorblind world.
   
   We're told that the author is for "peace." But enshrining the tyranny his sort of peace would mean is more than a little frightening.
   
   Abraham Lincoln once said that those who deny rights to others do not deserve those rights for themselves. But I don't want to deny rights to anyone. I simply want to get people to argue for equal rights for everyone. And I want them to insist on the same rights for themselves as for everyone else, not more and not less.

No comments about Great Jewish Thinkers: Their Lives and Work.

3 comments about Heroes of the Holocaust.

1. An uplifting read that shows how humanity's darkest hour brought immeasurable good out of so many ordinary citizens. These courageous individuals risked everything to save the lives, in most cases, of complete strangers. Among the heroes profiled are a high-ranking nazi (at least in title if not in spirit), a guard dog, and several would-be-victims whose God-given ingenuity manifested itself at the right time and enabled them to outwit Hitler's storm troopers.

   As remnants of nazism are staging a comeback--the tragic Elian Gonzales raid and kidnapping proves that it has usurped a bridgehead within the highest ranks of the U.S. federal government-- these inspirational souls will forever stand as exemplary beacons for us to assiduously strive to emulate.




2. This book kept me riveted to the page. I just couldn't put it down! There's been so much written about the horror of the Holocaust- it was great to see true, touching human-interest stories with happy endings, considering the historical circumstances. The writing is excellent and consistent, the book is very well-edited, and the stories are just plain moving. Some of them are amazing beyond what any Hollywood screenwriter could concoct- and these are all factual, having come from direct interviews with the survivors themselves. This book would be great for older kids, too, as it explores some valuable moral territory, without any particular religious or social agenda. These are simply stories that needed to be told, and they are well-told indeed! Great book.



3. Before I read this book, the Holocaust suggested to me a time of darkness and suffering. These stories have showed me that the darkness was sometimes illuminated by works of mercy and the suffering occasionally alleviated by works of charity. It was uplifting to read these true accounts of human love and brotherhood.

No comments about Mordecai Richler: Leaving St. Urbain.

No comments about A Time to Speak.

No comments about Anna's Shtetl (Judaic Studies Series).