1 comments about Jewish Writers of the Twentieth Century.

1. This encyclopedia contains one- thousand word entries on three-hundred and thirty Jewish writers. I have read sample entries, and from them have a great deal of enthusisam about the book. In two of these entries Sorrel Kerbel, the editor and one of the many contributors to the volume interviews Anita Brookner and Cynthia Ozick. She incorportates their remarks in the overview she provides of their work. What I especially liked about this feature was that she asked them how they felt about their Jewishness and the part it played in their writing. Brookner was escapist and defensive. Kerbel however shows how strong an element her Jewishness is in the sensibility of her always slightly alienated - from- British- society characters. Ozick in opposite speaks about the Torah and the Jewish text as at the center of Western Literature.
   Each entry on a particular author also contains bibliography of their work, and suggestions for further reading.
   This seems to me a vital work for every Jewish Library.

4 comments about Lesbian Rabbis: The First Generation.

1. A generation ago, the idea of a woman rabbi would have been unthinkable. Today, we have an entire group of not just women but lesbian rabbis who have become some of the most respected rabbis of our generation. As this book proves, they serve the Jewish community in a number of ways. Bringing disenfranchised Jews into creative, new synagoues, serving traditional congregations and working in a variety of fields helping Jews in ways only rabbis can.

   The group of eighteen women who contributed to this book are pioneers in one sense but simply doing a traditional job that has evolved over several thousand years. The Library of Congress created a new category just for this book, but this is also a very traditional work. Exploring the role of the rabbi and how each individual has struggled to serve her community is a very traditional role for a rabbi.

   The eighteen pieces included are personal and meaningful. The warmth of many of the women whom I know shines through in their work. The beauty and spirit of Judaism is alive in this first generation of Lesbian Rabbis.




2. What an important new book! The editors--pathmaking and wise lesbian rabbis themselves--have compiled an impressive collection. Understanding the special contributions and journeys of lesbian rabbis enriches immeasurably our knowledge of contemporary Jewish life and the contemporary rabbinate--and the possibilities in both.



3. This book is an important part of the historical record documenting Jewish experience--particularly the experience of contemporary Jewish women. The rabbis who contributed essays tell incredible stories. I found them truly inspirational! As lesbians, some of these individuals risked being thrown out of rabbinical school and being fired from their jobs as rabbis. Several paid an extremely high price for their honesty. Others have experienced tremendous welcoming in the the Jewish communities where they function as rabbis. The writers are Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist, and they were ordained in the 70s, 80s and 90s so when you read the whole book you really get a sense of how things have been changing for lesbian and gay rabbis. I recommend the read!



4. And by "long overdue" I am NOT referring to how long I have had this out of the Redwood City library! The authors take a very controversial stance throughout this book, risking their positions while assuming all sorts of positions, if you know what I mean. It was inevitable that this book would be written --I have been following its progress all along. Though I am not a lesbian and am not sure if I could ever be, I do know that if I was a lesbian and believed in Judiasm (which I don't, by the way) I only wish I could handle my faith and my sexual preferences as well as the authors. Kudos to them and kudos to all of you who will buy this book! It is truly a fantastic ride. Or read.

5 comments about A Jump for Life: A Survivor's Journal from Nazi-Occupied Poland.

1. 
   Originally written in 1946, Cyprys' account is remarkably free of the Judeocentric, German-whitewashing, anti-Christian, and anti-Polish tendencies of today. She devotes almost as much attention to German crimes against Poles as to those against Jews. Furthermore, Cyprys makes it clear that the Germans regarded the Poles as having no more inherent right to live than the Jews. Consider what happened when two Poles were mistakenly herded with Jews into a Treblinka-bound train: "Two gentiles in our wagon tried to explain to the Germans that they did not fit into this society and tried to show their documents. All to no avail. `Even if you are not a Jew, you are a damned Pole', yelled the German, and slapped the older woman's face, barking `Polish swine' and with his rifle butt drove her to the wagon." (p. 95).
   
   Cyprys reported a balanced range of Polish attitudes towards Jews (pp. 118-119, 127, 132), some of which varied within the same family (pp. 142-143). Ironically, she was helped by the obsessively anti-Semitic Mrs. Zosia, who felt sorry for the Jews and who aided them (pp. 220-221).
   
   In his FEAR, Jan Tomasz Gross presents a distorted view of Poles acquiring Jewish properties during the German occupation. In contrast, when mentioning how some Poles pretended to be Volksdeutsche in order to join in the German-sponsored pillage of Jewish properties, she nevertheless added: "The local mob usually guided the Germans to the rich Jewish houses and stores. With the deepest shame I must admit that there were some Jews among the scum." (pp. 25-26).
   
   One inflammatory Polonophobic Holocaust myth is the one about Jews, while being transported to the death camps and with full knowledge of their impending deaths, being forced to endure the sight of indifferent or gleeful Polish onlookers. Against such nonsense, we learn that the death trains had small, barred windows well above eye level, and with nothing to stand on in order to look out of them (p. 96). Viewing (in either direction) was nearly impossible. The author and her daughter were loaded on a Treblinka-bound train. It was only with the greatest difficulty that Cyprys was boosted up and enabled to cut through the bars to jump out and to have her daughter Eva (Ewa) get pushed out.
   
   The oft-quoted Polish remarks about Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising "getting burned like bugs", although invariably presented as such, wasn't necessarily derogatory. After all, Poles used the same phrase to refer to themselves in the face of their defenselessness against German incendiary bombing during the Warsaw Uprising! (p. 200).
   
   The Germans strongly promoted alcoholism among Poles. This was done in order to degrade them (Lemkin elaborated on this) and to exploit this dependency as leverage in the denunciation of fugitive Jews (p. 174).
   
   Cyprys elaborates on the semi-collaborationist Polish Blue Police (Policja Granatowa): "There were policemen who would accept neither bribes nor ransoms but, for the sake of their ideology, would hand over the Jews. Looking at this group objectively, however, one has to say that among their ranks there were many Volksdeutsch volunteers. The activities of the Polish police aroused such hostility among the majority of the Polish people, that death sentences were passed on several policemen by the Polish underground organizations and executions were carried out by Polish lads...upon the orders of the Organization a detailed list of all policemen was kept in the Underground offices. These contained, apart from proved misconduct, evidence of their standard of living which ascertained whether a dark blue was profiteering from blackmail or extortion. These lists of evidence were kept till the Warsaw Uprising: I do not know whether they survived the insurrection." (p. 138).
   
   However, by no stretch of the imagination was the Polish Blue Police the main force in the roundups of Jews for their deaths: "On about 5 August [1942] all `workshop territories' were hermetically closed and the Germans and Ukrainians started a ruthless expulsion of anyone found outside these areas--always with the efficient help of the Jewish militia. Wherever a German or a Ukrainian did not venture the militia men would gladly fish out as many as possible of those still hidden in cellars and vaults, only to oblige the Germans." (p. 52).
   
   Most Polish blackmailers (szmalcowniki), "the scum of mankind" (p. 119), took only part of the belongings of their Jewish victims and didn't usually actually denounce Jews to the Germans (pp. 119-120). They sometimes excused their conduct by their poverty and even gave the Jews advice on how better to disguise their Jewishness (p. 140).
   
   Underworld Poles weren't the only ones that fugitive Jews feared: "The Jewish Gestapo men who remained alive were very dangerous. Their eyes were penetrating and Jews pointed out by them were lost beyond hope." (p. 165). Cyprys personally observed them shouting Jewish slogans or singing Jewish songs in order to provoke a telltale reaction in fugitive Jews among the pedestrians (pp. 165-166).
   
   Cyprys alludes to Zegota as follows: "It goes without saying that only a fraction of the Jews in hiding knew about the existence of this committee. Those who were in touch with the patriotic `Polish intelligentsia' or people who worked in the Underground were most likely to benefit. Everything was obviously carried out in the greatest secrecy, using all available means of security." (p. 150). Complaints about Zegota aiding only a modest number of Jews are clearly off the mark.
   
   In fact, Cyprys has a very sage understanding of ALL underground activities: "In reality underground activities were extremely stressful and required a great deal of steadiness and concentration. And because it had gone on for so many years, it was exhausting even to the strongest individuals and led to many casualties." (p. 184).
   
   Cyprys provides a level of detail about the Warsaw Uprising usually done by Polish authors. We read, for instance, about the devastating effects of the German nebelwerfer ("roaring cow" or "cupboard"), and the systematic destruction of Warsaw by Germans AFTER the Uprising.



2. It is ironic that the author of this amazing journal never saw her work published, instead it was her two daughters who published it after her death. It is a gripping read,and recounts how the author escapes a death train heading to Treblinka by sawing off the bars on the window of the train and jumping out of it into the wilderness, together with her 2 yr old daughter! It is so much more than an account of survival, it gives one pause for thought as to what one would do given similar circumstances...I myself am mother to a toddler, and reading this just made me feel connected to the author, in that I too would do anything for my child, but do I possess the same courage as Ruth? It's impossible to imagine her life in occupied Poland, trying to live on the Aryan side, amongst Gentiles, keeping her daughter amongst strangers, not knowing if she will be saved...this is an amazing account of a woman's courage, a mother's love, and undying faith.



3. I read this book about 6 years ago, in a period when I read every Holocaust testimony I could lay my hands on, to help me understand the first hand testimony I, alone, had received from a lifelong friend who herself survived the Vilna ghetto, and three concentration camps.
   
   As Cat R reports, the author's daughter found her mother's manuscript in 1979, after the former had died. The text gives a very personal account of the Nazi invasion of Poland, this one from the perspective of a Warsaw native shipped with her small daughter, in January 1943, aboard a cattle car from the ghetto, bound to a certain death at Treblinka.
   
   Certain except that she fought back. She knew from rumors what happened there. With a hacksaw blade she had concealed, she determined to saw through the bars of one of two small windows in her car, and reached them from the shoulders of two strong young boys willing to help her.
   
   To ensure that the boys threw her daughter out the window after she had jumped, Eva gave a bag of chocolate, sugar and bread to a sympathetic friend too old to join her, and asked her to ensure they got it if they did as she had asked.
   
   The jump was but the beginning of one Jewish mother's perilous and somehow miraculous bid to survive--with her child.
   
   In the end, this sufferings of this mother and child were far less severe than those of my friend Masha. Nevertheless, this is a gripping, and important account, not to be missed.
   
   --Alyssa A. Lappen



4. This wartime memoir was discovered by the author's daughter in 1979, following her mother's death. It relates the events of the Nazi persecution in Poland, the suffering and degradation of the Warsaw Ghetto ... and an extraordinary courage and will to survive. Realizing the fate in store for her, Ruth made plans for escape. In the winter of 1943, she and two-year-old Eva were rounded up and crowded into a cattle-car for the fatal journey to Treblinka. A single chance for life remained to them: a perilous jump from the moving train. Their first night of freedom was spent huddling together in a freezing, abandoned dog-kennel, with Ruth licking her daughter's wounds. In their danger-fraught flight for survival, they encountered kind-hearted Catholics who risked their lives to aid a Jewish mother and child. This book is a powerful first-hand account of terrifying times, and a testimony to a mother's courage.



5. This would have to be one of the few diaries that tells the story of the horror of the Holocaust. Ruth lives through many tough situations, where her quick thinking saves her and her daughter Eva. It paints a clear picture of how people in Warsaw were treated, and how the Germans got rid of the Jews in the Ghetto and in Warsaw. It is rather sad, but it is true. If you read this story, you will learn first hand about the life that Jews lived in the Holocaust. I suggest reading it!

1 comments about Always from Somewhere Else (The Helen Rose Scheuer Jewish Women's Series).

1. Agosin creates yet another beautiful piece of literature in "Always from Somewhere Else." Her emotional and thought-provoking style provides the reader with an incredible inside view of Jewish life in Chile. A duet of pain and beauty, Agosin's memoir of her father's life is vivid and alive. This story, one of lost and newfound identity has the strong possibility of being close to us all. This book is a definite candidate for everyone's personal library of favorites.

No comments about Elsie's War: A Story of Courage in Nazi Germany.

No comments about Inheriting the Holocaust: A Second-generation Memoir.

No comments about Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewess.

1 comments about Life Death Memories.

1. Life Death Memories is the deeply personal and candid recollections of Thomas T. Hecht, a Jewish man who grew up in a Polish shetl during the murderous years of Hitler's horrific and genocidal "Final Solution". Hecht's village culture was obliterated in the wake of the Holocaust; scarce survivors and scarcer memories of it remain today. A memorial to those murdered and a powerful testimony to the human capacity for mass atrocity, Life Death Memories is a welcome addition to Holocaust Studies reference collections and not-to-be-missed powerful reading.

1 comments about In the Ghettos: Teens Who Survived the Ghettos of the Holocaust (Teen Witnesses to the Holocaust).

1. This book, In the Ghettos, is (in my opinion) a very good and factual book. It gives the straight facts. In the Ghettos has very good photoghraghs right from the ghettos. It also gives interviews of people who survived the Holocaust. In the back of the book there is a glossary, timeline, and index, which i found very convenient with all the big words. This book tells about some major ghettos and in the front of the book it has a map of all the ghettos, labor camps, and extermination camps. On the back cover it tells of the eight books in this series of books. So if you enjoy this one as i did you can read the others.

3 comments about The Last Days of the Jerusalem of Lithuania: Chronicles from the Vilna Ghetto and the Camps 1939-1944.

1. While I may or may not agree with the other reviewers' suggestions, I am puzzled by one thing: their inability to call things by their name. I am specifically referring here to their use of terms like "Fascists" or "Nazis". Is the war in Iraq being fought by "Republicans"? Was it the "Nixonites" who committed the My Lai massacre in Vietnam? The Germans may be trying to whitewash themselves - and they have indeed been doing so since the end of the war - but why is the rest of the world playing by?
   
   Otherwise, I heartily recommend Kruk's compelling book to anyone interested in 20th century history - and the general history of mankind as well.



2. Herman Kruk was a librarian. Even as the Vilna [Vilnius] ghetto was reduced to inhuman conditions, Kruk risked his life to smuggle books into the public library he set up. While the Nazi regime tried to reduce Jews to a subhuman status, with harsh labor, restrictions, and eventual extermination; Kruk helped to initiate literary contests, plays, and lecture series. His diary reflects the intellectual and cultural activities of the ghetto, as well as the minutiae of the library.
   
   Kruk's diary is an overwhelmingly human document. His tears for the destruction of his beloved Warsaw and the personal horror felt when hearing rumors of the massacre of Jews elsewhere in Europe are not diluted or diminished by his desire that his diary become a publicly read record of the destruction of Jewish Vilna.



3. This is a deeply affecting work, compulsively readable, yet always painful to read, account of the slow garroting of the Jewish community in Vilna. From one page to the next, one is amazed (even now) at the viciousness of the Fascists and the humanity, ingenuity, courage of those they oppressed. God and the devil are both in the details and Kruk gives us plenty of all three.