5 comments about To Life.

1. My daughter just loves this book. She read it three times and now asked me to get her more books written by this auther.



2. I quite liked this book, particularly because it's a sequel to 'The Cage,' and there just aren't that many books of this nature out there currently, about what happened to the survivors after the Shoah and how they picked up their lives in the first five or so years afterwards, when they were coming to grips with everything that had happened, searching desperately for relatives, finding out they may have been the only survivors left, rebuilding their lives, and immigrating, be it to America, Israel, Canada, Australia, or someplace else. The first part of the book is quite good, the part right after Riva and her friend Karola are liberated and eventually make their way back to Lodz, only to find they appear to be the only survivors of their families and no one has come back to look for them yet; after that the two girls move on to the city of Wroclaw, where they eventually have to part ways and move on to different DP camps, though not before each have gotten married to men they met and fell in love with in that rather short time period. And because of the way in which Grafenort is liberated, the girls are pretty much on their own and have to fend for themselves and make their own way to safety and back to Poland; they didn't want to stick around for another group of Russian soldiers after the ones who liberated them just left, or for personnel such as doctors and relief workers to come, the way it happened in other liberated camps such as Bergen-Belsen. They really had to rely upon themselves.
   
   I think the book could have been more gripping and personally involving and intense had there been more details and character development; it's not that I didn't like the characters and feel for them, just that a lot of these very emotional situations and interactions are related in almost a matter-of-fact way instead of really delving into more deep and complex descriptions. Maybe that's because most of the chapters are so short; I know this is intended for a younger audience, but I've read a lot of YA and older JA books on this same subject which had a more emotionally harrowing, personal, and memorable feel to them because there were more details and not as much repetition or frequent skipping of blocks of time. The obvious bravery, courage, love, and hope against hope Riva, her friends, and her family experienced in these years would have been even more obvious and emotionally involving had they just been developed in more depth more often instead of being told in a formulaic brief way.



3. The author makes the book "real". The descriptive words used in this novel makes you get the feelings that the characters in the book feels. Every piece of the book can be painted into a picture. After years and years of agony. The families get split up during the Holocaust. The family reunites together and sharing the adventures they had from moving camps to camps. A scene that I really enjoyed is the scene when the main characters get freed from the death camps and the gas chambers. I enjoyed this book because I like war books, and I recommend this book to people that want a little bit of action and to people that like history. After I read this novel, I realized that people shouldn't be racists or a whole new war might begin.



4. After I read The Cage, I just had to read To Life. It is such a moving and touching story! Ruth Minsky Sender, the author of these two wonderful books, came and visited my school. She is an amazing women! She spent the day telling the facts that arent in her books. She is such a precious and delicate women that has so much information to offer.



5. Some of you are probably wondering why I wrote this review and how I had the nerve to criticize a book in which a Holocaust survivor told their story. So first I must say that I am NOT belittling the horrors that Ruth Minsky Sender went through or minimizing her astounding bravery as she faced them, I am critquing the way this book was presented.

   Picking up right were "The Cage" left off, "To Life" chronicles Riva's (Ruth's) life immediately following her liberation from a concentration camp. Horrors still plague Riva, and she finds that the heartache of discovering the deaths of her family member and friends and attempting to rebuild her life is in some ways as horrible as the Holocaust itself. But Riva carries bravely on, marrying fellow survivor Moniek, having children, and wondering what her future holds.

   The values of hope, courage, bravery, optimism, selflessness, and love shown throughout "To Life" are totally precious and the finest aspect of this novel. While portraying the intense grief she endured following WW2, Sender also portrays her (and her family's) determination to focus on their new life and make the best of their situation. Although many of the book's settings and happenings are depressing, Sender refuses to make "To Life" a book without some happiness and much hope for the future. For its portrayal of many excellent ideals, "To Life" is to be commended.

   So, as I have said before, I am not attacking the author when I discuss the less-than-perfect aspects of this book. Really, I think the "book" would have been excellent were it simply shortened somewhat and made into a final "section" of "The Cage." Many of the happenings in "To Life" were repetitive, and the happenings in the author's life shared through this book would have been even more moving and gripping if they were shortened somewhat; it would have heightened their impact.

   Hopefully no one takes offense from this review. The events in this book deserve to be shared and heard, and I believe that it is important to relieve what Jews suffered AFTER the Holocaust, I just believe the author's story could have been told in a different and better format.

4 comments about Herod: King of the Jews and Friend of the Romans (Studies on Personalities of the New Testament).

1. Any scholarship dealing with the Herods has to begin with a proper understanding of the genealogy, otherwise, the historical record in this text cannot account for subsequent history. This book is inaccurate as to why and how the united kingdom of Palestine subsequently got divided into tetrarchies (tetra, of course, meaning four). From the get go, there is an inaccurate, incomplete time line which dates the birth of only three of Herod the Great's sons which includes the eldest, Antipater, and the youngest, Philip. Archelaus (5th in the line of succession) is also included. While there is mention of Alexander, Aristobulus, and Herod Antipas (2nd, 3rd & 6th) their birth dates are not given. However, Herod Philip, the 4th eldest, has no mention at all in the text while the vast majority of modern scholars on the subject of the Herods includes him in the genealogy & history of Herod the Great. To understand how and why the country was divided after Herod the Great's death, one has to understand there were four and not three surviving sons in the line of succession. Herod's first will had designated his eldest son, Antipater, as heir of a united Palestine. But when he died, Herod's second will (submitted long before Herod's death) called for the kingdom to be broken up between his remaining four surviving sons, i.e. Herod Philip, Archelaus, Herod Antipas, and Philip. The younger Philip is often confused with his older brother because the latter never served as a ruler having abdicated upon the death of his father. Thus, the second will, was never implemented as designed. The Romans compensated by consolidating Herod Philip's intended tetrarchy into his brother Archelaus' tetrarchy thus making Archelaus an "ethnarch" over the combined territories. Subsequent history shows that Herod Philip was the divorced first husband of Herodias (daughter of his brother Aristobulus, & subsequent wife of his brother Antipas) and father of the notorious Salome of the John the Baptist story. Eventually, Salome, like her mother, married a paternal uncle (legal under Herodian rule), i.e. Philip the Tetrarch. But if Herod Philip and Philip the Tetrarch had been the same person, the marriage would have ended up being a completely incestuous, illegal, marriage between father and daughter; which would be the result of this text having failed to accurately account for the family history of Herod the Great.



2. In Peter Richardson's new book, 'Herod: King of the Jews and Friend of the Romans', we are given a much fuller account of the king who has graduated to being an archtype, almost mythical character who is the embodiment of evil.
   
   'Herod the Great, as he is usually called, was much like Henry VIII, Catherine the Great, of Peter the Great: talented, vigourous, lusty, skillful, charismatic, attractive, decisive, influential--but a disaster in his personal life. Like them, Herod changed his nation's history.'
   
   In a biographical study an author need not like the subject, but it helps if there is something to admire. Herod's personality is not attractive; had I been a contemporary I should not have wanted to spend much time with him.
   
   This having been said, Richardson does find much of interest and intrigue in the character and the deeds of Herod the Great.
   
   Herod was king of the Jews by virtue of his assistance to the Romans who were, during the 50-year period preceding the birth of Jesus and the beginning of the common/Christian era, consolidating power throughout much of the eastern Mediterranean lands. Herod married many times for increasing political and social purposes (a trend that would continue in the Herodian line -- John the Baptist was beheaded primarily for pointing out the marriage difficulties with a later Herod).
   
   Herod the Great, founder of the line that would last and be an influence in Roman and Christian development for some two hundred years, died in 4 BCE, in Jericho, not long after the events that would have created the first Christian martyrs -- the slaying of the newborns of Bethlehem. The timing of his death in Jericho makes it appear to be divine justice, but independent verification of the Biblical story has never been found.
   
   Richardson approaches the historical subject in a somewhat backwards fashion, examining the details of the death of Herod and the aftermath his will and the will of Rome in shaping his legacy to their ends. Using close sources such as Josephus, Richardson then proceeds to examine earlier, less well-documented periods in Herod's life, including his early service to Rome and his attempts at consolidation of power at different points. Shortly before key events that would bring him the favour of the Romans, Herod himself was on trial in Jerusalem for his possible usurpation of power that was not rightfully his -- this bravado, however, found favour with the Romans who followed his career with interest ever after.
   
   Richardson also explores Herod's influence in the building up of Jerusalem into a great city as well as outside projects (major fortresses, palaces, religious and cultural buildings, commercial construction and infrastructure), as well as his support of and rivalry with various religious factions in Jerusalem and surrounding Judea. Herod's relationship with the Temple and priestly elite had ramifications throughout the religious fabric of Judaism of the time, which in various factions held differing beliefs about the appropriate constitution of the priestly officials and the practices these should perform. Herod incurred the disfavour of Sadducees, Pharisees, Esssenes, Herodians, Brigands, and others at different points in turn.
   
   In the final chapters, Richardson turns to examine the role of Herod and his descendants in Christianity. He examines in detail the likelihood of Herod ordering the death of the newborns (or even knowing of the birth of a potential rival king). He examines also the role of Herod Antipas in the death of John and Jesus. Josephus confirms John the Baptist's death at the hands of Antipas, though recounts somewhat differently from gospel accounts. The gospels relate two independent traditions regarding the relationship of Jesus and Herod Antipas.
   
   In all, this is a fascinating history that brings up great detail and context with which to read the gospel stories, the Roman history in the Middle East, and the Dead Sea Scrolls in a new context.



3. The introduction and the first two chapters captured my attention, the book begins with Herod's death and comments on the internal (tragic) family matters. The author displays his impressive knowledge of archeology, ancient and biblical history to present to us a believable portrait of Herod.



4. Herod has long suffered from the taint of infanticide and his associations with the birth of Christ, as portrayed in the Bible. Peter Richardson's book dispells the myths that have grown up around Herod, and make him a living, breath ing, interesting character in the period of Roman rule of Palestine, and the int ertestamental period of religious history. Herod the builder, Herod the supporte r of the Jewish diaspora and the Olympian games, Herod the master politician - e ach of these aspects of his character are brought vividly to life, and make clea r his very important position in the pre-Christian life of Palestine. This book provides important insights into the life of Herod, his skills as architect and administrator, and uncanny ability to read the political situation and shift all egiance in order to remain in power. An excellent book well worth the effort to read.

3 comments about Last Days in Babylon: The History of a Family, the Story of a Nation.

1. I really enjoyed this book. I was not only drawn in by her skill as a writer, but the fascinating history of the Jewish people in Iraq. After reading Benjamin's book I also have a greater understanding for what is going on in Iraq today.



2. The book was extremely authentic in detail and provided an extensive and touching history of the babylonian jews who had lived in Iraq for hundreds of years and had proposered and reached a population of 125,000 prior to their dispora that began in the 1940s'.
   
   Not only did the author provide historic detail and events by taking us through the well known street and shopping areas, and discussed many of the customs and practices of that era. She also touched on the remaining Jews in Bagdhad that lived under the constraints of Sadam Husseeinn's regime and refused to leave their homeland. This is a must read book for all descendants who are living all over trhe worlds and want to reach back anf learn of their heritage



3. Marina Benjamin chronicles the life of her grandmother, Regina Sehayek, an Iraqi Jewish woman along with the 20th century history of the Jews of Iraq from a once vibrant community of 140,000 to one that is now extinct. While this factual narrative has been meticulously researched, it reads like a novel and captures the readers attention from the very first page. Aside from chronicling the life of the Jews, Ms. Benjamin details the rise of Arab nationalism from the fall of the Ottoman Empire to the Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein and sheds some light on why the relationship between "cousins", Arabs and Jews, who once lived in relative harmony in what is now Iraq, has so badly deteriorated and why this important Jewish minority community was expelled after more than 2000 years in Babylon.

5 comments about Bagels and Grits: A Jew on the Bayou.

1. I do not know what I thought I was getting when I picked this memoir up. Something humorous, perhaps. The title of another Moses' book is FOOD & WHINE. Something Jewish, of course. So many of my lovers were and friends are Jewish that I am perpetually attracted to that subject. And the bayou? That uniquely Southern/French combination. New Orleans is my favorite, but hey, Baton Rouge is close enough.
   
   That is what I expected, but what I got was the author, Jennifer, a terrified whiny young woman who wants it all (including God) for herself but does not know how to get it. Her beloved scattered family, people dying of AIDS in St. Anthony's where she volunteers, her rabbi, and her therapist all influence her. She writes, "God alone knows what the folks at St. Anthony's would think of me if they knew that not only do I cry buckets at the drop of a hat, but also that I actually pay money to someone to listen to me when I cry."
   
   Early reviewers aptly use words like witty, honest, probing to describe Bagels & Grits, which lives up to its reputation. The book opens with Jennifer driving a minivan, listening to HIV-positive patient, Lorraine, with skin "like polished mahogany" describe, again, how she shot her husband "right in the head" when she found him in bed with her auntie. "My favorite damn auntie." The book pads quietly on from there, word by word, day by day, slowly changing into a moving memoir of spiritual growth.
   
   Jennifer questions much of what she sees. Of the Christian God she encounters repeatedly in St. Anthony's she writes, "This is the God Who forgives you every last nasty thing you've ever done, and all you have to do [is] ask. So you've killed a few folks? No problem! Just call on Him at the very end and --presto!--you get into heaven. Whored around? Don't sweat it! Cheated on your income taxes? Come on down!"
   
   "At St. Anthony's, not only did He exist, but also, at times, He came down to earth to say howdy or give a thumbs-up. He was so present, so everyday, that you almost expected to bump into Him at the grocery store."
   
   I love this book. It brought me to tears, which books rarely do. Indeed, I loved the book so much I could not bear to put it down. So I didn't. I turned right back to page one and read it over again. Knowing what would happen, I focused on the wealth of detail Jennifer supplies, like this description of Geraldine, one of the AIDS patients: "she was pretty the way a bird is pretty, with small jutting bones under smooth skin and quick, darting movements."
   
   Read it if you can. Whether you are Christian, Jewish, or (like me) something else, this odd, detailed, delightful spiritual journey is bound to touch you.
   
   MARILYN COFFEY is an award-winning poet and a widely published author of prose. Visit http://www,Amazon.com to purchase her work: GREAT PLAINS PATCHWORK, MARCELLA, or KANSAS QUARTERLY Vol. 15 No. 2.



2. I know the author, whose twin children go to high school with my daughter, and have read many of her columns on religious issues in the local newspaper. The unfortunately-titled "Bagels and Grits", which sounds more like a book on comparative cooking and culture between the Northeast and south Louisiana, made me feel like I know Jennifer Moses a lot better, as I've now read the story of her religious journey from a secular Jewish teenager in Virginia to a woman who teaches Hebrew at her synagogue and writes columns on religious issues.
   
   Her journey and the book are inspired by of all things, volunteering a half-day a week in her new hometown of Baton Rouge, LA at an AIDS hospice. So many of the terminally-ill patients find comfort in their Christian faith that Ms. Moses begins to consider how a deeper spirituality might improve her own life. Her longstanding Jewish identity prevents her from going all the way to Christianity, but a new rabbi at a local synagogue helps her find her way to a deeper understanding of Judaism. She even becomes a bat-mitzvah, completing studies in Judaism and Hebrew that Jews generally do while teenagers.
   
   I found the story of Moses' rediscovery of Judaism in Baton Rouge (the "grits" part of the title) to be much more fascinating than flashbacks to her upper middle class upbringing in Virginia and young adult life in New York City (the "bagel" part). Still, Moses is a talented writer with a willingness to share quite personal information, making her book a quick read. One warning--if you're a big fan of Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson you might want to skip over Moses' two capsule reviews of that book. In her view, Mitch Albom's spiritual awakening doesn't quite measure up. I empathized more with Morrie's story than Mitch's, and didn't have such a negative reaction to the book, no matter its sentimentality.
   
   Four stars for a well-written, serious and informative account of one woman's spiritual journey that will probably be best enjoyed by those of us in the Baby Boomer generation.



3. When the author's husband decides to leave his job as a lawyer to take one as a law professor, the family moves from their upscale, metropolitan home in the upper east to the deep south. Initially Jennifer Moses does so with a set of stereotypical beliefs about her new home area. She has a feeling of smug superiority over her new neighbors who, to her, all sound alike and don't know about the good things in life.
   
   Moses is Jewish, in a by-name-only way. She never became a bat mitzvah as a young girl.
   
   Her father, who never let his daughters date on Friday nights and always went to shul on Saturdays, never pressed his religion on his family. The author has lived life on the outer edges of Judaism. Moving to the Bible Belt makes her question her ideas about God and probe into her relationship with Him. In her new surroundings "you can't live in Baton Rouge without bumping up against Jesus just about every time you walk out of the house...."
   
   While living in a world full of strangers, the one woman she's known every day of her life deals with cancer. How does a good Jewish daughter deal with a terminally ill mother? Unable to help her mother with the distance between them, she volunteers at a residential treatment facility where she works with AIDS patients.
   
   With a sense of humor and a willing spirit, she works with people who may not have much longer to talk about the important things in life. Moses conveys the changes in her life along with the reasons for them in a way that makes you feel as if you already knew all this-you'd just never put it into words.
   
   Reading, you feel as if you're having a conversation with a new neighbor and learning what makes her tick. You'll surely invite her over to chat again as she's entertaining, engaging, and caring. And when you close the door on her book, you can't help but smile ... and ponder the subjects she discussed.
   
   Armchair Interviews says: A very touching story well told.



4. This book is a collection of a northern woman's condescending opinions of social and religious life in a southern city. As a former resident of Washington, D.C., the author arrived in Baton Rouge with airs of intellectual and moral superiority. After many years, she has still not abandoned northern stereotypes of southerners or gained any insights into the southern way of life.



5. Moses, Jennifer Anne. "Bagels and Grits: A Jew on the Bayou", The University of Wisconsin Press, 2007. $26.95.
   
   Seeking the Divine
   
   Amos Lassen
   
   My review copy of "Bagels and Grits" just arrived this afternoon as I was waiting for the delivery of furniture for my new place. I sat down with it and before I realized it I had read the entire book and I had the best time. Jennifer Moses is not new to the world of publishing. Articles she writes appear regularly in newspapers and magazines and she is a writer by profession. She is also a mother and volunteers at an AIDS hospice in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and also teaches Hebrew at her synagogue.
   If you did not know she was a writer, you could probably tell from her prose which abounds with grace and style combined with a noble wit. Her pages exude charm and you just want to find a way to get to her abode for a Shabbat dinner just so you can sit and chat with her.
   Moses writes about having moved from a liberal and affluent neighborhood of Washington, D.C. to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the land of gospel, crawfish and Christianity where everyone seems to be a friend of Jesus. After her move, she embarks on a journey of self-discovery and attempt at communion with G-d. In doing so, she finds the differences in culture in this country and she shares them with us.
   Moses was raised as an observant Jew in the northeastern United States and G-d is no more than something far away. Upon arriving in the South and the Bible belt, she went through a period of crisis regarding faith while serving as a volunteer at an AIDS hospice. As she writes, Moses takes her back to her past and then to the present and her conflicts that she experiences in the South. The portraits that she gives of her childhood and of her parents is vivid and the picture of the G-d of her mother is just like an oil painting, executed in beautiful detail. That G-d was one who, in her mother's words, was one "of good works and of giving to the Democratic party". Her father carried the mantle of Judaism and it is with her father that Moses seeks a relationship with G-d. Even though she was raised as an observant Jew, more or less, her skewed vision of G-d later drove her to seek a communion with her maker.
   It is her trip South that is the catalyst for her quest. The people she meets in Baton Rouge seem to be constantly in communion with G-d but in the author's opinion some of the encounters the people have with the deity are absurd and ridiculous, causing her to recoil in anger. They, of course, add bits of local color to their visions of the divine and this riles her up.
   Yet it is these people that take Moses into their world and they take the reader as well. Moses feels both anger and jealousy when she sees and hears about the southerners beliefs and she yearns to "be filled with a faith so buoyant" that it would sweep her past herself, past memory and sorrow and into an eternal embrace with G-d. She finds it increasingly difficult to understand why others have a relationship with G-d and she does not.
   Moses acts on this issue and begins to learn Hebrew as the first step. She slowly experiences divine touches as she struggles with skepticism but her faith increases and when she is diagnosed with breast cancer, she understands that her recovery will be a great deal easier because she has taken herself on a spiritual journey. Before she received the diagnosis, se began to see signs of G-d in ways that she can understand and her world begins to change.
   Surely by now you are wondering why she went to Baton Rouge in the first place. Her husband tired of his job as a lawyer and took a position as a professor of law at Louisiana State University. The family, herself and her husband and three children, moved there and it was then that her ideas about the Jewish religion began to deepen. It was the evangelical Christians who really made her realize that she needed to find strength in her G-d and this is what the book is all about.
   Moses tells a beautiful story of her own life as well as of the life of her family and brings the stories into a larger arena concerning the challenges that modern Judaism faces. Her desire to make sense of and live up to her historical heritage is an exquisite tale of self-discovery and renewal of faith.

5 comments about For Those I Loved.

1. I just had the "pleasure" of having to remove all my books from my office so the room could be painted. I came across a favorite I had forgotten I owned and must tell you, THIS BOOK will make you realize how much you MUST stop this petty "he said-she said" with those you love.
   FOR THOSE I LOVED by Martin Gray with Max Gallo is one of the most gut wrenching, soul searching books I have ever read.
   It is a Biography of Martin Gray who, in his own words, was living a pleasant life in Warsaw September 1939 when "he and everyone else was plunged into an endless hell of butchers and bombs, corps and concentration camps, a nightmare from which it was impossible to awake. At that period our lives had the resistance of stone, and our stones had the eternity of life."
   Martin Gray did survive that nightmare, but lost his entire family. How he did it builds the exciting first half of the novel. Settling in Southern France after the War he builds a successful life, has a new family and what happens next................. Well, I read this book ten years ago and I'll stop by telling you I have never been able to put it out of my mind. It's a WONDERFUL READ. I just purchased it here again for a friend overseas.



2. This review assumes the veracity of at least most of the book's contents, and is based on the 1972 English-language version.
   
   While in the Warsaw Ghetto, the Germans attempted to make Gray a Jewish informer (p. 96). He played along.
   
   Then the "resettlement" of Warsaw's Jews to Treblinka began: "Jewish policemen with raised clubs yelling orders: they needed six thousand heads that evening." (p. 101). Those Jews who attempted to hide in their homes were often betrayed by their neighbors or relatives in the Ghetto (p. 103). Gray reports what happened after the Jews in an area had been cleared out: "Afterwards, Ukrainian, Latvian, and Lithuanian SS men and the Jewish police searched the buildings, looting, killing anyone they caught there. They smashed the furniture, wrecked the beds and broke through the walls: they looked for hideouts where families had taken refuge, for gold and jewels." (p. 109).
   
   Gray also describes scenes around the death trains being loaded with human cargo: "I followed them to the hospital to find out. The cattle cars were there, lined up at the platforms, policemen yelling. I recognized the mighty Szmerling, whip held high dashing from the herd to report to the SS. Yet he was a Jew. Like them. Like me. They were shoved into the cars, separated, and if anyone shouted, protested or struggled, they got a blow from an iron bar, or a bullet." (p. 102)
   
   In time, it became Gray's turn. But after escaping from Treblinka by stowing away on a departing supply train, he experienced the incredulity of both Poles and Jews. For instance, near Zambrow, Gray encountered a Jewish work gang with no German guards anywhere near, because "the Germans trust us." (p. 162). They scoffed at the notion of Treblinka.
   
   Polish peasants sometimes denounced or killed Jews known or suspected of thievery. Gray sometimes sought Polish help, while at other times he simply stole from Poles during his treks in the countryside (e. g., p. 158, 183, 184).
   
   There is an account of an alcoholic Polish man who betrayed several Jews (pp. 233-234). The reader may not realize that the Germans encouraged alcoholism among Poles, both to degrade them and also to exploit this dependency as leverage for such collaborative acts as betraying Jews.
   
   Gray's experiences shed light on Jewish-Communist collaboration, a major factor antagonizing Poles against Jews during and after the war. He at first has positive remarks about the AK (p. 187) before lapsing into standard, mostly unsubstantiated, accusations of the AK and NSZ denouncing and killing fugitive Jews. He joins the AL, and includes a photo of himself and Mieczyslaw Moczar in the book. Moczar sends him on a mission to spy on the NSZ, from which he narrowly escapes with his life (pp. 224-226). Later, after the arrival of the Soviet occupants, the NKVD also uses him for espionage: "Do your best, find us the NSZ, the informers, the denouncers, the collaborators, the people who don't like us." (p. 233)



3. I could not put down this beautifully written book. It is an extraordinary story of an extraordinary man. After completing this book, my thought was - here is a 20th century Book of Job. The story is of survival beyond all odds, of suffering beyond one's endurance, and of an improbable faith, yes, the faith in G-d despite the tragedies that would overwhelm and destroy any ordinary human being. A MUST read for all who attempt to comprehend man's ability to endure in the face of horrific evil inflicted by other men, and, tragically, by fate itself.



4. I first heard of this book when I was in college during a course on the autobiography. We didn't read it, and it was only mentioned in passing. The theme of the course was autobiography & truth and we spent a great deal of time discussing what our expectations of authors were in terms of telling the truth.
   
   Martin Gray's book is particularly problematic because it is extremely inspiring. It tells the story of survival and heroism in the face of the Holocaust and sends a strong affirmative message about the ability of victims to take their destiny into their own hands. Very strong, and very moving.
   
   Unfortunately, it appears that there are troubling doubts about the accuracy of Gray's book. We know that he lived in the Warsaw Ghetto. We know that he lost his parents. That something terrible happened to him, nobody questions. However, some of his accounts of Treblinka appear to be impossible. He supposedly saw things at times that they did not yet exist. His role in N.K.V.D. is not mentioned. He also (more understandably) elides the fact that he took some serious "short cuts" (wording from the introduction) in setting up his antique business.
   
   The thing is that as you read the book, there is something very implausible about the feel of the text. He does so much, accomplishes so much, and without the ordinary pacing of ordinary life that seems normal even in the most heroic of men. It is clearly so important to Gray to show that there were Jewish heroes during the Holocaust that it seems possible that he would be willing to stretch the truth in order to make his point.
   
   We will never know how much of For Those I Loved is truth. And that, it seems to me, is too bad. The crazy folks over at the revisionist extreme right have seized on the inaccuracies in Gray's book, and use them to attack other unimpeachable memoirs and accounts of the Holocaust. No matter how noble his mission was in the beginning, it is time for somebody to set the record straight. I personally suspect that the truth would be found to outweigh the lies, but then I generally have high hopes for people. Gray's passion and the strength of his life speaks to his essential sincerity.
   
   For Those I Loved was ghost written by Max Gallo.



5. If it's all a true account of Martin Gray's life experiences, then it's remarkable. If not, as the previous reviewer contends, then it's a shame. I found it an interesting read, giving it the benefit of any doubts. However, the writing is often redundant in it's expressions of despair. Without doubt, such experiences would be despairing, however the frequency of mentioning it is distracting. A long read but not too difficult to get through. A story of many, deep losses.

4 comments about From the Ashes of Sobibor: A Story of Survival (Jewish Lives).

1. I thought this book was okay, but for some reason I was not as enthralled by it as "Escape from Sobibor". Maybe this was because I found it difficult to relate to the author of this book so much. It is definitely worth reading, though, for anybody who is interested in knowing about the resistance to the Nazis.



2. I thought this book was amazing. My history teacher recommended this to me after i read 'man's search for meaning'.
   It's an incredibly honest and gripping book on the life of a young man survivng sobibor and the activies around it.
   It will definately make you be thankful for what you have and not to take anything for granted. A truly inspirational book.



3. Mr. Thomas Toivi Blatt gives us a chilling look into what it was like to live and just survive under a barbaric system; one where one's neighbors and friends became their enemies and pursuers in the aim to please the occupation forces of Nazism. Mr. Thomas Toivi Blatt and others like him survived against incredible odds to their survival. It makes one reflect on and cherish each and every day that we live in freedom without the tremendous tyranny that Mr. Thomas Toivi Blatt, his family, and many others endured on a day to day basis for several years. Thank you Mr. Thomas Toivi Blatt for your sincere and honest reflections.



4. Among the most common questions asked of Holocaust survivors are why the Jews didn't fight back: Why, it is wondered, did they let their families go to their death so easily? The recollections of Blatt, a survivor of the extermination camp Sobibor, in Poland, where Jews staged a successful revolt, addresses these questions in a frank and gripping narrative. Blatt's account demonstrates how the Germans kept Jews in Poland subjugated through random terror combined with promises that the status quo would be maintained if the Jews cooperated. By the time Blatt reached Sobibor with his family, it was too late for resistance. Perhaps the most frightening, and dispiriting, part of Blatt's account is how Christian Poles at times robbed, terrorized, or even murdered Jewish fugitives, such as the Sobibor escapees. A chilling narrative; highly recommended for Judaica collections and Holocaust specialists as well as general readers.

5 comments about Schlepping Through the Alps: My Search for Austria's Jewish Past with Its Last Wandering Shepherd.

1. A chochem is, in Yiddish, a wise person. Sam Apple, the writer, is a lot wiser than Sam Apple, the character he creates, a woody allen-ish hypochondriac awkwardly trying to write a book about a wandering Jewish Austrian shepherd. Apple also scores a literary triumph in his portrait of the one-of-a-kind Hans Breuer, the shepherd.
   
   Post-modern in its best sense, the book makes wonderful and surprising connections between the search for justice and reconciliation in post-war Austria, the history of domesticated animals, Yiddish song, sexuality and the fine points of herding 675 sheep through mountains, forests and small towns.
   
   I sat down to read for a few minutes and stayed in the chair for most of the day, following the hapless Sam as he tries to live the life of an alpine shepherd with Hans, Hans' estranged wife and devoted girlfriend, his sons and various eccentric friends like Austria's giant champion scythe-wielding grass-cutter. More is revealed when Sam spends time in Vienna meeting politicians, survivors of the Shoah and anti-racist activists, including the beguiling Irene, a welcome romantic interest whose fling with Sam forms a revealing counterpoint to Hans' tangled love life.
   
   Through these varied landscapes, Apple's voice is funny, knowing and refreshingly humble. He gracefully mixes and blends the
   Jewish, picaresque, storytelling tradition of Sholem Aleichem and S.Y. Agnon with the irreverence of Phillip Roth and the eye for quirky detail of Bruce Chatwin He's a young writer whose first book jump starts what I imagine will be a surprising and exciting career.



2. There are two stories here. Which one dominates your reading will depend in part on your tendency to optimism or pessimism at the moment that you read. The grim story that hangs over everything is the fate of the Jews in Austria. There were a quarter million Jews and people of Jewish parentage in Austria in the 1930's. After the Austrians decided to kill or expel their Jewish neighbors, there were almost none. Today, the Jews of Austria number about 10,000-most of them in Vienna.
   The comedy is the story of Hans Breuer, a folk-singing grand-child of the radical sixties. In the middle of the world's most developed economy, he makes a living as a shepherd: a Jewish shepherd.Sam Apple, the author of this book, plays with the nature of the shepherd's life, the mercurial personality of Hans Breuer and the odd business of being Jewish in a country where killing Jews was a bit of a national sport.
   Having spent a great deal of time in Vienna, I can tell you that Apple gets a great deal of this right. He certainly gets all of it funny, or at least wry. He concentrates on lingering old-fashioned anti-semetism and ignores both the small philo-semetic counter-trend and the more genteel neo-jew-hating of the left.
   Apple spends a great deal of his time talking about himself and so the book is also partly a memoir. The self that he reveals is game for the adventure of being a shepard for a while, but also comically neurotic and thereby a bit unattractive.
   On one of my last trips to Austria, I went to a Hans Breuer recital. It was at a bar in the countryside. Half the audience was out from Vienna, the other half local people having dinner. Breuer seemed to think he was in a concert hall and between songs went back in the kitchen to silence the cooks. It was an awkward moment, but one that seemed to fit.
   
   Lynn Hoffman, Author of The New Short Course in Wine



3. I read this enchanting book when it first came out and could not put it down. Reading it for the second time, I can't help but wonder, "why isn't this a movie?" This rare, heartwarming story told with such humor and wit could easily translate into another media form. It's definitely time to replace "The Sound of Music" with a new travel guide through the Alps. After all, a shepherd, a nice Jewish boy, and a beautiful girl could make the hills come alive again. Hollywood, where are you?



4. To paraphrase comic Jeff Foxworthy, if you find this engaging travelogue entirely humorless... you might be an Anti-Semite. (Reading it might be a good self-test.) Although Jewishness and Anti-Jewishness are portrayed throughout, Mr. Apple's writing is so genuine and fluid that anyone with an appreciation for English will enjoy its exceptional quality. While comparisons have been made to Woody Allen, author Sam Apple might better be described as the Hunter S. Thompson of Generation X. Perhaps "Rolling Stone" would do well to engage him to cover the upcoming Presidential election--and those uncomfortable with Jewishness (Jews and non-Jews alike)--would find it less frightening to enjoy a bright new literary light. Meanwhile, try this one: reading through it is no schlep.



5. Sam Apple, author of Schlepping Through The Alps: My Search For Austria's Jewish Past With Its Last Wandering Shepherd, first encounters Yiddish folk-singer Hans Breuer at a concert and slide show in New York. Breuer, as Apple points out, is not just your ordinary run-of-the mill Yiddish folk-singer, rather he is truly a wandering Jew and as he reveals in his book, "If you ever happen to be hiking the Alps and you see a man singing Yiddish songs as he watches a dog chasing a sheep in a raincoat, no need for concern."
   
   Apple, who grew up in Houston and now makes his home in Brooklyn, was quite intrigued by this forty-five year old Austrian shepherd. The result was a one thousand word article that eventually has being turned into a witty yet insightful book, wherein much of Apple's research was accumulated while traveling in Austria as an apprentice to Breuer.
   
   During their first encounter in New York, Breuer mentioned to Apple that he wanted to bring Yiddish to the uninitiated in the Austrian Alps. When asked if he wanted these individuals to remember their Yiddish neighbors, his reply was: "I want to make them confront for the first time in their lives this culture that their uncles and fathers destroyed." With this in mind Apple decided to voyage to Austria and find out for himself what it was like to be a shepherd in the twenty-first century and to make sense of Han's Jewish identity or as he states, what it really meant for him to sing in Yiddish. He also wanted to learn about sheep, Yiddish music and anti-Semitism.
   
   Apple's engaging narrative is what Yiddish speaking readers would probably classify as a good "meinsa," something akin to an old wife's tale only this story is actually true. Apple beckons us to follow his meandering through the Alps following a herd of sheep, a shepherd, his mistress and young lamb herders, while picking up along the way various shepherding tips from his mentor and learning about Austria's past and present political landscape.
   
   During the course of his apprentice with Breuer, Apple learns about Austria's post-war anti-Nazi legislation that led to the sentencing to death of several Nazis and the conviction and incarceration of thousands of low-ranking Nazis. However, a few years after the enactment of this legislation, a general amnesty came into effect and all but a handful of the worst offenders were free to live happily every after. In fact, the government's constant line about complaints about Austria's behavior during the Holocaust was that if you have one take it to Germany.
   
   Quite telling of Breuer's psyche is that he associates the Austrian countryside with fascism and anti-Semitism. When he encounters people along his shepherding path, he believes that they are all staring at him with cold eyes, aware that he is not one of them. Apple notes that Breuer enjoys being a living part of a dying tradition, where Yiddish and shepherding are relics of another time- nonetheless he takes great pride in both. Moreover, he is not quite sure how much of his own romanticizing of wandering and Jewishness has drawn him to Breuer. However, what he observes about Breuer's shepherding is "the rejection of modern society in the aftermath of the Holocaust. In his Yiddish songs I inevitably listened for the millions of missing Yiddish voices that should have been singing along."
   
   Apple does an excellent job of capturing the flavor of the Austrian Alps with its little villages and inhabitants who seem to either have collective amnesia pertaining to their past or consider themselves blameless. Although he never does find as many anti-Semites as he originally feared, Apple does provide his readers with some serious insights, spiced up with enough lively and sometimes humorous commentary that will unquestionably keep readers turning the pages all the way to the end.
   
   Norm Goldman, Editor Bookpleasures

No comments about Doorway to Freedom: The Story of David Kaufmann.

5 comments about Behind the Secret Window.

1. In _Behind The Secret Window_ by Nellie Toll, the message that the story has to offer is that life can knock you down sometimes, but most importantly you can't let life keep you down. Nelly is a small girl who is hiding from the Nazis during World War Two. The Nazis take her two siblings, aunt, father, and is really unhappy. Throughout the book she realizes that being unhappy won't help her during this dificult time. Instead she starts believing that one day her loved ones will return. Nelly finally benefits from this by making it through the war alive and finally seeking freedom. This book gives you the best of advice and messages you could ever find for difficult hardhsips and advice.



2. 
   
   This book is a memory of Nelly Toll's childhood experiences during World War II. She battled so many things none of us could imagine. She lost very much during the war but always had hope.
   The main characters in this book are Nelly, her mother, and pani pan Wotjek. (They are Christians willing to hide them).
   This book takes place mostly in Poland 1943-1944. She also goes to Hungary. She spends most of these two years living indoors.
   It's a very in-depth look at the war. To me it seems almost fictional. It's amazing how much she remembers about how she felt.



3. This book is about a girl. She is about 7 when the Nazis come and invade her town. Now she is 8 and her dad has left or "disappered". Her maids have been taken away, and the soldiers are takeing her stuff from her so they can give the stuff to other kids in thier country. She is so mortived! It is now her and her mom. They move to her aunt's appartment. And then something happens that you have to read the book to find out. By the end of the book the little girl is left alone with her alful thoughts of the horrible things that the soldiers do to the people that live in her town. So all she can do is paint pictures of what she thinks of all the things that are going on around her. This is a book that every one needs to read.



4. The story Behind the secret window was a good book.It's about a girl named Nelly Toll who was six years old. Nelly said she could remeber every thing that had happened.She said by the time she was eight that the world war two had destroyed her live. But she said that to ease her pain she wrote in her diary. She said that was better then thinking of her parents dining in the war. My oppion is that this was a great book. Try to read it.



5. We were given a World War II book report in English. I chose this book over Anne Frank. The way Nelly Toll told her story, it made you feel as if you were there, hiding in a small room, waiting for the Gestapo to leave, and praying that they don't find you. Even though her family was hunted by the German army, the Nazis, she continued to read, and write, and paint. Though the story has a sweet, and happy ending, sadness does lurk behind it. I highly recommend this book!

2 comments about The Life of Jews in Poland before the Holocaust: A Memoir.

1. This book is a compeling read. It describes in minute detail the religious, social and economic structure of the time. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wishes to have a glimpse of life in Poland before WWII.



2. As the Holocaust recedes further into the past, it becomes increasingly difficult to treat it as more than an abstraction. It becomes defined by numbers: Six million or more dead, numbingly large. Yet, how can one who did not live in that era imagine what it truly meant, and even more so for a goy such as myself?
   
   Ben-Zion Gold's memoir is truly a treasure, because of its portrait of Jewish life before the Holocaust. He describes his boyhood living in an Orthodox household in Radom, Poland in the 1930's. He paints rich pictures of family members and gatherings and a host of unique individuals. He depicts his religious schooling, cut short by the war.
   
   The last few chapters briefly describe how Gold survived the war, and the impact of his ordeal on his faith. His candor and insights are deeply appreciated.
   
   Gold originally wrote his story with his daughters in mind -- to tell them about the family in Poland, all of whom were murdered well before his daughters' birth. Fortunately for us, he has expanded the tale in such a way as to make it accessible, even to those of us with no familiarity with Jewish life or customs. I was particularly grateful for how terms are defined on first use.
   
   The Holocaust becomes so much more meaningful now. With Gold's story, we see the faces of those who perished, their personalities, community and culture. We understand a little better what was lost.
   
   I highly recommend this book.