1 comments about David I: The Time of Saul's Tyranny.

1. Here, says the author, is a "devotional study of what God can do with a man who, though terribly tough and passionate, has a will set to do God's will."
   
   The first of a series, this volume describes the life of David, the shepherd-king, under King Saul. Constantly showing how believers today can meet God through this story, Keller deals with the drama and color of David's stormy relationship with Saul, his friendship with Jonathan, his love for Abigail, Nabal's widow, his interaction with the soldiers he commanded, and his respect for prophet, priest, and king in Israel.
   
   Keller's readers have learned to expect just this kind of faithfulness to the biblical record, along with the author's knowledge of the primitive setting of the Bible, and his ability to knife through pretense and self-importance with sharp spiritual perception. On every page, the reader is confronted with stark calls to obedience such as this.
   
   It was David's lot to follow Israel's first king, Saul -- a concession in governance which God allowed only at Israel's willful insistence. As Saul proved to be equally willful, Keller observes that "Sorrow up sorrow, both to ourselves, to Christ, and to others, most of us prefer to do our own thing in life, to please ourselves rather than Him."
   
   Similarly, with unblinking frankness, Keller refuses to gloss over David's lapses in courage, faith, and obedience. But he finds in the giant-killer and king-to-be a heart that could be touched by its own infirmities, repent, and search eagerly for God's renewing Spirit. As with believers today, whose lives are mixtures of darkness and light, there is hope in the story of David that we might yet be anointed for the Master's use.
   
   This is a book to be savored in quiet personal study, read for both its historical and devotional content, or used for stimulating group discussion.

5 comments about Journey to Ellis Island.

1. This true story written from the perspective of an 11-year-old immigrant, truly sums up the immigrant perspective. My 4th grade students, journaled each day as if he or she were the central character, and begged for each of the five chapters. This book alone, replaced a 4-week unit that I had used previously to emphasize the impact of immigration on our state. Written by the author's daughter, with photos showing then and now, it is wonderful. FYI: We used, as the final journal entry, an account written by Yehuda when he finds his journal 70 years later and recounts the years since arriving in America.



2. The story reads well for any student needing to understand the trials and tribulations of people immigrating to the U.S.Important character traits are developed and their importance in reaching a goal are emphasized. The artwork makes a dramatic statement to anyone who opens the book. Elementary students should be attracted by this outstanding feature. As a school director and recently retired teacher, I purchased a copy for each of our elementary libraries because of the qualiy of this book.



3. This review is from Debbie,Paul,Ryan and Melissa. We all modelled for the illustrator,Laurie McGaw, of this book. It was a wonderful experience since some of our grandparents left Russia and Poland because of the war and we felt we could relate to the people in the book.The book has been presented to the our childrens' school in conjunction with the Holocaust unit. Teachers and kids alike found the book to be very interesting and beautifully illustrated. We recommend it to all nationalities and ages.It is not only a book about Jewish people, but also a book about what any immigrants coming to North America might have experienced.



4. A wonderful story with fabulous illustrations. A must read for all ages



5. Well i actually got this book for reaserch for a projet and i think it helped me a lot because it told me that familys strugle to enter america.I would reccommend this book to anyone doing an interview with an immagrant i know it helped me a lot.

No comments about Etty Hillesum and the Flow of Presence: A Voegelinian Analysis.

5 comments about The Fox and the Flies: The Secret Life of a Grotesque Master Criminal.

1. It really is incredible that the author was able to amass this much detail from his research and investigation.
   At the end he declares that the culprit written about in this book, is indeed, jack the Ripper and it all makes sense.
   Read this.



2. This is no ordinary gangster tale. It is sophisticated -- yet eminently readable -- transnational history. Van Onselen uses his skills as a social historian to trace Joseph Silver's peripatetic wanderings around the Atlantic World in the late ninteeneth and early twentieth centuries. From his birthplace in Poland, Silver left the world of the shtetl behind and blazed a trail of vice and violence that took him to London, New York, Pittsburgh, Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Windhoek. Van Onselen both tells a gripping tale and offers insight into the interplace of sex, race, ethnicity, and class in the making of the modern world. Brilliant.



3. this book tells a story of a long-forgotten (if ever well-known) criminal, but does so in such a burdensome and long-winded fashion that it's painful to read. The book needed a better editor (if there even was one) or a better writer, such as Erik Larson, who took similar material and created the shimmering Devil in the White City.



4. Van Onselen is articulate and persuasive, and it's a pleasure to read his kind of writing. And he gives a good picture of the underside of South Africa at the time of the Boer War, and after. The book is worth purchase for that.
   
   As for the connection between Lis/Silver and Jack the Ripper, no. All the connections are a stretch, there is nothing, certianly, that would convict him in court or even cause a grand jury, America's own kangaroo court, to convene. And without Jack the Ripper what is there? A nice book about an artful con man who operated in England, South Africa and the Americas at the turn of the 20th century.
   
   If you're a history buff it's well worth the read. If you're a Ripper buff, go to the coffee shop and spend your money on a latte and wait for the next theory.
   
   Anne Olson



5. The fox and the flies.
   
   An outstanding read, This book is filled with history. The fox and the flies chronicle the life of Joseph Silver. Silver terrorized women in South Africa in the late 18th century and early 19 century. Van Onselen believes that Silver should be a jack the ripper suspect. He points to several coincidences in the book and makes a good case for Silver being Jack the ripper.
   
   The book is filled with maps that detail the time period in which the story takes place. It is rich in content and it's outstanding in it's detail, giving the reader a great vision in the time and surroundings of the era being discussed. He really sets the mood of the time period. The way Van Onselen describes the location you can easily imagine being there.
   
   The book takes you methodically through the life of Joseph Silver and some ancillary characters that Silver has some acquaintance with.
   
   Van Onselen makes several great points and backs them up with facts in this book.
   
   This book is an great read, very well written. I couldn't put it down. The story and the detail in this book are incredible.

3 comments about Marc Chagall (Jewish Encounters).

1. A nice short study of Marc Chagall's personal life (wives, children, and homes) and of his essential cultural roots including religious inspirations and conflicts. Chagall was fated to live a long life amidst a century of enormous social turmoil and with direct emotional ties to countries in the middle of the storms --- the USSR, France, U.S. and Israel.
   
   Professor Wilson is a fine writer with an eye for the arresting detail. His book is a very good overview of the complex life of a great artist.
   
   (Readers will have to refer to the Internet or art books for the actual paintings referred to in this text---unless happily they have already in person viewed the work of Marc Chagall.)



2. This has made a fascinating artist even more interesting; and you can understand the impact of his life on his technique!



3. The reader turns the first page of this little book to see the 1929 oil on canvas painting, "Lovers" by Marc Chagall. The painting depicts a man and woman seated and embracing; the woman's head turned inward on the man's breast, while the man, an expression of calm and contentment, peers upward, watching a winged angel flying overhead, across a deep purple sky. The painting has the deep and rich signature colour of all Chagall's work, though lacks the intense emotional suffering and ambivalence that makes up so much of his oeuvre, however this painting evokes a mystical love, a true love which, in my opinion, expresses the relationship between the artist and his beautiful wife, Bella.
   
   As part of the Jewish Encounter project, Marc Chagall by Jonathan Wilson is one contribution devoted to the promotion of Jewish literature, culture, and ideas. (One can find all these contributions here on Amazon.)
   
   It can be observed that most of Chagall's work, according to the author, is an expression of his philosophy, his religious sensibility if you will, in the form of the "literalization of metaphors", deeply grounded in the mystical and symbolic Hasidic world and Yiddish folktales, which include in their writings the "repository of flying animals and miraculous events." (P. 13)
   
   It is impossible to label Chagall's work as "Expressionism", but the representation of an acute imagination, coloured in fantasy, depicting highly charged religious symbols, including in several works, Christs Crucifixion in a variety of contexts. What I love about Chagall is the viewer is drawn into the work by its striking colour and busy subject matter and is compelled to study it, because the meaning of the painting must be discovered as it is not apparent on a superficial viewing.
   
   Wilson does a wonderful job of narrating Chagall's life in terms of the major events that the artist experienced, spanning through the Russian revolution, two world wars, the Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel. Wilson suggests that in viewing Chagall's paintings against the backdrop of these major historical events will see the artist's work as a response to them, and his personal inner conflict between his "Jewishness" and his focus on Christ's Crucifixion, and also his attempt at secularism in many of his paintings.
   
   My favourite paintings by the artist are his various representations of love that display an ethereal, mystical quality, a sublimeness that to me captures love in their most revealing forms, as Wilson comments,
   
   "Chagall's vision of love, so appealing to the human soul, frequently involves a merging of two faces, or bodies, into one. In this regard he is Platonic, as his figures pursue their other halves in an apparent longing to become whole again. Over and again he paints the myth that Aristophanes recounts in The Symposium." (P.174)
   
   Chagall's life Wilson suggests was an attempt through his art at the reconciliation between two worlds, a genuine effort universalizing or merging opposites, he writes,
   
   "In his paintings, past and present, dream and reality, rabbi and clown, secular and observant, revolutionary and Jew, Jesus and Elijah...all commingle and merge in a world where history and geography but also the laws of physics and nature have been suspended." (P. 210)
   
   Wilson's Marc Chagall is an erudite biography and insightful critical work. Although relatively short in length, manages to capture the artist who is considered along with Picasso and Matisse, one of the icons of Modernism.
   
   
   
   

2 comments about People in Auschwitz.

1. I have a library of 150 books on the Holocaust, and am pleased to have added this one to my collection. One of my interests is the kind of personalities that comprised the whole concentration camp (Auschwitz in this case) experience and environment.



2. This is a scholarly but very readable account of what the Auschwitz experience was like. The author performed thorough research and interviews with numerous former prisoners and staff to get a close-up look at the different sections of the camp, including Canada and the inmate infirmary, different aspects of camp life, such as resistance and sexuality, and the experiences and interactions of different classes of prisoners and the SS. Despite the book's serious and scholarly tone, it has a humane and personal feel to it, probably because the author himself was an inmate and so many interviews were quoted from in the book. It also describes the construction, evolution and liberation of the camp. This book is a must read for anyone studying Auschwitz.

1 comments about Quiet Diplomat: A Biography of Max M. Fisher.

1. such a successful, caring and genuine person. I am 27 and was always interested in how Max Fisher rose from humble beginnings. This book definitely offers some nice insight into that.
   For example, when Max didn't do the work he planned for the day, he would skip a meal.
   Anyway, I am just sad I was never able to meet Max in person, because I know he would have been a wonderful mentor, who always had time to lend an ear and offer insight.

No comments about The Story of a Life.

No comments about Bittersweet Berries : Growing Up Jewish in Minnesota.

2 comments about Hana's Suitcase on Stage.

1. This book reveals a young child's mystery in a way that incites joy, despite sorrow. The journey of Hana as it parallel's the journey of Fumiko and her students brings a vanishing story immediately to life. It is accessible for a young reader, and deeply meaningful for a reader at any age. The marriage of the book and the play in one publication offers two perspectives of one story, adding exponential depth through two unique windows to the same landscape. Bravo Emil Sher & Karen Levine for one incredibly complete package!



2. HANA'S SUITCASE ON STAGE is the definitive version for those interested in reading this remarkable story for the first time. Containing both the original story, Hana's Suitcase, written by Karen Levine, and the play version by well-known playwright Emil Sher, this is a must-have for your keeper shelf.
   
   Hana's Suitcase is the story (bestselling, I might add) of a suitcase that arrived at a children's Holocaust education center in Tokyo in March of 2000. Written in white paint on the outside of the suitcase was the name Hana Brady, the date of May 16, 1931, and the word Waisenkind, which is German for orphan.
   
   Of course the children at the center immediately wondered who Hana was, where the suitcase came from, and who had sent it to them. It was up to the center's director, Fumiko Ishioka, to find the answers to those questions, and many more.
   
   What follows is Mr. Ishioka's search, throughout Europe and North America, to find out any information he could about Hana Brady -- and that fateful suitcase.
   
   In Emil Sher's play version, the story is the same, but brought vividly to life by his playwriting. Perfect either as a story to read or as inspiration for a school drama club, this is the play that you don't want to miss.
   
   Kudos to such a great version: HANA'S SUITCASE ON STAGE is great!
   
   Reviewed by: Jennifer Wardrip, aka "The Genius"