1 comments about Louis I. Kahn's Trenton Jewish Community Center: Building Studies 6.

1. This is a great book about one of Kahn's overlooked masterpieces! It's easy to read and incredibly well-researched. I think it's a shame that I haven't seen this book in more museum bookshops. While Solomon mainly focuses on the one work, the book addresses many important issues related to Kahn's career, his religion, and spirituality.

No comments about Raoul Wallenberg: Swedish Diplomat and Humanitarian (Holocaust Biographies).

5 comments about Lovesong: Becoming a Jew.

1. I am a multiracial woman who discovered her Jewish roots when her mother explained that she was Jewish and that I was named for my Jewish family from Eastern Europe as a teenager. I am now finding my way back to Judaism and my heritage and I've encountered the same hostility with African-Americans to the point I no longer associate with the local community.
   
   Its very hard to be multiracial, black, and Jewish. But like Lester, in the end, I just had to find the courage to be myself.



2. Mr. Lester is a great writer, and has the gift of objectivity about himself and his family, which is rare. His search for the way to connect to G'd is painfully slow, but joyful in its culmination.



3. I thought this book was excellent. When I saw this book in the library, I didn't even realize that he is the author of one of my favorite books-To be a slave. I picked up the book because I'm a comparative religion major and I learn best from autobiographies and memoirs-they make me feels like I'm experiancing the religion first hand. Though I was able to reinforce what I knew about Judaism with a visual picture from his words, I was even more impressed with his writing style. I usually read books that will help towards my educational goal only. But this book is a good read, just for its writing style alone. The way he describes his experiances, you get a clear understanding of what he's saying and feel like you know him and converted to Judaism yourself. After reading, I had an urge to visit a synagogue and a trappist monastery ( 2 places he beautifully describes in the book) and I will. I just finished the book today (Wed). I started the book on Friday night and with 2 kids and alot of work managed to finish it so quickly. I don't have spare time to write reviews but I felt compelled to write this one. I have respect for people who reveal themselves so candidly: those who use the pen to strip themselves of a false image. I recommend this to anyone interested in religion especially writers.



4. Lester explores writes a revealing and deeply personal memoir of his spiritual searching and arrival at the Jewish faith. I west extremely moved by his candor as he describes his efforts to harmonize the various facets of his identity, as well as his honesty about the pitfalls he faced on the way.

   Jews believe that those who choose judaism are not converting, but comming home. Lester's work is wonderful in that it lets the reader join him on this home coming. He willingly reveals the pain and the joy of this personal awakening.

   A wonderful read for anyone who struggles with faith and a great message that there can be light at the end of that tunnel.




5. I read this after I lost my father. This book was oddly comforting and beautifully written.

5 comments about Kinderlager: An Oral History of Young Holocaust Survivors.

1. This book is great! Although the conditions of the Jews were horrible, I enjoyed reading this remarkable story. It is more like three stories, becuse three young survivers each tell about their time in Auchwitz. Their names are Rachel, Frieda, and Tola. I enjoyed this historic book and you will, too!



2. This is a great book! I read it for the first time about a year ago, and it is still one of my favorite books! It is very helpful for school projects!



3. Kinderlager was a great book. It dipped into all the senses. In the book the feelings of three different people were expressed in three different books. The books were all about the time they spent in the Holocaust. In some way or another they all met up with each other in the labor camps. The book explains these peoples' experiences and grieving in great detail. The reason why I liked this book so much was because it was real. Just knowing those people really lived through those harsh conditions... it made the book more effective. I recommend this book to anyone don't miss out on the chance to read it!



4. This book is one of the few such non-fiction works thataccomplishes several goals while still reaching an audience that, inmy opinion, spans in age from the old to the very young. The graphicaccounts and descriptions may seem too harsh at first for youngreaders, however, the subtle tone and easy language turns a tragicstory into a recognizable tale of pain, perseverance, and ultimatestrength. I've been around these stories my whole life, and though Ifound it very hard as a child to read such accounts, I would recommendusing this book as a tool to teach children about the past so they canbetter direct their future...I hope you read my mother's story andhelp your children understand what happened, what can happen, and whatshould never happen again.



5. This book was a finalist for the 1999 Society of Midland Authors Annual Book Awards contest in the category of children's nonfiction.

1 comments about A Garden of Eden in Hell: The Life of Alice Herz-Sommer.

1. Music could always transport Alice Sommer into an autonomous paradisical world. This helped her when the real world turned hellish under the Nazis; and the central part of the book is about those years.
   
   She was born in 1903 into a Jewish, acculturated and German-speaking family in Prague. She started playing the piano at a very young age, and at 21, made her debut as soloist with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1931 she married Leopold Sommer and their son Stephan (later to be called Raphael) was born in 1937.
   
   With the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1939 their lives changed swiftly, with humiliating restrictions being imposed on Jews day after day. And then the deportations began. First, in July 1942 her 72-year old mother was deported from her Old Age Home to Theresienstadt (and from there to the Treblinka death camp). Then a year later, in July 1943, it was the turn of Alice, Leopold and Stephan, then aged six, to be sent to Theresienstadt.
   
   The physical conditions there were grim, but a few months before the Sommers arrived, the SS had decided to turn it into a `show camp= for observers from the International Red Cross - and so the deportees were provided with musical instruments (which had been confiscated from Jews) and were allowed to arrange their own entertainment. Alice gave many recitals, and the descriptions of these are very moving. Stephan, who was musically even more precocious than his mother had been at that age, was quickly roped in to rehearse and perform in Brundibar, the opera specially composed for the children in the camp.
   
   As defeat for Germany drew nearer in the autumn of 1944, the SS, possibly fearing an uprising of the able-bodied men in Theresienstadt, decided to send them to the extermination camps. Alice=s husband was among these: she never saw him again. She learnt later that he had survived the death-march from Auschwitz to Dachau - only to die there of typhus.
   
   But Himmler still wanted to preserve Theresienstadt as a `model' camp and to produce it in his defence at the end of the war. Alice had to work an eight hour day in barracks where slates were broken up to make insulating materials, work which was particularly hard on her hands; but in the evening she would often perform in the concerts that continued to be staged.
   
   In May 1945 Theresienstadt was liberated and in mid-June Alice and Stephan were able to return to Prague and to continue their music al lives there.
   
   But after the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1948, it again became dangerous to speak freely. In March 1949 Alice decided to move with her son to Israel, where she was to live for the next 37 years. There her musical career as performer and teacher continued, while Raphael in due course became a cellist of world stature. After his marriage in 1966, he and his wife were based in London, and there Alice joined him in 1986.
   
   The book ends with the saddest thing that can afflict a loving mother: in 2001 Raphael Sommer died of a heart attack while on a concert tour in Israel. Alice was then 98, and coped with this grief as she had coped with so many other crises in her life, drawing some comfort from music (she still plays the piano in her Hampstead home for three hours every day). Never did she give way to bitterness; she always remained life-affirming; her philosophy eschewed hatred, whether for Germans or for Arabs. Her 100th birthday drew tributes from people from many lands. This moving book is one of them.

1 comments about Half/Life: Jew-ish Tales from Interfaith Homes.

1. This collection of essays--by a talented group of writers--confronts the big hidden question of the Jewish community: if you're not entirely Jewish, what's your status? With humor, irony, and some deep insights into the nature of community and self, Snyder and the other authors open our eyes to the richness of Half/Life--a status that's not less than Jewish, but different from Jewish. Unless the Jewish community understands that identity, it will lose the connection with this growing segment of the population.

5 comments about In Search of Fatima: A Palestinian Story.

1. I just finished Ghada Karmi's captivating autobiography. She is honest, poignant, funny and reflective. She takes you back to pivotal moments in history, while at the same time drawing you into her and her family's personal struggles. Many readers who have also grown up with traditional parents, whether they be Catholic, Muslim or Jewish, will be able to relate!
   
   But more importantly, she offers an insightful view of a much misunderstood dilemma. For anyone who has wondered, "Why don't the Palestinians just stop fighting?", you owe it to yourself to read this book!
   
   I admit to fact checking Karmi because I assumed since she was Palestinian, that some of the information she gave could have been exaggerated. She mentions the massacre at Deir Yassin, the bombing of the King David Hotel, and the booby trapping of the dead body of a British soldier. I was shocked to learn that armed Jewish groups did indeed carry out these and other acts of violence before 1948. What we are usually taught is that Israel always respects human rights, but the Arabs do not. Karmi gives another point of view.
   
   Yet she does not paint all Jewish people with the same brush. She differentiates between her Jewish friends she holds dear, the Jewish faith she respects, and the state of Israel which has robbed her of her homeland.
   
   This book is well worth your time!



2. In Search of Fatima is a beautifully written story, a true story, written by a woman with a real gift for writing. The whole experience of the Palestinian Catastrophe, know as the Nakba, comes alive in this book on a very personal level. The fear of the Palestinians as the events unfold during the years leading up to 1948 are so vividly expressed that you feel that you are there too, sharing the feelings of foreboding and horror.
   The second section of the book describes the difficulties in settling in a new country, with totally different customs, language, weather, everything. Her mother, incapable of adapting to a new life, makes a truly pitiable figure.
   
   Although this is the story of one person,the experience of the 1948 Nakba was shared by three quarters of a million others, yet we rarely hear about the terrible suffering inflicted on so many. This book fills a huge void.



3. This is truly an outstanding work. The search and confusion of identity is made even more difficult when one is a Palestinian refugee. Add to this the issue of gender and Ghada Karmi assertion of herself and her rights and you get a fascinating indeed thrilling mix. The first third of the book deals with the exodus from Jerusalem ..it is very moving and sad to see the events rushing to make little Ghada and her family refugees. In the next part we see Ghada the British emerging and finally with all the contradiction between home, school (with mostly Jewish friends) and the society at large especially with backdrop of the 1956 Suez war. The third and final part is the return and the contradictions of identities and the battle to assert herself as a single woman working for the cause. Ghada's move from the completely apolitical to the activist as part of her search of identity is very well nuanced and gives us a great insight into the meaning of being a Palestinian refugee.
   
   Ghada Karmi is a gifted writer. This work is fascinating enough even if it was given as bullet points in a PowerPoint presentation, but this is hardly the case. Karmi has a facility with prose and is able to get into great detail to transform the readers into her life; this was very much the case in the fist part of the book, the exodus from Jerusalem. You can almost picture Ghada abandoned dog as their car sped away from the house never to return.
   
   This is a thrilling work on par with Leila Ahmad Border Passage. Leila Ahmad an Egyptian American was not a refugee but here Tri-cultural experience in Egypt, England and America and her search of identity and issues of gender are very interesting and highly developed. Another highly recommended work of a Palestinian American is Nadia Captive of Hope, deals with exodus and gender issues and less so of identity.



4. This book is like a narrative of two different lives: the end of one and the beginning of another. Two lives that are not independent of each other though, as remnants of the one may not be overpowering to the point of eliminating the other, but are certainly powerful enough to haunt it, shape it, give it its final form.
   
   Although in essence totally overwhelmed by emotions, Karmi manages to almost detach and distance herself from her own being, leave her body and float above everything and everyone. That way she describes people, situations and feelings in a detailed and factual fashion, devoid of the empathy that would crush the reader, immerse him in a whirlwind of unfulfilled expectations and unrelieved tension, and ultimately leave him feeling nothing short of miserable and exhausted.
   
   Throughout the entire book, there's a marked emphasis on Karmi's relationships with other Jews, the friendships she formed and her refusal to see them in any other way than as individuals with traits that were or were not compatible, likable or acceptable to her. She almost goes out of her way to make clear that Jewishness never hindered her from befriending someone and not only that, but in an unfamiliar environment such as London was in the aftermath of the second World War, Palestinians and Jews that found themselves stranded there were entities that shared the misfortune of exile, and as such could indeed relate to one another. Moreover, the fact that Judaism was as much a respected as a familiar religion for Muslims, much more so than Christianity, played a role. As did the writer's initial stance, adopted by her parents and passed onto her from an early age, that it wasn't so much the Jews that were responsible for the Palestinians' fate and the violent takeover of their country, as ultimately the British, who as custodians of Palestine had the obligation to protect and safeguard the interests of the indigenous population. Instead, they forsook and betrayed them, and disposed of the Palestinian land -that was never theirs to dispose of in the first place- as served their purposes at the time.
   
   Karmi experiences an internal conflict, wavering between her British identity and her Arab origins, desperately longing to be accepted by and fit in either society. She often describes the war that rages inside of her, the opposite forces pushing and pulling, on the one hand the need to put everything behind her and lead as normal a life as possible, and on the other the need to seek out her roots and fight with all her might the injustice that was meted out to her.
   
   This book is so much more that a simple memoir, as it goes deep inside the mind of people who experience exile and dislocation, and gives a picture of the psychological turmoil they find themselves in and the void they will probably never be able to fill.



5. This is a wonderful book that shows the humnan tragedy of becoming a refugee. In this case, the book talks about a refugee of the 1948 war for Palestine. While the book explains how the creation of the state of Israel have shattered the lives of three quarter million palestnians, it tells the story of one of them. The story of personal conflicts that face any palestnian refugee now, then and in the future:
   - Can I return to Palestine and where is it now?
   - How can I stay palestnian and at the same time contribute to my current non-palestnian community?
   - Do I have the capacity to forgive israelies for what they did to my family and country?
   
   While Ghada's responses to these questions were positive, and she insisted to find an answer to these questions, it is the role of each palestnian to find his/her own answers. Also, it is the role of non-palestnians to understand the palestnian refugee before addressing their plight. Therefore I highly recommend this book.

3 comments about Boston Boy: Growing up with Jazz and Other Rebellious Passions.

1. Once, jazz was a real and pervasive presence in Boston and in the dim and scruffy clubs of the South End, this American Music-par-excellence thrilled thousands of afficionados, while yet rarely affording its dedicated and colorful creators a living.
   It was the Twenties and the Jazz Age; it was the Thirties and the age of the Big Bands; it was the wartime Forties, the age of The Savoy on Mass Ave and of Sidney Bechet; it was the baby-boom Fifties and the age of Storeyville in Kenmore Square...
   There were Big Bands and great ballrooms but there were, as well, many talented smaller bands, playing inspired improvised jazz and struggling to survive as they enthralled more limited audiences in more limited venues.
   Nat Hentoff eloquently reminisces about a time when the soulful sound of trumpet and clarinet, piano and bass - pained, glorious, yearning, introspective, challenging, alien even - could inadvertently reach out of the smoky, dark, cave-like clubs of Washington and Columbus Avenues, and so mesmerize a young boy that it could change his life.
   Nat Henhoff blends this tale of a city, its cultural glories and its social sins, with the story of the music, light and dark, somber and witty, pure and besmirched - the faithful mirror of the human soul.
   He leaves one desolate that - much too soon! - things changed, and he leaves one wondering why Boston let it happen; why the city - host to The Berklee College of Music and the New England Conservatory, the Symphony as well as The Boston Pops - couldn't swiftly rally to support and, in time, to save a once-thriving Jazz community...
   Oh, economics and changing taste are the answer, of course, but one is left wishing that Boston had been able to sustain its local jazz scene and, failing that, wishing that it should presently choose, at the least and at last, to honor it with a South End Jazz Museum.
   Many of the greatest Jazz Musicians played there once and their presence or passage should not be forgotten.



2. It's great to see a book like this. As another Boston boy, I had many similar experiences that have been hard and perhaps confusing to explain to someone who grew up in another time and place.
   My wife feels that she understands me better now after reading Boston Boy. We are giving copies to our sons.
   The book for me is nostalgic, poignant, and somewhat reassuring. Helps to understand that generation, that time, and that place. We made it in spite of the bastards.



3. Nat Hentoff, who later became famous as a writer about jazz and civil liberties, describes his "coming of age" and discovery of jazz in the Boston of the 1940s. A very enjoyable read.

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.

2 comments about Deception: Growing Ip in an Amish-Jewish Cult (Growing Up in An Amish-Jewish Cult).

1. Patricia Hochstetler
   Baker Trittin Press (2007)
   ISBN 9780978731656
   Reviewed by Carol Hoyer for Reader Views (9/08)
   
   "Deception" is book two of three, where Ms. Hochstetler continues her story of living in a religious cult. During the ages of six to sixteen she describes how her name was changed to one of the Bible and how all married couples were not allowed to cohabitate. It is a dramatic story of one man's ability to deceive all in the name of the Lord.
   
   Many are looking to receive salvation through God and are willing to sacrifice their own children to live a life of spirituality. Never hearing the words "I love you," or listening to music, read books is a sacrifice these families made.
   
   In "Deception," Ms. Hochstetler warns us that this could happen to us - in our search for the good life we too can fall prey to any man who presents himself as the spokesperson for God.



2. Books 1 and 3 are written much better. Unfortunately, the author rambles and goes back-and-forth in her timeline, and the storyline isn't very coherent. There are, however, additional stories and events told in this book that one cannot read in books 1 and 3. If the reader wants to know as much as possible about the happenings in the author's life, then it should be read; if not, skip it.