5 comments about A Quiet American: The Secret War of Varian Fry.

1. Hermann Goering is reputed to have said, "When I hear the word 'culture', I reach for my pistol."
   This, from one of the most prolific looters of art in recent history, takes some explanation which, as it happens, is not forthcoming.
   However, upon reading of Varian Fry's heroic attempts to keep Europe from "blowing its brains out" by detaining and, certainly, eventually killing intellectuals wholesale, one may have a bit of sympathy for Goering.
   It isn't the art, it's the artists.
   Fry was an odd character from his earliest days when he easily manipulated his parents into letting him avoid school and do whatever it was that his latest whim desired.
   He had an unusual though substantial education, and was a writer and journalist and left-wing intellectual in the Thirties. He was also what used to be called "neurotic" in that he had a number of personality traits we could call counterproductive, if we could ever figure out what Fry might think of as productive. He had a bit of hypochondria, was sometimes hardpressed to make a decision, made friends and lost them over small things, and married an older woman with whom he had a relationship whose aspects, as Marino details them, make the reader squirm, just a bit, over what Marino doesn't detail.
   Whatever he managed to accomplish in those days seems to have been a function of high intelligence and fierce energy, opposed by various personality quirks.
   And then he went to Marseille to rescue European intellectuals.
   His transformation at that point is amazing. From intellectual dilettante, indulging his personal whims, he became, overnight, indistinguishable from a hardened and trained operative of the OSS or the British SOE (Special Operations Executive). Marino does not tell us how that happened, since it is almost certainly inexplicable.
   Unfortunately for Fry and others, the same process did not occur in many of those he tried to help.
   If there is one thing I did not expect in reading this book, it was the difficulty, sometimes the near impossibility, of chivvying various intellectuals through reasonably simple (given the circumstances) procedures that would save their lives.
   Some, told to keep a low profile while things were worked out, paraded themselves in Marseille's restaurants and bars. Others refused simple instructions, or jibbed at the last moment, doing either nothing or something quite stupid. Fry spent a good deal of the time and resources he had--not much of either--in bailing out individuals or repairing or replacing procedures they'd put in jeopardy.
   It is almost too good to be true, in terms of literary contrast, to find that Fry also had a group of British soldiers captured prior to Dunkirk to get out of the France. These men, fit and cheerful, followed directions without question, solved what problems remained, and were successfully sent home. There could have been no greater contrast between ordinary people and intellectuals.
   Any reader who becomes involved in the narrative must, although sixty years and more have gone, become frustrated at the inability of Fry's charges to get out of their own way. One, after having been trouble on the European end, arrived safely in New York and began babbling to all about every secret arrangement Fry had made to get him and others safely out of the Gestapo's clutches.
   Fry, for this period, was clear-minded and hard-headed and full of energy. In periods of crisis, people can go into overdrive for extended periods of time. Eventually, they collapse. Fry, however, managed to work like a fiend for months in circumstances of the greatest stress. He never lost his focus and, indeed, was able to operate outside any constraints that one might have thought his earlier life placed on him. In one case, having been betrayed and done out of a substantial amount of funding, Fry met with some of Marseille's underworld bosses and took out a murder contract on the traitor.
   Eventually, having been sent home by the authorities, he returned to the intellectual's life he'd left, including neuroses, counterproductive activities, odd relationships, and eventual death in obscurity.
   The obscurity is partly a matter of official activity. It wasn't until many years later, when Fry was honored in Israel as one of the Righteous, that Warren Christopher apologized on behalf of the State Department for all the obstructionism Fry had had to face from the United States.
   Fry saved a great many intellectuals from death, providing the West, mostly the United States, with an intellectual boost (some became successful screenwriters as well), by finding within himself a person absolutely invisible to anyone looking at him either before or after his exploits. The greatest mystery of the story is that contradiction.
   The second greatest mystery is why saving intellectuals from certain death is so much like herding cats.
   What is it about them?



2. As the other reviewers indicate, this is an excellent book. The setting of Fry's heroism, Marseille and the environs of the South of France, permit an oblique perspective on the Holocaust, which unfolded principally much farther to the north and the east. Without the overwhelming machinery of the sealed boxcars, the gas chambers, the crematoria, some of the underlying causes of the Holocaust come into focus: the bureacratic obstructionism of the U.S. State department, motivated partly by national self interest and partly by the genteel anti-Semitism of individual Foreign Officers, provides a glimpse into how value-free institutional behaviour can be--a deadly underlying cause in Hitler's rise. The sympathetic behaviour of peasants living on the border and of petty police officers contrasts with the callous, and often actively evil, behaviour of their official leaders.

   But always, there is the central enigma of Varian Fry himself--a complex, difficult , troubled man, in many ways a talented failure, who because of his clear moral vision became the catalyst for saving the flower of European artists and writers from the clutches of the Gestapo and their collaborators.

   In another book, Todorov posits that in extreme moral situations, the basic moral unit for effective action is two, because he notes that the rescuers--Gentiles who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust were rarely individuals; often they were husbands and wives. Todorov's idea is the combination of personality traits and practical abilities that produces effective resistence to an overwhelming social climate of evil is beyond the range of a single individual, and that it requires a minimum of two people to act effectively in this kind of environment.

   Interestingly, Fry did organise a staff of incredibly courageous co-workers to help save his "clients", but the intriguing question is whether his very flaws were part of Fry's mysterious ability to distance himself from his society (ie American) and to plunge into effective action to resist Hitler's evil earlier than almost anyone else.

   This intriguing book is very rewarding and worthwhile. I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 only because of an occasional passage in which the author, who seems to be almost super-abundantly talented, seems to stray into almost novelistic detail that would seem unlikely to be supported by his research. This is mostly atmospheric, and doesn't cast a shadow on the facts themselves.




3. I encourage anyone interested in WWII to read this book. Especially fascinating to me were the depiction of important characters in pre-war Europe. I gobbled the book, then started looking for more - I would advise against following this book with Varian Fry's own account of this period, because it seems like Marino covered it pretty well.



4. Sometime, not-so-admirable people do incredibly admirable things, and find in themselves qualities that no one, themselves included, knew were there. Such was the case of Varian Fry.

   In August 1940, Varian Fry boarded a plane in New York and flew to Spain, and from there to Marseilles, on a mission that would resonate far beyond his imagination.

   Fry was an historian, involved with "radical" politics: the Spanish Civil War, the looming Holocaust. He went from observing and writing about the coming crises to actively participating in a way that no one who knew him, or even he himself, would have anticipated. Far from being identified as a humanitarian, he was, in fact, an intellectual snob, a classicist by training.

   But he put his life on the line in an effort to save the leading cultural, intellectual, and artistic lights of Europe. Truth to tell, he had no idea what he was getting himself, or his New York sponsors, into, so the evolution of this rather untouchable, remote aesthete into a mover and shaker who consorted with the Marseilles underworld (and enjoyed it!) and worked outside the law is fascinating to observe.

   Varian Fry was personally responsible for saving the lives of, among others, Marc Chagall, Lion Feuchtwanger, Victor Serge, Heinrich Mann, André Gide, Franz Werfel, Andre Breton, Max Ernst, Hannah Arendt... He also saved about 1500 other lesser known people. Altogether, in the year he spent in France before being arrested and kicked out by the Vichy puppets of the Gestapo, he turned himself inside out, discovering in himself a depth of caring and feeling that neither he, nor most of the people who knew him, would have suspected was present.

   The story itself is so riveting that the book would have to be illiterate not to be absorbing. I found it well-written, with fascinating studies of the characters who worked with, and against Fry. It sort of fades out at the end, but then again, so did Fry, after his return to New York. He died in 1967, unrecognized for his work until the year before his death. In 1996, Israel further declared him "Righteous Among the Nations," the only American so honored.




5. If you are interested in the dark events leading to the holocaust, especially French collaboration, this is an absorbing book. For those not quite so familiar with Vichy France it will be an eye opener, for there can be no doubt that many French officials bent over backwards to serve their German masters during those shameful periodic roundups and deportations of the Jews in France. New to this reader, were the descriptions of the horrible conditions of the "refugee camps" in Vichy-controlled France. These were not the infamous concentration camps because detainees could be released, but they were, nonetheless, death camps simply because of shameful conditions and inhuman neglect. In fact, some 3,000 Jews and non- Jews died in those camps in southern France because of the atrocious conditions.

   But French Vichy officials were not the only villains. Americans may be surprised to learn just how anti-Semitic U.S. officialdom was during the early years. One could argue that were it not for the openly anti-Semitic treatment of Jews by our own State Department there would be no book written about Varian Fry. If all of the US officials in France, in the Embassy and various consulates, had a mind set to save the Jews it is quite likely thousands more could have been saved. Varian Fry filled a void. He was fighting two battles, the enemy in France and the enemy at home, in the form of the State Department. It was a shameful period, only fairly recently recognized by former Secretary of State Warren Christopher.

   This book, about Varian Fry's rescue of the Jews under the auspices of the American Emergency Rescue Committee, raises some questions. Why was he not recognized sooner? And why did many of those Jews rescued seem to turn their backs on him, once saved? Part of the answer is simply that Fry is not a very heroic figure, not even particularly likable. For some he was distant, not easy to know, but he did what he had to do at the time and that did not include being popular with everyone. It is unfortunate that personality flaws probably did play a role early on in the assessment of his role in that period. Even after reading this book, I cannot shake an ambivalent view of Fry as a tragic figure caught very much by accident in an heroic period. Yet, what he did rightfully makes him a hero.

   One must read this book to better understand that tragic period and place. Marseilles was the end of a funnel at the beginning of the war. Jews from all over Europe were spilling into that port city, desperate to get out, their backs against the Mediterranean wall, but not a non-Jewish friend in sight to help. Enter a few good people like Fry. It would suffice to be a hero at that time in that place simply by feeling compassion. Elie Wiesel expressed it when he said, "In those times one climbed to the summit of humanity simply by remaining human."

   There were other heros and heroines to be sure, the cooperative police inspector, the compassionate Prefet official. I had just finished reading Mary Jayne Gold's Memoir of Marseilles, 1940-1941 in which she recounts her version of that same rescue effort. My feeling is that she deserves a little better treatment than Marino gave her. The fact that Fry may have dismissed her should not diminish her contribution. Although deceased now after a long life, she genuinely felt that those were really the only useful years of her life. (See Amazon.com for review of her book, "Crossroads Marseilles, Nineteen Hundred and Forty" by Mary Jayne Gold)

   In short, an absorbing well researched book. Although many of the players on that Marseilles stage have now passed from the scene, including Varian Fry, Marino had the good fortune of being able to interview many of those still living. The book is not at all pedantic, but I do wish to thank the author for expanding my vocabulary with "spavined" and "solipsism".

1 comments about And The World Closed Its Doors: The Story Of One Family Abandoned To The Holocaust.

1. And the World Closed Its Doors
   The Story of One Family Abandoned to the Holocaust
   By David Clay Large
   BASIC BOOKS; 278 PAGES; $26.00
   
   Reviewed by Howard J. De Nike
   
   There is irony in Leopold von Ranke furnishing the template for "And the World Closed Its Doors: The Story of One Family Abandoned to the Holocaust," by David Clay Large. Ranke, the great 19th Century German historiographer, inaugurated a scientific approach to history, insisting upon contemporary, firsthand sources. Large, a history professor at Montana State University and part-time San Francisco resident, takes this dictum to heart.
   Ranke's exhortation prefigures the modern canons of "social history." Exploiting personal letters, family albums, diaries, census records, polling tallies, and the like, a diligent researcher will be able to piece together an accurate narrative, one ultimately more trustworthy than offered by after-the-fact, self-anointed chroniclers.
   Large, whose previous work includes a definitive book on Berlin (2000) and a volume (co-authored with Felix Gilbert), that in its fifth edition is reputedly the greatest selling 20th Century European history text, takes advantage of a trove of letters exposing the increasingly despairing efforts by a German Jew, Max Schohl, to extricate himself and his family from the looming debacle.
   In 1938, Schohl opened correspondence with Julius Hess, a cousin he had never met, in Charlestown, West Virginia. The objective was to enlist his relative's aid in emigrating to the U.S. Instead Max suffered a continuum of frustration owed to FDR's documented pre-war policy denying desperately sought asylum to the bulk of Europe's Jews. That Germany recognized Max Schohl's heroism during the First World War by bestowing various combat honors, and that Max reciprocated with unstinting patriotism adds mockery to the unrelenting Nazi drumbeat.
   Alternating the letters between Schohl and his American cousin with a straight-forward telling of Roosevelt's tight-fisted diplomacy, Large does the rationale of social history proud: To reveal the effects of "great forces" upon individuals and the consequent actions of those individuals. Over half a decade, the Family Schohl attempted to emigrate, first to the U.S., then England, followed by Chile and Brazil, all to equal futility. Throughout, the reader knows the outcome - death at Auschwitz for Max, survival after forced labor for his wife and two daughters. But this hardly diminishes the suspense achieved through Large's taut prose and adept use of materials.
   Max Schohl, a distinguished chemist, owned a successful firm on the outskirts of Frankfurt. Never eschewing his Jewish roots, Schohl became a pillar of community life in the village of Florsheim, where he was a chief employer of the townspeople. During the worst times of the 1920s economic collapse, he ran a soup-kitchen and paid his employees in hard currency in place of virtually worthless German marks, a barrel-full of which might purchase a loaf of bread.
   Local esteem did Schohl and his family no good, however, during the infamous Kristallnacht. As with thousands of other Jews, thugs invaded the Schohl household on November 7, 1938, part of a Germany-wide attack. Shortly afterward, security officers took Max into "protective" custody and delivered him to Buchenwald concentration camp. Though his incarceration lasted but a month, the handwriting was on the wall, and Schohl redoubled his correspondence with Hess. Meanwhile, FDR contented himself with a perfunctory ambassadorial recall, and Hitler "billed" the Jews of Germany a billion marks as an "atonement fine" for cleaning up Kristallnacht debris.
   A hard-hearted dilemma confronted the Schohls. On one hand, under U.S. immigration law Max had to demonstrate that he was not "likely to become a public charge," while on the other, the Alien Contract Labor Law of 1885, aimed at barring Chinese, prohibited would-be immigrants from securing jobs prior to entry. As Large declares acerbically, "The famed lines on the Statue of Liberty might have been rewritten to say: `To hell with your huddled masses, send me your prosperous and well-connected, your stockholders, remittance men, and prospective heirs.' "
   Though the Schohls' predicament was replicated a thousand-fold across pre-war Europe, there is enormous value in hearing its firsthand voices. Not only are general lessons about bureaucratic impersonality on offer, but about national blindness, as well. Whether they are Salvadorans fleeing Death Squads or Liberians facing slaughter by run-amok revolutionaries, those with the power to open the nation's safe harbor must ask themselves to what extent policy is driven by racial stereotyping and narrowly defined self-interest.
   ________________________________________________________________________
   Howard J. De Nike is a Lecturer in the Anthropology Department at San Francisco State University.

5 comments about Alex Building a Life.

1. This book is a gem. I had bought it while on a trip in Israel, where we visited Alex's parents, met his brother and also went to his grave to pay our respects. Alex represented the qualities of a hero who fought for what he believed in and in the end paid with his life for Israel, the Jewish state. I loved reading about the many stories that made up his life during the army, especially the story about looking for the Teffilin. You will immediately be placed in Alex's world once you dwelve into this book. I highly recommend it. I couldn't put it down.



2. If this book had been simply about an IDF soldier who made aliyah, it would have been interesting at that. However, this book is that and so much more. It is an opportunity to experience how determined a young soldier can be, how focused and centered on his beliefs a young man can be and how warm and compassionate a young Jewish son, brother and friend can be... in his own words, at the time he was making these decisions and having these experiences. It is an opportunity to experience Alex's Zionism, compassion and strength. Every letter/journal entry written by Alex moved me and I am not often moved by books and by people whom I have never met. I recommend this book as highly as I possibly can.



3. Alex Singer was an American Jew who volunteered to fight in the Army of Israel. He did this because he believed in the Jewish's people's need for , and right to a historical homeland. He during his period of service acted with courage and real human consideration of others. He was not a hater but a person who sought peace, and the human face of the enemy.
   He represents the best of the Jewish people in their struggle to return and build their ancient homeland . He embodied the highest both in humane consideration and dedication to Jewish ideals.
   This volume of his letters collected posthumously by his parents tells of his story and struggle in a deeply moving way.



4. Alex's story is the definitive account of a true lover of Israel. Any one who has had thoughts about their own Zionist, Jewish beliefs must refer to this book for nothing less than spiritual guidance. Live life to the fullest through Alex's shoes, and cry when you realize his last letter was never finished. Alex Singer was a true hero to Israel and the Jewish people all over the world, as he made sure that one more family on the Lebanese border in 1987 could sleep soundly. Am Israel chai.



5. Alex's writings convey powerfully and persuasively, an attitude and tone of voice that seems to be heard less and less. It's a voice that says that life is a gift to be lived fully, joyfully, spontaneously; that Judaism has the power and depth to challenge and enrich every Jew, and through them to improve the world; that doing for others is the most effective--the only--way of fulfilling yourself; and that Israel is the Jewish home and that instead of rejecting it for its faults we should work to correct them. Alex writes beautifully and honestly. His drawings are vivid and personal

1 comments about A Childhood under Hitler and Stalin: Memoirs of a "Certified Jew".

1. This is a superb translation by Penny Milbouer of an important book for today. Wieck's harrowing account of his life under both Nazi and Soviet domination illuminates a dark tale that reaches far beyond the immediate stories told of WWII to the years of Stalin's occupation of the Eastern reaches of Prussia.

   Thoughtful, beautiful, terrible, a book well worth reading despite enduring horrors.

5 comments about The Times of My Life and My Life with the Times.

1. I enjoyed the Max Frankel story on many levels. The story of the family escape from Nazi Germany was riviting and worthing of an entire book. The balance of the book was not riviting, but was nevertheless interesting and entertaining. I might not have finised the book except that it is exceptionally well written (I guess that that should not be a surprise considering the source!). In many places in reads all most like poetry. Word choices were very excellent without getting cute.



2. This book begins in Germany, where the author was born in 1930. The account of how he and his parents got out of Hitler's grasp is vivid and breathtaking, and alone is worth the price of the book. Then his account of growing up in New York, his education in high school and college, and how he became connected with the New York Times is of sustaining interest, as is his account of his career there. I thought it equally as good as Katherine Graham's Pulitzer-prize-winning account of her career, and all it told of the Washington Post.



3. The first part of the book dealing with the author and his mother's travails in pre-WWII Germany in Weissenfels was absolutely the best part of the book. (And, this was unexpected as I bought the book to read about the editor of my favorite newspaper.) The author puts a human face to his German friends, neighbors, towns people, local officials, and even the Nazi that finally gave the exit visa to Frau Frankel and her son, Max. Even after the war and the Holocaust, Frankel admits he maintained some empathy with the ordinary German folk. I found this perspective to be refreshing and enlightening as it seemed more realistic of the German peoples and their behavior in pre-War Germany. (I do not wish to politicize my book review, please read the book to get your own opinion on this matter-- although one does have to remember Frankel's experiences were that of a young boy). In fact, most of the book was written in a honest, straight-forward manner. The authos's candor was a surprise on many topics including those of race. It is always refreshing to read an honest appraisal rather than the double talk you hear from politician-types.

   The remainder of the book amazed me that Max Frankel lived through and was involved in many of the historic events that occurred during the Cold War. Although at times Frankel seemed to explain in hindsight his prescience at events about to occur on the world stage. (As aside, you wonder why you didn't have people like him working for the CIA).

   An aspect of the book that I didn't enjoy was the author's apologetic tone in explaining his executive decisions while an editor at the NY Times. It seemed this portion of the autobiography was aimed at the co-workers and people at NY Times that Frankel had worked with.

   Definately, the parts of the book talking about the author's personal experiences, whether in Germany, Washington Heights, or the tragic illness of his wife were captivating. The rest about his career seemed routine.




4. The essential story of Mr. Frankel's extraordinary memoir has been amply described in the reviews on this site, and requires no further repetition by me. I urge everyone to read them, and of course to read the book.

   Hardly anyone can fail to be moved by the prelude to his story, his family's escape from the Nazis. Mr. Frankel's mother perhaps deserves at the least a book of her own story. A remarkable woman.

   Mr Frankel's story might be of another brilliant journalist whose professional story alone is worth the telling, and it is. But for me, it is his almost brutal, scalpel-like self-dissecting to reveal to us his inner turmoil in meeting challenges of his life-style and career that riveted me to the book.

   Early in life, he tells us, he learned to always prepare an escape route, another way out. Repeatedly, he recounts many brushes with conflict where he seemed to side-step adversity, to protect himself from pain, to indeed take another way out. Courageous and wise, or cowardly and untrustworthy as a human being? He so presents himself to us for our judgement. He accurately points out how news media (persons) suffer the worst of narcissist sensitity at criticism, yet he stands up bravely, I think, lead on by his personal and professional vision while living in a fish bowl.

   How many of us as private people, or world renown persons could stand so tall? I thank Mr Frankel for forty years of helping to educate me, and the rest of us to boot.

   Irwin Moss, LA mooseman01@aol.com PS. Candor requires me to reveal playing tennis once with Mr. Frankel at Cape Cod many years ago. One learns and reveals much in a tennis game.




5. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. As an avid reader of the New York Times, it provided a fantastic behind-the-scenes look at how some of the major events of the 20th Century were captured and recorded in the "Newspaper of record." Not only was it a fabulous account of NYT, Max Frankel's personal account of his life read like a novel--I couldn't wait to find out what happened next. If you appreciate current events, the media, and history--you'll love this book.

5 comments about Nesarim: Child Survivors of Terezin (The Library of Holocaust Testimonies).

1. This book which tells the stories of ten survivors of Terezin, a "showcase" Nazi concentration camp established to host visits by the International Red Cross, lends a unique perspective to the Holocaust literature.
   
   Twenty-year old Franta supervised young boys, aged 12 to 14, in Room 7 and the lessons he taught them under the most adverse circumstances were incredible. They were educated in secret by him and other prisoners about their Jewish religion, history, culture and secular subjects. Education has always been of prime importance to Jews, but the fact that they were able to instill children with so much information under the most adverse circumstances was a miracle.
   
   As you continue reading you have to feel that Franta was a gift from God to help the children get through this horrendous ordeal, despite the suffering and inhumanity happening all around them. Somehow he provided them with a stability that allowed them to eventually marry, raise families and lead productive lives. How wise, far beyond his years, he had to be.
   
   Despite the unspeakable horrors the young boys witnessed, their perseverance, resilience, humanity and friendship won out. This should be required reading for all Confirmation classes.



2. An extraordinary book in whih a twenty-year old, named Franta, during the most terrifying of times, inspires forty ten and twelve years olds who were torn from their families, with a faith in their own humanity, with a will to live, and "a respect for our parents and the past, and to be ready for life when this [the Holocaust] ends." The stories of ten of the survivors and how they managed to survive extends to after the war and emphasizes the bonds that continue to exist in adulthood between them. "Nesarim" is an inspiration for young and old.
   Sam D. Starobin



3. This is the war-time story of the boys in Room 7 at the infamous Nazi concentration camp, Terezin, in Czechoslovakia. Thelma Gruenbaum's book, "Nesarim," is a heart-stopping tale of courage and survival.
   Almost 50 years after the boys walked out of Terezin, Gruenbaum embarked on her mission to find the survivors. Her determination to tell their story was inspired by her husband,Michael, one of the boys in Room 7.
   Travelling the world, the Gruenbaums interviewed ten who survived with Michael [Misa]. Many of the boys had never spoken of their experiences at Terezin but in 1990, as men of 60, and encouraged by Thelma Gruenbaum, they opened their souls to share those tales.
   The meaning of the word "Nesarim" is Eagles, a name the boys of Room 7 gave themselves. Their stories give truth and meaning to the name as we witness their indomitable spirit.
   An inspiring story that reminds us that courage and humanity can be stronger than the forces of destruction. Thelma Gruenbaum has told an important story and done so beautifully.



4. I was Born in Prague 1933. My family knew the Gruenbaum family well. I was fortunate to leave the country in 1941. After reading NESARIM I now know exactly and vividly what my fate might have been; would have been!
   The book is well written and the descriptions of people places and events come to life along with their innermost feelings.



5. This book touched my heart with amazing stories of courage, life long bonds of friendship, and the triumph of the human spirit in the face of unspeakable horrors. It's a must read!

No comments about Joachim Prinz, Rebellious Rabbi: An Autobiography--The German and Early American Years.

1 comments about The Rebbe's Daughter.

1. This beautiful memoir opened a window into a world that I knew once existed, but that I had never actually seen before. We have all heard rebbe stories, have learned from the books left by these men, and have read of the lives of their followers. This, however, is a glimpse into the private lives of the aristocrats of European Hasidism. I do not use the word aristocracy lightly. The world of European Hasidism was highly stratified. The Rebbe's Daughter was top drawer. She lived in a large compound of servants, storerooms, and guest rooms for visitors to her father. There were coachmen, cooks, and governesses. There was no idle luxury. Every member of the rebbe's family lived a life of constant and devoted service. They served the Rebbe's followers, but also, and far more importantly, they served God.

   Devotion to Torah pervaded every aspect and every moment of life. There is a kind of awe-filled beauty to a life in which every action, every thought is examined and consecrated to divine service. Devotion to Torah was so complete that even in the icy Polish winter the family shunned clothing made of wool. Better to shiver in silk and cotton than to risk a chance linen fiber that may render a woolen coat forbidden shatnes.

   I cannot decide which aspect of the Rebbe's Daughter is more remarkable. The way it shows us a vivid picture of a vanished time and place, or the way it opens before us the way of thinking of a mind totally devoted to Torah.

5 comments about Sing a Song of Tuna Fish.

1. I enjoyed "Sing A Song of Tuna Fish" immensely, not only because of the fantastic description and detail, but also how Esme Raji Codell created an incredibly entertaining story of her childhood. I think she did a very good job of making something that in real life might not have been that entertaining, into a very good story. I think that even a 40 year old would enjoy this book!!!!



2. This is a great book for all ages -- I read along with my 10 year old who did a report on this book ....terrific, funny....very true to life....



3. As an antidote to a wicked case of bronchitis, I've managed to read my way through a stack of books on my nightstand and found a winner: Sing a Song of Tuna Fish, Hard to Swallow Stories From Fifth Grade by Esme Raji Codell, the author of Educating Esme and other books.
   
   It was published in 2004 but I hadn't seen it until last week on the shelf of the Atlantic County Bookmobile. What a treasure! I've been searching for good mentor texts to use with our fifth and sixth grade classes, something that would make the kids and their teachers really "get" the need to focus writing workshop around memoirs--and boy this is it! Esme takes you right into her life as a fifth grader. I think that both kids and adults will be inspired to explore their own childhood experiences after reading this book.



4. This book made me Laugh so hard I liked her first book Sahara Special but this is even better. The teacher used thhe book to help us journal and I thought it would be boring but I could not wait for her to read these funny stories out loud and then write my own stories about things like school and grandparents. This author writes about the city in a way that is FOR REAL and not boring and now I write in my journal every day because I want to be a writter. My only comnplaint is this book is not rewally about tuna fish but I dont even like tuna fish so who cares.



5. This book made me Laugh so hard I liked her first book Sahara Special but this is even better. The teacher used thhe book to help us journal and I thought it would be boring but I could not wait for her to read these funny stories out loud and then write my own stories about things like school and grandparents. This author writes about the city in a way that is FOR REAL and not boring and now I write in my journal every day because I want to be a writter. My only comnplaint is this book is not rewally about tuna fish but I dont even like tuna fish so who cares.

1 comments about A Guide for Preachers on Composing and Delivering Sermons: The OR HA_DARSHANIM of Jacob Zahalon, A Seventeenth Century Italiam Preacher's Manual (Mo).

1. Rabbi Sosland ' rescued from oblivion' this seventeenth century Italian preacher's manual. A number of distinguished Rabbis recommend the book as having relevance today and being very useful in helping preparation of sermons.
   Here is a sample bit of advice." He(the preacher) should vary the tone of his voice according to the subject matter. For example, if he is relating the words of a king, he should speak with an authoritarian manner.. Yet if he is relating the words of the common people he should speak plaintively, " for the poor uses entreaties" . If he is discussing a matter which might provoke worry and pain he should speak with a sad and subdued voice , even weeping as he speaks and with tears in his eyes. Yet if he sicussing a joyful mattter, he should speak with delight and happy face."