Elul 5783

 Wow! It's that time of year when we review the previous months and the books that have made an impact. Whether they have provided food for thought or good advice for the coming year, our list, much like our library, contains a variety of genres and subjects and fall into three categories: self improvement, enlightenment, and enjoyment.

SELF-IMPROVEMENT

Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones by James Clear.

The perfect book to read before Rosh Hashanah, when many Jews resolves to do things better or differently in the coming year. It reminded me of one of the classic Jewish books on character development, and Clear's advice is straightforward and easy to implement. 

Body & Soul: The Torah Path to Health, Fitness and a Holy Life by Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld & Dr Daniel Grove, MD.

We pray for health and healing, and this book is an interesting combination of Torah sources, suggestions and information to put you on the path to more meaningful living. With advice from rabbis and scholars and a medical advisory board, the book begins with a list of Torah luminaries and what they did to promote health and wellness, including diet and exercise. The authors assert that you are doing twenty mitzvot at the same time when you are exercising, and suggest ways to meet the challenge of staying healthy while partaking in lavish holiday meals, particularly in the month of Tishrei. There are "quiz questions" between the chapters, a food calorie guide, extensive endnotes, and a detailed index. 

ENLIGHTENMENT

Can The Whole World Be Wrong?: Lethal Journalism, Antisemitism and Global Jihad by Richard Landes. 

This book could also have been titled "Can the Whole World Be Crazy?" Amazing and meticulously researched. I learned so much about the mainstream news media and so many terms that pinpoint the zeitgeist of the 21st century: moral schadenfreude, Y2K Mind, oikophobia. Enlightening and at times funny, it is also a warning. I particularly like the "Astoundingly Stupid Statements Discussed in This Chapter" at the end of several chapters because of their irony.

ENJOYMENT

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Loved, loved, loved this book. It reaffirmed the joy of reading. Amazing, complex characters, strong sense of time in the 1960s and the challenges for women to be taken seriously, respected and appreciated. So much interesting information about chemistry and rowing. Although there was tragedy and sadness, there was also humor and lots of love -- the kind you build with the family you choose.

Packing My Library: An Elegy and Ten Digressions by Alberto Manguel

It's always nice to discover a kindred spirit, especially when it comes to books and reading and what a treasure it is to enjoy both. I loved reading about Borges, about Kabbalah, and about the joys of a physical book. It also reminded me of my boxes in storage, which, in the coming year, I hope to unpack.

With the high heat in Israel, the Real Cats have spent a lot of time sleeping in the shade, so, instead, with the New Year, Life Is Like a Library brings you the Beauty of Israel:

The Judean Hills near Beit El

May you be inscribed for a good year!

Happy Reading!

The Joys of Summer Reading

Between the extended hours of daylight, perhaps a lighter schedule, and some scheduled vacation, summer has always been an opportune time to read. We have fond memories of the Summer Reading Program at the local public library with special membership cards and charts and prizes, which included a game of bowling and a free frozen yogurt. We've always thought such incentive programs would work well for adults, but maybe with some more "mature" prizes.

Libraries and bookstores promote "beach reads." Interestingly, The Guardian did research and found that the term gained popularity in the 1990s. Over time, it began to describe a certain type of book, something that will have mass appeal and isn't particularly intellectually stimulating.

Our summer reading thus far does not fall into the "beach read" category:

First off, a recommendation for Wrath Becomes Her by Aden Polydoros (Inkyard, October 2023). We were lucky enough to get an advanced copy of the latest book by the author of The City Beautiful - winner of the 2022 Sydney Taylor Book Award for Young Adults. We were totally blown away by this book about a female golem that takes place in Lithuania during the Holocaust. Interesting characters, strong sense of place and time, and a denouement (fancy word for how the whole story is wrapped up) that kept us on the edge of our seats, refusing to put down the book until we were finished. Run out and get this one immediately! 

Another highlight has been Possession by A. S. Byatt, a 1990 Booker Prize Winner. Our friend Jennifer recently organized "The Long Book Club." For those who many be intimidated by a book that is over 300 pages, she decided the group would read a long book - 500+ pages, but that we would meet every two weeks to discuss about one hundred pages. It feels a little like taking a course and doing homework, but with this book, it is well worth the time and effort. No Jewish content, but tons of references, fancy words, interesting places, and mythology and marine biology. As we read, we marvel at the genius of Byatt for weaving it all together in a story of a Victorian romance and a contemporary one.

And then there's a children's Passover book - Workitu's Passover (Green Bean Books, 2023). It is "a story from Ethiopia" about the custom of Ethiopian Jews to break up their clay kitchenware before the holiday, "blend the fragments with more clay, and then create new containers from the mixture." Great illustrations complement the text, where Workitu is not happy because the family will break their dishes, but in the end, is happy to help her Auntie with the new creations.

Finally, the Real Cats of Israel have been trying to stay cool in the heat:

Happy Reading!

Can the Whole World Be Wrong?

 At Life is Like a Library, we love trifectas. And we got a great one recently. Thank you to Pomeranz Books in Jerusalem for hosting an event promoted as

Lethal Journalism and the Oslo Debacle: A Panel About Media Bias Against Israel

Three authors spoke about the topic:

Eliezer Tauber, author of The Massacre That Never Was (The Toby Press, 2021);

Richard Landes, author of Can the "Whole World" Be Wrong?: Lethal Journalism, Antisemitism and Global Jihad (Academic Studies Press, 2022);

and David Bedein, author of Roadblock to Peace: How the UN Perpetuates the Arab-Israeli Conflict (Israel Resource Agency, 2014)

Also in attendance:

 Jonathan Pollard, a former US intelligence analyst who was convicted of "conspiracy to deliver national defense information to a foreign government" and given a life sentence. He was paroled after 30 years and moved to Israel shortly after his parole expired. He sat on the panel with the authors;

and Leo Dee, whose wife and two of his daughters were murdered in a terrorist attack on April 7, 2023. He had much to add to the discussion in terms of how his family members' murders were reported by the media.

Pomeranz is one of our all-time favorite bookstores on many levels. It is a nice big store full of an eclectic mix of Jewish books (and some secular self-help books). It is located on Be'eri Street in Jerusalem, up the street from Froumine House on King George, which was the temporary home of the Israel Knesset from 1950 to 1966. And best of all, the staff is knowledgeable, courteous, and helpful. And, obviously, they host interesting and engaging book events.

Each author spoke, and then the panel interacted and later fielded questions from the audience. Professor Tauber is "a world expert on the emergence of the Arab nationalist movements, the formation of the modern Arab states, and the early phases of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is currently the director of the Menachem Begin Institute for the Study of Underground and Resistance Movements." He spent four years researching his book and one year writing it. The notes comprise about a third of the book, and Tauber's sources includes archival records, typescripts of interviews, and many memoirs. 

True to its subtitle, Tauber debunks "the myth of Deir Yassin." On April 9, 1948, Etzel and Lehi members attacked the village of about 1,000 residents west of Jerusalem as part of a larger Haganah operation to make the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway safe and break the siege of Jerusalem. About 100 villagers were killed, including women and children, as well as five of the attackers. Most of the villagers escaped to a neighboring village and the reminder were taken prison and moved to eastern Jerusalem. But the battle was exploited to enflame the Arabs against the Jews. The number of casualties was highly inflated, and false reports of rape and other atrocities were spread. Rather than encouraging the Arabs to fight, they fled. Hopefully Tauber's excellent research and presentation will finally put this myth to rest.

Professor Landes was trained as a medievalist and taught history at Boston University. His book "documents how a radical inability of Westerners to understand the medieval mentality that drove Global Jihad prompted a series of disastrous misinterpretations and misguided reactions that have shaped our so-far unhappy century." Another meticulously researched book with extensive footnotes, a comprehensive bibliography and detailed index,  one Amazon reviewer calls the book "frighteningly brilliant and brilliantly frightening." One of our favorite aspects of the book is Landes' terms to describe the current "journalistic" environment, including "Masochistic Omnipotence Syndrome," "Moral Schadenfreude," and "Humanitarian Racism." At a hefty 486 pages of text, it is a fascinating and worthwhile, if challenging read.  

David Bedein established the Israel Resource News Agency and serves as the director of the Center for Near East Policy Research. He also created and maintains the website Israel Behind the News. His book details how the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) blocks peace and supports the teaching of hate and terror in Arab schools. It keeps the refugee issue alive and "avoids any permanent solution to the plight of the refugees from the 1948 war."

Bedein spoke about current efforts to "report Israel's reality to the media," and efforts to stop Palestinians terrorists and their families from receiving stipends for killing Israelis.

As for the Real Cats of Israel, this guy was wandering around the Adamit National Park in Northern Israel, probably more interested in what the picnickers were eating than the amazing views and the Keshet "Cave": 

Keshet "Cave" at Adamit Park

Happy Reading!

MAY 2023 JEWISH BOOK CARNIVAL

 

Life Is Like a Library is honored to host the May 2023 Jewish Book Carnival -- a monthly round up of links from across the blogosphere. It includes book reviews, author interviews, essays and other posts related to Jewish books.

The purposes of the Jewish Book Carnival are to build community among bloggers who feature Jewish books and their blogs, and to promote Jewish reading and fields supporting this reading such as publishing and library services.

As with the last time we hosted (in December 2022), Gila Green is the first one to submit, so she's at the top of the list. This month at Gila Green Writes, Meryl Ain shares what it's like to write a second novel.

At Jewish Books for Kids and More, Barbara Bietz interviews Laurel Snyder about her new middle-grade novel, The Witch of Woodland.

On her blog Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb, Deborah interviewed Maxim D. Shrayer about his new book, Immigrant Baggage.

On her My Machberet blog, Erika Dreifus celebrates Jewish American History Month with a distinctly literary flair. 


On The Book of Life Podcast, you can celebrate Jewish American Heritage Month using these resources that include a book list and a list of webinars on Jewish kid lit, and by listening to an interview with Susan Lynn Meyer about her middle grade Jewish novel set on the American prairie, A Sky Full of Song.


The Sydney Taylor Shmooze mock award blog has a review of the new graphic novel version of The Librarian of Auschwitz by Antonio Iturbe. The original prose version won the 2018 Sydney Taylor Book Award in the young adult category.


The Association of Jewish Libraries, in cooperation with ALA Graphics, is pleased to bring you this beautiful new Jewish American Heritage Month poster, with original art by Sean Rubin, illustrator of the 2021 Sydney Taylor Book Award winning picture book, The Passover Guest by Susan Kusel. Order your poster and matching bookmarks here: https://jewishlibraries.org/celebrate-jewish-american-heritage-poster/

And, at Life Is Like a Library, it's that time of year to read books about Counting the Omer and making positive changes. 

Heidi Rabinowitz has started a new Instagram account, Kidlit Kippot at https://www.instagram.com/kidlitkippot/, to curate images of Jewish representation in illustrations (kippot and other visual markers of Judaism), especially in non-Jewish kidlit. Please follow @kidlitkippot and if you have examples, please send images to Heidi at bookoflifepodcast@gmail.com.

Enjoy!

Counting the Omer 5783

 The period between Passover and Shavuot is a time for introspection and a good opportunity to work on character development as we move from the Exodus from Egypt to receiving the Torah. As in the past, the Life Is Like a Library reading list for these 49 days is a combination of Jewish and secular books. 

In Dance of the Omer: A Step-by-Step Guide to the Transformational Journey of Sefirat Ha'Omer (Mystical Skeptics Publishers, 2021), Rav Benji Elson presents the daily and weekly count as "a journey and process that follows the Waters of Eden as they flow out from the Garden, transform in the processes of precipitation, and ultimately, become the plants of the Garden -- this planet -- and the wheat of the Omer grains themselves. The Dance of the Omer, then, is a transformational 'movement' that mirrors the natural cycles involved in the growth of Life and in the growth of the Omer Offering itself." 

There are many "layers" to this dance. For each week, Elson presents the form of water (River, Sea, Storms, etc.) as well as the corresponding blessing from the Amidah, the Hebrew vowel sound, the type of song, the color, the direction (North, South, etc.), the element (Water, Air, Earth, Fire), the Archetype, and the Prophetess. There are meditations and visualization practices. For each day, there is a discussion of the power of that day, a practice, and a suggestion to apply what was discussed about the day. 

To be honest, there is a lot of metaphor and non-standard practice that is not my cup of tea. But the book provides a lot of information, and the metaphor of water flowing and changing works well to emphasize that we should also be building upon the days of the Omer, noticing the natural flow of life, and hopefully applying what we learn all-year round.

The New York Times Bestseller Atomic Habits by James Clear is a perfect book for the Omer. Don't think "atomic," as in Atomic Bomb blowing up things. Think "atomic" in terms of the atom -- "the smallest unit into which matter can be divided without the release of electrically charged particles." Tiny changes can lead to remarkable results. 

Why this book is so great is because, according to Clear, when you look at your habits, you don't want to think in the short term. 

THERE ARE NOT GOOD HABITS OR BAD HABITS. THERE ARE ONLY EFFECTIVE HABITS.

(This reminded me of one of the tenets of character development: there are no "good" character traits or "bad" character traits. The challenge is to have them in balance, with appropriate traits in appropriate situations).

You have to ask yourself:

DOES THIS BEHAVIOR HELP ME BECOME THE TYPE OF PERSON I WISH TO BE?

DOES THIS HABIT CAST A VOTE FOR OR AGAINST MY DESIRED IDENTITY?

Exactly what we should be thinking about as we count the Omer. Highly recommended reading for everyone, the young the better, so you can develop and maintain good habits and break bad habits early. 

As for the Real Cats of Israel, sometimes you just need to take a nap on a bookcase:

Happy Reading!

All the Broken Places

 John Boyne's latest release is getting a lot of hype and a lot of hate. All the Broken Places (Pamela Dorman Books, 2002 (US edition)) is the sequel to The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (David Fickling Books, 2006). I don't recall any book that has incited so much ire from my library colleagues, so let's look at that big elephant first. Written "as a fable," it is the story of Bruno, the son of a Nazi official at Auschwitz, and the totally unlikely and impossible friendship he develops with Shmuel, a boy of similar age who is interred in the death camp. Longing for companionship, Bruno crawls under the barb-wire fence and joins Shmuel, both of them ultimately dying in the gas chamber. The book has sold eleven million copies worldwide, yes 11,000,000 copies, and has been adapted for cinema, theatre, ballet and opera. 

Critics have skewered this book because it is unrealistic, paints Bruno's death as a bigger tragedy than Shmuel's, and distorts the horror of Auschwitz. Rabbi Benjamin Blech, a noted Talmud professor at Yeshiva University, wrote an article on Aish.com that called the book "well-meaning, " but also quoted a Holocaust survivor, who begged the rabbi to "tell everyone that this book is not just a lie and not just a fairytale, but a profanation."

Super Jewish kidlit librarian Heidi Rabinowitz gave her views on Lisa Hedger's podcast "Everyone Loved It But Me." She finds the book extremely offensive because the book does not work as a fable -- there is no moral to teach, it attempts to humanize Nazis, and Bruno is impossibly naive. 

I do not hate this book as much as everyone else does. By now it is too famous to not know the plot and the ending, but when I first read it in 2006, I noted Boyne's skill in drawing the reader in and building tension. I read a lot of Holocaust literature, and I thought that the literary quality of the book would encourage readers to further explore the topic. And even if I did not like it, or found issue with it, it could always be used as an example and a teaching moment by pointing out the inaccuracies and the improbability of the story. 

I was reminded of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's TED Talk, "The Danger of a Single Story." She notes "how impressionable and vulnerable we are in the face of a story, particularly as children." The main takeaway from her talk is that "The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete." I would apply this to The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. This is definitely not the one book to read to learn about the Holocaust. But, quite frankly, neither is The Diary of Anne Frank.

Would I have picked up All the Broken Places if it was not promoted as the sequel to The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas? Probably not. I never wondered what became of Bruno's sister, but I was intrigued by the hype. It is interesting how the cover of the UK version mimics its predecessor, while the US version does not. There is something about a sequel -- knowing the characters and their history brings you right into the action of the book. The title is taken from a conversation about Europe after the war: "They're still rebuilding...after all that unpleasantness...". Gretel "felt if I might laugh out loud. It was an extraordinary way to refer to six years of war, countless millions of deaths and all the broken places that had been left behind."

Without giving too much away, All the Broken Places is meant for adults. It is about Bruno's sister, Gretel, and is told in alternating chapters. Gretel is now in her nineties and living in the posh Mayfair neighborhood of London. But every other chapter recalls her back story. She leaves Germany as a teenager. She and her mother are living in Paris three years after Bruno's death -- six months after her father is hanged for war crimes. Her mother has become an alcoholic, and Gretel feels a pervading guilt throughout her life. Her guilt haunts her for the rest of her life, and, as the reader will learn, there are reasons for the guilt.

I enjoyed the book. There is no question of John Boyne's skill as an author. You can tick off all the appeal points: well-developed, nuanced characters, strong sense of place in every location, great pacing and tone. There is humor, anger, sadness -- the whole gamut of emotion.

In his author's note, Boyne describes the book as "a novel about guilt, complicity, and grief." He also notes

Writing about the Holocaust is a fraught business and any novelist approaching it takes on an enormous burden of responsibility. Not the burden of education, which is the task of non-fiction, but the burden of exploring emotional truths and authentic human experiences while remembering that the story of every person who died in the Holocaust is one that is worth telling.

For all the mistakes in her life, for all her complicity in evil, and for all her regrets, I believe that Gretel's story is also worth telling.

It is up to the reader to decide whether it is worth reading.

It definitely is.

JEWISH BOOK CARNIVAL - DECEMBER 2022

 

Life Is Like a Library is honored to host the December Jewish Book Carnival -- a monthly round up of links from across the blogosphere. It includes book reviews, author interviews, essays and other posts related to Jewish books. 

The purposes of the Jewish Book Carnival are to build community among bloggers who feature Jewish books and their blogs, and to promote Jewish reading and fields supporting this reading such as publishing and library services.

This month Gila Green Writes hosts author Haviva Ner-David who shares her experience of novel writing and tries to answer the question: What Is Fiction Writing About, After All?

On The Book of Life Podcast, Heidi Rabinowitz interviews two Sephardic authors, Bridget Hodder (The Button Box) and Sarah Aroeste (Buen Shabat, Shabbat Shalom). It's Always a Party with a Sephardi!

The Sydney Taylor Shmooze has plenty of Hanukkah book reviews, including this review of Hanukkah at Monica's by Varda Livney, reviewed by Rinat Hadad Siegel.

The Association of Jewish Libraries has published an open statement against book banning on their blog, People of the Books.

On her blog Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb, Deborah interviewed Rabbi Deborah R. Prinz about her new children's picture book, The Boston Chocolate Party.

At Jewish Books for Kids... and More, Barbara Bietz shares a Hanukkah book roundup.

Sarah Lavane, author of Unmatched: An Orthodox Jewish Woman's Mystifying Journey to Find Marriage and Meaning, talks to Michael Feldstein from Jewish Link about shidduch resumes, matchmakers and Orthodox singles.

On her My Machberet blog, Erika Dreifus routinely compiles news of Jewish literary interest. Here's one recent post: Jewish Literary Links.

In Tablet Magazine, Rachel Fremmer picks The Best Jewish Children's Books 0f 2022. 

And at Life Is Like a Library, Winter in Israel means bird migration and hot soup.

Happy Hanukkah!