Welcome to the May 2017 Jewish Book Carnival -- a selection of book reviews; interviews with authors, publishers, librarians and others about Jewish books; and essays about Jewish books and literature.
The purposes of the Jewish Book Carnival are to build community among bloggers who feature Jewish books in their posts and to promote Jewish reading, and fields supporting this reading such as publishing and library services.
This month's selections:
At The Book of Life, Heidi Rabinowitz interviews Suzanne Nelson about her teen novel Serendipity’s Footsteps. Become a patron of The Book of Life for as little as $1/month and Suzanne will send you an autographed copy of Serendipity’s Footsteps!
Jill at Rhapsody in Books reviews I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes her Mark by Debbie Levy. This book for children explains how Ruth's early experience of prejudice against Jews, women, and other groups inspired her later dedication to equal rights for everyone. Originally posted for Women's History Month (March), this 2017 Sydney Taylor Book Award Winner for Younger Readers is a great read any time of the year.
At AJL's People of the Book blog, Kathleen Bloomfield, the president of the School, Synagogue and Center Division of the Association of Jewish Libraries addresses the current violence and hate with "literary suggestions for children that affirm the values of kindness and acceptance of others."
At Israel Blogger, Batya Medad is very happy that Rabbi Emanuel Feldman has republished his lovely and honest memoir, The 28th of Iyar, his day by day journal written during the weeks leading up to the Six Days War and the war itself. Feldman and his family had been winding down their sabbatical year in Israel when the Arab countries began threatening to annihilate the State of Israel...
On the Fig Tree Books Blog, a series of posts spotlighting past winners of the Edward Lewis Wallant Award continues with a look at Allegra Goodman's Kaaterskill Falls, which took the prize for 1999.
I attended the Jerusalem Women Writers' Conference (JWWS) on May 9th. You can read about the great speakers and sessions at Life Is Like a Library.
Over on the Jewish Book Review author Deborah Kalb shares her big secret with Rivka Levy (and you), and explains why she stopped writing for adults and started writing fiction for children instead.
On My Machberet, Erika Dreifus reports on the celebration for this year's finalists for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature (and looks back on the very first such event, ten years ago).
Deborah Kalb interviews a wide variety of authors on her blog, Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb. Here's a recent interview she did with Peter Szabo about his new book, Finding Maria, which looks at his family's history and his relationship with his grandmother.
Penguin Random House's Newsletter "Signature: Making Well-Read Sense of the World" covers all aspects of reading and literature, but I was drawn to two recent posts:
from author David Samuel Levinson -- "5 Novels That Illuminate the Problems and Dangers of Anti-Semitism"
and "No Excuse for Ignorance: Books to Understand the Holocaust" by Lorraine Berry.
Thank you to all our contributors.
First stop: Sefer V'Sefel (Book and Mug), my favorite used bookstore. It's located off Jaffa Road in an alleyway and up the stairs, which adds to its charm. It's full of all kinds of English language books: new, used, fiction and non-fiction. The best part is looking through all the volumes and finding treasures. This visit I picked up a Pulitzer Prize winning novel, a book I wanted to read (but not buy at full price), and a bunch of recent magazines.
Although "mug" is in the name of the store, sadly there are no mugs of beverages, so...
Next stop: Coney Island Bakery on Jaffa Road for some coffee and pastries. Yet another reminder of America, the storefront looks a little like a subway:
From there, it's a quick ride on the light rail to Yad Vashem.
"Children from the Holocaust" is currently in the Exhibition Hall. Through video testimonial, artifacts, and recent artwork inspired by the stories of Holocaust survivors, their experiences evoke a mix of feelings - sadness for their suffering and for those that did not survive, happiness for their brief moments of happiness, and awe for both the creativity and the strength of spirit. A case of dolls and stuffed animals that survived the war was particularly touching, as the stories of the owners accompanied each toy.
As Yogi Berra said "It was like deja vu all over again" in the main hall and the art gallery:
In One Jew's Power, One Jew's Glory: The Life of Rav Yitzchak Shumuel Eliyahu Finkler the Rebbe of Radoschitz in the Ghetto and Concentration Camps (Feldheim,1991), Yechiel Granatstein recounts a story about Reb Yitzchak'l that took place in the Skarszysko Labor Camp: the Rebbe was able to obtain, at the expense of the inmates' secret valuables, a ram's horn, out of which another inmate, Moshe Waintreter, at the risk of his life, formed a shofar. "The Rebbe was beaming with joy that they were able to keep the mitzvah of blowing the shofar." Remembering these passages, I was taken aback when I saw the actual shofar on display:
Fireflies in the Dark: The Story of Friedl Dicker-Brandeis and the Children of Terezin by Susan Goldman Rubin (Holiday House, 2000) tells the story of a trained art therapist who brought her supplies to the concentration camp and brought hope and enjoyable diversion to the bleakest of environments. Dicker-Brandeis' "Figures" is on display. Alas, no photographs in the gallery and no images online, but this pastel, "View of Theresienstadt" was recently on display at the University of New Mexico Art Museum.
Then it was back home. With shorter days and the blessing of rain here in Israel, it's a perfect time to catch up on my reading.
On the 20th anniversary of the assassination of Yitzchak Rabin, I am enjoying Killing a King by Dan Ephron. It is fascinating to see how much has changed in 20 years, and how events are put in perspective with the passage of time.
I finished Heather Streltzer Gelb's From Hilltop to Hilltop: My Path from Rwanda to Israel. While the details of her time with the Peace Corps made for interesting reading, her path meandered through Rwanda for about 90 percent of the book and the next 20 years of her life were wrapped up pretty quickly. For this reader, a map of Rwanda would have been very helpful.
My book club read Lovingkindness by Anne Roiphe, which I had reviewed for Fig Tree Books. Although it was published in 1987, the group found the mother-daughter relationship and the Israel experience fertile topics for discussion.
A Whole Lot of Wholeness
I recently received two books for review with "Wholeness" in the title: Increasing Wholeness by Rabbi Elie Kaplan Spitz and Everyday Wholeness by D.B. Estrin. Thinking "wholeness" may have replaced "mindfulness" as the new buzzword, I did a quick scan of Amazon: 3,535 books. In the Jewish category, there are 125, but Like Dreamers by Yossi Klein Halevi is included, and that one doesn't quite fit. It's definitely trending, but it means different things to different people.
D.B.Estrin's book is subtitled "Self-Coaching for the Jewish Family." The author, a life coach with an Orthodox perspective, looks at many aspects of life and offers some tips for managing the household cheerfully and efficiently, developing healthy habits (eating and exercise), organizing the home, and enhancing prayer.
Rabbi Spitz is the rabbi of a conservative congregation in California, has authored several other books, and focuses on spirituality. The subtitle of his book is "Jewish Wisdom and Guided Meditations to Strengthen and Calm Body, Heart, Mind and Spirit." His goal is "to surprise you with ancient wisdom and imaginative insights that move
you toward greater inner ease and effectiveness" -- a wholeness that means
"a fuller sense of awareness of your inner life and greater integration
and strengthening of the physical, emotional, intellectual and intuitive
dimensions of self."
While I ponder what I will need to do to achieve wholeness (am I currently at half-ness?!), I will leave you with some Real Cats of Jerusalem. Happy Reading!
It is my pleasure to host this month's Jewish Book Carnival, a selection of book reviews; interviews with authors, publishers, librarians and others about Jewish books; and essays about Jewish books and literature.
The purposes of the Jewish Book Carnival are to build community among bloggers who feature Jewish books on their blogs and to promote Jewish reading, and fields supporting this reading such as publishing and library services.
Without further ado, here are this month's selections:
At Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb, Deborah talks with author Barbara Stark-Nemon about Barbara's new book, Even in Darkness, a novel based on her great-aunt's concentration camp experiences.
At The Best Chapter, Diana Bletter interviews Michelle Brafman on her first novel, Washing the Dead, about how participating in a tahara ritual helps the narrator turn her life around.
The Fig Tree Books blog celebrates what would have been Saul Bellow's 100th birthday (June 10th) with some notes gleaned around the Web and three writers' discussions of Bellow novels.
Erika Dreifus shifts from the page to the screen as she recommends "Above and Beyond," a documentary about the (mostly) American pilots who helped Israel win its independence. Find her review at her blog -- My Machberet.
Photojournalism and romance are the topics of interest at Lorri M. Writings and Photography, where Lorri reviews Waiting for Robert Capa by Susana Fortes.
Heidi at The Book of Life blog hosts a podcast interview with filmmaker Ian Rosenberg about his documentary "Welcome to Kutsher’s," a loving tribute to the last Catskills resort.
At the Whole Megillah, Barbara Krasner interviews Tracy Newman about her new picture book, Uncle Eli's Wedding.
Finally, I left the comfort of my reading spot and ventured into Jerusalem for Hebrew Book Week and The Festival of Light. You can "picture" it at Life Is Like a Library.
I'd like to thank all the contributors for sharing, and for making my first time hosting much less daunting than I thought it would be. One of the benefits: I got to see all these great blogs first!
