Oliver Pollak
Oliver B. Pollak is a freelance writer in Richmond. He may be contacted via oliver.pollak@sdjewishworld.com
Rereading Leon Uris’s ‘Exodus’
A conversation over the breakfast table with friends started with the question, “What book do you wish you had not read so you could read it for the first time?”
We pushed the concept to...
Pondering in ‘Librarian’ where truth ends, fiction begins
This story, set in Prague, Theresienstadt, Auschwitz, Hamburg, and Tel Aviv, is creative non-fiction. It appeared in Spanish in 2012 and was translated into English in 2017. The author found his subject by a...
A story of a spirited lifetime
We learn to drink from and with family, friends, and colleagues starting at the family table, temptations of fake I.D.s, followed by college, Navy, coworkers, restaurant wine tasting, and other influences. Turning 21 is...
Reading on my Jewish family vacation
OCEANSIDE, California — What does family vacation mean? It used to be an oxymoron ranking with giant shrimp, military intelligence, and other improbables. Destination vacations, national parks, beaches, mountains, desert, camping, rv’s, condos, five-star...
‘The City Without Jews’ screens 90+ years later
The 38th annual San Francisco Jewish Film festival is in full swing. From July 19 to August 5, Bay Area theatres in San Francisco, Albany, Palo Alto, San Rafael, and Oakland will screen 67 Jewish...
Choosing our role models and mentors
We identify role models in the family, high school, college, graduate school, law school, synagogue, and in our chosen professions. As we meet new people they may join the pantheon; when some fall from grace, we...
How to identify Jewish writers
I had heard on NPR that Steve Costa and Kate Levinson wanted to sell a bookstore they had owned since 2002 in this delightful Northern California coastal town, and get on with new life...
Grandparents loved Vienna (Wien) despite all
I am now the same age as my father was when he died, 74. For the first time, I am walking around his birthplace, Vienna, with my sister, gazing at the city he loved...
How a Jewish story may link to others
RICHMOND, California — Some observations suggest sharing. They may be intimate, personal, or idiosyncratic. The task is to make them meaningful for a wider reading audience. My mission is to identify stories by Jews...
Trysts with the Nobel Prize in Literature
RICHMOND, California — The measurement of time changes after you retire. You do not have to go to work, and you can do pretty much what you want to do within financial and physical limits....