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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Rereading Leon Uris’s ‘Exodus’

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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...

Timeless Chanukah story set in 1912 New York City

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My mother Alice was born in 1912, the same year in which is set this timeless Chanukah story originated in the 1950’s by Sydney Taylor and retold today by Emily Jenkins and Paul O....

Novel shines a light on Soviet WWII decison- making

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This novel gives a detailed account of the days leading up to the German attempt to take Stalingrad in the summer of 1942, doing so by tracing the exploits of a group of former...

Rabbi Samuel introduces Philo to the modern world

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The 1stCentury Jewish philosopher and religious scholar, Philo, was very familiar with the Torah, commenting here and there on different portions of the Five Books of Moses in writings that were spread over approximately...

Pondering in ‘Librarian’ where truth ends, fiction begins

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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...

Chesler’s memoir insightful into feminist movement

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Possibly before, but especially after publication of Women and Madness, which exposed the practice of falsely committing women to insane asylums and the abuse of women within those institutions, author Phyllis Chesler has been among...

Two children’s books for Jewish holidays

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Author Sandra Feder notes that Judaism acknowledges a duality in life: with the bitter often will come the sweet, and vice versa.  “Sweet wine or grape juice is used to welcome Shabbat on Friday...

Moncrieff’s 40 packed years

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As a former translator and great admirer of the works of Proust, both in the original French (a bit of a struggle for me) and in their delightful English version, I could not resist...

Novel probes stress between Jews and Blacks

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Whoever said money can’t buy you happiness would have received resounding agreement from Jay Gladstone, the fictional philanthropist, real estate developer, and professional basketball team owner who is the protagonist of this novel.  This...

A Holocaust book for older preteens

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That there are casualties and atrocities in war for both soldiers and civilians is summed up best by General U. S. Grant, “War is hell!” How about when there is no war? Should civilians...