No comments about Second Generation Voices: Reflections by Children of Holocaust Survivors and Perpetrators (Religion, Theology, and the Holocaust).

2 comments about Oskar Schindler: The Untold Account of His Life, Wartime Activites, and the True Story Behind the List.

1. As background reading for my Masters thesis it is a good book. As light reading for one who might have a passing interest in Schindler, the book is protracted and discursive. The edition I read was possibly the worst edited book I have ever read! The historian Sir Ian Kershaw is introduced as Kreshaw!!...........and so the errors persist. Crowe has researched his topic well, using a vast number of sources and quoting the work of others (notably Robin O'Neill - former student of Sir Martin Gilbert - who has researched Schindler too). A particularly interesting facet of this work is the cross-referencing/comparison of Schindler's life and deeds with Spielberg's film. This was most useful and interesting and dispels many of the myths that filmgoers might accept as fact. A good book - spoilt by poor editing - revealing the man behind the myth: warts and all!



2. A good biography, to me, has always been a book where the reader truly gets to know the person he or she is reading about. In that regard, this book tends to fail. Not that isn't a truly informative book, far from it, but instead it reads like a history book...chronologically (mostly) moving from early life to old age, giving out facts, quotes, and stories about Schindler's life so that by the last page you feel as though you know ABOUT his life, but not really WHY he lived it (ironically my greatest "insights" in Schindler come from quoted intelligence files ABOUT him confiscated after the war, not the author's words).
   
   Maybe this problem is endemic more to the man than the other. He (apparently) was a many-faceted man and that could make writing a book to make the reader understand him difficult. Still, just because a historic figure is "difficult" to understand doesn't mean he can't be written about in such a way as the reader can come to understand who this person really was and to be honest I just don't really think I can say I have that idea after having read the book (I personally think, for good or bad, that the movie gave me a better impression than the book).
   
   So...if you want to learn about the man and what he did (and all the tangential characters that he ran across in his life) this is the book for you. If you are looking for a book that gives you the facts of his life AND the understanding of the man, you might do better to look elsewhere.

5 comments about Out of Egypt: A Memoir.

1. Andre Aciman's Out of Egypt is an amazing book, I found it very hard to put down. At a time of increased hostility in the middle east it is heartwarming to read of a time when Jews lived in peace with their Muslim and Christian neighbors in Alexandria. Not a whiff of anti Jewish sentiments was reported by Aciman until after the Suez War. Aciman and his family left Egypt in the sixties.
   
   Aciman, like many "Egyptian" Jews preferred to hold European nationalities and in some cases some were French or Italian without ever setting foot in these countries. Europeans had their own courts in Egypt and did not fall under Egyptian Laws. For Aciman, born and raised in Egypt and in many ways no different than many affluent Alexandrians life became unbearable after the waves of Nationalization in the early 60's.
   
   Aciman writes of an Alexandria that no longer exists not just for Egyptian Jews. The population explosion in Egypt has transformed Alexandria beyond recognition; hence Aciman's beautiful writing of Alexandria, its beaches and its tram will bring floods of memories for anyone who's known Alexandria.
   
   Affluent Egyptian Jews who left Egypt in the fifties and sixties are not immediately thought of as refugees and there is little discussion on their issues of identity and affiliation in Egypt and elsewhere. Aciman through his acute sensitivity to the people and events around him and his wonderful story telling skills has produced beautifully written and very touching book that subtly challenges many assumptions on all sides.
   
   Readers will see the very same Alexandria in Leila Ahmed's Border Passage and in parts of Ahdaf Souief's In the Eye of the Sun. Enjoy



2. This memoir is the very best I've read. It takes the author from his earliest years as part of a large Jewish family which moved from Turkey to Alexandria (he was born in 1951), through the air raid sirens during Suez war with France and England, to the expulsion of the Jews by Nasser in the late 1950s, and then on to his adulthood in America and his return to Egypt following his marriage. After a lengthy opening section dating roughly from age 5 or 6, the narrative skillfully skips back and forth in time. The descriptions of the boy's exotic world and his dysfunctional extended family are priceless, as are the re-invented conversations and arguments among the adults who surround him. There is something Proust-like in the writing, a love of detail for the texture it creates, and something Nabokov-like as well, in the hooded humor and artful language. I found it utterly captivating and written with love, especially for his mother, who was born deaf. I heartily recommend it to anyone who contemplates or is writing a memoir.



3. Aciman wrote this book not only being 'Out of Egypt' like Blixen was 'Out of Africa', but as well being "Out of Childhood'. So the grown-up is looking back and remembers his extended family with live-in servants and longtime friends. Whoever loves family stories will enjoy this well-written book.
   
   Having myself spent some summers in Egypt I would say that his kind of Egypt isn't gone completely - there is still, beneath the noise of the traffic and industries, the chit-chat of the doorkeepers, sharellas and nannies. Or the difference of daily lives in regular, in summer, during the ramadan. Egypt still works as a time machine.



4. REVIEW OF "OUT OF EGYPT" for Amazon.com July 12, 2007
   
   Andre Aciman describes his colorful and complicated life (and family)in
   Alexandria in the 1960s. Childhoods like that are often the preparation
   for a life of writing. The child absorbs all the peculiarities as part of
   normal life without knowing they are peculiar until much later. Then they
   need to make sense of it all.
   All this is heightened by the fact that the Acimans are Jewish, in a
   Muslim country still resonating with the after effects of British rule.His
   experiences in the theoretically best school in Alexandria, run by
   British teachers, would be funny if they weren't so awful. For complete
   cognitive dissonance,his parents force him to learn Arabic to survive.
   Reading about those lessons alone is worth the price of this book. At
   home they speak Ladino, the Sephardic Yiddish, among themselves.
   His beautful mother was born deaf. When provoked she can produce a
   high-pitched scream. used to good effect at the butcher's. Once she has
   made her point they are all quite happy. The butcher has to give the package
   to her Arab servant. She never touches an Arab's hand.
   The Acimans and Andre's maternal relatives live in a state of mutual
   scorn, but when faced with the threats of Pan-Arab nationalism pull together very
   efficiently. Eventually they all flee, the sedate Sephardic merchants
   and the shady international adventurers too.
   Two other writers come to mind when reading this book. Laurence Durrell
   evokes something of the same atmosphere in his Alexandria Quartet and Elias
   Canetti grew up in a large Sephardic family in Bulgaria. That society has
   completely disappeared. Without Canetti's memoirs one would not know it had ever
   existed.
   This is an eloquent and elegiac account of that love and absurdity
   known as a family.



5. This is a well written memoir about the Aciman clan, the reader gradually become familiar with each one of the family members of the Aciman family. The book relates the easy and good life in Alexandria before the Suez war in 1956 and afterwards the oppression of Jews until they were forced to leave the country. It's amazing to know that Andre Aciman's father spoke many languages like Ladino , Greek, Turkish, French, English, and probably Italian besides the languge of prayers Hebrew. I woul like to recommend another moving and poignant memoir about the life in Cairo, written by Henry Mourad Exodus II The Promised Land

4 comments about Hidden Letters.

1. Hidden Letters is impossible to put down. Philip "Flip" Slier was interned in a Nazi labor camp in the Netherlands, but wrote loving, optimistic letters home--and took many photographs. Then he, and virtually all of his extended family, disappeared into the Holocaust.
   When the letters were discovered in Amsterdam in 1997, a search was made for Flip's closest relative, who turned out to be his first cousin Deborah, whose father had moved his family to South Africa and thus enabled them all to live through the war.
   Deborah and her husband, Ian Shine, spent ten years having the letters translated and researching the places and the people they described. They interviewed many survivors of the Holocaust and the war, and include information about almost all--including their photographs and ultimate fates. Over 300 photographs are included.
   Flip could write and you fall in love with him as you read. When the letters stop, it is devastating.
   This is a compelling, disturbing, and heartbreaking great read.
   Kathleen Baxter, columnist, School Library Journal



2. When you read HIDDEN LETTERS, the book is going to leave a mark. It's going to hurt down deep and leave you thinking about things long after you've finished the book. After receiving the book, I admit to approaching the book warily. The subject matter is brutal, and it's devastating to anyone who's a parent.
   
   First, a little history on the book. The letters that comprise the human narrative within the pages were discovered in Amsterdam in 1997. They were written by an eighteen year old Dutch Jew named Philip "Flip" Slier. He was sent to a Dutch labor camp in 1942. When first sent there, Slier believed he was going to be treated humanely, though restricted. He didn't know the horror that awaited him, or that he would soon be dead.
   
   At the time Slier first went to the work camps, letters shipped regularly between the families and the restricted men. As I read the letters, I was stunned by the naïve manner that Slier exhibited. He honestly thought he was only going to be there for a short time, and that his experiences there would be nothing more than what he would endure during some summer camp.
   
   As a father of five, I know how innocent kids can be. They think they know so much, but they're blind to so many things. They often don't know they're in over their heads until it's much too late.
   
   And that's what happened with Slier.
   
   I felt somewhat guilty while reading his letters, almost voyeuristic into a world of pain and innocence. The letters are inane and even cheerful. At times Slier obviously felt he was on some grand adventure. At other times I could see that he was putting on a front for his parents, acting brave while he was scared to death, or at least mightily confused by what was going on around him.
   
   That human element, and that innocence, is what is going to haunt me about the book. Slier also took a camera with him. He took several pictures and sent them back home to his parents and friends, and those people managed to hang onto them throughout the blackest days of World War II. I saw his face, and I saw how much of a kid he still was. He aged decades in months, and he finally got killed.
   
   That's one side of the story, but the authors added a tremendous amount of history materials to further the reader's understanding of what was going on in this area at this time. More pictures and maps fill the book. On one hand, HIDDEN LETTERS is a short journal of tumultuous times in a young man's life, but on the other hand the book is a great historical record. I love history, and I equate it with the story of people rather than names and dates. But Philip Slier's story truly brings home the fact that history is made up of people more than dates or events.
   
   HIDDEN LETTERS is going to satisfy the armchair historian's perusal of the time period, and will give some sense of people and what was going on to genealogists that have discovered they've got family members that were in this camps at the same time. For either of those groups, I'm sure the book would be a beneficial addition.
   
   The parents saved those letters all those years. I can't imagine what it must have been like to pull them out every so often and read the last words of their lost son.



3. Hidden Letters is a treasure trove of letters and postcards written in 1942 by an 18 year old Dutch Jew named Philip "Flip" Slier, sent almost daily from Flip to his parents from within the forced labor camp that held Flip. Flip was eventually executed in the Nazi death camp Sobibor. Now translated and reprinted, completely unedited and enhanced with annotation from Deborah Slier and her husband Ian Shine, Hidden Letters is a first-person account of life in Nazi-occupied Holland. Black-and-white photographs and interviews with those who knew Flip, as well as with Selma Wijnberg-Engel (the sole Dutch survivor of the October, 1943 uprising in Sobibor) round out this firsthand testimony. A welcome addition to academic and community library Judaic Studies in general, and Holocaust Studies collections in particular.



4. So much has been written about the Holocaust that its difficult to add anything of value, but now we actually do have something that does just that; Deborah Slier & Ian Shine's new book "Hidden Letters".
   Thanks in particular to the extraordinary layout and design, we move naturally and effortlessly between the specifics of Flip's life and letters to the wider context of the Final Solution as it was implemented all over Europe and the entire Soviet Union. The usual numbing statistics come to life....the effect is at once informative and deeply emotional.

2 comments about Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust.

1. This book is wonderfully formatted, arranged by geographic area of Europe. Each interview starts with black and white photos a person who helped Jews and other persecuted people during WWII. A personal narrative of that time in their lives follows, and each interview closes with a color photo of that person as they were in 1992 when the interviews were done. A complicated and moving picture of altruism emerges, and one gets a glimpse of how individuals chose to protect others at the risk of threat to themselves and their families.



2. On the front cover of "Rescuers" are 12 photographs of some very nice looking people. They are pictures of people that you might meet every day; of friends and family, or someone that you might pass by on the street. They are the faces of very ordinary people, but they are also much more than that. They are the faces of people that risked their lives to save the lives of others during the Holocaust. They are the faces of the rescuers. There are many more photographs inside the book, of rescuers from countries all over Europe. Author Malka Drucker and photographer Gay Block interviewed and photographed the rescuers, seeking the heart of compassion and moral courage. They found that heart in men and women; the young and the old; and in people from all walks of life. Every story told by the rescuers is very moving. Some rescuers saved one person from death; some saved many thousands. All of the rescuers are worthy of the greatest respect and honor. The rescuers were sometimes asked the question of why they helped others to live, when so many other people stood by and did nothing. The rescuers would answer that question by saying that they were only doing what they knew was right. By caring for other people, they were acting the way that everyone should have been acting. One of the most inspiring truths found in the book, is the thought that we all have that same spark of goodness within our hearts, that was shown so nobly by the rescuers. We all have the capacity for doing what is right, even in times of the greatest fear and terror. This is a book that will warm your heart, and it is well worth reading.

5 comments about Streets: A Memoir of the Lower East Side (The Helen Rose Scheuer Jewish Women's Series).

1. This book was written by a very eloquent author in 1922. At 23years of age, she carefully details her struggles of growing up inpoverty on the lower east side of Manhattan. This is one of a few books that deals with the difficulties faced by immigrants of to New York around the turn of the century. Her battles are those of a poor, Jewish girl growing up without a father in tenement housing. I thouroughly recommend this book to Jews, feminists and historians.



2. This is a coming of age story depicting the harrowing early life of an extraordinary talent. Told with an amazing eye for detail and a highly developed sense of humor, this is one of the most moving autobiographies I have read. Bella Spewack writes of her thirst for knowledge and determination. In later life Bella invented the Girl Scout cookie, became a noted journalist and wrote successful plays and movies. Streets tells of the difficult circumstances of her childhood.



3. Streets: Memoir Of The Lower East Side was written in 1922 and published for the first time in 1955. This remarkable memoir of a young Jewish girl's coming of age in the tenement slums of New York's Lower East Side is gritty, candid, vivid, engaging, sensitive, and streetsmart. Bella Spewack overcame obstacles of gender, background, and religious discriminations to succeed as a celebrated journalist, playwright, and screenwriter. Streets is highly recommended, articulate reading and will prove of special interest to students of American Jewish history, Women's Studies, and biographies reflecting the triumph of the human spirit over social and cultural barriers.



4. this is my favorite book. if anyone has similar taste to me then i highly recommend them to read it. i was getting so into reading it that i never wanted it to end. to last forever. so i tried to do so by reading a limit of pages each day. i live in NYC and by reading the book i had grown a stronger love for the city and thats another reason i loved the book. the down fall of the book? well, it was and made me sad. it was kinda a depressing book. you now. like a heart-acher.

   it was indeed a pleasure to read and in the future, if you do read it, i hope you injoy.

   thats my review! i hope i helped!




5. this is my favorite book. if anyone has similar taste to me then i highly recommend them to read it.

   i'm going to describe it as a story of a girl growing into a women on the streets of the lower east side of manhattan. she tells of different jobs and the boarders that her and her mother board to help pay the rent. its very hard for me to describe becuase of 2 reasons 1) you can't describe it you have to read it 2)i read it a year ago.

   i was getting so into reading it that i never wanted it to end. to last forever. so i tried to do so by reading a limit of pages each day. i live in NYC and by reading the book i had grown a stronger love for the city and thats another reason i loved the book. i also loved the stories she has of her childhood. the down fall of the book? well, it was and made me sad. it was kinda a depressing book. you now. like a heart-acher.

   it was indeed a pleasure to read and in the future, if you do read it, i hope you enjoy.

   thats my review! i hope i helped!

5 comments about We Just Want to Live Here: A Palestinian Teenager, an Israli Teenager -- an Unlikely Friendship.

1. Ashley Southard
   English Book Review
   April 16, 2004
   The Arab/ Israeli conflict has been discussed in many books, and Americans hear of it every day in the news. But do you really know both sides to the story? We Just Want to Live Here, a story of teenagers Amal Rifa'I (a Palestinian) who is planning on studying special education in an Israeli college, and Odelia Ainbinder (an Israeli) who is part o a socialist/Zionist movement before she gets ready to join the military living in Israel, shows the opinion of both sides of the conflict. Amal and Odelia met one summer while at an exchange program in Switzerland. After, they were asked by journalist Sylke Tempel to begin writing to each other discussing the conflict in which they are living.
   This non-fiction book is presented as a compilation of the letter the girls wrote to each other. In these heart-to-heart letters, Amal and Odelia discuss political, social and ethnic issues. This book was published for people who are passionate about the "bad blood" between the Palestinian and Israeli issues. These letters really dig deep into the soul of the people of Israel, Palestinian and Israeli alike, and readers begin to feel compassion for these girls. One of the only weaknesses of this book was the fact that there was really no plot or suspense to keep a person reading. Many people watch TV shows consistently because of the suspense, and many people like books that are the same way. This book lacks that appeal, and it is easy to become bored with this book if you don't wish to delve into the Palestinian/Israeli conflict.

   Unlike most books, these letters truly had no bias. Each teenager is from one side of the conflict, and they discuss the modern issues in such a way that the reader genuinely gains an understanding of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Readers begin to realize the stupidity of the prejudices that people hold and realize that you cannot make judgment about this dispute until you completely understand the emotions of both peoples.
   I would recommend We Just Want to Live Here for readers who are interested in this dispute. People who are passionate about this ongoing war will not become bored with the lack of plot in these letters. The letters really help to achieve true understanding of this everlasting issue.




2. "Boom," a bomb goes off two blocks away from your school, just as you are leaving class. This isn't that rare of occasion for the two teenage co-authors of the book, We Just Want to Live Here. In this book they are often left to decide how they feel about the suicide bombings and other occurrences in their hometown, Jerusalem. Sylke Tempel put the fascinating letters between these very different teenage girls together into this great factual book about living in Jerusalem during the second Intifada.
   Sylke Tempel does a great job putting together the letters in a logical order that helps the reader to understand the conflict in Jerusalem from both opinions. By using a Palestinian girl (Odelia Ainbinder) and an Israeli girl (Amal Rifa'i) you were flushed with both aspects of such topics as the suicide bombings, the army, school and even normal girl talk such as boys. Through both girls' lives, their views of the other side were only composed of what they heard from their friends, family and media making them only see a glance of the big picture. The girls' way of expressing their feelings made you get in the shoes of both sides of the conflict. They didn't leave anything out about their beliefs on what should be done to solve the conflicts between the Palestinians and Israelis. their feelings are even supportive of the other side. For example they agree on such things as how influential their parents were to their lives, yet abruptly disagree on such issues as whether Odelia, the Israeli girl, should join the army after her year off. Sometimes all they would do through their letters was learn more about the other persons culture, which is what happened when they started talking about such things as school and getting married and moving in with boys. This book is very un-biased because it shows how real teenagers on both sides feel about the conflict. Sylke Tempel makes it very clear that she wants people to receive no bias towards either side. She does this by showing both sides of the argument and showing how neither girl is evil. Because of the way Tempel broke up the book, it reads very fast and is easy to understand. The girls' discussion was very interesting and sometimes even shocking to learn how they felt on different issues.
   We Just Want to Live Here, is a great read for people of all ages. It would probably be better for girls to read because it is written by girls and sometimes would get a little into girl talk. Being the letters of real girls, this book would be great to read as a class in history or English. This is because it is very factual and a great un-biased way to learn about the conflict in Jerusalem. Before reading this book I would suggest to have previous knowledge of the conflict to better understand what girls are talking about. Overall this was a great, educational book filled with many different opinions and thoughts. I would definitely recommend this book to someone wanting to expanse his or her knowledge in the Arab-Israeli conflict.



3. In the summer of 2000, a group of Israeli and Palestinian teenagers were invited to Switzerland. Despite many misunderstandings between the Jews and Muslims on the trip, tentative friendships were formed. However, just before the students returned home to Israel, the second Intifada broke out reminding each participant of their differences. Two young women on the trip who did become friends were Palestinian Amal Rifa'i and Israeli Odelia Ainbinder. Two years later, in June of 2002, journalist Sylke Tempel began looking for a young Israeli and a young Palestinian to exchange letters and ideas in order to create a book that would tell the story of Palestine, Israel and the Intifada in their own words. She found the ideal pair in Amal and Odelia. The result is WE JUST WANT TO LIVE HERE, a series of letters and conversations between Amal and Odelia.
   
   Just 18 years old when they begin corresponding, the women are wise beyond their years and patient with each other's points of view. There is much potential for name-calling, disrespect and worse in such a dialogue, but Amal and Odelia behave with a restraint and open-mindedness often sorely lacking in regards to this difficult and delicate subject. Covering topics such as Jerusalem (where they both live, geographically close but socio-cultural worlds apart), school and the Israeli army, both women are not only quite honest and articulate about their feelings, but are also well versed in their cultural and religious history and tradition. To further illustrate certain points, each invites family members to share her story and thus we read about Odelia's parents and Amal's grandfather in their own words.
   
   Even with such an open dialogue, Amal and Odelia realize there are some things they may never see eye to eye on --- each has a different interpretation of the formation history of the State of Israel, each interprets the plight of the Palestinians in a very different way. Yet they both agree that continued violence is not the answer and hope for strong leadership for the Israelis and the Palestinians. One major problem they both identify is the lack of knowledge about each other's culture, religion and history. Knowledge, they stress, is key to a sustainable peace.
   
   As the book was being written, both Amal and Odelia faced adult life and responsibility --- Amal was engaged to be married and Odelia was preparing for her mandatory service in the Israeli army. Yet the tone of the book still reflected a youthful hopefulness and youthful frustration.
   
   Poignant, brutally honest and sometimes heartbreaking, WE JUST WANT TO LIVE HERE is written with the idealism of youth and the cynicism of those who grow up amid war and violence. This is a book that puts a human face on the violence and destruction of the Israeli-Palestinian war and invites the reader to question her beliefs and opinions. Amal and Odelia are brave and admirable, willing to open their hearts and minds to each other.
   
   WE JUST WANT TO LIVE HERE is not about solutions or roadmaps to peace. It is the tale of a friendship and intellectual exchange in spite of the most difficult circumstances imaginable. I highly recommend this book for those who want a glimpse of what life is like for teenagers in Israel.
   
   --- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman



4. It is interesting to see the views of two young women caught up in this conflict. My main complaint about this book is the chronology in the back of the book.
   
   1. Under 1947 Temple writes "The Jewish population in Palestine rises from 24,000 to 630,000 due to several ways of immigration (aliyah; plural, aliyot) between 1882 and 1948. This more than triples Palestine's Jewish population at that time" It seems to me that the Jewish population increases by 26 times, why use triple? I really have no idea what she is referring to.
   
   2. Under 1948 Temple writes "Declaration of the independent state of Israel on May 14 by Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Guerion. On the following day, troops from Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia attack Israel. The Jewish underground movements, Lechi and Ezel, launch a wave of attacks against Arab civilians, which culminates in the massacre at Deir Yassin, where 245 inhabitants lost their lives. According to UN estimates, 700,000 Palestinians fled or were driven out of their homes." Deir Yassin occurred on April 9, five weeks before Israel declared independance and Arab armies intervened. Most of the Palestenians who were driven out of their homes were expelled before May 14.
   
   3. 1956 - Not mentioned, England, France and Israel invade Egypt. Retreat under US pressure.
   
   4. 1987 - Temple writes "In opposition to the nationalistic PLO, Israel supports the foundation Islamic factions, which will be the origin of he fundementalist Hamas (Arabic for "enthusiasm/excitement") under its leader Sheikh Achmed Yassin."
   Hamas was formed in the late 1970's and had been supported by Israel from the beginning.
   
   5. 1994 - Temple writes "Hamas commits suicide bombings with the goal of sabotaging the peace process." Hamas committed it's first suicide bombing in response to murder of 29 muslims at a mosque in Hebron by Baruch Goldstein an american born far right settler. Temple leaves out the part about Baruch Goldstein.
   
   There are some other things that I don't think she is very evenhanded or possibly even correct about in the chronology but I don't have time to research everything. The most glaring error is getting the date of Deir Yassin wrong, simple historical research.



5. Forget the negative reviews---this is a wonderful, sweet, realistic and educational view of what it's like to live in Jerusalem, as seen through the eyes of two teenage girls...one Muslim and the other Jewish. I am impressed with the intelligence of these two young women. They don't chat about rock music or Britney Spears or trendy clothing--instead, they describe the love they feel for their city and how they can each do their part to create lasting peace. The girls get into serious political debates and they disagree quite frequently, but they respect each other as human beings and the friendship is strong. It's fascinating to learn what young Israelis think of America--Odelia, for instance, believes it's far more dangerous to live in New York than in Jerusalem! This is a warm and endearing book. I recommend it to anyone interested in contemporary Jerusalem (or all of Israel) and what life is like there. I learned a lot from reading it.

No comments about The Lost Childhood: The Complete Memoir.

No comments about My Life As a Radical Jewish Woman: Memoirs of a Zionist Feminist in Poland (Modern Jewish Experience).

1 comments about The Disinherited: Journal of a Palestinian Exile (Mr Modern Reader PB-248).

1. The author writes his experience as a Palestinian refugee, gives the reader an idea of how Palestinians have been through numerous problems and crisis ever since their exodus from THEIR land in 1948 by the Zionists. He also gives a true picture of the Arab situation, how weak it is, and how Arabs even were against Palestinians themselves. The book is unique since the author combines some of his personal experience with stories, political history, and review. It's a must-read book, gives a clear picture to those who really want to know more about the issue in the Middle East.