1 comments about History and Hate.

1. At 124 pages consisting of 8 essays be various experts, I found this to be a fascinating, well-written, hugely educational experience. As a general reader, I found it a natural next step to a general book such as "Jews, God, and History" by Max I. Dimont. (Dimont's book had an excellent chapter on the history of anti-semitism but is was somewhat simplistic compared to the more in depth look given in "History and Hate"). "History and Hate" is readable by general readers who have at some time in the past read books such as "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire", or perhaps a book of history by Josephus and a book such as "The History of the World" by J. M. Roberts. I.e., it helps to have a general knowledge of world history to make the experience of reading "History of Hate" meaningful. I recommend "History of Hate" as an excellent book for a general reader who wants to see more of the "big picture" of anti-semitism throughout the world. Some of the essay titles are, "Anti-Semitism in the Ancient World", "Medieval Anti-Semitism", "Anti-Semitism and the Muslim World", and "American Anti-Semitism". I did not find a single "dud" and enjoyed all 8 of the essays. By contrast, I am disappointed in the book, "A ScapeGoad in the New Wilderness: The Origins and Rise of Anti-Semitism in American" by Frederic Jaher. This is a dishonest book because an unsuspecting reader ordering it sight-unseen assumes it covers history up to the present. In fact, it stops at around the year 1870. On the other side of the spectrum, I am unhappy with the book "Esau's Tears: Modern Anti-Semitism and the Rise of the Jews" by Lindemann because at 561 dense pages it is simply too long to hold the interest of a general reader. A general reader doesn't have the time for books of such a huge length, especially as to me it seems to be somewhat padded with overly flowery sentences. The bottom line is that I was able to read "History of Hate" in two days, felt I got my money's worth, was much the wiser for reading it, and was well entertained.

5 comments about Between the Yeshiva World and Modern Orthodoxy: The Life and Works of Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg, 1884-1966.

1. Shapiro has produced an extremely interesting biography of a tormented rabbinic scholar who was fated to live through some of the most terrible decades of Jewish history. Shapriro leans heavily on the side of "modern orthodoxy" in his evaluation of Rabbi Weinberg and perhaps could have given more weight to his correspondence and interaction with East European (later American and Israeli) gedolim. The self-imposed isolation in post-war Switzerland is not fully explained and could have stood a more in-depth pyschological analysis. However a brave attempt at a very difficult subject.



2. To many the life and works of Rav Weinberg were merely obscure shallos u teshuvos. Any controversy regarding his views was brushed off with a wave of the hand. The seridei eish had been misappropriated and assimilated into the haredi protoplasm...
   Commonly heard "he was forced to go to college" "it was a horaas shah".... Thankfully, a full exposition of his explosive ideas is now available. The reality of the great man, this whole person, is open and exposed. Let us all strive to learn from the overwhelming truth and the intelluctual engagement of this revivified Weinberg.



3. Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg 1884-1966 was one of the Torah giants of this century. He was the preeminent European posek(Halachic decisor) in the post- war period. This biography tells his own personal life story but also provides an insight into the struggles of various streams within the Orthodox world for position and predominance during his lifetime. A product of the world of the Yeshivot and of the Mussar movement he also was educated as a scholar at the University of Giessen. There he was taken under the wing of a great Gentile scholar of Judaism Paul Kahle. There too he taught a class in Torah to non- Jewish students .His immense learning won him the respect of scholars throughout the world of Jewish learning. Shapiro makes it clear that Weinberg was an advocate of what he himself exemplied the combination of Torah learning and higher secular studies. And that Weinberg was troubled in his last days at the thought of a Jewish world of learning so narrowly focused as to lose its capacity to have influence in the real world. He believed for instance that certain kinds of secular knowledge would be necessary to make the state of Israel viable and independent. Shapiro does not provide a deep psychological analysis of Weinberg's character but does tell the basic biographical story including that of his unfortunate marriage. He indicates that Weinberg lived his life in great loneliness,especially in his last post- war years in Montreux where he headed a small Yeshiva.
   This is in a way an unusual biography of a Torah giant as it not a hagiography, but provides a solid historical accounting. It is again especially instructive in the picture it gives of the Orthodox Jewish world, its divisions and conflicts.
   Weinberg is presented as a human figure capable of error(As in his initial support of the Nazis when they first came to power. An opinion he rapidly changed) but also as a great Torah scholar dedicated to the ideal of Jewish learning and the preservation and enhancing of the Torah world.



4. I went to a modern Orthodox shul when I lived in Washington, and I now go to a shul in Jacksonville that is somewhat more "yeshivish" (i.e. not Hasidic, but less liberal than my prior congregation) in orientation; this intellectual biography of R. Weinberg gives me a better idea of the intellectual roots of both wings of Orthodoxy. Both modern Orthodoxy and Yeshiva orthodoxy have their roots in 18th and 19th century Europe. In Germany, relatively modern thinkers such as Samson Raphael Hirsch and David Hoffman favored a synthesis of Orthodoxy and modern culture, embracing art and literature to the extent compatible with halacha. These ideological ancestors of modern Orthodoxy argued that Judaism could (in the author's words) be a "decisive spiritual force for humanity" and "provide answers to the problems of morality and social justice which confront modern society." By contrast, in Eastern Europe, rabbinic scholars based in yeshivot (educational institutions devoted to Torah study, comparable I suppose to rabbinic seminaries today) tended to favor isolating Jews from the secular world, and focusing purely on Torah study as opposed to secular learning. So now when I go to shul and hear a rabbi telling us to "love the world" or to be suspicious of the "nations of the world", I hear the voices of rabbinic intellectuals who died a century or two ago.
   
   Some more specific things I learned:
   
   *The level of hostility between some yeshivot and Zionism. In the Slobodka yeshiva where Weinberg studied, forty students sought to form a Zionist group. The administration forced them to disband by not just threatening to expell them from the yeshiva, but also to revoke rabbinic ordinations of students who had already received them.
   
   *The troubled relationship between German Orthodox and East European Orthodox Jews. Early in the 20th century, German Jews tended to see East Europeans as primitives - partially for irrational reasons (East Europeans were poorer, and Germans viewed Yiddish, the common East European Jewish language, as a mere corruption of German) but partially for good reasons as well. East Europeans often left Jewish education outside the yeshivot to untrained lay teachers, while rabbis focused their attentions solely on the best and the brightest. And until after World War I, East European Jews commonly made no effort to educate girls, causing girls to gravitate towards secularism. But in the last years before Hitler, a countertrend emerged. Germany's loss of World War I and postwar turmoil made German culture seem less appealing, and the "Torah only focus" and mysticism of East European Jewry seemed more appealing to some German Orthodox Jews.
   
   *The intellectual origin of intra-Orthodox disputes about woman's issues, many of which were addressed in Weinberg's writings. For example, Weinberg argued in favor of bat mitzvahs, but other Orthodox decisors were more skeptical. The halachic issues were as follows: there is a halachic rule that Jews should not imitate gentile practices, or by implication the practices of non-Orthodox Jews. Medieval authorities are split over how broadly this rule should be interpreted; some favor a broad interpretation (which would bar bat mitzvah ceremonies, on the ground that such ceremonies were originated by non-Orthodox Jews). Others interpret this principle narrowly, arguing that gentile practices may be permitted if adopted for a good reason (a view favored by Weinberg). In addition, there is a policy dispute over whether bat mitzvah ceremonies in fact cement girls' ties to Judaism.
   
   Generally, the modern trend seems to be in favor of liberalization in this area, despite the oft-touted "move to the Right" among Orthodox Jews. My shul in Jacksonville has bat mitzvah ceremonies, and a woman's right to vote and hold office (which was opposed 80 years ago by such leading authorities as Abraham Kook and the Chofetz Chaim) is no longer controversial, except in certain narrow areas such as intra-synagogue governance.



5. A welcome addition as opposed to the countless hagiographa out there, yet still biased. To call Weinberg "modern orthodox" is almost laughable-a worldly Orthodox Scholar, yes, but not modern orthodox as the term is widely understood.

5 comments about An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin (Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiographies).

1. Beck gives us a glimpse of a gay man's coming of age in Nazi Berlin. It is not only erotic but holds up a light by which all aspects of love should be measured. Once again, the Gay Spirit has triumphed over bigotry, intolerance, and in this case even the holocaust.



2. Gad Beck brought to life not only the cruelty to the jews but also the cruelty of the gay and lesbian people of the Nazi Era. I had to do a research paper for a Holocaust in Literature class I took my junior year in high school...and I was entralled the whole time I read this book. It shocked me, it horrified me...and I loved it.



3. Here is a memoire of life in Berlin during the Nazi regime from the perspective of a gay Jew. Gad Beck was an organizer and friend to many who lived illegally during that period, finding shelter and food and providing friendship and support. That he was openly gay was not important during that period - there were more important thiongs to worry about.
   
   I found this book at the bookstore of National Haulocost Museum in Washington DC on a recent visit. It fits in perfectly with that museum, in that it fleshes out the life in hiding. If you have an interest in the struggle for human rights and length to which people will go to survive, this is an excellent read.
   
   One fact that is underemphasized in the book is Beck's youth during this period. By the end of the war he was in his younger 20s. Yet he had accomplished so much and had the strength of one much older. Bravo!



4. Beck, Gad. "An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Germany, University of Wisconsin Press, 1999.
   
   Triumph of Will
   
   Amos Lassen and Literary Pride
   
   We all have a great deal of trouble understanding the Holocaust and what it did to so many people. We have been slowly getting the stories of the Nazi persecution if gays and if one was both gay and Jewish, he had real troubles. Gad Beck was a man like that but he survived and was able to tell his story as he does so eloquently in "An Underground Life". Even though his book begins slowly, it picks up pace quickly and as you read your mouth falls open to see stories about man's inhumanity to man. When the Nazis began their reign of terror he was living underground and was sought by the Gestapo. Beck was an organizer and helped many who lived illegally by finding them shelter and food as well as providing a listening ear and support in any way that he could. The fact that he was gay was secondary to the fact that he was Jewish.
   In this memoir Beck brings to life both the cruelty to the Jews but the cruelty to the gays as well. This is a shocking and horrifying account as he writes about a gay man's coming of age in Nazi Germany. It is an erotic tale but also shows how love should be considered. This was probably the first time in the modern age that the gay spirit managed to triumph over intolerance and bigotry--even against the greatest crime ever against humanity.
   The fact that Beck survived in itself is miraculous but even more amazing is that he was able to write about what he endured. When Robert Plant published "The Pink Triangle: The Nazi War against Homosexuals" in 1986, the door was opened to a new aspect of the Holocaust. Several personal accounts followed, but few have been published that talk about the Nazi treatment of gays ad I imagine that this is because so few survived and those that did could not think about what they had endured. This makes this book that much more valuable.
   Beck's own story is unique in that he was born of a mixed marriage in 1923 to a Jewish father and a Christian mother thereby not Jewish according to strict Orthodox law. Nonetheless, the Nazis did not care--if he had a drop of Jewish blood, as far as they were concerned, he was Jewish. As the Nazi party rose to power and began their housing relocation plan, forced labor and transport to death camps, Beck organized a resistance movement to hide others and to smuggle food and drugs to them, He even once wore a Nazi uniform to rescue a doomed gay man from the camps. He does not in any way disguise his sexuality and he gives details of his own sexual liaisons. He gives us an amazing picture of the horror of Nazi rule. He was one of the fortunate gay men whom his parents loved and accepted his sexuality and was very lucky that the Christian side of his family felt the same. In 1933, when Hitler came to power, he was forced to attend a Jewish school to reinforce his identity and to be visible to the ruling party and he immersed himself in Judaism and embraced the idea of the Zionist movement. He also embraced a great many men and he hides nothing about his sex life (except for actual sexual descriptions) as well as writes openly about his secret political activities. He rose in power in the Zionist movement and became a central character in working to establish a Jewish homeland. He survived the Nazis by living illegally in Berlin. Because of that he was able to write this wonderful memoir.
   This is a book that holds you from the beginning to the end, so much so that you want a sequel. He embraced his gayness at the same time that he embraced his Jewish--at a time when it meant death to be either. There are stories of betrayals and back stabbings and secret meetings and the memoir reads like a combination thriller/spy novel. That he survived s incredible and even more incredible is that he endured all that he did.



5. Here's the story: gay Jew (really a half-Jew under Nazi racial law) survives Holocaust in Berlin, despite spending lots of time risking his life by helping ferry other Jews to safety in Switzerland. I didn't find this book as enthralling as I had hoped; either the writing style or the translation left something to be desired. In particular, the last half of the book read like a laundry list of lovers and rescued friends. (Unlike another reviewer, I actually liked the pre-Holocaust half of the book better).
   
   Having said that, I still learned something from this book; I got a real sense of the differences between "full Jews" and persons of mixed blood. Full Jews typically got deported to concentration camps, no ifs, ands or buts. But if the experience of Beck and his family is any guide, half-Jews stood a pretty good chance of survival if they kept their noses clean. Because Beck's mother was born Christian (though she converted to Judaism) his parents were never deported (despite numerous close calls), and Beck got in trouble with the Gestapo only because of his rescue activities.
   
   Another interesting fact: throughout the book, Beck mentions various hunchbacks he ran into. What is it about early 20th-century Germany that produced so many hunchbacks?

4 comments about Embracing the Covenant: Converts to Judaism Talk About Why & How.

1. This book will sit prominently in my living room. I want everyone i know to read this book.



2. I had this book posted to England where I was spending my year abroad. Part of the reason why I was looking forward to that time in England was the opportunity to find out whether Judaism was what I wanted in my life. This book helped immensely and gave me many thoughts to pursue in conversation with friends and my rabbi. I can only recommend it to people who contemplate conversion.



3. The stories in this book are sometimes hauntingly beautiful. One woman expressed my thoughts so well that I read her story aloud at my bat mitzvah. This is truly a book for making connections.



4. This is a good book for anyone considering converting to Judaism and wanting to read about the experiences of others. There are many case studies of those who have converted to Judaism, their reasons for doing so, the reaction of their family and friends, and their feelings about the whole experience. The examples are overwhelmingly positive, but there are a few who report difficulties "feeling Jewish" afterwards or feeling that they are totally accepted by their new Jewish community.

   The examples are mostly from those who either converted from Catholicism or had no real religious upbringing. I was disappointed that see few Protestant-to-Jewish conversion examples; the ones that were given, were mostly from those who had very limited Protestant upbringing as children, not really practicing Protestants who decided to convert to Judaism.

   The other disappointment I found with this book was due to all of the white space. This book is definitely not as long as it appears, and it will be a very fast read.

   Overall, I found this a helpful and interesting book that I only wished were a bit longer and had a few more examples.

5 comments about Holy Unexpected: How I Became an Unorthodox Jew.

1. Nobody plans to stumble across God in an unexpected place, least of all someone who doesn't believe in God at all.
   
   But when writer Robin Chotzinoff realized 40 years into her life that she simply wasn't a very convincing atheist, there were no thunderclaps, just a warm winter rain, no cyclone but a soft Chinook wind. God was inside her, where she least expected to find him.
   
   Chotzinoff's "Holy Unexpected: My New Life as a Jew" is one woman's religious journey, but without the proselytizing or solemn moralizing. In fact, it's just about what you might expect from the daughter of a Catholic mother and a Jewish father who didn't put much stock in God: Not irreverent, but certainly not somber. It's a story about a journey as much as a destination.
   
   Chotzinoff's mid-life spiritual awakening is alternately tender and surprisingly funny. A gifted writer, reporter and dreamer with two previous nonfiction books and numerous articles, she gracefully draws meaning from simple moments. A childhood debate over the relative importance of being Hercules vs. Jesus. The propriety of praying while snowboarding. How to observe the Sabbath on Saturday but still go to Wal-Mart for duct tape. Resting her head on her dead father's arm moments after his last breath. You needn't speak Yiddish to understand exactly what's in her heart.
   
   "Holy Unexpected" is also populated with unique characters from the author's life who illustrate the kaleidoscopic spectrum of religious exploration, from faithless to faithful. It's a memoir, but there's little arrogance or ego on display. The sensitivity of this memoir is in its cast as much as its poetic rendering of an ancient faith, race, culture or whatever you believe Judaism to be.
   
   And at a time when Jewishness lies deep in the heart of the heart of a great conflict that's not-so-casually been labeled World War III, "Holy Unexpected" slices through the frustrating dialectics, obscure and misinterpreted ideologies, the wailing walls of prejudice, and fanatic manifestos fired like Katyushas from an increasingly radicalized Middle East. Chotzinoff's personal story is a different kind of exodus, a journey from rootlessness to belonging that many of us - Jewish, Christian or Muslim - make in our lives.



2. This is a book that, at times, was of some interest, but, overall, I found it to be a tad tedious. The author, who is half Jewish, as her father was Jewish while her mother was Christian, had a mid-life crisis that manifested itself in the desire to find her Jewish roots and lead a life with a religious bent. What she seemed to have done was simply substitute religion for the place that drugs used to have in her life, as religion seems to provide for her the panacea that makes her life worth living.
   
   It is, however, the cultural aspects of Judaism that seem more of interest to her, rather than the actual religious ones. She forged ahead to discover her religious roots, and along her journey she carved out a niche for herself and her family, as they embraced Judaism. It strikes a note of irony that her teenage daughter, whom the author has inculcated in Judaism, seems interested in leading an othodox lifestyle. Yet, by the truly orthodox, she would not even be considered Jewish, as such a legacy is matrilineal, and the author's mother was not Jewish.
   
   Some of the book is humorous, and the family member who is the most interesting is the author's father, as he was was quite a character. Those portions of the book in which he appears lack the tedium that occasionally plagues the author's writing. While the author writes reasonably well, her story is not a particularly compelling one. Consequently, the book tends to flatline a bit, leaving one to surmise that this book is much ado about nothing.



3. I disagree with the "tad tedious" review. I just finished this book and felt uplifted by Robin's honesty about her transitions through life. The book is well-written -- her ability to intertwine her struggle with her own identity and religous hunger with her dad's illness is amazing. I hope to read more books by her.



4. Religious awakening as the basis of a memoir presents certain difficulties, particularly in our New Age world corrupted by trendy enlightenment and celebrity seers. But Robin Chotzinoff avoids any touchy-feely riffs in this witty, engaging account of how she, the product of a quirky and privileged yet ultimately dysfunctional upbringing in New York, embraced the spirituality underpinning her Jewish heritage. Her journey, punctuated by forays into sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll (not to mention binging on Oreos and the occasional obsessive romance), brings her to a synagogue in a Colorado mountain town, where first her daughter and then she adopt Judaism at their respective bat mitzvahs. Guided in her training by fellow author and congregant Joanne Greenberg ("I Never Promised You a Rose Garden"), whose practical wisdom is neatly juxtaposed with the wisecracks of Chotzinoff's ailing father (a onetime journalist and lifelong atheist and bon vivant), Chotzinoff delivers her tale of conversion in a funny, self-deprecating, yet thoroughly self-aware manner that takes faith off a pedestal and puts it -- where else? -- on the Sabbath table, in the conjugal bed, and, finally and triumphantly, in the author's weary yet resilient heart.



5. If you have not yet read any of Chotzinoff's books, you should. She tells a serious story (religious transformation) with wit and makes any reader comfortable to read it. My father, like Robin's, is a 'devout atheist." I connected with this book. She writes about tracing her Jewish ancestry, watching her daughters and husband become Jewish, and watching her father die, all the while letting us in on her inner thoughts of why she is converting. She's humble about this journey and doesn't make the reader feel like they have to conform. But, by the end of it, you'll be leaning more towards Judaism than you were before.
   Great book and smooth read.

2 comments about King David's Harp.

1. This book is a very important piece of literature. It is entertaining as well as historically relevant and informative.

   This book takes a look at the lives of the diaspora in Latin America. It's an amazing collection of short stories by some of the most talented writers in Latin America.

   They come from different countries and different cultures, but share the thread of being Jewish in a different world. Some are transplanted, some have always lived in Latin America.

   This book opened my eyes to the life, the struggles and happinesses of the Jews who live and work in South America. I think everyone should read this book.

   The history contained in this book is amazing. Most of the gentiles that I know have no idea about this part of history. We were not taught it in school. Can you imagine fleeing persecution in your homeland, finding yourself in a strange country with strange food, language, and customs, and down the street from you live the war criminals who forced you to flee?

   Not all the short stories in this book are a great read, but they are all very important. It's a voice that should be heard!




2. This collection of essays is an important work for all minorities who want to introspectively examine their own place in a multicultural society. While the focus is on the Latin American experience, the authors address themes of displacement, longing, belonging, marginalization, prejudice, immigrant- inter-generational conflicts, and change. It also provides insight, and hopefully empathy, on these same topics for those of the established majority culture. The book also raises the questions about the goals of a multi-cultural society, and if assimilation is a worthy goal in the view of the majority and the, "other."

5 comments about Henry Ford and the Jews: The Mass Production of Hate.

1. This book by Baldwin gave a searing history of automobile icon
   Henry Ford.Baldwin very capably shows one of the pioneers of
   American industry to be devoutly anti-semite.Ford himself was the
   financier behind a anti-Jewish newspaper that was published in
   Michigan.Ford was a fan of Adolph Hitler. Hitler had a portrait of Ford on thew wall in his office.Henry Ford received an award
   from Hitler and showed up in person to receive it bringing with him many guests.Charles Linberg and Thomas Watson of IBM declined
   the same award.Ford was also able to sell Ford products to the
   Nazis receiving a monopoly on the Nazi vehicle market in the military.This book is packed with documented of Henry Ford's
   anti-semite activities.Read this you will become better informed.
   This is a good book. Buy it.



2. Neil Baldwin's "Henry Ford and the Jews" is a compelling look at how a genius at one thing --- the mass production of a good automobile --- could become such a dangerous buffoon when it came to another thing --- the mass production of an idea. At some point, our title character ceased to be just "Henry Ford, automaker" and instead became Henry Ford, wealthy and powerful symbol of international antisemitism. Baldwin's portrait of Ford in all his horrible glory is fascinating.



3. I think I was the last person in the United States to become aware of Henry Ford's anti-semitism.

   I make it a practice to study one person a month and I decided as a business builder, Henry Ford was worthy of my attention and study.

   I found this particular biography and thought, "OK, this has a completely different approach, let's try it on."

   I found Baldwin's passion and zealousness for his topic and his particular slant to be very powerful. As is frequent in such writing, it also became a barrier because every action Ford took became, through Baldwin's eyes, a matter of Ford being the Personification of Evil.

   I am not condoning Ford's thoughts, beliefs or behaviors. I am believing that not every action he took was a result of some undercurrent of Anti Semitism.

   That said, this book is worth a read due to the level of research Baldwin has done both in this biography and the biography of one of Ford's friends and role models (and less rabidly Anti-Semitic although there was some there) in Thomas Alva Edison.

   I just had this thought: I wonder how many business leaders remain staunchly racist... yet it has gone deeply underground in this age.

   I wonder how many business (and political leaders) continue to harbor less than transformed thought?

   Something to think about... and continue to stand against.




4. This book enlightened me about many historical connections, above all, about Henry Ford's strong influence on Hitler, and his acceptance of honors from him. The author offers very fine understanding of the American scene that fostered Ford's views, and also the reaction to Ford's publications of major antisemetic works.
   
   Unfortunately, the American scene has recently showed uncomfortable parallels with Ford's views. The antisemetic campaign about the "war on Christmas" makes "Henry Ford and the Jews" all the more relevant in 2005.
   
   Hendrik Hertzberg, in a recent New Yorker article about the ongoing phoney war on Christmas, made a direct connection to Henry Ford and his antisemitism. He wrote:
   
   ... Christmas itself, in something like its recognizably modern
   ... form, with gifts and cards and elves, dates from the early
   ... nineteenth century. The War on Christmas seems to have come
   ... along around a hundred years later, with the publication of
   ... "The International Jew," by Henry Ford, the automobile
   ... magnate, whom fate later punished by arranging to have his
   ... fortune diverted to the sappy, do-gooder Ford Foundation.
   ... "It is not religious tolerance in the midst of religious
   ... difference, but religious attack that they"-the
   ... Jews-"preach and practice," he wrote. "The whole record of
   ... the Jewish opposition to Christmas, Easter and certain
   ... patriotic songs shows that." Ford's anti-Semitism has not
   ... aged well, thanks to the later excesses of its European
   ... adherents, but by drawing a connection between
   ... Christmasbashing and patriotism-scorning he pointed the way
   ... for future Christmas warriors.
   --- From "Bah Humbug" www.newyorker.com, posted 2005-12-19



5. The reason this book is rated 1 star is the reader was not swept away by information as it was "new". This was well known by informed people and it was well known that most national leaders previous to Mr. Ford to the founding fathers had the same leanings which are attacked here.
   Readers must understand what they are reading which is being lost. Mr. Ford seems to have believed he was of the lost Israelite peoples so he was a Semite.
   Without having any intent on defending someone of another era, adjectives do mean things. One notices the term INTERNATIONAL Jew in these writings which some might find associated with the term "globalist" now which has nothing to do with race, but a system of enslaving people.
   Currently, one can turn to scores of books labeling all Germans bad. In a great deal of Old Europe the term "American" is viewed with racism in the same hatred.
   Just look at how American media and pundits have used the racial slur "neocon" which is based upon leftist Jews who left that leaning and became right wing Jews. Leftist Jews created that racial slur to impune right wing Jews. Yet that term is praised as it attacks one group not in favor with leftist media.
   This is a complicated subject and the author of this book fails to do anything but make a profit off of slamming someone from a previous time with bias and prejudice now held.
   It is easy to bash Henry Ford as he is dead, but liberal publishers which the Ford Foundation back in telling Mexican peoples that the entire southwest America is their land and not Americans are deemed not as reprehensible.
   When authors take it upon themselves to be judge, jury and character assassin spinning a tale to uninformed people who think this is all new, they expose themselves to the same light of examination.
   Mr. Ford appeared to believe that Americans were Israelite peoples and that meant that Jews were his brothers in the same tribe. Mr. Ford did though make a distinction that "international" or communist Jews were a problem. It would be valuable to have a book examining this issue in how these communists who had absolutely no belief system in God and were not Jews by faith caused under Stalin the deaths of tens of millions of people in the Soviet Union.
   If the term was communist without Jew attached would it make a difference to readers in condemning Mr. Ford? That is open for discussion as the New York Times produces glowing accounts of Joe Stalin who slaughtered millions as a communist.
   Yet Mr. Ford who did not murder one person in his life is titled anti Semite and Mr. Stalin who slaughtered millions of Ukrainians has no title of anti Ukrainite as there is no such word, just lie there is no anti Americanite term for how the world hates and blames Americans as it is fashionable to do so in this present time.
   In all of this the Ford Foundation has done more damage to the United States in it's globalist propaganda than Mr. Ford could ever do.
   
   The question remains though is it right for a trader to go into areas after the Civil War and set up loans and impoverish black people? Gen. Sherman considered it was and stopped it. The people who were doing it were Jewish financiers. That is what Mr. Ford was focusing on.
   Right now India is having it's poor farmers taking out loans from Rothschild financiers for high production seed which has failed. The farmers can not repay the loans and are committing suicide in mass as this group of bankers in large scale agriculture gobbles up India's land.
   
   If one leaves off the European adjective, there is only profiteers to deal with and if Mr. Ford had left off the term Jews and only said "internationalists" then the author would not have profits in his pocket repeating what the informed knew.
   
   The purpose of this feedback was to show that there are in the past and in our present bias, prejudice and racism rampant in probably the authors friends in calling people "red state" as a group he disagrees with live there.
   Of course it is celebrated as the New York Times, CNN and other venues deem it acceptable. Acceptable now, but what happens in 70 years when an author discovers all of this and writes a book on Neil Baldwin exposing all of his hatred.
   Mr. Baldwin is not the final judgment in this. Strangely in his diverse world, one can find Jews who actually will agree with Mr. Ford in numerous websites online.
   The only Truth I know of is God and in this world Truth is dictated by who has the most power to supplant previous ideas and initiate their own.
   
   I sincerely hope that all came out correctly in reviewing this book, but the information was nothing new and only one dimensional as the few examples above reveal the gaping holes in this volume.
   
   It is a guarantee though that Mr. Ford would indeed gladly take the hand of a Jew if it was the only hand available if Mr. Ford was drowning and it is certain Mr. Baldwin would grab Mr. Ford's hand if he was drowning too.
   
   Thank you for your time and God bless.

5 comments about The Cap: The Price of a Life.

1. This is one of the best autobiographies ever written, and I have read many. Images from this book will stay in my mind forever, and puts all other troubles and accomplishments into prospective. Frister's eyewitness account proves that there can never be vindication enough for the victims of the Nazi regime.



2. This is not Etty Hillesum. This is not Victor Klemperer. This is not Primo Levi.

   I can believe that the author saw his mother killed before his eyes. I can believe that he watched his father die in a camp. I can believe that he survived the camps. After that, I just don't know.

   There are too many heroics for one teenage boy. There are too many miraculous escapes for one survivor. There are too many stories which sound vaguely familiar from elsewhere.

   The book appears to be a life's story which has foundation in fact but which has also liberally incorporated material from the general holocaust history.

   After 90 pages I gave up in exasperation. There seemed to be too many stretchers in the details. They tainted the credibility of the whole.

   A few weeks later I picked up the book again. I started making allowances. After all, if the author wanted to include in his account real outrages which were suffered by others, the outrages did nonetheless occur. I doubt none of them.

   But then near the end of the book I quit again in pluperfect exasperation. The author's story of how he broke back INTO the camp again after an inauspicious breakout lacks plausability completely. He says that he "trampolined" himself back over the fence from the tarpaulin top of an adjacent German truck. This is pure poppycock. The tarpaulins on army trucks are loose, flappy affairs. They are NOT taut, springy, trampoline devices. Not even a true trampoline, if it had been there, would have achieved what the author proposes. Magical realism does not belong in holocaust memoirs.




3. I want to say that I really loved this book. The author takes us on one of the best adventure stories of human life that I have read in quite some time. Even though the central theme is his holocost survival he does not dwell on the subject too long, or I should say just long enough. His real adventure begins when he gets out. Learning to survive in the camps gave him the ability to achieve and become successful in life.

   I hope Hollywood picks this one up. I'd love to see it on the screen.




4. This is a fascinating work of fiction undoubtedly based on a great deal of real-life experience, or if you prefer, it is an autobiographical work with a few fantastic anecdotes included.

   Like all holocaust survivor tales, it includes numerous near misses and miraculous lucky breaks. People who survived ghetto life, concentration camps and death marches to write about their experiences were the exceptions, and invariably their stories include such amazing incidents.

   However, a few incidents read like pure wishful fantasy. I do not believe for example that Roman Frister actually snatched his girlfriend as she emerged from her marriage ceremony and drove her off for a three-day tryst in the mountains, before returning her to her groom...

   Ultimately the fact that his narrative seeks to define its own reality is what makes the book very interesting. The book is about what defines the self, what memory means, what is real, and what, if anything, really matters. The book reminds me in this way of Robert Musil's "Man Without Qualities."




5. I will skip the personal details discussed by other reviewers, and focus on matters of historical significance. With one obvious exception, Frister shows an excellent grasp of factual events. He makes the unbelievable statement that the NSZ "did not kill Germans at all" (p. 263), only killed Jews, and then repeats the Communist-propaganda canard that the Brygada Swietokrzyska (Holy Cross Brigade) had fought on the German side.
   
   Even as late as 1941, Frister's mother didn't believe that the invading Germans intended to harm the Jews (p. 180). This adds to similar testimonies, and undercuts the argument that the massive Jewish-Soviet collaboration had been motivated by a desire to be protected from the Nazis.
   
   Unlike those who, from their safe perches, moralize to Poles about their need to have been more willing to risk their lives on behalf of Jews, Frister does not: "And what right did I have to condemn them? Why should they risk themselves and their families for a Jewish boy they didn't know? Would I have behaved any differently? I knew the answer to that, too. I wouldn't have lifted a finger. Everyone was equally intimidated." (p. 192)
   
   Frister writes: "Jozef Kruczek had prepared a perfect hideout for us. Beneath a bale of hay tossed with deliberate carelessness on the floor of the barn was a hidden trapdoor that descended to a cellar as big as a cottage. Before we came this had served as an abattoir. The screeching of the slaughtered pigs remained within its walls--a big help in avoiding German confiscations and getting the meat to the black market." (p. 97). Ironic to Polonophobes (e. g., Jan T. Gross), who accuse Poles of being willing to incur the German-imposed death penalty by illegally slaughtering animals, but seldom by hiding Jews, we see the same Polish secretiveness in both activities! (Besides, slaughtering an animal was a quick one-time act. Hiding a Jew was a continuous risk.)
   
   Unlike most Holocaust materials, Frister's work presents a balanced view of Polish and Jewish misdeeds. He mentions Poles looting Jews (p. 120) as well as regular Pole-on-Pole thievery (p. 100). The Judenrat, besides collaborating with the Germans in the roundups of Jews to their deaths (e. g., p. 92, 105, 120), also stole from poor Jews (p. 120). Jewish informers played an instrumental role in the uncovering of hidden Jews (e. g., p. 105, 112, 120, 190-191). Twice Frister escaped death despite being denounced to the Germans by Jewish informers (p. 112, 190-191), the latter of whom he found to be very clever and diligent in their undercover work. How many other fugitive Jews were betrayed, not by ethnic Poles as automatically assumed, but by Jewish Gestapo agents and informers?
   
   We were told, in the wake of the Auschwitz Carmelite convent controversy, that Jews find Christian symbols offensive because they remind them of past persecutions by Christians. Frister mentions a Jew, Henryk Leiderman, who had no problem with rosaries when it came to selling them to Polish peasants (p. 36).
   
   Frister spent some years in postwar Poland before emigrating to Israel. He is candid about the fact that he, and other Jews, got privileged positions in the Soviet-imposed Communist regime (p. 34, 169).

5 comments about Naked in the Promised Land: A Memoir.

1. Ms. Faderman has always been an outstanding scholar, giving the academic and Lesbian worlds her well researched, and highly informative books about Lesbians and Lesbianism. She has also written other scholarly works that are highly recommended, if not a little heavy for most readers. In her latest venture, her memoir " Naked in the Promise Land", Ms. Faderman shows her readers another side of her makeup, her personal side. The Memoir is as interesting for what it reveled about Ms. Faderman's past life as well as what has been carefully left out. Readers may well have to wait for a bioghapher to tell the complete story of Lillian Faderman's life for it appears that she is willing to go only so far in its telling.
   What is also a point to note is the muse that Ms. Faderman has chosen to use. It defiantly is not the carefully structured formal English she used for her academic books, nor should it be. However, as a memoir it reads more like an Ann Bannon or Clair Morgan novel, and this, perhaps, is part of its charm as well as its draw.
   Finally, in the telling of part of her life story the reader is made aware that Ms. Faderman is a consummate actress. After all she studied hard to learn the techiques. As such, one has to wonder if what she has presented to the world after her "Sunset Strip" life, is nothing more than another act in one more carefully constructed costume.



2. By far, Lillian's best yet. Her previous writings were way too heady for me, but this one held my attention. For those looking for the juicy tidbits of Faderman's personal life, this book pretty much hits the spot. I am looking forward to the sequel -- this woman has much more to tell.



3. I wonder if other men love this book like I do. I loaned this book to someone then forgot whom I loaned it to. Doesn't matter. I've thought about this story a thousand times.
   
   I love my own mother deeply, tenderly, but if I could have chosen my own mother, notwithstanding some very tempting candidates out there, Lillian Faderman would have been numero uno. I'll say it. I'm a softie for strong character; people who have been dragged through the muck and not only survived, but emerged from the pure hell of life to bring honor to themselves and to those who have struggled for the right to their own dignity.
   
   I bought this book the first day it hit the shelf and read it from cover to cover and wished it would not end. I wanted to read it and I didn't want to read it because I've spent maybe two decades sculpting and perfecting this pedastal I've had Lillian Faderman on and I was worried that she would demolish it by turning out to be a prep school and legacy brat from the suburbs. No danger here.
   
   Everything I know about the real lives of lesbians I learned from Dr. Faderman and, I'll be honest, I didn't think I'd enjoy anything else after Maya Angelou's "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings." I read Radclyffe Hall's "The Well of Lonliness" and was sickened by it's twisted logic and it stamp of approval from kook psychologist Havelock Ellis. I thought Gertude Stein's "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas" merited points for chutzpah. But Stein, Hall and Angelou are no Lillian Faderman.
   
   This book is rich with terror, heartbreak, despair, grief and finally - triumph. It's what "Brokeback Mountain" should have been rather than another story about how a homosexual dies or gets murdered in the end.
   
   I've changed my mind. It does matter. Whoever has my copy of this book - GIVE IT BACK !



4. I savored every bit of this memoir. There are, sadly, so few really well-written lesbian memoirs. "Naked" is a terrific book and an engaging reading experience. I highly recommend it.



5. Lillian Faderman writes an autobiography with an engaging and compelling style that easily pulls in the reader. She is technically the child of a Holocaust survivor, although her mother and aunt arrived before WWII, sent ahead to America (one presumes this is the Promised Land in Faderman's book title) by the family, to find work in America, sending money home, preparing the way for the rest of the family to eventually settle in America.
   
   Only that reunion never happened: all of Faderman's relatives perished in the Holocaust, and the rest of her mother's life was defined by survivor's guilt, a legacy of conflicting emotions that were inevitably passed on to the first generation of children born after the Holocaust. Lillian Faderman and others of her generation carried the burdens of the ghosts of the slaughtered, the relatives and loved ones who were killed before they were even born.
   
   Faderman's story goes beyond being Jewish: as the first-generation American child born to an immigrant, her experience is one that will speak to many, Jewish or otherwise, and it really is a classic story. The child of an immigrant garment worker, she grew up to live the American dream, getting a college education, eventually becoming a noted historian, textbook author and researcher. True life stories don't get any better than this one.

3 comments about Hidden Child.

1. During World War II over a million Jewish children were murdered by Nazis: survivors were often those who were in hiding. Author Isaac Millman was one of these children, and his story recounts the kindness of strangers, his move from city to countryside, and how he was forced to shed his Jewish identity to survive. After the year he kept his story to himself: fifty years later it's told, in Hidden Child's series of black and white photos and first-person memoir for grades 5-8.



2. Isaac Millman tells the true story of his youth spent in hiding from the Nazis in a compelling memoir that features his outstanding artwork. We follow young Isaac as he and his parents enter the Free Zone of France, only to find that this is only a respite until the Nazis again intrude. Isaac's father is taken to a "camp", which he and his mother are allowed to visit once; then disaster falls as he and his mother are rounded up for deportation. How Isaac escapes and is placed in foster homes for the duration of the war is told through Millman's sparse writing and his vivid drawings. As with most Holocaust tales, there is no happy ending, but Millman survives and is able to share his journey with us, and that is all we can ask. This is a splendid book that shows how even the youngest victims of the Holocaust found inner strength. We are privileged to know their stories. Recommended.



3. A very powerful and exquisite book. I recommend this book to all middle school educators. It would do well on a summer reading list. The book is moving and empowering. The hidden children are often an overlooked part of high school Holocaust studies. This book speaks volumes about human nature, from the couple who took him in, a Hidden Jewish child, to exploit a slave like labor, to the people who really helped him survive. Isaac Millman's description of the changes in his life from the perspective of the child that he was during the is moving and informative. This is a courageous book. I recommend it to All.
   
   Also, the artwork is stellar. Very moving on so many levels.