1 comments about A Jew Returns Home: A Former Interviewer for the BBC Questions Ben Ami, Raised Far from His Heritage, about His Miraculous Return to Judai.

1. This book is written as a dialogue between authors Sara Soester and Ben Ami (Ben Ami is a pseudonym), both of whom are baalei teshuva. Ben Ami was born to Jewish parents but they lived a secular life and they ultimately joined a Baptist church and became devout Christians. Indeed, Ben Ami's brother went on to become a Baptist minister. Despite his Christian upbringing, Ben Ami found himself drawn, ever so tenuously, to Judaism. The more he learned, the more attracted to the religion of his fathers he became. He began to identify with Judaism and evolved into a Torah observant, "frum" Jew. The book discusses the issues of breaking with his family in his religious practices. To a reasonable extent, after initial misgivings, his family has been supportive, particularly his mother.
   
   Ben Ami's story is certainly interesting and he is to be commended for having the courage to follow his convictions, even when it meant breaking with the life he was familiar with. His journey at times was difficult. For example, he feels that there are outreach issues in which the very observant don't always reach out fully to a baal teshuva such as Ben Ami. He recalls instances where he perceived that he was being treated as second class by some members of the frum community.
   
   I had a concern about co-author Soester, who is a frum journalist who was interviewing Ben Ami. She recalled that she too became religious later in life. She made the decision when her children were grown. She expresses disappointment in that her adult children did not follow her lead in returning to strict Jewish observance. Despite the way that she raised her daughters, Soester feels that they know enough from what they have observed of their mother to emulate her choice to return to Judaism. She states that the reason she "is not so forgiving is that [her] children do know the right path. They have watched [her] progress over the years; they are not completely ignorant regarding Jewish practices." My concern is that it is unfair for a parent to raise children, have the children grow to be wonderful adults in the spirit in which they were raised, and then express disapproval when the children do not follow the path that the parent takes later in life. Basically, the mother successfully raised her daughters and then "changed the rules of the game" as to what the now adult daughters must do to be fully approved of by the mother. If the daughters were to follow Soester's path, that would be wonderful but it is simply unfair to have any kind of expectation that they do so and to indicate that they "know the right path." If they know the right path, the implication is that the mother is accusing them of following the wrong path. This implied accusation is unfair. These daughters do not deserve the disapproval of their mother. It is the mother who changed, not them!! The daughters grew to meet their mother's expectations and the mother switched expectations. The mother's attitude is wrong.
   
   I have one other misgiving, both authors, at times, speak harshly of Christianity. I realize that there is a legitimate concern of the missionary efforts of some Christian groups towards Jews. However, I feel that their discussions of Christianity can be a little more tolerant. Despite the two misgivings I have expressed, I found this to be a wonderfully engaging window into the soul of a baal teshuva. I recommend this book.

5 comments about Trap with a Green Fence: Survival in Treblinka (Jewish Lives).

1. None of the previous reviewers seem to know that Richard Glazar, a young Czech, is one of the most effective eyewitnesses in Claude Lanzmann's epic masterpiece, 'Shoah.' He appears at numerous points during the parts of the film that deal with Treblinka. What comes across is his vitality, integrity, and self-awareness. He was one of the few to survive the Treblinka revolt in August 1943 in which several hundred prisoners finally managed to break out, although most did not finally survive. Glazar appears too in interviews with Gitta Sereny, 'Into that Darkness,' in her study of Franz Stangl, the commandant of Treblinka. Glazar's work is utterly authentic and a MUST READ.



2. I read everything there is about Treblinka and I can tell you that this is one of the best accounts yet. Other alternatives are "A year in Treblinka" and Arad's "Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka: Aktion Reinhard Death Camps". Steiner's Treblinka is a very enjoyable work of fiction (but historicaly inacurate).



3. This book is just as excellent and disturbing as Willenburg's "Surviving Treblinka", but it has a different feel about it. Its almost as if he is telling the story as a detached observer, which, in some cases, caused the survival of many Nazi victims. It is very detailed but, amongst the suffering among the few prisoners chosed to sort the clothing of the dead, there is a hope you get out of it. There were of course prisoners who has to work in Camp 2, where the gas chambers were located and those prisoners has to unload the chambers and put them in mass graves, later replaced by huge pyres, also called the roasts. But Glazar worked in Camp One, first sorting clothes, and then getting a better position working in one of the sheds where packaged belongings were stored until the objects could fill up a train to head back to Lublin headquarters. One of the most interesting chapters is called "The Hangmen and the Gravediggers", where Glazar, while working in this shed, encountered and actually had relatively normal conversation and mingling with SS men who worked the camp. This chapter describes many SS men, calling some terrible, while others were not as bad as others. Corruption was the name of the game; that is, SS men would come to this shed to get fine clothing and other objects and would often keep them of send them home to their families. This practice was extremely against SS regulations, but it happened anyway. The rest of the book is very interesting as well, such as when Glazar was assigned to the forest brigage, who would collect pine branches and such to camoflauge the fences of the camp. The evolution of the revolt is great, despite terrible things that happended in the course of organizing the revolt, such as military leader of the revolt, Zhelo Bloch, a Jewish captain of the Czech Army, being sent to Camp 2, with its gas chambers and dead bodies everywhere, as punishment for numerical errors that occured one day when trains were being loaded up with the stolen goods of the Jews, trains that would go to Lublin and spread from there. And there was also the death of Dr. Chorozycki. He was found in possession of money that to be used in the purchase of arms to be used in the revolt. Kurt Franz made the discovery and the doctor attacked Franz with a surgical knife and blows from his fist, a great act of courage. The doctor managed to slip some cyanide tablets and he died before the SS could torture him, to try to get information from him. Terrible indeed, but the revolt still took place...ive said enough, just read this book! You will not be disappointed, particularly if you are already interested in the subject of the Holocaust. I would suggest anyone read it though. The book is depressing, but, to me atleast, the way it is told seems almost detached, and theres even monents of dark humor thrown in here and there, atleast thats how i percieve it. A moving book to say the least. Get it!



4. Richard Glazer, a Czech Jew, mentions his life in German-occupied Prague and then his arrival at Treblinka. Naked for the "shower", he gets pulled out of the line to the gas chamber by an SS man, and diverted to forced labor. Glazer then elaborates his experiences in Treblinka, giving a particularly good description of typhus and how it flourishes under the unsanitary conditions and is spread by lice (pp. 72-73). Glazer escapes Treblinka during the famous August 1943 revolt. He eventually gets caught by a Volksdeutsche, but avoids the death sentence for being a Jew, and ends up a forced laborer in Germany, where he is liberated. Glazer also recounts his "reunion" with 54 still-living Treblinka escapees during the trials of the Nazi war criminals in West Germany in the 1960's (pp. 195-196).
   
   Some Polish Jews discussing the possibility of escaping from Treblinka tried to discourage it by sinking to new lows of Polonophobic mythmaking. They actually asserted that Poles who help Jews no longer exist at all, and that 9 out of 10 Poles betray Jews (p. 84)--all without even stopping to think about the self-refuting nature of their absurdities. Just two sentences earlier, they had spoken about Jews who had escaped from Treblinka and returned to the Ghettos to warn the remaining Jews there (p. 83). If anything other than a trivial fraction of Poles betrayed Jews (let alone 9/10) then no Jews who escaped from Treblinka would've survived more than a day!
   
   In contrast, some Jews who contemplated the possibility of escaping from Treblinka had a realistic view of the situation. They recognized the fact that killers of fugitive Jews in the areas surrounding Treblinka were not, as often alleged, members of the Polish Underground (the AK and NSZ). They were simply bandits, many of whom pretended to be members of the AK and NSZ, and who killed both Jews and non-Jews at will: "A few kilometers farther into the woods you would come upon the partisans, and then a gang with nothing in common with partisans than the name. They rob, and they murder; they don't care whom they attack by night." (p. 105)
   
   When Richard Glazer actually escaped from Treblinka, he spent much time traversing the Polish countryside. He describes his peregrinations and the help he received from Poles. He passed by a long series of Polish villages, including Ostrow (p. 149), Wiszkow, Radzymin (p. 150), Rembertow, Solejuwky (p. 151), "...Piaseczno, Gora Kalwaria, Grojec, Mogielnica--those are the exotic-sounding names of towns passed through, more or less without incident." (p. 153). He had to evade a column of Germans. Yet not once did he indicate any threat from Polish blackmailers or denouncers. And, when he was finally caught, it was not by a Pole but by a Volksdeutsche. (p. 153)



5. Richard Glazar was one of the few people to have survived the Treblinka death camp. He was around 23 years old at the time. In his account of the 10 months or so that he was there, he does not dwell on things he did not have direct experience of, but describes what life was like for him and the people around him. He does not attempt to explain or analyze or give the big picture. This, for me, is what makes his story so powerful. Moreover, he does not overwhelm the reader with gruesome details, but at the same time manages to give the reader a strong understanding of the total inhumanity of the camp and its operations, and the casual and systematic brutality of the guards. I highly recommend this book if you are interested in a first hand account of this terrible time in world history. (For a very readable history of the Third Reich, I recommend Richard Evans' trilogy on the subject, beginning with "The Coming of the Third Reich".)

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

5 comments about Edith's Story: The True Story of a Young Girl's Courage and Survival During World War II.

1. I've read a number of accounts by Jews who were hidden by heroic friends and strangers during the Holocaust. But Edith Velmans' story stands out. I found myself totally drawn into her idyllic teenage life in the Hague as war slowly began to overshadow the sunshine of her youthful pusuits. She lovingly paints a warm but realistic picture of her community and family. I was especially touched by the letters she shares from her parents. Velmans also relates her psychological adjustment of going into hiding and taking on another identity, something other accounts have rarely mentioned. Yet through it all, Velmans captures the fact that despite the agony of going through such a painful experience, she emerged with her courage intact. I highly recommend this book, especially for teachers in search of good reading material for high school students studying the Holocaust. But anyone would enjoy this book. I read it one evening, unable to stop.



2. This book may not have the deep poignancy of Anne Frank's diary, as its author tells her story from an adult vantage point. But it does offer a vivid picture of day-to-day life as a jew in hiding in Nazi-occupied Holland. I readily felt Edith's anxiety, as she attempted to pass for a gentile, far from friends and family, and not knowing what had become of those she loved. The story also has a deep honesty -- it is clear, for example, that she often found the family who saved her difficult, and that she felt resentments as well as gratitude. I'm sure that this is, in fact, how it felt, and am grateful to Edith Velmans for the straightforward telling of her story.



3. This book is an absolute treasure. It is a very moving account of an adolescent Jewish girl's life in Holland as the Nazi regime moved in and took over. The book contains some of her actual diary entries written as a teenager along with her present-day adult comments to help put the entries into perspective. I would highly recommend this book to everyone, but most especially to young people. It's a gripping story of a girl from the past with great courage and love of life.



4. Edith's Story written by Edith Velmans is a true story about courage, love, and survival during WWII. Edith's family is Jewish living in Holland during WWII. Her eldest brother Guss moves to America before the start of the war. The rest of the family does not want to leave. They don't believe Hitler will actually start rounding up Jews. They soon find out they were wrong. They first have to sew the yellow stars of David on all of their clothing. Then they are not allowed to go to the same school with non-Jews. Things keep getting worse and worse. Especially when Edith's mother has to go to the hospital and get her hip operated on. Her family soon decides to find places where Edith and her older brother, Jules, can go into hiding. Jules goes to live with a farmer up north and Edith goes to live with a family were she plays the part of Netti. A friend whose parent's have fallen ill and cannot take care of her. The rest of the story is about how Edith takes all of her courage and love to survive the war and worse the braking apart of her loving family.
   I loved the book Edith's Story. It is the most loving heartwarming book I have ever read. For someone to have that much strength in such an awful part of history like Edith is amazing. This was a very good book. I normally do not like to read Holocaust books but I enjoyed this one a lot. This is a truly moving book with so much great hope in it. I recommend this book to any one because it is a wonderful story.



5. I read this book in one sitting! I have read many books on the Holocaust and this is one of my favorites! Edith gives a detailed look into the life of a young girl who survives WWII, this book made me very emotional, which I think all great books should do. Enjoy!

No comments about Between My Father and the Old Fool: A Holocaust Memoir (Artscroll History).

1 comments about A Garden of Eden in Hell: The Life of Alice Herz-Sommer.

1. Music could always transport Alice Sommer into an autonomous paradisical world. This helped her when the real world turned hellish under the Nazis; and the central part of the book is about those years.
   
   She was born in 1903 into a Jewish, acculturated and German-speaking family in Prague. She started playing the piano at a very young age, and at 21, made her debut as soloist with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1931 she married Leopold Sommer and their son Stephan (later to be called Raphael) was born in 1937.
   
   With the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1939 their lives changed swiftly, with humiliating restrictions being imposed on Jews day after day. And then the deportations began. First, in July 1942 her 72-year old mother was deported from her Old Age Home to Theresienstadt (and from there to the Treblinka death camp). Then a year later, in July 1943, it was the turn of Alice, Leopold and Stephan, then aged six, to be sent to Theresienstadt.
   
   The physical conditions there were grim, but a few months before the Sommers arrived, the SS had decided to turn it into a `show camp= for observers from the International Red Cross - and so the deportees were provided with musical instruments (which had been confiscated from Jews) and were allowed to arrange their own entertainment. Alice gave many recitals, and the descriptions of these are very moving. Stephan, who was musically even more precocious than his mother had been at that age, was quickly roped in to rehearse and perform in Brundibar, the opera specially composed for the children in the camp.
   
   As defeat for Germany drew nearer in the autumn of 1944, the SS, possibly fearing an uprising of the able-bodied men in Theresienstadt, decided to send them to the extermination camps. Alice=s husband was among these: she never saw him again. She learnt later that he had survived the death-march from Auschwitz to Dachau - only to die there of typhus.
   
   But Himmler still wanted to preserve Theresienstadt as a `model' camp and to produce it in his defence at the end of the war. Alice had to work an eight hour day in barracks where slates were broken up to make insulating materials, work which was particularly hard on her hands; but in the evening she would often perform in the concerts that continued to be staged.
   
   In May 1945 Theresienstadt was liberated and in mid-June Alice and Stephan were able to return to Prague and to continue their music al lives there.
   
   But after the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1948, it again became dangerous to speak freely. In March 1949 Alice decided to move with her son to Israel, where she was to live for the next 37 years. There her musical career as performer and teacher continued, while Raphael in due course became a cellist of world stature. After his marriage in 1966, he and his wife were based in London, and there Alice joined him in 1986.
   
   The book ends with the saddest thing that can afflict a loving mother: in 2001 Raphael Sommer died of a heart attack while on a concert tour in Israel. Alice was then 98, and coped with this grief as she had coped with so many other crises in her life, drawing some comfort from music (she still plays the piano in her Hampstead home for three hours every day). Never did she give way to bitterness; she always remained life-affirming; her philosophy eschewed hatred, whether for Germans or for Arabs. Her 100th birthday drew tributes from people from many lands. This moving book is one of them.

2 comments about Ten Classic Jewish Children's Stories (Jewish Storyteller).

1. Schram, a master of Jewish storytelling, and leader of the Jewish storytelling movement in the USA, retells ten classic Jewish folktales from the Talmud, Aggadah, and Torah Midrash. Each story is followed by questions which help the readers and listeners to think more deeply about the lessons of the tales and reinforce its Jewish values. For example, in the Talmudic tale about why the Sun is large, the moon is small, and the stars seem even smaller, we learn about complaining and jealousy, and how you have to be careful what you wish for. Jeffrey Alon's watercolors help to capture the essence of the tales. My favorite tale was that of Honi, the Rainmaker, as retold from the Gemara. During a drought, the people of Jerusalem ask Honi to intercede for them and pray for rain. Then they complain that it is raining too little, and then too much. Once again, you have to be careful what you ask for, I guess.



2. Compiled and retold by Peninnah Schram, Ten Classic Jewish Children's Stories presents ten classic stories of Jewish and Biblical history. Each tale is presented in a few pages and enhanced with brilliant and powerful color illustrations by Jeffrey Allon. Each individual story is also marked with points to consider, such as "How does this story show us that Miriam gave the Jewish people the strength to go on?" for the tale of Miriam the Wise. An inspirational anthology, deeply respectful of the holy scriptures from which it presents its tales, Ten Classic Jewish Children's Stories is enthusiastically recommended for young readers.

1 comments about Last Waltz in Vienna: The Destruction of a Family, 1842-1942.

1. This book apparently has been reprinted by Pan Books in Britain more recently, but is available in many libraries in the US, although it remains here out of print. I copy my review from the Pan edition hereafter; this Holt copy carries the whole subtitle.
   
   This well-written, incisive, and even-handed telling of the author's Klaar family in Austria, 1842-1942, is a fine way to find out about how many Jews entered into the middle classes out of the shetl and worked their way up into the military and civilian ranks. The end of the narrative, when the author becomes a protagonist as he does in the opening pages, really captured my interest much more.
   
   I wish Clare had taken more time with his own gripping story rather than so much focus on his predecessors, but this undoubtably is out of humility and respect for his forebears. I cannot tell if the book was written in German and then translated by the same author or if Clare only wrote the German original and the original publisher (Macmillan in London) anonymously translated it into fluid, forceful, and thoughtful English. Perhaps a minor point given the impact of the climax of the tale he tells of his kindred, but I commend him for the effort he put into his work, in the telling and the style both.
   
   Also recommended: Charles Fenyvesi's account of how he excavated the roots and found the branches still flourishing of his Hungarian Jewish ancestors over the past 300 years, "When the World Was Whole."

No comments about Communings of the Spirit: The Journals of Mordecai M. Kaplan 1913-1934 (American Jewish Civilization Series).

No comments about Elie Wiesel: Conversations (Literary Conversations Series).