2 comments about Out of Line: Growing Up Soviet.

1. Grimberg's collection of memories of life behind the Iron Curtain is an essential key to understanding a way of life which millions led in the 20th century. Though the Iron Curtain is gone, thus impact remains - and thus this autobiography of Tina, who was born in Kiev and grew up in a tiny flat with her family, is key to understanding, even today, the psyche of a country.



2. 
   This memoir tells about life in the Soviet Union during the Communist era. Tina Grimberg grew up in Kiev, the capital of the Ukraine, in a tiny flat with her parents and her older sister. She explains that, for over 70 years the world was divided into two parts, East and West, or the Communist Bloc and the Free World. This book tells about her life behind the Iron Curtain. After the fall of the Czar, during the Communist Revolution in 1917, the Communist took over and forbade all religion. Tina and her family were Jewish, but they were not allowed to practice their religion, even speaking Yiddish outside of the home meant trouble. Although the Iron Curtain is gone, her memories of that time remain. In the West everyone assumed that communism was a great evil. Grimberg reports that there were certainly aspects that were bad, evil even, but it wasn't all gray and dreary. For small children, it was a stimulating place with love of family strong, along with the endless lineups in the cold. It also meant trying to escape the all-seeing eyes, whether they belonged to the old ladies in their babushkas who guarded every courtyard, or to the Soviet state that monitored every step its citizens took. In the 1970's the Soviet Union, often referred to as Russia, agreed to allow certain "undesirables" (Jews and some minorities) to leave. Tina, then 15 years old, and her family were sponsored by kind strangers in Indiana, who helped the family settle in the United States. This subject of life behind the Iron Curtain is rarely told for children and the book is highly recommended. For ages 8-12 years. Reviewed by Barbara Silverman

2 comments about Sentenced to Live : A Survivor's Memoir.

1. i read this book and it brought tears to my eyes. but i also know this lady . she is my best friends grandma which is how i met her and came to know about her life. i would just like to say i would reccomend this book to people that want to know more about what happened in world war 2 a great book but very tearful



2. This is the experiences of Cecilie Klein who lost all her family in the Holocost. Her father, her mother and little sister. She survived every rotten thing inflicted upon her not just by the nazis but also Jewish collaborators in the Ghettos, Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen.
   
   In the end, her most significant scene is when she bumps into one of her former tormenters, the Kapo Masha who collaborated with the SS to survive and discovers her secret.
   
   This is Cecilie Klein's story of unhappy survival.

No comments about Gender and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: The Politics of Women's Resistance (Syracuse Studies on Peace and Conflict Resolution).

3 comments about Master of Dreams: A Memoir of Isaac Bashevis Singer.

1. Isaac Bashevis Singer was a controversial figure during his lifetime. Though his place in the twentieth-century canon of literature now seems secure, it is still often pointed out that thanks to the Holocaust, Singer's fame was granted to him at the cost of obscurity for other Yiddish writers. His personality also was known to be difficult. There are many who will tell you that Singer was a bastard, including Elie Wiesel (not normally a gossip) in "All Rivers Run to the Sea." Singer probably was one at least fifty percent of the time. Too many stories of his caprice, vanity, and greed for sex and money have been told to be discounted. As to the nature behind both the faults and the gifts, what one saw of it depended on who one was; any competitors for the limelight, real or imagined, got the worst of it. Women got both the best and the worst of Singer, the charm and naivete combined with the mistrust and the manipulation. It is thus fitting that a possibly definitive memoir of Singer should have been written by a woman. Dvorah Telushkin was the writer's secretary and occasional translator. She comes across as a most lovable person, without any of Singer's guile. But they still had a lot in common: they were both fearful and susceptible to flattery. Ms. Telushkin was estranged from her father, Singer from his only child. Dvorah's innocence fit Singer's feminine ideal, exemplified by the child-woman in "Shosha." For years, theirs was a relationship in perfect order. But after winning the Nobel Prize, Singer's ego ran away with him while his health deteriorated rapidly. He became more and more paranoid, finally rejecting Dvorah as he had rejected most others. Ms. Telushkin manages the difficult feat of recording Singer's decline honestly and without sentimentality, while leaving us in no doubt as to her lasting love for him and little as to its essential justice. It is to be hoped that she continues as a writer, one with large ambitions. She has been influenced by Singer; her achievement is to make his eerie tone blend so well with her sense of her own life as a bad dream that the influence comes to seem more like an inheritance. She rescues Singer from the context of Yiddish nostalgia and places him within his own heritage of Jewish fear, uncertainty, and faith, as little G-rated as Celine. This is a deeply touching, near-perfect book. It is required reading for Singer fans, but it is also recommended to anyone struggling to understand a difficult and much-loved parent.



2. This work gives an inside view of the daily life and work habits of one of the greatest masters of the short story the world has known. It is honest and painful in its realistic description of the great writer's last years. It is filled with rich Jewish knowledge and the wisdom and wit of the paradoxical difficult and yet very great writer Singer. Anyone who loves this writer will benefit from reading this very rich and vibrant work of devotion and memory.



3. Here Dvorah Telushkin provides a complex and layered portrait of Isaac Singer and her interactions with him. There is the added attraction that Telushkin has a well crafted writing style, elevated while smooth, homey while erudite. To its credit, this memoir is not crafted in any chronological fashion. Each chapter is a slice of her life with Singer, their work together and conversations. She weaves us in and out of Singer and his world, leisurely but with a purpose, even reproducing, to great effect, the Yiddish cadences and accent of his spoken English. Possibly the strongest element in this memoir is Telushkin's fierce honesty with her own complex set of emotions about Singer. Here is a man who she is fashioning as a father figure, and (as a notorious Don Juan and egocentric) he is a poor pick. Telushkin shows the darker side of Singer's personality, and her own odd attraction to it; so in the end, this book is more about Teluskhin's journey of self-discovery and maturity than it is about Isaac Singer. But this does not detract from the quality of this work: driven, honest and beautiful, it is a haunting book of genuine emotional integrity.

5 comments about The Jerusalem Syndrome: My Life as a Reluctant Messiah.

1. Read this book. I read it in a day. I went back and underlined the good parts. I told a number of friends about it. You don't have to know anything about Judaism or Israel to appreciate Maron's spiritual journey. It's the funniest thing I've ever purchased online.



2. I bought this because I think Marc Maron's standup comedy is hilarious. I caught a brief appearance of him on Comedy Central awhile ago and it took me several months to find out the name of the guy who made me laugh so hard. After finally finding out who he was, I found out he has a CD, Not Sold Out, and this book, The Jerusalem Syndrome. The CD is hilarious and I highly recommend it. Since no other CDs or a DVD of his standup is available (yet, anyway - fingers crossed!), I went ahead and got the book because he wrote it, not really knowing what it was about, with pretty high expectations.

   The book is a fragmentary autobiography of some events in Maron's life, very little of which is directly related to his career as a standup comic.

   The brief first chapter foreshadows the events that will occur later in the book during Maron's trip to Israel.

   Chapters two through five cover Maron's life up to high school. I simply didn't find this stuff to be very interesting.

   Chapter six covers Maron's college years, focusing on him adopting the Beat religion. The ideas and events in this chapter are very interesting, they're written about very well, and the chapter is very funny.

   Chapter seven is another highlight of the book, covering the modest beginnings of his career as his comedian and his relationship (friendship is too strong of word) with Sam Kinison. Like the previous chapter the events here are interesting and funny, if not scary.

   In chapter eight Maron recounts his foray into conspiracy theory, and how his credulity for that intellectual junk food led to him making a fool of himself. He does save some face, though, by turning his mind back on before the chapter is through. Maron does make a really good observation about conspiracy theory literature:

   "The thing about conspiracy literature is that it's perfect for stupid people who want to seem smart and ground their hatred in something completely mystical and confusing, and it's good for smart people who are too lazy to do their homework. People can't argue with it without possibly implicating themselves."

   What I don't get is, if this stuff really happened, how is it possible that he didn't learn from this and avoid the whole Jerusalem Syndrome thing, if that stuff really happened, too?

   Chapter nine is hilarious, as Maron tells of his visits to a Philip Morris plant and the Coca-Cola museum. Maron gives great, detailed accounts of these visits and makes many humorous but true, if not obvious, observations.

   Chapter ten provides a mish-mash of professional and personal experiences. I simply didn't think this stuff was very interesting or funny.

   Chapters eleven through thirteen contain the events foreshadowed in the first chapter, including his trip to Israel and his experience with Jerusalem Syndrome. I don't know how much of this is true or exaggerated, but I thought most of this stuff was pretty stupid. Some of it is funny, but not in a very good way. Perhaps a Jewish person could relate to this more and find some value in it, but I could not.

   Chapter fourteen is simply excellent. Maron returns home to do a benefit show for his old synagogue. He sees some friends and acquaintances from his youth and ends up helping out in a pretty big way. This concluding chapter is interesting and touching.

   The Jerusalem Syndrome contains very little about Maron's career as a standup comic. There's a little bit about him getting his foot in the door as a comedian at The Comedy Store and then later a bit as he starts to make a name for himself with appearances on television. If you want more on the life and times of a standup comic, I don't think you can do any better than True Story, Bill Maher's fictional story of several standup comics trying to make careers for themselves during standup's golden years.

   This book has some really good parts, but at least as many not so good parts. Perhaps the good parts make up for the not so good parts, but overall this was pretty disappointing considering how hilarious Maron's standup is. In any event, I'd rather just have more of Maron's standup comedy on CD or DVD.




3. I can't stop thinking about this book. I could not put it down. I had tears rolling down my face as I read it. Marc=Good=Sony=Love.



4. The author is a lazy slacker who's never had an original thought in his entire life. Before buying this book do youself a favor(and save some money) take a hammer hold it in front of your face. Swing towards your forehead. Apply ice. This will give the same effect as reading this tripe.



5. A complete waste of time. There were no original thoughts in this book at all. It is the standard fare from most tree hugging, left-wing, wacked out liberals. A lot of crap about how evil conservatives are etc without backing any of it up. Before you read this pile of refuse, do yourself a favor and buy a gallon of gas and a match. That way when you are finished, you can burn the book and maybe save a few bucks on your home heating bill.

No comments about The Days and the Seasons: Memoirs.

1 comments about Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewish Woman-revised edition.

1. Intertwining Identities

   Hannah Arendt's Rachel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewess is the biography of Varnhagen that simultaneously attempts to define Rahel Varnhagen's gender and national identity as a resident in early 19th century Germany in Varnhagen's own terms, while Arendt refines her political theory. Rachel Varnhagen is portrayed throughout the book as a complex character; a Jewish woman in a German society at the dawn and immediate following years of the Napoleonic Revolution. Arendt is an accomplished political-philosopher who despised being called a philosopher. Arendt's rise to academic prominence came when she wrote Eichmann in Jerusalem; Eichmann was where she coined the phrase "banality of evil" in reference to the famous trial of the Nazi Adolph Eichmann. Arendt was on assignment in Jerusalem for the Eichmann trial as a reporter for Harper's because she could not attain a university teaching position. Arendt had not successfully completed the monograph that was to be her Ph.D. dissertation. During the National Socialist ascension to power in 1933 Arendt was forced into exile, therefore hindering the completion of the biography of Varnhagen and her doctoral dissertation.

   Arendt studied under Karl Jaspers and Martin Heidegger the later of which she had an affair. She is most known in political philosophy circles for her study of totalitarian regimes in Origins of Totalitarianism. Arendt collected the published and unpublished letters of the famous salon, bourgeoisie-oriented Varnhagen to map Varnhagen's identity through the inner voice she reveals in her letters. Through reading the letters it is evident that Varnhagen is practically apolitical, but she struggles with her German-Jewish identity and her life as a woman. Arendt explores the complexities of this dynamic through attempting to slip into Varnhagen and convey to the reader Varnhagen's existence. While in the process of amalgamating the various stories of Varnhagen, Arendt also devises her political theory.

   Varhagen was at the center of an aristocratic salon where literature and culture were often discussed and she was viewed as a Jewish exception to anti-Semitism. It was believed at the beginning of the nineteenth century that all anti-Semites had their exceptional Jew, and for the many attendees of Varnhagen's salon it was Rahel. In adding her political theory into the construction of Varnhagen's biography Arendt spares Varnhagen no sympathy, often thinking that these very exceptions furthered the anti-Semitic cause.

   In essence what Arendt has done is constructed a philosophical-psychological biography delving into the subject's mind, breaking the barrier between subject and observer by using the letters as a background to reconstruct the thoughts of Varnhagen. Varnhagen wrote her letters as a narrative, waiting and watching for life to unfold, unwilling to participate in introspection. Fearing that contemplation of the past might lead to her rejecting her identity and denial of her self-asserted uniqueness.

   Varnhagen befriended many of the most prominent novelists and poets; her salon suggested a milieu of sophistication. However, Varnhagen's letters allowed Arendt intense introspection on the feeling of being a Jew in a largely anti-Semitic culture and being a woman in a misogynist culture. Arendt's political theory is never more evident then when she wears the skin of Varnhagen and talks about the Jewish question. Arendt believes that the common Jew attempted to escape their Jewishness (Varnhagen was baptized) only to allow other Jews to flounder in their Jewishness; each individual sought to break from the community at the cost of leaving the others to be victims of virulent anti-Semitism. Arendt is at her sharpest when she philosophizes on the impact of the Napoleonic Revolution on Jews, "it would be incomparably more difficult to escape from a reformed Judaism than from orthodox Judaism; that association for the assimilation of the Jews could lead ultimately to nothing but the preservation of Judaism in a form more suited to the times (179)."

   In the preface to the book Arendt says, "It was never my intention to write a book about Rahel; about her personality, which might lend itself to various interpretations according to the psychological standards and categories that the author introduces from outside; nor about her position in Romanticism and the effect of the Goethe culture in Berlin, of which she was actually the originator; nor about the significance of her salon for the social history of the period; nor about her ideas and her "weltanschauung," in so far as these can be constructed from her letters. What interests me solely was to narrate the story of Rahel's life as she herself might have told it. (81)
   
   Rahel believed she let life happen to her and simply observed and recorded her situations. She was, "letting life rain upon her." She was an prophetic individual that simply aspired to convey what happened to her as destiny. But in this role as intermediary recorder of the past she observed and her unknown, but unconscionable future destiny she thought she was an exception; one that must succumb to destiny, but not attempt to influence it. An individual that was so shortsighted that she failed to consider the fact that the destiny that awaited her, the history that was being revealed and shaped her life was less important than her own life. She was romanticized by contemplation of the past and its unraveling into the future of which she only thought she was a part. Varnhagen was a paradox; waiting like everyone else for history and life to happen but yet she continued to assert her uniqueness. Varnhagen attempts to solve the paradox by waiting for history to unveil, but not discover who she was-only what she could be. In the physical world Varnhagen could not deny her Jewishness, but she aspired to be malleable, devoid of shape and identity, traveling on the waves of history as they splashed on the shores of her continuously unfolding destiny. Arendt best summarizes Varnhagen by saying, "she wished to stand outside reality, to merely take pleasure in the real, to provide the soil for the history and the destinies of many people without having any ground of her own to stand on (145)."

No comments about Carved in Stone: Holocaust Years - A Boy's Tale.

No comments about The Blackwell Dictionary of Judaica.

5 comments about Auschwitz: A Doctor's Story (Women's Life Writings from Around the World).

1. I loved this book, and I couldn't put it down. Great read about the Holocaust. Very chilling to see how the women in the death camps, especially Auschwitz were treated. The font is for 6th Graders, but I feel that it souldn't be read, for the graphic nature, until high school.

   A very good read.




2. Lucie Adelsberger's memoir of surviving Auschwitz, opens with a description of life in Berlin in 1938. "It began with only a few so called 'trifles,' " she says, citing three incidents which leapt out of the maelstrom of edicts and indignities to confront her with the relentless cruelty of the regime. The first of these limited Jews to public benches marked for them, thereby denying the elderly, many already displaced from their homes, the solace of parks. The second occurred when her elderly mother smiled at a functionary who processed her emigration papers. The official screamed at her mother for her effrontery.
   "That's when I realized that these people were beyond the reach of human kindness," says Adelsberger. The third was the denial, after months of wrangling, of her mother's exit visa by the host country. Adelsberger realized finally that "the outside world didn't want to get involved."

   Adelsberger missed her last chance to flee when her mother fell sick. As round-ups of Jews accelerated she found herself praying her mother would die before the SS came for her. Those prayers were answered but her own ordeal surpassed her worst imaginings.

   In unadorned prose Adelsberger recounts life and the varieties of death at Auschwitz. Her voice is gentle, her eye sharp and compassionate, quick to note small ironies as well as gratuitous kindness and cruelty.

   As a doctor, Adelsberger was assigned to the gypsy camp where an epidemic of typhus was raging. There were no medicines and hundreds died daily in their own filth. Why the camp commanders bothered with a hospital at all is a mystery which can be inadequately answered only by the Nazi passion for order.

   Meticulous records were kept of everyone. One of the camp's most grueling rituals was the daily roll call. With 25 to 35,000 inmates in the women's camp alone, with the camp's policy of moving inmates from one section to another without notice, and with hundreds dying enroute to forced labor or hidden in a corner of their block, an exact roll call was difficult to achieve. Twice a day, before dawn and after work, inmates stood for roll call. This encompassed everyone except the dead and lasted one to two hours ý unless the tally did not match. "A roll call that lasted a day and a night without interruption was nothing unusual."

   Roll call, the unexplained withholding of food from already starving people, forced labor, these were routine. Then there were the days that stood out. Sunday in the gypsy camp when gymnasts and musicians put on a show (the Gypsies were allowed to keep their possessions) and an audience of 16,000 sang and danced to music which ended abruptly with an order for "block confinement." After hours of waiting ý and the Gypsies know what they're waiting for ý the SS appear, calling out names and numbers. That night 2,500 Czech Gypsies were sent to the gas chambers.

   Adelsberger also tells of strategies for survival, although she says no one expected to leave the camp alive. But certain work details ý the kitchen, the bathhouse where prisoners were stripped of their last possessions, the band, were coveted. Barter and communication systems were devised despite the dangers of detection.

   But the vast majority worked in the mills or munitions factories or the potato bunker. Or they dug graves. The worst was reserved for young, healthy Jewish men. Totally isolated from the rest of the camp, they worked in the crematorium. After two or three months they too were gassed. "Sometime while at work, one never knew when, the valves of the gas chamber would close, the gas would be turned on, and ý a new Sonderkommando would replace the old."

   A heart-rending memoir, yes, but it speaks as much for the beauties and strength of the human heart as for the incomprehensible monstrousness of the experience.




3. The horrors of the holocaust and the strength survivors had to conjure every second to endure, is beautifully captured by Lucie Adelsberger. Her documentation of the events leading up to Jewish deportation is artful in its simplicity, as each action taken by the Nazis builds upon the last with fatal consequences. This amazing book then takes the reader within the walls of Auschwitz and in exquisite detail invokes the memories of those who were lost as well as those who survived with unflinching honesty. This account documents the strength of the human spirit, and is one that should not be missed.



4. Excellant, a well written account of her experiences. She was one of the lucky ones.



5. This was one of the most beautifully written memoirs of the Holocaust I've ever read. It is a very short book but Lucie Adelsberger manages to give the reader the feelings of horror of the times before in Berlin and during her stay in Auchwitz. She writes in beautiful prose giving me a feel for how people felt early on more than from anything I have previously read. It is poignant as she describes her conflict as a loving daughter and her duties as a physician. She does not go on and on and elaborate but says it all suscinctly. Her chapter on fear said it more clearly than anything I've read before; I felt the fear in her very descriptive prose. It is an excellent read on the Holocaust.