Encyclopedia Judaica 22 Volume Set

Customer Reviews:

A New Encyclopedia Judaica - Modern Judaic Scholarship advances..........2007-08-06

The Encyclopaedia Judaica is a 22-volume English-language encyclopedia of the Jewish people, their faith, Judaism, History and Culture. It's a cumulative result of over three decades of prodigious study and research by about 2,200 contributors and 250 editors around the world and includes approximately 21,000 entries with 2,700 new entries by 1,200 new contributors. Its Scholarship, comprehensive scope, authority, and widespread availability make it a great first and often indispensable resource for Rabbis, Scholars and laypeople.

Three valid critiques of the new edition are 1. prominent scholars decry the wholesale reprinting of many outdated entries. Current scholarship is shortchanged... 2. Minor and marginal Jewish figures and events, are still included, while major figures and movements are absent or minimized. 3. A difference between the first edition of the 72' Encyclopaedia Judaica and the second edition of the New Encyclopaedia Judaica is the paucity of visual images though the new editions are in color.

Nevertheless, it is recommended by the Library of Congress and by the Association of Jewish Libraries for use in determining the authoritative romanization of names of Jewish authors. Furthermore it's guidelines for transliterating Hebrew into English are followed by many academic books and journals. Additionally there are many improvements such a separate category of Jewish Law, reducing Legendary material, Scholem's classic essay on Kabbalah, greater material on Hasidim, Many new findings in Archeology, Israel and Post-Holocaust material, etc. In sum, it is an indispensable reference purchase for Universities, colleges, seminaries, Libraries and all who care about Modern Judaic scholarship. Highly Recommended and still indispensable.

A Series of Disappointments.......2007-04-11

My first disappointment: The wealth of illustration of the first edition is virtually gone. You can still find a treatment of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, of course, but you will not see the great picture of him with his wife Hemdah, taken in 1912. Nor will you find the many other similar pictorial treasures of the first edition. If you must buy this edition, be sure to find a place on your shelves for the old one as well.

My second disappointment: The shoddy treatment of bibliographies. There are, to be sure, lists of books that are appended to the various articles. But there is no annotation. A bibliography without annotation, as it has been said so well, is like a body without a soul. These lists of books will not make it easy for anyone in search of knowledge to find the more helpful sources. But here the new editors have an excuse, if that is what you would call it: the first edition was just as bad in this regard.

My third disappointment: The new knowledge of the last 35 years, insofar as it finds its way into this new work, is often just appended as additions to the old articles. Even where new knowledge revolutionizes the old, the old is still accorded honor of precedent. What was obviously called for is a complete reworking, but this is not what the editors have done.

My fourth disappointment: At least some of the newer material is so superficial that it is useless for any scholarly purpose. I looked up "Exodus," hoping to find what archaeologists and historians have to say about the Biblical account. The article says, flatly, that it is the scholarly consensus that the Biblical Exodus is "unhistorical," meaning, I suppose, that it never happened. The article gives no reference to any archaeologist or historian, nor to any book or other article that would throw light on the subject. What can a student make of this ? Simply take on faith the word of the EJ II ? This is no way to write a work of reference. The writer of this article would receive a failing grade, easily, if he presented it for credit at a university.

There are of course many good things in this new work, and I am sure that with more time and perhaps more inclination I could have found many more than I did.

One good set of articles is about the Ethiopian Jews, even though it is not easy to find it unless you happen to know that the group is now called Beta Israel. The articles are by Steven Kaplan and his associates. Kaplan undoubtedly knows more about the subject than almost anyone else. But even here the EJ II's sloppy method of documentation gets in the way. As it happens, there is a small number of other scholars who have made seminal contributions to this subject, notably Kay Shelemay and James Quirin. Neither of these is mentioned by EJ II.

This work is serious enough - just - to constitute a required purchase for any general research library. If it was the aim of the editors to achieve this minimum, they have succeeded. But it does not seem that they will win any warm admiration of scholars. That, in my book, makes the work a failure, a squandered opportunity.

UNIQUE AND MONUMENTAL WITH ONE CAVEAT.......2007-03-30

I bought EJ #1 when it was published about 30 years ago, and have now already bought #2.

My problem with giving away (which I will probably soon donate to a large local university which just recently formed a Jewish Studies program), is the reason for witholding the last star:

IT HAS NO ILLUSTRATIONS! The brochure for EJ 1 stated 'over 2000 photos, maps, diagrams and illustrations', while the description of EJ 2 states '600 maps and diagrams'. This is a tremendous loss -- just look up 'illustrated manuscripts' or 'incunabula' in the older and see what you are missing in the newer. [Even Pinsk (now Belarus), my father's birthplace, has four photos (two showing the interior and exterior of its [previously] largest synagogue
while #2 shows none.

The project is better organized and has its basis in three parts: (1) Exact duplication from #2 where no update is needed; (2) Reproduction of #1 plus updates (even the bibligraphy makes the distinction between the older and newer references; and (3) Totally new subject matter.

Each of these three types of entries are clearly indicated.

I paid almost $500 for the older one in the late 70s, and if you look hard you can find this set for $1850 plus $8 (!!) shipping.

Contrary, for what is worth, the present edition took four years, not two as mentioned in the earlier ?analysis. However, it is as thorough as if it was written yesterday, which can be evidenced by its very current bibliography.

It is an outstanding contribution in all aspects relative to Jews/Judaism, and at a reasonable price.

Buy it, by all means, if this degree of information interests you and if you can afford its reasonable price.

A preliminary report on a vital reference work for all those who take interest in the Jewish world .......2007-02-21

I am writing this preliminary review of 'Judaica' in the hope that it can be of some help to potential purchasers and future readers of the work. No one asked me to write this review but the readers of it should know that I wrote five relatively small entries for the Encyclopedia, and am not thus a wholly unbiased reviewer.
Primarily though I do not so much intend to present my opinion but rather to report on one of the Encyclopedia's principal editors, Michael Berenbaum has to say about the Encyclopedia. I will I hope accurately paraphrase remarks he made about the 'Encyclopedia' in a talk given at the 'Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs' on February 19, 2007.
Michael Berenbaum says that the editors aimed to preserve the quality of the original Judaica while accurately reflecting the major changes that have taken place in the past thirty- five years in the Jewish world. In this regard one full- volume of the Encyclopedia is dedicated solely to dynamic and rapidly developing Israel. Berenbaum stressed that the Encyclopedia strongly reflects the changes that Feminism have brought in the past thirty- five years. There are three hundred new entries devoted to Jewish women. Many major entries such as the Gershom Scholem entry on 'Jewish Mysticism' were republished but augmented by a report on the work that has occurred since. In the 'Jewish Mysticism ' area Scholem's work was complemented by the work of a leading figure in the field. Prof. Moshe Idel.
Berenbaum said that the world of Jewish learning has vastly expanded in the past thirty - five years. In 1972 there were only a few universities which had Jewish Studies programs. Now there are hundreds of scholars in the area. This means new work is being done in many different areas.
Berenbaum stresses the vastness of the world of Jewish learning, the impossibilty of any single scholar comprehending it. He is however filled with admiration for the creativity in all areas of life displayed by the Jewish people and believes this is reflected within the 'Encyclopedia' itself.
Berenbaum compliments the chief - editor of the work Fred Skolnik who he calls a Renaissance Man of Jewish studies. He notes that this update was done in two years but that it could have taken twenty. The relative speed is in part attributable to the new technologies ( Internet, E-mail, Fax) which did not exist thirty- five years ago
I cannot at this point honestly vouch for the quality of the work which has been done.I expect however that in months and years ahead I will be turning to the New Judaica. As one interested in the 'Jewish world' I cannot count the number of times the 1972 Edition provided vital information for my own work. I expect the new Judaica will do the same for many thousands of researchers, and readers.

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Anne Frank Revisited...
Ann Frank
Amazing diary of a young woman
A Powerful and Intimate Portrait
Book Report: Diary of a Young Girl

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
Anne Frank
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ASIN: 0553296981
Release Date: 1993-06-01

Amazon.com

A beloved classic since its initial publication in 1947, this vivid, insightful journal is a fitting memorial to the gifted Jewish teenager who died at Bergen-Belsen, Germany, in 1945. Born in 1929, Anne Frank received a blank diary on her 13th birthday, just weeks before she and her family went into hiding in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. Her marvelously detailed, engagingly personal entries chronicle 25 trying months of claustrophobic, quarrelsome intimacy with her parents, sister, a second family, and a middle-aged dentist who has little tolerance for Anne's vivacity. The diary's universal appeal stems from its riveting blend of the grubby particulars of life during wartime (scant, bad food; shabby, outgrown clothes that can't be replaced; constant fear of discovery) and candid discussion of emotions familiar to every adolescent (everyone criticizes me, no one sees my real nature, when will I be loved?). Yet Frank was no ordinary teen: the later entries reveal a sense of compassion and a spiritual depth remarkable in a girl barely 15. Her death epitomizes the madness of the Holocaust, but for the millions who meet Anne through her diary, it is also a very individual loss. --Wendy Smith

Book Description

Discovered in the attic in which she spent the last years of her life, Anne Frank's remarkable diary has since become a world classic -- a powerful reminder of the horrors of war and an eloquent testament to the human spirit. In 1942, with Nazis occupying Holland, a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl and her family fled their home in Amsterdam and went into hiding. For the next two years, until their whereabouts were betrayed to the Gestapo, they and another family lived cloistered in the "Secret Annex" of an old office building. Cut off from the outside world, they faced hunger, boredom, the constant cruelties of living in confined quarters, and the ever-present threat of discovery and death. In her diary Anne Frank recorded vivid impressions of her experiences during this period. By turns thoughtful, moving, and amusing, her account offers a fascinating commentary on human courage and frailty and a compelling self-portrait of a sensitive and spirited young woman whose promise was tragically cut short.

Customer Reviews:

Anne Frank Revisited..........2007-10-17

As just about every other student, I read The Diary of Anne Frank in middle school, probably during the 6th or 7th grade. I had a distant memory of it, but not much. Well, recently I watched Schindler's List and this got me re-interested in WWII, and especially the Holocaust. I read Night by Eli Wiesel (highly recommended) and decided to move on to The Diary of Anne Frank. Let me start by reviewing the book:

The Diary of Anne Frank is a diary of a young, Jewish girl (as the title obviously states, haha) whom is forced to go into hiding with her family during the Nazi occupation of Holland in the early 1940's. During this period, Jews were being segregated and even sent off to concentration camps by the Germans on a daily basis. When Anne's sister's name was next on the list, their father decided to take the family into hiding.

Aided by some of Otto's (Anne's father) former employees, the Franks seclude themselves in a small Annex of a business in Amsterdam. There, they are joined by the Van Daan family and later by an older gentleman, Mr. Dussel. Anne's diary chronicles their plight for the following two years, until they are discovered by the German secret police and ultimately sent to their death in Jewish concentration camps.

Anne addresses various topics, from their daily activities, to her interest in the son of the Van Daan's, Peter, to some of her inner most thoughts, fears, and aspirations. I have to share with you that I was EXTREMELY impressed with Anne's intelligence. I couldn't help but compare her to myself when I was only 15 years old and I am amazed not only at her intelligence but her strength to persevere during such horrible times. This young girl manages to keep faith in God and struggles with maintaining her morality, even as all around her she is witnessing a warped world full of sin, hatred and evil. I cannot say that in her shoes I would've reacted the same.

I encourage any reader to read and/or re-read The Diary of Anne Frank. You will be completely enveloped by her wit and warmth and are surely to fall in love with her.

Ann Frank.......2007-10-05

The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition is the diary Anne Frank a young Jewish girl growing up during World War II and the holocaust. Anne lives in Amsterdam with her mother, father, and sister Margot. When Anne is 13 she and her family must go into hiding to escape the Germans call ups, particularly one for Margot. They hide in the back of a warehouse where Otto (Anne's father) works. There are seven people at the beginning including the three van Daans an Anne and her family.
The diary reminds me of The Breadwinner which is about a young girl growing up in Afghanistan during the Taliban's rule. The main character must dress up as a boy when her father is arrested to earn money for her family. Unlike Anne's diary however this was written in modern day. They both had trouble getting food that they needed and lived in fear of getting arrested. Although they lived in different times the experiences of the girls were similar
After a bit Albert Dussel, a dentist, joins the group in, as it came to be known, the Secret Annex. Dussel became a bit annoying when he starts hiding food when the rest of the group need to get coupon books through the black market and are eating rotten potatoes and other foods. He did however give them dental checkups. Anne shared a room with Dussel when he came (before she shared with Margot) and was frequently woken up when he got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. "Mr. Dussel's Toilet Timetable" is some thing that Anne tacks to the bathroom door. "I might well have added "Transgressors will be subject to confinement!" Because our bathroom can be locked from both the inside and the outside." Is something Anne writes after the timetable.
Anne also makes friends with Peter van Dan and spends quite a few evenings in his attic bedroom because it has the only window that's not covered by a curtain. They become valuable resources for each other.
All in all this is a very good book and I highly recommend it.

Amazing diary of a young woman .......2007-10-01

Anne Frank is remembered for being a sweet young girl that went into hiding during the holocaust only to be found and sent to a concentration camp where she died 3 months befroe her 16th birthday. The time in between these two horrible events is full of fear, fights,learning, and love, basically life. This version of the diary has more material than the orginal, which some people think is too much, but it is what she wrote left alone. It has what she intended the book to be. It includes story from the restrictions put on her while she wasn't in hiding because she was Jewish to her chores that she did quietly in the Secret Annex such as peeling potatoes and rubbing beans. It is not always the most interesting book, but it does provoke thought. It's sad in the fact that you know how its going to end before you start, but Anne does not as she's wrting it. Anne Frank's writing surpass her age, she writes not as a stuborn teenager, but as an intelligent young woman.

A Powerful and Intimate Portrait.......2007-09-30

You know the storyline - a Jewish girl, her family, and some friends go into hiding for two years during the Nazi regime in Holland. Said girl writes her thoughts and observations of her life during this time in a diary, which is found and published after her death in a concentration camp. It has become a classic, and it was written by a young teenager.

My favorite aspect of this book will forever be Anne's powerful narrative voice. Her words speak, and more than that they smell and taste and touch. She gives her diary, "Kitty," an intimate portrait of life in the "Secret Annexe," both public and private - of the ups-and-downs of people's relationships, of her inner struggles and growth, of her love. Reading her diary is like looking through the window at the war from two perspectives - one from the outside in, at the life of a girl and a family who were sucked into the Nazi vacuum through no fault of their own; and the other from the inside out, at the crazy world war swirling around the epicenter of one fourteen-year-old girl.

Book Report: Diary of a Young Girl.......2007-09-30

This book tells an amazing story of a young girl living in Germany in World War II. And to think it was all a journal is amazing. Anne Frank, a brave young Jewish girl, spends two years hiding in the secret annex from the Nazis. Anne Frank started to keep this diary on her thirteenth birthday. She called her diary, Kitty. At the start of her diary, Anne describes fairly typical experiences, writing about her friendships with other girls, her crushes on boys.
Later, the Franks had moved to the Netherlands in the years leading up to World War II to escape persecution in Germany. They were forced into hiding with another family, the van Daans. There, they listened closely to the radio and everything that happened during the war. Anne kept up with everything that happened while she was there. It was very hard for her because she was separated from all her friends and her normal life style.
I suggest this book for all ages. It is a very inspirational story. It gives a different perspective on life.
-Hayley Robertson
6th period
10/4/07

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Slow-starter but good
Another Classic From Chabon
Go With the Flow
Disappointed
Too Cutsey

The Yiddish Policemen's Union: A Novel
Michael Chabon
Manufacturer: HarperCollins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0007149824
Release Date: 2007-05-01

Book Description

For sixty years, Jewish refugees and their descendants have prospered in the Federal District of Sitka, a "temporary" safe haven created in the wake of revelations of the Holocaust and the shocking 1948 collapse of the fledgling state of Israel. Proud, grateful, and longing to be American, the Jews of the Sitka District have created their own little world in the Alaskan panhandle, a vibrant, gritty, soulful, and complex frontier city that moves to the music of Yiddish. For sixty years they have been left alone, neglected and half-forgotten in a backwater of history. Now the District is set to revert to Alaskan control, and their dream is coming to an end: once again the tides of history threaten to sweep them up and carry them off into the unknown.

But homicide detective Meyer Landsman of the District Police has enough problems without worrying about the upcoming Reversion. His life is a shambles, his marriage a wreck, his career a disaster. He and his half-Tlingit partner, Berko Shemets, can't catch a break in any of their outstanding cases. Landsman's new supervisor is the love of his life—and also his worst nightmare. And in the cheap hotel where he has washed up, someone has just committed a murder—right under Landsman's nose. Out of habit, obligation, and a mysterious sense that it somehow offers him a shot at redeeming himself, Landsman begins to investigate the killing of his neighbor, a former chess prodigy. But when word comes down from on high that the case is to be dropped immediately, Landsman soon finds himself contending with all the powerful forces of faith, obsession, hopefulness, evil, and salvation that are his heritage—and with the unfinished business of his marriage to Bina Gelbfish, the one person who understands his darkest fears.

At once a gripping whodunit, a love story, an homage to 1940s noir, and an exploration of the mysteries of exile and redemption, The Yiddish Policemen's Union is a novel only Michael Chabon could have written.

Customer Reviews:

Slow-starter but good.......2007-10-10

After slogging my way through Yiddish references ad infinitum, this book finally got good after the halfway mark. I was disappointed as it wasn't nearly as engaging as his other books. (Maybe if I had a strong Jewish heritage, I would have enjoyed it more.)

Another Classic From Chabon.......2007-10-09

If you loved Summerland, Wonder Boys, Mysteries of Pittsburgh order The Yiddish Policemen's Union today. Chabon delivers another classic.

Go With the Flow.......2007-10-09

Like many reviewers, I found this book hard to follow, but I gave it a chance and found myself getting into the flow of the story. What I was confused about, I let go, and then I was swept into the telling of an amazing tale. I eventually found it hard to put down.

After finishing the book this morning, one of the wonderful things I love about reading happened regarding the journey it takes you on and the connections it forges. I watched Bill Moyers Journal which I had taped and was amazed to watch the short film about John Hagee and CUFI, Christians United for Israel and Moyers' discussion with Rabbi Michael Lerner and Dr. Timothy Weber. Suddenly Michael Chabon's story did not seem so outlandish. Suddenly I was sore afraid.

Disappointed.......2007-10-01

I heard so many good things about Chabon that I decided to read his new book. I am struggling. It is hard to understand--too many Yiddish phrases that I don't comprehend. I have lots of Jewish friends, so you would think that something would be familiar. Oh well, I will try to finish this book as I hate to give up on anything, but it will be hard. Don't think I will try Chabon's other books.

Too Cutsey.......2007-09-24

Hard to fathom and follow, thanks to too many cutesy Yiddish expressions and associations. And I'm familiar with Yiddish.

Jewish Literacy: The Most Important Things to Know About the Jewish Religion, Its People and Its History

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Nice survey
Informative but some "don't go there" moments
Wonderful
God vs. G-d,etc. by a Rabbi who is a Rabbi(not a "rabbi")
One of the worst books I have ever read.

Jewish Literacy: The Most Important Things to Know About the Jewish Religion, Its People and Its History
Joseph Telushkin
Manufacturer: William Morrow
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0688085067
Release Date: 2001-09-04

Amazon.com

In 1988, Rabbi Joseph Telushkin undertook a mission to heal "Jewish ignorance," an affliction whose symptoms include the ability to name the three components of the Trinity, coupled with an inability to explain mitzvah. Telushkin's contribution to the cure is his wide-ranging, entertaining Jewish Literacy. First published in 1991, Jewish Literacy contains almost 350 entries on subjects ranging from the Ten Commandments to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Entries are numbered (for easy, encyclopedia-style reference) and organized topically (to smooth the experience of reading each page straight through). And the revised edition contains several new entries (including articles about the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the vice-presidential nomination of Joseph Lieberman) as well as numerous corrections, enlargements, and updates. One might expect Rabbi Telushkin's project of inspiring Jewish literacy to be overly earnest, but the author's understated wit adds considerable levity to most entries. The entry on "Sodom and Gomorrah," for instance, ends this way: "A number of years ago, some Israeli promoters of tourism suggested transforming the modern city of Sodom into a tourist haven with casinos, nightclubs, and even strip shows. The Chief Rabbinate in Israel sharply demurred, warning that there was nothing to prevent God from destroying the city a second time. The plan was dropped." --Michael Joseph Gross

Book Description

How much do you know about Judaism?

How did the Ten Lost Tribes become lost ?
Are circumcisions performed on the Sabbath ?
Which country first granted Jews equal rights ?
When was polygamy outlawed for Jews ?
Why does Jewish law compare gossiping to murder ?

You'll find the answers to these questions -- and much more -- in this insightful and comprehensive guide. Written by esteemed rabbi and bestselling author Joseph Telushkin, Jewish Literacy has become one of the most respected and widely used reference books on Jewish life, culture, religion, and tradition. Now revised and updated, this fascinating volume distills a vast body of scholarship into 348 short, readable chapters, making the rich and complex history of Judaism accessible to any reader.

Organized by subject, the book's fifteen sections include:

History and Contemporary Life
From the biblical and Talmudic periods through the Spanish Inquisition to modern times, with special sections on the Holocaust, Israel, and American-Jewish life.

Beliefs, Ethics, and Rituals
From monotheism to Judaism's views on the afterlife, "chosenness," and human relations with God; ethical concerns ranging from the proper treatment of animals to the real meaning of "an eye for an eye"; along with explanations of the major prayers and synagogue practices.

Jewish Holidays and Life Cycle
The origins and distinctive customs of each holiday, and the rites sanctifying every major life event from circumcision and baby naming to burial and mourning.

Answers to the questions from the front flap:

They were dispersed when the Kingdom of Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians in 722 B.C.E. (see Chapter 45).
The United States (see Chapter 203).
Around 1000 C.E., when it was proscribed by Rabbi Gershom; however, most Sephardic Jews did not accept the ban (see Chapter 95).
Because gossip, like murder, can do irrevocable damage (see Chapter 271).

Customer Reviews:

Nice survey.......2007-10-10

This book is intended for people, Jew or non Jew, to whet their appetite into the vast storehouse of Jewish history and all things that pertain to Jews in literature. I thought that it was (tob), good. The vastness of our history and literature is beyond reach in this life time. So, suffice to say, their exist certain fountains of knowledge such as this book that helps us mere mortals gain a foothold into our past. I want to say that this book could be used like, cliff notes, but that would trivialize the Rabbi's hard work. Nay, this book is needed and handy for a quick glance into Judaism past it is well written but like all surveys it makes you desire more.
It's a must have.
Shalom

Informative but some "don't go there" moments.......2007-09-25

In general, this was a good book. It is well-written, informative and intelligent. My only criticism is that the Rabbi's statements on Christianity and Islam were not always accurate of fair. (In fairness, these misinterpretations often come from the followers of the religions themselves.) If you keep these biases in mind this is a wonderful book.

Wonderful.......2007-09-24

This book is terrific. Absolutely terrific. Rabbi Telushkin is simply an incredible writer. This book should be read by everyone who is Jewish as well as by everyone who is interested in world religions.

God vs. G-d,etc. by a Rabbi who is a Rabbi(not a "rabbi").......2007-09-11

I remember when I first started seeing God spelled G-d,never having a clue what the reason was-and bumbling my way to some type of mystical bs answer that pissed me off;I don't remember how long my "explanation" predated this book,but I was pissed off until I finally saw the real answer:(p.56-57)"The Third Commandment also has not fared well in English:Lo tissa et shem Ha-Shem Eloheikha la-shav is usually translated as "You shall not take the Lord your God's name in vain."Many people think that this means that you have to write God as G-D,or that it is blasphemous to say words such as "goddamn".Even if these assumptions are correct,it's still hard to figure out what makes this offense so heinous that it's included in the document that forbids murdering,stealing,idolatry,and adultery.However,the Hebrew,Lo tissa,literally means "You shall not carry(God's name in vain);in other words,don't use God as your justification in selfish causes.The Third Commandment is the only one concerning which God says,"for the Lord God will not forgive him who carries His name in vain"(Exodus 20:6-7).The reason now seems to be clear.When a person commits an evil act,he discredits himself.But when a religious person commits an evil act in the name of God,he or she discredits God as well.And since God relies on religious people to bring knowledge of Him into the world,he pronounces the sin unpardonable."Amen.

One of the worst books I have ever read........2007-08-07

Before I express the criticism from my title I should begin by saying that this book is well written and very informative. It contains a lot of really interesting information about Judaism and were it not for the profound biases and ignorance of its author I might even rank it among one of the better books I have read recently.

In order to understand why I so thoroughly dislike this book it might actually help to briefly discuss another book that really has nothing to do with this one. A few years ago I read Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy - another good book with a very similar abysmal nature. My issue with Russell is his utter dismissal of any other view point from his own. Thus Nietzsche is dismissed after only a page. Schopenhauer is rendered inconsequential while fundamental thinkers such as Kirkegaard and Wittgenstein are ignored. Meanwhile trivial thinks such as Dewey are praised because they agree with Russell's own positions. So while the book is well written, the general sense of history and context is brilliant, unless you already know something about philosophy, and can escape the many pitfalls, Russell's text is one to be avoided. And if you do know something it ends up seeming somewhat pathetic.

I have pretty much the same critique of Jewish Literacy by Telushkin. Yes this is a well written book. Yes there is a lot that is good here. A reader who wants to know a little something about Judaism and is willing to consult it more like a dictionary than a reading it cover to cover (like I did) might get some value from owning this book. If you want to occasionally look up different holiday's or get some brief illumination regarding Torah passages or even know a little something more about thinkers like Maimonides or Rabbi Feinstein this is a good introductory source.

What you don't want to do is think of this as having any value when it comes to that can be in any way impartial. Telushkin is an Orthodox Rabbi, so I guess I can forgive some of his opinions in much the same way I can forgive say... Pat Robertson some of his ignorant and backwards positions simply by say well... he is a Southern Baptist he probably doesn't know better.

As an example upon finishing this I was shocked and dismayed to discover that I am an Anti-Semite. I admit to not being Jewish. I can't help that my father's father was Jewish but that is matrilineally irrelevant. But felt that my admiration of so many Jewish writers, thinkers, artists and friends that I actually took the time to well... anee m'daber ktzat eevreet. But it turns out that according to Telushkin that anybody who has even the smallest criticism of Israel is Anti-Zionist and because of this also an Anti-Semite struck me as well... unkind. Or said another way, if disapproving of Israeli missiles killing unarmed Lebanese civilians, or disliking the racist and apartheid policies directed against the Palestinian population makes me an Anti-Semite the so be it; I guess I am one.

Some of his positions such as the position that only Orthodox Jews are really Jews, while Reform Jews and Conservative Jews aren't, seem to be just part of the overall position of Orthodoxy and can probably be ignored in pretty much the same way that say Ann Coulter's position that Democrats and Liberals are un-American are equally as bigoted and unfounded.
In fact if it makes my dislike of this book any easier to understand, just imagine a history of America written by an right-wing republican, then transfer the narrative into a history of Judaism. The same points would be covered 1) The troubled early years and the politically safe interpretation 2) The historical justifications for contemporary amorality 3) The veiled denouncing of political opponents 4) One hell of a lot of revisionism and glossing over.

So yes. I did not like this book. It was at times a fun read. There were a couple of funny anecdotes that I told some of my friends. I did learn a fair bit that I didn't know. The book was well written and kept my interest enough so that it only took me three days to finish reading, like I said cover to cover. But I would never recommend it to anyone. And to the people who do read it, I say be careful, read between the lines because while the author seems reasonable he really is not.

The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million

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THE LOST: A SEARCH FOR SIX OF THE SIX MILLION
A very powerful, wonderful book!
I got lost reading "The Lost"
Don't waste your time.
A Must Read

The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million
Daniel Mendelsohn
Manufacturer: HarperCollins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0060542977
Release Date: 2006-09-19

Amazon.com

Daniel Mendelsohn's The Lost is the deeply personal account of a search for one family among his larger family, the one barely spoken of, only to say they were "killed by the Nazis." Mendelsohn, even as a boy, was always the one interested in his family's history, but when he came upon a set of letters from his great uncle Schmiel, pleading for help from his American relatives as the Nazi grip on the lives of Jews in their Polish town became tighter and tighter, he set out to find what had happened to that lost family. The result is both memoir and history, an ambitious and gorgeously meditative detective story that takes him across the globe in search of the lost threads of these few almost forgotten lives.

A whole culture lies behind the story Mendelsohn tells, and a lifetime of reading as well. For our Grownup School feature, he has given us a tour of some of the books behind his own, in a list he calls 10 Great Novels of Family History, the Holocaust, New York Jewish Life (And Other Things That Helped Me Write My Book). And you can watch his own moving introduction to the book in this short video:

Watch Daniel Mendelsohn introduce The Lost: high bandwidth or low bandwidth

Book Description

In this rich and riveting narrative, a writer's search for the truth behind his family's tragic past in World War II becomes a remarkably original epic—part memoir, part reportage, part mystery, and part scholarly detective work—that brilliantly explores the nature of time and memory, family and history.

The Lost begins as the story of a boy who grew up in a family haunted by the disappearance of six relatives during the Holocaust—an unmentionable subject that gripped his imagination from earliest childhood. Decades later, spurred by the discovery of a cache of desperate letters written to his grandfather in 1939 and tantalized by fragmentary tales of a terrible betrayal, Daniel Mendelsohn sets out to find the remaining eyewitnesses to his relatives' fates. That quest eventually takes him to a dozen countries on four continents, and forces him to confront the wrenching discrepancies between the histories we live and the stories we tell. And it leads him, finally, back to the small Ukrainian town where his family's story began, and where the solution to a decades-old mystery awaits him.

Deftly moving between past and present, interweaving a world-wandering odyssey with childhood memories of a now-lost generation of immigrant Jews and provocative ruminations on biblical texts and Jewish history, The Lost transforms the story of one family into a profound, morally searching meditation on our fragile hold on the past. Deeply personal, grippingly suspenseful, and beautifully written, this literary tour de force illuminates all that is lost, and found, in the passage of time.

Customer Reviews:

THE LOST: A SEARCH FOR SIX OF THE SIX MILLION.......2007-10-17

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The author manages to make it funny and entertaining even though the subject matter is sober. He makes it funny talking about his relatives from the USA. Having lived on the East Coast as a child, I can see the humor.
His tenacity in locating his lost relatives is amazing and I enjoyed the journey with him. I would and have recommended this book.

A very powerful, wonderful book!.......2007-10-01

The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million

I read a lot (about 1-2 books per week) and this is by far the best book I have ever read. It is SO powerful and poignant. It is a book about healing from the horrors of the holocaust, how it affected the family of survivors and their descendants here in the US and how one descendant, searchin for his lost relatives helped start the healing process. This book is also very good for those interested in genealogy work.

I got lost reading "The Lost".......2007-09-24

The book seem to mesmerize me with its many fragile old photos. I soon found myself frustrated and lost due to the author's lack captions for the photos -- frankly, it was maddening. Oftentimes photos were not even placed within the text properly.

This book was in desperate need of a good editor: (1) organize the photos, (2) edit the rambling run-on sentences, (3) get rid of the overuse of parenthetical remarks, etc.

At first I read the biblical sections and enjoyed reading about Rashi, etc. but later on I skipped these portions because they dragged the pace of the story and could not hold my attention.

This was one of the most frustrating books I have ever read and the victims were buried twice: first in Eastern Poland and then within this book with its myriad details and a most obsessive, jumpy and horrible author. Sorry... that's how bad this experience was for me. This guy desperately needed an editor.

Where oh, where is Elie Wiesel when I need him?

Don't waste your time........2007-09-22

This book is entirely too slow. It seems to just repeat the same thing in every chapter. I agree with the the other review that says this is just an extended guide on Jewish genealogy. Very disappointed.

A Must Read.......2007-09-16

This is a page turner with characters that every Jewish baby boomer will be able to identify with. On every page you will find one of your relatives, friends of your parents or the parents of your friends. It is beautifully written and difficult to catagorize. It is neither a mystery or a memoir, a history or a biography, but it is all of the aforementioned. I found myself very emotionally involved in the story and I even found myself and my parents in the book. Read it.

The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus

Average customer rating:

Well written and Informative
Jesus without the Schmaltz
The truth is here
Insightful
Really boring. There are far more readable books on the subject.

The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus
Amy-jill Levine
Manufacturer: HarperOne
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0060789662
Release Date: 2006-11-28

Book Description

Country Western singer Kinky Friedman often performs a song entitled "They Ain't Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore," and New Testament professor Amy–Jill Levine would agree. In fact, her career is dedicated to helping Christians and Jews understand the Jewishness of Jesus, thereby deepening the understanding of him, and facilitating greater interfaith dialogue. In this book, she shows how liberal Christians misunderstand Judaism, misunderstand the New Testament, and thus yank Jesus out of his Jewish context and wind up promoting hatred of Jews. Only with the deeper understanding this top Jewish, Southern–born New Testament scholar provides can we hope to respect each other's beliefs, as well as enrich our own.

Through a extremely busy teaching and speaking schedule, Levine has honed her message at synagogues, Catholic conferences, Jewish Community Centers, denominational meetings, in the classroom and in her highly successful Teaching Company audios and videos. Levine is brilliant, charming, funny and forceful, and uses these traits to give a completely fresh perspective on Jesus and the New Testament. In addition to offering new insights with great skill, she has the remarkable ability to be tough, pointing out how even liberal Christians can be unwittingly anti–Semitic in their understanding of what Jesus stood for.Her truth–telling here will provoke honest dialogue on how Christians and Jews should understand Jesus and our New Testament heritage.

Customer Reviews:

Well written and Informative.......2007-09-04

Only a few years ago it was heretical to say that Jesus was a Jew, yet in a few short decades Jesus' Jewishness has come to be a given. Or has it? That's the great benefit of Amy Jill Levine's book - it covers a topic you think you know, but explores it from so many different perspectives that you realize you didn't know it at all.

Some of the topics that Levine explores include the bases of the interpretations of anti-semiticism in the New Testament and our false stereotypes of life for the Jews in first century Israel.

If there is anything lacking in Levine's approach it is her acceptance of the gospels as they are, with little exploration of the ways in which they were sculpted by the gospel writers.

This is a well written and well researched treatise on first century Judiasm that will appeal to beginning students and scholars as well.

Jesus without the Schmaltz.......2007-08-10

If this review reads as though it has been written by a smitten fan, it is; because this reviewer is delighted at last to find, read and enjoy with undisguised pleasure, a book written by a Jew, who places Jesus firmly within his Jewish environments. And to do it succinctly, with wit and a deep appreciation for both Judaism and Christianity.

Amy-Jill Levine is a "woman of valour" in the world of Christian New Testament scholarship, and her book is a mitzvah for Jews and Christians. She is a modern Orthodox Jew, observant and informed as much about her own faith tradition as she is about the beginnings of the Christian movement. Levine brings to the table a wealth of knowledge about the late Second Temple period, the Jewish mileau surrounding the life of Yeshua/Jesus, and the complex beginnings of the Christian movement. Her razor sharp erudition is applied to the person of Jesus the observant and faithful Torah Jew using mishnaic and later rabbinic texts to give the reader a very comprehensive picture of the world/s in which Jesus lived and moved. Reading the Gospels from a Jewish perspective and with a critical eye to "weeding" out inaccurate (usually Christian) interpolations gives this foundation period in Christian history a wonderfully refreshing and academically satisfying perspective. I found her exegesis of John 4 a typical example of Levine's scholarship; theology - both Jewish and Christian, biblical and post-biblical, early Christian and Rabbinic literary analysis and criticism, historical contexts and implications for dialogue and teaching.

The second part of the book deals with common misunderstandings and misuses of the Gospels by both well-meaning and less well-meaning people, when it comes to Christians attempting to understand the one they call Saviour/Christ/Messiah. Only through honest study that challenges Christians to look critically at their sacred texts, can a more complete picture of Jesus emerge. And that is often done with some cost, as Levine details over a number of chapters. She does not shy away from wrestling with current issues of Antisemitism, the zealous, but naive, support of some Christians for Palestine at the cost of demonising Israel, and the perennial temptation of painting Jesus as the great liberator from Jewish oppression. With deft and skilled agility, Levine dismantles the myths and replaces them with fact and biblically based exegesis, commentary and plain, old fashioned common sense.

At the end of this slender volume I felt I had been given a valuable tool for working with students, providing both Jews and Christians with a text that could be used in joint study of the most famous Jew to have ever lived. People of faith will not be threatened by Levine's work. On the contrary I found her book only served to enrich my understanding of Jesus placing him firmly within his own people and religious culture. It has certainly made me keen to read more. My only regret is that the book was not longer.

The truth is here.......2007-07-16

This books is filled with historical truths that prove that the biggest religion in the world is based in faith and not any truth about history. I hope every Christian would read this so they know where they came from. If everyone read it there would be less anti-semitisim in the world.

Insightful.......2007-07-08

This was an excellent book for insights into the thinking of an Orthodox Jewish believer as she reveals her understanding of Judaism and Christianity.

There is no question but that we have "Gentilized" the Church, but careful reading of this book will reveal that the author has imposed the teachings of Judaism on first century Jews. Judaism became the primary teaching after the acceptance of the Talmud e.g., she equates disciples with Gentiles using standards of Judaism.

There were 20 cults in Israel at the time of Jesus according to Judaic Encyclopedia. Judaism won out and was formulated in the Talmud much later, around 500 CE.

Well worth reading as long as one is aware of the differences between Judaism and the ancient Jewish beliefs.

Really boring. There are far more readable books on the subject........2007-06-28

I find the history of the early onset of Christianity really intriguing. I have read many fascinating books on the subject. This is not one of them. The author uses an academic style focusing on arcane technicalities that only a scholar focused on this exact theme would find interesting. In other words, I don't think this is a book written for the layperson.

The main theme of the book is that Jesus was Jewish. What he taught, how he lived and behaved reflected the Judaic principles of the time. It is Paul, Luke, and Matthew that made great efforts in their writing to contrast Christianity from Judaism by in good part nearly demonizing the Jews.

The best part of the book is the last chapter titled `Quo Vadis?' But, the chapter still leaves a lot to be desired. First, the title is cryptic and disconnected from the content of the chapter. This Latin phrase means `where are you going?' But, the chapter does not go anywhere and does not answer this question. Instead, within this chapter the author makes 26 clarifications to enhance the relationship, tolerance, and understanding between Judaism and Christianity. The majority of those are pretty good. Within one of them, she stresses that the Gospels are narratives that often deviate from historical facts to advance the agenda of the Christian writers. The author deserves credit to advance such a fact. But, some of them reflect a Judaic bias. Her explanation that the sole reason Jesus died was because a man being proclaimed "king" in Roman-occupied Jerusalem was a political liability seems evasive and incomplete. Her explanation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict appears defensive. Some others reflect the author's erudition and her bent on the Byzantine. She recommends people learn both ancient Greek and Hebrew to study the scriptures in their original version. Again that may be commendable for scholars working on doctoral dissertations on the subject. Otherwise, it is a rather irrelevant recommendation for the rest of us.

If you are interested in studying the onset of early Christianity, I have read several fascinating books that include: Michael Baigent's `The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception' and `The Jesus Papers', Elaine Pagels' `The Gnostic Gospels' is also excellent.

The Israelis: Ordinary People in an Extraordinary Land

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Eye-Opening, Balanced. Astounding insights,
No wonder it's sold all over the world
Incredible Book
The Israelis: Ordinary People in an Extraordinary Land
Well written and fun to read -- rich human stories

The Israelis: Ordinary People in an Extraordinary Land
Donna Rosenthal
Manufacturer: Free Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0743270355
Release Date: 2005-02-01

Book Description

Israel is smaller than New Jersey yet captures a lion's share of headlines. It looks like one country on CNN, a very different one on al-Jazeera. The BBC has its version, The New York Times theirs. But how does Israel look to Israelis? The answers are varied, and they have been brought together here in one of the most original books about Israel in decades. From battlefields to bedrooms to boardrooms, discover the colliding worlds in which an astounding mix of 6.8 million devoutly traditional and radically modern people live. You'll meet "Arab Jews" who fled Islamic countries, dreadlock-wearing Ethiopian immigrants who sing reggae in Hebrew, Christians in Nazareth who publish an Arabic-style Cosmo, young Israeli Muslims who know more about Judaism than most Jews of the Diaspora, ultra-Orthodox Jews on "Modesty Patrols," and more. Interweaving hundreds of personal stories with intriguing new research, The Israelis is lively, irreverent, and always fascinating.

Customer Reviews:

Eye-Opening, Balanced. Astounding insights,.......2007-06-17

There is no other book on Israelis like this. It's very balanced, filled with fascinating insights into the lives of ordinary Israeli women, men and children from vastly different backgrounds. It's fun to read and reread. You'll smile, laugh and cry as you visit discos, battlefields and internet cafes, synagogues and mosques, learning about these hyper modern and very traditional Jewish, Muslim, Christians and Druze -- all Israelis.

This well researched masterpiece truly helps you understand what TV and newspaper reporters are not telling you. Every reporter based in the Middle East should read this book before letting the cameras roll. The Israelis is excellent for tourists, arm chair travelers, students, teachers, and diplomats.

No wonder it's sold all over the world.......2007-05-09

You can't say you know much about Israel without reading this engaging, entertaining, original book. It's really fun to read, balanced and packed with fascinating information.

I hear about Israel on the news nearly everyday-- but until I read this absorbing book, I never knew much about regular Israeli people. The author lets all kinds of young Israelis speak. Female soldiers, Israeli Arabs and Israel Christians and religious and non religious Jews. My friend in Berlin told me about it -- she says The Israelis is selling like hotcakes in Germany.

Incredible Book.......2007-02-23

If you are looking to learn about the real mix if people that we call the Israelis this is the book to read. Having been to Israel and returning aagain for 6 weeks this summer I now have a better insight into the people I met and will be with again. A beautiful book about a beautiful country and its people.

The Israelis: Ordinary People in an Extraordinary Land.......2007-01-05

I thought that I understood the dynamics of Israel in our world today. After reading this book, I can only take my hat off to all of the people in that country that are making it work. Ms. Rosenthal's work is so thorough and yet so interesting to read. I feel better after reading this book that the people living in Israel today will be able to withstand all of the forces that are against them in the troubled world today.

Well written and fun to read -- rich human stories.......2006-12-21

The author put quite a bit of work into writing "The Israelis" - and it shows. This book is especially useful for anyone truly interested in challenging their perceptions built up through a lifetime of mainstream media coverage of Israel.

I read most of the book on a flight to Israel. I found the information immediately useful in better understanding that complex society then finished it on my flight back.

In the amazing timing category, I had just read the chapter on Israel's ultra-Orthodox and their belief that Israel should not have been founded as a secular state (believing that only Messiah should do so) when I was amazed to see a TV news report showing four ultra-orthodox Jews standing next to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at his Holocaust denial conference. Some of the ultra-Orthodox community believes the Holocaust happened as God's punishment to the Jews for not being religious enough. It seems inconsistent to, on one hand participate in a Holocaust denial conference, and on the other believe that the Holocaust was somehow God's punishment, but there they were in Teheran. If it were not for having just read "The Israelis" I would have had no idea why.

I highly recommend this book for anyone wishing to better understand Israel.

The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East

Average customer rating:

Good book, we read it in class
The Lemon Tree: An Arab, A Jew and the Heart of the MIddle East
The Lemon Tree
A biased view of the Middle East conflict
The Lemon Tree

The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East
Sandy Tolan
Manufacturer: Bloomsbury USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1582343438
Release Date: 2006-05-02

Book Description

The tale of a simple act of faith between two young people - one Israeli, one Palestinian - that symbolizes the hope for peace in the Middle East.

In 1967, not long after the Six-Day War, three young Arab men ventured into the town of Ramle, in what is now Jewish Israel. They were cousins, on a pilgrimage to see their childhood homes; their families had been driven out of Palestine nearly twenty years earlier. One cousin had a door slammed in his face, and another found his old house had been converted into a school. But the third, Bashir Al-Khairi, was met at the door by a young woman called Dalia, who invited them in.

This act of faith in the face of many years of animosity is the starting point for a true story of a remarkable relationship between two families, one Arab, one Jewish, amid the fraught modern history of the regio. In his childhood home, in the lemon tree his father planted in the backyard, Bashir sees dispossession and occupation; Dalia, who arrived as an infant in 1948 with her family from Bulgaria, sees hope for a people devastated by the Holocaust. As both are swept up in the fates of their people, and Bashir is jailed for his alleged part in a supermarket bombing, the friends do not speak for years. They finally reconcile and convert the house in Ramle into a day-care centre for Arab children of Israel, and a center for dialogue between Arabs and Jews. Now the dialogue they started seems more threatened than ever; the lemon tree died in 1998, and Bashir was jailed again, without charge.

The Lemon Tree grew out of a forty-three minute radio documentary that Sandy Tolan produced for Fresh Air. With this book, he pursues the story into the homes and histories of the two families at its center, and up to the present day. Their stories form a personal microcosm of the last seventy years of Israeli-Palestinian history. In a region that seems ever more divided, The Lemon Tree is a reminder of all that is at stake, and of all that is still possible.

Customer Reviews:

Good book, we read it in class.......2007-10-14

It's a good fairly objective book (although it's pretty much impossible to be truly unbiased in anything). It's definitely good at getting on two sides of this multifaced beast of an issue to cover. You'll never find a book on the Arab-Israeli conflict that everyone agrees on, NEVER, some people will always think Israel had a spotless and sin free birth despite the facts, and others will never admit the Arabs made mistakes and had selfish non-altruistic motives. For such a sticky situation, this book does well.

The Lemon Tree: An Arab, A Jew and the Heart of the MIddle East.......2007-10-03

This book is a poignant story of the people drawn up into the Arab-Israeli conflict. It takes the premise that both sides have committed atrocities and both sides have been victimized. It does so by following both a Palestinian and Jewish family, linked together by residence of the same home during different periods. Each family learns to understand the other, but still a inpenetrable barrier remains between them.

The Lemon Tree.......2007-10-02

THE LEMON TREE, by Sandy Tolan, is a historical perspective of the Palestine/Israel problems viewed from two lives, one Arab man and one Israeli woman. Their factual stories are given from the history of the land and the divisions made by outside influence. The U.N. and Great Britian were very involved in the partition and resettlement of the people of this area.

The two personal lives were intertwined by having consecutive lives in one house as "one home" for the two families. Both of these lives reflect on people of great faith, great education, and great involvment in the situation.

The author uses much research, factual relativity, and impartiality to his report. A very complicated situation exists and the book allows the information to understand the impossibility of the area and future peaceful settlement.

A biased view of the Middle East conflict.......2007-08-23

Although when I began The Lemon Tree by Sandy Tolan, I believed this book would be a balanced and nuances work about the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis. The book opens with a description of a home which had been built and inhabited by Palestinians and in which Israeli Jews live after the 1948 war. Great, I thought! We'll see two sides of the dreadful tensions and violence in the region. I was disappointed by the time I finished reading because Tolan loads the argument in favor of the dispossessed Palestinians, barely mentioned the horrific consequences of suicide bombings and attacks on innocent civilians. One example is the reference to the problems in Gaza. Tollan describes the attacks by Israel as violent and gratuitous on the Gazans, and actually suggests that the rockets Hamas fired into Israel (after the Israelis pulled out) are harmless. Surely, the author doesn't believe that the intention of Hamas was to fire "harmless rockets" into enemy territory. Throughout the book, we see very little about the wars the Arab nations began, especially the one that immediately followed the establishment of the state of Israel. The 1967 war was initiated by the Israelis, true, but Egyptian forces were massed on the border. If that wasn't provocation, I don't know what is.

I am not sorry I read the book. I enjoyed much of it, and I was certainly more sympathetic with many Palestinians who suffered so much after having read Tolan's presentation of their lives and losses. The book would have been more successful for me had it been more balanced and honest.

The Lemon Tree.......2007-08-07

This is an excellent book - extremely well documented. It affords the reader greater understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It arouses sympathy for those who have suffered injustice - also admiration for people on both sides for their resilience and determination to seek the truth. This book also inspires a feeling of hope through the compassion shown between Jew and Israeli. Would that more people could strive for understanding and peace!

The Great Escape: Nine Jews Who Fled Hitler and Changed the World

Average customer rating:

Why immigration is good for America
Budapest as the incubator of Greatness
Hungarians love their salami and their Magyars
OK, but...
Budapest's loss is the world's gain...

The Great Escape: Nine Jews Who Fled Hitler and Changed the World
Kati Marton
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0743261151

Book Description

In this ground-breaking book, acclaimed author Kati Marton brings to life an unknown chapter of World War II: the tale of nine men who grew up in Budapest's brief Golden Age, then, driven from Hungary by anti-Semitism, fled to the West, especially to the United States, and changed the world. These nine men, each celebrated for individual achievements, were actually part of a unique group who grew up in a time and place that will never come again. It is Marton's extraordinary achievement to trace what for a few dazzling years was common to all of them -- the magic air of Budapest -- and show how their separate lives and careers were, in fact, all shaped by Budapest's lively café life before the darkness closed in.

Marton follows the astonishing lives of four history-changing scientists, all just one step ahead of Hitler's terror state, who helped usher in the nuclear age and the computer (Edward Teller, John von Neumann, Leo Szilard, and Eugene Wigner); two major movie myth-makers (Michael Curtiz, who directed Casablanca, and Alexander Korda, who produced The Third Man); two immortal photographers (Robert Capa and Andre Kertesz); and one seminal writer (Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon).

Marton follows these brilliant products of Budapest's Golden Age as they flee fascism in the 1920s and 1930s en route to sanctuary -- and immortality. As the scientists labor in the secret city of Los Alamos in the race to build the atom bomb, Koestler, once a communist agent imprisoned by Franco, writes the most important anticommunist novel of the century. Capa, the first photographer to go ashore on D-Day, later romances Ingrid Bergman and is acknowledged as the world's greatest war photographer before his tragic death in Vietnam. Curtiz not only gives us Casablanca, consistently voted the greatest romantic movie ever made, but also discovers Doris Day and directs James Cagney in the quintessential patriotic film, Yankee Doodle Dandy.

Ultimately, The Great Escape is an American story and an important, previously untold chapter of the tumultuous last century. Yet it is also a poignant story -- in the words of the great historian Fritz Stern, "an evocation of genius in exile . . . an instructive, moving delight." An epilogue relates the journey into exile of three members of the next generation of Budapest exiles: financier-philanthropist George Soros, Intel founder Andy Grove, and 2002 Nobel laureate in literature Imre Kertesz.

Customer Reviews:

Why immigration is good for America.......2007-09-06

Most of the nine Hungarian Jews discussed in this book emmigrated to America and made outstanding contributions to science, mathematics, information technology, and films. Hungary, during its short life of freedom, served as an incubator for intellecutual curiosity. The rise of Nazism forced these great minds to flee there native country and eventually wind up in the U.S.A. Their contributions to the U.S.A. resulted in the development of the atomic and hydrogen bombs, the computer and a branch of mathematics called game theory. The efforts of these immegrants contributed substantially to our victory over both Germany and Japan,

Budapest as the incubator of Greatness.......2007-05-31

The nine men biographied in this book all were born in pre-WWI Budapest when it was the capital of half the Austro-Hungarian Empire. They were "double" outsiders being both Jews and Hungarians, estranged from most of the rest of Central Europe and from their own homeland. After WWI and (thankfully) before the beginning of WW2, they all managed to escape. But they didn't escape from Hitler, most when they first left Budapest went to either Berlin or Vienna; they truly escaped from Admiral Horthy and his Arrow Cross, the first fascist government in Europe.

Of the nine, seven made their homes in america and two in england. In England would 'settle' Alexander Korda who was considered the 'only' British film mogul (producer of "The Third Man") who was later knighted. Also Arthur Koestler, ex-communist who would write the Stalin scathing novel "Darkness at Noon" which first brought to light the Gulag and the terror of Communism.

Four of the scientist who came to america ended up the major forces behind the 'Manhattan Project', the H-Bomb (and later design the 'Strategic Defense Initiative') and the first true computer "Eniac". Two others are responsible for many of the most famous photographs ever published (Robert Capa was known as 'the World's Greater War Photo- journalist') in Look, Life and Home & Gardens. The last man, Michael Curtiz, created the look and feel of three of the most famous american movies, "Mildred Pierce" "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and what many consider the greatest (romantic) movie ever made "Casablanca". It was Curtiz who fought with Jack Warner (and won) the battle to use Bogart and Bergman, instead of George Raft and Bette Davis.

At the end, Kati Marton (whose own family escaped from Hungary in 1956 following the abortive revolution), does a phenomenal job of bringing these nine mens lives to life. Her ending snippets about Andrew Grove (of Intel) and George Soros (who gives new meaning to the word Philanthropist) are worth the price of the book alone.

Hungarians love their salami and their Magyars.......2007-03-26

Every anti-semitic Hungarian needs to read this book.

OK, but..........2007-03-20

I found this book quite interesting although not very well written. I am also less than happy with some of choices made by the author - why these nine are featured when some of them (A. Korda, for example) are not in the same league of significance as others. Why were others ignored?
But that was all well until I read that E. Wigner never returned to Hungary late in his life and was never honored there officially. I met Wigner in Budapest in the late seventies on one of his several trips to Hungary and I know that he received numerous acknowledgments there. Among others, he was elected an Honorary Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. So I wonder, what else is inaccurate in the book?

Budapest's loss is the world's gain..........2007-03-12

Ms Marton is a wonderful writer and her subject matter is close to her heart as she is a transplanted Hungarian, like the subjects of her fascinating tale: "The Great Escape". Marton has focused on nine Hungarians,scientists, film makers and photographers, who fled their homeland because of the country's intolerance to their religion. To a man they went on to make their mark in their respective fields the common thread besides their birthplace, was their everlasting affection for Budapest as one of the subjects stated "Everything I am is because of my experience growing up in Budapest". A very fine read, as a result of the book, I have been looking into travelling to this fabled city .

Average customer rating:

Because I enjoyed it
(three and a half stars) alternative history with an autobiographical twist
Excellent, if flawed, novel
Poorly constructed, fundamentally disappointing
It could have happened here...

The Plot Against America
Philip Roth
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1400079497
Release Date: 2005-09-27

Amazon.com

"What if" scenarios are often suspect. They are sometimes thinly veiled tales of the gospel according to the author, taking on the claustrophobic air of a personal fantasia that can't be shared. Such is not the case with Philip Roth's tour de force, The Plot Against America. It is a credible, fully-realized picture of what could happen anywhere, at any time, if the right people and circumstances come together.

The Plot Against America explores a wholly imagined thesis and sees it through to the end: Charles A. Lindbergh defeats FDR for the Presidency in 1940. Lindbergh, the "Lone Eagle," captured the country's imagination by his solo Atlantic crossing in 1927 in the monoplane, Spirit of St. Louis, then had the country's sympathy upon the kidnapping and murder of his young son. He was a true American hero: brave, modest, handsome, a patriot. According to some reliable sources, he was also a rabid isolationist, Nazi sympathizer, and a crypto-fascist. It is these latter attributes of Lindbergh that inform the novel.

The story is framed in Roth's own family history: the family flat in Weequahic, the neighbors, his parents, Bess and Herman, his brother, Sandy and seven-year-old Philip. Jewishness is always the scrim through which Roth examines American contemporary culture. His detractors say that he sees persecution everywhere, that he is vigilant in "Keeping faith with the certainty of Jewish travail"; his less severe critics might cavil about his portrayal of Jewish mothers and his sexual obsession, but generally give him good marks, and his fans read every word he writes and heap honors upon him. This novel will engage and satisfy every camp.

"Fear presides over these memories, a perpetual fear. Of course, no childhood is without its terrors, yet I wonder if I would have been a less frightened boy if Lindbergh hadn't been president or if I hadn't been the offspring of Jews." This is the opening paragraph of the book, which sets the stage and tone for all that follows. Fear is palpable throughout; fear of things both real and imagined. A central event of the novel is the relocation effort made through the Office of American Absorption, a government program whereby Jews would be placed, family by family, across the nation, thereby breaking up their neighborhoods--ghettos--and removing them from each other and from any kind of ethnic solidarity. The impact this edict has on Philip and all around him is horrific and life-changing. Throughout the novel, Roth interweaves historical names such as Walter Winchell, who tries to run against Lindbergh. The twist at the end is more than surprising--it is positively ingenious.

Roth has written a magnificent novel, arguably his best work in a long time. It is tempting to equate his scenario with current events, but resist, resist. Of course it is a cautionary tale, but, beyond that, it is a contribution to American letters by a man working at the top of his powers. --Valerie Ryan

Book Description

In an astonishing feat of empathy and narrative invention, our most ambitious novelist imagines an alternate version of American history.
In 1940 Charles A. Lindbergh, heroic aviator and rabid isolationist, is elected President. Shortly thereafter, he negotiates a cordial “understanding” with Adolf Hitler, while the new government embarks on a program of folksy anti-Semitism.

For one boy growing up in Newark, Lindbergh’s election is the first in a series of ruptures that threaten to destroy his small, safe corner of America–and with it, his mother, his father, and his older brother.

Customer Reviews:

Because I enjoyed it.......2007-10-01

I really loved the first 300 pages. Roth's voice is wonderful as a child trying to make sense of chaos, and the nightmarish what-if built a good tension.

However, the ending was rushed and way too neatly wrapped up. I would prefer if the last 60 pages were just removed from the book. I'm still giving it five stars, because despite the ending, this was a fun, fast read.

(three and a half stars) alternative history with an autobiographical twist.......2007-09-18

I liked Philip Roth's "Plot Against America," but didn't love it. It seems to me that any alternative history novel (or time travel novel, for that matter), which maintains the possibility that the Nazis might prevail in World War II, is almost inevitably going to have its chilling moments. Indeed, it was quite terrifying to be reminded of how close Hitler came to invading all of Europe during the early phase of the war. Here, of course, Roth's alternative history centers on Charles Lindbergh, a known Nazi sympathizer, defeating FDR in 1940 (his unprecedented third term in real history). Of course, it is well known that a good percentage of the U.S. population didn't want to be involved in "Europe's War," until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, so it is not completely far-fetched that Charles Lindbergh, an aviation hero who strongly favored U.S. isolationism, might have had a chance to be elected President.

What makes "The Plot Against America" unique I suppose, is how Roth basically writes his "autobiography" as a young boy as it might have been through a Lindbergh administration, and the rising tide of anti-semitism that resulted. Some of it works quite well and we can feel the world closing in on the Roths in particular, and the Jews in general, especially through a nefarious plot to dilute the Jewish communities through the newly created "Office of American Absorption" and other such efforts. However, other parts of the book feel contrived such as how the Roths are one acquaintance away from Lindbergh himself, namely through Philip's Aunt Evelyn, who has married the much older Rabbi Bengeldorf: a complicit sympathiser of the new administration. (SPOILER!!!). The manner in which the clock sets itself back to zero in the second to last chapter also felt forced to me.

I found the afterward of the book very informative, where Roth reviews the actual series of events through the historical figures mentioned in the book. It would have been more interesting to me if Roth had covered in greater detail the war itself, and the consequences of the U.S. failing to enter the fray at the end of 1941. But I understand this wasn't Roth's principle focus.

I do think "The Plot Against America" serves well as a genuine warning about how a different course of events in the past could have lead to a very different America, and different World for that matter. Perhaps the frightening scenario portrayed in this book can also be used as a forewarning to future generations.

Excellent, if flawed, novel.......2007-08-26

The book appeals from different points of view: a gripping book of fiction, alternative history and a warning call to the complacent. The switch in history is scary and it is possible that things could have been this way. It is both chilling and fascinating to think of the German fascism of the 1930's and 1940's happening here. Roth's writing as usual is spectacular. I could not put it down. My only problem was that the resolution happens so glibly and quickly that it is hard to imagine it could happen so easily. I recommend this to Roth fans, people into Judaica,
historians.

Poorly constructed, fundamentally disappointing.......2007-07-10

The Plot Against America was occasionally interesting, well-styled, but generally bad. As a general rule I have mixed feelings about "alternative history" as a genre. Such stories can raise interesting questions and "what-if" scenarios. They can also, however, wander painful far into the realm of fantasy where suspension of disbelief becomes an exercise in rejecting rationality. Unfortunately, Roth's wanders from an interesting, well-constructed novel to a silly fantasy by its final chapters. Yet, this is not the most fundamental problem the story faces. The book is first and foremost a story of rising anti-semitism in 1940s America and its impact on, and the reaction of, a Jewish New Jersey family. My problem is that the fear felt and displayed by the family far exceeds what would be a reasonable reaction to the events with which they're faced at any specific point in the first half of the book. It's as if the effects (the family's responses) are always several chapters in front of the causes (government sponsored discrimination of Jews). This problem was so pronounced that I found myself wondering if the book was some kind of statement about what Roth calls "ghetto Jews" seeing anti-Semitism everywhere. (Its not)

It could have happened here..........2007-07-08

This book draws obvious parallels with the modern political situation in the U.S., how facism creeps up on us rather than appears overnight. It comes complete with a folksy, popular President in the guise of Charles Lindbergh, whose seemingly benign programs hide a more sinster agenda (this one against the Jews, who slowly and systematically begin to lose their rights throughout the book); people who are complicit in the plot against their own people; and a watchdog reporter who is speaking out against the administration, a la Edward R. Murrow or Keith Olbermann (Walter Winchell, who in the scope of this book, goes beyond his job as a gossip columnist). The characters are all drawn well, from the prideful father who is less than successful at protecting his family; the relative who becomes a bitter disabled war veteran; the aunt who falls under the spell of a power-hungry rabbi; and of course the protagonist, who slowly loses his childhood innocence as these events unfold around him.

The only problem I had with the book was its rather sudden ending, which I won't reveal here, but it sure seemed like everything was suddenly wrapped up nicely and neatly, and not in tune with the rest of the story. Still, I would say this was a good book and I would recommend it.

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