Summer is upon us, but we managed to squeeze in one more meeting last night, talking about books and other topics, before going down the shore and up the mountains, to read books in solitary splendor.
BOOKS DISCUSSED LAST NIGHT:
The Camp, by Michael D. Eisner, formerly of Walt Disney Company fame. It turns out that Michael Eisner, like many of us, attended summer camp during his youth, in his case, Camp Keewaydin in Vermont. However, unlike most of us, he apparently never got over the experience. He liked going to camp so much that he felt compelled to write a whole book about it, decades later.
Whatever insights the book might provide about Eisner himself, its chief virtue for most readers will be to trigger a nostalgic trip down memory lane, which is exactly what the review of this book accomplished for us last night. It turned out that our reviewer spent a good many summers at various camps, first as an inmate (I mean camper), and later as a counselor. What is more, the rest of us had a few fond recollections of our own to contribute, making for a delightful escape from our quotidian cares, and an excellent appetizer for the delights of summer ahead of us (especially those of us who are teachers and get the summer off).
Sacred Strategies: Transforming Synagogues from Functional to Visionary, by Isa Aron, Steven M. Cohen, Lawrence A. Hoffman and Ari Y. Kelman. Our president, who has spent the past couple of years thinking long and hard about the topics raised by this timely book, reported to us about some of the strategies employed by other congregations in an effort to keep their communities vibrant, warm, and thriving. This was another topic that generated a lively and thoughtful discussion, with many ideas bandied about concerning possible improvements to our own congregation. Our president, who is ending her term on June 14, was delighted to pass on our suggestions to her successor.
Sarah's Key, by Tatiana de Rosnay. This novel alternates between the story of a little girl, Sarah, who survived the Holocaust in Nazi-occupied France, and the current-day story of an American journalist, Julie, married to an arrogant, unfaithful Frenchman. Julia stumbles upon the story of little Sarah, and keeps digging until she uncovers the whole ugly truth about the 1942 Paris roundups, by the French gendarmes, of thousands of Jewish families, who were then held at the Vélodrome d'Hiver outside the city, and eventually deported to Auschwitz. Very few ever came back. However, this being fiction, little Sarah does survive the war, although the story of her survival involves many harrowing twists and turns.
According to our reviewer, despite its subject matter, or possibly because of it, this novel is a quick, involving, and thought-provoking read.
The Boy: A Holocaust Story, by Dan Porat. This is a book by an Israeli historian about a single photograph.
Many of us are familiar with this iconic World War II photograph, taken during the last days of the Warsaw Ghetto. But how many of us know that the photo was shot by the Nazis themselves? It turns out that it was included in a report about the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto proudly prepared by the commander of the Nazi forces, Jürgen Stroop, who evidently considered the murder of thousands of unarmed men, women, and children to be a laudable military accomplishment. Stroop had the report, including the photographs, bound in leather, and presented copies to Himmler and to Hitler, in hopes of earning a promotion, which in fact he did receive. After the war, the report played a prominent role at the Nuremberg Trials. Stroop himself was eventually hunted down, tried in Poland, and executed.
Dan Porat has made an effort to identify the people, both Jews and Nazis, shown in the photograph, and tell us what happened to them after the war. One of the young ladies in the picture, for example, managed to escape, make her way to Palestine, get married, and become the mother of two boys. The young boy in the foreground remains unidentified but, according to Dan Porat, he almost certainly did not survive the Holocaust.
This was our last meeting before the summer recess. I want to thank all those who participated in our discussion groups. Have a wonderful summer, and we will see you all at our next meeting in September. For those of you who missed our meetings thus far, I hope that you will be able to join us for some of our meetings in the fall.
