BOOKS DISCUSSED AT OUR LAST MEETING:
By serendipitous coincidence, four reviewers at our
last meeting chose to discuss books that dealt with the life stories of young
people who grow up in ultra-orthodox communities and their choices when
confronted with the conflicting demands of their religious communities and the
larger world that surrounds them.
Unorthodox:
The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots, by Deborah Feldman. This
controversial book is billed as a “memoir.” In it, the author describes growing
up in Brooklyn, in the Satmar sect of Hasidic Judaism. The picture she paints
is not flattering. Eventually she manages to escape from Williamsburg, to attend
Sarah Lawrence College, and to get this book published by Simon & Schuster.
Some reviewers have alleged that not all of the descriptions in the book are
factually accurate. Nevertheless, it is fascinating peek into a world that is
largely hidden to us, and an entertaining read.
Jerusalem
Maiden, by Talia Carner. This book, which is also written in the first
person, tells the story of the author’s grandmother, rather than the author
herself. It is also labeled as a “novel.” However, I suspect that the factual
content of the two books is about the same. They are both largely based on
fact, with the occasional poetic license for the sake of dramatic flow. Unlike
Ms. Feldman, Ms. Carner paints a largely sympathetic picture of the Haredi
community in Jerusalem at the dawn of the 20th century, during the
dying days of the Ottoman Empire. Nevertheless, the coming of age experiences
of these two young women were quite similar, despite the fact that they grew up
almost a hundred years and 6,000 miles apart. In addition, they both rebelled
against, and escaped from, their ultra-orthodox communities, one with undiminished
animosity, the other with aching regret.
Seven
Blessings, Ruchama King. This book, again labeled as a novel, is undoubtedly fictional, but some of its aspects carry the ring of truth. It is
set in the ultra-orthodox community of contemporary Israel. Its heroine is a 39-year-old
woman who despairs of finding the right husband. (That part is unbelievable,
isn’t it? I thought they all married before they reached 17.) Fortunately, it
all turns out for the best, as the hard-working matchmakers accomplish their
objective. Apparently, this book is a good representative of its genre, i.e.
soap operas among the Chasidim, told from the women’s point of view. However, typically,
the women heroines in these books are not rebelling; they are simply seeking fulfillment
within the narrow parameters sanctioned by their communities.
A Seat At
The Table: A Novel of Forbidden Choices, by Joshua Halberstam. This book
is completely different from the previous three, because it was written by a
man, and it describes the coming of age experiences of the author growing up as
a young man, among the Chasidic
community in the Borough Park section
of Brooklyn, in the 1960’s. He also
rebels, and makes his escape from Brooklyn to Manhattan. Actually, despite my
flippant commentary, this is actually a deeply felt and touching story about
the relationship of a father and son (told from the point of view of the son),
and a terrific novel.
*****
On the occasion of the first yahrzeit of his good
friend and colleague, Felix Zandman, Alex Redner shared with us his personally
inscribed copy of Never the Last
Journey, by the aforementioned Felix Zandman. Alex also shared with us
his recollections of this remarkable and accomplished man. Sixteen-year-old Felix
Zandman survived the Holocaust by hiding out, for 17 months, in a small pit dug
beneath the floorboards of a peasant’s house in a village in his native Poland.
His relatives, who hid elsewhere, were not as lucky, and all perished at the
hands of the Nazis. After the war, Felix traveled to Paris, where he studied
physics and engineering. He then emigrated to the Philadelphia, where he worked
on nuclear submarines and other top secret projects, and where he invented a
revolutionary new kind of resistor, which enabled him to found Vishay
Intertechnology, a Fortune500 electronics firm based in Philadelphia, with
extensive operations in Israel.
This autobiography recounts Felix's wartime
experiences, and his rise to fame and fortune in the New World. Alex highly
recommends this book, and not only because Felix was his good friend,
colleague, and co-author.
*****
Janie Siman-Glatt, in a departure from her usual penchant
for finding for us the pearls of humor, or murder and mayhem, or perhaps both,
in the annals of Jewish literature, brought us a serious book for a change: After
Long Silence, by Helen Fremont. This is another story about the price
even those Jews who survived the Holocaust paid in the process. The author grew
up as a Roman Catholic, to parents who hid the truth of her origins, and of their
own identities as Jews and Holocaust survivors, from her, in an attempt to
protect her from being subjected to the same fate as they had suffered, should
another Holocaust arrive. We can only imagine the devastating psychological
damage suffered by her parents, which led them to a lifetime of deception and
self-abnegation, and which continues to reverberate down the generations.
*****
Finally, Bev Cohen brought us a slender volume
called Address Unknown, by Kathrine
Kressmann Taylor. This book, which has largely been forgotten, was at one time
a roaring best-seller in the United States, was translated into many other
languages, and was turned into a successful play that is still being performed
in Israel and around the world. When it was published, in 1938, it was the
first book in the U.S. to clear and presciently warn about the coming menace of
Nazism. The entire story is cleverly told in a series of letters, and it still
makes for a cracker-jack mystery. Bev was kind enough to lend a copy of this
book to each of us, so for a change, we will all have actually read the same
book when we meet again in the fall.
*****
This was the last Book Nosh meeting before our
summer recess. We have scheduled the following meeting dates for next year: October
23, 2012; November 27, 2012; January 22, 2013; February 26, 2013; March 26,
2013; April 23, 2013; and May 28, 2013.
Mark your calendars, and have an enjoyable summer!
