Jewish American Books

Away: A Novel

Amy Bloom

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 115 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

vulgar and disgusting 1 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I was very disgusted with this book. It was the first book I read by Amy Bloom and it will be the last. My book club picked this book as our book for November from a Book club companion guide we receive from Random House readers circle. Everything they had to say about the book made it seem like a good choice, but one thing you don't know about a book until you start to read it is the language, tone, and sexuality of the book. I think this book was written using very vulgar language and describing sexually things in to much detail. The book might have a good story line, but the way it was written to me, and the other members of my book club, is disgusting. Not one of the members in by book club finished the book.
I would love for publishing companies to include some king of guide to the content of the book.

Editorial Review:

Panoramic in scope, Away is the epic and intimate story of young Lillian Leyb, a dangerous innocent, an accidental heroine. When her family is destroyed in a Russian pogrom, Lillian comes to America alone, determined to make her way in a new land. When word comes that her daughter, Sophie, might still be alive, Lillian embarks on an odyssey that takes her from the world of the Yiddish theater on New York’s Lower East Side, to Seattle’s Jazz District, and up to Alaska, along the fabled Telegraph Trail toward Siberia. All of the qualities readers love in Amy Bloom’s work–her humor and wit, her elegant and irreverent language, her unflinching understanding of passion and the human heart–come together in the embrace of this brilliant novel, which is at once heartbreaking, romantic, and completely unforgettable.

Everything Is Illuminated: A Novel

Jonathan Safran Foer

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Mostly illuminated 4 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Jonathan Safran Foer takes literary risks and entertaining leaps in his debut novel, "Everything is Illuminated," an amusing chunk of magical realism. It's a tragicomic experience, centering on the devastation of the Holocaust, and a modern-day quest for the past.

A young Jewish American man -- same name as the author, Jonathan Safran Foer -- travels to the Ukraine. His reason: to locate Augustine, a woman who apparently saved his grandfather from the Nazis... only he just has a photo to guide him. He's accompanied by an annoying, flatulent dog, and an old man haunted by war memories.

He also corresponds with the old man's quirky grandson Alex, and new revelations are made about both young men through their letters. And in the third story-line, we are treated to the history of Trachimbrod, an endearing shtetl full of peculiar people... which was destroyed by the Nazis long ago.

"Everything is Illuminated" seems to be primarily about the past and present, and how those two things connect. To twentysomethings now, World War II seems as distant in some ways as the Trojan War, unless brought to life by someone else's words. Foer may not have been there during the Holocaust, but his unique novel will leave you thinking and wondering about the past.

It's certainly an unconventional story. Foer has a quirky, offbeat style that gets a little off-kilter. And he bends everything from his narrative to the characters to the English language ("spleening"?). Not to mention reality -- by naming his alter ego Jonathan Safran Foer, he blurs the line between fiction and reality. Is this based on anything real? Does Alex exist? Is there a Trachimbrod? At the end of the day, none of it matters. Even if these things don't actually exist, they certainly do have real counterparts.

Foer's book is not quite a work of genius. Sometimes the fragmented, topsy-turvy narrative runs away from him. Not to mention that the in-jokes -- the flatulent dog, the Russo-American dialect -- do not age terribly well. But the humor and magical realism tinges start to fade as the Holocaust looms overhead. While the opening chapters may make you laugh, it becomes far deeper and more intricate later on.

"Everything" may not be totally illuminated, but it is a quirky, sometimes saddening book that stumbles and takes a few risks. A flawed but excellent debut.

Editorial Review:

With only a yellowing photograph in hand, a young man -- also named Jonathan Safran Foer -- sets out to find the woman who may or may not have saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Accompanied by an old man haunted by memories of the war; an amorous dog named Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior; and the unforgettable Alex, a young Ukrainian translator who speaks in a sublimely butchered English, Jonathan is led on a quixotic journey over a devastated landscape and into an unexpected past.

The Saturday Wife

Naomi Ragen

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 29 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

With more than half a million copies of her novels sold, Naomi Ragen has connected with the hearts of readers as well as reviewers who have met her work with unanimous praise. In The Saturday Wife, Ragen utilizes her fluid writing style--rich with charm and detail--to break new ground as she harnesses satire to expose a world filled with contradiction.Beautiful, blonde, materialistc Delilah Levy steps into a life she could have never imagined when in a moment of panic she decides to marry a sincere Rabbinical student. But the reality of becoming a paragon of virtue for a demanding and hypocritical congregation leads sexy Delilah into a vortex of shocking choices which spiral out of comtrol into a catastrophe which is as sadly believeable as it is wildly amusing.Told with immense warmth, fascinating insight, and wicked humor, The Saturday Wife depicts the pitched and often losing battle of all of us as we struggle to hold on to our faith and our values amid the often delicious temptations of the modern world.

Rashi's Daughters, Book II: Miriam: A Novel of Love and the Talmud in Medieval France

Maggie Anton

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 32 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Dull, derivative historical romance, tarted up with Judaica 1 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I picked this up at random in the library, not realizing it was the second book in a trilogy (and if the author's comments are accurate, will be also reproduced as bowdlerized children's books). From comments here, I think it is possible that the first book is better, but I can only comment on what I have actually read.

The premise is fascinating: the story of a learned Talmudic scholar, Rashi, in the 11th century, who has 3 daughters and no sons, so he daringly educates his girls far beyond the norms of the day. I imagine in real life, these were three extremely fascinating and unusual women. So it's astonishing what a dull, lifeless story author Maggie Anton gives us -- a tedious recitation of "life in the middle ages" strung along with endless sex scenes and talk about hymens, deflowerings, menstrual cycles, pregnancies and births. I suppose in a real sense, the life of a medieval woman was highly circumscribed and restricted, and limited to just pleasing her husband and producing dozens of children until she died (usually in childbirth).

But this was supposed to be about three extremely unusual, educated Jewish women -- at a time when education itself was rare (even amongst men) and among a small community of people whose faith was very different than the majority of their countrymen. I got absolutely zero sense from this book what it was like to be a Jew in Medieval France, how the Jews acted or lived differently than their countrymen, how the Christian majority really thought about or treated them.

You don't even get a sense of how other Jews, especially women, felt about these three rare birds -- I would have guessed them to face serious disapproval from other less educated women. After all, they are doing really socially challenging things, reading and disucssing Talmud, wearing tefillin...one girl is a "mohel", performing ritual circumcisions, something that even today is mostly done by men.

This book also struck me as derivative of Anne Diamont's much better book, "The Red Tent", with its emphasis on midwifery, and the attendant continual scenes of pregnancies and births. Undoubtedly this was a big part of women's lives at the time -- but in real life, mortality rates were very high, and yet there is little here about dying, still births, or the way women were quickly replaced by new wives. You'd almost think that midwifery was being practiced at a very high level of skill, when in fact it was filthy and primitive. Also, there is nothing in particular here to suggest that educated, Talmudically trained midwives had anymore medical skill to offer than French peasant midwives.

It was interesting to read that Ms. Anton has created a new, bowdlerized (sexless) version of the first book for "pre teens"). (Hint to Ms. Anton: girls of 13, 14 and 15 are not "pre teens".) That's because "Rashi's Daughters" is filled with the kind of howlingly bad sex stuff, presented as "historical", that has ruined plenty of non-Jewish literature -- constant scenes of deflowered virgins, wedding nights, hymens, penetration and endless talk about menstruation (called "flowers" here)....all in pretentious, often made up language instead of talking bluntly about the real thing. Ms. Anton clumsily copies a bit directly from "The Red Tent", where a young girl, worried about her wedding night, has an older sister surgically cut her hymen. Frankly, this isn't credible anyways -- most cultures revere virginity and place a high value on bleeding and pain as a sign of purity. I also can't imagine one sister doing this for another -- ewww.

The problem with this isn't about prudery -- I enjoy lusty, frank, erotic writing and some period stories are highly suited to this kind of treatment. But this topic is supposed to be about unique, educated women -- women with an unsurpassed knowledge for their time of religion, morality, history, tradition, ethics. It would be nice if they could think about something above the level of their groins, at least a little. Even their Talmudic research seems geared to things like contraception.

An even worse subplot is about young Miriam's husband, also a Talmudic scholar, who is a homosexual and sleeping around with his yeshiva study partners. Obviously, there have been gay people in every era and therefore must have existed even in such religious seminaries. But the angle of the story suggests this was common, even the norm, and at the end, the couple seems to have accepted the husband's orientation -- and stays together! I believe in actuality that an openly homosexual man in that time would have been looked at in contempt and driven out of the community. The level of tolerance and acceptance seems far too contemporary.

Unfortunately, the sum total of all this makes the book seems like an outwardly acceptable way to read about a lot of sex stuff -- "see mom, it's about the Talmud!", when in fact the content is mostly at the level of a gossip magazine...whose having sex with who, how good it is, who is pregnant, etc.

The historical aspects are thin, and very laboured. Ms. Anton may indeed be a Talmudic expert -- I can't argue that -- but she is unable to present what I think should be fascinating material in anything but a schoolmarmish way. The worst of the writing, to me, is how she will grasp a phrase or name for something and work it to death -- the French term for a tunic is "bliaut". So -- nobody can just get dressed or put on a tunic...no they have to get their red "bliaut" and put on a bliaut or buy a new bliaut. Ditto for confusing terms like "Hot Fair" -- maybe that is a literal translation, but honestly isn't "SUMMMER FAIR" more logical and meaningful? Basically, it's a fair that takes place in warm weather. There is no reason to use language to obscure and "fancify" everything that could be simple and clear.

If you can't bring yourself to read bodice rippers, and instead want to feel good that you are reading something about Jewish History or the Talmud, I guess books like this exist so you can have your cake and eat it too. But if you really care about these things -- there are far better books on Jewish History, on the Middle Ages and even on the scholar Rashi. Even the book jacket is incredibly lame -- instead of artwork of a medieval Jewish woman, we have an Italian mannerist painting of a Christian noblewoman of the 1600s, by the artist Bronzino. (On the first book, there is a portrait by Leonardo DaVinci!). I know authors do not produce or even OK their book jackets, but it's indicative of a generally slipshod attitude towards both history and the reading audience.

In conclusion: not worth the time it took me to read it.

Editorial Review:

The engrossing historical series of three sisters living in eleventh-century Troyes, France, continues with the tale of Miriam, the lively and daring middle child of Salomon ben Isaac, the great Talmudic authority. Having no sons, he teaches his daughters the intricacies of Mishnah and Gemara in an era when educating women in Jewish scholarship was unheard of. His middle daughter, Miriam, is determined to bring new life safely into the Troyes Jewish community and becomes a midwife. As devoted as she is to her chosen path, she cannot foresee the ways in which she will be tested and how heavily she will need to rely on her faith. With Rashi’s Daughters, author Maggie Anton brings the Talmud and eleventh-century France to vivid life and poignantly captures the struggles and triumphs of strong Jewish women.

The Shiksa Syndrome: A Novel

Laurie Graff

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Manhattan publicist Aimee Albert knows a good spin, but she’s the one who winds up reeling when her gorgeous, goyishe boyfriend breaks up with her—on Christmas! For a stand-up comedian, you’d think he would have better timing. But Aimee’s not about to let a man who doesn’t even have a real job get her down. She dusts herself off and decides to seek companionship with a member of her own tribe. There’s just one problem: all the shiksas are snapping them up!

So when the very cute, Jewish, and gainfully employed Josh Hirsch catches Aimee’s eye at a kosher wine tasting and mistakes her for a shiksa, what’s a girl to do? Hey, her heart was broken, not her head! Unfortunately, the charade goes on longer than Aimee planned, and her life becomes more complicated than a Bergman film. To make matters worse, Josh and Aimee aren’t exactly on the same page as far as their attitudes toward Judaism go, creating tension in the relationship. But as Aimee begins to discover that her identity isn’t as easily traded as a pair of Jimmy Choos, she must decide if having the man of her dreams is worth the price of giving up so much of who she is.

Wry and witty, The Shiksa Syndrome is a by turns laugh-out-loud funny and disarmingly poignant.

Beware of God: Stories

Shalom Auslander

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 17 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Sharp wit and irreverent perspective. 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 8 people found this review helpful.

I read pratically the entire book in one sitting; it's hard to put down. These short, well-crafted stories are filled with memorable moments and lines, as well as a sincere and irreverent take on the whole god 'issue'. As a non-Jew, some (many, actually) references bypassed me completely, yet there was plenty more of the book to enjoy. This is a book that you'll find yourself rereading several times - and it'll still be funny. Of course, the humorless will find things to criticize, but there's no pleasing some people and happily Auslander didn't try.

Editorial Review:

Shalom Auslander's stories in Beware of God have the mysterious punch of a dream. They are wide ranging and inventive: A young Jewish man's inexplicable transformation into a very large, blond, tattooed goy ends with an argument over whether or not his father can beat his unclean son with a copy of the Talmud. A pious man having a near-death experience discovers that God is actually a chicken, and he's forced to reconsider his life -- and his diet. At God's insistence, Leo Schwartzman searches Home Depot for supplies for an ark. And a young boy mistakes Holocaust Remembrance Day as emergency preparedness training for the future.

Auslander draws upon his upbringing in an Orthodox Jewish community in New York State to craft stories that are filled with shame, sex, God, and death, but also manage to be wickedly funny and poignant.

Women's Minyan

Naomi Ragen

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Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Her many fans will welcome the publication of Naomi Ragen's first play, which premiered in July 2002 at Habima National Theater in Tel Aviv. It is based on a true story: a Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) woman, wife of a rabbi, mother of 12, leaves her home and stays with a friend. The community's "modesty squad" tries in vain to force her to go back. Her friend is physically attacked, her arm and leg broken. The rabbi's wife is punished: she is cut off from her children, against her will. Novelist Ragen learned of this tragic story several years ago from a newspaper article. "We've been together ever since then," she says. "They simply crushed this wonderful woman who never committed any crime. It's not a melodrama. It's a story of social truth, like Ibsen's "A Doll's House". "I tried to write a play about the status of the Jewish woman in the strictly Orthodox world," continues Ragen "The religious woman does not have any public place in which she can express her opinions in a natural fashion. Conversely, every man can say whatever he wants from the platform of the synagogue, on any subject, including current events; religious women have never had access to it. In synagogue, we pray upstairs in the women's section, while the men get up and say what they want to the entire congregation. Why shouldn't the woman have the same right? Is she less intelligent? Does she have fewer interesting things to say?"

Kabbalah: A Love Story

Lawrence Rabbi Kushner

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 23 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Kabbalah: A Love Story 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

A wonderful connection between the teachings of Kabbalah and a modern love story. The book makes the complex easier to understand. Our book group has decided to make this book our topic of discussion at our next meeting.

Editorial Review:

Sometime, somewhere, someone is searching for answers . . .
. . . in a thirteenth-century castle
. . . on a train to a concentration camp
. . . in a New York city apartment

Hidden within the binding of an ancient text that has been passed down through the ages lies the answer to one of the heart’s eternal questions. When the text falls into the hands of Rabbi Kalman Stern, he has no idea that his lonely life of intellectual pursuits is about to change once he opens the book. Soon afterward, he meets astronomer Isabel Benveniste, a woman of science who stirs his soul as no woman has for many years. But Kalman has much to learn before he can unlock his heart and let true love into his life. The key lies in the mysterious document he finds inside the Zohar, the master text of the Kabbalah.

Dawn

Elie Wiesel

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Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

In just one word? Terrorism 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

A survivor of this becomes a proponent for that. . .by any means necessary. Unfortunately, Ellie Wiesel's fictional "Dawn" is all too true; all too often repeated.
Terrorized as a Jew by Nazis in World War II, Elisha now terrorizes as a Jew for a free Palestine.
Swap out the name of the Holocast survived and the name of the cause proposed and you have the skeleton of all political or religious terrorism. The terrorists will always be with us. . .they usually will win. . .the body count will certainly rise. It will always be the season of terror.

Editorial Review:

“The author…has built knowledge into artistic fiction.”—The New York Times Book Review

Elisha is a young Jewish man, a Holocaust survivor, and an Israeli freedom fighter in British-controlled Palestine; John Dawson is the captured English officer he will murder at dawn in retribution for the British execution of a fellow freedom fighter. The night-long wait for morning and death provides Dawn, Elie Wiesel’s ever more timely novel, with its harrowingly taut, hour-by-hour narrative. Caught between the manifold horrors of the past and the troubling dilemmas of the present, Elisha wrestles with guilt, ghosts, and ultimately God as he waits for the appointed hour and his act of assassination. Dawn is an eloquent meditation on the compromises, justifications, and sacrifices that human beings make when they murder other human beings.

Yehuda Amichai: The Making of Israel's National Poet (Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry Series)

Nili Scharf Gold

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Editorial Review:

Yehuda Amichai is one of the twentieth century's (and Israel's) leading poets. In this remarkable book, Gold offers a profound reinterpretation of Amichai's early works, using two sets of untapped materials: notes and notebooks written by Amichai in Hebrew and German that are now preserved in the Beinecke archive at Yale, and a cache of ninety-eight as-yet unpublished letters written by Amichai in 1947 and 1948 to a woman identified in the book as Ruth Z., which were recently discovered by Gold.

Gold found irrefutable evidence in the Yale archive and the letters to Ruth Z. that allows her to make two startling claims. First, she shows that in order to remake himself as an Israeli soldier-citizen and poet, Amichai suppressed ("camouflaged") his German past and German mother tongue both in reference to his biography and in his poetry. Yet, as her close readings of his published oeuvre as well as his unpublished German and Hebrew notes at the Beinecke show, these texts harbor the linguistic residue of his European origins. Gold, who knows both Hebrew and German, establishes that the poet's German past infused every area of his work, despite his attempts to conceal it in the process of adopting a completely Israeli identity.

Gold's second claim is that Amichai somewhat disguised the story of his own development as a poet. According to Amichai's own accounts, Israel's war of independence was the impetus for his creative writing. Long accepted as fact, Gold proves that this poetic biography is far from complete. By analyzing Amichai's letters and reconstructing his relationship with Ruth Z., Gold reveals what was really happening in the poet's life and verse at the end of the 1940s. These letters demonstrate that the chronological order in which Amichai's works were published does not reflect the order in which they were written; rather, it was a product of the poet's literary and national motivations.