Category Archives: Book Recommendations

“The Good Girls Revolt” – by Lynn Povich – Recommended Reading

04 Sunday Nov 2012

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Book Recommendations, Ethics, Social Justice

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“The Good Girls Revolt – How The Women of Newsweek Sued Their Bosses and Changed the Work Place,” by Lynn Povich, is a painstakingly researched story of one of the seminal events affecting the rights of women in the American work place in the early years of the women’s movement.

In March, 1970, 46 Newsweek women sued Newsweek Magazine for sexual discrimination in hiring and promotion. Charging that “there seems to be a gentlemen’s agreement at Newsweek that men are writers and women are researchers, and the exceptions are few and far between,” carefully and with resolve these women set out to do something that had never been done before – bring a class action civil rights suit against one of the publishing world’s juggernauts.

Katherine Graham, then the publisher of The Washington Post and President of the Washington Post Company (the parent company of Newsweek), when told of the lawsuit asked, “Which side am I supposed to be on?”

The 46 Newsweek women enlisted the legal counsel of the young firebrand attorney Eleanor Norton Holmes who successfully guided the suit to victory and opened not just the publishing business, but the workplace generally, to greater fairness and opportunities for women.

Lynn Povich was one of the ringleaders.

A disclaimer, Lynn is a friend. However, even if she were not, I would recommend this volume especially to young women who were born long after the struggles fought by their mothers and grandmothers. It is too easy to take for granted the opportunities available to women today even with the inequities without pausing to consider the scope of the suppression, humiliation and injustice suffered in the past (AMC’s “Mad Men” well describes the world in which Lynn and her colleagues struggled). For anyone 60 years and older, we remember those years pre-Feminine Mystique, pre-Newsweek women, pre-Roe v Wade. Much, thanks to Lynn, her colleagues and many others, has changed in the last 40 years, and this book enables us to take stock and be grateful to those women who stuck their necks out.

Lynn began as a secretary at Newsweek and within 5 years (after the lawsuit itself, revealing the good will of its top management) became the magazine’s first woman senior editor. In 1991 she left Newsweek to become editor-in-chief of Working Woman Magazine and managing editor/senior executive producer for MSNBC.com.

Lynn explains how these 46 women came to sue Newsweek and how they “conspired” in the Ladies Room out of fear of being fired.

Neither Lynn nor her colleagues were the stereotypical hard-edged, bra-burning, hard, man-hating women so often dismissed by Rush Limbaugh and company. To the contrary, Lynn and her colleagues were humble and self-effacing, often smarter and more talented than their male counterparts, who wanted Newsweek to be the progressive magazine it prided itself even then on being so they, based on hard work and talent, could progress.

Lynn told this story not only because the case the Newsweek women brought was historic (i.e. the first class action suit filed and won on behalf of women in the American workplace), but because still today there are inequities that need to be addressed, including equal pay for equal work and discrimination against women who choose to become mothers and work.

Lynn writes about the women’s lives (with their permission) who were at the center of this story and what happened to them since. She is candid about herself as well.

Lynn’s is a success story, but not all the 46 were successful despite their intelligence and talent. Plagued by prejudice and personal pressures, some became casualties after the struggle.

Lynn shows how changes in the law did not change everything, and she reflects on what needs still to be addressed if justice and fairness are to prevail.

 

 

Book Review – Deadlines and Disruption: My Turbulent Path from Print to Digital

14 Sunday Oct 2012

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Book Recommendations

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I will not review Stephen B. Shepard’s fascinating memoir Deadlines and Disruption: My Turbulent Path from Print to Digital mainly because I do not know enough about journalism or the revolution that has transformed how we receive information since the advent of the digital age to be able to do so. Nevertheless, I recommend Steve’s book not only because he is a friend (I receive no kick-backs for this recommendation – just the pleasure in knowing that some of you might buy this book and gain in wisdom, as did I in having read it), but also because Steve is positioned as few people are in America to reflect  authoritatively on what has happened in the past 40 years in print and digital media.

The Editor in-Chief of Business Week Magazine from 1984 to 2004 and the founding Dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at City College of New York (CUNY) since 2005, Steve has done and seen it all. He reviews not only some of the top stories during his tenure at Business Week, but reflects intelligently on what is now happening in news and media.

The following are reviews of his book by people who do, in fact, understand Steve’s world, and they speak for themselves:

A Top Editor’s Take on the State of Journalism Today and His Prescient Forecast of Its Future

‘This is a personal and insightful book about one of the most important questions of our time: how will journalism make the transition to the digital age? Steve Shepard made that leap bravely when he went from being a great magazine editor to the first dean of the City University of New York journalism school. His tale is filled with great lessons for us all.’
‘Walter Isaacson, bestselling author of “Steve Jobs”

“This is two compelling books in one: Shepard’s story of his life in print journalism, and a clearheaded look at the way journalism is evolving due to electronic media, social networking, and the ability of anyone with a computer and an opinion to make him- or herself heard.”
‘Booklist

More About The Book – A composite of comments by others

‘My personal passage is, in many ways, a microcosm of the larger struggle within the journalism profession to come to terms with the digital reckoning. Will the new technologies enhance journalism . . . or water it down for audiences with diminished attention spans? What new business models will emerge to sustain quality journalism?’

Stephen B. Shepard … helped transform [Business Week Magazine] into one of the most respected voices of its time. But after his departure, he saw it collapse – another victim of the digital age.

In Deadlines and Disruption, Shepard recounts his five decades in journalism – a time of radical transformations in the way news is developed, delivered, and consumed. Raised in the Bronx, Shepard graduated from City College and Columbia, joined Business Week as a reporter, and rose to the top editorial post. He has closed the circle by returning to the university that spawned him, founding the Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York.

In the digital age, anyone can be a journalist. Opinion pieces are replacing original reporting as the coin of the realm. And an entire generation is relying on Facebook friends and Twitter feeds to tell them what to read.

Is this the beginning of an irreversible slide into third-rate journalism? Or the start of a better world of interactive, multimedia journalism? Will the news industry live up to its responsibility to forge a well-informed public?

Shepard tackles all the tough questions facing journalists, the news industry, and, indeed, anyone who understands the importance of a well-informed public in a healthy democracy.

The story of Shepard’s career is the story of the news industry – and in Deadlines and Disruption, he provides peerless insight into one of the most critical issues of our time.

The following are pages 299-304 of Steve’s book:

http://www.cjr.org/cover_story/daily_bugle.php?page=all

Review of King Abdullah of Jordan Memoir – “Our Last Best Chance: The Pursuit of Peace”

17 Friday Aug 2012

Posted by in Book Recommendations, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History

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King Abdullah II’s memoir (publ. 2010) is an important read. The 50 year-old King of Jordan is intelligent and enlightened, and his story offers an inside look at a moderate Arab leader and one of the most stable nations in the Middle East.

Educated in America and England, Abdullah understands the western world as few Arab leaders do. In reading the memoir, it is important to be conscious of what the King says and does not say, especially when speaking about the Arab-Israeli conflict.

He is sharply critical of terrorism and fanaticism, eloquent about his Islam as a religion of peace, and proud of his Hashemite legacy.

Though Jordan has a peace treaty with Israel, when it comes to the Jewish state Abdullah is almost always critical while almost never critical of the Arab world. His lack of self-criticism strains credibility, and that is the chief weakness of this memoir.

Abdullah is ever-willing to shine a bright light on the dark underbelly of Israeli policies. However, without his giving fair and appropriate context for why Israel has done what it has done, he cannot be seen as helpful enough in bringing about a resolution to the conflict. Peace requires acknowledgment of what has gone wrong on all sides.

Abdullah emphasizes the importance of protecting the holy sites of the three great religions that regard Jerusalem as sacred, but he neglects to note that under the control of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan between 1948 and 1967, his grandfather King Abdullah I and his father, King Hussein, did NOT protect Jewish holy sites. Every synagogue in the old city of Jerusalem was blown up after the 1948 War, and no Jew was allowed access to the Western Wall, the holiest site in Judaism, for the next 19 years when Israel took control over all of Jerusalem.

Though the King harshly characterizes Israel’s 2009 war against Hamas terrorists in Gaza as a war crime, and sites the UN Goldstone Report as justification for this condemnation, he does not mention that the Goldstone Report charged Hamas to be also guilty of war crimes, nor that Richard Goldstone retracted his conclusion about Israeli actions. Nor does he mention that the offensive came after Hamas launched 12,000 missiles at Israeli civilian targets inside Israeli territory, which Hamas cynically launched from heavily populated areas, including mosque and hospital rooftops and school playgrounds. Israeli leaders, in truth, delayed launching this war for years because of their concern over the likely loss of innocent Palestinian life.

Abdullah believes that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at the core of all problems in the Middle East, and that Arab and Muslim extremism would be reduced if the core conflict were resolved. Perhaps this is so. However, he does not note that Muslim on Muslim and Arab on Arab violence has resulted in far more deaths and injuries of innocent men, women and children over the past decades than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has in its entire history.

The King neglects to mention, as well, that in order to protect the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan from overthrow by Yasser Arafat’s PLO in 1970, his father, King Hussein, launched a war resulting in the death of 10,000 Palestinians, that drove them out of Jordan.

Abdullah says not a word about Arafat’s deliberate targeting of innocent children on Israeli Kibbutzim, of civilians in Israel’s Pizza parlors, worshipers at Passover Seders, and commuters on Jerusalem buses. How can he expect the Israeli side to think he is fair-minded if he ignores these dark facts of history.

He castigates Israel’s decision to build the security fence without acknowledging why Israel was forced to do so, nor that not one suicide bomber has successfully infiltrated Israel from the other side of the fence since it was built, thus saving countless Israeli lives.

He does not critique the Palestinians for refusing to prepare their own people for peace with Israel. He fails to note that anti-Jewish and anti-Israel hate is taught to Palestinian children in school text books and that the shaheed (martyr) has become heroic in Palestinian culture. Finally, and not insignificantly, he glosses over Hamas’ principled objective to destroy the state of Israel.

Context is important when thinking about and evaluating the Middle East. Therefore, to place all blame one side as Abdullah does with Israel will not help this conflict move towards resolution.

Having said this, King Abdullah is a sincere, intelligent, moderate, and responsible Arab leader who I believe truly wants peace in a two-state solution to this conflict. He rightly calls upon the United States to be an active agent in bringing the two sides together. He will be among the first to say that the road will be hard and arduous. But, it will be eased, I believe, if both sides acknowledge the truths of the other and then embrace much of his vision for the future.


“One Hundred Great Jewish Books: Three Millennia of Jewish Conversation” by Rabbi Larry Hoffman – Highly Recommended

15 Sunday Apr 2012

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Book Recommendations

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I have known Rabbi Larry Hoffman for 35 years as my teacher and friend – and like fine wine, he just gets better with age. Larry is as comprehensive a scholar and as keen an observer of the contemporary Jewish condition as there is in America today.

His most recent book (his 32nd) is One Hundred Great Jewish Books: Three Millennia of Jewish Conversation (published by Blue Bridge, 2011). Larry has read so much and seems not to have forgotten anything he has ever learned. An excellent writer, Rabbi Hoffman is a superb synthesizer of the vast corpus of Jewish material available.

This book excites even as it exhausts. Larry’s list is a veritable guide to among the greatest Jewish books ever written over the course of 3500 years. As he reviews each work in 3 or 4 pages, he shines a light not only on the importance of the book itself as a representative of an aspect of the Jewish whole, but articulates the most important ideas and developments each brought to the fore in its respective time and place. Throughout this work Larry asks serious questions about what we have been as a people, from where our greatest ideas have come, who we are today as a result, and what we must do going forward.

For those who might be worried about the viability of the Jewish people – Don’t! We are not an “ever-dying people” (as the Jewish philosopher Simon Rawidowicz once suggested). To the contrary, Larry’s book attests that the life of the Jewish heart, mind and soul is ever vital.

Profile of a Right Wing Extremist – A Book Recommendation

21 Wednesday Mar 2012

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Book Recommendations

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Why do Right Wing Extremists (RWE) act the way they do? Why do they accept the flimsy excuses and obvious lies that their leaders proclaim and cling to them so dogmatically? Why do their leaders so often turn out to be crooks and hypocrites?

These are the questions that Psychology Professor Bob Altemeyer (University of Manitoba, Winnipeg) addresses in his book The Authoritarians (Amazon.com). While his profile of the RWE follower might appear obvious, Dr. Altemeyer’s insights come after years of research.

He says that RWEs are highly submissive to the established, legitimate authorities in their society, highly aggressive in the name of their authorities to those who are outside their group, highly conventional, far more afraid than those in the general population, and less concerned about process and reasoning because the conclusion, as defined by the leader(s), is the end game. Facts that contradict the leader’s vision are discounted as irrelevant. The leader’s Truth is simple and clear.

High RWEs see the world in terms of in-groups and out-groups, are highly loyal to the in-group, and more ethnocentric than the general population. They believe, “If you’re not with us, you’re against us,” and if members question the group’s leaders and beliefs the questioners can quickly become regarded as traitors.

High RWEs are dogmatic and stubborn. They think in black and white terms, are relatively unchangeable, and are possessed of an unjustified certainty.

Religious fundamentalists score high on Altemeyer’s RWA scale and mix easily with the authoritarian personality. Such fundamentalists glean little purpose and joy in the exploration and discovery of new knowledge and ideas. They stand firm in their faith/beliefs, feel that they are in personal touch with the all-good Creator of the universe Who loves them and takes a special interest in them, and are certain that they will enjoy eternal happiness. In America they say, “Our country should always be a Christian country, and other beliefs should be ignored in our public institutions… All people may be entitled to their own religious beliefs, but I don’t want to associate with people whose views are quite different from my own.”

Professor Altemeyer surveyed RWA lawmakers in 50 state legislators to determine their approach to governing and policy, and received 682 responses from Democrats and 549 from Republicans. Though high RWAs tended to be mostly Republican conservatives, there were some Democrats who fit the profile.

High RWA legislators supported conservative economic policies, and rejected a law to raise the income tax rate for the rich and lower it for the poor. They held a much higher degree of racial and ethnic prejudice than low RWAs, opposed a law requiring affirmative action in state hiring, favored capital punishment, opposed gun control laws, favored a law giving police fewer restrictive rules regarding wiretapping, search-and-seizure and interrogation methods, favored a law requiring Christian religious instruction in public schools, did not think that wife abuse was a serious issue, favored restrictions on abortion, favored a law restricting anti-war protests, and opposed a law extending equal rights to homosexuals in housing and employment.

Dr. Altemeyer noted that fear exacerbates latent right wing extremist and authoritarian tendencies and brings them mightily to the fore.

And so, what do we do about this?

Dr. Altemeyer suggests five strategies: [1] While protecting ourselves from legitimate threats is necessary, we should avoid stoking the embers of fear to unjustifiable levels; [2] We need to eschew self-righteous posturing. [3] We should resist ethnocentric self-justification and denial of the legitimacy of the “other.” [4] We should teach our children to question all authority while at the same time noting that authority legitimately granted to institutions necessary for the perpetuation of democracy and to duly elected leaders or properly appointed officials should be respected and supported. [5] We should do everything we can to educate our people to think so that they will not be taken for suckers and susceptible in the hands of charismatic and dogmatic extremist leaders.

The upcoming US presidential election has already brought the RWEs into the public eye in a big way. RWAs are also operating in Israel, the Arab/Islamic world and Europe.

Dr. Altemeyer has done us a service with this study, and I recommend it.

 

Sari Nusseibeh’s Critique of Israel as a “Jewish State”

02 Friday Mar 2012

Posted by in Book Recommendations, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism

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My friend, Rabbi Stanley Davids, writes from Jerusalem in response to my review of Sari Nusseibeh’s autobiography Once Upon A Country – A Palestinian Life and referred me to a recent article in the English language Al Jazeera in which Dr. Nusseibeh critiques the Israeli government’s demand that the Palestinians accept Israel as a “Jewish state.” http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/09/201192614417586774.html

In my review of Once Upon A Country I quoted Dr. Nusseibeh: “Palestinians need to know that to get their state requires acknowledging the moral right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state.” (p. 446)

In his Al Jazeera piece, however, Dr. Nusseibeh argues that Israel’s own stated claim to be a democracy that is inclusive with equal rights for all its citizens (e.g. Israeli Jews, Israeli Palestinians, Muslims, Christians, secular, etc.) demands that Israel not be defined as a “Jewish state.”

The current debate about the nature of Israel as a Jewish state and democracy, in fairness, was initiated by the current Israeli government when it demanded that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a “Jewish state.” Dr. Nusseibeh’s article shines a light on the inherent problems in this demand not only for Palestinians and other non-Jewish citizens but for Israeli democracy. It is one thing, he says, to call Israel the “homeland of the Jewish people” (which he supports) and quite another to call it a “Jewish state” (which he does not support). One points to a people at home in its land and the other to a modern political entity.

In Al Jazeera Dr. Nusseibeh wrote:

“In short, recognition of Israel as a ‘Jewish State’ in Israel is not the same as, say, recognition of Greece today as a ‘Christian State.’ It entails, in the Old Testament itself, a Covenant between God and a Chosen People regarding a Promised Land that should be taken by force at the expense of the other inhabitants of the land and of non-Jews. This idea is not present as such in other religions that we know of. Moreover, even secular and progressive voices in Israel, such as former president of the Supreme Court of Israel, Aharon Barak, understand the concept of a ‘Jewish State’ as follows:

‘[The] Jewish State is the state of the Jewish people … it is a state in which every Jew has the right to return … a Jewish state derives its values from its religious heritage, the Bible is the basic of its books and Israel’s prophets are the basis of its morality … a Jewish state is a state in which the values of Israel, Torah, Jewish heritage and the values of the Jewish halacha [religious law] are the bases of its values.’ (‘A State in Emergency’, Ha’aretz, 19 June, 2005.)

So, rather than demand that Palestinians recognise Israel as a ‘Jewish State’ as such – adding ‘beyond chutzpah’ to insult and injury – we offer the suggestion that Israeli leaders ask instead that Palestinians recognise Israel (proper) as a civil, democratic, and pluralistic state whose official religion is Judaism, and whose majority is Jewish. Many states (including Israel’s neighbours Jordan and Egypt, and countries such as Greece) have their official religion as Christianity or Islam (but grant equal civil rights to all citizens) and there is no reason why Israeli Jews should not want the religion of their state to be officially Jewish. This is a reasonable demand, and it may allay the fears of Jewish Israelis about becoming a minority in Israel, and at the same time not arouse fears among Palestinians and Arabs about being ethnically cleansed in Palestine. Demanding the recognition of Israel’s official religion as Judaism, rather than the recognition of Israel as a ‘Jewish State’, would also mean Israel continuing to be a democracy.”

Should Israel do as Dr. Nusseibeh suggests raises important issues that would need to be clarified including the Jewish right of return, the right of return for Palestinian refugees, who is obligated to serve in the Israeli Defense Forces, taxation and equal distribution of tax revenues, etc. Some of these problems can be accommodated in a two states for two peoples resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, such as the right of return.

Dr. Ahmad Tibi, a Palestinian member of the Israeli Knesset who leads his party, the Arab Movement for Change, put it poignantly and painfully this way: “Israel is Jewish and Democratic – Jewish for the Arabs and democratic for the Jews.”

 

 

Sari Nusseibeh – “Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life” – A Must Read

01 Thursday Mar 2012

Posted by in Book Recommendations, Israel and Palestine

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It has taken me five years to read Sari Nusseibeh’s autobiography since it was first published in 2007. I now recommend it to anyone interested in understanding the Palestinian experience during the past 45 years. That experience is brought to light by this brilliant and sensitive witness who celebrates Palestinian national life on the one hand and is a harsh critic of it on the other.

Sari Nusseibeh is President of Al Quds University in Jerusalem and Professor of Philosophy. Called the “Philosopher of the Revolution” by his friend and mentor Faisal Husseini, in the 1990s Nusseibeh emerged as the point person in Jerusalem before the consular corps for Yassir Arafat. Yet, Nusseibeh spares little in criticizing Arafat himself, the PA and Hamas charging that Arafat failed his people at Camp David in 2000 when he had the chance to close a deal for a Palestinian state.

Nusseibeh was arrested a number of times and imprisoned not for any violent act, but rather for his consistently peaceful and moderate advocacy of a negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For this he was called by some Israeli security hawks as “the most dangerous Palestinian alive.”

Though a witness and/or a victim to daily degradation, confiscation of land, imprisonment, deportation, threats, and violence, Nusseibeh has argued for decades that Israelis and Palestinians are, in truth, not enemies at all, but natural strategic allies. Respectful of the State of Israel and of Judaism itself, when others among his PLO colleagues sought to deny the historic roots of Judaism in Jerusalem, Nusseibeh called those Jewish roots “existential and umbilical.”

None of this means, however, that Sari Nusseibeh is a “good Palestinian” by Israeli right-wing standards. He hates Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, its military harshness, its security fence, and its ever-expanding settlements.

After the outbreak of the 2nd Intifada in 2001 when all seemed chaotic and going up in smoke, Dr. Nusseibeh was approached by former Israeli Shin Bet Chief, General Ami Ayalon, to craft a statement of principles. That statement would affirm the creation of two states for two peoples with the border running roughly along the 1967 lines, the capitals of each country based in Jerusalem and a just and reasonable solution to the refugee problem. It would be signed by 300,000 Israelis and 175,000 Palestinians.

Nusseibeh is a pragmatist and he knew that the Palestinians would have to give up their right of return if there were ever to be a Palestinian state. He even engaged in a very public yelling match on this point with Machmud Abbas in the presence of Arafat where Nusseibeh screamed in frustration, “Either you want an independent state or a policy aimed at returning all the refugees to Israel. You can’t have it both ways.”

In addressing the heart of this conflict, Nusseibeh wrote the following:

“Isn’t this inability to imagine the lives of the ‘other’ at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?…The average Israeli [seeks] security and a Jewish state, and the average Palestinian [seeks] freedom from occupation…Israelis need to know that for them to keep their Jewish state requires a free Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital. Palestinians need to know that to get their state requires acknowledging the moral right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state. There can be no blanket right of return into Israel for the refugees…If both sides fail in this out of expediency or weakness, we’ll find ourselves one day in a hybrid state that fulfills neither the Israeli quest for a Jewish state, nor the national Palestinian quest for an Arab state.” (p. 446)

Once Upon A Country – A Palestinian Life is a great book because of the intelligence, passion and courage of its author. It is an essential read.

 

 

 

“The Hare with Amber Eyes” by Edmund DeWaal – A Book Recommendation

04 Saturday Feb 2012

Posted by in Book Recommendations, Jewish History, Stories

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On a long flight to Israel this past week I read a beautifully written memoir called “The Hare with Amber Eyes” by Edmund DeWaal.  This thoroughly researched work tells the story of four generations of the Ephrussi family, among the most prominent and wealthy Jewish families in pre-World War II Europe. It is a gripping tale about a dynasty acting at the center of the world of art, culture, politics, and finance in two great European cities, Paris and Vienna. It is biography, history, art history, anthropology, autobiography, and memoir written by  a British porcelain ceramicist and Ephrussi descendent.

Hailing from Odessa, the Ephrussis migrated  to Paris in the mid-19th century, then to Vienna, and within weeks of the Nazi Anschluss (lit. “link-up” with the “Fatherland”) of Austria in March 1938 to London. They fled Austria with one suitcase leaving their palatial estate, much property, a massive art collection and library, and interests valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars by today’s standards.

The book’s title takes its name from a small carving in the Japanese netsuke style, one of 264 such figurines collected by Charles Ephrussi (great-great uncle to the author) who was an amateur art historian, dealer and art patron in late 19th century Paris. These animal carvings are the only items remaining of the family’s fortunes. The Ephrussi treasures most likely hang in the world’s  great museums and private collections with no compensation ever  having been given to the Ephrussi heirs.

Edmund DeWaal  is an elegant writer with an artist’s eye for detail. As he weaves the family’s story together set against the late 19th century and early 20th century European art culture and Parisian and Viennese upper-class soirees and balls, he  ponders what it means to belong anywhere and to leave what one has always known. In that sense, this is a quintessential  Jewish story.

Though the Ephrussi family fate was like that of the rest of pre-war European Jewry, there was almost nothing identifiably Jewish about them. They never attended synagogue, did not observe any holidays, were disinterested in nascent Zionism (Theodor Herzl appealed to them for financial support but was politely turned away), and they seemed to know little about or care about Judaism as a faith tradition and religious civilization.

Instead, their social circles were populated by writers, artists, intellectuals, royalty, and business tycoons. In the Paris of the 1880s Charles was  a friend to Proust, Pissarro, Manet, Degas, Sisley, Monet, and Renoir. He even appears in top-hat and black suit in Renoir’s famous Le dejeuner des cannotiers (“Luncheon of the Boating Party”) . He was among the earliest and most important collectors of Impressionist art in Europe.

Charles Ephrussi’s granddaughter Elisabeth continued the family’s affinity for the intellectual and artistic elite. She had left Austria when Hitler came to power and earned a law degree in London. She carried on an extended correspondence with the Bohemian-Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke.

The lack of a strong Jewish religious identity eventually took the family far from the large pre-war  Jewish community of Vienna as they continued the process of assimilation that many underwent in the Western Europe of those years. Elisabeth married a member of the Anglican Church who was eventually ordained a Priest, attending Church with him every Sunday. Her uncle (Edmund’s great uncle Iggi), a gay man, lived out the rest of his life in Tokyo as part of that country’s artistic and cultural elite with his long-time Japanese partner, Jiro.

The netsuke carvings followed the family from the moment Charles purchased them in mid-19th century Paris to Vienna. They symbolize this family as constant outsiders. The only reason these object d’art survived as a collection is due to the courage and loyalty of a long time Ephrussi family Viennese servant, Anna, who, when the Nazis ordered her to help crate all the family’s art and books, systematically took them away in her apron pockets and hid them in her mattress until she could return them to the family. They now reside with the author.

Edmund concludes years of research, travel and writing by wondering what it means to belong to a place, to leave it and continue to wander. “You assimilate, but you need somewhere else to go. You keep your passport [in] hand. You keep something private…Why keep things, archive your intimacies?…Just because you have it does not mean you have to pass it on. Losing things can sometimes gain you a space in which to live.”

A provocative thought, but I don’t buy it. For Jews, especially, memory shapes who we are, how we think, what we think about, the nature of our values, and who we will be. Transmission therefore becomes not only an existential necessity but a religious duty.

“In the Garden of Beasts” by Erik Larson – A Book Recommendation

27 Sunday Nov 2011

Posted by in Book Recommendations, Jewish History

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This book was a great read as it has all the elements necessary for an exciting suspense novel. The story covers the first year of service (1933-1934) of the newly arrived American Ambassador to Germany, William E. Dodd, and is told from his and his family’s perspective. We witness Hitler’s solidification of power, the Nazi subjugation of Germany, the obsessive anti-Semitism of the 3rd Reich, the strained relationship between Ambassador Dodd and the German government, the suspicion, hatred and jealousies among Nazi’s top officials, and the class-based dislike and distrust of Dodd by key American Foreign Service officials.

We are privy also to the numerous romantic affairs of Dodd’s beautiful, flirtatious and naive 24-year old daughter, Martha, as she cavorts with top Nazi and Gestapo officials, French diplomats, Soviet agents, and famous literary figures. A close Hitler intimate, Ernst “Putzi” Hanfstaengl, tried to make a romantic match between Martha and Hitler himself. Reflecting on Martha’s unorthodox behavior, one American Embassy staffer snapped that Dodd’s residence wasn’t just the Ambassador’s house; it was a “house of ill repute.”

Unless one understood that this book was actual history painstakingly researched by Erik Larson (based in part on Dodd’s and Martha’s diaries) one would have to assume that this was a work of fiction. However, the book is history.

William E. Dodd was a late choice by FDR to represent the United States in Germany after many others refused the position. At the age of 64 Dodd needed a change from the hum-drum of academic affairs and wanted some position that would enable him to finish his 3 volume history of the American South before he died (he did not complete it). He thought that going to Belgium or the Netherlands as the US Ambassador would give him time to do so. Since no one FDR wanted for Berlin was willing to serve there, the job fell to Dodd.

Dodd was a mild-mannered professor of history at the University of Chicago and a close friend of former President Woodrow Wilson. He prided himself on being a Jeffersonian democrat. He was principled, rational, modest, and decent. Unlike his Foreign Service colleagues, he was not wealthy, and he eschewed luxurious living to their chagrin.

Dodd had spent his student years studying in Leipzig, was a German speaker, and loved pre-Nazi Germany. It did not take long for him to see the Nazi menace for what it really was. We see his growing revulsion to the Nazi regime, to Hitler and everyone around him. In contrast, the politically naïve and bon vivant Martha was easily seduced by the new Germany, its charm and the people she met, and she refused to accept first-hand testimony of Nazi tyranny and brutality by her literary friends until personal experience disillusioned her too.

Though Dodd himself held anti-Semitic views like many of his era, he was deeply distressed by the Nazi persecution of Jews and advocated that FDR publicly condemn it. His State Department bosses, however, who were bonafide anti-Semites, advised FDR against speaking out arguing that offending Germany would cause it to renege on its payment of debt to the United States.

Though the book does not deal at all with the moral questions of how an entire nation could become passive in the face of tyranny and how otherwise decent Germans could become partners in the Nazi evil, it offers a unique window into the heart of the “beast.” The book’s title is taken from the name of a park in an exclusive neighborhood of Berlin called Tiergarten (lit. “animal garden” or “garden of the beasts,” which recalled a time when the area was a hunting preserve for royalty).

The book would make a great feature film, and I would not be surprised if it is already optioned.

For more, see this review in The Seattle Times (May 7, 2011) http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/books/2014957681_br08beasts.html.

“Jewish Stories from Heaven and Earth: Inspiring Tales to Nourish the Heart and Soul” edited by Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins – A Book Recommendation

22 Tuesday Nov 2011

Posted by in Book Recommendations, Stories

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Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins’ Jewish Stories from Heaven and Earth: Inspiring Tales to Nourish the Heart and Soul does precisely that – nourish the heart and soul, and I recommend it highly to Jews, people of all faith traditions, atheists and agnostics, rebels and anyone who cherishes the human spirit. It is a collection of stories that Dov has collected in his journeys around the world over the last two decades. This, from his introduction, describes well the content and impact of this special volume:

“The tales told in this book emerge out of the Jewish tradition, but can undoubtedly be read and enjoyed by people of all faiths. They are Jewish, but also very human stories, universal in content and theme…

These…are not simply stories, not mere legends spun out of the mysterious minds of a talented muse. Rather, they are tales of courage, devotion, and passion: narratives of commitment to education, perseverance, piety and familial love, community solidarity, heroic behavior, and extraordinary achievement. They come from the muse of the famous, and the not so famous [Israeli Prime Ministers, rabbis, scholars, teachers, physicians, survivors, journalists, the elderly and the young]…

One cannot come away from reading these amazing chronicles of life at its heights and depths without experiencing a surge of pride in our Jewish heritage.

In these tales are the best and the worst of God’s creations: people who are gentle, kind, compassionate, audacious, and heroic; and others who have tried to extinguish from the planet that glowing ember of spirituality called the Jewish People. You will be lifted to the highest mountaintop and plunged into the darkest abyss in the course of reading about the lives of people who are simply trying to eke out a living…

Taken together, these tales exemplify what it means to be the Jewish People, whose history is as old as Babylon and as new as Tel Aviv…”

Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins is a lecturer, educator and author. Everything he publishes is worthwhile reading, and this is one of them. It is published by Jewish Lights Publishing, (www.jewishlights.com), 2010. I hope you will include it in your stack of books to be read! I saw it about a year ago, bought it and finally got around to reading it. I am glad I did. So will you!