Caring Committee

The Caring Committee has kindly provided over a shelf’s worth of books to the library for people seeking comfort and advice for difficult times in life. Talking to others, including our clergy, and letting them help is valuable, but reading can offer additional insights and perspectives.

As this week’s guest reviewer, Leslie Mahtani, our cataloger extraordinaire, says:

This new collection includes works on bereavement for adults, teens and children; healing; chronic and terminal illness; miscarriage; divorce; and substance abuse. There is one book in particular that might be very helpful to a lot of people: A Time to Mourn, a Time to Comfort: a Guide to Jewish Bereavement, 2nd ed. by Dr. Ron Wolfson. It’s distinctive because the author discusses special issues of death brought about by many different causes. It also gives detailed advice to both mourners and comforters.  So many people sincerely want to offer comfort, but feel awkward doing so for fear of somehow offending or disappointing someone in mourning.   By addressing “how to’s,” the author enables readers to move past that fear and become a true source of support.

The books are located on the first tall bookcase on the right as you enter the library. Please check them out. And comment here on what you think.

Terrible Things

This week we observe Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Commemoration Day. We have a very impressive collection of books on the Holocaust in the Temple Israel Library. One of the first books I noticed when I fell in love the place was The Black Book of Polish Jewry: An Account of the Martyrdom of Polish Jewry under the Nazi Occupation by Jacob Apenszlak (New York: The American Federation for Polish Jews in Cooperation with the Association of Jewish Refugees and Immigrants from Poland; 1943). Notice the date!

In addition there are histories, biographies, novels, memoirs, analyses, studies, and more about life, politics, and more before, during and after the Holocaust for adults and for children. (To get some idea of what is available here, “search” the shelves by going to the library’s catalog, entering “Holocaust” as a Search term, scrolling down to a book that says “Hol” to the left of the title, and, after clicking on the title, click on the “browse shelf >>” shown in red. Clicking on the arrows in circles at the far right and left of the window that appears is almost like browsing the shelves, without having to read sideways. Popup windows even provide brief descriptions of the books.)

Being me, however, I want to mention a picture book called Terrible Things: An Allegory of the Holocaust by Eve Bunting (JPS, 1989) about rabbits; although the book doesn’t mention it, the story is really a retelling of the quote

First They came… – Pastor Martin Niemoller

First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for me

and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Several websites talks about the quotation, one of them is http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/niem.htm. Since this book is about animals and not people, it can not only be read to young(ish) children, but also used as a basis for discussion with adults. And since it is not about a particular time or place, it can be used to think not only about the past but also how to prevent the past from repeating itself. Terrible Things is mentioned in a School Library Journal article, “Bearing Witness Through Picture Books“; it is an interesting choice since, at first blush, it is a completely unrealistic fantasy about bunnies. For more examples of books that create a safe distance through the use of fantasy and objects, see an annotated bibliography I wrote. 

I also recommend Rose Blanche, with illustrations by Roberto Innocenti (1985), a story about a German girl who notices what is going on around her. One picture that especially impressed me was of her walking over a bridge; reflected in the water you can barbed wire not visible otherwise.

There are many, many other books to read. I recommend Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust by Yaffa Eliach (Oxford University Press, 1982).

Obviously, my interests tend towards stories that try to comprehend the incomprehensible. For those of you who want more information and historical analysis, we have that too.

What books do you suggest?

A Couple of Sayings of the Fathers

During the counting of the Omer, from the second night of Passover until Shavuot seven weeks later, there is a custom of studying Pirke Avot, sometimes translated as Sayings of the Fathers.  Among the versions in our library is the translation and commentary by Rabbi Joseph Hertz, who was the Chief Rabbi of the British Empire and editor of the Hertz Chumash, which I grew up with. [Do two prepositions at the end of sentence cancel themselves out?] I like this book: it has Hebrew on one page and English on the facing page and lots of footnotes at the bottom of both. There are many wise, pithy sayings from  many famous and wise rabbis from the time of the Mishnah. It is not as intimidating as it sounds; it is easy to just browse and feel inspired.

Allow me to quote two verses:

Avot II: 5 – Hillel said, Separate not thyself from the congregation; trust not in thyself until the day of thy death; judge not thy fellow-man until thou art come into his place; and say not anything which cannot be understood at once, in the hope that it will be understood in the end; neither say, When I have leisure I will study; perchance thou wilt have no leisure. (p. 33)

Avot 1:9 – Simeon, the son of Shatach, said, Be very searching in the examination of witnesses, and be heedful of thy words, lest through them they learn to falsify. (p. 21)

Hillel has five pithy sayings in one verse; any one of them is worth thinking about and acting on.

The second verse sounds reasonable, but not as riveting−until you learn more about Simeon ben Shetach. The footnote explains that his son was executed after being falsely accused of a crime and suggests that more careful questioning might have revealed his innocence in time. The footnote also tells the story of his purchase of a camel from a non-Jew; when a jewel is found on the animal, R. Simeon has the gem returned to the original owner because he, Simeon, only paid for the camel. The Arab’s praise of the God of Simeon ben Shatach pleases Simeon more than wealth.

The footnote does not mention his part in the story, found in the Jerusalem Talmud (Hagigah 2:2), about the witches of Ashkelon. This story is also in Elijah’s Violin & Other Jewish Fairy Tales, edited by Howard Schwartz, and many other collections and the occasional picture book. It may also be recounted in Sefer Ha-Aggadah: The Book of Jewish Folklore and Legends, edited by Bialik and Rawnitzky (Dvir, 1988); I don’t have this book in front of me, but the longer version definitely tells the story. The story is fascinating and troubling and it is interesting to see how various authors have tried to make it suitable for children. And it connects to the false accusation against his son.

Best wishes for a Happy Pesach!

“The Magician” by I.L. Peretz – An Elijah story

I am drawn to Elijah stories. These are essentially stories in which a stranger comes to town and fixes things. Passover, when we hope that Elijah will come to our Seder and tell us that the Messiah is on his way, seems an ideal time to (begin to) talk about these stories.

“The Magician” by I.L. Peretz is a typical Elijah folktale. A poor magician arrives at a small town and causes all the fixings of a seder to appear out of nowhere for a poor couple. Before they eat anything though, they check with their rabbi to make sure it is OK. He explains how they can tell if it is, but by the time they return, the magician, who, they now realize, is Elijah, has gone.

My question: If they had not doubted and checked with their local source of Jewish law, would they have broken bread (well, matzah) with Eliyahu HaNavi? Did they miss a chance to bring the Messiah? And why did they refuse to go to a neighbor’s house and allow the neighbor the opportunity to perform the mitzvah of welcoming guests? Why insist on God providing? There is a joke about a man stranded by a flood who refuses three offers of help as the waters rise, each time saying that God will save him; he drowns. When he gets Heaven and and starts to complain about not being rescued, the response is that he had three chances to live. Or, there is the Midrash about Nachshon and how the waters of the Red Sea did not part until he stepped into them. In other words, it is not enough to rely on God to do everything for us; we must act.

The story can be found in The Seven Good Years and Other Stories of I.L. Peretz translated and adapted by Esther Hautzig and illustrated by Deborah Kogan Ray (Philadelphia, 1984). I talked to Ms. Hautzig at an Association of Jewish Libraries convention and asked if she had abridged the original Yiddish story to make it more suitable for young adults. She said that quite the contrary, she made the stories longer to explain the terms and way of life that most people no longer know. I.L. Peretz was one of the Jewish writers of the 19th century who created Yiddish literature. Another highly recommended story in this book is “Bontche Shweig” (Bontche, the Silent). There is also “The Treasure,” which is reminiscent of The Treasure, which I reviewed in an earlier post.

Of course, it is also traditional to read Shir HaShirim, the Song of Songs aka the Song of Solomon. (Or for incredibly light reading about a world where everything works out for the best, there’s also P.G. Wodehouse’s “Jeeves and the Song of Songs,” with no obvious Jewish content whatsoever.)