Books – Page 42

Ben-Gurion the leader

The story is told that the idea of building a modern city in Beersheva came from David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister. He appointed a committee of experts to examine the idea. The committee reported back that it could not be done. When Ben-Gurion was asked how he wanted to respond to the report, he replied, “Appoint a new committee.”

Accomplished Israeli historian Anita Shapira recounts the apocryphal anecdote in David Ben-Gurion, Father of Modern Israel (Yale University Press). Shapira, whose book Israel: A History won the National Jewish Book Award in 2012, presents Ben-Gurion as the person who did more than anyone else to establish the state. He inspired a nation of idealists and wartorn refugees to achieve the impossible. But does your overcrowded bookshelf need another Ben-Gurion biography? I can think of three strong reasons to recommend Shapira’s book.

Although not the definitive biography, Shapira offers a fresh perspective on Ben-Gurion’s life based on newly available files of the Israel Defence Forces and extensive work in the archives at kibbutz Sde Boker, where Ben-Gurion lived. She sets out his considerable accomplishments through colorful anecdotes and well-crafted prose.

As well, despite the passage of years, Ben-Gurion remains a central figure in contemporary debates, a touchstone for politicians from all parties. He is invariably quoted during heated arguments over Israel’s relations with Germany, its borders with its neighbors and its treatment of the Palestinians. He is often cited for his work in forging a partnership with the religious communities in the 1930s. Shapira offers solid scholarship for those who wish to reflect on his work.

And, for those with big ambitions, the new biography offers a vivid portrayal of how he scaled the heights of domestic and international politics. His biography may not be a roadmap to glory but aspiring leaders could pick up a few tips.

Shapira writes in detail about the years after the state was declared in 1948, and especially about Ben-Gurion’s role leading up to the Sinai campaign. However, the most engrossing part of this book is about his unlikely development as a leader. With a knack for telling stories, Shapira effectively tracks how the unexceptional youngster, not particularly well liked by his peers, developed pragmatic organizational skills, sharp elbows and incisive political instincts that propelled him into the forefront of the Zionist movement.

Ben-Gurion, born in 1886, grew up in Plonsk, a backwater shtetl three hours outside of Warsaw. Shapira found nothing in his birthplace, his lineage or his education that hinted at his future role in history. She sees no notable qualities in his personality that foreshadowed his destiny.

His mother died in childbirth when Ben-Gurion was 11. He quit school after his bar mitzvah, although he had a lifelong love of learning.

By 14 years old, he had embraced the Zionism of his father, who had been swept up in Theodor Herzl’s dream of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. However, Ben-Gurion was not in a rush to make aliya. At 18, he moved to Warsaw with the intention of becoming an engineer. The engineering schools rejected his applications.

Here is where destiny steps in. He happened to be in the city at a crucial moment in history. He was swept up in the heady events of the days before the Russian Revolution.

He joined Poalei Zion (Workers of Zion), a party that combined his newfound enthusiasm for Marxist socialism with Zionism.

Although his grasp of Marxism was considered shallow, he rose to a leadership position, recognized as a strong debater and speaker.

He finally immigrated to Palestine in 1906, but his early years in Palestine were not particularly auspicious. He often said one thing and did another.

He firmly believed that Jews would reclaim Palestine only by working the land. He said the land would belong to the Jews only when the majority of its workers and guards were Jewish.

He worked in the fields at Petach Tikva and then in the Galilee but he was frequently sick and, when he was healthy enough to work, he was miserable, Shapira writes. Throughout the following decades, he described himself as an agricultural worker while, in reality, he was doing other work in and outside of Palestine.

He had a strained relationship with his father and, according to Shapira, a distant relationship with his wife, who was the mother of his three children. He was excluded from clandestine groups and collectives in Palestine that were forming in those years.

Also, he misunderstood political realities. He was convinced that the Turks would remain in control of Palestine, never anticipating the British Mandate.

Ben-Gurion’s rise to prominence began slowly after the First World War. He expanded the Histadrut, the national federation of trade unions, into one of the most powerful institutions in the country. Elected leader of the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency in 1935, he became the recognized leader of the Jewish community in Palestine. By the mid-1940s, he was exactly the type of leader that was required for the state of Israel to be born. Shapira shows that, from these ambiguous beginnings, a giant of history was formed.

The book has little to say about the lasting significance of some of his initiatives. She writes about his authorization of the forced expulsion of some Arabs, his reluctance to define Israel’s borders and, despite his secular lifestyle, his partnership with the religious community, but does not mention the social and political tensions arising from these initiatives. Shapira does not hold him accountable for creating conditions that led, although unintentionally, to many of the difficulties now confronting the country.

Regardless, Ben-Gurion’s accomplishments overshadow everything else. He transformed armed militias that were focused on fighting the British into a military force that could stand up to the armies of neighboring Arab countries. He ensured that tanks, artillery and aircraft were available to defend the land and its people. He hammered together a provisional government from the fiercely competing factions among the Jewish people in Palestine.

In sharp contrast to prominent Zionists of his era, Ben-Gurion advocated for a Zionism of practical achievements and put little faith in diplomacy and international proclamations. He demanded that Hebrew names be given to every aspect of government-related activity. He ensured that the religious community became partners in this ambitious nation-building project. He also had a hand in shaping the cultural, religious and intellectual character of the new country right from the start.

Shapira says that Ben-Gurion liked to argue that history was made by the masses, not individuals. She shows that, beyond a doubt, his role was decisive.

Robert Matas, a Vancouver-based writer, is a former journalist with the Globe and Mail. This review was originally published on the Isaac Waldman Jewish Public Library website and is reprinted here with permission. To reserve this book or any other, call 604-257-5181 or email [email protected]. To view the catalogue, visit jccgv.com and click on Isaac Waldman library.

Cookbooks for the summer

While it might be hard to contemplate cooking on these hot summer days, there are a few recent cookbooks enticing enough to draw you into the kitchen – with savory results.

Jewish Soul Food: From Minsk to Marrakesh (Schocken Publishers, 2014) is Janna Gur’s third cookbook. It follows The Book of New Israeli Food: A Culinary Journey (Schocken, 2008), and she also edited and published Fresh Flavors from Israel (Al Hashulchan, 2010).

Gur’s family immigrated to Israel from Riga, Latvia, in 1974. She completed a bachelor’s degree in English literature and art history and a master’s degree in translation and literary theory. In 1991, she and her husband founded Al Hashulchan, a Hebrew food magazine.

In an interview with thekitchn.com, Gur explains that she wrote this new cookbook “to give the North American audience a taste of what Jewish foods could be – how diverse and wonderful they are, and how possible it is to make them a part of our modern cooking.”

Gur’s aim was to make a focused, edited and approachable collection of 100 recipes from as many Jewish communities as possible. She wanted them to be authentic, to fit the modern kitchen and to answer the question, What is the soul of the dish “that makes us relish it and want to make it ours?”

The eight chapters include starters, salads and noshes (23 recipes); cozy soups for chilly nights (14 recipes); meat balls, fish balls and stuffed vegetables (10 recipes); braises, pot roasts and ragus (13 recipes); meatless mains (12 recipes); savory pastries (11 recipes); Shabbat state of mind (10 recipes); and cakes, cookies and desserts (20 recipes).

There are 94 color illustrations, which are beautiful and mouth-watering.

For me, as a cook, the three most useful aspects of a cookbook are all here: every recipe has its country of origin, a brief story and numbered instructions.

And what wonderful countries of origin for these recipes – Morocco, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Algeria, Libya, North Africa, Georgia, Kurdistan, Russia, Persia, Syria, Turkey, Bulgaria, Iraq, India, Yemen and America. As the book’s promotional material notes, the cuisines from most of these countries may be “on the verge of extinction … because almost none of the Jewish communities in which they developed and thrived still exist. But they continue to be viable in Israel, where there are still cooks from the immigrant generations who know and love these dishes. Israel has become a living laboratory for this beloved and endangered Jewish food.” And the hope for Jewish Soul Food is that it will help “preserve traditional cuisine for future generations” by encouraging people to cook it.

For more about Gur, visit jannagur.com.

***

Former Wall Street lawyer Ronnie Fein decided to become a freelance food and kitchen appliance writer. This led to the Ronnie Fein School of Creative Cooking, lecturing and cooking demonstrations – and cookbooks. She has written several, but describes Hip Kosher: 175 Easy-to-Prepare Recipes for Today’s Kosher Cooks (Da Capo Press, 2008) and The Modern Kosher Kitchen: More than 125 Inspired Recipes for a New Generation of Kosher Cooks (Fair Winds Press, 2014) as “more labors of love.”

She writes on her website (ronniefein.com): “They are, like this website, my efforts to bring the world of kosher cooking into 21st-century America. Just as our kosher ancestors cooked the same foods as their neighbors in Eastern Europe or the Middle East or wherever they happened to live, and adapted it to the dietary laws, why shouldn’t we, right here in America?”

Fein says she wrote The Modern Kosher Kitchen “to try to inspire all home cooks who keep kosher and would like to prepare the kinds of foods that informed, sophisticated – hip – folks want to cook today.”

And the focus is, indeed, on modern American recipes – “multicultural, innovative and interesting.” Every recipe is marked meat, dairy or pareve, and every recipe has some introductory remarks, which I think make the recipe so much more personal and interesting. As well, every recipe has a “Did you know?” or serving suggestions and substitutions. Most recipes also have a boxed tip, piece of advice. When a recipe runs to a second page, it is always opposite, so the cook does not have to turn the page while working.

The 12 chapters include appetizers; soups; salads; grains, beans, pasta and vegetarian dishes; fish; meat; poultry; vegetables and side dishes; breakfast, brunch and sandwiches; budget meals; Passover dishes and desserts. Ingredients are listed in imperial measurements as well as metric.

Although there are 127 recipes, there are only 39 beautiful, mouth-watering color photographs – but that is certainly not a reason to pass up this book. My only criticism about the cookbook is that the instructions are in paragraphs and not numbered, which I find easier to follow.

***

Rounding out these reviews is not a kosher cookbook per se, however, by eliminating the cheese or using pareve chicken stock, some of the recipes could be adapted.

Amy Riolo (amyriolo.com) is an Italian American whose ancestors came from Calabria. She is the author of many cookbooks, a chef and a TV personality, so I felt that her most recent publication – The Ultimate Mediterranean Diet Cookbook (Fair Winds Press, 2015) – was worth noting.

The 101 recipes in this book were included because of their taste, authenticity and nutritional value. They are low in fat, cholesterol and sodium, and packed with vitamins, minerals and healthful properties. There are also seven recipes specifically listed as alternatively gluten free.

The recipes are organized according to the Mediterranean diet pyramid with fruits, vegetables, grains, olive oil, beans, nuts, legumes and seeds, herbs and spices at the bottom, for every meal to be based on these foods. Above them are fish and seafood to be served twice a week. Above them are poultry, eggs, cheese and yogurt to be served in moderate portions daily or weekly. At the top of the pyramid are the least-served foods – meats and sweets.

Categorizing the recipes to give the reader an idea of what is included, one can find recipes for seven soups, five fish meals, four breads, six pasta, eight appetizers and sauces, five dips, three egg dishes, one sandwich, five poultry meals, eight side dishes, eight salads, eight main dishes, nine vegetables, 10 fruit dishes and six desserts.

Each recipe has a little story, the list of ingredients opposite the instructions (regrettably, not numbered) and a boxed Mediterranean lifestyle tip to “enhance the daily living aspects of the eating plan,” along with meal plans and serving suggestions.

At the end are a glossary with pantry foods defined, a bibliography and a selection of websites, magazine/newspaper articles and journals for further reading.

The 69 color illustrations are so tempting cooks will be motivated to rush to the kitchen to start making these dishes.

Sybil Kaplan is a journalist, foreign correspondent, lecturer, food writer and book reviewer who lives in Jerusalem. She also does the restaurant features for janglo.net and leads weekly walks in English in Jerusalem’s market.

Human rights at fore

One would be hard-pressed to find anyone involved in human rights around the world who has not heard of David Matas.

A Winnipeg-based lawyer, Matas has helped countless victims of human rights violations, and written or co-written numerous books on various atrocities in an endeavor to shed light on them and educate the general public about them. In his latest publication, he aims to explain why he has chosen the work that he has, in the hope of motivating others to get involved in human rights advocacy and create change. Why Did You Do That? The Autobiography of a Human Rights Advocate (Seraphim Editions, June 2015) is his first autobiography.

photo - David Matas — David Matas (photo from David Matas)

Matas was moved to pursue a career in refugee, immigration and international human rights law for a number of reasons.

“I started doing it because different people asked me to do it, including people at the law firm,” he explained in an interview. “It’s also something I’m interested in, because I’m interested in politics and human rights. So, I’d say, it was a coincidence of an opportunity to do the work and an interest in it that got me into it.”

Matas had refugees from around the world coming through his doors every day, seeking help. “My immediate effort was to try to get them protection, but the ultimate solution to their problems was the ending of the human rights violations that caused them to flee,” he said. “I felt trying to help them in some sort of systemic way, that I should be directed to that as well.”

Around this time, Matas also ran as a candidate in the federal election for the Liberal party (in 1979, 1980 and 1984) and B’nai Brith Canada approached him, requesting that he chair the local BBC League for Human Rights, largely because of the profile he had developed through his candidacies.

“But, again,” said Matas, “it’s something that, once I got into it, struck a chord of response in me. I got interested in it, involved much more, given the opportunity, because of the resonance it had with me.”

Also around that time, Kenneth Narvey – someone Matas knew from university – was scheduled for a speaking engagement in Manitoba on war-crime issues. Unsure if he would be able to make it, Narvey asked Matas if he would be willing to substitute for him, which Matas agreed to do. As it happened, Narvey ended up being able to attend the lecture, which gave him the opportunity to hear Matas speak and, Matas said, “He [Narvey] really liked it.

“At this time, Irwin Cotler had just become president of the Canadian Jewish Congress [CJC]. Irwin had appointed a chair for a war-crimes committee, as he wanted to do something about the issue himself, and the chair had resigned.”

Narvey lobbied Cotler to have Matas appointed as chair, and Cotler did just that. “So, I got involved in that issue, too, again sort of by coincidence or circumstance,” said Matas.

Another chance encounter was with Harry Schachter, a friend of Matas’ who was involved with Amnesty International, which had been holding meetings throughout the country. Through Schachter, Matas became involved with Amnesty International, which fit well with everything else he was doing.

“The combination of these events, more or less all at the same time, is what really got me into human rights in a very systemic and wholehearted way,” said Matas.

The Holocaust also influenced Matas’ life path. “I, personally, wasn’t affected by the Holocaust, my family wasn’t,” he said. “But, it just struck me. I thought, from an early age, that if the Axis rather than the Allied powers had won World War Two, I nor any other Jewish person would be alive today.”

He explained, “Generally, what I’ve been trying to do is learn the lessons of the Holocaust and act on them, which I saw as protecting refugees, bringing war criminals to justice, combating hate speech and protesting human rights violations around the world wherever one may find them. So, I’ve been trying to act on those four fronts simultaneously throughout my career.”

In his previous books, Matas has focused on specific atrocities or topics related to human rights – from hate speech, to trying to bring Nazi war criminals to justice, to humans rights violations, to refugees, to organ harvesting, and other topics. His autobiography was launched on June 9 at McNally Robinson Booksellers in Winnipeg.

“I go through the various issues I’ve been involved in and explain why I’ve been involved with them, issue by issue,” said Matas about Why Did You Do That? “There’s a chapter on refugees, so I explain what I did in terms of trying to help refugees. And then the rest is why people should help refugees, why everybody should do it. That’s the way it’s structured, chapter by chapter.”

For Matas, this book is a way for him to answer the most frequent question he is asked, “Why are you doing this?”

“I would say the 20th century was a century of genocide,” said Matas. “It wasn’t just the Holocaust. There was one genocide after another. My hope is we will be better, but I don’t think that it comes from hope. It comes from action. So, I’m trying to mobilize people to make things better, so we don’t repeat in the 21st century the vast array of tragedies we saw.”

In Matas’ view, people tend to focus on the problems immediately in front of them.

“People will get really worked up if their neighbor doesn’t mow their lawn, but they get less worked up if people in China are getting killed for their organs,” he explained. “I think there’s a real problem with distance, culture, language and geography, which really makes it difficult to mobilize concern for human rights violations – which is what the Jewish community faced with the Holocaust.”

Why Did You Do That? The Autobiography of a Human Rights Advocate can be purchased online from Seraphim Editions, Amazon and various other booksellers online and in bookstores.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

U.S.-Israel relations

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, right, with Michael Oren, then the Israeli ambassador to the United States, at Ben-Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv on April 9, 2013. (photo from U.S. State Department via jns.org)

It’s safe to say that in the coming weeks you’ll be reading a great deal about the memoir Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide (Random House, June 2015), authored by Israel’s former ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren.

Oren spent the years 2009-13 as Israel’s envoy in Washington. Once a dual national of both the United States and Israel, the New Jersey-raised Oren had to surrender his U.S. passport at the American embassy in Tel Aviv before taking up his ambassadorial post – an emotionally wrenching episode that he describes in detail. Oren’s complicated identity as an American and an Israeli is a theme that runs throughout the book, and his treatment of this subject is a welcome tonic to the dreary and rather smelly charges of “dual loyalty” that too often accompany examinations of the relationship that Jews in the Diaspora have with the Jewish state.

The main attraction of the book, of course, is its account of the Obama administration’s Middle East policies, and Oren’s candor has already gotten him into trouble. Dan Shapiro, the current U.S. ambassador to Israel, who makes several appearances in Oren’s memoir, told Israel’s Army Radio that Ally is “an imaginary account of what happened,” belittling Oren for having, as a mere ambassador, a “limited point of view into ongoing efforts. What he wrote does not reflect the truth.”

This is a serious charge, and it remains to be seen if Shapiro will attempt to substantiate it. In the meantime, it should be pointed out that what makes Ally such a fascinating read is that it provides, from Oren’s perspective, a detailed sense of the bitter atmosphere in both Washington and Jerusalem that underlay diplomatic efforts on the issues we are all intimately familiar with, from the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program to the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Unlike other diplomats, Oren didn’t wait 20 years to publish his story – most of the key individuals in his book, most obviously U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, are still in power, and the bilateral tensions that Oren agonizingly explains haven’t been lessened since his departure from Israel’s Washington embassy. Diplomats aren’t supposed to be this transparent, which is why Oren will be regarded in many circles as a man who broke “omertà,” the code of silence which ensures that we ordinary mortals are kept in the dark about what our leaders are saying in private.

While it’s true that Obama comes in for heavy criticism, Oren rubbishes the claim that the president is “anti-Israel.” The reality is more complex; as Oren writes, “the Israel [Obama] cared about was also the Israel whose interests he believed he understood better than its own citizens.” One might add that this paternalistic approach has informed Obama’s stance on the entire region, resulting in a sly policy that presents itself to Americans as a much-desired withdrawal from the Middle East’s endless bloodshed while, at the same time, fundamentally redistributing the region’s balance of power in favor of Iran, whose rulers have spent almost 40 years chanting, “Death to America.”

Meet Minnie’s family

What a mouth on Minnie! And I don’t mean it pejoratively. (I just wanted to get your attention.) Grandma Minnie Bloch is articulate and sensitive as she meticulously narrates the three-generational story that includes her own early life with her husband, their move to the United States from Eastern Europe, and the family she creates.

Minnie is the narrator/observer – acting almost like a Greek chorus – in the stirring new novel Prayers for the Living (Fig Tree Books, 2015), written by veteran novelist and National Public Radio literary critic Alan Cheuse.

Although she is not educated (in the formal sense), her intelligence and life experience enables her to depict for us so many living characters: her son Manny, who is a Reform rabbi and a businessman; his psychologically impaired wife, Maby; their problem-laden daughter, Sarah; and Manny’s mistress, Florette, a Holocaust survivor and a member of Manny’s congregation. Into this mix, we must also include Maby’s brother, Mord, who takes brother-in-law Manny into the family business.

How does Minnie narrate the rise and fall of this middle-class Jewish family? By telling her story to friends during occasional coffee-klatch meetings, portraying with motherly calm and painterly skill all the people she has encountered. Minnie has not personally experienced all the events she narrates, but she assembles them from talks with her son and other family members, from overheard conversations, and even from information discovered by reading pertinent private journals, which she cleverly doesn’t call “snooping” but “learning.”

Behind the voluble narrator, who speaks always from the heart, and often with poetic grace, stands the artistry of Cheuse, a sharp-eyed writer who brilliantly is the voice behind the voice.

Although the central narrator in Prayers for the Living (an ironic title, an inversion of the Kaddish, known as the Mourner’s Prayer, or Prayer for the Dead) is Minnie, the protagonist of the book is Manny, well-regarded by his congregation, who splits his duties between rabbinic work and business, ultimately not a happy partnership.

As the novel progresses, we learn of daughter Sarah’s missteps in college, Maby’s mental imbalance and alcoholism, and Manny’s visits to Florette, who is ostensibly painting her rabbi’s portrait but has other non-esthetic designs on him. In her telling, Minnie does not hide her family members’ flaws. The character of the book’s heroes, often shaped by earlier events, in combination with the exigencies of the present, leads them to their destined paths.

Cheuse plans the suspense, gives the hints of things of come, and arranges for Minnie to occasionally offer remarks akin to: “But I’ll tell you about that a bit later….” By so doing, he achieves a unique fluidity of time zones.

Minnie is the bedrock of the family, the only solid and trustworthy character in the book. She has perfect pitch for the rhythms of speech of Jewish women of a certain age, and faithfully reproduces the conversations of other characters in Prayers for the Living. This enables Cheuse to penetrate the psyches of his characters, their hopes and tremors.

Some central events are tiny sparks that build up to the conflagration that follows. Among them: Minnie, in Europe, fleeing from a groom that has been forced upon her; an accident in New York involving Minnie’s husband, which her son, Manny, witnesses; and Sarah, caught strumming a guitar on Yom Kippur by her rabbi dad.

By the riveting end of the book, whose intricacies and trajectory you have to discover for yourself, you can’t wait for one page to lead to another. You have a sense of what is going to happen – Minnie gives you little choice – but you still hope it won’t happen. Maybe a surprise will come your way. Perhaps

Minnie’s assessment is wrong. But even if you suspect what will happen and you know why, you still don’t know how it will happen.

Thank you, Minnie, for sharing with us your words and thoughts, your motherly wisdom and compassion. Yes, it all comes from Minnie’s mouth – to our ears and to our hearts.

Curt Leviant’s most recent book is the short story collection Zix Zexy Stories. This review was previously published on nyjournalofbooks.com.

Good for Jews not good read

Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen came under a barrage of criticism in 2006 for writing that Israel was a mistake. Almost a decade after the controversy, he has come back with Israel: Is It Good for the Jews? (Simon & Schuster, 2014), in which he acknowledges that “mistake” may have been the wrong word and explains what he intended to say.

Cohen admits that he could not think of another word to reflect the missteps in Israel’s history. He believes that early Zionists were mistaken to think the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine was the answer to antisemitism. Also, Israel in its 67 years has made mistakes; for example, he believes it was a blunder not to banish all Palestinians in 1948, and that it was a huge error to become an occupying power after 1967.

Those are hot topics to debate, especially after the recent election in Israel. But how are they related to the provocative question posed by the title? Cohen never makes a connection. He pays little attention to contemporary Israel and its relationship to Jews around the world. The title does not reflect the book that he wrote.

A provocative book title may be good for promotion and sales. It’s disappointing for readers who are familiar with his reputation and expect more from his book. Cohen is a syndicated columnist who has received awards for his investigative reporting. Israel: Is It Good for the Jews? was nominated for a Jewish Book Council award.

So, let’s ignore the title and look at the book for what it is. Cohen has written a brief history of antisemitism leading up to the creation of the state, an account of the early days of Israel and a quixotic account of some current events. He includes an 11-page index of books about Israel and the Jewish world that provide the anecdotes and profiles for his work.

However, even here, Cohen stumbles. With a deft pen, he fills the page with clever turns of phrases but, at times, his comments seem simply glib. His sweeping statements do not always make sense. He occasionally drifts sideways, making it difficult to follow what he is saying as he weaves his way through history.

At the outset, he makes it clear that he is not questioning Israel’s right to exist when he voices criticism of the country. He offers his credentials as a staunch supporter of Israel who loves and admires the country. He then begins his journey through the vitriolic world of antisemitism, paying special attention to leading figures who are not normally considered to be antisemites, and to the diabolical attacks against Jews in Europe that stretched far beyond Nazi Germany.

No one will challenge Cohen when he says that those who thought a Jewish homeland would end antisemitism were wrong. Creating a nation of Jews in the midst of Arab Muslim countries has produced a century of warfare and terrorism. Hatred of the Jews persists. He provides ample evidence that shows how the antisemitism of medieval and 20th-century Europe, with its pogroms and death camps, has morphed into aggressive anti-Zionism, spreading like an unruly virus throughout the Arab Muslim countries.

Cohen also shows how mistaken early Zionists were when they assumed that the Arab Middle East would politely make way for European Jews.

He writes that the Zionist dreamers meant no harm to the Arab residents. They intended to bring a European way of life to their new homeland. They sometimes thought, innocently, that the new country would benefit the Arabs as well as the Jews. Cohen says they were mistaken. But, as he notes, Palestinian resentment of Jewish immigration has been vocal and often violent since the 1930s.

Despite the harsh reception, the early immigrants came with their European morals. Ethnic cleansing and massive population shifts were common in other countries at that time, but founding father David Ben-Gurion and others refused to accept the expulsion of all Palestinians. The Palestinians became “collateral damage” to the fight for a new country. Cohen contends that the harm done to Palestinians was necessary, if the state was to be built, and could have been far worse.

He refers to the expulsion of 14 million ethnic Germans from their homes in countries outside Germany. The world shrugged as they were sent back to their ancestral homeland. The transfers were uncontroversial government policy in several European countries at that time. Similarly, in India and in Russia. He maintains that Israel could have done something similar.

Cohen links the decision to leave most Palestinians in their homes inside the country to the current situation, where Israel is now “two nations in one land.” He says that the occupation of the West Bank territories has further weakened the country. The occupation is “lighting the slow-burning demographic fuse that ensures that Jews will not be the majority in the Jewish homeland.”

He is extremely pessimistic about the country’s future. “To say Israel should survive is to accept ethnic cleansing,” he writes with a tone of despair.

Viewing the country from a left-wing perspective, Cohen contends that Israel has lost its purpose. The withering Jewish populations in Europe and the Islamic world have diminished the necessity of a safe haven for Jews. Meanwhile, Jews in North America are increasingly assimilated or indifferent to the country.

Israel has also lost its moral compass and “cannot distinguish the bell of reasonable criticism from the bell of hateful antisemitism,” he writes.

Cohen predicts things will only get “worse” for Israel. War or the constant threat of war will degrade Jewish Israel; secular Jews will leave Israel. The country – a land for a hated people and a despised religion – will become a gated community in the Arabian Desert. Time is not Israel’s ally. Echoing Israeli journalist Ari Shavit, Cohen believes that, sooner or later, the Jews will run out of miracles.

Family’s tale of immigration

New Home, New Hope edutains on aliya and the Soviet Union.

With the themes of Passover still reverberating, I read Aliza Ziv’s book New Home, New Hope (Contento de Semrik, 2014). About a single mother making aliya from the Soviet Union with her two young children, the book is about freedom, being strangers in a new land, becoming part of a community, respecting the past while trying to create a more promising future.

The story centres on Marina, Boris, 9, and Tanya, 4, and their experiences integrating into Israel from 1985 through 1995. It is both a specific and universal tale about immigration, and the challenges and opportunities new immigrants face anywhere in the world. However, the specificity is what most intrigued me. Ziv writes with authority and in detail about both the absorption process in Israel at the time and the political situation there and in Russia during that decade.

“This book was written on the basis of my vast experience teaching new immigrants who came to Israel (olim hadashim),” wrote Ziv in an email to the Independent. “These immigrants had to face a new culture, language, values, and had to adapt themselves to their new homeland.”

Ziv explained that she first published the novel in Hebrew in 2002 with the title Difficulty Beyond Words. “Later on, my husband Joe and I decided to translate it into English. It was published in October 2014, with a new name, New Home, New Hope.”

“The book is also based on what we had to face when we and our three children made our aliya in 1967,” added her husband in a separate email. “Aliza was a shlicha, sent to teach modern Hebrew using the ulpan method. She taught in Halifax, Toronto and, finally, in Vancouver at the Talmud Torah.”

While Aliza was born in Jerusalem, Joe grew up in Vancouver, went to VTT and King Edward High School, and graduated from the University of Alberta. “I was active in Young Judaea, one of the first organizers of Habonim, and one of the founders of Camp Miriam,” he said of his local connections.

The Zivs’ personal experience with immigration comes through in Aliza’s writing. She doesn’t sugarcoat the difficulties of leaving an established life, family and longtime friends and integrating into a new country, having to learn another language, find a home, (re)start a career, build relationships, etc., etc., all the while worrying about those you’ve left behind. And your new fellow citizens must also get used to your presence in their country – immigrants seem threatening to some people, to their job security, their traditional way of life, and Ziv also tackles these issues in her novel.

One particularly interesting scene is a party on a moshav at which the more established Israelis are playing old Russian songs, wondering why the new immigrants aren’t joining in. One of the Israelis explains how the chalutzim (pioneers) “came to build the Jewish homeland, and within them was an integration of socialist and even communist values and concepts. And so they established cooperatives, kibbutzim and moshavim…. We grew up with lots of love of the Russian culture, its music and especially its songs. It is really in our blood.” The new immigrants are not convinced, and one points out that many of these songs “not only have a romantic base but also have an antisemitic and militaristic, murderous one. About Bogdan Khmelnsiky, Simon Petliura, have you heard of them?” The debate continues, and it is these parts of New Home, New Hope that I found the most compelling. (I have since looked up both of these men online.)

From a literary perspective, New Home, New Hope is not one of the best books I’ve ever read, and the formatting and editing is not as clean as it would be if it had been put out by a conventional publishing house, but it is one of the more interesting books I have ever read. Ziv is a good writer and she is a fount of knowledge on topics that many readers would profit from – and enjoy – learning about.

New Home, New Hope is available in both digital (Kindle) and printed formats through Amazon.

A journey through war, love

The first time I met Gina Dimant and her husband Sasha was in 2000 at the opening of my exhibition Evidence of Truth at the Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery. The exhibition was dedicated to all victims of Nazi concentration camps, which included my grandfather, who survived Auschwitz, only to be killed in the Flossenburg-Leitmeritz concentration camp. Years later, when I joined the Janusz Korczak Association of Canada, I met Gina again. She was the president of the association. I also met there Olga Medvedeva-Nathoo, the association’s co-founder.

I felt quite honored when Gina asked me to write a review of Medvedeva-Nathoo’s new book, Crossroads: A True Story of Gina Dimant in War and Love (K&O Harbor, 2014). Written originally in Russian, the English edition is translated by Richard J. Reisner and Medvedeva-Nathoo. It was launched on Jan. 11 of this year at the Zack Gallery.

Crossroads is truly an inspired and absorbing account. Born Hinda Wejgsman into a Jewish family in pre-Second World War Warsaw, Gina’s carefree life fell apart when the Nazis invaded Poland. Almost overnight she lost her safe home and, with her parents and sister, had to leave behind extended family, never to see them again.

Crossroads follows the Wejgsmans family, their extraordinary journey in a cattle car from the eastern border of Nazi-occupied Poland to the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics, and of their fight for survival there. The cold in the car was intolerable, and the Wejgsmans slept on straw, bodies side by side, trying to keep warm. They traveled for more than a month. They were sent to Leninogorsk in northeastern Kazakhstan, near the Altai Mountains, where temperatures dropped to minus 41˚C in winter.

After their arrival, Gina did not go to school because local authorities considered her an adult at 14 and gave her a construction job carrying bricks, four at a time. Gina reflects: “… my main memory from Leninogorsk is not what we ate there, but how terribly hungry we always were. With the feeling of hunger, you couldn’t even fall asleep and, if you fell asleep, then it was with night dreams of food until you woke up with the same daydreams…. In winter evenings when the frost was absolutely intolerable and it was inconceivable even to attempt lying in bed, so as not to freeze to death, we would pace the room in circles, single file.”

The Wejgsman family survived six years in Leninogorsk. Medvedeva-Nathoo points out that it was exactly 72 months, slightly more than 2,000 days.

The postwar return of Gina and her family to Poland necessitated resettling, as Warsaw was in ruins. There was also some serenity, however. In her new town, in Szczecin, Gina’s son from her first marriage, Saul Seweryn, was born. There, she also met her true love, Sasha, and became Gina Dimant.

The Polish 1968 political crisis, known in Poland as the March Events, resulted in the suppression and repression of Polish dissidents and the shameful antisemitic, “anti-Zionist” campaign waged by the Polish Politburo, followed by forced mass emigrations of Polish Jews. Gina remembers: “Poland rejected us unfairly and unjustly. A deep-seated pain lived in us for years…. We were … convinced constantly: there are Poles and there are Poles. Those who were corrupt and added to corruption, and those who sympathized with us … those who gloated over other’s misfortunes and those who were outright angry at our departure.”

Gina, with her husband and son, was displaced again. Looking for a place to settle, they chose Canada because it was a country far away from Europe that accepted new citizens. They arrived here in 1970. Despite their bitter farewell to Poland, their home here was always open to Poles, Jewish and non-Jewish: “A good human being – here was the only essential criterion taken into consideration.”

In Vancouver, in 1999, Gina co-created the Janusz Korczak Association of Canada. In 2013, she was awarded the Gold Officer Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland for strengthening relations between Poles and Jews.

Medvedeva-Nathoo writes: “Tragic Polish-Jewish relations notwithstanding, Poles and Jews lived side by side through the centuries and, regardless of what isolationists like to say, their history cannot be separated. The Dimants would always say: ‘… in the years of war, some Poles, obsessed with hatred, denounced Jews, while others risked their own lives to rescue them at a time when Poland was the only occupied country in which the death penalty was in force for anyone who hid the Jews or in some manner helped Jews.’” In the book, Gina reflects that there are many good and bad examples, pointing with triumph to Irena Sendler, a Pole who saved 2,500 Jewish children.

In Crossroads, Medvedeva-Nathoo has chosen to emphasize the battle of the individual and the will to survive set against the backdrop of three different cultures. It is a steadfast piece of writing that presents the stark facts of Gina’s life, set chronologically, starting with the description of her childhood in prewar Warsaw, followed by their postwar experiences, concluding in 2013.

At times, Medvedeva-Nathoo’s book is translated from Russian to English too literally, not taking into account the cultural context of the language into which she is translating. For example, when describing the usefulness of the newspaper Pravda in the USSR as toilet paper, the author translates it as a “nude-paper,” which makes sense only in Polish or Russian. Readers would also benefit from a map illustrating Gina’s journeys.

Crossroads is an historically accurate chronicle and a meticulously researched story that provokes discussion about the hardships and consequences of war, and the survival of one extraordinary family. It can be purchased from Gina Dimant at 604-733-6386.

Tamara Szymańska is a visual artist and a columnist for the Takie Zycie, the Polish biweekly magazine for Western Canada. She lives in Vancouver with her husband and their dog.

Tsabari gives voice to place

Ayelet Tsabari’s short stories win Rohr Prize. (photo from @AyeletTsabari)

One of the best contemporary works of fiction I’ve read in the last few years has been Israeli-Canadian Ayelet Tsabari’s The Best Place on Earth, her 2013 debut collection of short stories. The characters and settings draw the reader in effortlessly. The conflicts are both internal and situational, and they feel urgent and real. The writing is intelligent, sexy and restrained. The judges of the prestigious Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature clearly thought so, too, as the book is the newest winner of the $100,000 US award.

I recently caught up with the Toronto-based Tsabari by phone in Israel, where she was visiting family and friends. She is insightful, thoughtful and articulate, as well as warm and humble – she told me she was “shocked” when she heard the news of the prize. We spoke about identity, the short story form, her favorite summer spot, what makes a novel Canadian and Israeli, and how to write a decent sex scene.

One of the first things that comes to mind in Ayelet’s writing is the ethnicity of the characters: almost all are Mizrahi, a label with which she herself identifies. “It was really important to me to have Mizrahi characters who go about their lives, and not having their Mizrahi [identity] be an issue. That’s never questioned when you have stories about Ashkenazis; that’s the default. I wanted to shatter that, to break the pattern.”

Some of Tsabari’s stories are set in Canada. There is a memorable one set on Hornby Island – the tiny B.C. oasis whose peacefulness Ayelet found she was mentally contrasting with the intensity of Jerusalem – and another in Toronto. Most are set in Israel, though, revealing important themes about life, love and loss set against the background of physical insecurity. Ayelet wrote the book in Canada, was mentored by another Canadian author, Camilla Gibb, and acknowledged that others have told her the book possesses a Canadian sensibility.

Ayelet confided that she tried to avoid writing a conventionally “political” book. “I didn’t want to write about the war, about conflict. What I’m interested in is people’s lives…. But I wanted to set it against that backdrop. This is how I grew up; it’s always there, the conflict, that sense of menace.”

Still, she did have what she considers a political aim. She wanted to give voice to a place that is often better known to outsiders through the media. She wanted to “complicate things,” she told me, to “focus on the lives of one family … and one person, rather than the mass of people you see when you watch the news.”

Why the short story form?, I asked her. While she is currently working on a couple of longer-form projects, she told me that she “love[s] the brevity of [short stories]; I love imagining a life in a short span; I love the idea of a collection.” She added, “It’s kind of like traveling…. You get to know people, you really feel like they’re a part of you, you forge what you think are lifelasting relationships, then you move on. And because so many of the characters [in the book] are transient and nomads, immigrants, and travelers, I felt that the container fit….”

As for how to write a good sex scene, Ayelet explained that writers should provide as much detail as they would for any other type of scene, include it only if it advances the plot and, above all, avoid euphemisms. It’s good advice, really, that could be applied to most everyday interactions: as we encounter one another, we should strive to understand the inner lives of people as they really are. And, as readers, we can be grateful for glimpses of our country’s fine new voices helping us understand other places at the same time as we are able to discover new truths about ourselves.

Mira Sucharov is an associate professor of political science at Carleton University. She blogs at Haaretz and the Jewish Daily Forward. This article was originally published in the Canadian Jewish News. For an Oct. 11, 2013, interview with Tsabari (“Making a home in Canada”) about The Best Place on Earth, visit jewishindependent.ca.

Meet Chani Kaufman

Community and faith can both comfort and oppress. A well-defined environment with clear expectations and rules can allow one to flourish, knowing one’s proper place and purpose in the world, or it can stifle one’s individuality, creativity and spirit, knowing that what is and what is to come is more determined by others than oneself. Self-realization and other universal themes, such as family, love and loss, are explored with a sensitive heart and a deft hand by Eve Harris in The Marrying of Chani Kaufman (Anansi Press Inc., 2014).

Since the Jewish Independent received its advance reading copy of Harris’ debut novel, which was first published in England by Sandstone Press Ltd. in 2013, The Marrying of Chani Kaufman was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. It has received many positive reviews, and this one will be no different in that respect. The novels characters are likeable and relatable; even the most intransigent of them has their understandable reasons for their views and actions. There are no malevolent people in this non-specific Charedi community living in Hendon and Golders Green, in the northwest part of London, England – although some do push moral boundaries in their efforts to get what they want, what they feel is right.

To write a novel that is simultaneously critical of and sympathetic to a community takes skill. Harris writes about religious people, not a religion per se, and she writes about these people with respect and knowledge, humor and pathos. She succeeds in telling a story about people living in a world that will be foreign to most readers and explaining it without becoming stilted or lecturing.

The Marrying of Chani Kaufman centres on four people: the bride and the groom, Chani and Baruch; the rebbetzin; and the rebbetzin’s son, Avromi, who is good friends with Baruch. It starts at Chani and Baruch’s wedding in November 2008 and goes back in time – several months for Chani and Baruch, when he first sees her; to 1981 for the rebbetzin, when she met her husband and began her journey to orthodoxy; and to 2007 for Avromi, when he met and fell in love with Shola, a non-Jewish fellow student at university. When the novel begins, Chani and Baruch are about to start their “real life,” as Chani describes it, the rebbetzin is well into her crisis of faith and Avromi’s double life is becoming difficult to maintain.

By the time the matchmaker arranges for Chani, 19, and Baruch, 20, to meet, at his insistence to his mother – who does not approve of the match for a few reasons, most notably the Kaufmans’ lower economic status – both had been on several arranged dates with other potential mates, to no avail. They both don’t quite fit the mold of the perceived ideal Charedi wife or husband, and both are unwilling to settle.

At school, when she was 15, Chani’s “garrulousness had got her into trouble,” she “was considered audacious but gifted,” “everything interested her – the little she could get her hands on.” She “had learned to walk and not run…. She had longed for freedom of movement but had been taught to restrict her gait.” In agreeing to be married to Baruch, “She hoped that the bell jar might finally be lifted. Or at least she would have someone to share it with.”

That latter hope, at least, does seem possible, as Baruch, too, thought his “life felt narrow: the pressure to succeed, to be a rabbi, to please his father. His quick analytical mind was to be harnessed to the Talmud. The English degree he longed to study remained a blasphemous secret buried in his heart.” As did Chani, he acted out in small ways, listening to rock music or reading novels that were not permitted. So, perhaps together they will be able to negotiate a Jewish life that feeds more of their being and soul. Perhaps there will be a happily ever after for them. Their parents seem reasonably content, albeit with their respective – and not insignificant – problems.

The future well-being of the rebbetzin and her family is also left to readers’ imaginations, the rebbetzin’s questioning seeming to have more far-reaching implications than her son’s transgression. Sparked by a miscarriage – a devastatingly described incident in which the emotional distance between her and her husband becomes apparent – the rebbetzin begins to deal with long-latent grief from a much-earlier tragedy. This process, at least initially, separates her from her family, her community, her faith. Where it takes her is not revealed.

As much as The Marrying of Chani Kaufman offers readers a glimpse into the lives of others, it offers the possibility of finding out more about ourselves and our own place in the world.