Tag Archives: Holocaust

Jan23

Einstein and the Rabbi: Searching for the Soul by Naomi Levy

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Einstein and the Rabbi: Searching for the Soul by Naomi Levy

Levy, Naomi. Einstein and the Rabbi: Searching for the Soul. Flatiron, 2017. ISBN 978-1250057266 352 pp. $

*****

When Rabbi Naomi Levy–one of the first women to graduate from the Jewish Theological Seminary in NY–comes across a letter Einstein wrote in response to a grieving rabbi upon the death of his eldest son at age eleven, she spends what feels like three years searching for the original letter that Robert S. Marcus wrote to the notable scientist. Throughout her search, she relays the story of Marcus, who was a military Jewish chaplain through WWII and liberated nearly 1,000 boys from the concentration camp at Buchenwald at the end of the war.

The book follows Levy’s own loss of her father at a young age, follows up on the staff and some of the Polish and Hungarian children who came through a Jewish orphanage in France, including Elie Weisel.

Levy’s journey reflects on meditation, music, and prayer; friendship, love and forgiveness; parenting, finding your path, meeting and listening to your soul. Through narrative and parable, she recounts life lessons and concludes each chapter with a blessing that is part mantra and part intention. She touches on several stories shared in Why Judaism Matters, and while I find both books compelling, if I could only have one, it’s Levy’s that I will return to as life moves along.

Dec12

Clara’s War by Clara Kramer

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Clara’s War by Clara Kramer

Kramer, Clara. Clara’s War.

****

When the SS invaded on July 5, 1941 the Jews in Zolkiew felt lucky they has some wealth, an oil press business, and could ransom a bit for their lives, but still sensed the days were numbered. Clara Schwarz and her immediate family, along with two other families, escaped the ghetto and lived in an underground bunker over the Beck family’s home, hiding from the SS for nearly two years. Ordered by her mother to keep a written record, her diary, detailing day to life of a Jewish family in Poland during WWII is now on display at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. The book’s endpapers are decorated with an image of the blue penciled diary.

Clara’s story, as told to Stephen Gantz, is chronologically arranged, with each chapter prefaced by an excerpt from her diary, written between ages 15-17. The writing at the beginning of the story contains some nice turns of phrase (“his father … was on his heels, but only managed to catch his shadow” and “… I could make out the silhouettes of Zolkiew’s baroque church spires with their pregnant onion tops and golden domes…” ), but as the tale of love, loss and horror wears on, the writing becomes less distinguished. Many Yiddish words aren’t defined in context, the pacing is slow, and the introduction of the entire (large!) family at once over a few pages is a lot to keep track of; keeping characters straight is in part aided by a family tree. A map of the cramped living quarters is also included.

Certainly, the Holocaust was a terrible tragedy, and only by sharing these stories can we ensure history doesn’t repeat itself. Although the story is unique to the family, it’s not a unique concept for a book, and it pales in comparison to Anne Frank’s classic Diary of a Young Girl, and doesn’t compare in voice, language, or style. Purchase for larger collections.

Oct1

Malka by Mirjam Pressler, translated from the German by Brian Murdoch

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Malka by Mirjam Pressler, translated from the German by Brian Murdoch

Pressler, Mirjam. Malka. translated from the German by Brian Murdoch. Speak, 2005. ISBN 978-0142402696 288 pp. $

****

It may seem as though I never read books that I don’t like. This is not true, I do often dislike books and will often not finish a book that I am unhappy with. So, here again I will tell you about a book that I really liked!

Malka is a new juvenile fiction book written by Mirjam Pressler and translated from the German by Brian Murdoch. This novel is a Holocaust era book following the lives of a Jewish family, Hannah and her two daughters, Malka and Minna (their father is mostly absent from the book since he lives in Palestine). Hannah is a doctor and very well respected in her community because of her profession. She treats Jews and Germans and for this reason never thinks that she and her girls might someday be sent away to a Jewish ghetto by the Germans. When the Germans really get tough on removing Jews from Poland, Hannah finally realizes that even she is not safe and she takes her girls on the long trek to Hungary where they should be able to find refuge.

Climbing mountains with her daughters, especially the young Malka, proves much more difficult than imagined and when Malka grows ill, they make the difficult decision to leave her with a farmer and family who have given them shelter for the night. It is agreed that the farmer will bring Malka to Hannah and Minna when she is well. With pressure and fear that the Germans are near and willing to harm people helping the Jews, the farmer sends Malka off, and a seven-year-old girl is tossed out on her own in a chaotic world. Her survival instincts take over and she manages to barely make it, roaming from place to place, from family to family until she is eventually living alone in a coal cellar in the basement of a house in a Jewish ghetto. Unfortunately, she suffers in many ways, she is hungry, cold and worst of all, becoming mentally ill from the many deprivations she faces.

Silence pervades this story. The characters are constantly trying to be quiet so as not to be caught by the Germans. Malka spends so much time alone that she becomes silent as well, except for the racing thoughts in her brain and the occasional request for bread or an apple. Then there is the silence of the non-Jews who do not report or retaliate against the terrible things that the Germans are doing.

Pressler uses the third person point of view to further the silence. The quiet of the mountains, the silence of the empty ghettos after the Germans host an “operation,” either killing Jews on the spot or sending them to camps, Hannah’s inability to communicate the guilt she feels for leaving Malka. These things sent me into silent, deep thought, but also made me rage with anger over the horrible things that happened during WWII and the horrible things happening now in the Middle East and Africa and everywhere, really. We are still silent.