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Rick Richman

Rick Richman

Safire Says Book of Job Political

Dean\’s confusion about the location of the Book of Job generated a fair amount of ridicule at the time from commentators — but not from William Safire, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist of The New York Times, who is speaking next week about Job at Sinai Temple.

Saving Lives in a Time of Murder

\”The Righteous: The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust\” by Sir Martin Gilbert (Henry Holt and Company, $35).

On Jan. 19, 1942, Rabbi Jacob Schulmann of Grabow Synagogue wrote to his community in Lodz:

\”Alas, to our great grief, we now know all. I spoke to an eyewitness who escaped. He told me everything. They\’re exterminated in Chelmno, near Dombie, and they are all buried in the Rzuszow forest.\”

Old Canon Gets New Look

\”The Modern Jewish Canon: A Journey Through Language and Culture\” by Ruth R. Wisse (The Free Press, $28).

The Hebrew Bible is a canon of 24 books, written in the same language, collected by a people living in a single nation, compiled at a time of belief in an all-powerful Authority speaking through that canon.

Capturing History and Hope on Film

\”History holds a magical power over me,\” says Laura Bialis, the 26-year-old producer of \”Tak for Alt: Survival of a Human Spirit,\” the award-winning documentary that will be shown on KCET on Tues., May 2 at 10:30 p.m. and screened at the University of Judaism\’s Gindi Auditorium on Thurs., May 3, at 7 p.m.

Finding God Among the Ruins

In \”Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith\” (Pantheon Books, $23.00), a gentle and touching memoir, Anne Lamott tells a variation of an old story:

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