Books – ‘Love’ Tries to Solve Mystery of the Heart
June 9, 2005
Masterfully, Krauss ties together the stories of Gursky and the young Alma as each searches for clues about \”The History of Love.\”
Sandee Brawarsky
The Many Lives of Lev Nussimbaum
April 7, 2005
Lev Nussimbaum lived as though life were theater, inventing an identity, dressing the part, shifting scenes, seeking audiences everywhere. He thought he could keep rewriting the ending, believed he could talk his way out of anything including his Jewish past, but ultimately he could not.
Eating Ham for Uncle Sam
February 17, 2005
Walking near my parents\’ home in Florida — where I\’m writing this column — I noticed a hat with World War II insignias, much like the one my father sometimes wears, in the back window of a parked car. I\’d just finished reading \”GI JEWS: How World War II Changed a Generation\” by Deborah Dash Moore, so the image of the hat really struck me, and I imagined that most men on this street must own similar versions.
Israel’s Cain and Abel Syndrome
December 30, 2004
The book is particularly timely, in light of Yasser Arafat\’s death, and new possibilities for hope in the Middle East. Rees writes about individuals, many of whom have not spoken publicly before, and he proves himself a good listener and skillful as a teller of other people\’s stories.
Hungarian Novelist Takes Manhattan
December 9, 2004
When Imre Kertesz was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 2002, few Americans had read the work of the Hungarian novelist, the first survivor of the concentration camps to be awarded the literary prize. Even in his own country, his works were not well known; his subject, largely the Holocaust, was not popular.
Finding Love in the In-Between
December 2, 2004
It\’s a novel with humor and a good share of darkness as well as light, the contrast alluded to in the Psalm from which the title is drawn, \”Weeping may endure for a night. But joy comes in the morning.\”
Passing on a Legacy of Love
November 4, 2004
Walk into Zabar\’s and it\’s easy to spot 76-year old Gittel \”Gabby\” Zuckerman. She\’s feisty and funny, and her shrinking height and failing health don\’t diminish her power. Nor do the memories of the family she lost in the Holocaust ever leave her.
Jewish America’s Trials and Triumphs
October 28, 2004
Although the first Jews to establish a community in North America arrived in New Amsterdam from Recife, Brazil, in September 1654, the first Torah scroll was brought over a year later in 1655, borrowed from a synagogue in Amsterdam.
‘First’ an Atypical New York Story
October 21, 2004
A brother announces to his sister that another sister has vanished, as \”The First Desire\” (Pantheon) opens. Nancy Reisman\’s highly-praised novel is unusual in many ways, from its premise to the quality of writing to its setting. She follows the lives of the Cohen family, from the Depression to the years following World War II, not on the Lower East Side or in Brooklyn, but in a stately neighborhood in Buffalo, N.Y.
Sentence by sentence, this is an exquisite story of family. Reisman writes with assuredness and tenderness, as the story unfolds serially from five perspectives: three of the four Cohen sisters, the brother and their father\’s mistress.
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