\”Zionism” is a word that has come to mean many different things to different people, which is why veteran foreign correspondent Milton Viorst decided to take a fresh look at the origins and the destiny of the Zionist project in “Zionism: The Birth and Transformation of an Ideal” (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press).
It is telling that the chapter titles in Neal Gabler’s “Barbra Streisand: Redefining Beauty, Femininity, and Power,” the latest book in the Jewish Lives series from Yale University Press, are given in transliterated Yiddish (and sometimes Yinglish) — “Shaynkeit,” “Mieskeit,” “Chutzpah,” “Tsezingen Zikh,” and so on.
While there are many excellent young adult novels with Jewish characters, some of which mention a bar or bat mitzvah, there are probably fewer than a dozen that tackle the subject directly.
Every now and then, a multi-generational novel such as “The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem” by Sarit Yishai-Levi (Thomas Dunn Books/St. Martin’s Press) comes along, so rich with potent curses, outlandish customs, eccentric characters, and forbidden loves, readers might find the story somewhat incredible and hard to connect to.
Nobel Prize winner Walter Kohn, who fled Nazi-ruled Austria one month before the start of World War II, died April 19 at his home in Santa Barbara. He was 93.
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