The Letters Project is about big history, the Holocaust, but it is also an extraordinarily intimate personal narrative—a rare blend of informative, poignant, excruciating, startling, humorous, and ultimately inspiring storytelling.
In 1986, when her mother died at the age of sixty-four, Eleanor Reissa went through all of her belongings. In the back of her mother’s lingerie drawer, she found an old leather purse. Inside that purse was a large wad of folded papers. They were letters. Fifty-six of them. In German. Written in 1949. Letters from her father to her mother, when they were courting. Just four years earlier, he had fought to stay alive in Auschwitz and on the Death March while she had spent the war years suffering in Uzbekistan. Thirty years later, Eleanor—a theatre artist who has been on the forefront of keeping Yiddish alive—finally had the letters translated. The particulars of those letters send her off on an unimaginable adventure into the past, forever changing her and anyone who reads this book.
“‘The Holocaust,’ Eleanor Reissa writes in this unforgettable and courageous book, ‘is attached to me like my skin and I would be formless without it.’ A very personal story that begins with her discovery of some sixty letters written in 1949 is also a fundamental one of a woman trying to make sense of her life and family and of the shadows that go back before she was born. There is plenty of feeling and sentiment but it never feels sentimental. Her inimitable wit leavens the sadder scenes. This journey of discovery is riveting, told with tender insight, at times heartbreaking and at times heartwarming just like the Yiddish songs that have delighted Ms. Reissa’s audiences.” —Joseph Berger is a New York Times reporter and author of Displaced Persons: Growing Up American After the Holocaust
“The Letters Project is a wonderful book—funny, heartbreaking, and ultimately transcendent. Eleanor Reissa’s journey back into her family’s past makes for a gripping—and very human—international mystery. I highly recommend it.” —Tony Phelan, TV Showrunner for: Grey’s Anatomy, Doubt, and Council of Dads
“Eleanor Reissa has written a gritty, fearless yet funny memoir about herself, her family, and the Holocaust. Once I began reading it, I was completely swept away until the journey ended. I was moved by the power of this uniquely personal yet universal story.” —Julian Schlossberg is an American motion pictures, theatre, and television producer
While the documentary succeeds in showing the band’s power and chemistry, and is full of energy, one is left wondering what would have happened if Slovak lived.
The war against two stubborn enemies, such as Iran and Hezbollah, has an interesting lesson to teach on obstacles created by regimes that are polar opposites.
There is something deeply cyclical about Judaism and our holidays. We return to the same story—the same words, the same questions—but we are not the same people telling it. And that changes everything.
Emma’s diary represents testimony of an America, and an American Jewish community, torn asunder during America’s strenuous effort to manifest its founding ideal of the equality of all people who were created in the image of God.
On Yom HaShoah, we speak of six million who were murdered. But I also remember the nine million who lived. Nine million Jews who got up every morning, took their children to school, and strove every day to survive, because they believed in life.
Gratitude is greatly emphasized in much of Jewish observance, from blessings before and after meals, the celebration of holidays such as Passover, a festival that celebrates liberation from slavery, and in the psalms.
The seder table itself is a model of radical welcome: we are told explicitly to invite the stranger, to make room for those who ask questions and for those who do not yet know how to ask.
The playground in Jerusalem didn’t stop antisemitism, and renovating playgrounds in New York City is not likely to stop it there, either — because antisemitism in America today is not rooted in a lack of slides or swings.
As Donald Trump continues to struggle to explain his goals there, his backers have begun casting about for scapegoats to blame for the president’s decision to enter the war. Not surprisingly, a growing number of conservative fingers are now pointing at Benjamin Netanyahu.
America’s national derangement poses myriad challenges to those not yet caught up in it. The anomie is daunting enough for the general public — if that term still makes sense in this fragmented age — and it is virtually insurmountable for the defenders of Israel.
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.
THE LETTERS PROJECT: A DAUGHTER’S JOURNEY
Lisa Ellen Niver
THE LETTERS PROJECT: A DAUGHTER’S JOURNEY
By Eleanor Reissa
The Letters Project is about big history, the Holocaust, but it is also an extraordinarily intimate personal narrative—a rare blend of informative, poignant, excruciating, startling, humorous, and ultimately inspiring storytelling. In 1986, when her mother died at the age of sixty-four, Eleanor Reissa went through all of her belongings. In the back of her mother’s lingerie drawer, she found an old leather purse. Inside that purse was a large wad of folded papers. They were letters. Fifty-six of them. In German. Written in 1949. Letters from her father to her mother, when they were courting. Just four years earlier, he had fought to stay alive in Auschwitz and on the Death March while she had spent the war years suffering in Uzbekistan. Thirty years later, Eleanor—a theatre artist who has been on the forefront of keeping Yiddish alive—finally had the letters translated. The particulars of those letters send her off on an unimaginable adventure into the past, forever changing her and anyone who reads this book. “‘The Holocaust,’ Eleanor Reissa writes in this unforgettable and courageous book, ‘is attached to me like my skin and I would be formless without it.’ A very personal story that begins with her discovery of some sixty letters written in 1949 is also a fundamental one of a woman trying to make sense of her life and family and of the shadows that go back before she was born. There is plenty of feeling and sentiment but it never feels sentimental. Her inimitable wit leavens the sadder scenes. This journey of discovery is riveting, told with tender insight, at times heartbreaking and at times heartwarming just like the Yiddish songs that have delighted Ms. Reissa’s audiences.” —Joseph Berger is a New York Times reporter and author of Displaced Persons: Growing Up American After the HolocaustCLICK HERE TO BUY THE LETTERS PROJECT
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