reviews - Jewish Book Council

59 TH NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARDS
Finalists:
JEWISH PROPERTY CLAIMS
AGAINST ARAB COUNTRIES
Michael R. Fischbach
Columbia University Press
Michael R. Fischbach’s book surveys
the losses of Jewish personal and
communal property across the Arab world.
Beginning with an examination of the circumstances
surrounding the departure of
Jews from each Arab country in the wake
of the establishment of the State of Israel
in 1948, Fischbach demonstrates the
divergent political processes that led to the demise of Arab Jewry and
caused certain communities, such as Iraqi Jewry, to suffer massive
property losses. Fischbach also explores how Jewish property claims
were handled by the Israeli government. In contrast to its championing
of the claims of Nazi victims and survivors, the Israeli government
did not pursue compensation for individual Jews or communities
with claims against specific Arab countries. Instead, it hoped to
establish a global claim for Jewish property losses to counterbalance
what Israel might be required to pay Palestinian refugees as compensation
for their losses. Fischbach’s keen ability to conduct intensive
research in hitherto unexplored archives and to write
closely and carefully on such an explosive topic is
remarkable. The committee saw his scholarship worthy
of recognition in its thoroughness, persistence,
and moral commitment to evaluating all the evidence
available on this politically sensitive, yet critically
important topic.
MAJOR FARRAN’S HAT: THE UNTOLD
STORY OF THE STRUGGLE TO
ESTABLISH THE JEWISH STATE
David Cesarani
Da Capo Press
David Cesarani’s Major Farran’s Hat:
Murder, Scandal and Britain’s War
Against Jewish Terrorism tells the story of
the murder of Alexander Rubowitz and the
cover-up that took place in Palestine in the
final days of the British Mandate.
Rubowitz was abducted in Jerusalem in
1947 by a “special squad” of the Palestine police, led by Major Roy
Farran, who took him to the woods, interrogated him, and murdered
him. The backdrop to this compelling story is the tenacious campaign
of British forces in Palestine against Jewish ‘terrorists.’ Using recently
declassified British government records, David Cesarani conveys this
episode, with all its curious twists and turns. While the author does
not openly compare this botched interrogation to contemporary
efforts to combat terrorists, he provocatively illustrates
why 2009 provides “an opportune moment to
revisit the events that took place in Jerusalem 60
years ago,” because they provide a clear “warning of
everything that can go wrong when young warriors
directed by desperate and unscrupulous politicians
wage war on terror.”
12 Jewish Book World Spring 5770/2010
WE LOOK LIKE THE ENEMY:
THE HIDDEN STORY OF ISRAEL’S
JEWS FROM ARAB LANDS
Rachel Shabi
Walker & Company
Rachel Shabi explores one of the most
significant fissures within Israeli
society in We Look Like the Enemy. Part
history, part reportage, her book chronicles
the experience of Israel’s Mizrachi
Jews, those who came from Arab or Muslim
nations and who today comprise
roughly half of the country’s Jewish population.
Traditionally the lesser partner to Ashkenazi Jews,
the Mizrachi population has struggled both for full
inclusion is Israeli society and for the legitimacy of
their Judeo-Arab culture. Herself born in Israel to
Iraqi Jewish parents, Shabi writes with both passion
and literary flair.
HOLOCAUST
Winner:
THE UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST
MEMORIAL MUSEUM ENCYCLOPEDIA
OF CAMPS AND GHETTOS, 1933-1945,
VOLUME 1
Geoffrey P. Megargee, volume ed.
Indiana University Press
The United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and
Ghettos, 1933–1945, Volume 1, edited by
Geoffrey P. Megargee is a work of devoted
research, exhaustive study, and scholarly
collaboration. The first of what is to be a seven-volume series on all
the camps and ghettos of the Nazi period, the volume painstakingly
details the early camps set up by the Nazis and police in 1933, as
Hitler came to power, as well as the concentration camps and subcamps
under the rule of the SS-Business Administration Main Office.
The value of this volume is multifold: it lies in its narrative framing—
a scholarly introduction helps the reader to contextualize the entries;
its comprehensiveness—hundreds of main camps and sub-camps,
large and small, are included, ensuring they will not
be lost to history; and its accessibility—the volume
will be of use to both students and scholars, readers
new to the topic and readers steeped in Holocaust
research. Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos is sure to
assume an essential and unrivaled place in reference
literature on the Holocaust.
www.jewishbookcouncil.org
Dafna Kaplan