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BOOK GROUP FORUM Editor’s Note: Please let us know which Jewish-interest books have worked out particularly well for your reading group. Book Club Recommendations Fiction GRATITUDE: A NOVEL Joseph Kertes Thomas Dunne Books, 2009 Winner, 2009 National Jewish Book Award in Fiction 1. What do you think is represented by the stampede of wild horses that Lili witnesses? Do horses recur in the novel? Do other animals play a significant role in the novel? For example, how does Smetana the cat help Istvan to survive? 2. What is the role of music in this novel? How did the passages about music add to your reading experience? What is being implied by the music? 3. Commandant Karoly Fekete mercifully saves Lili from Sergeant Erdo. In the concentration camp, a cruel guard spares Marta’s life and helps her escape. Why do you think people capable of such cruelty are also depicted as capable of compassion? 4. Was it reasonable for Robert to ask Paul and his sister to go on work detail? Did he intend for Paul to depart? Why do you think Paul decided to leave at the end of the novel without telling his family where he was going? Where do you think he goes? 5. Why is the novel called Gratitude? Q & A from Penguin Canada Non-Fiction SAVING ISRAEL: HOW THE JEWISH PEOPLE CAN WIN A WAR THAT MAY NEVER END Daniel Gordis John Wiley & Sons, 2009 Winner, 2009 National Jewish Book Award Winner in Contemporary Jewish Life and Practice 1. Gordis titles his third chapter “The First War, All Over Again.” What do you think he means by that? Do you agree with his assessment of the continuing conflict? 2. Gordis discusses Professor Sammy Smooha’s idea of an ethnic democracy, a system that “combines the extension of civil and political rights to permanent residents who wish to be citizens with the bestowal of a favored status on the majority group.” Do you think Israel is an ethnic democracy? Is Israel’s status as a Jewish state in opposition to its democracy? Can a religious state ever be truly democratic? (pg. 131) 3. What do you see as Israel’s purpose? How does this purpose affect policy in Israel, both foreign and domestic? How can Israel better fulfill this purpose? (pg. 148) 4. Gordis discusses his youthful Jewish education as such: “We were taught Jewish history and philosophy in a way that made passivity and Judaism sound like the most natural combination. ...In a strange way, it now seems to me, we were actually comfortable with the role of victim.” What do you think about this? How do you think Jewish culture intersects with a sense of victimhood? Is this a good thing, a bad thing, or neither? (pg. 183) 5. How does Gordis suggest Israel should be saved? Do you agree? What changes do you think would have to be made in Israeli and Jewish culture and politics to enable Gordis’ plan? 24 Jewish Book World Spring 5770/2010 www.jewishbookcouncil.org Zion Ozeri
A Conversation with David Sax By Laurie Gwen Shapiro Over the phone David Sax tells me it is almost a relief that I suggest a Lower East Side coffee bar to kibbitz. (Apparently most of his previous profilers think a deli meet is a novel idea.) David is already there when I arrive, a suspiciously belly-less young Canadian in his early 30’s. What authority could he have to write about the territory of aging hefty uncles? Nonetheless this svelte hipster boychik from Toronto has traveled the globe in order to understand the warp and the weft of this endangered food niche. Los Angeles, Cleveland, Chicago. He made it to other Jewish pockets of America where, when ordering white bread on your pastrami, no one clobbers you with a baseball bat. He even hopped across the pond to see The Beefeaters we rarely hear about in London, the Salt Beef eating kind, not the warders of her Majesty’s royal palace. And into Galiciana Poland to see what Jewish cooking was like in the new millennium. (Not so good.) I tried to introduce myself at his book launch in Ben’s Kosher Deli in the Diamond District, but tell him that I have never witnessed such joyous pandemonium at a book event. Needless to say, the Save the Deli launch was loud and fun and fully embraced its Jewishness. Frankly, it felt more like a bar mitzvah than a book launch; it was impossible to talk to anyone over the gabble of hundreds of happy partygoers, which included Catskill legend Freddie Roman, and The Jewish Elvis, Jelvis. David modestly shrugs off the lines out the door, “Complimentary pastrami and cream soda will do it.” “Reviews have been phenomenal,” I remind him, and he grins. David’s humor runs dark in person and on the page, as evident in his book’s details, like his deep revulsion at watching his pastrami sandwich microwaved by a deli claiming to be authentic, and a customer choking on a big chunk of phenomenal gefilte fish who gets the Heimlich and then eats the projectile again because it was so good. He can be poignant too; I delighted in his often heartbreaking portraits of diehard deli men and their fantasias of making it big in Las Vegas. And then he shows the loathsomeness of the corporate “New York style” delis that have Christopher Farber www.jewishbookcouncil.org actually opened in the Casinos, even branches of famous American delis that muck up the failproof recipes. Mel Brooks also makes a Hollywood cameo in the book. What’s not to love here? Is he going to follow up with more foodie non-fiction, currently a hot slice of the book market? Or stick to Jewish topics? Or do a Carnegie combo of foodie and Jewish? “I know I don’t want to get typecast in deli. I’ve recently been posting radio stories on NPR.” Like what? He smiles, “Last one is called Man Enough to Love Eat Pray Love.” I laugh hard, mostly because my husband despised that book, which I got a big girlie kick out of. “I majored in economics and history and wrote serious journalism for several magazines, did journalism stints in South America, Argentina, and Brazil. A million subjects fascinate me. Actually, I’ve had this idea for a long time; while working on a term paper an idea fixed in my head to write this book.” Probably the only thing that doesn’t interest him is writing fiction. As our second coffee comes, I wish him a creative nonfiction career Rich Cohen or Mark Kurlansky would be proud of. David was born in 1976 in Toronto, to parents who had left the Montreal Jewish community during the first threats of Québecois secession. Jewish on both sides, his mother’s family emigrated to Canada in the early 1800’s, and his father, like many in the Montreal community, was the child of Romanian immigrants. I ask more about old school Canadian deli, and the Toronto food scene. Montreal is famous for its smoked meat, sort of a pastrami-meetscorned beef. “An artisanal deli restaurant called Mile End has opened up in Brooklyn’s Boerum Hill, where New Yorkers will get a taste of what Jewish Canadians crave, and even non-Jewish Canadians. And Caplansky’s in EMERGING VOICES Toronto is worth a visit. A new artisanal deli getting it right too.” But are artisanal delis in it for the long haul, or still in love with the newness? He shared my concern. He spoke forebodingly of the future for some of the old timers hanging on that he profiled, the dedicated ones for whom money, apparently, is incidental, but not to their heirs. But he concedes this artisanal deli movement, which includes Michael Anthony making his own pastrami at Gramercy Tavern, is a bright spot in the industry. “Can you imagine the dedication that goes into curing your own meat from scratch?” One of David’s most startling discoveries, after he carefully likens New York to the Jerusalem of Deli, is that the best city for deli is Los Angeles. Saying in print that Los Angeles has the best pastrami sandwich? Isn’t that an invitation to a war? “But it’s the truth,” he says, “they have many great delis there, supported by the Hollywood culture. And you have to taste the pastrami at Langer’s. A different stratosphere.” I press him as our hour ends, is there really a doomsday clock for my father’s favorite food? Can he vouchsafe pastrami’s existence for my young daughter’s generation when health and bottom-line concerns trump narrowminded pursuit of deli perfection? “As long as there are true fanatics I have hope.” Sounding more like my grandmother by the minute, I wish him nachas on his upcoming wedding, and think, maybe, just maybe I should swing by Katz’s for some takeout, to hell with the diet. To read more about David Sax, please visit www. Savethedeli.com Laurie Gwen Shapiro is the author of ALA Notable Book The Unexpected Salami and The Matzo Ball Heiress and other books for adults. She has also written two books for young adults, most recently for Random House. She is also a winner of an Independent Spirit Award for co-directing the IFC documentary “Keep the River on Your Right.” She is currently working on YA novel The O’Leary Bat Mitzvah, and producing a documentary about Iggy Pop. LaurieGwen- Shapiro.com Spring 5770/2010 Jewish Book World 25
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Page 9 and 10: ANTHOLOGIES AND COLLECTIONS Winner:
Page 11 and 12: out whom they can trust. In additio
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Page 15 and 16: Finalists: THE WARSAW GHETTO: A GUI
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Page 19 and 20: SCHOLARSHIP Nahum M. Sarna Memorial
Page 21 and 22: WOMEN’S STUDIES Barbara Dobkin Aw
Page 23 and 24: JUDGING PANELISTS We wish to public
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Page 29 and 30: New from Jewish Lights Publishing I
Page 31 and 32: Save the Dates Jewish Book Authors
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Page 43 and 44: JEWISH SLOW COOKER RECIPES Laura Fr
Page 45 and 46: JUDAISM: A WAY OF BEING David Geler
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Page 51 and 52: Shushan “Shoeshine” Cats, a sel
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Page 69 and 70: A CHAT WITH ZACHARYSHAPIRO By Barba
Page 71 and 72: Please note that all book descripti
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THE BOOK OF PSALMS: A TRANSLATION W
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SHELLY FEIT (SF) has an M.L.S. and
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