reviews - Jewish Book Council

children, and the congregation he led up until
the time of his death. A stranger claiming to be
Kahn’s brother shows up at his funeral, and he
reveals that the rabbi was his brother, Donnie
Dobbs. They were con men, and while swindling
people at a bar mitzvah, Donnie met and
fell in love with Rachel Friedberg. He changed
his name, taught himself everything he could to
live as a Jew, and never revealed his true identity
to his wife and children. As each family member
comes to terms with grief and anger, they are
forced to examine their lives and the choices
they have made and will continue to make in
light of this devastating event. Kleid, author of
Brownsville, tells an original and engaging story.
Readers are given an inside look at an observant
family’s life; a helpful glossary translates Hebrew
and Yiddish terms that are used throughout the
book. Cinquegrani’s art complements the text
with action and nuanced emotion. WW
THE BRISS
Michael Tregebov
New Star Books, 2009. 233 pp. $19.00
ISBN: 978-155420043-6
The Briss opens with Teddy Ostrove, a
twenty-something Jew from Winnipeg
calling his parents from Ramallah to tell them
that he’s volunteered as a human shield for the
Palestinian cause, and that he has fallen in love
with, impregnated, and proposed to a Palestinian
woman he met on his Birthright-Israel-like
trip. Such a fantastically volatile opening ought
to have launched a book where outrageous
humor only augments some degree of emotional
and political substance, but The Briss is
so ludicrously lopsided against Israel and takes
such a uniformly scathing attitude toward its
very vulgar one-dimensional Jewish characters,
that it is hard to empathize with any of them
despite their respective distress, or to derive
any insight into the situation, whatever side of
the political divide you’re on. It may well make
you laugh uncomfortably though.
Teddy’s parents are crass, inept social
climbers whose greatest concern is what the
superficial and super-cruel suburban Jews they
aspire to hobnob with will think of them, and
Teddy’s divorced sister has a reputation for sleep-
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ing around with married men. The Ostroves’
feeble and ignorant pro-Israel platitudes easily
get bested by Teddy’s only comparatively articulate
new-found pro-Palestinian radicalism.
Teddy’s latent liberalism was triggered on the
trip by his having met “ugly Israelis” (American
settlers) and a charismatic alpha-male sabra soldier
angry about “the occupation” who schooled
him in the ostensible facts about the iniquities
the Palestinians suffer, and of course, by falling
for his Palestinian princess at first sight. Teddy’s
parents had pushed him to go to Israel and
change his life, because they were humiliated
first by his dropping out of medical school to
become a nurse, and then by his having an affair
with a lesbian rabbi’s wife.
Tregebov’s strong dialogue flows fast and
funny, and the book reads more like a play
than a novel, but the effect is glib and nasty
from the start. The book, though strident and
completely unbalanced, falls short of being
propaganda, because skewering the ignorance
of diaspora Jews almost seems more important
to the author (who lives in Barcelona)
than bashing Israel or boosting the Palestinian
cause. Mrs. Ostrove tells Teddy repeatedly,
“You’re taking my neshome (soul) out,” and
that’s exactly how reading this book felt. EA
CITY OF GOD: A
NOVEL OF PASSION
AND WONDER IN
OLD NEW YORK
Beverly Swerling
Simon & Schuster, 2009. 522 pp. $15.00
ISBN: 978-1-4165-4922-2
This is a fascinating fictional account of life
in New York City from 1834 to 1857, the
years leading up to the Civil War. We learn
about medicine, real estate, the shipping business,
opium trade, and the Chinese immigrant
community through the stories of two notable
and intertwined New York families. The
author wrote about previous generations of the
Turner and the Devrey families in Shadowbrook,
City of Dreams, and City of Glory, but
you needn’t have read those books to enjoy
this one. A Jewish family plays a significant
role in this tale as well. There is an abundance
of interesting detail about the notorious Bellevue
Hospital, Protestant/Catholic relations,
and the discovery of germs and anesthesia. The
Fiction
author weaves together history, romance, and
culture into a book that is hard to put down.
There is an extensive family tree for clarification.
A map would have been helpful. MBA
Barbara Cherne
Fithian Press, 2009. 96 pp. $12.00
ISBN: 978-1-56474-848-5
REVIEWS
DEVORA IN EXILE:
STORIES
In composing this slim volume of four
linked stories, Cherne was inspired by the
memories of a friend who, as a child, had fled
with her family from Russia during that country’s
revolution in 1917. When the book
opens, the stories’ protagonist, Devora Marcus,
is an elderly widow living in southern
California. The first story, “The Conversion,”
in which Devora falls briefly under a guru’s
spell before reclaiming her Jewish identity, is
perhaps the book’s strongest, although some
readers may find the intensity of Devora’s
bond to the young man who comes to her
home to teach her Hebrew as depicted in “A
Holocaust in My Breakfast Room” to be the
most emotionally powerful and poignant
aspect of the work. Occasionally repetitive (as
with the disturbing material concerning the
rape of Devora’s elder sister back in Russia),
Devora in Exile nonetheless draws us in and
allows us to get to know a sympathetic character
and, with the exception of the brief second
piece, offers full and compelling stories. ED
EXILES
Elliot Krieger
Soho Press, 2009. 344 pp. $24.00
ISBN: 978-1-56947-589-8
The time is 1970 and America is
embroiled in the Vietnam War. Students
Spring 5770/2010 Jewish Book World 47