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REVIEWS Israel Studies JERUSALEM: CITY OF LONGING Simon Goldhill Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2008. 356 pp. $27.95 ISBN: 978-0-674-02866-1 Jerusalem holds a special place in the hearts of Christians and Muslims as well as Jews. Simon Goldhill, a professor of Greek at Cambridge, offers an interesting guide to the city using buildings to recount a history that often has many versions. Beginning with a walk along the wall of the Old City, Goldhill takes readers to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, a destination for Christians, noting that a Muslim family holds the keys to the building. He then visits the kotel and Haram al- Sharif/Dome of the Rock, explaining the significance of each site. He also visits other shrines in the city and comments on the many, often disputed, archaeological discoveries and the contributions of the Romans, the British, and the Americans to Jerusalem’s history. Goldhill depicts a beloved city that has survived and transcended violence and controversy to become the home of a diverse population. He explains how faith brought so many layers of different civilizations to this place and provides a guide for the thinking visitor. BMB LONE SOLDIERS: ISRAEL’S DEFENDERS FROM AROUND THE WORLD HerbKeinon Devora Publishing, 2009. 160 pp. $27.95 ISBN: 978-1-934440-60-5 Lone Soldiers: Israel’s Defenders From Around the World explores the phenomenon of non-Israelis who come to Israel for the express purpose of enlisting in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The book profiles 14 such soldiers as well as Tzvika Levy, the retired IDF officer who looks after these “lone soldiers.” Lone soldiers is the term used to describe soldiers who have no family or 56 Jewish Book World Spring 5770/2010 friends in Israel to support them during their IDF service. The lack of any kind of local support system makes the military experience that much more difficult. The book is geared more to a younger audience, which is unsurprising given that its focus is on the lives of soldiers who are themselves teenagers. The motivation of these soldiers and the unique challenges faced by foreign citizens joining what is essentially a foreign army occupies most of the book. The motivation ranged from a teenage desire for adventure to repaying an unstated ancestral The book is geared more to a younger audience, which is unsurprising given that its focus is on the lives of soldiers who are themselves teenagers. debt. Some of the volunteers were grandchildren of Holocaust survivors and although no one in their families suggested that these teens enlist in the IDF, the teens felt compelled to do something to balance their ancestors’ helplessness in the face of the Holocaust. All four grandparents of one of the Lone Soldiers, Ariel Lindenfeld, suffered through the Holocaust. Two were in concentration camps and two spent the war in hiding. He stated, “The Holocaust is one of the biggest things for me, thinking about what would have been had the army, the state, been around then. How impossible it would have been for all that to happen. And now that we can defend ourselves, I want to be a part of doing that.” There are certain minor historical errors. For example, the author described the height of the second intifada as occurring in 2004. The height was in 2002. But for any non- Israeli teenager interested in learning what it would be like to join the IDF, the book is worthwhile. GE David Cesarani Da Capo Press, 2009. 320 pp. $26.00 ISBN: 978-0-306-81845-5 MAJOR FARRAN’S HAT: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE STRUGGLE TO ESTABLISH THE JEWISH STATE Aplaque on Ussishkin Street in Jerusalem, a short walk from where I live, marks the spot where a sixteen-year-old boy named Alexander Rubowitz was abducted by British police and murdered on May 6, 1947. He had been distributing news posters for the underground group LEHI, also known as the Stern Gang. At that time the British colonial administration was battling terrorist acts by LEHI as well as the Irgun Zvai Leumi, two dissident Jewish military groups separate from the Jewish Agency’s official Hagana army. The War Office appointed a war hero named Roy Farran to head a counterterrorist group to smash the Jewish guerilla units. He confessed to murdering the Jewish boy, but his written confession was judged inadmissible at his court-martial and he was acquitted. British historian David Cesarani, whose Becoming Eichmann won a National Jewish Book Award, recounts this scandal of coverup, conspiracy, and diplomacy in the context of the last years of the British Mandate in Palestine. Major Farran’s Hat is a history of those years that closely scrutinizes the personalities of the leadership and the decisions they made as Britain’s hold on its empire was becoming increasingly tenuous and desperate. It is also a gripping, suspenseful account of a government’s intentional perversion of justice. Treating the Rubowitz case as a microcosm of the struggle for a Jewish state sheds new light on these world-historical events as well as on the case itself. Index, notes, sources. BG START-UP NATION: THE STORY OF ISRAEL’S ECONOMIC MIRACLE Dan Senor and Saul Singer Twelve, 2009. 304 pp. $26.99 ISBN: 978-0-446-54146-6 Israel, a country the size of New Jersey and surrounded on all sides by hostile nations, has more companies listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange than the next five foreign countries combined. In this book, Dan Senor and Saul Singer, two Middle East experts, explain how Israel’s unique history and challenges have created such a favorable environment for high tech entrepreneurs. In short, the authors credit a combination www.jewishbookcouncil.org
of five characteristics: Israel’s strategic isolation, the centrality of its military, its close connections with and support from its diaspora, and its pioneering origins. With references to history and by means of personal anecdotes, Senor and Singer introduce the reader to many of the people who have helped make household names of companies such as Intel, Cisco, Google, and many others equally important but less familiar as well as to visionaries such as David Ben-Gurion and President Shimon Peres who created a nation that values and encourages innovation. A Council on Foreign Relations Book, Start-Up Nation is highly readable and opens the reader’s eyes to Israel’s uniqueness and explains how it differs from other countries also known for their high-tech industries such as China, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea. Bibliography, index, notes. PLR MODERN JEWISH THOUGHT AND EXPERIENCE A HEART AFIRE: STORIES AND TEACHING OF THE EARLY HASIDIC MASTERS Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and Netanel Miles- Yepez; Arthur Green, fwd. Jewish Publication Society, 2009. 384 pp. $45.00 ISBN: 978-0-8276-0884-9 Speaking in one voice as “I,” Reb Zalman and his student Miles-Yepez comment on different voices in Hasidism, from the mystical rabbis who preceded the Ba’al Shem Tov, Yisra’el ben Eliezer, founder of Hasidism, to the teachers and disseminators of the 18th and 19th centuries who followed him. The authors seek to reconnect readers with the contemplative practice of Hasidic tradition. They offer new interpretations of the teachings of Rashi, Yitzhak Luria, the Ba’al Shem Tov, Mikeleh of Zlotchov, Pinchas of Koretz, Ya’akov Yosef of Polonoyye, the Maggid of Mezritch, Rabbi Reb Melekh, and the writings about them. Schachter-Shalomi and Miles-Yepez question the zeal of disciples whom they feel lost touch with spirituality by repeating words without understanding or by manipulating stories so that text prevented words of prayer from fill- www.jewishbookcouncil.org Modern Jewish Thought and Experience ing with light and rising up to heaven. In this mission to keep open the divine connection between God and people and to widen the circle of men and women Hasidism might inspire, the authors also discuss Adel Ashkenazi, the Ba’al Shem’s daughter, as a healer and herbalist, and forge connections to Buddhism and Sufism. Fluid and passionate, A Heart Afire draws on the authors’ personal knowledge and the sources themselves to promote spiritual reflection and to provide new relevance for readers both inside and outside of Hasidic practice. Appendix, bibliography, glossary, notes. SE THE SEDER NIGHT: AN EXALTED EVENING: THE PASSOVER HAGGADAH WITH A COMMENTARY BASED ON THE TEACHINGS OF RABBI JOSEPH B. SOLOVEITCHIK Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik; Rabbi Menachem Genack, ed. KTAV, 2009. 203 pp. $25.00 ISBN: 978-1-60280-118-9 The Bible tells us to recount the story of the Exodus annually. The Rabbis have taught that he who expands upon the story of the Exodus is most praiseworthy. This explains why there are more commentaries on the text of the Passover Haggadah than on any other Jewish text. Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, possibly the greatest rabbinic sage and thinker of the 20th century, did not write such a commentary. However, throughout his half century of teaching Talmud, writing essays and novellae, delivering lectures, and speaking at various forums in English and in Yiddish, he elaborated on many themes related to the Exodus, to Passover, to the Haggadah, and to cognate subjects. Rabbi Menachem Genack, a devoted and talented disciple, has gathered and arranged ...this commentary is thematic and examines topics a bit more in depth. many of Rabbi Soloveitchik’s teachings from disparate sources into a commentary on the Haggadah. Unlike some commentaries which offer pithy observations or brief comments on the text, this commentary is thematic and examines topics a bit more in depth. Rabbi Soloveichik (“The Rav”) felt strongly that the recitation of the Haggadah should be an exercise in Torah study and his comments are informed by that philosophy. Simple acts such as eating the various seder foodstuffs are analyzed and elevated through the prism of Tamudic and rabbinic debate regarding the nature of the mitzvah, its sources, and its status. In one essay, the Rav analyzes the obligation of women to drink the four cups since they are normally exempt from time bound commandments, and elsewhere he comments on the custom to recite “Next year in Jerusalem” at the conclusion of the seder and the connection this has to a similar custom at the end of the Yom Kippur service. For those not privileged to have studied with the Rav, or not able to delve into his philosophical and rabbinic writings, this anthology of comments on the Haggadah is a wonderful introduction to the teachings of Rabbi Soloveitchik. WG Ira Bedzow Urim Publications, 2009. 192 pp. $19.95 ISBN: 978-965-524-029-0 REVIEWS HALAKHIC MAN, AUTHENTIC JEW: MODERN EXPRES- SIONS OF ORTHODOX THOUGHT FROM RABBI JOSEPH B. SOLOVEITCHIK AND RABBI ELIEZER BERKOVITS It is a daunting task to summarize the teachings of these two 20th century Jewish thinkers in a slim volume. Still more challenging is selecting which pieces of their massive output to present. Even more quixotic is the attempt to challenge some of their positions. Most of the scholarship produced about Rabbi Soloveitchik has been to elucidate his teachings and make them understandable to a wider audience. Rabbi Berkovits’ writings have not yet found many interpreters. The author understands the technical, philosophical language of these two writers but may be out of his depth when he tries to differ with them. Presenting sophisticated ideas by avatars of modern Orthodoxy is an important exercise. One must ask, however, to whom is this book directed? If it is meant to be read by scholars it falls short of the mark. If it is meant for laymen, then the pres- Spring 5770/2010 Jewish Book World 57
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Spring 5770/2010 Vol. 28, Number 1
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Now available from the Jewish Book
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Page 9 and 10: ANTHOLOGIES AND COLLECTIONS Winner:
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Page 27 and 28: A Conversation with David Sax By La
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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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