Federation Star - January 2017

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12B Federation Star January 2017 Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly Review by Sue Bookbinder, Jewish Book Festival committee member This book is based on three reallife characters whose lives fasciers of the only all-female work camp look at some of the doctors and prisonnated Martha Hall Kelly. From in Germany, one that was performing her extensive research she produced an horrific operations on its prisoners. amazing historical novel. Caroline Ferriday, a woman from a The author provides insights into very wealthy family in New York City, a horrible time through the eyes of works at the French consulate. Dedicated to helping charitable causes, she these women, their families and their loved ones. She describes the events, sends food and clothing to orphanages countries and people with clarity and overseas. When Caroline hears about the finesse. Though we are shaken by the horrors of Ravensbruck, she becomes horrors she describes, we are so caught driven. This caring, intelligent and ethical woman, caught up in her charitable up with the characters themselves that we can’t look away and we can’t stop passions, has missed having love in her reading more. life. She falls for a handsome, though The WWII story provides an intimate married, French actor who’s performing Thursday, March 2, 1:00 - 3:30 pm at Beth Tikvah Mrs. Houdini by Victoria Kelly Review by Lee Henson, Jewish Book Festival committee member Harry Houdini is a man whose a person well worth getting to know a name stayed at the forefront of bit better. She is portrayed as a strong his field – magic and illusions – willed, independent person, and the since his heyday in the early 1900s. Yet times as turbulent as one imagines the not too much is known about his wife “Twenties” might have been. Victoria and partner in his act, Bess. builds a portrait while she writes about Victoria Kelly takes this historical what might have been, and twists it. She figure and builds a novel around her that takes us beyond the moment in 1943 entertains in a multitude of ways. She when the real wife of this famous illusionist declared that he had been unable has written a love story that resonates with many who have found equal partners in their spouses; a historical novel; and gives us a glimpse of hope. to communicate from beyond the grave and a bit of science fiction for spice. The This 320-page book reads very Bess Houdini as written by Victoria is quickly. I found myself spending more Thursday, March 2, 1:00 - 3:30 pm at Beth Tikvah Modern Girls by Jennifer Brown Review by Linda Smith, Jewish Book Festival committee member On the lower east side of New wishes for her to go to college. Dottie York City, the changing times is a dutiful daughter and sister to the of the 1930s are the backdrop family she loves dearly. She loves new for the relationship between a Jewish fashions, her time with her girlfriends, mother and her daughter. Yiddish and and having a steady boyfriend. It is assumed that this “beau” will be her future English are spoken by both generations while they individually struggle to husband when he has achieved financial honor the sanctity of the family. security. Dottie Krasinsky is a “modern girl” Her mother Rose, a Jewish immigrant from Russia with a devoted who aspires to better herself in her job. She has been made head bookkeeper husband, is the mother of five children. at her company although her mother One, a twin, succumbed to polio. The Thursday, March 2, 1:00 - 3:30 pm at Beth Tikvah in NYC, and their love affair is beautiful and touching. Caroline somehow manages to do it all. Her and impact on the “rabbits” (the name given the Ravensbruck women who are victims of horrific surgeries) turns out to be enormous. Kasia is a teenager living in Poland who, along with her best friend and wished-for boyfriend, joins the underground resistance. Kasia is bold and feisty – the one to watch. Their decision leads Kasia to be imprisoned at Ravensbruck, where she becomes one of the “experiments.” While undergoing horrific pain and the fear of death, Martha Hall Kelly is a native New Englander now living in Atlanta, where she is writing her next book. Lilac Girls is her first novel, a book she wrote for five years, having researched the story for over ten years. She is excited beyond belief to finally share it with the world. Appearing with Martha Hall Kelly will be Victoria Kelly, author of Mrs. Houdini, and Jennifer Brown, author of Modern Girls. time reading than I’d planned in my eagerness to follow Bess in her journey of discovery. I liked the glimpses into the Houdini’s life, so different from that of the twenty-first century. Victoria explains in her author’s note that she had done extensive research, including interviews with her own father for depictions of Atlantic City. In her search for insight into Bess, Victoria purchased a battered secondhand copy of Harold Kellock’s biography, Houdini: His Life Story (first published in 1928) “for ten dollars, only to find, opening the book Victoria Kelly is a graduate of Harvard University, Trinity College in Dublin, and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She is the author of the poetry collection When the Men Go Off to War, the first original poetry publication in the history of the Naval Institute Press. Appearing with Victoria Kelly will be Martha Hall Kelly, author of Lilac Girls, and Jennifer Brown, author of Modern Girls. family members are concerned about the movements in Europe, especially since Rose’s brother is unable to find a way to emigrate to the United States during Hitler’s rise to power. As a young woman, Rose was active in the Socialist movement. During a demonstration, she was run down by a Russian policeman on a horse, leaving her with a permanent limp. Her family sent her to the United States to keep her safe. On New York’s lower east side, all Jennifer Brown has published fiction and creative nonfiction in Fiction Southeast, The Best Women’s Travel Writing, The Southeast Review and Bellevue Literary Review, among others. Her essay “The Codeine of Jordan” was selected as a notable essay in The Best American Travel Writing in 2012. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Washington. Appearing with Jennifer Brown will be Martha Hall Kelly, author of Lilac Girls, and Victoria Kelly, author of Mrs. Houdini. JEWISH BOOK FESTIVAL Kasia still remains focused on finding out what has happened to her two best friends. The third protagonist is Herta Oberheuser, a German dermatologist who desperately wants to be a surgeon. She answers an ad to work with the German government and ends up working in the Camp performing experiments on the prisoners. The fact that the author does not present this character as the “devil incarnate” is admirable. While a reader might not end up liking her, it is instructive to understand Herta’s motivations and perverse sense of right. Though bringing these three protagonists together might seem farfetched, the author ingeniously intertwines them. That the characters and events are based on fact makes it easier to accept the improbable. All the characters, both major and not so major, are wonderfully presented so that you feel like you’ve met them face to face. Kelly’s skill at following these characters from New York City to Poland to Germany and to France provides an accurate reflection of the times and places. This is a must read for all who appreciate well-written and illuminating historical fiction. I am looking forward to Martha Hall Kelly’s next book! days later, Bess Houdini’s signature inside the cover.” Maybe this book was meant to be! Material previously published by Victoria Kelly is primarily poetry. She received her M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, a B.A. summa cum laude from Harvard University, and an M. Phil. in creative writing from Trinity College Dublin, where she was a U.S. Mitchell Scholar. Her poetry has appeared in anthologies and several respected reviews. Her gift in writing poetry has given her a fluid style that makes her novel captivating reading. There seems to me to be another link between this book and her poetry, a similar theme. Her anthology When the Men Go Off to War tells of desire, love and loss as the wife of a soldier. This story resonates with that same feeling – the determination of a wife to not be separated from her husband even by the most solid of all separations. I am eager to have the chance to hear her speak about her writing, her research, and her desire to meet Bess Houdini within the pages of this book. J R Jo her friends are pressuring her to become s active again in supporting the Jewish i cause in the U.S. In Modern Girls, mother and daugh-ter both discover that they are pregnant. I Dottie submits to a boy who arouses her l sexuality. Her mother discovers that shes is not past the time for getting preg-nant at age 42. Dottie shares her newsw with Rose, while Rose withholds herp news from her daughter. Herein lie the challenges of individually held beliefsl between two generations, mother and daughter, in 1935. The result is a thought-provoking story of a mother and a daughter and the sacrifices they make for one another. The story has an unpredictable ending which mirrors the unpredictability of life. This book gets under your skin and keeps you wanting to follow the characters’ lives. You may find yourself missing them. For readers with immigrant grandparents, it is a nostalgic journey as you recall the details of their past experiences. This is a heartwarming tale of the resilience of the human spirit.
JEWISH BOOK FESTIVAL January 2017 Federation Star 13B FLORIDA JEWISH HISTORY MONTH FRIENDS OF THE COLLIER COUNTY LIBRARY AND JEWISH COMMUNITY RELATIONS COUNCIL OF THE JEWISH FEDERATION OF COLLIER COUNTY PRESENT THE ANNUAL NAPLES KLEZMER REVIVAL BAND CONCERT WITH FEATURED CLARINETIST: MICHAEL WINOGRAD Michael is an outstanding young musician. He is in great demand, performing all over the world. He is one third of the transatlantic klezmer/cabaret collective Yiddish Art Trio, clarinetist of Tarras Band, a classic 1950’s Jewish American tribute group, and the cofounder and director of the ground breaking, borderless world fusion band Sandaraa. Michael also collaborates with Cantor Yaakov ‘Yanky’ Lemmer and Klezmatics trumpeter Frank London in Ahava Raba, a group that explores the spiritual sides of Ashkanazy Jewish Music. He has played alongside Itzhak Perlman, The Klezmer Conservatory Band, Socalled, Budowitz, Alicia Svigals and more. RSVP required ~ starting December 14: South Regional Library - 239.252.7542 Die Laughing: Killer Jokes for Newly Old Folks, by William Novak Review by Lee Henson, Jewish Book Festival committee member Answer these questions: Were I found myself poking my husband and you born around 1948 or earlier? Do you have any children? to him from a page or two. We ended saying “listen to this one!” and reading Are you finding yourself forgetting up smiling as we ended our day. Rather things? Do your aches and pains have than reviewing all of the potentially aches and pains? Well, William Novak unpleasant possibilities of the future, knows just the cure: laughter! we found humor where before we saw Recently, after a day filled with doom and gloom. Medicare-required physicals, blood William Novak is an established tests and results, I went to bed with William Novak’s new book, Die Laughing. written memoirs with Lee Iacocca, ghostwriter of autobiographies, having Tip Jewish Lunacy by Eric Golub Review by Lenore Greenstein, Jewish Book Festival committee member Jewish Lunacy is a humorous, his grandfather was an Orthodox rabbi, sometimes whimsical, periodically but he interjects that before grandpa serious, and often unorthodox view became a man of the cloth, he was a of Jewish life. The author has written rum runner, so prohibitions weren’t several books about ideologies, including one called Ideological Lunacy. particular rabbi and rebbetzin was fun, too strict. Being the grandson of this Golub is a politically conservative and probably started young Eric on a columnist, blogger and comedian. While comedic path. I did not agree with many of his political As for his origins, Golub says, “I leanings and found some incorrect assumptions about liberal Judaism, he still Brooklyn, New York, is the Holy Land.” was born in the Holy Land. That’s right, has many valid points that will resonate On this point I totally agree, since I also with all Jews, including those who don’t grew up close to Coney Island, just a practice any rituals at all. few miles from his birthplace, and felt Golub describes the trials and tribulations of growing up in a home where holiest of that Brooklyn was the world if not the places. O’Neill, Nancy Reagan and Tim Russert. He is also the co-editor of The Big Book of Jewish Humor. He has taken his skills and used them to collect stories that make us laugh at trips to the doctor’s office, changes in our bodies, most of which are not positive, and realizing that we are now that person who other people point to when they say, “Look at that old guy!” William Novak is an experienced Monday, March 13, 1:00 - 3:30 pm at Unitarian Universalist Cong. William Novak is best known to Jewish audiences as the coeditor of The Big Book of Jewish Humor, a beloved collection of jokes, cartoons and stories that is still in print 35 years after its 1981 release. Novak is also a successful ghostwriter who has served as the co-author of the best-selling memoirs of Lee Iacocca, Tip O’Neill, Nancy Reagan, Oliver North, Magic Johnson, Tim Russert and Natan Sharansky. Appearing with William Novak will be Eric Golub, author of Jewish Lunacy. This program is being generously sponsored by Naples Jewish Congregation. Eric says that from the beginning, his confusion with Judaism was matched only by Judaism’s confusion with him. “Since Judaism doesn’t excommunicate people,” he’s still a tribesman. “Judaism is like the Mafia. Unless one has pure bloodlines, getting into the family is difficult. Those born into the family have a lifetime connection. Even those who convert away from Judaism never truly leave.” Such quotes strike a familiar chord in this age of intermarriage and assimilation. The book’s short chapters reflect many experiences in Golub’s life. Lunacies as a youth, during college years, Monday, March 13, 1:00 - 3:30 pm at Unitarian Universalist Cong. Eric Golub is a national author, speaker and comedian who has spoken in all 50 states. He speaks about politics, religion and everything else that should not be discussed. He is a former stockbrokerage and oil professional living in Los Angeles. He is single, to the chagrin of his loving parents, and proud of his Jewish heritage. Appearing with Eric Golub will be William Novak, author of Die Laughing. This program is being generously sponsored by Naples Jewish Congregation. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 18 at 6:30pm COLLIER COUNTY SOUTH REGIONAL LIBRARY 8065 Lely Cultural Parkway writer who seems to enjoy making sense of things that are not really that funny as one is experiencing them. He can expand an idea into little vignettes that make one smile or chuckle out loud. This collection of stories and jokes emphasizes the universality in what often seem to be very individual experiences. Nothing is sacred. William touches on all the subjects that we encounter in this stage of our lives, from our recognition that the changes we have encountered are just the beginning to the reality of the end! I encourage all of you who, like me, answered “yes” to all of the questions with which I began this review, to consider joining me to listen to William Novak speak. If his talk is as funny as his stories, it will be an entertaining event. I look forward to sending his book to friends “back North” who will not be lucky enough to be with us at this Collier County Jewish Book Festival event, to ensure that they get a laugh at our predicament – being “newly old folks.” with his parents, in sexual encounters, and even while dancing, reflect Golub’s struggles growing up. They are amusing, and while some are funnier than others, Golub’s views on pacifism and the (tongue in cheek) “Zionist Crusader Lunacy” are questionable. Despite his political leanings, and his advice that more Jews should become stockbrokers rather than teachers and social workers, I found myself enjoying many of his observations on contemporary Jewish life. One of my favorite passages exemplifies his wit as well as his concern for the future of Jewish life on the planet. “There are approximately 12 Jews in America. Three live in New York and three more are in Los Angeles. Texas and Florida have two apiece. One of them ended up in North Dakota while the other is roaming around somewhere.” Golub’s point is well taken. The number often given is that we are only 1/500 of the world’s population. With intermarriage and assimilation on the rise, we are in trouble. Jewish Lunacy points out problems that we will face in the next 5,000 years, but like the proverbial spoonful of sugar, they go down with a smile.
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