Book Description
ETERNAL TREBLINKA: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust, by Charles Patterson, Ph.D., describes disturbing parallels between how the Nazis treated their victims and how modern society treats animals. The title is taken from the Yiddish writer and Nobel Laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer, himself a vegetarian: "In relation to them, all people are Nazis; for the animals it is an eternal Treblinka."
The first part of the book describes the emergence of humans as the master species and their domination of the rest of the inhabitants of the earth. The second part examines the industrialization of slaughter (of both animals and humans) that took place in modern times, while the last part of the book profiles Jewish and German animal advocates on both sides of the Holocaust.
The Foreword is by Lucy Kaplan, a former attorney for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), who is the daughter of Holocaust survivors.
Customer Reviews:
Compelling read, although I find comparison to the holocaust trivializes it.......2007-09-01
author of Cooking Jewish: 532 Great Recipes from the Rabinowitz Family
from the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles
April 5, 2002
In the forward to "Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust," animal rights activist and daughter of Holocaust survivors, Lucy Rosen Kaplan, states: "I came to understand that the oppression of nonhumans on this Earth eclipses even the ordeal survived by my parents."
Whether the comparison between the extermination of the Jews and our daily slaughter of millions of "food" animals evokes agreement or outrage, you will want to read this meticulously researched and compelling treatment of a painful and controversial subject. Charles Patterson, author of "Anti-Semitism: The Road to the Holocaust and Beyond," elaborates in "Eternal Treblinka" how American slaughterhouses became a model for the gas chambers of Nazi Germany and submits that the killing of animals for food, sport and research is no less an atrocity, a view that is sure to offend some.
The book takes its title from the Isaac Bashevis Singer story, "The Letter Writer," in which a Holocaust survivor speaks a poignant eulogy for a mouse he had befriended. "In relation to them, all people are Nazis; for the animals it is an eternal Treblinka."
At its best, the book painstakingly reveals how the mindset that some humans are animals justified slavery, the subjugation of women, the annihilation of the Native American population, the eugenics movement and finally the Holocaust itself.
By "domesticating" animals and assuming "dominion" over them, Patterson says, we desensitized ourselves to their suffering because they are "just animals." It was then an easy progression to regard some human beings as more valuable than others. "Thus, with animals already defined as `lower life' fated for exploitation and slaughter, the designation of `lesser' humans as animals paved the way for their subjugation and destruction."
The book is filled with sordid revelations about well-known icons. L. Frank Baum, who delighted the world with "The Wizard of Oz," was a staunch advocate for the extermination of Native Americans, as was William Dean Howells and Harvard professor Oliver Wendell Holmes (father of the Supreme Court justice).
Henry Ford was a virulent anti-Semite whose "The International Jew" sold 500,000 copies in the United States and was reprinted six times in Germany. Hitler kept a life-size portrait of Ford in his office, praised him in "Mein Kampf" and was quoted in the Detroit News as saying: "I regard Henry Ford as my inspiration." Patterson points out that Ford modeled his assembly line after the American slaughterhouses, a concept not lost on his admirer, Hitler.
In a chapter chillingly titled "Improving the Herd, From Animal Breeding to Genocide," Patterson traces the American eugenics movement, which applied the principles of animal husbandry -- "breeding the most desirable, and castrating and killing the rest" -- to the sterilization of criminals, the "feeble" and mentally ill, a handy paradigm for the "racial cleansing" of the emerging Third Reich. "The progression from sterilization to extermination has been a logical one for the Nazis."
Patterson notes that long before Hitler came to power, Jews had been vilified as animals. "Calling people animals is always an ominous sign because it sets them up for humiliation, exploitation and murder." Like animals, Jews were "herded" into crowded cattle cars, transported long distances without food or water, tattooed and "selected" for extermination and led through tubes to the "killing floor."
If Jews are rats, one need feel no guilt in degrading and exterminating them. If Jews are pigs, then the crematoria were mere "processing plants." Patterson quotes the artist Judy Chicago, who wonders "about the ethical distinction between processing pigs and doing the same thing to people defined as pigs."
Many would argue that to compare Nazi genocide to the slaughterhouse is to trivialize the Holocaust. I, for one, was appalled. To buttress his case, Patterson provides numerous "testimonials" from Holocaust survivors and their families as well as from Germans who became animal activists because of their experience, not in spite of it. While the stories are compelling, here Patterson is preaching to the choir.
The events of Sept. 11 and the continuing suicide bombings in Israel demonstrate that there are individuals today who do not value the sanctity of even their own lives, much less that of other humans. Patterson may experience difficulty, therefore, in convincing a nation of mindless hamburger eaters, now focused on survival, to turn its energies to the plight of the cow.
And yet, perhaps an extreme view must be taken to get attention.
In the book, animal activist Christa Blanke, a former Lutheran pastor, notes that "130 years ago, the church remained silent about the slave trade because they were only black people. Fifty years ago, the church remained silent because they were only Jews. Today, the church remains silent because they are only animals."
Essential reading for anyone interested in living an ethical life........2007-08-17
The author was brave enough to write this book. We ought to be brave enough to read it! I am a yoga teacher with a vast collection of books on health, yoga, spirituality and the humane treatment of animals. The practice of yoga is rooted in the principle of "ahimsa," nonviolence and reverence for all life. For yoga practitioners, for anyone seriously interested in living an ethical life, "Eternal Treblinka" is essential reading. Even if you have already read other classics in the field like "Slaughterhouse" by Gail Eisnitz and "Dominion" by Matthew Scully and the great works by Peter Singer and others, this book will illuminate and expand your consciousness.
--Suza Francina, vegan yoga teacher, author, "The New Yoga for People Over 50," "The New Yoga for Healthy Aging" and other books, former mayor, Ojai, California.
I wanted to take this book apart from the very beginning..........2006-08-17
A vegan roomie lent me this book, and I was reluctant to read it, but decided I would, just so that I could have the pleasure of finding the fallacies in it and have something to argue with her about.
Contrary to what another reviewer has written, this book does not EQUATE the suffering of animals with the Holocaust. It COMPARES them. Man is not a mere animal, and there is no "equality" there to speak of, and anyone who insists there is, or that there SHOULD be is just not someone that you can respect for their intelligence or ability to differentiate. But then the whole concept OF "equality" has been so hacked to death by politicization and greedy agendas over the years, it really is devoid of any meaning now.
What make this book amazing are the historical and anthropological aspects of the arguments it makes. The proposition that man has learned the qualities that are necessary to brutalize man using the necessary subjugation of animals as a model, over time, and as man transitioned from hunter-gatherer to agrarian societies is one that must not be dismissed, and should be taught to children. It had never occurred to me, and a big light went on when I realized the implications of this, from a sociological and psychological perspective.
I was VERY skeptical, but this IS a rational and compelling book, it makes sense, it isn't a whacky leftist tree-hugging PC work at all. If that's all people get out of it, well, that betrays their own childish and narrow polarizations. This book is so much more. It gives key insights into what we are as human beings, and what it is that we are actually DOING to ourselves. Really, it shows you how things are hooked together in the human psyche, what we have been, where we've gone, and where it is we may end-up.
It's disturbing too. Very. But not gratuitously so in any way. The author is morally and rationally compelled to inform and educate, and he does this with surprising clarity and tact, never coming off as preachy or judgmental, just very passionate and urgent and calm. I found myself respecting his more radical choices and frankly, forever changed. It changed me. To the core.
Give it a try, it's extremely interesting and informative at the least; at the most it is a call to change and question and transcend the past into a better, more HUMANE future.
Sickening Death Factories.......2006-06-14
There are no more excuses; there is no more room for rationalization if we are to claim "honesty" and "compassion" for our species. The factory farming and slaughter of animals for "food" and other human purposes is a sickness of the soul and it is time to change in favor of logic and compassion. This brilliant book exposes the hypocrisies of being a meat-eater in this day and age and challenges us to admit the truth and to change for the better. If we don't open our minds and our hearts to the truth and instead get angry at the messenger, we only validate the worst fears for our species.
Please read this riveting book and pass it on!.......2006-02-07
"Eternal Treblinka" is a very sobering read. It should be required reading in all high schools and available in all libraries. Charles Patterson's excellent book offers a riveting comparison between our historical and continuing insensitive treatment of animals and the horrific treatment of Jews in the Holocaust.
Part I succinctly lays out important historical information about the influence that the domestication of animals has had on our society and the subsequent devastating impact which that has had, and continues to have, on all concerned: the animals themselves, the humans who feed upon the animals and, last but certainly not least, the entire planet itself.
Part II points out the frightening parallels in the practices and rationalizations utilized in the daily slaughtering of millions of animals in the United States and the slaughtering of millions of Jews and other innocents at the hands of the Germans in the Holocaust. I lack the words to describe the effectiveness of that comparison.
Part III then introduces us to people both Jewish and German whose experiences relating to the Holocaust led them to become advocates on behalf of the animals with the goal of bringing a cessation of animal exploitation in all its many forms. This leaves the reader with a glimmer of hope. But time is running out rapidly and unless our continuing support of this culture of violence against helpless, sentient animals ceases, we as a society, and, indeed, the planet itself are on a crash course with irreversible disaster.
Please read this book and then pass it on. The urgency of its message cannot be over-stressed.
Customer Reviews:
A surprise after reading Michael Brown's other books.......2006-10-31
I think I always had a soft place in my heart for the Jewish people long before I became a Christian. After accepting the Lord as my Savior, that softness flamed into love for these children of Jacob/Israel because out of their ancestral line came Jesus and because they preserved the very word of God. Parts of Brown's book, I found very troubling. Mans' inhumanity to man is gut-wrenching; we are capable of horrific things. What was not brought out in the book is an explanation - not an excuse - why people did what they did. Anti-semitism and any other anti-something - even anti-Christianity - must be taught to tender ears and moldable hearts - the uninformed, ignorant and child-like (no matter what age)- by the biased, hate-filled and spiritually blind. In our falleness, hatred is a language we seem to grasp well while love seems mostly limited to a few of our own if they meet our expectations and standards. I agree with Mr. Brown that the church 'visible' needs much to seek forgiveness from the Jewish people but what puzzles me is "Jewish people by their own teaching say only the victim can accept forgiveness". How then does this forgiveness happen ? And so, in joy, I turn to the gospel of Christ as the only viable peace offering not by broken man but by a loving God. The gospel is the only channel by which God touches our hard hearts and breaks down the wall between gentile and Jew and makes one new man. Only through God's power can one sincerely seek for forgiveness and can forgiveness be accepted in humbleness. This is the church 'invisible' and it is alive and growing. In areas of the world where authentic Christianity is lacking, anti-semitism thrives. My greatest prayer for the Jewish people is that they may see Jesus as their Messiah and that gentile and Jew can worship together in Spirit and truth. To God be the Glory for His Son: the Prophet Moses spoke of, the King promised David, and our High Priest, in the order of Melchizedek, who intercedes for us unlike any other.
Heartrending history, and a warning.......2005-07-31
Published in 1992, this book has proved prophetic in giving early warning of the tide of Anti-Semitism currently spreading around the globe. Some passages are too painful to read; I had to avert my eyes in places, but the author explains the situation with great insight and clarity.
The first chapter, Final Solution, provides holocaust experiences from the memoirs of survivors. I suggest sensitive readers handle this section with care. The author then explains how this horror was rooted in nearly 2000 years of dehumanisation of the Jewish people by Christians. Throughout history, the weapons used have been forced conversion, expulsion and finally, attempted annihilation.
There are sickening quotes from Church fathers like St John Chrysostom, Bernard of Clairvaux and Peter the Venerable. Martin Luther's demented words from 1543 reveal the mind of a raving lunatic, whilst last century, the Lutheran theologian Gerhard Kittel made very disturbing statements.
In the chapter A Blessed And Beautiful Stream, the author discusses Christians who loved the Jewish people. Foremost amongst them were Puritans like John Owen (1616 - 1683), Robert Leighton and Samuel Rutherford whose inspiring and moving words include a vision of Israel's restoration. There were also Scottish Presbyterians like Robert Murray M'Cheyne and others from different traditions.
The next two chapters include discussions of the works of various Rabbis and thoughts from the Talmud, as well as a look at the Hebrew names of the early disciples and the significance of the Biblical feasts, days filled with prophetic meaning and spiritual truth.
The narrative moves on to media bias and bigotry towards Israel, with glaring examples of anti-Israel reporting. Brown points out the frightening ideology that unites white supremacists, Leftists, Neo-Nazis, Islamists and certain conservatives. He quotes the words of David Duke, Louis Farrakhan, Abdul Aziz (the founder of Saudi Arabia), the then-mufti of Jerusalem Haj Al-Amin Al-Husseini, and some modern "Christian" preachers in the USA.
The next chapter looks at ancient and modern lies and legends like the Blood Libel and the tale of the Wandering Jew. The sad fact is that if ridiculous, impossible and venomous lies are repeated long enough and loud enough, some people will believe them. Conspiracy theories abound today more than ever. This chapter also deals with holocaust denial and false history, for example the myth that the Khazar nation of around the 8th century gave rise to the European Jews, and that the Jewish people of today are supposedly not "true Jews."
The strategies of assimilation, extermination and the current one of disinformation are explored. The author addresses the problem of Palestinian and Jewish refugees since 1948. Israel has absorbed approximately 700 000 refugees but the Arab nations simply do not want to absorb or assimilate Palestinian Arabs.
Brown points out that the Inquisition is not over yet and quotes Scripture to prove that Jesus fulfilled the law but did not abolish it. The earliest Christians were all Hebrews. There are extensive quotes from the writings of Paul, who explained very clearly the two branches of God's people: the natural son Israel and the spiritual son, (true) Christians.
The following chapter provides further examples of the callousness of "Christians" when their Jewish neighbours were targeted. The crusades, which started out as an attempt to liberate the Holy Land, soon turned into another excuse to torture, murder and oppress the Jewish people. There is a quote by Eliezer Berkovitz on the moral bankruptcy of Christianity that should give any true Christian food for thought. Brown also gives a short quote from Simon Wiesenthal's chronicle of Jewish martyrdom for every day of the year.
The chapter So Near And Yet So Far includes the beautiful prayer Adon Olam by the poet Solomon Ibn Gabirol. So now Israel is surrounded by hostile neighbours and besieged by negative world opinion. What must we do, those of us who love Israel? The question is further explored in the final chapter.
Chapters 12 and 13 provide proof of God's repeated expressions of immutable love for Israel, and the unambiguous promise that they will never cease to exist as a distinctive people. In the book of Romans, Paul explained in detail the positions and respective roles of the Jewish nation and Gentile Christians. From this, it becomes clear what a dangerous lie and destructive ideology Replacement Theology is.
In a sense, the church tried to steal or usurp God's promises to the Jews. We are also assured that God will not forget physical Israel or true Christians. The physical restoration of Israel had to come first, and a spiritual restoration will follow. How can anyone deny that the birth of Israel in 1948 was the greatest miracle of modern times?
Chapter 15, A Diabolical Plan, investigates the various explanations offered down the ages for the phenomenon of Anti-Semitism. Brown shows up the holes in many of these arguments and comes to the conclusion that this hatred is too cruel, intense and universal to be man-made. He argues convincingly that it is rooted in the supernatural. The final chapter calls for repentance by true Christians of the sins of our "Christian" forefathers and encourages the reader to pray for Israel and the Jewish people.
There are more than 40 pages of extensive notes plus a bibliographical supplement of about 12 pages, both sections arranged by chapter. These are very valuable for further reading and study on various subjects covered in the main text. Both Bible-believing Christians and secularists that respect our Judeo-Christian heritage ought to read Our Hands Are Stained With Blood.
There are many books I wish to recommend for further or more current information on a variety of issues dealt with in this eye-opening book. On the political side: The New Anti-Semitism by Phyllis Chesler, Eurabia by Bat Ye'or, Myths and Facts by Mitchell G. Bard, Unholy Alliance by David Horowitz; and on the spiritual side: Yeshua by Ron Moseley, Understanding The Difficult Words Of Jesus by David Bivin, and The Mountains Of Israel by Norma Archbold Parrish.
Not what I was looking for.......2003-05-05
I read this book wanting to comprehend how anti-Semitism first originated, flourished, and then culminated in the Holocaust with Christianity as part and parcel of the whole process. Instead, I got countless examples of this ancient hatred and how it manifested itself in the past and present time. I guess this approach was fine for someone who needed to be convinced of the existence of anti-Semitism. But, this approach didn't really help me to better understand the cause and reason behind the subject matter.
The tragic story of the Church and the Jewish people........2002-12-05
This excellent book, which desperately needed to be written, is devoted primarily to the tragic relationship between the Christian Church and the Jewish people.
The writer strives to impart to Christians the recognition of their legacy & heritage from the Jews that indeed existed in the early days of the Church whose members were nearly all Jews themselves.
The author also studies the 'Israel bashing' in today's press/media together with the anti-Israel bias of the UN in relation to the Middle East situation. This plus the 'Christian' persecution of the Jews through the ages and even anti-Semtism preached through some channels of the 'Church' today.
Included foremost is the flawed doctrine taught in some areas of 'replacement theology', which teaches that the 'Church' has 'replaced' Israel in all of God's promises. Despite these Divine promises being made directly to and in relation to the people and nation of Israel, and where those promises were unequivocally & unconditionally everlasting !
Further to this the author actually examines & emphasises many of these Divine promises to Israel & the Jewish people in Scripture, past, present and future (Old & New Testaments).
This superb book stresses in no uncertain terms that Christians need to understand the pain and suffering that countless 'pseudo-Christians' have brought upon the Jewish people over the years and the increasing necessity now for a healing and reconciliation of some magnitude.
The writer illustrates that without an understanding of Scripture, many readers will fail to understand or in any way comprehend, the hatred and vilification towards the Jews throughout history & even the present day. The author reveals the force/person behind the massacres, the holocausts, the attempted genocide of the Jews and the attempts to destroy the State of Israel.
That force being the Devil/Satan, whose passionate hatred and despising of the Jews is a reflection of his hatred of God outlined in the Bible. The same God of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob and their descendants, the Jewish people. The people through whom God has chosen to reveal his plan of Salvation, His prophetic plan to return the Jewish people to their Land in the latter days and His prophetic plans for the nation surrounding where the Messiah will return.
By destroying the Jewish people & their state, it is highly likely that Satan will be trying to fulfill his own probable intent of destroying God's prophetic plans in relation to His People and Land, of proving God's promises to be false and subsequently to have thwarted God's plans. Plans revealed that have promised that the Jewish people and Israel will never cease to exist and that God's promises will indeed be fulfilled.
To those dubious amongst you I can only recommend that you get a copy of this book, read it for yourself and actually put everything to an intense personal scrutiny...irrespective of which faith, if any that you profess. This is a message and a book that should not, indeed cannot, be ignored.
Excellent Book.......2002-05-17
Worth every penny and more, this book tells it like it was and is. Covers from the first Christian persecution of the Jews to the Holocaust through today. No-one could ever be the same towards the Jewish people after reading this book!
Highly Recommend!
Book Description
In this remarkable, never-before-told account of the Ovitz family, seven of whose ten members were dwarves, readers bear witness to the terrible irony of the Ovitz's fate: being burdened with dwarfism helped them to endure the Holocaust. Through research and interviews with the youngest Ovitz daughter, Perla, the troupe's last surviving member, and other relatives, the authors weave the tale of a beloved and successful family of performers who were famous entertainers in Central Europe until the Nazis deported them to Auschwitz in May 1944. Descending into the hell of the concentration camp from the transport train, the Ovitz family—known widely as the Lilliput Troupe— was separated from other Jewish victims. When Josef Mengele was notified of their arrival, they were assigned better quarters and provided more nutritious food than other inmates. Authors Koren and Negev chronicle Mengele's experiments upon this family and the creepy fondness he developed for them. Finally liberated by Russian troops, the family eventually found their way to a new home in Israel where they became wealthy and successful performers. In Our Hearts We Were Giants is a powerful testament to the human spirit, and a triumphant tale that no reader will forget. Photographs are included.
Customer Reviews:
a gem..............2007-03-02
Just when I thought I knew all the big stories from the Holocaust, I come upon this... and I had never heard of this family.
My father's family was from this same region in Romania, and I wish my granpa and grandma were alive to ask them questions...who knows? They might have even seen this family perform! Ah, the things we never asked our parents and grandparents when they were alive cause we were so busy in our young lives!
Wonderfully told story about family togetherness...Tender, raw, and real. One can even try to understand why there was a sort of "affection" between the family and their captors--as unbelievable as it seems.
Read this one.
A very interesting family.......2006-05-13
The family photo on the cover is a classic, and I first saw it as a child in a Time-Life series book. The condition has since been diagnosed as pseudoachondroplasia, a genetic disorder of the cartilage.
Even if it weren't for the religious persecution and horrendous experiments performed on them by Dr. Mengele, this would have been a fascinating story about a challenged family who rose above their obstacles, without being exploited, to lead fulfilling lives. All appeared to be emotionally well-adjusted and totally lacking in self-pity.
People who are interested in the Holocaust and/or dwarfism should read this book.
An unforgettable perspective on the nightmare of the Holocaust.......2006-02-09
Penned by a pair of Israeli journalists, In Our Hearts We Were Giants is the never-before-told true story of the Ovitz family, seven of them dwarfs, who experienced the horrors of the Holocaust - yet in an odd twist of fate, their dwarfism actually helped them to survive. Serving as popular entertainers until the Nazis deported them to Auschwitz in May 1944, the Ovitz family - widely known as the Lilliput Troupe - were separated from other Jewish victims. The notorious Dr. Josef Mengele, his diabolic "research" on twins and other genetically unique individuals already underway, took a special interest in the Ovitzes. Even as he arranged for vile experiments to be performed upon the Ovitzes, he developed a bizarre fondness for them and their will to survive. Pieced together from interviews with the last surviving Ovitz sibling and her relatives, medical documentation, archival lists, and original Auschwitz records, In Our Hearts We Were Giants is an unforgettable perspective on the nightmare of the Holocaust.
The Seven Dwarfs.......2004-09-23
The story of the Ovitz family's devotion to one other and to their religion is by turns heartwarming and heartbreaking. By now, many of us have read books, seen movies, and heard stories about extraordinary survival won through that extraordinary horror, the Holocaust. This book stands with the best of those stories because of its uniqueness -- seven of the 10 Ovitzes were dwarfs, and therefore the entire family became the special "pets" of the dreaded Dr. Mengele.
The writing is hardly slick or seamless, but it gets the job done in a more than satisfactory manner. The text seems to speak English with an accent, and while that can be a tad distracting at times, it confers that much more veracity upon the story of the Ovitzes.
The resourcefulness, dedication, and intelligence of the Ovitz dwarfs enables the reader to see them as much more than medical curiosities. Not only are they real people, they're very special people. Frankly, people of this caliber would be worth writing a book about even if they were of normal stature. Dwarfism aside, the story of the Ovitzes is that of a loving, close-knit, traditional family of a type that seems sadly alien to many of us today.
The family's Jewish faith remains strong even in the face of growing persecution. When it is decreed that Jewish performers may perform only for Jewish audiences, the Ovitzes skillfully contrive to obtain identification papers that do not identify them as Jews, yet they remain observant by conveniently falling ill on every sabbath, so they do not have to perform. Later, when they are held in the concentration camp, they manage to say prayers and fashion makeshift candles in secret observance of holidays.
The suffering the Ovitzes endured at the hands of Mengele is not related in excruciating detail, but what information we are given is excruciating enough. This book is generally more vague, more poetic about the concentration-camp atrocities than other books, but it is no less horrifying.
Horrifying, too, are some of the details of the Ovitzes' lives after the war. They remain devoted to one another, and continue to stick together, but now they are also bonded by what haunts them. Their nephew -- who was only a baby in the camp and learned to call Mengele "Daddy" so that he might be spared from torture -- recalls being awakened frequently by his aunts and uncles screaming in their sleep.
One of the most interesting aspects of this book are the conflicting accounts of the dwarfs' activities in the concentration camp. Several witnesses claim to have seen the Ovitzes performing in the camp, whereas the Ovitzes always firmly maintained that they did not perform -- and indeed, would not have done such a thing. Other witnesses claim to have seen several of the dwarves kowtowing to Mengele and to have heard them praising him to the other prisoners. The Ovitzes deny this as well.
The authors of the book do not attempt to clear up these discrepancies; they simply present both sides, and acknowledge that perhaps certain people's memories are clouded or inaccurate. I admired this tactic.
This remarkable family made their way in a world that gave them very little more than sharp minds, winning personalities, each other, and their strong faith. Though they did gain wealth and widespread renown before and after the war, during the very darkest years of their lives, the barest essentials -- wits and wit, family and faith -- turned out to be riches in themselves.
A "big" book about "small"people.......2004-08-29
This is a most unusual book. Many books have been printed about the Holocaust, dissecting it from every conceivable aspect. Here we have a fascinating account of how a family of Jewish dwarfs from Marmorash (Transylvania) in Rumania survived the Holocaust. The infamous "doctor" Mengele was interested in studying genetics , more accurately he was interested in his own version of this science.The family of Jewish dwarfs and some extended family members offered him an unusual opportunity for this study and Mengele seized this and thus allowed the Jewish dwarfs to survive Auschwitz and remain alive while he and his staff preformed their so-called research on them.In fact many of these extended family members were not really related to the dwarf family , but created a fiction in an attempt at survival.
In fact this allowed these little Jews to survive and eventually move to Israel.Not only did they survive but Mengele and his cohorts treated them fairly well in comparison to the death camp conditions prevailing in Auschwitz.
Besides being a fascinating Holocaust story, it is also a moving human interest story dealing with Jewish life in Northern Rumania and the Jewish attitude towards the preforming arts in pre War Rumania and Hungary . Given that this family was Orthodox , their role in theatre and was especially difficult for them to navigate. The book also has some interesting information about "Badchanus" an art that is only now being revived in the Chasidic community in the US, Israel and Belgium.
Of course the book offers an account of life as a dwarf and , how these people live meaningful lives on both a day to day basis and in the long run in terms of livelyhood and marriage. The authors have presented a finely crafted book , that is both a dramatic account of one family's struggle to survive in the darkest of times and the same familys joy of life in dealing with a challenged reality.
Customer Reviews:
The Israeli-Jewish complex.......2007-03-31
If you want to understand the origin of the complexity of a nation built from pain and conflicting one, based on humanisem and neglecting some - you must read this one to.
Mesmerizing.......2006-09-09
Amir Gutfreund and Jessica Cohen, his gifted translator, wove the sunshine out of the pouring rain of the Shoah. Wondrous book, bewitching sentences.
Verónica Albin
A Witness.......2006-08-01
As the last survivors of the Shoah leave us, along with their tormentors and liberators, we are losing first hand witness to the greatest evil perpetrated by humankind. Histories, works of social science, political science and psychology will continue to be published raising new theories and questions that are important but fail to communicate the depth of the experience. For this, we must turn to personal history and literature. "Our Holocaust" is story of one man's attempt to understand the inconceivable by tapping the collective memory of his family. His "family", has he calls it, was formed out of the remnants of survivors who were not related but formed a family based upon mutual close relationships and ties during the aftermath. This, the author calls the "law of compression." As the narrator grows up his childhood, curiosities mature into a quest to understand and immortalize the experience of the individual survivor and those that did not survive. The book should be approached with awe and reverence as the author masterfully unfolds the holocaust experience for the reader as his narrator discovers and ties together bits and pieces. The generations of Jews and Israelis would be profoundly affected by this collective of individual horrors and miracles. No one book can capture all that was the holocaust. This is an important and well-written work. Without spoiling the book for the reader, I believe the following excerpt captures the author's intent:
"Those sadists, I understand. It is not them that I fear. People like them are hiding everywhere around me today. I can guess who they will be and where they will come from if what-happened-there-happens-here-to. What frighten me is the ones who maintained their integrity. The people-who-did-not-hate-Jews. Those people, I cannot understand, and I have no idea where they will come from."
Such is the current position of Israel in the sea of hate we call the Mid-East.
Amazing & Terrifying.......2006-06-24
Our Holocaust is a fiction work by Amir Gutfreund that will make you stop & think about the things we take for granted today. World War II was 60 years in the past, but in many, many ways it still lives fresh in our memories today. Even those who have not lived long enough to remember these events will certainly have felt the impacts of them. Growing up as a second-generation holocaust survivor, as this book depicts, was a difficult journey with very conflicted messages. The protagonists best intentions of researching & documenting the terrors of the holocaust come back & haunt him near the end of the journey as he discovers that his wife is related to one of the figures he has researched & hated. His anger & resentment are hard to push back, but bring back echoes of an evil past which smouldered & burned into the atrocity of the holocaust. A message to all of us---hatred is not an admirable attribute, no matter cause.
A must read!.......2006-06-14
Israeli prize winner Amir Gutfreund debuts with an astonishing chronicle of two young children's abilities and inabilities to understand what happened "over there" in Our Holocaust.
The author takes the stage as a fictional character along with Effi, the only other child on Katznelson Street in Kiryat Haim. As members of the second-and-a-half generation to the Shoah (the Holocaust), they try to fit the pieces of the puzzle together--from the bits and pieces they are given--because they are not "Old Enough" to comprehend.
Amir is the more questioning of two, begging for stories and information. Fifty years may have passed but the Shoah's survivors are still haunted. As the children age and become "Old Enough" to learn the truth, Amir becomes obsessed with learning more. He interviews the family--everyone who survived is now a relative, not so much as by blood as shared experiences--and collects their stories.
One of the more unusual characters is Attorney Perl, not for what he remembers or what he experienced in the camps. He, too, keeps records. Not about the atrocities, but about what happened to those who committed them. What happened to the Nazis after liberation? Ask Attorney Perl. Behind the wall of his hardware store is a wall of little drawers. Amir at first believes they contain the store's inventory, but when he's finally "Old Enough," he learns that the drawers are crammed with index cards full of notations, sentences, releases, and deaths of Nazi party members.
Our Holocaust takes readers on two voyages. One is through the minds of the survivors and their children, and another is through the camps. It takes readers through the ghettos where the Nazis perform the "Aktions" and the "Selektions" of who stays, goes, and who dies on the spot.
Our Holocaust is not an easy read. It's frightening. It's horrific. It puts faces on the people in the documentaries that have aired over the years.
Armchair Interviews says: While Our Holocaust is not an easy read, it's a must-read to even begin to understand exactly what happened "over there."
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Parables for Our Time: Rereading New Testament Scholarship after the Holocaust (Aar Cultural Criticism Series)
Tania Oldenhage
Manufacturer: An American Academy of Religion Book
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ASIN: 019515052X |
Book Description
Over the centuries, New Testament texts have often been read in ways that reflect and encourage anti-Semitism. For example, the parable of the "wicked husbandmen," who kill the son of their landlord in order to seize the land, has been used to blame the Jews for the death of Christ. Since the Holocaust, Christian scholars have increasingly recognized and rejected this inheritance. In Parables for Our Time Tania Oldenhage seeks to fashion a biblical hermeneutics that consciously works with memories of the Holocaust. New Testament scholars have not directly confronted the horror of Nazi crimes, Oldenhage argues, but their work has nonetheless been deeply affected by the events of the Holocaust. By placing twentieth-century biblical scholarship within its specific historical and cultural contexts, she is able to trace the process by which the Holocaust gradually moved into the collective consciousness of New Testament scholars, both in Germany and in the United States. Her focus is on the scholarly interpretation of the parables of Jesus. She sets the stage with the work of Wolfgang Harnisch who exemplifies the problems surrounding Holocaust remembrance in the Germany of the 1980s and 1990s. She then turns to Joachim Jeremias's eminent work on the parables, first published in 1947. Jeremias's anti-Jewish rhetoric, she argues, should be understood not only as a perpetuation of an age-old interpretive pattern, but as representative of German difficulties in responding to the Holocaust immediately after the war. Oldenhage goes on to explore the way in which Jeremias's approach was challenged by biblical scholars in the U.S. during the 1970s. In particular, she examines the turn to literature and literary theory exemplified in the works of John Dominic Crossan and Paul Ricoeur. Nazi atrocities became part of the cultural reservoir from which Crossan and Ricoeur drew, she shows, although they never engaged with the historical facts of the Holocaust. In conclusion, Oldenhage offers her own reading of the parable of the wicked husbandmen, demonstrating how the turn from historical to literary criticism opens up the text to interpretation in light of the Holocaust. If the parables are to be meaningful in our time, she contends, we must take account of the troubling resonances between these ancient Christian stories and the atrocities of Auschwitz.
Customer Reviews:
Big Tobacco Slam!.......2007-10-02
Ending the Tobacco Holocaust gives people who are tired of their friends' preventable deaths the most recent tobacco research and then gives practical ideas on how to stop the efforts of Big Tobacco. When one or two babies die from lead poisoning, there are immediate product recalls. However, 1200 people needlessly die every day from a using a product that, when used exactly as directed, kills people! We need to be enraged enough to do something to stop this! I particularly liked that the author gave personal stories because those 1200 people who died today can no longer tell their stories about their addiction to tobacco. This is a must read for any tobacco activist!
Reader .......2007-03-14
I appreciated this reader-friendly book on how smoking affects us all. This is the definitive book on smoking where you can find a wealth of information in one place. It is informative about the toxic chemicals added to cigarettes, the deceitful marketing tactics of the tobacco industry; the health hazards of smoking to the smoker, the non-smoker and even to our pets and important methods for smoking cessation. I also found the personal stories scattered throughout the book to be very compelling. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to stop needless suffering.
A critical shift in perspective.......2007-02-14
While those who smoke are acutely aware that what they're doing isn't healthy, denial runs strong in this, and any, addiction. My experience tells me that a major factor in this denial is shame.
Dr. Rabinoff's book evoked in me not shame, but rather anger as I became aware once again of the carefully choreographed effort by tobacco companies to continue to line thier overstuffed pockets with no regard to the human consequence. Let's face it, this is an emotional issue for all concerned (except apparently the tobacco companies who seem devoid of the capacity to feel any emotion at all), and emotion feels to me to be a much more effective motivation to quit than fear or shame. This book has awakened in me an anger that has caused me to look at my own nicotine addiciton in a much different way, to direct my attention not at beating myself up, but rather at exercising my own personal freedom from corporate manipulation and greed. That's a significant shift, and a shift which, it is my hope, will change the course of my life.
Big tobacco's nightmare.......2007-02-05
Dr. Rabinoff has written shocking, mind-numbing book about the insidious intrusion of a multi-billion dollar industry into our lives, intent on addicting us to a product that slowly kills. It is a hard book to read because the carnage is so overwhelming. Over 400,000 people in America die each year due to the effects of smoking! And yet this addiction has been so carefully ingrained into our culture, that almost no one cares. Except, for sure, Dr. Rabinoff.
It's a book to be taken in small doses, maybe one chapter a day. If you're a non-smoker you become fearful and outraged over the effects of second-hand smoke. To see the picture of a little toddler smoking in China is revolting. So it is a hard book to read. But we are sometimes a society in denial, and I recommend you read this book.
Great........2007-02-03
Thoroughly comprehensive, readable, not just the usual screed, but packed with astonishing details (Kent cigarettes used filters made out of asbestos -- and touted the health benefits?!?!) and lots of interesting sidebars. Wonderful book to add to the arsenal against this modern epidemic. For smokers and non-smokers alike.
Book Description
In 1940, a young Harvard-educated American named Varian Fry, inexperienced and not at all certain that he possessed any courage, went on a secret mission to Marseille. There, with only three thousand dollars and a list of names, he was to help those who had fled Nazi Germany and were now trapped in southern France.
The list he took with him had been prepared by, among others, the Museum of Modern Art and Eleanor Roosevelt. It included most of the premier writers, painters, and scientists of Europe, many of them Jews—people like Marc Chagall and Max Ernst, Jacques Lipchitz, Marcel Duchamp, Hannah Arendt, Franz Werfel, André Breton, André Masson, and other sur- realists, and hundreds more. When Fry witnessed their plight, he became determined not just to give them immediate aid but to find ways for them to escape. Slowly he built up a group of people who could help, forging passports and finding secret paths across the Pyrenees into Spain and then to Lisbon.
Fry himself was constantly in great danger, but he seemed to experience a divine inspiration, achieving greatness and glimpsing immortality by acting as the hero he never thought he could be. His own government tried again and again to stop him and send him home, but he managed to continue his rescue operations for more than a year.
Only in the past decade has the world begun to honor Fry, who died in 1967. He is, for instance, the only American honored at Israel’s Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem, as one of the “Righteous Among the Nations.”
Using letters and records unavailable to anyone else, as well as interviews with numerous survivors, Sheila Isenberg has given us an inspiring story of how the brave and determined actions of one individual can help change the world.
Customer Reviews:
Isenberg's "Fry" inspires our own activism.......2002-03-01
This is a must book for book clubs and reading groups! Isenberg's writing is engaging as she tells of Varian Fry's dramatic actions that saved so many people from harm. But, more thrillingly, through skillful use of private documents, she shows her readers how a man who showed little previous signs of special distinction, not content to stay a bystander, was willing to put himself at risk to help strangers whose lives were in danger. The book will spark discussions, not only of the holocaust, but of our continuing search to lead ethical lives today in the face of widespread violence, famine and continuing human rights abuses.
a perfect book club choice.......2002-02-25
this story, of a true 'hero,' makes a compelling read. how amazing that fry managed to save so many important artists of the last century and was little known until isenberg's book. a good read while learning an important bit of our history. i will definitely recommend this to my book club.
An Inspiring Page-Turner.......2002-01-30
I read Sheila Isenberg's marvelous book, A Hero Of Our Own, in one sitting. What made it compelling was the author's logical, step-by-step approach to the stunning chaos of her hero's dilemma.
Varian Fry's defining year in Marseilles came alive line by line, stroke by inspiring stroke in clear logical matter of fact tones. The work is poignant and powerful, mythic documentary proof of a bona fide hero and his heroic friends confronting the petty viciousness of evil with clear-eyed will.
A beautiful important book. This is History as it ought to be written. Should be required reading in high schools and colleges round the globe.
"A Hero of our Own" by Sheila Isenberg.......2002-01-30
For someone like myself, who enjoys a really exciting story, preferably about a real person,one need go no further than to read "A Hero of Our Own" by Sheila Isenberg. Varian Frye, a not-so-ordinary American, feels impelled to leave his comfortable life as a writer and editor and go to France as a member of the Emergency Rescue Committe (ERC) and risk his life to save as many refugees (mostly Jews) as he can from the Nazis. Frye is the only American to be honored at Yad Vashem (Israel's Holocaust Memorial) because of his work in saving thousands of Jews. If I didn't know it was a true story, I'd think it was fiction because his adventures read like a fast-paced thriller, a veritable realization of the classic "film noir" of the forties. In fact, I feelthe book cries out to be made into a movie which I would be happy to see. Of course some of the book's revealed facts about our own State Department trying to keep refugee Jews from entering the United States when they knew it mean certain death was quite shocking and disturbing. However, all in all, I'd recommend the book to anyone who enjoys reading a fast-paced book about real heros and history.
a biography that's a page-turner.......2002-01-29
Varian Fry was an American hero, risking his life to save others, unrecognized during his lifetime, but, fortunately, with Isenberg's new biography, now about to become a well-known figure. Called the artists' Schindler, Fry saved about 1,500 artists, writers, teachers, labor leaders, activists, and others from Hitler -- Max Ernst, Marc Chagall, and Hannah Arendt among the group. A Hero of Our Own tells Fry's story in a lively, compelling style. One can't wait to turn the page to find out what happens in Nazi-ridden, Vichy-controlled Marseille 1940. Who will be saved? Who will be turned over to the Gestapo? Why did Fry risk his life? This book answers all these questions in a fascinating story that is well worth reading -- as Fry is well worth remembering and honoring.
Average customer rating:
- a little chatty but deeply moving
- Another fine Wouk book
- What is Yiddishkeit?
- A heartfelt look at Jewish survival!
- Eloquent and Inspiring for the Most Part
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The Will To Live On: This is Our Heritage
Herman Wouk
Manufacturer: HarperCollins
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This Is My God
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The Glory: A Novel
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City Boy
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A Hole in Texas: A Novel
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The Hope: A Novel
ASIN: 0060196084 |
Amazon.com
Forty years ago, novelist Herman Wouk wrote a book about his devotion to the Torah and the Talmud called This Is My God, which remains among the freshest and most quietly impassioned religious autobiographies in print today. The Will to Live On is Wouk's follow-up to that work, although its subject--the particular state of the Jewish people in the 20th century--is very different. Wouk promises to tackle all of the biggest subjects here: "the Holocaust, the reborn Jewish State, the prodigious yet precarious American diaspora, and the deepening religious schisms." And his broad-minded reflections on all of these topics--especially his explanation of modern Zionism's rise from the roots of ancient literature and history--are cleanly, forcefully, and respectfully written. Among Wouk's most penetrating insights are his reflections on Israel's struggle, throughout history, with the temptation of idolatry, and his conviction that the Holocaust at last purged Abraham's people of this "near-fatal cancer." The Will to Live On is a risky, wise book that deserves to be called prophetic.
Book Description
Herman Wouk has ranged in his novels from the mighty narrative of The Caine Mutiny and the warm, intimate humor of Marjorie Morningstar to the global panorama of The Winds of War and War and Remembrance. All these powers merge in this major new work of nonfiction, The Will to Live On, an illuminating account of the worldwide revolution that has been sweeping over Jewry, set against a swiftly reviewed background of history, tradition, and sacred literature.
Forty years ago, in his modern classic This Is My God, Herman Wouk stated the case for his religious beliefs and conduct. His aim in that work and in The Will to Live On has been to break through the crust of prejudice, to reawaken clearheaded thought about the magnificent Jewish patrimony, and to convey a message of hope for Jewish survival.
Although the Torah and the Talmud are timeless, the twentieth century has brought earthquake shocks to the Jews: the apocalyptic experience of the Holocaust, the reborn Jewish state, the precarious American diaspora, and deepening religious schisms. After a lifetime of study, Herman Wouk examines the changes affecting the Jewish world, especially the troubled wonder of Israel, and the remarkable, though dwindling, American Jewry. The book is peppered with wonderful stories of the author's encounters with such luminaries as Ben Gurion, Isidor Rabi, Yitzhak Rabin, Saul Bellow, and Richard Feynan.
Learned in general culture, warmly tolerant of other beliefs, this noted author expresses his own other beliefs, this noted author expresses his own faith with a passion that gives the book its fire and does so in the clear, engaging style that--as in all Wouk's fiction--makes the reader want to know what the next page will bring.
Herman Wouk writes, in The Will to Live On:
"And so the Melting Pot is beginning to work on Jewry. Its effect was deferred in the passing century by the shock of the Holocaust and the rise of Israel, but today the Holocaust is an academic subject, and Israel is no longer a beleaguered underdog. Amkha in America is not dying, it is slowly melting, and those are very different fates. Dying is a terror, an agony, a strangling finish, to be fought off by sheer instinct, by the will to live on, to the last breath. Melting is a mere diffusion into an ambient welcoming warmth in which one is dissolved and disappears, as a teaspoon of sugar vanishes into hot tea....
Yet here in the United States, for all the scary attrition I have pictured, we are still a community of over five million strong. . . . At a far stretch of my hopes, our descendants could one day be a diaspora comparable to Babylonia. At the moment, of course, that is beyond rational expectation. We have to concentrate on lasting at all. . . ."
Customer Reviews:
a little chatty but deeply moving.......2004-05-10
Anyone interested in Judaism, what it means to be a Jew, Jewish history, Jewish meaning will love this book. It's usually very well written eloquent prose although sometimes it's a bit too diary-conversational.
Another fine Wouk book.......2002-01-07
In a career of fifty years or so, Herman Wouk has published less than a dozen novels. Fortunately, the time he puts into his work shows and nearly all of his works are five-star quality. This book, a non-fiction follow-up to This Is My God (which is the only book of his I haven't read), continues the high-quality trend.
Although designed for a Jewish audience, this book has plenty to offer anyone who wishes to learn more about Judaism and the direction it is going. This is a good blend of history, theology and memoir, well-organized and filled with detail without losing readability. I found of particular interest the second part, "The Heritage, or the Power of a Dream" which describes the sources of Jewish thought and tradition.
Although not very religious myself, I am often fascinated with religion, and this book is a good addition to my collection on the subject. As he states in the Afterword, "If this book in any way helps readers to rethink the [future of Judaism] for themselves, I will have done, to the best of my ability, what I set out to do." He has accomplished this task very well.
What is Yiddishkeit?.......2001-12-04
One of many topics reviewed in this excellent book, possibly, but hopefully not the last of Herman Wouk's great literary career. From the author of numerous fictional works, including the epics Winds of War and War and Remembrance, this is the second of his major nonfiction books, published some 40 years after his first, "This is My God."
This 300-page book spans a greater time span, and is certainly more up to date than Heinrich Graetz's encyclopedic, multi-volume "History of the Jews." Aside from providing a succinct history of a people spanning over three millennia, Wouk addresses an even more important question of what will become of the Jews, having survived centuries of invasion, overthrow, exile, persecution and the Holocaust, only to be threatened with extinction through intermarriage and assimilation in the United States, and secular Judaism in Israel.
At times a difficult read because of its complex vocabulary, cultivated from Yiddish, Hebrew, Biblical and Talmudic colloquialisms, this is more than compensated for by its succinctness, its eyewitness perspective, and its inclusion in respective appendices, a glossary of terms, and biographical names.
Wouk certainly knows of what he speaks. Having been born into and Orthodox American Jewish family, Herman Wouk, is the grandson of a Russian Orthodox rabbi who moved to the United States in the 1920's, who later made aliyah in the 1950's, a member of what Tom Brokaw calls "The Greatest Generation," a World War II naval officer, a lifelong student of history, Old Testament, Talmud, Judaism, and Israel, Wouk has personally met such prominent figures as Prime Ministers Ben-Gurion and Ehud Barak of Israel, the Nobel winning physicist Richard Feynman. A must read for anyone interested in Jewish history, prognosis, Israel (ancient or modern)
A heartfelt look at Jewish survival!.......2000-12-03
At 84 years of age, Herman Wouk, one of the giants of contemporary American Jewish literature, presents his view of the survival of the Jewish people. His narrative moves back and forth between a thumbnail sketch of Jewish history and a colorful personal history . He indicates that the two motivating forces that have kept Judaism cohesive and growing during the twentieth century--the Holocaust and the birth of the state of Israel--are no longer of recent enough memory in the younger generation to ensure Jewish survival. Are there other factors, as the twenty-first century begins, that can influence young Jews to preserve their ancient heritage? This is the tough question the author attempts to address.
Wouk's whirlwind tour of Jewish history is unsatisfactory because it flies through time and presumes an in-depth knowledge by the reader. Far more satisying are the author's personal reflections as to how his life experiences and knowledge of the past allow him to appreciate his Jewish heritage. What seem to be lacking at the beginning of the book book are fill-in-the-blank kind of things. It is almost as if the author's intention is to get his readers to find the missing information by going to Judaic sources and reading what they need to know to preserve the Jewish faith. Nice ploy!
THE WILL TO LIVE ON concludes with Wouk's thoughts about the survival of the Jewish people into the distant future. His impressions differ regarding the Jews of Israel and those of the diaspora. He has one especially important thought to share about how diaspora Jewry can ensure their survival. It's not worth peeking at the last few pages of the book ahead of time, however, because the strength of Wouk's case slowly builds throughout the narrative. The reader can then sit back and truly savor the elderly author's insightful conclusion.
Eloquent and Inspiring for the Most Part.......2000-05-25
I would agree with the superlatives described in a previous review. I was particularly moved by the sweep of history described up through the 3rd Destruction. I was particularly moved by the section about the fall of the 2nd Temple and about Yahveh. The descriptions of Jewish literature and thought through the ages was very good.
Unfortunately, I was hoping for a more creative, less tradition bound ending, more in the style of Dershowitz in The Vanishing American Jew or Mordecai Kaplan in Judaism as a Civilization - see next paragraph). I have lately become a Reconstructionist Jew (a branch of Judaism founded by Mordecai Kaplan). Many of us find it particularly relevant to our needs as American Jews (our prior affiliations have been Reform). Not only was I puzzled to find the very word lacking as an option for the Jewish future anywhere in the book but lacking in all but one sentence in the middle of the book. Is he not familiar with it?
Elsewhere, I was confused by his use of the word Neology which I took as a critical bias toward one liberal theology?
After showing the book to a friend, I was suprised to learn about Wouk's misleading information with respect to Hannah Arendt's supposed relationship with a Nazi (via scholarly footnotes) which Wouk uses to discredit her views on the Eichmann trial in ..Banality of Evil. Her credentials are far better than Wouk implies. The distortion works in part by merging time periods of events separated by years.
Although Wouk admires an large number of intelligent people / leaders, to my recollection they are nearly if not all men.
After finishing the book, these considerations led me to be less confident about its overall accuracy .
Book Description
A collection of tales immortalizing the heroic deeds and visions of people Wiesel knew during and after World War II.
Customer Reviews:
Israel is Oppressed.......2004-01-24
I loved this book. As much as I would like to understand how the Shoah happened, as a Christian, after reading Wiesel, I have to respond to the psalmist's command "and all wickedness shuts its mouth. Psalm 107:42."
Most of Wiesel's books are fiction, but in this one, he is the main character. The book is thoughtful and thought provoking. My copy was given me by a jewish friend whom I had to convince I wanted to keep it; she wanted to keep it too! (I normally return borrowed books).
Haunting when Wiesel returns to Sighet in Romania to walk the streets of his hometown. He reflected "Nothing had changed. The house was the same, the street was the same, the world was the same, God was the same. Only the jews had disappeared." Can you imagine anything like that?
If it is any consolation, and I hope Mr. Wiesel is not offended, "behold, the Lord hath proclaimed unto the end of the world, Say ye to the daughter of Zion, behold your salvation comes, and his recompense with Him. Isaiah 62:11" And, from Isaiah 61:8 "the Lord loves justice, He hates robbery and wrong." And from Isaiah 25:8 "and the Lord God will wipe away all tears from their eyes, and will swallow up death in victory."
And if Christians do not see the writing on the wall and see our own guilt in what transpired in this last century, and at least respond with knocking knees, as Belshazzar, the Babylonian king, did, then Christianity is in deep trouble. But those are my own reflections not Wiesel's. He states in this book "That is what I reproach us for: our boundless arrogance in thinking we know everything." And "I repeat: hatred is no solution."
Average customer rating:
- When Good People Do Nothing
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Were We Our Brothers' Keepers?
Haskel Lookstein
Manufacturer: Vintage
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0394755987
Release Date: 1988-01-12 |
Customer Reviews:
When Good People Do Nothing.......2000-12-10
This is a courageous book. The author,a rabbi, takes a critical look at how and why American Jews remained mysteriously silent during the Holocaust. In most crimes there are three participants: the victim, the perpetrator and the bystander. American Jews were, for the mostpart, bystanders to the Nazi evil prior to and during World War II. Why? In part,there was tremendous anti-immigrant and anti-Jewish sentiment during this time. Franklin Roosevelt was seen by many as a friend and protector of American Jews. To criticize his hands-off policy regarding European Jews might be betraying Roosevelts' paternalistic protection of the vulnerable community of American Jews. But these explanations do not fully satisfy. Haskel Lookstein probes deeply and honestly into an historically avoided subject.
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- Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood (Sisterhood of Traveling Pants, Book 4)
- Front-End Analysis and Return on Investment Toolkit (Learning and Performance Toolkit Series)
- Getting Our Groove Back: How to Energize American Jewry
- Ghettonation: A Journey Into the Land of Bling and Home of the Shameless
- Giraffes Can't Dance
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
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