History and Fiction

by Mordechai Nisan

I remember seeing Yehuda in the library at the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus. We would exchange greetings, and he would plunge into his reading.  I didn’t know that he was working on a labor of love – a book about Herod.

The story of Herod and the era associated with him is cut from the historical cloth of three primary dates: in 167 BCE the Hasmoneans [Maccabees] fought their way to Jewish independence from under Greek Hellenic rule and the Jewish state arose again; in 63 BCE the Roman Empire quashed Jewish independence; in 47 BCE Herod of Idumean and Nabatean parentage became the governor of the Galilee and then King of Judea in 37 BCE until his death in the year 4.

Herod, as Yehuda’s book grippingly describes, “had to be king.” He was driven by a passion for power and used any and all methods deemed necessary in his view – murdering his own sons, causing the death of his wife, killing rabbis of the Sanhedrin, slaughtering Jews – in order to rule Judea even under Roman authority. His regime was based on terror and cruelty, intrigue and plunder, while yet adorning the country with the rudiments of Greek culture and Roman construction. He built – rather enlarged – the Temple in Jerusalem, the port of Caesarea, roads and theatres, gymnasia and fortresses. One of them, Herodion where he is buried, bears his name until today.

Beyond Politics: Inspirational People of Israel

by Yocheved Golani

Title: Beyond Politics: Inspirational People of Israel
Author: Ronda Robinson
Publisher: Mazo Publishers

Beyond Politics: Inspirational People of Israel is a compact introduction to decency. Its eighteen personal profiles illustrate how Israelis from all walks of society improve the Holy Land’s quality of life, and then some. Author Ronda Robertson is a freelance journalist who decided to offset mainstream media’s negative stereotyping of today’s Israelis with a book. She did an outstanding job of presenting the goodness of Israel to the world at large in a mere 144-page paperback.

Unlike formulaic biographies from popular publishing houses in the Orthodox Jewish world, Beyond Politics is not predictable. The vignettes of individual men and women who trekked through Ethiopia and Sudan, flew in from Austria, India and Algeria, or were born on Israeli soil are gritty, adventurous and heartwarming.

Robinson lets her readers see, hear and taste the efforts that her subjects made to become part of Israel. Shlomo Malla rose from being an illiterate desert dweller who walked 485 dangerous miles to become an Israeli and later a highly educated politician; former Algerian Sara Lanesman made aliyah to unify Israel’s deaf citizens with a sign language they can share, ending the confusion of multiple signing dialects in one tiny country; Dr. Lior Sasson leads the way in healing indigent children around the world of heart defects – at no cost to their families; terror attack survivor Liora Tedgi saves psychological lives with her Terror Victims Support Center. Each of them explains the gut-wrenching moments that changed their lives forever, and how they chose to help others to cope with fear, social alienation, life-endangering illness and grief. Other people lift just as vividly off the page to inspire you and the information-challenged critics of Israel’s Jewish population.

Urim Publications Summer 2011 Catalog

Click the image above or Urim Publications Summer 2011 catalog for the catalog now available in PDF format.

Tracing the journey of a Rockville Centre resident

Longtime Rockville Centre resident Dr. Herbert Ausubel, who has had a distinguished career in medicine as a practicing physician, researcher, writer and lecturer, is the author of Flower of God — the first of six planned books tracing and documenting the family lines of his children’s ancestors. Two of the books go back 3,000 years to Biblical times.

Ausubel comes from a family of writers and scientists and, as a child, lived in a three-generational household that he said connected the Old World with life in America. He trained as a historian before attending Harvard Medical School. But despite a busy medical career, Ausubel said he always had a second need: to tell the story of the Jewish people. To achieve that goal, he has spent the past 32 years meticulously researching material for his books.

Flower of God recounts his paternal family’s journey from the time of the Temple of Solomon to the present: their migration from ancient Israel to Babylon, to Persia, to Anatolia, to Europe and finally to the U.S.

This saga of his family history is a captivating story of the Jewish experience, at once universal and unique. It is everyman’s tale, and the family’s struggles are immediately recognized by anyone who knows something of the immigrant’s journey, whatever the ethnicity. It is easy to empathize with the characters because Ausubel captures their humanity, and their difficult search for a hard-won life of dignity, purpose and acceptance.

This book is a testament to the courage and indomitable spirit of the Jewish people. William Faulkner’s marvelous Nobel Prize acceptance speech provides the perfect summary of their struggle: “We will not merely endure, we will prevail.” “Not since Alex Haley’s Roots, ” wrote a reviewer in Northeast Magazine/Hartford Courant, “have we seen such a rich tale of generations.”

Ausubel has lived on Long Island for more than four decades with his wife, Stephanie Gusikoff Ausubel. The couple has two grown children who are graduates of South Side High School.

Click here for the original article from the LI Herald.

Book Launch Audio File for Daniel Sperber’s On Changes in Jewish Liturgy

 

 

The Book Launch for On Changes in Jewish Liturgy: Options and Limitations by Daniel Sperber occurred on January 13, 2011.

For the audio recording, please click here.

AJL Review of In Every Generation: The JDC Haggadah

by Ilka Gordon

In Every Generation: The JDC Haggadah
From the Archives of “The Joint” the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
New York: Devora Publishing, 2010
92 pages $19.95 (9781936068135)

In Every Generation includes the complete Hebrew text of the traditional Haggadah in an easy-to-read and clear font with English translation, some transliterated passages, and instructions on performing the Seder. The Haggadah begins with an informative forward by inspirational author, Rabbi Joseph Telushkin. Journalism professor and author Ari Goldman provides historical background on the work of the JDC as well as personal and poignant anecdotes told by Jews assisted by the JDC. What makes this Haggadah unique and very moving are the more than 100 black and white and color photographs from The JDC’s archives which range from 1914 to the present. Each photograph relates to the Haggadah text. The Maggid section of the Haggadah, which begins with the “bread of affliction,” is accompanied by a picture, photographed in the Berlin-Mariendorf DP camp in 1946, of a smiling young girl holding two large handmade matzot supplied by the Joint. Accompanying the Hallel, a prayer of praise, is a photograph of a Rumanian choir taken in 1988 and two young boys, singing in a music class in Odessa, both activities made possible by the Joint. The photographs and anecdotes included in this Haggadah add a modern dimension to the biblical story of the rescue and redemption of the Jewish people. The JDC Haggadah is highly recommended for all libraries, especially synagogue and school libraries. It is also a meaningful Bar or Bat Mitzvah gift.

For the original article on page 22 from AJL Reviews, click here.

AJL Review of Why We Pray What We Pray

by Ellen Share

Freundel, Barry
Why We Pray What We Pray: The Remarkable History of Jewish Prayer
Jerusalem: Urim Publications, 2010
313 pp. $27.95 (9789655240344)

In the six chapters of Why We Pray What We Pray, Rabbi Freundel gives historical analysis and background information on these prayers: Keriyat Shema, Nishmat, Birkat ha-Hodesh, Anim Zemirot, Aleinu and Kaddish. You can read the entire book, but each chapter stands alone. In the introduction, the author writes, “The approach of this book is scholarly and not anecdotal.” It is different from many books on prayers in that it gives detailed information on the biblical, Talmudic and other sacred sources. Rabbi Freundel, who serves as an Orthodox rabbi and professor of religion, gathered the material that he has taught at a university level and distilled it into book form, providing the Orthodox view. Lines of prayers are given in Hebrew and English and footnotes are provided. This is a valuable source of information for the scholar and anyone seeking to understand prayer. The book could be of practical use and help answer questions of the rabbi, cantor, prayer leader, gabbai, and worshipper.

Freundel addresses such questions as how many months should mourners recite the Mourners Kaddish, who should recite the prayer, should the mourner stand during the prayer, and hiring someone to recite for the deceased.

The book is an outstanding contribution to the history of prayer and is recommended for rabbis, Torah scholars, Orthodox synagogue libraries, and special libraries with Judaica collections.

The original article from the AJL Reviews on page 20 can be found here.

Valley Stream doctor documents family’s history in Flower of God

by Andrew Hackmack

Collecting information on his family’s history for more than seven decades, Dr. Herbert Ausubel has finally put his memories into words. The longtime Valley Stream doctor, who has been practicing on West Merrick Road for 51 years, is penning a six-part series and his first book was released last week.

The 80-year-old doctor’s book, Flower of God: A Jewish Family’s 3,000-Year Journey from Spice to Medicine, documents the history of the Ausubel family dating back to days of King Solomon. It traces the family’s migration from ancient Israel, to Babylon, Persia, Anatolia, Europe and finally the United States.

Ausubel was raised in a three-generation household, and heard many stories from his grandfather about their family history while growing up. As a child, he was reading college level books at 4 years old, so retaining information about his family was easy, although, “I didn’t plan to write a book when I was 4 years old,” he said.

His father moved to the United States in 1921 out of fears of anti-Semitism. Two years later, he published an article urging the Jews to leave Europe and re-establish their homeland in Palestine. Ausubel said he lost several relatives in the Holocaust.

It wasn’t until

Immigrant soldiers

by David Geffen

What becomes very clear in ‘Jews and the Civil War’ is that Jews, depending, supported the ideology of their close neighbors.

For Jews in America,” Eli Evans, noted historian of Southern Jewry, begins his essay reprinted in this volume, “the Civil War was a watershed that involved Jewish soldiers from all over the nation.” He emphasizes that “Jews served in both armies and helped in the war effort in many other ways. Serving their countries under fire and fighting side by side with their gentile comrades in arms accelerated the process of acculturation, not only through their self-perceptions, but also because of the reactions of the community around them.”

Then Evans makes this key point about what the Civil War accomplished in terms of identity. “Jewish immigrants who had only recently arrived in America and thought of themselves as Germans came to see themselves not only as Americans, but as Americans who belonged.” Significantly, “the veterans, who were Jews, were largely treated that way when they returned home.”

Convertito: The Jews of San Nicandro tells the remarkable story of a group of Fascist-era Italian peasants who became Jews and ultimately made aliyah

by Adam Kirsch

The story that John A. Davis has to tell in The Jews of San Nicandro (Yale University Press) falls under the category of “truth is stranger than fiction.” Who would believe, outside of a fable or maybe a joke, that in Fascist Italy, a group of several dozen Catholic peasants would spontaneously decide to convert to Judaism; that they would persist in calling themselves Jews even as Italy introduced Nazi-style anti-Semitic laws; that they would make contact with Jewish soldiers from Palestine, serving in the British Army that invaded southern Italy during World War II; and that finally, after two decades of dedication and hardship, they would undergo ritual circumcision and emigrate en masse to the newly created state of Israel? Yet it all really happened, in the town of San Nicandro in the impoverished, isolated Gargano region of southern Italy.

According to Davis, a professor of Italian history at the University of Connecticut, the Jews of San Nicandro represent “the only case of collective conversion to Judaism in Europe in modern times.” Why did it happen just then, at the darkest hour for European Jewry, and in a region where no actual Jews lived?