An intriguing, scholarly memoir of being a woman and studying the Talmud that will appeal most to those deeply interested in...
Gleaning wisdom from the Talmud during a time of personal crisis.
When Kurshan, who has worked in publishing as an editor, translator, and foreign rights representative, left her job and home in New York City to follow her new husband to Jerusalem, she never imagined she'd be divorced in a year's time. With only a few friends, she was unsure of what to do with herself until a friend suggested she adopt the practice of daf yomi: reading a page a day of the Talmud. Undaunted by the idea that it would take more than seven years to complete the full text on Jewish law, Kurshan dove in, embracing each day and reading with an open mind. What she discovered was invigorating, exciting, and challenging as she worked her way through a text geared primarily for the male half of the Jewish population. She also found that the commitment to follow daf yomi connected her to a worldwide network of people also following the same practice; all participants used a schedule set up by a rabbi in 1923 so that everyone would literally be on the same page on the same day. Kurshan expertly incorporates quotes from the Talmud in her reflections on the various arguments and the important events in her life that she recorded in a journal as she progressed. Readers witness the sinuous progression of her devotion and her movement into a new marriage and the births of her children as the seven-plus years unfold. Though the author claims one doesn't need to be Jewish or even religious to study the Talmud, a basic understanding of Judaism, the customs, and important religious holidays would be useful to anyone reading Kurshan's memoir.
An intriguing, scholarly memoir of being a woman and studying the Talmud that will appeal most to those deeply interested in Judaism.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-250-12126-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 4, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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