A very brief book that is sure to raise questions and incite strong reactions.
An Israeli history professor questions the notion of a Jewish identity and the Israeli stance toward their Palestinian neighbors.
In this attempt to “reveal some components of the chain of personal identities I have acquired in the course of my life,” Sand (Modern History/Tel Aviv Univ.; The Invention of the Land of Israel, 2012, etc.) continues his critique of accepted notions of Jewish identity, land and history. While this work is more reflective than previous books, a large portion of this short volume is a reassessment on how we think about Jewish identity. Sand works from the premise that we are living in a time in which political anti-Semitism is no longer a reality. As such, the collective identity as “victim”—a term that the author feels was monopolized in post–World War II popular culture by the Jews—no longer offers merit for the Jewish community. Sand believes that the greater Jewish community is undergoing an identity crisis by way of the concept of “Secular Judaism”; without a religious tradition and law to tie people together, the means through which Jews are part of a shared identity remains ambiguous. From this perspective, a void in Jewish identity is filled with a shared anti-Arab sentiment, and the consequence of this false notion of Jewish identity is the dire treatment of Israel’s Palestinian neighbors. Sand brings up a number of interesting questions (none of which are uniquely his), but he never addresses the ways in which his position as a university professor in Israel colors his view. His insulated experiences of living in Israel and his regular travels through the cosmopolitan sections of Paris, London and New York may not provide insight into the ways in which Jewish individuals and communities outside of his purview continue to demarcate a sense of self in the face of political and societal anti-Semitism.
A very brief book that is sure to raise questions and incite strong reactions.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-78168-614-0
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Verso
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
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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