Well-crafted, expertly balanced, and deeply humane.
Attentive review of major writings by Jewish authors in a century marked by tragedy and promise.
In this natural follow-up to The People and The Books: 18 Classics of Jewish Literature, Kirsch impressively surveys more than 30 significant Jewish authors of the 20th century. At the beginning, the author admits that any such study has its limitations, but the works he chooses are representative of the geographic, ideological, theological, and gender diversity of modern Jewish thought. They also focus the reader’s attention on a century of monumental change for global Judaism, marked by mass immigration, brilliant philosophical movements, the horrors of the Holocaust, the creation of Israel as a sovereign state, and unprecedented secularism. Kirsch divides his review into four sections, looking first at Jewish writers in or from Europe whose works relate to the seismic changes that led to the Shoah. Readers will be familiar with many of the authors: Franz Kafka, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Anne Frank, Hannah Arendt. Moving on, the author explores books by American Jews, juggling their place in American society with their Jewish heritage; forming a new, uniquely American Jewish identity; and battling, or embracing, assimilation. The author then looks at the writings of Israeli Jews, astutely examining the realization of Zionism from a variety of angles. As Kirsch shows, S. Yizhar studied the irony of an exiled people creating new exiles of the Arabs; Hannah Senesh, through her diary, exposed the guilt of being a survivor in 1940s Palestine whose mother was left behind to suffer persecution. Finally, Kirsch discusses some of the great thinkers, including Martin Buber and Mordecai Kaplan, who have helped create the version of Judaism that the current century has inherited from the last. Kirsch’s work serves as an engrossing overview and introduction to a wide variety of writers, making it especially useful to general readers.
Well-crafted, expertly balanced, and deeply humane.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-393-65240-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 25, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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