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ORIGINAL SINS

Name: ORIGINAL SINS
Author: Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi
ISBN: 1-56656-130-2

REFLECTIONS ON THE HISTORY OF ZIONISM AND ISRAEL

by Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 1, 1993

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A critical and largely one-sided view of modern Zionism and the history of Israel. According to Beit-Hallahmi (The Israeli Connection, 1987), who sees the Palestinians as innocent victims of foreign colonialism, Israel is plagued by a curse—``the curse of the original sin against the native Palestinians''—and there will be no peace until it atones for its sins. The author first establishes that, in modern times, the majority of Jews have had only a vague understanding of rabbinical Judaism (which he depicts as a kind of primitive mythology). Zionism, he says, offers these ``sociological'' Jews an identity—but the Zionist movement is doomed because ``it desired national territory occupied by another national group...with its own normal existence.'' Moreover, because the Jewish people have no legitimate claim to the land of Israel, while they occupy it they can never enjoy their own ``normal'' existence. Though provocative, Beit-Hallahmi's argument is marred by inaccuracies and generalizations. He claims, for instance, that ``all Israelis have come to recognize Zionism's original sin against the Palestinians.'' A look at Israel's electorate, however, makes it clear that most Israelis assume no such culpability. Furthermore, in discussing Hebrew and Yiddish, the author contends that ``Yiddish remains the language of the Orthodox, who have always opposed Zionism.'' In fact, though, most Israeli Orthodox Jews under age 60 speak only Hebrew, and only a small minority aren't fervent nationalists. Engaging but misleading. Here again, as in too much writing on the Middle East, sincerity has replaced balanced analysis.

Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1993

ISBN: 1-56656-130-2

Page Count: 224

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1993

Categories:

HISTORY | WORLD | GENERAL NONFICTION

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LIFE IS SO GOOD

by George Dawson & Richard Glaubman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2000

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The memoir of George Dawson, who learned to read when he was 98, places his life in the context of the entire 20th century in this inspiring, yet ultimately blighted, biography. Dawson begins his story with an emotional bang: his account of witnessing the lynching of a young African-American man falsely accused of rape. America’s racial caste system and his illiteracy emerge as the two biggest obstacles in Dawson’s life, but a full view of the man overcoming the obstacles remains oddly hidden. Travels to Ohio, Canada, and Mexico reveal little beyond Dawson’s restlessness, since nothing much happens to him during these wanderings. Similarly, the diverse activities he finds himself engaging in—bootlegging in St. Louis, breaking horses, attending cockfights—never really advance the reader’s understanding of the man. He calls himself a “ladies’ man” and hints at a score of exciting stories, but then describes only his decorous marriage. Despite the personal nature of this memoir, Dawson remains a strangely aloof figure, never quite inviting the reader to enter his world. In contrast to Dawson’s diffidence, however, Glaubman’s overbearing presence, as he repeatedly parades himself out to converse with Dawson, stifles any momentum the memoir might develop. Almost every chapter begins with Glaubman presenting Dawson with a newspaper clipping or historical fact and asking him to comment on it, despite the fact that Dawson often does not remember or never knew about the event in question. Exasperated readers may wonder whether Dawson’s life and his accomplishments, his passion for learning despite daunting obstacles, is the tale at hand, or whether the real issue is his recollections of Archduke Ferdinand. Dawson’s achievements are impressive and potentially exalting, but the gee-whiz nature of the tale degrades it to the status of yet another bowl of chicken soup for the soul, with a narrative frame as clunky as an old bone.

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2000

ISBN: 0-375-50396-X

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1999

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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THE GREAT MORTALITY

AN INTIMATE HISTORY OF THE BLACK DEATH, THE MOST DEVASTATING PLAGUE OF ALL TIME

by John Kelly ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2005

Occasionally unfocused, but redeems itself by putting a vivid, human face on an unimaginable nightmare.

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A ground-level illustration of how the plague ravaged Europe.

For his tenth book, science writer Kelly (Three on the Edge, 1999, etc.) delivers a cultural history of the Black Death based on accounts left by those who witnessed the greatest natural disaster in human history. Spawned somewhere on the steppes of Central Asia, the plague arrived in Europe in 1347, when a Genoese ship carried it to Sicily from a trading post on the Black Sea. Over the next four years, at a time when, as the author notes, “nothing moved faster than the fastest horse,” the disease spread through the entire continent. Eventually, it claimed 25 million lives, one third of the European population. A thermonuclear war would be an equivalent disaster by today's standards, Kelly avers. Much of the narrative depends on the reminiscences of monks, doctors, and other literate people who buried corpses or cared for the sick. As a result, the author has plenty of anecdotes. Common scenes include dogs and children running naked, dirty, and wild through the streets of an empty village, their masters and parents dead; Jews burnt at the stake, scapegoats in a paranoid Christian world; and physicians at the University of Paris consulting the stars to divine cures. These tales give the author opportunities to show Europeans—filthy, malnourished, living in densely packed cities—as easy targets for rats and their plague-bearing fleas. They also allow him to ramble. Kelly has a tendency to lose the trail of the disease in favor of tangents about this or that king, pope, or battle. He returns to his topic only when he shifts to a different country or city in a new chapter, giving the book a haphazard feel. Remarkably, the story ends on a hopeful note. After so many perished, Europe was forced to develop new forms of technology to make up for the labor shortage, laying the groundwork for the modern era.

Occasionally unfocused, but redeems itself by putting a vivid, human face on an unimaginable nightmare.