An important piece of public history.
A collection of short folktales collected from Jews who immigrated to Israel.
In the introduction, Ben-Zvi notes that for centuries, Jews have passed down their culture, morals and spirituality through oral folktales. Emerging from countless countries, they dispersed throughout the world, forming a strong Diaspora that has fostered a diverse storytelling tradition. Upon the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, many immigrants told their stories to the Israel Folktale Archives, which became the author’s major inspiration and research source. The tales included here are brief and seek to explain, teach a lesson, or extol the religious or personal virtues of the characters. In the title story, a couple is visited by the Angel of Death, who informs them that they will soon lose their son. They ask that he be allowed to marry first, and on the day of his wedding, the Angel appears in the form of a beggar. Though both the parents and the son plead for his life, it is his new bride who prevails, arguing that, because the Talmud specifies that a new husband should not leave his bride for a year, it must not be his time to go. After each story, Ben-Zvi includes notes that offer an interpretation of the story’s lesson, a guide to direct readers to more information about the Jewish laws and traditions invoked in the tale, or more information about the particular Jewish community from which the story originated. Though the morals of the stories become quickly repetitive, and the prose is occasionally awkward and overly formal, the author’s dedication to research is evident. The wide range of settings–Morocco, Poland, Persia, Tunisia, Czechoslovakia, Israel, Russia, Iraq and more–admirably reflects the remarkable diversity of the Jewish Diaspora. In much of the world, particularly North Africa, Asia, and the non-Israeli regions of the Middle East, Jewish communities are slowly dying out–a fact that makes this preservation of their oral traditions particularly meaningful.
An important piece of public history.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-595-40567-3
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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