Chayut’s account of self-reckoning is remarkable not only for the portrait of an unexpected turnaround, but also for its...
A former Israeli soldier’s lucid memoir on his ideological conversion from a boy raised amid Holocaust memorials to a young man whose belief in Zionism and absolute evil was shaken.
Chayut, whose childhood was marked by anger, sorrow, shame and the “unwillingness to be a part of all this [Jewish legacy],” soon accepted the anti-Arab rhetoric of those around him, served as a youth counselor, joined the Nahal Brigade with pride and proclaimed Israel's cause to raise funds in the United States. Doubts regarding his service in the "most moral army in the world," however, were planted during the course of a routine excursion when he encountered a villager who returned his smile with fear—a moment he would later consider pivotal and which helped him to realize that in the girl’s eyes, he was the enemy. Through travel after leaving the army, meeting Bedouins, Palestinians and others, Chayut gradually distanced himself from his former righteousness. The latter half of the book chronicles the author’s efforts with Breaking the Silence—an organization that urges Israeli soldiers to record their experiences in the occupied territories—and includes some of the testimonies he has gathered over the years: e.g., “Soldiers shoot wildly into residential areas without even knowing where the shots they’re supposedly reacting to are coming from….Neighborhoods are sprayed with gunfire and the guys laugh their hearts out.” Readers initially drawn to this title for its controversial topic will find that the book is more layered than a straightforward confession of military crimes. The author skillfully plays out questions of regret, nationalism, misplaced loyalty and the courage to remake one’s life against the chance meeting with the girl who unwittingly sparked reflection.
Chayut’s account of self-reckoning is remarkable not only for the portrait of an unexpected turnaround, but also for its appealing prose.Pub Date: June 4, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-78168-088-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Verso
Review Posted Online: April 22, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2013
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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