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JUDENSTAAT

Name: JUDENSTAAT
Author: Simone Zelitch
ISBN: 978-0-7653-8296-2

by Simone Zelitch ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2016

A philosophically resonant tale about the shaping, and force, of collective memory.

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A determined archivist struggles to find truth.

In the “what if” genre of historical fiction, Zelitch (Waveland, 2015, etc.) imagines a postwar Jewish state not in Israel but in Saxony, east of Berlin, on the border of Germany, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. Created in 1948, Judenstaat is celebrating its 40th anniversary by making a documentary film to shore up national pride. In charge of research is librarian Judit Klemmer, a young woman frustrated by lies and evasions as she tries to “make sense of things that everybody knew, and no one would acknowledge….For forty years,” she thinks, “our country has been buried alive.” Intended as a “national project of reparation and even retribution for the Holocaust,” Judenstaat was supported by “Righteous Gentile” Germans. But it has existed uneasily among many who would prefer to see it fail: anti-Semitic Saxons, who “denied any Jewish claim to the land”; cynical Cosmopolitans, loyal only to themselves; angry fundamentalist Jews known as black-hats; and fascists from Germany and Russia. Judenstaat was so vulnerable that it began surrounded by a wall, which now is being taken down. Judit’s mother is not alone in feeling fearful: “We have so many enemies,” she tells Judit, “and isn’t that all the more reason to secure our borders?” But Judit realizes that the state’s enemies cannot easily be identified. Her own husband, a Saxon orchestra conductor, was slain, and Judit does not know who killed him, nor if he really is dead. She's haunted by a ghost who leaves her an unsettling message: “They lied about the murder.” Whose murder? she wonders. So many have died; so many disappeared; so many lies have been presented as truth. Enmeshed in the past, Judit grapples with questions of justice, revenge, and trust.

A philosophically resonant tale about the shaping, and force, of collective memory.

Pub Date: June 21, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-7653-8296-2

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Tor

Review Posted Online: March 29, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2016

Categories:

RELIGIOUS FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
LOUISA
by Simone Zelitch

- BOOK REVIEW
THE CONFESSION OF JACK STRAW
by Simone Zelitch

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THE CHOSEN

by Chaim Potok ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 28, 1967

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This first novel, ostensibly about the friendship between two boys, Reuven and Danny, from the time when they are fourteen on opposing yeshiva ball clubs, is actually a gently didactic differentiation between two aspects of the Jewish faith, the Hasidic and the Orthodox. Primarily the Hasidic, the little known mystics with their beards, earlocks and stringently reclusive way of life. According to Reuven's father who is a Zionist, an activist, they are fanatics; according to Danny's, other Jews are apostates and Zionists "goyim." The schisms here are reflected through discussions, between fathers and sons, and through the separation imposed on the two boys for two years which still does not affect their lasting friendship or enduring hopes: Danny goes on to become a psychiatrist refusing his inherited position of "tzaddik"; Reuven a rabbi.... The explanation, in fact exegesis, of Jewish culture and learning, of the special dedication of the Hasidic with its emphasis on mind and soul, is done in sufficiently facile form to engage one's interest and sentiment. The publishers however see a much wider audience for The Chosen. If they "rub their tzitzis for good luck,"—perhaps—although we doubt it.

Pub Date: April 28, 1967

ISBN: 0449911543

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: April 6, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1967

Categories:

RELIGIOUS FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
ZEBRA
by Chaim Potok

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GATES OF NOVEMBER
by Chaim Potok

- BOOK REVIEW
I AM THE CLAY
by Chaim Potok

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WHEN CRICKETS CRY

by Charles Martin ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 4, 2006

Deep schmaltz in the Bible Belt.

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Christian-fiction writer Martin (The Dead Don’t Dance, not reviewed) chronicles the personal tragedy of a Georgia heart surgeon.

Five years ago in Atlanta, Reese could not save his beloved wife Emma from heart failure, even though the Harvard-trained surgeon became a physician so that he could find a way to fix his childhood sweetheart’s congenitally faulty ticker. He renounced practicing medicine after her death and now lives in quiet anonymity as a boat mechanic on Lake Burton. Across the lake is Emma’s brother Charlie, who was rendered blind on the same desperate night that Reese fought to revive his wife on their kitchen floor. When Reese helps save the life of a seven-year-old local girl named Annie, who turns out to have irreparable heart damage, he is compassionately drawn into her case. He also grows close to Annie’s attractive Aunt Cindy and gradually comes to recognize that the family needs his expertise as a transplant surgeon. Martin displays some impressive knowledge about medical practice and the workings of the heart, but his Christian message is not exactly subtle. “If anything in this universe reflects the fingerprint of God, it is the human heart,” Reese notes of his medical studies. Emma’s letters (kept in a bank vault) quote Bible verse; Charlie elucidates stories of Jesus’ miracles for young Annie; even the napkins at the local bar, The Well, carry passages from the Gospel of John for the benefit of the biker clientele. Moreover, Martin relentlessly hammers home his sentimentality with nature-specific metaphors involving mating cardinals and crying crickets. (Annie sells crickets as well as lemonade to raise money for her heart surgery.) Reese’s habitual muttering of worldly slogans from Milton and Shakespeare (“I am ashes where once I was fire”) doesn’t much cut the cloying piety, and an over-the-top surgical save leaves the reader feeling positively bruised.

Deep schmaltz in the Bible Belt.