Not Our Kind: A Novel

Not Our Kind, by Kitty Zeldis (2018)

Not Our Kind is a novel set in the late 1940s in New York City.  Young Eleanor Markowitz was in between jobs when the cab she literally bumped into Patricia Bellamy (their cabs crashed).  Eleanor had left her teaching job and was running late for an interview when the accident happened.  As fate would have it, Patricia had a 13-year old daughter, Margaux, who was recovering from polio and had just lost her tutor.  Margaux formed an instant bond with Eleanor.  Despite her misgivings, wealthy and WASPy Patricia decided to hire Eleanor, provided her friends don’t learn that Eleanor is Jewish.

The book started out with a bang, but lost steam as I continued reading.  I thought it was too cliche.  I got a feel for Eleanor and Margaux, but the other characters were too flat.  Eleanor met and was attracted to Tom, Patricia’s brother.  He was a rich playboy who had seduced at least one of Patricia’s friends in the past.  He still had a bohemian-life style.  What did Eleanor see in Tom?  The anti-Semitism was not really a main theme, other than making a point that Eleanor had to change her name from Moskowitz to Moss to get a job.  Neither she nor her mother, a hat maker, were especially observant.  Eleanor had, however, observed some of the Jewish rituals when her father was alive.  She had no problems eating shellfish and lobster in the beginning of the book, but later the point was made when treyfe was served at a party.  It was a fast and easy read, but not memorable.

Read:  December 9, 2020

3 Stars

The Lost Letter

The Lost Letter, by Jillian Cantor (2017)

This Holocaust novel alternates between Austria in 1938 and 1989 Los Angeles.  

 

In 1938, young Kristoff, an orphan who had no family life, finds himself an apprentice to Frederick Faber, a Jewish engraver who specialized in making stamps.  Faber was a famous for his engraved stamps.  As an apprentice, Kristoff lives and dines with the family.  Although not a Jew himself, he finds himself attracted to the Shabbat rituals and prayers.  He also has a crush on Faber’s 17-year-old daughter, Elena.

 

In Los Angeles in 1989, Kate Nelson is struggling through a painful divorce and a father suffering from dementia.  She has just placed her father in a nursing home and is going through his belongings.  He had been a stamp collector and Kate had wonderful memories as a child going with her father as he sought out his “gems”.  She takes his stamp collection to be appraised, thinking that there might be something of value that can be sold to help defray the costs of his medical care.

 

She takes the stamps to Benjamin Grossman, a philatelist, for his appraisal.  He discovered among the collection an unopened letter with a unique Austrian stamp.  It was the picture of an Austrian church with a small unauthorized edelweiss on its steeple.  The letter was addressed to one of Faber’s daughters, and the stamp appears to have been a Faber design, but seemed to have been issued after his apparent death.

 

Still thinking that the stamp might be of value, Benjamin and Kate locate Fraulein Faber in hopes of discovering the mystery of the edelweiss on the stamp.

 

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel.

 

Read:  October. 27, 2020

 

4.5 Stars

 

 

The Inn at Lake Devine, by Elinor Lipman

The Inn at Lake Devine, by Elinor Lipman is a delightful little romantic comic novel.

We first meet Natalie Marx, the heroine of The Inn as Lake Devine, as a young girl, who lives in a tight-knit Jewish family in Newton, Massachusetts.  The year is the early 1960s.  While exploring a resort for a summer vacation, her mother writes a letter of inquiry to the Inn at Lake Devine, which is situated on a beautiful lake in scenic Vermont.  Ingrid Berry, the owner and manager of the Inn, writes back stating that the clientele at the Inn is for gentiles.  This seems to be Natalie’s first experience with anti-Semitism.  It also convinces her that she absolutely must find out what is so great about this particular Inn.

Soon after this event, the Civil Rights Act became the law.  Young Natalie began a campaign to flood the Berry’s letters reminding them that they could no longer restrict their clientele to only gentiles.

Later, while at summer camp, Natalie meets Robin Fife, whose family just happens to vacation at the Inn at Lake Devine each summer.  Natalie befriends Robin, even though she finds Robin a bit dull.  She devises a scheme to get herself invited to go to the Inn with Fife family for a week’s vacation.

Flash-forward 10 years.  Natalie is now a professional chef who is between jobs.  Natalie and Robin have more-or-less lost track of each other when Natalie learns that Robin is working in Boston at the Pappagallo store on Newbury Street in Boston.  (How well I remember this store!)  Natalie learns that Robin is engaged to marry Nelson Berry, son of the infamous Inn at Lake Devine.  Robin insists that Natalie attend her upcoming nuptials, which will be held at … (wait for it) the Inn!

Natalie returns to the Inn for the wedding and, on the way to the event, Robin is killed in a tragic car accident.  With family gathered for the wedding, the family decides to hold the funeral there instead.  Natalie stays for the week, cooking for the grieving families where she befriends Kris Berry, the groom’s younger brother.

She hopes that her budding friendship with Kris will develop into something more.  Her parents aren’t thrilled with her involvement with Kris because not only is he not Jewish, but at least 1 member of his family is anti-Semitic.  They fail to give Natalie messages and letters from Kris.

Ultimately, Kris and Natalie get together and go off to a resort in the Catskills with Nelson and his college friend Linette.  Linette’s family runs a kosher resort in the Catskills and she is engaged to a rabbinical student.  She and Nelson, however, renew their friendship as Natalie and Kris’s relationship blooms.

I liked this book, however, the ending was a little too trite.  Nelson quickly became involved with Linette so soon after Robin’s death.  This seemed very callous.

There is a brief, but interesting, #MeToo incident between Natalie and her influential boss.  He tacitly promises to provide her with job opportunities in exchange for sexual favors.  Natalie declines his “offer”, but this passage was written 20 years before such actions were even remotely being taken seriously by the public at large.

Read:  February 26, 2020

4 Stars

The Nightingale

The Nightingale, by Kristin Hannah (2015)

The Nightingale is the story of two French sisters who, each in her own way, survive the Nazi occupation of France during World War II.  The sisters are 10 years apart in age, and are motherless with a cold father who was a changed man after returning from World War I.

Vianne, the older sister, married young to the love of her life.  Her younger sister, Isabelle, was impetuous, and had been expelled from several boarding schools before the War began.  After Vianne’s husband goes off to war, Vianne is left at the family home with their young daughter.  Isabelle’s childhood heroine was Edith Cavell, who was executed in World War I.  Isabelle wants to follow in Cavell’s footsteps and joins a Resistance group, leading downed British and American soldiers cross the Pyrenees from France into Spain.  Her code name is The Nightingale, which also happens to be the English translation of their family surname ~ Rossignol.

This novel focuses on the lives of the women during the war and the sacrifices they were forced to make while their fathers, husbands and brothers were fighting.  The novel begins in 1939, just before Nazi occupation.  As France is forced into War, the Nazis begin rationing food and occupying homes.  A young German officer requisitions her home, although he is kind to Vianne and her daughter.  One day Vianne is asked to provide the names of the Jews in her town.  Believing that it is simply a list of names, she complies, giving up the name of her best friend and neighbor, Rachel.  Later, the Nazis begin rounding up all the Jews and communists.  Rachel is taken away, but Vianne takes her young son to raise as her own.

Later a brutal SS officer commanders her home and brutally rapes her.  Meanwhile, Isabelle is risking her life in the Resistance.  She acquires false papers and becomes known as Juliette Gervaise.  She doesn’t fully understand the risk she is taking until after she is capture.  She is ultimately sent to a German concentration camp, where her mantra become “Stay alive.”

This book gives the horrors of war and captures the terror of the citizens of France.  It is one of the best novels of the Holocaust that I have read in a long time.

5 Stars

Read:  February 14, 2016

Henna House

Henna House, by Nomi Eve (2014)

This novel traces the story of Adela Damari, a Yemenite Jew, from her childhood in rural Yeman in the 1920s and 1930s to her move to Israel under Operation On Wings of Eagles. 

5 Stars

Read: May 31, 2015

The Storyteller

The Storyteller, by Jody Picoult

This is a holocaust fiction, story that was very well written and very well researched.

5 Stars

Read: February 2, 2014

A Guide for the Perplexed

A Guide for the Perplexed, by Dara Horn (2013)

Two Stars
Read:  January 10, 2014

The Lost Wife, by Alyson Richman

Read: April 28, 2013

Gideon's Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad, by Gordon Thomas

Read: February 24, 2013

The Canvas, by Benjamin Stein

Read: February 10, 2013

The Aleppo Codex, by Matti Friedman

Read: February 10, 2013

Almost Dead, by Assaf Gavron

Read August 3, 2012

The Invisible Bridge, by Julie Orringer

Read: January 6, 2012

Sweet Dates in Basra, by Jessica Jiji

Sweet Dates in Basra is a story of Iraq during and after World War II. The story takes place when Jews and Muslims more or less got along. The story follows young Kathmiya, who is a young “Marsh Arab.” When she reaches the ripe old age of 13, her thoughts begin to turn to marriage. After all, that is the age most young Muslim women in her community are married.

Instead, Kathmiya is sent into the city of Basra, where she becomes a maid in a Jewish household. Each weekend, Kathmiya returns to her humble home in the marsh and begs her family to find her a husband. Even though she is sent to several matchmakers, no viable husband find his way into her life. Her mother remains very mysterious about finding her young daughter a husband, hinting that there is some long family secret that is preventing Kathmiya from procuring a husband.

One day, while working as a domestic in Basra, she meets Shafiq, a young Jewish boy. Shafiq happens to be the brother of Kathmiya’s mistress. Shafiq and Kathmiya are both immediately smitten with each other, but are worlds apart and can only briefly speak to each other.

Shafiq’s best friend is Omar, his Muslim next door neighbor. Omar and Shafiq are best of friends who consider themselves brothers because as infants, each mother had nursed each child.

The ideology of World War II touches Iraq. The Iraqi’s are opposed to the British because of the oil interests. Politics in Iraq shift, making it dangerous to be a Jew. Shafiq’s family tries to emphasize their strong ties to Iraqi nationalism. One of Shafiq’s brother is a strong anti-Zionist, whose actions emphasize his love of his country. Ironically, he is arrested and beaten for on other reason than being a Jew.

Early on in the story, Shafiq and Omar encounter a man who had killed his daughter in an “honor” killing because she had had sexual relations before her marriage. This hints at what might happen if Shafiq and Kathmiya ever got together, since Jews and Muslims, while might live next to each other, would not marry.

This novel shows how individuals can look beyond religion and tradition and live in peace. The dynamics of groups, however, work differently. Shafiq and his brothers are denied entrance to the Iraqi University merely for being Jewish. The family realizes that it must leave the country in order to survive.

Sweet Dates in Basra was based, in part, on the author’s family. It is a good novel that sheds a bit light on a period of history that is largely unknown to Westerners.

Read: June 5, 2011

Books Set in Medieval Europe: France

Maggie Anton has written a series of books about the three daughters of Rashi. Salomon Ben Isaac, better known as Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Itzachak) was born in 1040 and died in 1105. He is one of the most famous Talmudic scholars of his age. He had no sons, but taught his daughters Talmud during a time when women were not typically educated.

Rashi lived in Troyes, France, and established a Yeshiva there. He also had a vineyard to support his family, his wife and three daughters. Anton carefully researched this time period to incorporate not only biblical knowledge and Rashi’s writings, but minute details of life in France during this time period. Each book describes superstitions, sexual rituals and marital relations, the celebration of Jewish holidays, childbirth and life-cycle events.

The series is interesting and clearly well researched.

Rashi's Daughters: Book 3: Rachel, by Maggie Anton (2009)

Rachel is Rashi’s the youngest and most beautiful daughter. She is madly in love with her husband, Eliezer.

This book is set during the First Crusade. Marauders of the First Crusade massacre nearly the entire Jewish population of the Germany city of Speres, where her father began his Talmudic studies. Eliezar is a merchant who travels frequently to Spain, where the Sephardic Jewish tradition is vastly different from that in France. Eliezer wants Rachel to join him there, but she fears life there. In France, she has the freedom to pursue her religious studies and maintain her business of wool manufacturing. In Spain, she will be forced to stay out of the public eye. Marital customs are also vastly different in the Sephardic community. Eliezar takes a second wife. When Rachel learns of this, she is, of course, saddened. This give Anton an opportunity to explore the Jewish laws regarding divorce.

Read: November 6, 2009

Rashi's Daughters: Book 2: Miriam, by Maggie Anton

Miriam was Rashi's middle daughter. The love of her life died after they were engaged, but before they married. This created a sort of "widowhood" for Miriam. Miriam eventually marries a man who is filled with longing for other men. Thus, Anton explores homosexuality during this time period. Miriam and Judah eventually settle into a loving but sexless marriage, after the birth of their four children.

Miriam becomes a midwife, a trade she learned from her Aunt Sarah. In addition, she learns to become a mohel. The community, however, is not ready for a female mohel, so she must rely on family members to have sons to preform circumcisions.

Read: April 13, 2009

Rashi's Daughters: Book 1: Joheved, by Maggie Anton (2005)

Rashi's eldest daughter was Joheved. Anton explores daily life of women during the latter part of the 11th Century. She discusses love and sex in the context of marriage as well as the laws of niddah, or the separation between man and women during and after a woman's monthly period. Joheved is also responsible for assisting in the family's wine trade. Anton provides details of the practices of vintners at this time in history.

Sea of Lights by Yael Remen (2009)

Sea of Lights is novel about the author's father, Avraham Binder. He was born in Vilna, Lithuania in 1906 and his live spanned nearly a century. He died in 2001 in Israel. During his lifetime, he experienced pogroms in his native land, felt the effects of the Holocaust, and survived the Israeli wars of independence. He was a bookbinder by trade and an accomplished artist. There should be an interesting story in here somewhere.

Unfortunately, this book suffers from the lack of a good editor. In addition to numerous spelling errors, there was much extraneous materials. While reading this 600+ page tome, I often felt like I was living Avraham Binder's life in real time. After reading the first few chapters, I felt that I had a bad translation from the original Hebrew. Unfortunately, the book was not a translation; the original had been written in English. Although the author was born in Israel, she has lived in the United States for many, many years.

Avraham immigrated to Israel on the eve of World War II. He had been involved in the Zionist movement, but his primary objective was to attend the prestigious Bezalel art school in Jerusalem. After a few lessons, he realized that his artistic philosophy differed too greatly from that of the school and he withdrew. He found himself in Tel Aviv where he opened a bookbinding business. He continued his painting and got involved in the Tel Aviv art scene.

His parents and younger sister eventually join him in Israel. Tzila, his younger sister, is a painter in her own right. She meets and falls in love with the married Israeli poet, Natan Alterman. They have a long-term relationship, which is wife is apparently aware of and does not actively disapprove.

Avraham was madly in love with the beautiful Rachel, however, she marries his close friend. This devastates him. He begins a relationship with his landlady, who is considerably older than him. When she becomes possessive and jealous, he leaves her. She later commits suicide. Avraham eventually meets and marries Sara. His wife and mother do not get along. The author's depiction of Sara is not kind. She seems like a selfish woman.

The author seems to want to provide, in addition to her father's story, the history of modern Israel. Unfortunately, this does not work well. Events are described without a clear connection to the characters. It is too bad, because there is probably a very interesting story about Avraham Binder.


Read: April 3, 2010

My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for His Family's Past, by Ariel Sabar

I learned about My Father’s Paradise after it was selected by my reading group. I was immediately taken by both the subject, the Jews of Kurdistan, and the writing.

The author, Ariel Sabar, grew up in California and is all American. In his boyhood eye, he saw his father, Yona beh Sabagah, as something of an embarrassment. He was a funny, out-of-date man who didn’t pay attention to the latest in men’s fashion and spoke with a strange accent. In addition, he drove a beat-up old car that he parked among the Mercedes and Fiats of his California colleagues.

My Father’s Paradise traces Sabar’s paternal family on their journey from the remote area of what is modern day Iraq, to Israel and America. For over 2700 years, Jews had been living peacefully in the mountains of what be known as Kurdistan. As Moslems settled in the mountains, they shared and honored each other’s religious holidays and took care of each other. Their shared language was Aramaic, the franca lingua of the region.

Following World War I, the lands that had once belonged to the Ottoman Empire were divided and the area of Sabar’s family became a part of Iraq. The beginning of the end for their way of life. Tensions escalated in the Middle East. The Kurdish Jews were somewhat protected, but the politics of World War II and the subsequent creation of the State of Israel, forced Jews of the Arab countries to flee. The remote town of Zakho, where Sabar’s family lived was no exception.

When living in Zakho, the family name was Sabagha, which means “dyer.” The family dyed wool for weaving into cloth. The author’s great-grandfather, however, was also a scholar, and could be found in the town’s synagogue studying.

As violence against the Jews in Iraq escalated, the Sabagha family realized it was time to leave for Israel. Although Yona ben Sabagha was only 12 years old, his father insisted that he celebrate his bar mitzvah in the town of his birth. This event marked the end of his idyllic childhood, both literally and figuratively. The bar mitzvah marks the entrance into adulthood, but in Yona’s case, it also marked the end of life as he knew it.

Life in Israel was an adjustment. Israel was a new country and did not have the infrastructure to accommodate the mass immigration. Middle Eastern Jews were discriminated upon by the European Jews, which made life in the Promised Land an additional challenge. One change the family made was to change their surname from Sabagha to Sabar. The new name distanced them from their Kurdish roots and sounded more “Israeli.” In addition, the new family name was a play on the work “sabra”, which means a native-born Israeli.

Yona thrived in Israel, he studied hard and went to college. Because he was a native Aramaic speaker, he became involved in a research project focusing on this previously thought “lost language.” Yona was hooked. Eventually, his study brought him to Yale University where he got a Ph.D. Once he discovered America, even though he was initially disillusioned, he never looked back. He married an American and moved to Los Angeles where he took a job as a professor at the University of California.

In the process of researching this book, Ariel Sabar is able to make peace with his father. Yona and his son return to Iraq to the family village. There, they encounter some of the neighbors that Yona remembered as a child. They also become aware of the danger of being Jewish in this country so many years after their exodus. My Father’s Paradise is a wonderful book. Not only does the reader learn about the Kurdish Jews, but Sabar’s family comes alive. This is a book that should be on everyone’s reading list.

Read: February 16, 2010

The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht

The Song of Names is the story of two young boys who are brought together in England shortly before the beginning of World War II. One boy, Martin, is the son of Mortimer Simmonds, a very successful owner of a music store and talent agency. The other boy, David, is a young violin prodigy from Warsaw who has come to stay with the Simmonds so that he can study with a famous violinist residing in England. The Simmonds serve as David’s surrogate family, his own family remaining in Poland. Soon, however, David’s family becomes trapped in Warsaw as the war escalates.

David and Martin become fast friends. Martin, however, is the follower and David is the leader. The relationship is decidedly one-sided, with Martin worshipping his friend.

As the boys become men, David becomes adventurous and explores London, tasting its seamier side ~ gambling and prostitution. His music, however, continues to consume his being.
At the age of 21, Mortimer Simmonds arranges for David to make his big musical debut at the famous Albert Hall. David’s name is changed, for purposes of publicizing the concert to Eli, which seems somewhat less “semitic” to the British public. The day of the big, and highly publicized concert arrives. David disappears.

Book begins in the early 1990s, when Martin is in his 60s. After David’s disappearance, all the life seemed to drain from Martin. He becomes obsessed with his friend’s disappearance and settles into the mediocre life of taking over his father’s music business. Martin’s interest in the business is not all consuming, and he has barely managed to keep the music company afloat.

One day, while in northern England, he is judging a music competition. One of the contestants used a particular musical style that convinced Martin that David must have been his teacher. He tracks down the teacher and is, indeed, confronted with his old friend, who has now become a Talmudic scholar living in an ultra-orthodox community.

The Song of Names is a first novel by music critic Norman Lebrecht. This book combines music with the complex psychology of a young boy losing his family to the Holocaust, as well as the interrelationship between two friends. A lovely book.

The Singing Fire by Lilian Nattel

This novel is set in Victorian England and follows two Jewish women who immigrate to London. Nehama is from shtel and has dreams of making money and sending for her parents and sisters. Emilia is from a wealthly family in Minsk who leaves for London to escape her tyrant father after finding herself pregnant.

Both have their dreams dashed in London, a city dealing with the "Jewish" question. Nehama finds herself quickly lured into prostitution When she leaves this life, she is taken in by a couple who nurture her and she eventually finds a loving husband.

Emilia abandons her newborn daughter to Nehama who raises her. Emilia "passes" as a gentile and marries a Jew, only to be faced with conversion before her child is born.

The author makes some interesting points about Jewish life in mid-Victorian England, but the novel itself is disjointed.

Read: October 11, 2009

Strangers in the Land of Egypt, by Stephen March (2009)

Strangers in the Land of Egypt is a fascinating story of the rural south and the anti-Semitism that is still very prevalent there.

Jesse Terrill is a young teen-aged boy, whose mother left the family and whose father was seriously brain-damaged by an act of violence. In addition, Jesse's older brother was killed in a terrorist attack while serving abroad. Jesse is now living with his uncle.

One evening, Jesse and some of his wild buddies go out and vandalize the local synagogue. He is arrested and tried. Because he refuses to name is friends, he takes the fall for the crime. The judge seeing some goodness in Jesse, places him on a 2 year probation and requires him to do community service. He is assigned to assist Mendal Ebban, an elderly Jewish Holocaust survivor living in a nursing home.

Ebban is a religious Jew who is still very tortured by the events he survived in the concentration camp. He is wheelchair bound and his eyesight does not permit him to read. He has Jesse read Torah to him. Slowly they form a friendship in which Ebban teaches Jesse the ethics of living a good life.

While Jesse struggles to behave, so as not to be sent to the brutal detention center, he is faced with dealing with some not-so-gentle people. He wants to take revenge on the man whom he thinks injured his father. Jesse comes up with what he thinks is the perfect plan, and he fantasizes about how he will carry out his plan.

One of his friends is LaFay, who has an abusive boyfriend. Jesse gets into a fight with the boyfriend, seriously injuring him. When Jesse is later beaten and left for dead, he refuses to tell the police the details of his attack for fear that he will be sent to the detention center for his own prior attack on LaFay's boyfriend.

This was a beautifully written book about a young boy's struggle to be good in a terrifying world.