By Diana Brement, JTNews Correspondent
Poetry
The Transcript rarely receives poetry to review (poetry presses can rarely afford book promotion), so Circe’s Island (Silverfish Review, $12.96, softcover) by local writer and teacher Judith Skillman is a special treat. Skillman’s lyrical poems weave Jewish imagery with Greek mythology and visions of gardening and nature.
Fiction
Based partly on the author’s life, the late John Auerbach’s two novellas, collected as Tales of Grabowski (Toby Press, $19.95, hardcover) tell of a Polish Jew who escapes the concentration camps by assuming the name and identity of a Pole and becoming a stoker in the German merchant marine. Available in June from this high-quality press.
Welcome to the king’s house — King David’s house, that is — and see it through the eyes of his wife, Michal in Queenmaker: A Novel of King David’s Queen by India Edghill (Picador, $14, softcover). This debut novel tells the story of a woman whose conflicting roles of daughter, princess, wife and queen conceal her influence on the events of the era.
Psychology
The last few decades have seen the debunking of a number of myths about Jews. Assertions that we don’t drink to excess, gamble, take drugs or beat up our wives were shown to be untrue. Jews, sadly, engage in these anti-social behaviors almost as much as the general population. The Jewish community is not immune from another scourge, that of child sexual abuse, including incest.
Shine the Light: Sexual Abuse and Healing in the Jewish Community, (Northeastern University Press, $26.95, hardcover) edited by psychotherapist Rachel Lev, takes on this difficult, but necessary, topic in a collection of personal essays by both women and men. Why subject yourself to this? Because only by knowing it can it be stopped. In many cases, speaking out helps the survivors heal.
Holocaust
Perhaps nearly as world-shattering and damaging as being molested by your grandfather is surviving the Holocaust — Shine the Light, incidentally, acknowledges that parallel) Contested Memories: Poles and Jews During the Holocaust and Its Aftermath, (Rutgers University Press, $35, hardcover) edited by Joshua D. Zimmerman, professor of Holocaust Studies at Yeshiva University, deals with the controversy that still exists in Poland over what happened there during the war. In these essays, Polish and Jewish scholars agree on basic historical facts for the first time.
Also from Rutgers is Into the Inferno: The Memoir of a Jewish Paratrooper Behind Nazi Lines ($29, hardcover) by Yoel Palgi. Palgi was one of the 32 Jews of pre-Israel Palestine, including Hanah Szenes (Senesh), who parachuted behind enemy lines during World War II to encourage resistance, rescue prisoners and thwart deportations to the camps. Some were killed and some, like Palgi, were captured.
Spirituality
Tacoma native, Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld, calls Judaism “a spiritual gold mine waiting to be plumbed.” Lamenting most Jews’ unfamiliarity with the joy of ritual practice, he offers this pocket-size guidebook to help the ignorant return to their spiritual roots. The Art of Amazement: Discover Judaism’s Forgotten Spirituality (Daas, $18, softcover plus audio CD) draws on mystical and esoteric traditions, and offers practical exercises, including meditation.
Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz is best known for his recent English translation of the Talmud. Here he tackles a smaller, but equally significant project. The Miracle of the Seventh Day: A Guide to the Spiritual Meaning, Significance, and Weekly Practice of the Jewish Sabbath (Jossey-Bass, $22.95, hardcover) is a combination how-to and prayerbook. It includes blessings in Hebrew, transliteration and English.
History
The self-proclaimed messiah and charismatic leader Sabbatai Sevi attracted large numbers of Jewish followers in the 1660s, before his conversion to Islam. In The Lost Messiah: In Search of the Mystical Rabbi Sabbatai Sevi (Overlook, $26.95, hardcover), John Freely describes Sevi’s life and tracks his mysterious and elusive followers who persisted for 300 years after his death.
Fixing the World: Jewish American Painters in the Twentieth Century, (Brandeis University Press, $50, hardcover) by Ori Z. Soltes is a beautifully illustrated coffee-table book with well-written text providing a history of modern art with Jewish context.
Hasidism
About 20 years after the death of Sabbatai Sevi, a period that has been described as a difficult time for organized Judaism, the Ba’al Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism was born. The “explosion of spirituality” that he brought to Eastern Europe, says Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, continues to influence Jewish practice today.
Two new books about Hasidism and the teachings of their masters are The Rebbe’s Army: Inside the World of Chabad-Lubavitch (Schocken, $26, hardcover) by Sue Fishkoff and Wrapped in a Holy Flame: Teachings and Tales of the Hasidic Masters (Jossey-Bass, $27.95, hardcover) by Schachter-Shalomi.
Fishkoff traveled to Chabad houses around the country and stayed with their shlichim — outreach emissaries — in an effort to learn about their lives. These emissaries are stationed around the world and Fishkoff writes about their warmth, devotion, and “combination of high personal standards and a nonjudgmental attitude toward others.”
After you have read about the people, you can delve into their inspirational teachings with Reb Zalman, as he is usually known, the founder of the Jewish Renewal movement. Unlike Martin Buber or Gershom Scholem, both authors of seminal works about Hasidism, the author has lived among Hasidim. You have to know more than the stories or the teachings, says Schachter-Shalomi, you also have to know their niggunim (prayer melodies).
Wrapped in a Holy Flame is based on a series of lectures given by the author at Naropa University in Boulder, Colo., where he is a professor in the Department of Religion.