By Diana Brement, JTNews Correspondent
It is the greatest story every told, and there’s always a new angle or twist to explore. In The Miracles of Exodus, (HarperSanFrancisco, hardcover, $24.95), British physicist Colin J. Humphreys offers scientific detective work to explain the mysteries and phenomena of the Exodus. Humphreys describes the plagues, informs us about the Midianites, traces the route through the desert and, in the book’s climax, locates the elusive Mt. Sinai. Jebel Musa, traditionally assumed to be Mt. Sinai, is not volcanic as the one in the Torah clearly is, says the author. Miracles gives a concise explanation, all without questioning the religious authority of the text.
Although a physical scientist, Humphreys’ lifelong hobby has been exploring the Middle East. He writes in a friendly, conversational tone reminiscent of Milne or Tolkien, with infectious enthusiasm for his work.
“Some people think that scientists don’t have emotions,” he asserts. “Well, this one does.”
The only thing lacking in this interesting work is a Jewish sensibility, as the author is Christian.
If it is Jewish sensibility you’re after, David Lazar’s memoir, The Body of Brooklyn, (University of Iowa Press, hardcover, $24.95) serves well. Brooklyn is a seminal place for most Jews, and even for most Americans. One in six Americans can apparently trace immigrant roots there.
Lazar, an Ohio University writing professor, winds his complex prose through stories of his equally complicated family and inner life. Growing up in Flatbush in the 1960s and ‘70s, Lazar is clear-eyed, ironic and a little self-deprecating, offering us a work that is as much a tribute to his parents as it is his own story.
Arthur Maggid’s new book, The Rabbi and the Hit Man, (HarperCollins, hardcover, $24.95) reads like a good crime novel. Unfortunately, there is no fictitious happy ending. Instead, there are still victims out there, a murdered wife, bereaved children and a stunned congregation and community.
Maggid, former editor of the Baltimore Jewish Times and author of a biography of Louis Farrakhan, offers us an in-depth portrait of the first modern rabbi ever convicted of murder, plus details of the crime and subsequent trial that was the focus of media attention two years ago.
As recent national events have reminded us, there are sociopaths among the clergy. Let’s just hope that few of them are willing to go to the extremes that Rabbi Fred Neulander did when he contracted to have his wife murdered in 1994.
On the other side of the world and many years ago, Israeli immigrants brought their egalitarian dreams to life on the kibbutz. Later, the kibbutzim fell on hard times. Children, it seems, liked to live with their parents, and economic realities drove many to work in the cities.
But the kibbutz survives, as American-born Israeli journalist Ellis Shuman demonstrates in a journey through the heart of that culture. The Virtual Kibbutz: Stories of a Changing Society (iUniverse, softcover, $15.95) starts with a seemingly dead-end assignment from an editor — find out if Jerry Seinfeld volunteered on a kibbutz — and continues with vignettes from Shuman’s and other contemporary kibbutzim.
Who owns a kibbutz member’s lottery winnings? Can a clown heal a child injured by a suicide bomber? Is the kibbutz a confining or a liberating? Judge for yourself if the kibbutz is adapting to new realities.
In another part of the Middle East, self-described 62-year-old Jewish grandmother Gloria Becker Marchick has taken on a strange assignment in Shalom in My Heart, Salaam on My Lips (Micah Publications, softcover, $15). She accepts a Fulbright scholarship to teach English as a Second Language in
Morocco. Gloria feels safe in Morocco with its history of treating Jews well, until the intifada breaks out. Then the atmosphere turns ugly. However, she stays and earns the love and respect of her students and friends. Her notes and e-mails home have become her tale of adventure and misadventure.
Anne Frank’s story is always worth repeating. In a new book coming this fall, Searching for Anne Frank: Letters from Amsterdam to Iowa (Abrams, hardcover, $19.95), Susan Goldman Rubin retells this tragedy in an appropriate and sensitive manner for young readers.
In 1939, Frank began a brief pen-pal relationship with Juanita Wagner, an Iowa farm girl living with her sister and widowed mother. After one exchange, their correspondence was cut short. Rubin unfolds the parallel dramas in both girls’ lives as the war continues, but it is not until after the war that Wagner learns of her pen pal’s fate.
Finally, Nishmat Tzedek (A Righteous Soul) is a multi-media work dedicated to Israeli victims of terrorist violence. Produced by Cantor Chayim Frenkel, it includes poetry paired with photographs of Israel by photographer Eric Lawton and a CD of a choral symphony by Meir Finkelstein.
Finkelstein has put psalms and prayers to beautiful music and a piano and vocal score are included. In the back of the book is a list of all the victims’ names, which make painful reading. The names are short, but each represents a story not to be forgotten.
A copy of Nishmat Tzedek has been sent to each of the nearly 800 families who have lost loved ones to terrorism in Israel since September 2000, as a project of Kehillat Israel Reconstructionist Congregation in Pacific Palisades, Calif. To order your own copy ($50) call 1-877-570-4458 or visit www.arighteoussoul.org.