At The Hour Between Dog and Wolf, A Book Review

 

At The Hour Between Dog and Wolf, A Novel, by Tara Ison is a most amazing book. It's of the Holocaust genre and also Coming of Age, but at least in my reading experience, it's like no other. 

Ison writes about a wealthy preteen Jewish girl from Paris who is brought to live with a poor rural Catholic family. Danielle must do her best to hide her true identity and live as Marie-Jeanne, orphaned niece of Berthe on a small farm and even milk the cow every morning. Danielle's red hair definitely helps mask her Jewish identity. With them are Berthe's husband Claude and their son Luc, who makes Danielle feel rather uncomfortable.

We follow two parallel transitions, one the growth of Nazi dominance in a quiet farming town near Limoges in Vichy France and second, Danielle's growing comfort and identification in her new identity as Catholic Marie-Jeanne. She's into her teens by the time the story ends.

The various characters are amazingly well-drawn/developed, and it's nothing is very predictable. The more I think about it, the harder it is to decided on the hero of the story. It's very complex and has some surprising twists.

I highly recommend At The Hour Between Dog and Wolf. The characters find themselves in situations in which it's hard to distinguish between a dog and a wolf, as the title states. It's an excellent book for discussion in a Book Club or even in a classroom of older adolescents. 

Product details 

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Ig Publishing (February 21, 2023) 

Language ‏ : ‎ English 

Paperback ‏ : ‎ 286 pages 

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1632461455 

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1632461452 

Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.4 ounces 

Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.25 x 0.75 x 8 inches

Blog Visiting, A Roundup From Blogs All Over

Once upon a time there was Havel Havelim, a weekly roundup of blog posts about Israel and Judaism. I met a lot of amazing people through it, some in person and some just online. Now a few of those people still blog, less frequently, and some I'm facebook friends with and others on instagram. And I even have real life f2f friends I first met via blogging.

In the heyday of blogging, there had been a real community spirit, but now it's different. It is what it is.

Still I think that there are some great blogs out there, and I'll now post a number of blog post titles linked to the blog. I hope you make the time to click, read, comment and even share. Yes, share on your blog if you're a blogger, or facebook or twitter or just send on whatsapp or email. It's a new world out there. Sorry, but in these roundups I don't include "blogs" that are on news sites, just independent blogs. If you have any to recommend, please add them to the comments here. Both my blogs, this and Shiloh Musings have blog rolls, listings of blogs I look at, or looked at when they were "live."

All opinions in included posts are those of the bloggers, not necessarily mine. Enjoy:

4 Treasures in Northern Israel
Homemade Challah, Yes, Passover's Over
Tame the body, unleash the soul (Kedoshim)
Heroism, Gevurah גבורה Yom HaZikaron LiShoah UliGevurah
Shma Yisrael
Two examples of NYT apathy during the Holocaust
Cartoonist Antonio Moreira Antunes Claims Antisemitic Allegations Come From “The Jewish Propaganda Machine”
Holocaust
And We Remember.....
Visiting an Old Age Home in Jerusalem
Bread of Affliction
Redemption, Exodus: Would You have been One of the One Fifth 1/5?
Nefesh b'Nefesh: How helpful are they AFTER you make aliyah?
The Post-1967 Origin of "Judea and Samaria"
Stand Up to the Bullies

Shabbat Shalom Umevorach,

May You have a Peaceful and Blessed Shabbat

"Maybe Esther-A Family Story," Book Review

A few months ago, a neighbor invited us to meet some friends of hers, who were visiting from abroad. They were Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern and his wife. Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern is the brother of Katja Petrowskaja, the author of Maybe Esther-A Family Story  We found them to be charming, intelligent and fascinating people. And then a few weeks later, my neighbor gave me Petrowskaja's family memoir/history book which is totally amazing.

"Maybe Esther-A Family Story" tells not only about Katja Petrowskaja's family but about herself, too. She grew up in the Ukraine not knowing all that much about her family's history. There were things like the great-uncle Judas Stern who was an assassin, a crucial tidbit which nobody wanted to talk about. Nobody was certain of her great-grandmother's name; it might have been Esther.

Petrowskaja left the Ukraine as a young woman and, davka, chose to make her life in Germany. "Maybe Esther-A Family Story" was originally written in German. The English translation by Shelley Frisch is excellent. I have no idea how it compares to the original, but it's very readable and flows nicely.

As a young woman, Petrowskaja attempted to distance herself from her Jewish Ukrainian roots, while her brother became a religious Jew. Their ancestors also went in different directions, and Petrowskaja tells of the challenges she took on to search for and document their amazing sagas.

Petrowskaja is descended from teachers, but not the usual academic, science, math or history teachers. Her family taught the deaf and had unique techniques for teaching clear speech to those who couldn't hear.

Of course, as with any Jewish Ukrainian family there are two large "elephants in the room," the Soviet Union and the Holocaust. Petrowskaja manages to deftly weave all of this together in a very readable tapestry. I highly recommend Maybe Esther-A Family Story.

Product details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Harper (January 30, 2018)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0062337548
• ISBN-13: 978-0062337542

To Remember and Not to Forget

יום השואה

לזכור ולא לשכוח

Yesterday my "senior citizens class" and I joined the other students in Ulpanat Ofra, the Ofra Girls High School in commemorating/remembering the Holocaust.

There were two parts to the memorial. First they divided the student body into a few smaller groups in large seminar rooms to hear personal Holocaust stories. As the Holocaust gets further away in time, there are fewer and fewer survivors left alive who can tell their stories. The woman who spoke to us is one of the youngest survivors. She was born in Holland during World War Two, and her parents took quite a bit of convincing to pass their newborn baby to a total stranger, someone in the underground who had volunteered to care for her.

The miracles continued in that not only did she survive and thrive, but both parents also survived, and the woman who had cared for her willingly returned her to them. Post-war Dutch Laws made it very difficult for Jewish families to reclaim their children who had been cared for by non-Jews. The woman and those who helped her parents survive have remained in contact to this day.

After that moving and amazing story, we all crowded into the auditorium for a much longer and varied program. It included standing for the siren, prayers, readings, dance and more. I must say that the students were quiet and attentive throughout the event. Here in Israel, it doesn't matter what your family history, it's clear that the message is relevant to all.

Rethinking My Family's Holocaust

For the longest time I'd just say that my family had no Holocaust story, but then I realized that no story is really a story. It's more a mystery unless someone tries major research.

"No Holocaust Story" is a Story

What do you think?

Re: My Father's Father's Family "Three Minutes in Poland"

While I was sitting shiva for my father on the Eve of Passover, my friend dropped a bag next to my chair:

"There's a book and coffee."

Later that day, during a lull in the shiva, when nobody was there to comfort, I opened the bag and found  "Three Minutes in Poland." Now that I'm "up from shiva" I'm reading it. It's the amazing saga of Glenn Kurtz, who tells how he discovered and researched the short film his grandfather took in pre-World War Two Poland.

I plan on reviewing it after I finish reading it.

Now why is it so exciting and so fitting as reading material during the mourning period for my father? It was even one of the props/tools/visual aids I had at my service when sitting shiva along with pictures.

So many of my neighbors are immigrants or children of immigrants, including Holocaust survivors, so a common and favorite question one asks a person sitting shiva for a parent is about the family background:

From where was your father/mother or his/her parents?

When someone is a good few generations in Israel it's rare. With the help of this book I was able to talk about my father's father's family, their European background and their way of thinking. "Three Minutes in Poland" is about the Jewish community of Nasielsk, where my paternal grandfather's family had lived until well before the Holocaust.  Unlike many Jewish families from Europe, it seems that the Spiegelman clan, my father's father's family, were not optimistic about life in Europe. They were ambitious businessman and decided that their futures would be better in America.

Not just my grandfather and some of his siblings left Nasielsk, but his parents, aunts, uncles and cousins were also in the states. Most arrived before or after World War One. My father was raised in a large clan including both sets of grandparents, because even my grandmother's parents and most of her siblings had left Rogotshov, Belarus prior to World War Two. Not that long ago I was contacted by descendants of cousins of my father's mother, and we are now in touch pretty much daily on facebook.

All of this is rather amazing, as far as I'm concerned. I'm very glad to have an amazingly suitable book to read after sitting shiva. Here's a video about Nasielsk, Poland, 1938, and the author of the book:

Some People are Always Remembering the Holocaust

I must admit that the Twentieth Century Holocaust isn't always on my mind. It isn't something I grew up knowing about at all. My grandparents on both sides made it to New York even before World War I, and my father's grandparents also managed to leave Poland and Belarus and lived in New York knowing their grandchildren.

This sets me apart from many of my generation of American Jews and Israelis for sure. My neighbor tells a wonderful story about her father and how he returned to Germany as an American soldier.  Read it.

I'm haunted more by the fact that the world stood by and ignored the plight, the murder of Jews.

And yesterday I loved the irony of seeing the flame of the memorial candle on the black-draped table in Rami Levy for all to see, Jews, Arabs, Christians, all who passed by.

The 'tween Pesach and Holocaust Memorial Day Havel Havelim

Last week it was Passover, and today is Holocaust Memorial Day. Next week it'll be the Israeli Memorial Day for Soldiers and Victims of Arab Terrorism immediately followed by Yom Ha'atzma'ut, Israeli Independence Day.  So I expect to get you to send me lots of great blog posts for Havel Hevalim. This week's edition of Havel Havelim is hosted by Esser Agaroth and it's full of fascinating blog posts. So please read, comment and share, thanks.

We coordinate HH on our facebook page. Please send me (shilohmuse at gmail dot com) your links until this coming Friday before Shabbat. The following week will be hosted by Adventures In AliyahLand.

Holocaust Memorial Day is when Israeli and Jewish leaders make all sorts of wonderful speeches that make them all sound like strong Right wing leaders, yes, to the Right of Jabotinsky and Uri Tzvi Greenberg. No doubt there are professional speechwriters who make a killing during this season, like those who can live a full year off of their etrog sales. I know that I sound like a terrible cynic, but I'm telling the truth.

“Very few world leaders understood the enormity of the threat to humanity posed by Nazism….. The bitter and tragic truth is this: it is not that they did not see it. They did not want to see it. And why did they choose not to see the truth? Because they did not want to face the consequences of that truth.”
Prime Minister Netanyahu explained that world leaders in the 1930s adopted of a policy that was based on “one axiom – avoid another confrontation at any cost.”
He quoted the Biblical phrase from the Book of Psalms, “They have eyes, but cannot see; they have ears, but cannot hear.”
Netanyahu then turned his attention to Iran, which has called for destroying Israel and is recognized by the virtually the entire western world as retrying to develop a nuclear weapon.
“Today, just like then, there are those who dismiss Iran’s extreme rhetoric as one that serves domestic purposes,” he said. “Today, just like then, there are those who view Iran’s nuclear ambitions as the result of the natural will of a proud nation – a will that should be accepted.
“And just like then, those who make such claims are deluding themselves. They are making an historic mistake.”

This speech isn't policy it's just a well-crafted speech. The words are true, but Bibi isn't going to act on them.

The phrase, term "havel havelim" comes from Kohelet, Ecclesiastes and means "vanities" or in Yiddish "norishkeit." That's what I think of all these speeches. They are just words. I find more truth coming out of blogs by ordinary people. That's a reason I keep blogging and am one of the coordinators of Havel Havelim.

Hands as "Art"

This "hand thing" of mine started when I was in Miami, Florida, and my cousin pointed out that this reaching hand is a Holocaust Memorial.  Its visual impact is great.

Many of those who tried to escape the Holocaust and were refused by the United States ended up in in Central and South America.  And no doubt you know that too many ended up being returned to Hitler's Final Solution. Many survivors also found Spanish-speaking America more hospitable than the United States post-war. This hand reaching for help truly symbolizes how they felt and what happened. Today many in Miami and Florida's Jewish population are Spanish speakers and descended from those Jews.

I also found these sculpted hands in the Israel Museum.

There's a lot of drama in hands.  I know that from my dancing and choreography background.

Since I'm blogging about "hands" I want to show you my new ring, which I bought in Arizona at an Indian jewelry store in Scottsdale.

Never Again, Never Forget, Irena Sendler

There isn't any fiction as amazing as true stories.  When fiction tries to be amazing, it ends up being just too unrealistic.  The Holocaust challenged some people to greatness.  Not everyone was up to risking everything to help others.  I don't think that we can judge those who couldn't, but we must praise and publicize the stories of those who did find the courage, determination and creativity to overcome the pressures, cruelty and fears of the time.  Irena Sendler is one of the great heroines who saw people in need and risked her life to help them.  I trust you'll appreciate her story.

She Saved 3000 Jews During the Holocaust 

The 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising has renewed focus on the events of the Nazi occupation of Poland and the fate of Poland's Jews during World War II. Between October 1940 and May 1943 over 400,000 Polish Jews were rounded up and herded into the 1.3 square mile ghetto. Of the original Jewish population, few Jews survived the round-ups, murders, starvation and disease but some of the ghetto residents were able to escape the ghetto and find hiding places on the other side of the ghetto wall. 

Many of the Polish citizens who helped the Jews escape and hide have been honored by Yad Vashem as Righteous Gentiles. One individual in particular, Irena Sendler, was credited with having saved over 3000 Jewish lives but after her Jerusalem commemoration ceremony in 1965 her story was almost forgotten. It was only when a group of non-Jewish schoolgirls from Uniontown Kansas happened to hear a rumor of her wartime activities and started to research the events that the world could fully appreciate the incredible courage and selflessness that Sendler demonstrated.

When the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939 Irena Sendler was a senior administrator in the Warsaw Social Welfare Department. She immediately joined the Zagota underground which specialized in helping Jews escape Nazi persecution. Sendler became involved in acquiring forged documents which registered Jews under Christian names so they could receive services. 

Sendler obtained a pass from the Warsaw Epidemic Control Department which allowed her to enter the Warsaw Ghetto. She smuggled in food, medicine, and clothing but came to the conclusion that she was simply prolonging the suffering of the Jews. She decided to try to save the children. "When the war started, all of Poland was drowning in a sea of blood. But most of all, it affected the Jewish nation" Sendler said in a interview conducted in 2007. "And within that nation, it was the children who suffered most. That's why we needed to give our hearts to them."

Zagota put Sendler in charge of its Children's Division and she and her team of twenty-five Zagota members began to smuggle out as many children as possible from the Ghetto. Irena suffered almost as much as the children's parents as she tried to convince them to allow her to give their children a chance to be saved.

"I talked the mothers out of their children" Sendler reminisced. "Those scenes over whether to give a child away were heart-rending. Sometimes, they wouldn't give me the child. Their first question was, 'What guarantee is there that the child will live?' I said, 'None. I don't even know if I will get out of the ghetto alive today."

Sendler sedated small children to keep them from crying and then hid them in toolboxes, bags and even under garbage as they were smuggled out of the ghetto.. Older children were often smuggled through sewers or underground tunnels or through the old courthouse which was located next to the ghetto wall. 

Once a child had been removed from the ghetto Sendler and the other Zagota members would provide him with false names and documents and find him a hiding place, usually in a convent or an orphanage. Sendler recorded all of the names of the children on scraps of tissue paper and hid them in glass jars in her neighbor's yard. 

In October 1943 Sendler was arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned. Although she endured horrific torture she didn't reveal any information about the children or about her Zagota comrades. The Germans sentenced her to death but Zagota was able to bribe a German guard and free her. Sendler lived out the rest of the war in hiding. 

After the war Sendler tried to locate the children according to the scraps of paper that were in the glass jars. She wanted to help them return to the Jewish community. Due to these efforts several hundred children immigrated to Israel while others remained in Poland, oftentimes with their adoptive families. The whereabouts of approximately 500 of Sendler's rescued children remain unknown.  

The Life in a Jar project was born out of the Kansas girls' research. Today hundreds of thousands of people know about Sendler's activities because of the project which includes a book, a website and a stage performance. It also led to the creation of the Lowell Milken Center that encourages students to  spread the stories of other unknown heroes.