Books, Poetry & Short Stories

Dolly Parton Inspired the PJ Library Program for Jewish Children

Jewish books from the PJ Library are mailed free every month to 680,000  Jewish children to be read to them at bedtime by their parents or guardians.  Yes, you can thank Harold  Grinspoon, the Massachusetts real estate entrepreneur who funds much of this philanthropy, along with Winnie Sandler Grinspoon, his daughter-in-law who serves as president of his Foundation. [Donald H. Harrison]

Dolly Parton Inspired the PJ Library Program for Jewish Children Read More »

Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Judaism, Lifestyles, USA

Sampling Israel’s Ethnic Groups and Restaurants

Author Ethan Michaeli is an American journalist with a knack for schmoozing with people wherever he goes.  While he lives in Chicago, his older brother and parents live in Israel. He travels frequently to Israel to see his Hungarian-born parents and his brother, and whenever he does so, he likes to go touring around the country, meeting people from as many different backgrounds as possible. [Donald H. Harrison]

Sampling Israel’s Ethnic Groups and Restaurants Read More »

Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Middle East, Travel and Food

Novel Paints Stresses on Cheerleaders Who Take a Knee

This Young Adult novel focuses on the friendship between Eleanor  (Leni) Greenberg, who is Jewish, and Chanel  (Nelly) Irons, who is African-American.  Although they are members of different religious and racial groups, the two have been fast friends since childhood.  However, the friendship comes under stress during their senior year of high school when Leni is chosen as the team’s captain, even after being out most of the previous year with an injury, and Chanel, a natural leader of the team in the interim, has been passed over. [Donald H. Harrison]

Novel Paints Stresses on Cheerleaders Who Take a Knee Read More »

Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison

Chanukah with Some Stereotypical Yiddish Characters

In a style reminiscent of Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs of Disney fame, this book, reissued for Hanukkah, features a series of unidimensional characters with Yiddish names: Noshy Boy, Kvetchy Boy, Shmutzy Girl, Klutzy Boy, Shluffy Girl, Shleppy Boy, Kibbitzy Girl, and Keppy Girl. [Donald H. Harrison]

Chanukah with Some Stereotypical Yiddish Characters Read More »

Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Jewish Religion

Novel Depicts Survivor’s Search for His Family

Dr. Julius Matthias, the chief protagonist of Michelle Mazel’s previous book, has managed by the skin of his teeth to escape deportation by the Nazis from his hometown in Transylvania. His wife, who had refused his entreaties to leave the town together with him, was shot and killed by the invaders during the round-up of the Jews of the town. Many years before that Matthias had sent his grown-up children to France to study, and so, left on his own, he manages for many months to make his way on foot through the fields and forests of Europe, eventually reaching Geneva, where he has friends and a bank account. [Dorothea Shefer-Vanson]

Novel Depicts Survivor’s Search for His Family Read More »

Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Dorothea Shefer-Vanson

Memoir Relates How 2 Young Sisters- One Deaf, One Hearing – Survived the Holocaust Together

This joint memoir, intended for students in grades 3 through 7, tells the story of two young sisters — one hearing and one deaf — who survived World War II notwithstanding their transport as orphans from Bratislava to the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, where, a year later, Renee, the older of the two sisters, was near death from typhus when the camp was liberated by British soldiers. [Donald H. Harrison]

Memoir Relates How 2 Young Sisters- One Deaf, One Hearing – Survived the Holocaust Together Read More »

Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish History

People’s Need for Community Can Stir Positive Social Change

Israeli-American Shelly Tygielski is the founder of the “Pandemic of Love” movement, which champions people reaching out to each other, happy to give help and unafraid to ask for it.  However, before one can help others, one might need to engage in self-help, getting one’s priorities right, and, as the slang saying puts it, getting one’s head on straight. [Donald H. Harrison]

People’s Need for Community Can Stir Positive Social Change Read More »

Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison

Documentary Film Traces Life, Works of Yiddish Poet Avrom Sutzkever

Released in 2021, Ver Vet Blaybn? (Who Will Remain?), a documentary that follows one woman’s journey to understand her grandfather, Yiddish poet Avrom Sutzkever, is resonating with audiences and having success on the 2021–2022 film festival circuit, with screenings booked at upcoming festivals around the globe, including next February’s San Diego International Jewish Film Festival. [Yiddish Book Center]

Documentary Film Traces Life, Works of Yiddish Poet Avrom Sutzkever Read More »

Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Jewish History

The Tractor that Observed Shabbat

The current selection for the PJ Library, mailed free to Jewish children whose families request, age-appropriate Jewish stories is about a self-sufficient farmer named Sarah, who knows how to change her tractor’s oil, how to handle his clutch, and the right way to switch his gears.  They were a great team, Sarah and Yitzi.  Every Friday night, they would power down and do no work until after Shabbat was over.  It was their routine for Sarah to have a sip of wine at the beginning of Shabbat, and for Yitzi to have a sip of gasoline. [Donald H. Harrison]

The Tractor that Observed Shabbat Read More »

Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Jewish Religion

Dybbuk Possesses a 19th Century Jewish Immigrant in Novel

This novel for young adults is set in Chicago at the time of the 1893 World’s Fair, when immigration to America was prohibited for people with diseases, but otherwise was unrestrained by quotas. Maxwell Street at the time was a bustling, crowded, impoverished neighborhood for Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, one of whom – the protagonist Alter Rosen – has dreams of earning enough money as a linotype operator to pay for passage from Romania to America for his mother and two young sisters. He also has nightmares that people will learn that he is a homosexual. [Donald H. Harrison]

Dybbuk Possesses a 19th Century Jewish Immigrant in Novel Read More »

Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison

The Polish Spy Who Reported on Auschwitz from the Inside

Witold Pilecki, a member of the Polish resistance, learned of a new camp established by the German Nazis in the Polish city of Oswiecim, toward what end no one knew yet.  He volunteered to do the unthinkable: to purposely be captured by the Nazis and to be sent to the camp, which came to be known as Auschwitz. [Donald H. Harrison]

The Polish Spy Who Reported on Auschwitz from the Inside Read More »

Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Jewish History

The Life and Times of Rabbi Judah the Prince

Using many sources, including hundreds of anecdotes, former US Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (1985-1987) and Under Secretary of Defense (2001-2004) Rabbi Dr. Dov S. Zakheim, author of Nehemiah: Statesman and Sage (Maggid Books, 2016), gives us a very informative and riveting, easy to read biography of one of the most important figures of ancient Jewry, Rabbi Judah the Prince (135-217), also called Rebbe, “Teacher.” He was the man who had Judaism’s Oral Law put into writing, called the Mishna, which became the basis of the Talmud. [Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin]

The Life and Times of Rabbi Judah the Prince Read More »

Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Israel Drazin-Rabbi Dr., Jewish History, Jewish Religion