Books, Poetry & Short Stories

Combined American and Hebrew Calendar Book Makes Planning Easy

He has put together a joint Hebrew and Gregorian calendar and planner, in which Jewish and American holidays are listed on a day-by-day basis along with listings of candle lighting times for the start of Shabbats and Jewish holidays as well as what Torah portions will be read in synagogues around the world on each Saturday. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Fred Reiss, EdD, Israel, San Diego County, Staff and Bylined Contributors, USA

Highly Readable Holocaust Memoir Carefully Delineates Sources

In 1942, when Alfred was 8 and Herbert was 5, their parents arranged for the boys to be sent to a summer camp operated by a Jewish rescue organization.  Much to the boys’ distress, their safety-minded parents had them stay much longer than the summer.  While they were gone, their father, who had been helping the French Resistance, was arrested by the Vichy government. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Holocaust, International, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Staff and Bylined Contributors, USA

Ohio Attorney General Sues to Stop Potential Sale of Rare Jewish Books, manuscripts

Published by The Center Square (The Center Square) – Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost wants to stop the sale of ancient Jewish texts and books at the nation’s first permanent Jewish institution of higher learning in Cincinnati. Yost filed for a temporary restraining order to prevent Hebrew Union College from selling copies of the Talmud

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Nordot, Science, Medicine, & Education

Romance Novel Addresses Corruption in the Organ Transplant Business

This novel is a story of love, loss, and redemption with authoritative descriptions of transplant surgeries. First-time novelist Weill formerly directed the heart-lung transplant program at Stanford University. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Science, Medicine, & Education, Staff and Bylined Contributors

Before There Was D-Day, There Was S.O.E.

In her meticulously researched and documented (80 pages of notes and references), D-Day Girls, journalist and bestselling author Sarah Rose follows a handful of these heroines through thick and thin; trough success and failure; through romances, double agents and double-crossings; through capture, imprisonment, interrogation, torture, unspeakable atrocities, sickness and even death for some. [Dorian de Wind]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Dorian de Wind, International, The Moderate Voice

German-Czech Future Fund supports Kafka anniversary projects

Published by DPA International To mark the 100th anniversary of Franz Kafka’s death, the German-Czech Future Fund is supporting cross-border projects that deal with the life and work of the German-Jewish writer. Interested parties from Germany and the Czech Republic can apply for funding until the end of this month, a spokeswoman said in Prague

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, International, Jewish Fiction, Jewish History, Nordot

Jewish Biography: Erich Kurt Mühsam, Murdered Bohemian Poet

In 1908, Mühsam moved to Munich. Augustin Sawhi, a Spanish anarchist, recalls: “Within a few years, he became well known in the artistic world of Munich for his carefree, witty lifestyle. […] Mühsam was considered the leader of Munich’s bohemians.” [Alex Gordon]

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Alex Gordon, Antisemitism, Books, Poetry & Short Stories, International, Jewish History, Staff and Bylined Contributors

Today’s Jewish Birthday: Allen Ginsberg

Courtesy of Wikipedia Allen Ginsberg (June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with Lucien Carr, William S. Burroughs, and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Generation. He vigorously opposed militarism, economic materialism, and sexual repression, and he embodied various aspects of this counterculture with his views on

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Today's Jewish Birthday, Wikipedia

Treachery, Sex, Sportsmanship Dominate Novel about 1936 Olympic Games

Hitler sought a propaganda victory for his Nazified country with the Olympic Games supposed to be the setting for a demonstration of “Aryan” superiority. Brundage, blinded by his own lust for prominence, became Hitler’s stooge, so desperate was he to rise to the presidency of the International Olympic Committee.  [Donald H. Harrison]

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Antisemitism, Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish Fiction, Staff and Bylined Contributors

‘Love is All We Need’: An Idyllic Book for Children (and Their Adults)

Love is All We Need by Krina Patel-Sage; Northampton, Massachusetts: Crocodile Books © 2024; ISBN 9781623-716929; 26 pages; $18.95. SAN DIEGO – The two boys hugging in the middle of the adjacent cover image are a Muslim and a Jew – a timely reminder during the fierce Israel-Hamas War that friendships between people of different

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Lifestyles, Staff and Bylined Contributors

Learning from Isaac Leib Peretz’s Masterpiece ‘If Not Higher’

I consider Peretz’s story “If Not Higher” the best of his tales. In it, the Hasidim of the town of Nemirov believe their rabbi is so holy that he ascends to heaven each year during the Penitential Prayers, which are recited in synagogues every Friday morning before the New Year holiday Rosh Hashanah. [Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Israel Drazin-Rabbi Dr., Jewish Religion, Staff and Bylined Contributors

Jewish Biography: Lion Feuchtwanger, the Cosmopolite

His books probe which type of Jew serves the nation more faithfully – the court Jew Joseph Süss Oppenheimer from  Jew Süss; Yehuda ibn Ezra, the favorite of King Alfonso VIII from The Spanish Ballad; the assimilated and estranged historian and writer, the collaborationist Joseph Flavius in The Jewish War trilogy; Jephthah, the leader and fighter for the national interest in Jephthah and His Daughter; or the revolutionary leader Thomas Wendt (Ernst Toller) in The Year One Thousand Nine Hundred and Eighteen? [Alex Gordon]

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Alex Gordon, Antisemitism, Books, Poetry & Short Stories, International, Jewish History, Staff and Bylined Contributors, USA

Novel Tells of Female Math Whiz Helping the U.S. to Win World War II

Her misplaced feelings of guilt prompted her to hide a remarkable inheritance, the gift of being able to visualize the solutions to math problems in her head, similar to the way that television’s Dr. Shaun Murphy of the just concluded The Good Doctor series was able to mentally picture complex medical conditions and interactions. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Antisemitism, Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Science, Medicine, & Education, Staff and Bylined Contributors, Technology

Novel Traces the Life of a Jewish Baby Boomer

Typically, novels have some conflicts that need to be resolved, but although this one hints of several conflicts, they are papered over.  For example, the fact that her mother was a Christian who pretended to be a very “Reformed” English Jew in order not to upset Sherrie’s grandparents was a situation that could have been deeply explored, but it wasn’t. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Staff and Bylined Contributors