Donald H. Harrison

By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO — The other day as my father-in-law, children and grandchildren joined with Nancy and me for Shabbat dinner, we tried to think of some wonderful way to celebrate Thanksgivingukah–as the conflation of Thanksgiving and Chanukah is being called.  Supposedly, these two holidays only arrive together every 70,000 years, so […]

Aline Sax, author, and Caryl Strzelecki, illustrator, The War Within These Walls, Eerdman’s Books for Young Readers, 2013, ISBN 978-0-8028-5428-5, 169 pages. By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO — Sometimes I think all of us are too young to learn about the Holocaust, because the more we know the more our souls feel crushed.  But

Peri Berger, Broken Mirrors, Menucha Publishers, 2013, ISBN 978-1-61456-086-7, 270 pages, cover price unlisted. By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO–From the very beginning of this novel, its denouement is telegraphed. Students at a Jewish school express confusion and consternation when they meet Judy Rangler, their new secular studies teacher. She doesn’t wear a sheitel, but

Julie Weinberg, I Wish There Were Baby Factories, BookLocker.com, 2013, ISBN 9781626464124, 210 pages, cover price unlisted By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO — Somehow smiling through her tears, Julie Weinberg tells “a story inspired by real life events” about a couple whose efforts to have a baby–including fertility and adoption–were beset with dramatic disappointments,

Shoshana Mael, Dancing in the Dark, Menucha Publishers, Inc., 2013, ISBN 978-1-61465-094-2, 276 pages, cover price unlisted. By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO–Rikki and her older sister Daniella, who were both quite popular with their classmates at an Orthodox Jewish girls high school, showed up one day badly bruised. Rikki’s neck had been clawed with

Karen Goldman, Jordan and the Dreadful Golem, Penlight Publications, Rachel Moseley illustrator, 2013, ISBN 978-098-386-852-1, 224 pages, $15.95 By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO –Jewish tweens and teens who enjoyed the Harry Potter series by J.K.Rowling may find themselves charmed by a new juvenile fiction series launched by Karen Goldman about a village in the

  By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO—This book falls within one of those between genres—historical fiction—in which it is difficult to tell what is real and what is made up.  If you were writing a biography of Marilyn Monroe, you couldn’t reliably cite it, yet there is enough verisimilitude about the book that a reader

By Donald H. Harrison EL CAJON, California–For those of us who are attuned to every development in Middle Eastern news–worrying about violence in Syria and Egypt, negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, and the prospect of Iran getting the N-bomb–attending a town hall meeting such as the one Congresswoman Susan Davis (D-San Diego) conducted at

Tilia Klebenov Jacobs, Wrong Place, Wrong Time;   Linden Tree Press, (c) 2013, ISBN 978-0615805597, 400 pages, cover price unlisted. By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO- – While reading and enjoying this novel about an almost-ethical kidnapper, I kept wondering why the author had decided that the female victim in this story should be a well-educated

By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO — Someone might have predicted years ago when Sue Marder was 8 and still younger than her grandchildren are today,  that she would become both a writer and a volunteer at an animal shelter.  As a child she wrote a poem called “My Pet” and precociously sent it off

By Donald H. Harrison EL CAJON–It seemed as if the entire Pygmalion audience fell in love with actress Hannah Hedgecock as she threw herself into the part of Eliza Doolittle on Thursday night at Grossmont College’s Stagehouse Theatre. The meaner that co-star Derek San Filippo in the role of Henry Higgins behaved toward Eliza, the

By Donald H. Harrison EL CAJON –Those who would ban books cite inappropriate language or too much sexuality or violence as their motivation for wanting them removed from library shelves.  However, often their unspoken motivation is to suppress ideas that may disrupt the established societal order. In observance of National Banned Book Week, a faculty-student

Daily Life in Biblical Times by Liora Ravid, Gefen Publishing House, 2013, ISBN 978-965-229-609-2, 461 pages plus bibliography, $24.95 By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO — If Liora Ravid’s book receives the attention I believe it deserves, it will transform the Bible for many readers from a vaguely-understood, often misunderstood, set of documents to one