I CLOSE-UP

A FULL SHELF

A wide array of authors are scheduled to appear

at this year's Jewish Book Fair.

ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM
and KIMBERLY LIFTON

Jewish News Staff

Opening Saturday, Nov. 11, at
the Jewish Community Center in
West Bloomfield, the 38th Annual
Jewish Book Fair offers something
for everyone — from the dedicated
sports fan to an aspiring chef.
Among the topics to be
covered are Hank Greenberg and
Samuel Goldwyn, intermarriage
and women's issues, Jewish
entrepreneurs on Wall Street and
the importance of religion,
memories of pre-war Vilna and a
history of the cantorate, the Middle
East conflict and new kosher
recipes.

HAROLD KUSHNER

Author of "Goldwyn: A Biography"

R

xactly how he got to the
United States is still a
mystery.
Sam Goldwyn claimed he
was sitting on a bench in England
when a gentleman approached him
and offered the travel fare. Another
story has it that he borrowed the
money from • relatives. Goldwyn's
wife said, "I always thought he stole
the money."
But it's no secret what happened
to Goldwyn once he came to New
York: He became one of the most
powerful producers in Hollywood,
the man responsible for The Best
Years of Our Lives, Guys and Dolls
and Wuthering Heights, a film he
loathed making — Merle "Cathy"
Oberon couldn't act and Laurence
"Heathcliff" Olivier was overacting
— but claimed was his favorite.
Despite his success and power,
Goldwyn was essentially a sad
man, plagued by the early death of
his father and poverty as a child,
according to A. Scott Berg, author
of Goldwyn: A Biography.
Born Schmuel Gelbfisz in Poland,
Goldwyn was 16 when he came to
New York. He found a job selling
gloves and gained a reputation as a
man who could sell his wares to
anyone.
Goldwyn caught on early to the
money-making potential of movies.
With nothing more to show than his
confidence, he convinced investors
in 1914 that his initial project, The
Continued on Page 28

abbi Harold Kushner didn't
pray when he felt the earth
trembling beneath his feet in
San Francisco last month.
"My first reaction was, 'This is an
earthquake. Am I supposed to get
in or out of the doorway?"' he says.
For Rabbi Kushner, author of
When Bad Things Happen To Good
People and his most recent Who
Needs God, prayer is more complex
than reaching into one's pocket and
making a wish.
"God is not Santa Claus, and
prayer is not just asking for what
you want," he says. He also adds
that religion is not just being "a
good person" or going to shul on the
High Holy Days.
The head of Temple Israel in
Natick, Mass., Rabbi Kushner says
religion is primarily a way of seeing
the world. It is a way of life replete
with moral order, forgiveness, com-
fort and wonder that is unfamiliar
to many men and women.
"There's so much emphasis today
on the glorification of human
achievement — with sophisticated
computers and rockets — that I
think we've lost sight of our limita-
tions," he says.
"If we depend only on ourselves,
what happens when we run dry?
How do you handle it when, after
raising a brain-damaged child for
15 years, you suddenly realize
you'll be doing the same thing for
another 15?"
Continued on Page 28

26

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1989

A. SCOTT BERG

Author of "Who Needs God"

E

RAYMOND SOKOLOV

Author of "The Jewish-American
Kitchen"

F

rom matzo ball soup to fried
herring balls, The Jewish-

American Kitchen provides
provides 135 recipes and more
than 45 color photographs of cuisine
that author Raymond Sokolov says
celebrate the richness of Jewish
culture.
The book, says Sokolov, arts and
leisure page editor of The Wall
Street Journal and former food
editor of The New York Times, is
the product of a career in the food
writing business.
"This book took all of my life," he
says.
Jewish American Kitchen
describes the basic system of
kashrut and offers a historical
perspective of the evolution of
, Jewish cooking. The author ex-
plains that keeping kosher is more
than buying the proper foods; it is
"preparation, context and the deep-
ly embedded tradition behind the
dishes that characterize Jewish
cooking."
Susan Friedland, who has written
food books and is an editor at a l\kYw
York publishing house, tested the
recipes. She says she -grew up
eating kosher food.
"It is not meant to be an interna-
tional cookbook," Sokolov says. "It
should strike Jewish people as a
Jewish cookbook who are trying to
define Jewish cuisine for American
Jews in 1989."
SokolOv, who never kept a kosher
Continued on Page 28

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