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RAYMOND WEIL

GENEVE

The Russian-Speaking Baby,
The Mystery Of Black Betty,
And Benjamin's Letters

ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM ASSOCIATE EDITOR

ne baby spent a lot of time
speaking Russian.
It wasn't that she was
saying da or nyet. It was
simply a lack of communication.
A relative of ours had just ar-
rived from Russia and was stay-
ing with us for a few weeks.
She was a lovely person, yet
we had no language in
common. Though we did
our best to supply all
her needs, she
would make un-
intelligible re-
quests, and we all
ended up being
frustrated. Ever
since, the chil-
dren use the '
term "speak- -
ing Russian"
when the
baby is crying
and they don't know what he
wants.
In Straight from the Heart
(Targum Press), Tehilla Abramov
offers advice, based on Torah and
the value of nursing, to new Jew-
ish mothers (like the one whose
baby "speaks Russian").
Mrs. Abramov begins by
stressing a woman's role in shap-
ing her child's character, and the
affect love has on the tiniest of
human beings. She cites both rab-
binic sources (Rabbi Shimshon
Raphael Hirsch labeled the nurs-
ing years "the most important pe-
riod for education") and secular
of
studies (in The
Man, Ashley Montagu writes of
a 1915 report showing that most
babies in orphanages did not sur-
vive long beyond their first birth-
day).
The author discusses practical
issues, including a chapter con-
sidering the health benefits of
nursing. In "More Than a Baby's
Treat" she discusses the fat con-
tent, carbohydrates and miner-
als found in breast milk and how
this affects baby's current and fu-
ture health.
She also offers advice on deal-
ing with jaundice and thrush,
and provides an appendix on
breast-feeding and Halachah:
when must a nursing mother
fast, is breast milk kosher and for
how long does Jewish law say a
child may continue to nurse.
n the late 1970s, D.M. Thomas
began his novel with a strange
dream.
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an Exhibition (Scribner's) also
focuses on the haunting dreams
of a mysterious figure:
"Why do I always dream of
death?" he burst out. His brow
was bathed in sweat. 'Why do I
always dream of death?"
Pictures at an Exhibition opens
at Auschwitz, where an SS of-
' ficer is suffering with terri-
ble headaches. He asks a
Jewish prisoner, Galews-
ki, who knows some-
thing of Freudian
theory, to come meet
with him.
(He related a
dream in which he)
saw the face of his
mother, lying quiet,
asleep, on the fresh
pillow. He was sur-
prised to see his
mother in a farm
under the mountain. He tried to
rouse her but could not...He saw
that the whole of the nether part
of her body was being gnawed
away, by rats.
The doctor was sweating as he
revealed the ghastly end of his
dream. He sighed, recrossed his
legs, took out a silver cigarette case
and lit up a cigarette. "This was
one of the better ones," he said.
The two continue to meet, din-
ing on cake and listening to
Mozart, as the officer's headaches
begin to disappear.
Fifty years later, a famed psy-
choanalyst sits listening to
Mahler. He and his friends are
about to be submerged into a ter-
rifying nightmare.
Author D.M. Thomas lives in
London. He also is the author of
Flying in to Love and Swallow.
our persons,
with little in common but
their Judaism,
sit in a small
room crowded with
furniture. All stare at
a black box.
The box holds a
tape-recorder, and it
plays the music of a
cantor long dead. He
is leading Rosh
Hashanah services for
the small Jewish corn-
munity of Tokaj, Hun-
gary, and despite the
poor quality of the Ruth Gruber
tape, the cantor's voice
is mesmerizing.
"It makes me shiver to hear
this," says his son Lajos, one of
four Jews still living in Tokaj.

In Upon the Doorposts of
Thy House: Jewish Life in
East-Central Europe, Yester-
day and Today (Wiley), jour-
nalist and photographer Ruth
Gruber visits Slovakia, Poland,
the Czech Republic and Hungary
to meet with the remnants of the
Jewish community, most of
which was destroyed in the Holo-
caust.
She speaks with Karol Sidon,
new rabbi of Prague. She finds a
sausage stand on the site of the
former synagogue of Smichov in
the Czech Republic (Hebrew writ-
ing can still be seen atop the
building). She visits the main
Jewish cemetery of Budapest,
filled with huge mausoleums and
memorials. And she visits Cra-
cow, where Steven Spielberg is
filming Schindler's List and a re-
searcher tells her, "Working on
memory here is a very difficult
task."
Also new from Ruth Gruber,
an updated version of her Jew-
ish Heritage Travel: A Guide (
to East-Central Europe (Wi-
ley). Filled with maps and pho-
tographs, it offers extensive travel
information — including details
about synagogues and cemeter-
ies — on Jewish communities
throughout eastern Europe.
Ms. Gruber is former chief UPI
correspondent in Vienna, War-
saw and Belgrade. She resides in
Italy.
asy Rawlins is looking at
trouble.
The private eye is deep
in debt, which means he's
going to have to take the case of
Elizabeth "Black Betty" Eady.
What a mess she's left. Then
comes the news that Easy's trou-
ble-making sidekick Mouse is get-
ting out of jail — and
he's got revenge in
mind.
President Clinton's
favorite mystery
writer Walter Mosley
(who is Jewish and
black, and whose
works often feature
figures from both
worlds) has just come
out with his latest,
Black Betty (W. W.
Norton), a story of
life set in seedy,
sprawling, spicy
Los Angeles in the 1950s.
There was a little grocery
store down at the corner. I
braved the morning heat and

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