Pamper Her On Mother's Day...
"Papa is just like Odysseus,"
the little girl says. "Papa was im-
prisoned by monsters, too."
In this short work, the author's
first novel, three children try to
come to terms with their father's
incomprehensible suffering.
Sometimes, it is by creating com-
parisons with the familiar, like a
film character or a disease
("We've had chicken pox and Ger-
man measles"; their father has
"camp.") Sometimes, it is through
watching quietly, intensely.
Remember, the father asks his
wife, when we met again after the
war. "And you lay on top of me
and just kept on moaning, 'What
have they done to you, Ephraim,
what have they done to you?"
Tears run from my mother's
dark eyes. We look at her face,
shocked. We are seeing it today for
the first time. It is the face of
Papa's sweetheart. Her name is
Bette, and she waited for him.
I
n 1923 one of the leading rab-
bis of the Reform movement
issued a warning. Jews, he
said, were becoming more and
more "lured by the charm of the
world around us."
Jewish leaders were preach-
ing a "colorless universalistic lib-
eralism," Rabbi Felix Levy said.
What would this mean eventu-
ally for the Jewish people?
In The Chosen People in
America (Indiana University
Press), Arnold M. Eisen consid-
ers that very question. What, he
wonders, does it mean to be a Jew
in America? What does the con-
cept of "chosen people" mean in
the melting pot? And what is the
future of the "Jewish identity"?
N,
/ Mr. Eisen, associate professor
of religious studies at Stanford
University, discusses the way
American Jews define them-
selves as a community ("Nation,
People, Religion — What Are
We?") and the way they define
their "chosenness."
Chapters also focus on the Re-
form movement and its transfor-
mations, and Reconstructionism
founder Mordechai Kaplan.
H
annah remembers the
"first me" at 3 years old.
"We were rushing home.
Papa carried me in his
arms. We heard singing from
afar. Papa was saying, 'They are
still singing revolutionary songs.'
I could smell my father's derby
hat. It smelled good."
It was the last time Hannah's
father would carry her.
I Remember (Clarion Books) is
Fara Lynn Krasnopolsky's semi-
autobiographical book tracing her
childhood years in pre-Bolshevik
Russia.
It is the story of waiting for a
sick mother who goes out of town
for a cure, of trying to make sense
of God in a time of Karl Marx, of
a much-beloved father who
brings home oranges and apples
at Rosh Hashanah, and of a pas-
sionate love for music.
Also new for young readers is
Under the Domim Tree (Simon
and Schuster) by Gila Almagor.
The book traces the stories of
three girls, Aviya, Yola and Mira,
who live in a youth village in Is-
rael. The daily lives of the chil-
dren there are filled with struggle
and anguish. Some are haunted
by the Holocaust; others do not
even know the fate of their fam-
ilies during the war.
Then something unusual hap-
pens in the village, and Aviya,
Yola and Mira are drawn to-
gether.
Ms. Almagor, also author of
The Summer of Aviya, wrote Un-
der the Domim Tree based on
memories of her own youth.
M
uhammad, Buddha and
Jesus are some of the
"Big Teachers."
There are "Thanks"
prayers and "Wow!" prayers and
"Gimme!" prayers. Some of the
latter are completely under-
standable. Others are, well, not
exactly kosher. ("There is noth-
ing wrong with praying for
strength or courage to face a loss
or for the grace to be a good win-
ner, but asking God to help you
win a game is not worthy of the
friendship, trust and love we
should have for God and God al-
ways has for us.")
Rabbi Marc Gellman and Mon-
signor Thomas Hartman, in How
Do You Spell God? (Morrow) pro-
vide "answers to the big questions
from around the world," like ways
to communicate with God and
ways to build a house in which
God can be worshipped.
The book speaks of a variety of
religious traditions and their an-
swers to some of life's stickiest
problems, such as the chapter on
"What Happens After We Die?"
All the major religions teach
a very big idea about what hap-
pens after we die: Our bodies re-
ally die, but something in us keeps
on living. Even though all reli-
gions do not teach us about God,
all religions teach that death is
not the end of everything.
The name for the part of us that
lives on after death is different for
all religions. Jews and Christians
call it our soul. The ancient Egyp-
tians called the soul ba. Hindus
call the soul atman. The Zoroas-
trians call the soul urvan. In Is-
lam the soul is called nafs, or
sometimes ruh.
Rabbi Gellman, of Temple
Beth Torah in Dix Hills, N.Y.,
was ordained at Hebrew Union
College and is the author of Does
God Have a Big Toe? Monsign-
or Hartman, director of radio and
television for the Diocesan Tele-
vision Center in Long Island,
N.Y., hosts the radio program
"Journeys Through Rock."
The two men also host the na-
tionally syndicated weekly cable
TV show, "The God Squad." ❑
Don't just remember
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