Women's lives were expected to
be focused on the home much
more than men's were."
In her book, she tells of various
ways in which women and girls
have chosen to observe the cere-
mony of becoming bat mitzvah.
Sometimes, the parties that in-
variably follow the event-have a
Jewish content. Often, they do
not. Ms. Goldin tells of parties
with beach and Hawaiian and
disco themes, and of one in which
a family "had the party in the hall
of dinosaurs of a city museum of
natural history."
Ms. Goldin also is the author
of The Passover Journey and
Cakes and Miracles.
saac Babel was a kind of sheep
in wolf's clothing. A Jew, he
hid his identity and rode with
the Cossacks. What he saw:
death, filth, violence, cruelty and
especially hatred — often all-con-
suming — of Jews.
Babel wrote of his experiences
in his Red Cavalry stories. Now
the journal, Isaac Babel: 1920
Diary (Yale University Press)
that served as the base of those
stories is available.
It is relentless, painful reading,
all the more powerful because of
2
another sitting over her sabered
son, an old woman lying twisted
up like a pretzel, four people in one
hovel, filth, blood under a black
beard, just lying there in their
blood."
1920 Diary was translated by
Carol Avins and features a fasci-
nating introduction by H.T. Wil-
lets, previously translator of
Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Gulag
Archipelago. In the introduction,
he reveals that the diary "lay in
obscurity until the mid-1950s,
when it came into the possession
of the writer's widow. Another
thirty years passed before the ad-
vent of a climate in which all of it
could be brought into print. In
1987, when censorship was in its
waning days and revelations
about Soviet history and culture
filled the press, four major jour-
nals were approached with an of-
fer to publish this piece of the
past. They all refused."
Part of the problem, one editor
explained, was that the diary
"would damage Babel's reputa-
tion ... (because it) showed him to
be too concerned with Jews."
BROOKSIDE
Offers cm outstanding core curriculum for students iunior
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• Spanish-language program • Nationally recognized
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CRANBROOK KINGSWOOD MIDDLE SCHOOL
Concentrates on gender-specific student needs, grades
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• Average 6 to 1 student-faculty ratio • State-of-the-art
computer facilities
T
here are two new books
from up north — up north
Canada, that is. Count Us
In: The Struggle to Free
Soviet Jews (Burgher Books,
Toronto), by Wendy Eisen, tells
of Canada's contribution to this
cause, from its start in 1956 to the
1989 "Operation Exodus."
The story is one of a handful of
determined activists, of human
rights forums, of symbolic seders
for the refuseniks, of demonstra-
tions and of support from the
most interesting and unusual of
places.
Harold Ballard had no qualms
about telling a Russian hockey
team they were not welcome at
the Maple Leaf Gardens, which
he owned. "I will let them play in
Isaac Babel writes movingly of anguish.
the Gardens provided they let a
Babel's skill, even with a sparsi- thousand Soviet Jews leave the
ty of words, at painting a picture country," he announced.
A Christian minister was an-
of pure horror.
Zhitomer pogrom, organized by other outspoken supporter of the
the Poles, continued, of course, by refuseniks. In his column in the
the Cossacks. When our advance Toronto Star, he urged readers to
troops appeared the Poles entered send Passover greetings to Yosef
the town, stayed for 3 days, there Begun. "Letters really make a dif-
was a pogrom, they cut off beards, ference — especially from people
that's usual, assembled 45 Jews who are not Jews," he wrote. "No
in the marketplace, led them to group in the single human fami-
the slaughteryard, tortures, cut ly should be left to cry its pain
out tongues, wails heard all over alone."
A native of Toronto, Ms. Eisen
the square. They set fire to 6 hous-
es ... machine-gunned those who served as chairman of Soviet Jew-
tried to rescue people. The yard- ry support groups for Montreal
man, into whose arms a mother and Ontario, and for the nation-
dropped a child from a burning al Soviet Jewry committee of the
Canadian Jewish Congress.
window, was bayoneted ...
Abraham Arnold's Judaism:
"(And in Komarow) Captain
Yakovlev's Cossacks were here yes- Myth, Legend, History and
terday. A pogrom. The family of Custom (Robert Davies Pub-
David Zys, in people's homes, a lishing, Quebec) provides a secu-
naked, barely breathing prophet lar perspective on Jewish history.
Raised in a nominally tradi-
of an old man, an old woman
butchered, a child with fingers tional home in Montreal, the
chopped off, many people still author says he became a "secu-
breathing, stench of blood, every- lar Jew" for many reasons.
thing turned upside down, chaos, REIGN page 58
Provides a co-educational day and boarding environment,
grades 9 through 12 • Recognized as exemplary school
by the U.S. Department of Education • Exceptional record
of college placement at Ivy League schools and other
outstanding colleges and universities
For more information, please call:
OPEN HOUSE
Sunday, October 15
1:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Cranbrook subscribes to a policy of equal opportunity with respect to employment,
participation in available programs and access.
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57