This space contributed
as a public service.

"YES, THERE IS
LIFE AFTER
BREAST CANCER.
AND THAT'S THE
WHOLE POINT:'

On The Bookshelf

YOU BET, Sonny—.

No Molter Whet your
Race or Religion!

/—

ANT RACIAI AND REUGIDUS

NATO

JEWS AGAINST

PREJUDICE

AMERICAN JEWS
AND THE FIGHT
FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES

STUART SVONKIN

7 c51 74

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NONFICTION

Jews Against Prejudice
By Stuart Svonkin; Columbia Universi-
ty Press; $32.50.
From the Depression through the
'60s, American Jews were at the fore-
front of the fight against discrimina-
tion. Svonkin tells their story in this

new book. Jewish intellectuals look
into the causes of prejudice. Jewish
organizations grow from small groups
fighting anti-Semitism to large forces
at the center of a key social and politi-
cal battle. Even today, many of the
ideas of these Jewish activists guide
civil rights and ethnic policies.

Lifecycles: Jewish Women on Biblical
Themes in Contemporary Life
By Rabbi Debra Orenstein and Rabbi
Jane Rachel Lit-man; Jewish Lights Pub-
lishing; $24.95.
This latest volume in the series of
Lifecycles books is a collection of
essays by prominent Jewish women.
From Genesis ("our roots and begin-
nings, family and home") through
Deuteronomy ("leadership, law and
revisioning the future"), these writers,
rabbis and scholars take themes from
the Torah and apply them to the lives
of Jewish women today.

NEW IN PAPERBACK

The BuchenWald Report
Translated by David A. Hackett; West-
viewPres.s-; $28.50.
This collection of survivor testi-

-Ann Jillian

monies has been widely praised as a
landmark work in Holocaust history.
Through the eyes of the contributors,
the book records life in the concentra-
tion camp and the struggle by sur-
vivors to hold on to their values
against all odds.

Paul Celan: Poet, Survivor, Jew
By John Felstiner; Yale University Press;
$17.
Felstiner's work won the 1997 Tru-
man Capote Award, the world's largest
annual cash prize for literary criticism.
Paul Celan was a German-speaking,
Eastern European Jew who wrote
poetry about the Holocaust in the
years after the war. Felstiner, a profes-
sor of English and Jewish studies at
Stanford, has included new transla-
tions and has written of Celan's influ-
ences — from the Bible and Jewish
mysticism to the contemporary Euro-
pean writers. Said one critic, "[Fel-
stiner] has done the impossible —
integrated Celan's life and poetry
without stinting either. The full
weight and agony of the poet's fate as
a Jew and survivor are captured."

—

Compiled by Owen Alterman

AME RICAN

V sTaNE

`Homecoming'

I

n Homecoming (Delacorte
Press, $19.95), Belva Plain has
crafted another family story to
add to her 14 best-selling nov-
els, the first of which was Evergreen.
Hoping to end the schisms that
divide her family, Annette Martin-
son Byrne decides to collect its
members at her country estate so
that they can heal old wounds, rid
themselves of old resentments and
become a loving family once more.
As it stands, Annette's two sons,
Lewis and Gene, have not spoken in
years because of a business transac-
tion gone bad; Cynthia, one of her
granddaughters, is dealing with a
tragedy involving her twin children
and a separation from her husband;
and Ellen, the other granddaughter,
has married out of her faith, to the
chagrin of both her parents and her
Jewish in-laws.
As Annette greets her unsuspect-

Get a checkup. Life is worth it.

ing guests (each thinking he or she is
the only one invited), she begins to
wonder whether her meddling will
help or hurt the family she loves.
At first, her guests are outraged
by her interference, but will near-
disaster force the family to pull
together before another tragedy
occurs?
Homecoming is a small book with,
it seems at times, too many char-
acters. Belva Plain could
probably write separate
books on each of
them. It is, however,
a good way to
spend a few hours
with people you
grow to care about
in a very short
time.

— Reviewed by
Beverly Mindlin

A lot of women are so afraid of
breast cancer they don't want to
hear about it.
And that's what frightens me.
Because those women won't
practice breast self-examination
regularly.
Those women, particularly
those over 35, won't ask their doc-
tor about a mammogram.
Yet that's what's required for
breast cancer to be detected
early. When the cure rate is 90%.
And when there's a good chance
it won't involve the loss of a
breast.
But no matter what it involves,
take it from someone who's been
through it all.
Life is just too wonderful to
give up on. And, as I found out,
you don't have to give up on any
of it. Not work, not play, not even
romance.
Oh, there is one thing, though.
You do have to give up being
afraid to take care of yourself.

' , V:ktct

Left: Belva Plain

"'

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