Chanuka

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On The Bookshelf

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Eight Nights/Eight Books

One for each night, they shed a sweet light ...
the perfect book for those special people at Chanuka.

GAIL ZIMMERMAN
Arts 6- Entertainment Editor

L

ooking for that last-minute
Chanuka present? We are
the People of the Book after
all, so stop at your local
bookstore for that perfect gift for fam-
ily members and friends. Here are
some suggestions to get you started.

Candle #1:
For The Short Story Lover

by pious old men with long beards
who spend their days and nights study-
ing obscure points of religious law.
What I Didn't Learn in Hebrew
School is divided into six sections: corn-
prising 88 short chapters. Each chapter
introduces us to a topic from Jewish
culture, religion or literature viewed
from a historical perspective. Segal, cur-
rently head of the religious studies
department at the University of Calgary,
also laces his observations with humor
and provides suggestions for further
reading at the end of each chapter.
"Chief among my motives," writes
Segal in the
introduction to
his book, "is my
determination to
infect people
with my own fas-

Bad Jews and Other Stories, by
Gerald Shapiro (Zoland
Books; $24), is a collection of
funny and often moving
short fiction from the author
of From Hunger (winner of
the Edward Lewis Wallant
Award) and editor of
American Jewish Fiction: A
Century of Stories.
Bad Jews and Other Stories
is Shapiro's comic and often
Gerald s hapira
pessimistic vision of life, love
and spiritual adventurism
among secular, contemporary
American Jews. The charac-
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ters in these nine stories, cut
... ' ‘'W Alt)
off from the character-build-
ing hardships their parents
endured, are unable to expe-
rience the comfort of faith
because of their inability to believe
in much of anything. They wander
through their own moral landscape,
suffering absurd misadventures, and
often encountering redemption
in ffebroww ,
amid disaster.
ScheeP
Says Publishers Weekly,
"Brimming with keen insight into
cination with
Excursions
the psyches of hilarious, even lov-
through
Jewish history
able losers, the wacky brilliance of
F., * the Jewish Past
and culture." He
;and Present
these remarkable stories marks
succeeds.
Shapiro as a writer to watch."
The section on
Eligzer Sega!'
The author resides in Lincoln,
Jewish Trivia and
0gf.-
Neb., with his wife, writer Judith
Exotica, for exam-
Slater.
ple, deals with questions like, "What Is
the Origin of the Expression Oy Vey?"
Candle # 2
The section on Jewish Weddings asks, "
What Should You Sing to a Homely
For The Jewish Learner
Bride?" The section on Community
Why Didn't I Learn This in Hebrew
ponders, "Why Are Jews Concerned
School, by Eliezer Segal (Jason
About Exploding Cows?"
Aronson; $35), is the author's attempt
"My underlying assumption," writes
to dissuade us of the notion that
Segal, "is, of course, that our ancestors
Jewish history is a dull affair populated
were very much like ourselves and

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dealt with issues very much like the
ones that confront us today. ... Judaism
has never been static or monolithic.
The tradition has made room for legal-
ists, philosophers, mystics and others,
each of whom has interpreted the her-
itage in their own distinctive manner."

Candle # 3
For The Biography Buff

Fannie: The Talent for Success of
Writer Fannie Hurst, by Brooke
Kroeger (Times Books; $30), tells the
story of a Jewish girl from St. Louis
who became the "sob sister" of
American fiction in the 1920s and '30s.
In the first half of the 20th century,
Fannie Hurst was known as much for
the details of her own life as for writing
stories that penetrated the human
heart. When she died of
cancer in 1968, her obit-
uary was front-page news
in the New York Times.
The author of numer-
ous short stories, includ-
ing "Humoresque," and
26 books, including
Back Street and Imitation
of Life, she wrote about
working women and
immigrants, about love,
murder and despair.
Fannie also was beloved
by Hollywood; 31 movies
were based on her work.
Her life intersected with
everyone of significance of
the time —in science, the
arts, media, Hollywood,
academia and politics.
Fannie lent her name
and time to the socialist, liberal,
humanitarian and feminist causes of
the day, but, influenced by her conser-
vative German-Jewish parents, she suf-
fered some shame about her Jewish
identity, and never used her friendship
with Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt
to push "Jewish causes."
Today, Fannie is largely forgotten
and nearly all her books are out of
print, but Kroeger's biography reac-
quaints readers with an interesting pop
culture icon of the 20th century. The
author was a reporter and editor for
UPI and is currently a visiting professor
of journalism at New York University.

The Detroit
Jewish News
speaks to your
interests and
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