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and spat in frying pan after frying
pan, some invisible cultural metamor-
phosis was taking place."
Cohen is torn between the two
worlds. Among the most poignant
scenes in a vastly touching book is
Cohen, a boy seduced by the allure of
Christmas, begging his mother for a
tree. His mother resists, finally striking
on the talmudic compromise — he can
have a tree, but in his own room. After
supper, the boy sits in his bedroom;
alone, in darkness, contemplating the
single strand of lights on the pathetic
little tree, a "solitary celebration" he
found "profoundly dispiriting."
That independent streak is seen
again and again. His temple is led by
the flinty Rabbi Perry Nussbaum,
courageous when it comes to integra-
tion (both his home and the syna-
gogue were bombed by the Klu Klux
Klan) but a stickler when it comes to
ritual. He commands young Edward,
who hates hard-boiled eggs: "If you
don't eat the egg, you must leave the
Passover seder."
"The egg glistened white as a slug
under a rock," Cohen writes. "The
look on the rabbi's face was superior,
confident; to him, this was a battle
not only well worth fighting but one
he was sure to win. I stood and
walked out."
The book is filled with those small,
telling moments that aggregate into a
life, like first-grader Cohen climbing
to the roof of his house after Rosh
HaShana services to enviously watch
his classmates play at the school across
the street.
For all Jackson's nightmare quality
— when the Kennedy assassination is
announced over his school's public
address system, the students cheer;
later, the Legislature bans Sesame Street

from the TV airwaves because it shows
black and White children playing
together — the town's harshness is
always cut by the fact that it is home
and watchful Jews are living there.
When the KKK marches proudly
through Jackson, right past the Cohen
Bros. store, his grandparents can iden-
tify their hooded neighbors by recog-
nizing the shoes they sold them, peek-
ing out from under their robes. It is
Cohen's accomplishment to acknowl-
edge that his father and grandfather,
desperate to fit in, might well have
happily joined the KKK themselves,
had it not been for the Klan's unfortu-
nate feelings toward Jews.
Normally a book like this peters
out as it approaches the author's adult-
hood, but just as he is leaving Jackson
the civil rights struggle blows in at
gale strength, nearly destroying his
family's store. Cohen's telling of the
change, and of his family's complex
relationship with the blacks who were
their customers and who worked for
them is, like the book itself, a small
masterpiece of subtlety and candor.

—

Reviewed by Neil Steinberg

The Mississippi Institute of Arts
and Letters recently awarded
Edward Cohen's memoir its
respected Nonfiction Prize 2000.
The institute praised Cohen's
successful merger of "two highly
disparate historical traditions."
Cohen currently lives in Venice,
Calif, where he is a freelance
writer and filmmaker. Reviewer
Neil Steinberg is a freelance
writer based in Chicago.

journey from Italy to New York.
United States, the refugees were herd-
The rescue of the refugees, including
ed into a virtual prison camp near
former concentration
Oswego, N.Y., and kept there
camp inmates, was a one-
until the end of the war.
Gikt)FIERI
time gesture by President
Government officials, fear-
.
Franklin D. Roosevelt,
ing a backlash if more Jews
but even this was marred
i were admitted, foiled
by the attitudes of many
attempts by Gruber to publi-
American soldiers and
cize the plight of Jewish
officials.
refugees and grant citizenship
Wounded GIs aboard
to those held in the camp.
the ship Henry Gibbins
Expected to be included in
objected to the effort,
the film is rarely seen color
saying that the space
footage shot by U.S. camera-
given to the refugees
man George Stevens immedi-
should have been
ately
after the liberation of the
A miniseries based
reserved for their
Dachau concentration camp.
on Ruth Grubers
-wounded comrades.
"Haven" will be aired
— Tom Tugend
After arriving in the
on CBS next year.
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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