jtnews | november 18, 2011

t h e v o i c e o f j e w i s h w a s h i n g t o n

november 18, 2011 • 21 cheshvan 5772 • volume 87, no. 24 • $2

Eats, Reads and Arts

professionalwashington.comconnecting our local Jewish community

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Books&movies, music foodfor HanukkaH

2 calendar and arts Jtnews . calendar.Jtnews.net . friday, november 18, 2011

November 20 at 10 a.m.Kadima Hanukkah Art and Book SaleBook talk and saleKadima presents Jewish Threads, a new book on Jewish fabric crafts, and a talk by contributor Lois Gaylord on “Working with Spiritual Inten-tion.” Art and books will be for sale. At Kadima House, 12353 Eighth Ave. NE, Seattle. For more information visit www.kadima.org.

November 28 at 7 p.m.Lawrence WeschlerAuthor talkFormer New Yorker staff writer and award-winning journal-ist Lawrence Weschler will talk about his latest compilation, Uncanny Valley: Adventures in Narrative, which comprises 15 years of his best nonfiction. Weschler is, among other things, the grandson of the Pulitzer–prize-winning Viennese Jewish immigrant Ernst Toch. At Elliott Bay Book Company, 1521 Tenth Ave., Seattle. For more information visit www.elliottbaybook.com/node/events.

Candlelighting timesNovember 18 ...................4:12 p.m.November 25 .................. 4:06 p.m.December 2 .................... 4:02 p.m.

Friday 18 November5–6 p.m. — Kabbalat Shabbat with Parallel Kids Program

Carol Benedick at [email protected] or 206-524-0075 or www.bethshalomseattle.orgWhile the adults attend Kabbalat Shabbat services, children (2–7 years) can hear stories, learn songs, and participate in other activities. At Congregation Beth Shalom, 6800 35th Ave. NE, Seattle.5:30 p.m. — NYHS Family Shabbat Dinner

Michelle Haston at [email protected] or 206-232-5272Family Shabbat dinner. $22; $18/10 and under. At Congregation Ezra Bessaroth, 5217 S Brandon St., Seattle.

6:30–8 p.m. — Dream Shabbat [email protected] or

www.hilleluw.orgRepair the World is hosting a Dream Shabbat to advocate for the Dream Act, which would provide a path to citizenship for undocumented high school graduates who continue to college or the military. Free. At Hillel at the University of Washington, 4745 17th Ave. NE, Seattle.

Saturday 19 November8 p.m. — BCMH Torah Dedication

Julie Greene at [email protected] or 206-721-0970With the arrival of a new Torah, BCMH celebrates the shul’s 120 years of existence. The Torah will be brought to its new home with singing, dancing, desserts and a klezmer band. At Bikur Cholim Machzikay Hadath, 5145 S Morgan St., Seattle.5–10 p.m. — Parents’ Night Out

Josh Johnson at [email protected] or 206-388-0839 or www.sjcc.orgParents can hit the town while the kids spend a fun evening at the SJCC. Kids enjoy open swim time,

dinner, dessert, and an evening movie. $25–$45. At the Stroum Jewish Community Center, 3801 E Mercer Way, Mercer Island.

SuNday 20 November11 a.m.–2 p.m. — Turkey Shecht

Josh Furman at [email protected] or www.jconnectseattle.orgJconnect is teaming up with Growing Things Farm and Rabbis Avi Rosenfeld and Simon Benzaquen to ritually slaughter 10 organic turkeys in time for Thanksgiving. Feather and clean the birds, and participants will leave with a kosher turkey. Meet at Hillel to carpool. At Hillel at the University of Washington, 4745 17th Ave. NE, Seattle.5 p.m. — SBH Gala Dinner

Diana Black at [email protected] Dr. Larry and Sharon Adatto with the Community Hesed Award. At Sephardic Bikur Holim, 6500 52nd Ave. S, Seattle.7–9 p.m. — Tales of Chelm

Jennifer Fliss at [email protected] or 425-603-9677 or templebnaitorah.orgThe Seattle Jewish Theater Company presents

Tales of Chelm, based on the stories from The World of Sholem Aleichem. Free. At Temple B’nai Torah, 15727 NE 4th St., Bellevue.

WedNeSday 23 November11 a.m. — The PJ Library Story Time at Mockingbird Books

Amy Hilzman-Paquette at [email protected] The PJ Library for music and storytelling. Learn Hebrew through ASL with Betsy Dischel from Musikal Magik, a Certified Signing Time academy. Free. At Mockingbird Books, 7220 Woodlawn Ave. NE, Seattle.

thurSday 24 November7:30–9 p.m. — Beth Shalom Beit Midrash

Carol Benedick at [email protected] or 206-524-0075 or www.bethshalomseattle.orgStudy Talmud with Joel Goldstein on the second and fourth Thursday of the month. All levels welcome. $5/class, $25/6–class punchcard. At Congregation Beth Shalom, 6800 35th Ave. NE, Seattle.

The gift of giving.Getting started: This Hanukkah, give a copy of The Tzedakah Book to your

children, along with envelopes, stamps, and gelt they will contribute to the organizations that inspire them.

How much? When it comes to gelt, choose what fits your family’s budget, from coins to paper.

Take your time.Spend time together looking through The Tzedakah Book and building your own tzedakah Box.

Dress it up.Include stickers, glitter, markers, colored pencils, and note cards so your children can decorate their very own Tzedakah Box using the template we provided — or any box or canister that you choose. Plus, they can include beautifully decorated notes with their tzedakah gelt.

More OnlineTo download more copies of The Tzedakah Book, go to www.jtnews.net and click on The Tzedakah Book image.

because giving feels good

Send pictures of

you and your decorated

Tzedakah Box plus a

close-up of the box to editor@

jtnews.net. We’ll post them all

online, and publish three in

the December 9 Hanukkah

Greetings issue! Deadline

December 2.

friday, november 18, 2011 . www.jtnews.net . jtnews inside

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p u b l i s h e d b y j e w i s h t r a n s c r i p t m e d i a

t h e v o i c e o f j e w i s h w a s h i n g t o n

inside this issue

Remember when

3

From the Jewish Transcript, November 8, 1935.In a special Jewish education edition that

brought commentary from area rabbis and lead-ers, Rabbi Max J. Wohlgelernter, director of the Talmud Torah, wrote that the topic of discussion, whether all children in Seattle should receive a free day school education, was moot. The people who could not pay were already getting their education for free, and the families who did not send their chil-dren to day school would probably not do so regard-less of the cost, he argued. Wohlgelernter suggested instead that a supplementary school to be held in the afternoons could be a more viable alternative.

YiddiSH LeSSoNby ruth Peizer

Der mentsh fort un got halt di leytses.A person drives, but God holds the reins.

Just in time to get ready for Hanukkah, we’ve got a special books, movies, music and food issue. Here are but a few of what we have to offer this week.

Escape from the notifiers 4On the heels of Israeli author David Grossman’s visit to Seattle last week, the writer spoke with us about his book To the End of the Land — he told his Town Hall audience that President Obama’s currently read-ing it — and how he kept going when life veered so close to his art.

What Nora wants, Nora gets 5Nora’s Will which just came out on DVD, tells the story of a woman who got everything she wanted — including her own death. Also, a review of last year’s comedy A Matter of Size.

Books to read by the fire 6Winter’s the time to curl up with heavy books and hot chocolate, so our reviews of Holocaust stories and nonfiction will give you the gravity you seek.Capsule reviews include local authors, poetry and memoirs 7

Books for kids 8The Sydney Taylor Book Awards from the Association of Jewish Libraries gives a good read on what the kids should be reading. So we’ve got reviews of this past year’s winners.

What else would a bunch of short, hairy overweight men do? 10Play basketball, of course! A fictionalized account of the best pro hoops team early in the sport’s history is dirty, spunky and just plain fun. But author Neal Pollack played a little fast and loose with the truth.

Getting hungry? 11We are, too. Especially after reading our annual review of kosher foods that go great as gifts or for serving at your own Hanukkah parties.

The call of the shofar, with orchestra 15A new CD from composer Meira Warshauer brings the sounds of nature — air, water, insects — and couples it with the call of the ram’s horn to beautiful but mysterious effect.

And on the rambunctious side of the CD library 17A children’s CD of Shabbat songs from New Jersey’s Mama Doni is cute, catchy and fun for the kids.

Paradise lust 23Throughout history, explorers, idealists and enthusiasts have undertaken the search for the mythical Garden of Eden. Now an author has compiled the stories of those travelers.

Call me Bond. Israel Bond. 24Plenty of people have tried to imitate the inimitable superspy James Bond. But none come close to Oy-Oy-7, a ’60s series of spoof novels that are once again seeing the light of day.

Look for

November 25Holiday Giving Guide

December 9Hanukkah Greetings

Build and decorate your tzedakah box today, and share the joy of tzedakah with your whole family this Hanukkah. Call us for an extra copy, or download extra copies of The Tzedakah Book at www.jtnews.net, and read about how you can bring tzedakah to your Hanukkah

ps: Send us pictures of you and your tzedakah box & we’ll post them online and publish three in our first issue of December. E-mail pictures to [email protected].

What do bats and owls have to do with Judaism?

Find out this Saturday night at Congregation Beth Shalom’s PJ Havdalah. Kids, put on your pajamas and head on over to celebrate the end of Shab-bat, do arts and crafts, eat snacks, and plenty more. Be sure to RSVP to Irit at [email protected]. Beth Shalom is located at 6800 35th Ave., NE in Seattle.

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4 eats, reads and arts Jtnews . www.Jtnews.net . friday, november 18, 2011

Israeli author David Grossman: No turning backemily K. alhadeFF Assistant Editor, JTNews

Celebrated Israeli writer David Gross-man is on tour in the U.S. to talk about his latest novel, To the End of the Land, his first to deal with the matsav — the polit-ical and security situation — in Israel. After her son goes off to war, Ora decides to hike part of the Israel Trail, where she hopes no one will be able to find her when they come to notify her of her son’s certain death. Before finishing the novel, Gross-man’s own son was killed during the final hours of the Lebanon War in 2006. Gross-man says of this experience: “After we finished sitting shiva, I went back to the book. Most of it was already written. What changed, above all, was the echo of reality in which the final draft was written.”

David Grossman spoke with JTNews about his life, his writing process, life and literature prior to his appearance last week at Town Hall.

JTNews: We know your own life and To the End of the Land overlap. But how did the idea for this story come about in the first place?

David Grossman: It’s very hard to trace the birth of an idea. Suddenly it is there. But I was looking for this idea for some years. I was looking for the way to write the story about the “situation” in Israel, but I was also trying to find a family story, the story of a family that will have to live within this sit-uation and to show how the situation radi-ates itself into the life of the family.

My second son Uri was about to join the army, and a half-year before I finally got this idea of a woman who refuses to collaborate with the situation, to be her-self and not function as a material of the

situation. She decides that she will not sit at home and wait for the notifiers [the offi-cials who would inform her of her son’s death] to come, she says, “to dig their noti-fication into her.” By doing the most trivial act of not waiting for them she managed to reshuffle the whole situation.

JT: How much did you feel you were writing about your own life?

DG: I walked from the end of the land [from the northern border with Lebanon on the Israel Trail] to my home near Jeru-salem. And when the book was finished I continued to walk in parts.

This was one of the sweetest experi-ences of writing this book: Being out, being in nature, being alone in nature, which is a special feeling. When you walk with another person you are more attuned to him or to her, and less to nature. When I walked alone, I became one more animal, one more creature.

I always like to know what I’m writing about. When I write about internal real-ity, I don’t have to leave my home for that. When I write about things that happen in the outer world, I like to take part in them. I remember when I wrote The Zigzag Kid I joined the detective unit for the Jerusa-lem police. When I wrote Someone to Run With I spent nights on the street. I love the way can integrate objective reality into subjective reality.

JT: Why did you choose a female char-acter to tell this story? Was that a device you chose to use?

DG: I thought that a book that tells so much about family and raising a child, for me it was both natural and challenging.

I always feel in women — not in all of them — a slight skepticism regarding the big systems of our life, like governments, armies, war — all these systems that are created by men. They are regarded more by men, even though they kill them more. Men will sit at home and wait for the noti-fiers. It’s a woman who will refuse to take part in this automaton game.

JT: Why does Ora have the sense that her son won’t return?

DG: I think every parent in Israel...this is the most dominant feeling. The whole country lives in such fear for its own exis-tence. The facts of death are so deeply for-mulated for us and engraved in our minds. There was almost no week or no day in

Israel that someone has not died or been injured. The death of your beloved ones is so near to the surface.

JT: How is this story received in Amer-ica and other countries outside of Israel? Do people have a hard time relating to such an Israeli experience?

DG: Everywhere I went, people said, “You wrote our story.” I’m coming here after a week in Scandinavia. They didn’t know war for 200 years. And yet, I think every individual feels his life is in a kind of danger. Everyone feels the fragility of his primal relationship to family, to friends. Everyone feels this doubleness. On the one hand, it’s a strong subcurrent of fear and anxiety. But the book is about life. Anyhow, the book is out here for a year now, so I really cannot complain about the way it was received here.

JT: To the End of the Land flows so nat-urally. Even in translation, the story just seems to spill out of your head onto the page. Explain your writing process. How was it compared to your other writing experiences?

DG: The writing process was no differ-ent than previous processes. I always write many versions. I have a vague idea, but I surrender to it. I write, then I get to a cer-tain point and turn back. I never want to get to the ending. I want my book to sur-prise me. It was more difficult to organize this book because it has so many subplots, but I like it this way. It’s like a couple, between the writer and the book. Like a couple, you work together and change each other. This has really been the heart of my life.

COurTESY SEATTLE ArTS AND LECTurES

David Grossman

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friday, november 18, 2011 . www.Jtnews.net . Jtnews eats, reads and arts 5

GREATER SEATTLEChabad House (Traditional) 206/527-14114541 19th Ave. NE Bet Alef (Meditative Reform) 206/527-939916330 NE 4th St., Bellevue (in Unity Church) Congregation Kol Ami (Reform) 425/844-160416530 Avondale Rd. NE, Woodinville Cong. Beis Menachem (Traditional Hassidic)1837 156th Ave. NE, Bellevue 425/957-7860Congregation Beth Shalom (Conservative)6800 35th Ave. NE 206/524-0075Cong. Bikur Cholim-Machzikay Hadath (Orthodox)5145 S Morgan 206/721-0970Capitol Hill Minyan-BCMH (Orthodox) 1501 17th Ave. E 206/721-0970Congregation Eitz Or (Jewish Renewal)6556 35th Ave. NE 206/467-2617Cong. Ezra Bessaroth (Sephardic Orthodox)5217 S. Brandon Street 206/722-5500Congregation Shaarei Tefilah-Lubavitch(Orthodox/Hassidic)6250 43rd Ave. NE 206/527-1411Congregation Shevet Achim (Orthodox) 5017 90th Ave. SE (at NW Yeshiva HS) Mercer Island 206/275-1539Congregation Tikvah Chadashah (Gay/Lesbian) 206/355-1414Emanuel Congregation (Modern Orthodox)3412 NE 65th Street 206/525-1055Herzl-Ner Tamid Conservative Congregation (Conservative) 206/232-85553700 E. Mercer Way, Mercer IslandHillel (Multi-denominational)4745 17th Ave. NE 206/527-1997Kadima (Reconstructionist) 206/547-391412353 NE 8th, SeattleKavana Cooperative [email protected]

TAcomAChabad-Lubavitch of Pierce County 1889 N Hawthorne Dr. 253/565-8770Temple Beth El (Reform) 253/564-71015975 S. 12th St.

TRi ciTiESCongregation Beth Sholom (Conservative)312 Thayer Drive, Richland 509/375-4740

VAncouVERChabad-Lubavitch of Clark County9604 NE 126th Ave., Suite 2320 360/993-5222 E-mail: [email protected] www.chabadclarkcounty.comCongregation Kol Ami 360/574-5169Service times and location can be found at www.jewishvancouverusa.org

VAShon iSLAndHavurat Ee Shalom 206/567-160815401 Westside Highway P O Box 89, Vashon Island, WA 98070

WALLA WALLACongregation Beth Israel 509/522-2511E-mail: [email protected]

WEnATchEEGreater Wenatchee Jewish Community509/662-3333 or 206/782-1044

WhidbEy iSLAndJewish Community of Whidbey Island 360/331-2190

yAkimATemple Shalom (Reform) 509/453-89881517 Browne Ave. [email protected]

K’hal Ateres Zekainim (Orthodox) 206/722-1464at Kline Galland Home, 7500 Seward Park Ave. SSecular Jewish Circle of Puget Sound (Humanist)www.secularjewishcircle.org 206/528-1944 Sephardic Bikur Holim Congregation (Orthodox)6500 52nd Ave. S 206/723-3028The Summit at First Hill (Orthodox)1200 University St. 206/652-4444Temple Beth Am (Reform) 206/525-09152632 NE 80th St. Temple B’nai Torah (Reform) 425/603-967715727 NE 4th, Bellevue Temple De Hirsch Sinai (Reform)Seattle, 1441 16th Ave. 206/323-8486Bellevue, 3850 156th Ave. SE 425/454-5085

SOuTH KING COuNTyBet Chaverim (Reform) 206/577-040325701 14th Place S, Des Moines

WEST SEATTLE Kol HaNeshamah (Reform) 206/935-1590Alki UCC, 6115 SW Hinds St.Torah Learning Center (Orthodox) 5121 SW Olga St. 206/938-4852

WAShinGTon STATEAbERdEEn

Temple Beth Israel 360/533-57551819 Sumner at Martin

AnAcoRTESAnacortes Jewish Community 360/293-4123

bAinbRidGE iSLAnd Congregation Kol Shalom (Reform) 9010 Miller Road NE 206/855-0885 Chavurat Shir Hayam 206/842-8453

bELLinGhAmChabad Jewish Center of Whatcom County820 Newell St. 360/393-3845Congregation Beth Israel (Reform) 2200 Broadway 360/733-8890

bREmERTonCongregation Beth Hatikvah 360/373-988411th and Veneta

EVERETT / EdmondSChabad Jewish Center of Snohomish County2225 100th Ave. W, Edmonds 425/967-3036Temple Beth Or (Reform) 425/259-71253215 Lombard St., Everett

FoRT LEWiSJewish Chapel 253/967-6590Liggett Avenue & 12th

iSSAquAhChabad of the Central Cascades (Hassidic Traditional)24121 SE Black Nugget Rd. 425/427-1654

oLympiAChabad Jewish Discovery Center 1611 Legion Way SE 360/584-4306Congregation B’nai Torah (Conservative) 3437 Libby Rd. 360/943-7354Temple Beth Hatfiloh (Reconstructionist)201 8th Ave. SE 360/754-8519

poRT AnGELES And SEquimCongregation B’nai Shalom 360/452-2471

poRT ToWnSEndCongregation Bet Shira 360/379-3042

puLLmAn, WA And moScoW, idJewish Community of the Palouse 509/334-7868 or 208/882-1280

SpokAnEChabad of Spokane County 4116 E. 37th Ave., Spokane 99223

509/443-0770Congregation Emanu-El (Reform)P O Box 30234, Spokane 99223 509/835-5050 www.spokaneemanu-el.orgTemple Beth Shalom (Conservative)1322 E. 30th Ave. 509/747-3304

W h E R E T o W o R S h i p

What Nora wants, Nora getsJoel magalNicK Editor, JTNewsDVD ReviewsNora’s Will (2010, Mexico)Directed by Mariana ChenilloMenemsha Films

Fourteen times Nora tried to kill her-self. On the 15th, she succeeded, but not before preparing an intricate Passover feast that would bring her family together for one last seder. That’s the premise of Nora’s Will, a film from up-and-coming Mexican filmmaker Mariana Chenillo.

While Nora’s the one with the will, and the word fits in any way you define it, (the Spanish title of the film, incidentally, is Cinco Dias sin Nora — Five Days With-out Nora), the story is really about José, Nora’s stubborn ex-husband who lives in an apartment across the street, just a bin-ocular’s view away.

José has spent the past 30 years not wanting to know what has been happen-ing in his former wife’s life. But it’s he who discovers Nora’s body after the boxes of frozen meat Nora has ordered for her last seder have been redirected to his home and he reluctantly takes a break from his busy life — computer Solitaire waits for no man, after all — to cross the street and enter the luxury apartment that was once his.

José’s discovery launches a comedy, such as it is, of errors that marks the path to Nora’s burial. In come the antagonis-tic chief rabbi and his mousy rabbinical student, who must guard the body for the four days that burial is forbidden due to the holiday and then Shabbat. Also enter-ing the scene, however, is the “wake and go” Catholic “funeral team,” with their votives in the front hall and the cross-shaped coffin, whom José has enlisted to take the body despite the pleadings of Nora’s psychiatrist that he must wait for his son to return from vacation for the burial to take place.

The son, Ruben, has his own prob-lems. He lives in the shadow of his pow-erful father-in-law, his boss and a man who has a lot of sway with the above-men-tioned rabbi. He is of course upset that his father would bury his mother without waiting, but more upset that his father has made the rabbi angry. As the film rolls on, the consequences of José’s actions become clear, and that of course makes Ruben even more upset.

Something else is troubling José, how-ever. In the opening scene of the film, as Nora got herself ready to end it all, she inadvertently dropped a photo of her-

self from decades before, in the company of another man. Of course José discovers the photo and must continually distract the young shomer and his family mem-bers so he can break into Nora’s keepsake desk to find out who the man was. As he learns, the man in the photo was not as far from the family as José may have liked. It’s a discovery that launches him on a search within himself about what this troubled but important person truly meant to him.

All the while the drama surround-ing the burial is going on, Nora’s long-time housekeeper has been preparing and

cooking a meal for which Nora, in her own preparations for the long sleep, had left specific instructions. She had also set the table.

In the end, Nora gets what she wants, like she always did when she was alive. Including, as we learn, her husband back.

Nora’s Will screened this year at the AJC Seattle Jewish Film Festival and is now available on DVD from www.menemshafilms.com.

MENEMSHA FiLMS

It takes a while before he realizes he always loved his dead ex-wife, so José repays his transgressions by giving up his own cemetery plot to Nora.

X PaGe 19


Winter books:SurvIvorS, SAvIorS AND SuffErErS

diaNa bremeNt JTNews ColumnistThe Holocaust provides powerful fore-

shadowing, albeit unintentional by the author, in White Picture: Poems by Jiri Orten, translated by prizewinning Seattle poet Lyn Coffin (Night, paper, $9.99). Orten was a Czech Jew from a middle class secu-lar family, and a young man when the portents of World War II became evident. While some of his family fled, he remained behind, perhaps because of his devotion to the Czech language and the arts. By the time he wrote most of the poems presented here in expert trans-lation, he knew “his life had been slit,” writes Edward Hirsch in the introduction. This gives his work an added dimension, as he becomes increasingly aware that he won’t survive. He was killed by “a speed-ing German car” in 1941.

Rilke, Brodsky and the Bible clearly influenced Orten’s work, from which Coffin will read at the Magnolia Bookstore at 7 p.m. on Dec. 1.

In his new novel, The Warsaw Ana-grams (Overlook, cloth, $29.95), Richard Zimmler (The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon) brings a touch of the supernatural and a

murder mystery to the grim times of the Warsaw Ghetto. The narrator is Erik Cohen, a well-respected psychiatrist who is forced into a ghetto apartment with his niece and

her son, Adam. Times are tense, but residents have little clue to their fate. So when Adam turns up dead, Erik chooses to believe it is more than just another random act of Nazi cru-elty and sets about unraveling the

mystery, despite the protests of everyone around him. Zim-mler explores the question of what people will do to survive when illness and starvation are close at hand in an expertly written but disquieting story.

Two new non-fiction books tell the story of gentiles brave enough to shelter Jews during that time. Frans and Mien Wijnakkers are a young married couple living in a rural Dutch town when Frans is approached by resis-tance workers to take in a Jewish family in Two Among the Righteous Few by Marty Brounstein (Tate, paper, $12.99). Thanks

to a special hidden addition to their house, they manage to shelter, or find shelter for, a large number of Jews, including chil-dren. One of those children is born in hiding and they pretend she is their own, and she became Brounstein’s wife. The Wijnakkers have both been honored by Yad Vashem.

Diane Kinman wrote Franca’s Story (Wimer, paper, $16.95) about her Portland neighbor Franca Mercati Martin. As she got to know the talented painter, Kinman learned that Franca came from a wealthy Florentine family who, despite their own wartime hardships, sheltered Jewish children and helped them escape. While the book mostly concerns Franca’s family, the section on the Jewish children makes for dramatic and touching reading. Franca is still living and painting, and the book is illustrated with black and white reproductions of her paintings, which can be seen in color on the publisher’s website, wimerpublishing.com.

When Art Spiegelman published the graphic novel Maus in 1986, he had no

idea he was creating a sensation. The international bestseller, which depicts Jews as mice and Nazis as cats, was based on his family history gleaned from his

parents, who survived the Holocaust. In Meta-maus: A Look Inside a Modern Classic, Maus (Pantheon, cloth, $35), Spiegelman explores the Maus phenomenon in great depth, analyz-ing his art, the Holo-caust, his parents and his Pulitzer prize-win-

ning book. The volume comes with a DVD that includes a copy of The Complete Maus (it became a two-volume work) that links to an archive of materials includ-ing audio interviews with Spiegelman’s father, historical documents and writings and sketches from the author’s notebooks.

For World War II buffs, Reluctant

If you go:

Lyn Coffin will read Jiri Orten’s poems from White Picture at the Magnolia Bookstore, 3206 W McGraw St., Seattle on Thurs., dec. 1 from 7–8 p.m.

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We’re on the same teamYou want your members to know what’s going on Jewishly (and that’s what we’re really good at here at JTNews!). We keep our community informed, inspired, and engaged with Jewish life locally, regionally, and beyond. Working together (as partnering members of Team Jewish Community), we can help keep your members in touch, help you raise funds, and help JTNews build a broader base of readers. Which helps us all grow and improve, and makes our commmunity conversation more interesting.

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Books in brief diaNa bremeNt JTNews Columnist

Local AuthorsBones Beneath Our Feet, by Michael

Schein (B&H, paper, $16.95). This book is difficult to read, not because of its rich and dense language — which suits an his-torical novel — but its tragic 19th-century story. The crux of the tale is Nisqually Chief Leschi, who in 1855 chose war against the territorial white government (called “Bostons”) rather than banishment to a reservation. There is a large cast of characters here, white and native, whose ethics range from best to worst. Leschi eventually was captured and prosecuted for the murder of a soldier killed in a skir-mish, convicted and hanged. This era cre-ated a win-lose situation for the native population as their lives, land and cul-ture in Puget Sound were taken over. We still share this land with Leschi’s descen-dants, but the author emphasizes the price one group paid to allow another group to thrive. The book suffers slightly from a shifting narrative voice, but the glossary and character list are well thought out, and the bibliography will help readers fur-ther explore local history. Leschi was vin-dicated in 2004 by an historical court of inquiry, the killing declared one of war

“between lawful combatants.” Daughters of Iraq, by Revital Shiri-

Horowitz (independent, paper, $11.21 at Amazon). A novel about one Iraqi fam-ily’s immigration to, and settlement in

Israel, told from the perspectives of three women: Violet, who died of cancer but whose voice lives on in diary form; her sister Farida, and Violet’s daughter Noa, a young

woman trying to figure out her her-itage and her life’s direction. Despite some confusion as the viewpoint s h i f t s b e t w e e n characters, the sto-ries hold our atten-tion as we learn of Iraqi Jewish life

before and after immigration. The author lived on Seattle’s Eastside for many years, and is now back in Israel.

Baseless Hatred, by René H. Levy, Ph.D. (Gefen, cloth, $26.95). Citing both religious texts and modern political com-mentary, and drawing on psychology and history, Levy urges us to address “sinat hinam (baseless hatred) among Jews and its antidote arevut (mutual responsibil-ity),” which he explores on interpersonal

and international levels. Levy’s schol-arly approach makes casual reading a bit difficult, but the advice is practical: Know what makes you hateful, take steps to change it, and be tolerant of others. “Diversity is not fragmentation,” he says: We can learn to get along. Levy is Professor and Chair Emeritus of Pharmaceutics at the University of Washington.

Memoir and BiographyWendy and the Lost Boys, by Julie Sal-

amon (Penguin, cloth, $29.95). A per-sonality as complicated as Wasserstein’s deserves a book this long and detailed. Sal-amon interviewed around 600 people to compile information about the playwright who died in 2006 at age 55, from what appeared at the time to be a mysterious ill-ness. Salamon delves into the Wasserstein family psychology — overachieving and demanding, but intensely private — and the theater world that became Wasser-stein’s second family. That world included Seattle, where two of Wasserstein’s most popular plays were previewed and revised at the Seattle Rep under the direction

of Dan Sullivan. The author treads l ightly, perhaps because family and friends still survive, and seems reluc-

tant to analyze Wasserstein’s sometimes bizarre behavior. She tells the stories and leaves us to ponder what made this hugely creative and oversized personality tick.

Following Ezra: What One Father Learned About Gumby,

Otters, Autism, and Love from His Extraordinary Son, by Tom Fields-Meyer (New American Library, paper, $15). This utterly charming memoir is well written, poignant and funny. The author recounts his journey, so far, learning to parent his autistic son Ezra, now about 15. Fields-Meyer — a longtime correspondent for People magazine — blends anecdotes with his inner musings to show how he and his rabbi wife go from strict problem-solving mode to accepting Ezra for who he is. The narration builds in almost novel-like fash-ion as we wonder how Ezra is going to cope with his Bar Mitzvah. Have a hankie ready.

X PaGe 22

Tony Bennett at the Paramount!

Win a pair of tickets to see Tony Bennett Saturday, December 17 at 8 pm.

Here’s how: (1) LIKE US on Facebook at either /jtnews or /jewishdotcom and (2) post TONY to our wall. We’ll draw two winners at random and post their names December 9 on our Facebook pages.

award-winning books recommended for young readersrita bermaN FriScher Special to JTNews

There is no better way to locate the best in Judaic children’s books for sharing and giving as gifts than to turn to the inter-national Association of Jewish Libraries. AJL’s annual Sydney Taylor Book Awards are given in three categories — younger readers, older readers and teen readers — to acknowledge works of high literary worth which also exemplify authen-tic examples of various aspects of the Jewish experience. The awards memo-rialize Sydney Taylor, whose classic All-of-a-Kind-Family series, published in the ’50s, is still popular among Jewish and non-Jewish children alike. Here are some of AJL’s 2011 recog-nized books — winners and honor books — plus a couple of extras which might be of interest:

FOR YOUNGER READERS (Pre-K–2nd Grade)

The gold medal winner is Gathering Sparks, by poet and folklorist Howard Schwartz and beautifully illustrated by Kristina Swarner. Both second-time win-ners, this team’s collaboration, based on Rabbi Isaac Luria’s concept of tikkun olam, or repairing the world, is both inspiring and exquisite. Full of love and reassurance, it nonetheless calls for every-one, however young, to take part, when-ever possible, in gathering the sparks of kindness and help restore peace. This is a work that can be used by all faiths.

Modeh Ani: A Good Morning Book by Sarah Gershman, also illustrated by Kris-tina Swarner, offers a selection of sim-plified morning blessings from Birkot HaShachar, with illustrations which beautifully express the joy to be found in waking to the beauty of the world and the excitement of each new day. The back of the book contains excerpts from the Hebrew original service and translations.

Emma’s Poem: The Voice of the Statue

of Liberty, by Linda Glaser with illus-trations by Claire A. Nivola. (K-3rd). A wonderful blend of text and illustra-tion, this book brings Emma Lazarus’s privileged world into bold contrast with the poverty and desperation of the immigrants whom she was determined to help. By showing her humanitarian efforts and then focusing on how she found the words to speak to and for those who had no voice of their own, this work has much to say to today’s immigrants as well.

FOR OLDER READERS (Grades 4–7)Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword

by Barry Deutsch, the gold medal winner. Because of its unusual format as a graphic novel adventure starring an Orthodox Jewish heroine and featuring fantasy ele-ments such as witches and dragons, it was a real trailblazer. That AJL chose it for its 2011 Gold Medal practically guar-antees that more works by Jewish artists and writers will follow the current trend

toward graphic novels in general publishing, carry-

ing on the legacy of the famous 20th-cen-tury Jewish graphic novelists.

To prove the point, honor book Resis-tance: Book 1, by Carla Jablonski with illustrations by Leland Purvis, is a WWII graphic novel that tells of how young Paul and his sister determine to rescue their Jewish friend, Henri, who has escaped a roundup and been left behind. Their efforts to hide him, deal with their own family troubles and dangers, and work with the French Resistance, are well expressed in this highly visual format.

Another graphic work is not one of the AJL nominees but I thought I’d mention it for its historic and feminist interest. Lily Renee, Escape Artist: From Holocaust Sur-vivor to Comic Book Pioneer by Trina Rob-bins, illustrated by Anne Timmons and Mo Oh, tells of a 14-year-old Jewish girl from Vienna who escaped to England with the Kindertransport. A real figure, whose pho-tographs are liberally included, Lily got to the U.S. and eventually became a well-known comic book artist, specializing in comic strips about women heroines fighting the Nazis. Who knew about Jewish women

comic strip artists? I certainly didn’t.Jewish female graphic novelists are

little known, but are vibrant and rising in their field.

FOR TEEN READERS (Grades 8–12)Choosing this year’s gold medal

teen award winner and honor books was no easy task. Each of them has something distinctive to say about an important part of the Jewish experi-

ence and says it well. The gold medal book by Dana Rein-

hardt, The Things a Brother Knows, is the story of what happens when an Israeli-American family tries to reintegrate and understand their oldest son Boaz, who had shocked them by joining the Marines upon graduation from high school. Now returned from active duty, lauded as heroic, he is silent, withdrawn — a changed person. When he sets off on what he claims is a solitary hiking trip, his worried younger brother Levi decides to follow him, join him, and discover his true destination. Levi shows his own kind of strength as he determines to uncover the true depth of his brother’s pain, to understand the nature of his heroism, and to help his family heal. A serious story but leavened with humor and realistic family dynamics.

I could not put down Hush, the honor book, which was published under the pseudonym Eishes Chayil for reasons that quickly become obvious. The author, raised in a Chassidic world of schools, synagogues and summer camps, estab-lishes both the insularity and warmth of the community surrounding 9-year-old Gittel and her best friend Devory. But, rule-bound and secretive, this life gives Gittel no guidance in dealing with her confusion and guilt when she witnesses an act of mysterious violence against her


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Veteran journalist’s novel The List is fascinating but messyJoel magalNicK Editor, JTNews

We have seen plenty of literature, films and nonfiction about the horrors of the Holocaust. Even more so now as the sur-vivors of those horrific years are passing away in ever greater numbers. What has not been nearly as well documented has been the immediate aftermath: The refu-gees, the homeless, the ongoing hatred of Jews in countries that had often served as safe havens during the war as well as those that did not.

That is what makes The List unique. Well-regarded NBC reporter Martin Fletcher has set his first foray into fiction in the fall of 1945 with a story about the everyday lives of a group of survivors, in particular a young couple who found love on the run from the Nazis and must now make lives for themselves in their adopted country of England.

Nothing, as they discover, is easy. Strong-willed Edith escaped from her home in Vienna mere minutes before the Gestapo came with arrest papers in her name. Despite her doctor’s orders to rest, she con-tinues her work as a seamstress while fight-ing off the anxiety of the impending birth of her first child. Georg is a lawyer unable to find work in a climate where any job worth having is being reserved for the soldiers returning from the front.

The couple lives in a boarding house with several other survivors and the home’s owners, who face pressure from their neighbors to evict these welfare-sucking, ungrateful Jews who should return “home” now that the war is over

— Britain’s military heroes need housing, after all.

Neither Georg nor Edith knows many details of what happened to their families. They, like the circle of refugee friends they have created, con-tinually check the boards at the welfare offices and Red Cross for a glimmer of hope about a surviving family member or, more commonly, confirmation of death. The book’s title refers to a list that Edith and Georg keep of their own family mem-bers, and the names they continue to cross out.

But finally Edith receives some good news. Her cousin Anna — beautiful, gre-garious Anna — comes to stay with them. Yet they hardly recognize each other on the train platform when Anna arrives from the other side of hell. It’s clear she has experienced unspeakable horrors, and the tension of Edith’s desperate need to know what happened to her father against Anna’s need to keep what was done to her buried as deeply as possible is palpable.

Then there’s the shadowy, anti-Semitic Egyptian Ismael, whose overtures to this damaged young woman appear creepy and inappropriate. But are they really? Edith cannot bring herself to trust this strange, dark man who constantly makes rude comments. Yet more than once

he appears in the right place at the right time to save Georg and his friends from that era’s version of skinhead thugs.

While this multifaceted cast of characters deals with its own problems, swirling around them are meetings held by groups who want to “send the aliens home.” The meet-ings are packed, hot and contentious. Different people stand up to give different voices to each

grievance, many of them legitimate. In the end, the strong, pregnant Edith some-where finds the strength to defend her fellow refugees, saving the day — at least in this scene of the story.

It’s these scenes where the novel begins to run into trouble. Fletcher paints a pic-ture sympathetic to these people’s plights while remaining unafraid to gloss over the hardship they endure to keep themselves fed and clothed, or the extreme sadness they feel about losing yet another family member while trying to keep positive out-looks on their own futures.

But Martin Fletcher the journalist has trouble making the leap to Martin Fletcher the novelist. Like any good journalist, he shows a natural inclination to get all sides of the story. But because each of these char-acters represents a different viewpoint, they end up becoming the perspective itself

instead of multi-dimensional people.Fletcher puts us inside all of the heads

of this cast of characters — sometimes from one paragraph to the next. Writers have plenty of techniques they can employ to do this smoothly, but Fletcher just can’t manage to pull it off. Then, further complicating things, is a storyline in far-away Palestine, with characters that don’t always survive their own chapters.

As more details get meted out in this story-within-a-story, the British military closes in on the underground movements for an independent Jewish state. But the connection between these murdered free-dom fighters and the son of Edith and Georg’s landlords, not to mention another important character, is just too coinciden-tal. Those scenes, while adding a bit of cloak and dagger to what is otherwise really a love story, could have been left out and we prob-ably wouldn’t have missed them.

Georg and Edith are the real heroes of The List but they’re also symbols for the plight of everyone else recovering from this war. The problem with symbols, how-ever, is that they retain a natural sym-bolism, meaning that between the two of them they accomplish far more than a family in a similar situation ever could have. Then, as the couple’s baby is born, the level of detail actually flips the story and instead of symbols we get portraits of people that actually feel too close-up.

The List’s shortcomings, unfortunately, take away from what is otherwise a fasci-nating story set in a fascinating time.

Accomplice: A Wehrmacht Soldier’s Let-ters from the Eastern Front, edited by Konrad H. Jarausch (Princeton, cloth, $35), is the story of a German officer’s increasing disillusionment with Nazi poli-cies, as told in letters edited by the writer’s

son. Jarausch is a noted German historian and it took years before he could even look at the letters, because he feared learning of his father’s (also named Konrad) nationalist

politics. What he discovered is a once-patriotic man so horrified by the war his country started that he became sympa-thetic to Germany’s victims. The elder Jarausch died of typhoid in a POW camp.

Also new and noteworthy:Murderous Intellectuals: German

Elites and the Nazi SS, by Jonathan Max-

well (Milennial Mind, paper, $25.95) The Bugs are Burning: The Role of

Eastern Europeans in the Exploitation, Subjugation and Murder of Their Jewish Neighbors During the Holocaust, by Dr. Sheldon Hersh and Dr. Robert Wolf (Devora, cloth, $21.95)

W WINter books PaGe 6

The Klezmaticsat the Neptune

Win a pair of tickets to see The Klezmatics Thursday, December 22 at 7pm.

Here’s how: (1) LIKE US on Facebook at either /jtnews or /jewishdotcom and (2) post KLEZ-MATICS to our wall. We’ll draw 5 winners at random and post their names December 9 on our Facebook pages.


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This Week’s Wisdom

Spend Your Money on Good Booksby Mike Selinker

© 2011 Eltana Wood-Fired Bagel Cafe, 1538 12th Avenue, Seattle. All rights reserved. Puzzle created by Lone Shark Games, Inc. Edited by Mike Selinker and Mark L. Gottlieb.

Answers on page 20

ACROSS1 Storm or Sounders, for example5 Soma Intimates purchases9 Skippy competitor12 Quad bikes, e.g.13 Former Huskies coach Neuheisel14 Prefix with friendly15 Kate Seredy children’s book set in

Hungary18 Celebrity gossip rag19 Femur-tibia meeting place20 George Lucas’s LA alma mater21 Saturn model replaced by the Astra22 Scarf down23 Show off26 Philip Roth story collection about

American Jews30 Ugly epithet31 “Well would you look at that!”32 Sea-Tac info, for short33 End Times-parodying novel by Terry

Pratchett and Neil Gaiman38 Mt. St. Helens output41 Knee High Stocking Co., for one42 Farm fraction45 Nautical WWII novel by C.S. Forester51 Song by Wings, Lionel Richie, or

Justin Timberlake 52 Actress Lupino53 Slam-dunking 76ers legend54 Letter that represents the Golden

Ratio55 The Gift of the ___57 Word that precedes “brillig”58 Children’s book by Margaret Wise

Brown about a bunny’s bedtime61 Piratical provisions62 Clue-hunting pooch63 Mount near Portland64 Beehive State tribesman65 Purim’s month66 Day-___ (yesterday’s bagels)

In the 1300s the scholar Immanuel wrote, “Spend your money on good books, and you’ll find its equivalent in gold of intelligence.” You can seek out quite a few good books in the modern era, as this puzzle shows.

DOWN1 Ink2 Component of beer, wine, and some gasoline3 Swear4 Lo mein additive5 Charlotte, Emily, or Anne6 Park and ___7 Maker of giant rubber bands and explosive

tennis balls8 Jamaican musical genre9 It’s chucked overboard10 Friday headliner11 In support of16 “Sure thing!”17 Kirk’s helmsman18 ___ file (email ender)22 Longest river contained entirely within Spain23 Chunk of frozen seawater24 Loon25 Agcy. that X-rays shoes27 Used a spade28 Operator of the world’s largest brewing facility29 Unit of resistance34 The duck in Peter and the Wolf35 Martin, to Emilio and Charlie36 Valley that’s home to the Robert Mondavi

Winery37 UW or MIT38 Bread box?39 Introverted40 Lend a hand43 Any tree of the subfamily Sequoioideae44 You may need to run them46 “Skedaddle!”47 Metamorphoses poet48 ___ Learning (10-Down film)49 Massage text50 Rave VIP’s55 Like some hot sauces, oxymoronically56 Dos átomos de hidrógeno y uno de oxígeno57 Screwdriver, for one58 Steve Carell’s supervillain in Despicable Me59 Mavs’ and Cavs’ org.60 Unit of conductance that is, quite literally, the

inverse of 29-Down

Jump-shot Jews: review of Neal Pollack’s novel ‘Jewball’bethlehem ShoalS Tablet Magazine

(Tablet) — In the 1930s, Hank Green-berg chased Babe Ruth’s records and won the 1934 World Series with the Detroit Tigers. The national pastime wasn’t friendly territory for a Jewish athlete then, but by proudly staking out a claim, Green-berg proved that Jews could play the game as well as anyone else. To his co-religion-ists cheering in the stands, this was proof that they could participate in American society.

Greenberg was prog-ress incarnate. But there was another Jewish sports story of that decade — one far less uplifting and there-fore far less retold.

Once upon a time, Jews ruled basketball. Not the way they do now — the NBA’s commissioner and a majority of its owners are Jews — but on the court. If baseball was Middle America’s sport, basket-ball at the time, like boxing, was redolent of city squalor and shady dealings. Images of those short, pale men in belted shorts launching set shots in poorly lit, makeshift gyms are today virtually ignored; basket-ball has just evolved too much since then, and Jews played too little of a part in its development. That history is like a dream or, at worst, a bad joke.

But that history is also the subject of Jewball, Neal Pollack’s new Kindle novel about the real-life Jewish team that is gen-erally regarded as the best basketball squad of the era. The Philadelphia Sphas — the name came from the acronym for the South Philadelphia Hebrew Association, which sponsored the team — dominated early pro basketball, winning seven cham-pionships in 13 seasons with the American Basketball League in the 1930s and 1940s.

Pollack delivers crisp, vivid episodes of the team in pitched battle, capturing the era’s style as well as that of key play-ers. Around these scenes he weaves a fast-moving tale of underworld intrigue, the looming Nazi threat, love lost and found, and plenty of sharp-tongued banter.

In Alternadad and Stretch, Pollack brought his outwardly prickly but secretly warm persona to bear on parenting and then yoga; he was an outsider learn-

ing to fit in on his own terms. In Jewball, described in the acknowledgements as “a true labor of love,” Pollack pays homage to these unsung Jewish athletes and their colorful milieu. But for all his historical detail, Jewball ultimately tells us not only what was, but what Pollack would like to have seen.

Take Inky Lautman, the Sphas’s sure-handed point guard from 1937 to 1947.

Though plenty is known about Lautman’s on-court exploits — he was one of the top scorers in the league — and about the Philadelphia of the time, Pollack creates his Lautman from scratch, bringing to life a cyni-cal, scarred anti-hero for whom basketball is an escape from doing dirty work on the streets. (The real Lautman did quit high school at 15 to earn

money for his family.) This kind of inven-tion allows Pollack room to provide both startlingly well-researched game scenes and a madcap adventure that, plausible or not, makes the sports go down easier for those who aren’t fans.

In Pollack’s story, Eddie Gottlieb, the coach-owner-impresario of the Sphas, owes money to the German-Ameri-can Bund, U.S. Nazi sympathizers with a strong base in Philadelphia. To pay off his debt, Gottlieb must have the Sphas take a dive against a team of Aryan supermen in Minneapolis, thus demonstrating the infe-riority of the Jewish race and ceding their sport to the Nazis. Inky Lautman, so alien-ated and broke that he occasionally works for the Bund on what the character calls “non-Jew matters,” finds himself asked to make sure Gottlieb complies. Inky gets religion, so to speak, after being forced to attend an enormous Bund rally at Madi-son Square Garden. But the debt remains, Minnesota beckons, and the Bund isn’t exactly out for a fair game.

How will the Sphas get out of this jam? Answer: Lots of violence. And a barn-storming tour that allows Pollack to show us more of the great teams of the 1930s,

X PaGe 16

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anD The winner iS …


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Kosher for the holidaysEmily K. Alhadeff Assistant Editor, JTNews’Twas the morning of tastings, and among cups of coffee, JTNews was

abuzz with foods fresh, sweet and salty. The boxes of crackers were set out

with care, and the aroma of bacon flowed through the air.

Wait, what?

at this year’s kosher product sampling —

our annual taste test of the best gift and party

treats — we went to town on everything from

smoked salmon to pastries, raw, sprouted

pizza-flavored crackers to bacon-cheddar

popcorn, all of it washed down with a few shots

of wine and Bloody Mary mixers. By early after-

noon the office was littered with crumbs and

we were feeling like a bunch of sick frat boys

on a typical Tuesday. See what we go through

for the Jewish people?

We are proud to announce a few

clear winners — J&D’s Baconnaise,

The Essential Baking Company’s rose-

mary bread and Partners’ Mia Dolci

lemon shortbread crackers take the cake — and not so sad to send a

few losers on a walk of shame to the compost bin (we’re looking at you,

halvah). With that, I commence our official review.

Tough cookiesfew cookies are bad cookies, and in the words of our editor Joel quot-

ing Jerry Seinfeld rabbeinu on racial equality, “If people would only look

to the cookie, all our problems would be

solved.” He’s talking about Lily’s black and

white cookies, which I passed over in snobbish

preference for handfuls of the dark choco-

late pomegranate balls. karen seconded Joel

with a “Yup! Just right and makes me nostal-

gic.” She grew up in the land of the black and

white, so she knows her cookie.

But the Mia Dolci lemon cookies, oh, the

Mia Dolci lemon cookies! our hometown high-

end cracker makers Partners really knocked it

out of the park, earning four gold star

stickers. Joel mulled over these little

morsels of goodness and spent all

night crafting this astute description:

“Sweet, but not too sweet. Crunchy,

but not too crunchy. Lemony, but not too lemony. It wants to be short-

bread, but it’s more like a cracker. Most of all, deliciously subtle.”

X PaGe 12




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Susan added her approval

as well. “So delicious!” she said.

“They’re bite size and would be

perfect to put in a dish of ice cream

or fruit.”

Personally, my mouth was con-

fused by the crackers for that pre-

cise reason: Is it a cookie or a

cracker? In a world of moral ambi-

guity, I need clarity when it comes

to packaged desserts.

now, for some winners in the

alternative Cookie category: Everyone loved the Jessie Miller sugar-free

pecan sandies and the Simply Shari’s gluten-free almond shortbread. Lynn,

known for her brevity and great profundity, noted “yummy” regarding the

former, and regarding the latter, kristina said, “Can’t tell they are gluten

free,” and then added in even greater profundity than Lynn, “very yummy.”

The one loser in the cookie category goes to the chocolate cookie

ice cream cones, described by Joel as “bullet proof,”

and by Susan as “kind of a bad idea,” followed by an

emphatic “bleccch” (sic). on an optimistic note, if you

want to do a mitzvah we hear the IDf is taking dona-

tions to rearmor some of its tanks.

Candy LandIt’s hard to go wrong with chocolate, and all of the

types we tried rose to the occasion.

We had so many beautiful chocolate

options from the likes of Theo Choco-

lates, Scharffen Berger and Dagoba.

Jo’s Peppermint Crunch got a gold

star from karen, who called it “the

best peppermint treat ever,” and

recommends it as part of a holiday-

themed gift (because who can cele-

brate Hanukkah without peppermint candies?).

“Zing!” rachel said.

Whole foods Market’s pear almond chocolate wowed me. addison

gave it an exclamatory “Very good combo!” and com-

plimented the surprisingly bold pear flavor. Made with

real pear, balanced by a semi-sweet chocolate and an

almond crunch, I dare say this could be renamed “break-

fast bar.” Same goes for the Brookside pomegranate dark

chocolate balls, which everyone agreed were sweet,

tart, and healthy.

“Delicious — good bang for your buck calorie-wise,”

noted Emily.

following the trend of sea-salt caramel (why did no

one think of this before?), Whole foods came in with a

milk chocolate toffee sea salt bar.

“Sinfully delicious,”

said Wendy.

The Camel marble

halvah was the big-

gest loser in the

candy category. Jean

summed it up in one

word: “nasty.”

CarbsWith all this sugar, we needed some carbs. Partners crackers did well all

around, with the parmesan-herb flavor getting the best reviews (“addic-

tive,” “nice light parm flavor”). It should be noted that parmesan cheese

is hard to come by in the kosher world, so let’s give these an extra point.

The parmesan and roasted garlic flavor also fared well, but Susan brought

down the rating.

“Tastes like moldy washcloths

smell,” she said.

from the Department of Weird

came Livin’ Spoonful’s gluten-free

raw crackers. When they arrived to

the office Susan speculated that

they were packets of Italian spices,

but upon closer inspection they

turned out to be thick crackers in

W kosher fooDs PaGe 11


kosher. naturally.We offer natural and organic products because we believe that food in its purest

state —without artificial additives, sweeteners, colorings and preservatives — is

the best tasting and most nutritious food available. With a vast array of kosher

certified selections – from whole organic turkeys, pumpkin puree and roasted

chestnuts to latkes, matzo meal and Hanukkah gelt - we’ve got you covered.

wholefoodsmarket.com

flavors like coconut curry, pizza, and pesto pumpkin

seed. We recommend the pizza flavored.

“Don’t look appetizing, but taste okay,” noted

Stacy.

But the clear winner went to Essential’s rosemary

bread, one of the local bakery’s few kosher offerings.

“Where’s the butter?” Stacy asked.

Lynn, again in profound brevity, said, “oMG deli-

cious.”

Almost treifThe story goes that when bacon lovers Justin and

Dave decided “everything should taste like bacon,”

they wanted their products to be accessible to veg-

etarians and kashrut observers, too. When they

approached their first kosher certifying agency, the

rabbi listened to their pitch, paused, then responded,

“I do not know if you know this, but Jews do not eat

bacon.” They clarified, and today all of J&D’s bacon

products are certified kof-k.

We had the luxury of trying bacon

salt, bacon croutons, bacon-ched-

dar popcorn and Baconnaise. The

reviews were mixed. What carries

the bacon flavor is a salty, smoky,

paprika-ish spice that, with some

imagination, tastes like bacon.

The Baconnaise, a bacon-mayo

spread (well matched to Partners

crackers), got a gold star from Joel,

who said, “Wow! This is really good.

It could even be its own dip.”

“Bacon! Cheese! Is there any-

thing else?” Ilana, a vegetarian,

added.

But the surprise pleasure was

balanced by negative reviews:

“Ghastly” said Michael. “not a

fan,” said Susan. But she doesn’t like

moldy washcloths, either.

Wine and mixersWe had to wash this all down

somehow, and that’s where wine

and Stirrings simple mixers came in.

The Stirrings Bloody Mary mix got

two gold stars; Stacy noted that it

doesn’t even need the alcohol.

But it certainly helps.

The peach bellini and chocolate peppermint fla-

vors got good reviews, and coming in behind came

the pomegranate, cosmo and margarita mixes. But

since we were trying these virgin, don’t take our word

for it. Just throw a party and invite us.

now I’d like to take a moment to wax editorial on

our wine selection. as an exclusive kosher wine

drinker, my highest recommendations go to the bold,

smooth, dry ramon Cardova rioja (Spain) and the

Golan Winery’s Sion Creek red (Israel). all those who

gave the Baron Herzog Jeunesse Cabernet Sauvignon

high scores are just wrong. The misconception that

Jeunesse is good can be traced to the misconcep-

tion that kosher wine equals Manischewitz. I am con-

fident there is at least one bottle of Jeunesse that has

been passed around to every Shabbat table in Seat-

tle like the goyishe Christmas fruitcake legend.

But I am a reporter, and I have to report that the

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Jeunesse did get high scores among our (albeit

taste-bud–challenged) tasters, as did the Herzog

Chateneuf (white) Bordeaux: “apples! Bright

and clean with just a hint of bitter,” said karen.

“Light, fragrant, not too dry; crisp flavor,” said

Becky.

RecommendationsTo recommend some pairings for your next

kosher gathering, we endorse the Partners par-

mesan and herb crackers served with a sliced

hard cheese with the Chateneuf, a plate of

fruit and the Mia Dolci lemon cookies. another

option might be the rosemary bread, paired

with a hearty soup or salad alongside the Sion

Creek red, ending with the pear-almond choc-

olate. More decadent types may opt for the

bread or crackers with Baconnaise spread on,

the rich rioja or a Bloody Mary and the sea salt

toffee chocolate to finish.

By the way, Tums are kosher, too.

W kosher fooDs PaGe 13

wwwwww.jtnews.net

the contradictions of lifebeth KiSSileFF JointMedia News Service

One would not expect a novel about a battered woman and her protectors, iden-tity confusion, and murder to be written by a male septuagenarian Holocaust survivor. But as one of Aharon Appelfeld’s charac-ters says, “Contradictions don’t put me off.”

Appelfeld’s newest novel to appear in English — Until the Dawn’s Light, pub-lished in Hebrew in 1995 — draws on his experiences surviving World War II by hiding with criminals between the ages of 8 and 14. Appelfeld, author of 39 books, is a master storyteller and allegorist. He recently made his first visit to the U.S. in a decade, for a two-day conference on his life and work at the University of Pennsylvania.

This novel, set at an indeterminate time in pre-World War II Europe, features a Jewish woman, Blanca, who converts to Christianity to marry a non-Jewish man, Adolf, who abuses her. Blanca does not take care of her father once her mother has passed away, allowing her father to return

alone at night to an old-age home (Adolf will not let him in their home), and the father goes missing.

Blanca gives birth to a child and can’t tell the news to her blind grandmother, who stands outside the now-closed syna-gogue, cursing the converts. She is afraid to speak to her grandmother because of her disapproval of Blanca’s conversion and marriage to a non-Jew. The irony in their world is that when the man from the burial society says “We Jews stand by one another” at the funeral of Blanca’s mother, the crowd realizes “most of them were converts.” Yet, there is still a core of faith in them — Blanca remembers her mother saying “There is a God in heaven and he watches over all his creatures.” Her father argues that this is her ancestors’ faith, not her own, yet her mother counters, “mine too, if I may.”

The attenuated Jewish faith of Blanca the convert, abused by her Christian hus-

band and his family, is preserved through the ministrations of Dr. Nussbaum, whose own daughter Celia, Blanca’s classmate, discov-ers how Jewish she feels reading Martin Buber in the convent Celia has joined. Celia has come to real-ize that her Jewish forebears “were truly the flesh of her flesh.” Dr. Nussbaum’s care for Blanca and her child helps him cope with being cut off from his daughter the nun.

However, like Appelfeld him-self said during his visit that he had “no messages, only words,” Blanca sinks “deeper and deeper into writ-ing” to create her life and memories through her imagination. Blanca comes to realize that “Death isn’t darkness if you take your dear ones with you. It’s just a change in place.” Blanca and the people around her are living in a world on the cusp of being destroyed, and their hope is

to find a way out.Contradictions and all, Appelfeld has

again shown readers the way that fic-tional Jews in the liminal world of Europe between the wars coped with the uncer-tainties of their lives.

KEviN WALSH

Israeli novelist aharon appelfeld, during a recent visit to the University of Pennsylvania.


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the call of the shofar, with orchestragigi yelleN-KohN JTNews Correspondent

Music by Composer Meira War-shauer: Symphony No. 1, “Living, Breath-ing Earth” and “Tekeeyah” (A Call)

Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra, Petr Vronsky, conductor

Haim Avitsur, shofar and trombone soloist

Navona Records NV5842. Enhanced format audio CD with additional fea-tures.

Textures and rhythms found in nature — bird song, mist, water drops, insect hisses — infuse this exciting symphonic music by a contemporary American com-poser. Meira Warshauer’s orchestral voice expresses a passion for nature, and also for the musical and liturgical languages of Jewish tradition, in a sophisticated sym-phonic language native to our time.

As the title implies, “Tekeeyah” fea-tures the shofar. It is, in fact, a concerto for shofar, trombone, and orchestra, the first-ever concerto for this combination of instruments, according to the artist’s notes. The New York-based Israeli trom-bonist Haim Avitsur, soloist on both shofar and trombone, delivers a versatile shofar sound, powerful in the finale, whis-pery in the opening notes, and pitch per-fect over a surprising range.

Warshauer has embedded the ram’s

horn into a brash, full orchestra, where its open call extends and expands through other wind instruments. The shofar shares harmonies and textures as a member of the orchestra, in contrast to its better-known liturgical role as the lone voice of a stark wake-up call. The composer has stated that she intends this music as a spiritual wake-up call, too. Jointly commissioned by three orchestras, the Wilmington Symphony, Brevard Philharmonic (both of North Car-olina), and the University of South Caro-lina Symphony, the concerto received its premiere performance in 2009.

Every shofar’s sound is unique. Its range of pitches and the color in its voice depend upon the length, width, and thick-ness of the horn, as well as on the tech-nique of the person who blows into it. Warschauer has obviously composed “Tekeeyah” with a particular instrument in mind. She has used certain rhythms associated with the shofar’s sound in the synagogue — notably the series of stac-cato notes called teruah — and built from them whole layers of orchestral rhythms, sometimes with the shofar at the center, but not always. Trombones, French horns, trumpets, and a huge, intense percussion section expand and contract to build this spare, ancient musical idea into a wildly imaginative world of sound.

Rain st icks and tambourines, xylo-phone and marimba, whispering glissandi from harp and from strings bowed on the “wrong” side of the bridge: All breathe sympathetic support into the con-certo’s quieter moments. A listener might catch echoes of Ives or Orff, of Copland or Adams, Bernstein or Samuel Jones in Warshauer’s music. But another listener might have heard none of these compos-ers and, in search of discovery, delight in a thrilling and complex sonic world.

That world opens onto a giant orches-tral cicada chorus at the opening of the title work on this album, Warshauer’s Symphony No. 1. The composer has stated that she intends to represent earth in its healthiest state, like a prayer for its health. Indeed, she makes the orchestra into a “living, breathing” body: She has man-aged to suggest whole hosts of cicadas, to start with, representing an evening music immediately recognizable to anyone who has spent an evening in America’s South.

Warshauer is a native and a resident of North Carolina, raised as a Reform Jew. An award-winning artist, trained at Har-vard and at the New England Conser-

vatory of Music, she has produced a wide variety of compositions that have been recorded and performed in North America, Israel, Europe and beyond. A speaker of Hebrew, a Shabbat observer, and a spiritual

seeker of the Baby Boom generation, her art reflects an era marked by influences as diverse as Sufism, which she explored early on, and Carlebach, whose music she says brought her to her home tradition. She traces her environmentalism to the first Earth Day in 1970.

As one who loves music, I’m often amused by the sight of fellow Seattle park-walkers hidden under headphones, removed from the audio surprises that lurk in the trees, water and creatures of our shared environment. There’s a true music in that environment. Meira War-shauer has crafted a Jewish musical lan-guage that mirrors it.

…Lovers of classical Jewish music can

rejoice as the Milken Archive of Ameri-can Jewish Music goes digital. Launched in 1990 as an ambitious multi-year CD

X PaGe 17


1 section Jtnews . www.Jtnews.net . friday, date, 2011

Find out how you can be part of KehillaEastsidersCall Lynn at 206-774-2264 orE-mail her at [email protected]

SeattleitesCall Cameron at 206-774-2292 orE-mail her at [email protected]

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Contact us to connect your passion for social justice with your Jewish roots!

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Seattle teens say going to Alexander Muss High School in Israel was the best thing they’ve ever doneDespite the fact that she had been to Israel before, Rachel Greene said the time she spent at Alexander Muss High School in Israel (AMHSI) this past summer was the most amazing experience she has ever had. Greene, a junior at Interlake High School, said the AMHSI program was so much more meaningful than when she visited Israel for two weeks in 8th grade be-cause this time she was living the experience, staying in a dorm on campus, not just visiting as a tourist. “We learned both in the classroom and at the actual sites where history took place, often reenacting historical events where they occurred, which was a great way to learn. I understand so much more about the Middle East now and why it is important to support Israel,” Greene said.Lauren Schechter, now a senior at Garfield High School, who returned with the same intense emotional attachment to Israel also reflected on the connec-tions she had made to her classmates. “When you go through such an amazing experience with a group of people, it bonds you in a way nothing else can,” Schechter said.Nick Alkan, a 17 year old from Bellevue who attended the program during the spring semester in 2010, re-flected on how AMHSI affected him. “I really wasn’t that social before and now I have a ton of friends be-cause the AMHSI staff encouraged me to reach out to people in a way I had never done before. This past summer, I even got a job as a camp counselor at a Jewish camp in West Virginia with a group of kids I went to Israel with,” said Alkan.According to Kathy Yeyni, Director of Admissions, what sets the program apart is that AMHSI is a pluralistic high school academic experience, which means there is a mix of reform, conservative and orthodox teens

that enroll.Students receive high school credits and may be eli-gible to earn college credits as well. Sessions are of-

fered throughout the school year and in the summer. Yeyni said those who attend during the school year continue with their secular studies on the Hod Hasha-ron campus in Israel, keeping them up to date aca-demically upon their return to the states.Interested in finding out more about AMHSI? For more information, please contact Director of Admissions, Judy Cohen at [email protected].

Discover, Experience, Embrace ISRAEL…the journey of a lifetime

AlexAnder Muss HigH scHool in isrAelJudy Cohen, Director of Admissions

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like the African-American Harlem Rens or the all-female All-American Redheads. The history is fascinating but at times can drag, especially given the pending colli-sion with the Bund.

Historical novels are inherently specu-lative, but Jewball is something else alto-gether: A fantasy that doesn’t politely look for space to imagine but instead proposes that an entire period is one best under-stood through the imagination. As Pol-lack explains in a “Notes on History” section at the end of the book, Gottlieb

was never in debt to the Bund, and Laut-man had no affiliation with it. The Minne-sota game, too, is his invention. So little is known about the off-court lives of most of the Sphas, including Lautman, that Pol-lack created characters where history had left none.

The book’s bad guys — figures such as William Dudley Pelley, founder of the American fascist group the Silver Legion, and German-American Bund leaders Fritz Julius Kuhn and Gerhard Wilhelm Kunze — are more faithfully portrayed, per-haps because they left more of a historical record with which to work.

Thus Pollack’s characterization of Lautman is less about revealing a real person than it is about imagining the ideal protagonist for the Jewball era — a nasty, uproarious, and at times glorious one. This isn’t a historical novel so much as it is a tall tale, or better yet, an attempt to at once reclaim the past and lend it the same antic, outrageous quality that the shtetl took on for I.B. Singer. Pollack wants to find new ways to revitalize a dead era.

The brand of nostalgia in Jewball may play right into the hands of the book’s vil-lains, or the history that has deified Hank Greenberg and consigned Inky Lautman

to the shadows. Or just maybe it’s entirely the right note to strike when reclaim-ing Lautman — not as a source of shame or consternation, but as another kind of Jewish hero who not only fought back, but liked to fight — and almost always fought dirty.

Bethlehem Shoals (the pen name of Nathaniel Friedman) is a founding member of the now-defunct basketball writers’ collective FreeDarko.com and co-author of The Undisputed Guide to Pro Basketball History. This article originally appeared on Tablet Magazine, tabletmag.com.

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project, the venture has evolved into an all-digital information source, now known as “Milken Archive of Jewish Music: the American Experience.” Still located at www.milkenarchive.org, these gatherers of Jewish and American musical traditions have begun to release new material solely via the web, instead of issuing multiple hard copies of music and text. Over these two decades, the Milken Archive has gen-

erated 50 CD recordings, historical essays, a radio series, performance notes and bio-graphical research material. It still boasts a vast store of as-yet-unreleased material; the CDs are still available commercially on the Naxos label.

Available for sale track by track, these new editions of the performances for-merly released on CD are likely to develop a broader audience for the massive work of this unique Jewish and musical resource center.

The speed of the digital revolution in music-sharing technology, publishing and research has rendered the project’s origi-nal goal of releasing more CDs and books pretty much obsolete.

The refreshed website brings it all home this month with the digital release of Volume 2, A Garden Eastward, the volume focusing on Sephardic and Middle Eastern traditions. (Volume 1 is a sampler of the Archive’s offerings.) With so many Seat-tle Jews who trace their Jewish heritage to

Sephardic ancestry, JTNews readers will want to explore these classics. Of special note in A Garden Eastward: The graceful performances by the all-male choir of New York’s Spanish-Portuguese Synagogue, Shearith Israel, where Rabbi Chaim Angel presides, and his father, Seattle native Rabbi Marc Angel, is rabbi emeritus.

Seattle Symphony Conductor Laure-ate Gerard Schwarz serves on the Milken Archive’s editorial board.

W WarshaUer cD PaGe 15

LOOKING FOR ALLGRANDPARENTS! L’DOR V’DOR SOCIETY

Please contact Rabbi Daniel Septimusat [email protected] 206.315.7424.

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Mama Doni’s celebratory ode to shabbatJoel magalNicK Editor, JTNews

As parents we want to be sure that the music our children listens to is good, safe and largely inoffensive. At the same time, we want to know that every time it gets popped into the CD player we won’t have the uncontrollable urge to wrap the mini-van around an electric pole.

If New Jersey soccer mom Doni Zasl-off Thomas, a.k.a. children’s singer Mama Doni, strikes any kind of balance between the two, you should expect some auto shop repair bills. But then again, give Mama Doni’s Shabbat Shaboom an extra listen. You may get hooked.

Thomas’s career launched a few years

back when she was asked to be the music director at her own kids’ Hebrew school. Now, three albums later, Mama Doni and her band have garnered a following up and down the Eastern seaboard and her tunes, much as I hate to admit it, are catchy.

The style — or styles, as the case may be — can best be described as electronic with a dash of folksy. Her repertoire ranges from an homage to watered-down grape juice that sounds like watered-down Kraftwerk to electrified doo-wop to the countrified, steel-guitar tinged “Jewish Cowgirl.” And you have to say this about Mama Doni: She’s so, so, so happy and

talks so, so, so fast in the album’s inter-ludes that you can’t help but get happy, too.

T r a d i t i o n a l -ists will appreci-ate Mama Doni’s nods to kashrut and ritual. You get the sense that her rendition of “Friday Night” would be quite different from Rebecca Black’s (ask your kids). And she’s never afraid to use a heaping helping of Yiddish when a bit of English would do. Sorry, Sephardim. Those whose Judaism is a bit

more free-spirited may find the tra-dition off-putting, if not just a bit too Jersey girl for their tastes.

But here’s a guar-antee. Your kids (at least the ones younger

than Bat Mitzvah age) are going to love it. Especially your daughters. Just don’t let the schmaltz get you.

Available at Amazon.com, CDBaby.com and on iTunes. Free Hanukkah downloads at mamadoni.com.


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Navigate the ‘gray zone’ of personal medical decisionsmaSha riFKiN JointMedia News Service

Perhaps doctor doesn’t know best. In their new book, Your Medical Mind: How To Decide What is Right For You, husband-wife physician team Jerome Groopman and Pamela Hartzband lay the ground-work for making sound medical decisions.

None of our choices are completely independent, the authors say; rather, they are influenced by a set of values and his-tory. Understanding what makes us tick is vital in making the correct medical deci-sions for ourselves.

“We’re all just flooded with information about health and conflicting advice from experts,” says Groopman, an oncologist and chief of experimental medicine at Bos-ton’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, who writes on medicine and biology for The New Yorker. “We wanted to write the book to give people the framework, the tools to make the best choice for themselves.”

The authors offer four main categories that people tend to fall into when it comes to medical bias. The first is technology orienta-tion (people who believe that the best treat-ments lie in cutting-edge research or new procedures) versus naturalism orientation (people who feel that the body can heal itself if supplemented by herbs and other natu-ral products). There are also the maximalists (who believe the more treatment the better) versus the minimalists (who say less is more).

Finally, there are the believers and the doubters. Believers have faith that a solu-tion for their problem exists, whereas doubters view all treatment options with skepticism. Some of us are risk averse, while others are more prone to taking risks.

While doubters tend to be risk averse, naturalists can be maximalists (think of that friend that takes every herbal tea and vitamin known to man). The categories aren’t necessarily linear, but it is impor-tant to understand which we fall into in order to gain more clarity and control over our decision making.

Hartzband, an endocrinologist at Beth

Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, emphasizes, “doctors as well as patients have these mindsets.” So, if a doctor is a maximal-ist, they may be prone to recommending more treatment than necessary.

In order to assess your own — and your doctor’s — biases, the authors recom-mend that you inform yourself and build your “health literacy.”

“What does it really mean to be informed?” they write. “It means know-ing the numbers about a particular medi-cation or procedure, its likely benefits and side effects, but it also means being alert to how the presentation of these numbers can confuse or mislead you.”

To illustrate their point, the authors present the case of Susan, a generally healthy woman who discovered she had high cholesterol. Her doctors recom-mended she take a statin, a very common drug, but Susan — a minimalist and nat-uralist — decided to do her research first. After speaking to a friend, Susan discov-ered that statins could have a side effect of muscle pain. When she voiced this con-cern to her doctor, he emphasized that that side effect seemed relatively insignif-icant compared to the 30 percent reduc-tion in risk for heart attack over the next 10 years if she were to take the drug. Susan

returned to her research, went online and calculated that given her age, cholesterol number, and lifestyle, her risk for having a heart attack in the next 10 years was only 1 percent. She decided not to take the drug.

Susan’s process, the authors describe, is reflective of a few key ways to get informed. The number one factor influ-encing preference is stories we hear of people in similar situations. The authors caution that these stories also have the potential to distort our vision “by making the rare appear routine.”

Today, many of the stories we hear come from the Internet. According to Hartzband, the availability of these sto-ries can be beneficial, but also misleading.

“The Internet has lots of excellent infor-mation, and there’s also a lot of misinfor-mation,” she says. “You have to figure out how that information applies to you.”

Armed with this information, the authors argue, you’ll be in a better position to make an informed decision.

“Anyone can do this,” says Groopman, “even someone who’s not good at it. Start with ‘What will happen to me if I have no treatment?’”

A final component the authors note is the “focusing illusion,” our tendency to

X PaGe 19

SHELLY HArriSON PHOTOGrAPHY

Doctors Jerome Groopman and Pamela hartzband.


Dentists (continued)

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Hills of Eternity CemeteryOwned and operated by Temple De Hirsch Sinai ☎☎ 206-323-8486

Serving the greater Seattle Jewish community. Jewish cemetery open to all pre-need and at-need services. Affordable rates • Planning assistance.Queen Anne, Seattle

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Efrem R. Krisher, Attorney at Law ☎☎ 206-622-1100 x 120

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675 S Lane St., Suite 300, Seattle 98104 Auto • Injury claims • Wrongful death Product liability • No recovery, no fee

Photographers

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Photographer Specializing in People.Children, B’nai Mitzvahs, Families, Parties, Promotions & Weddings. v

Senior Services

Hyatt Home Care ServicesLive-in and Hourly Care ☎☎ 206-851-5277��www.hyatthomecare.com

Providing adults with personal care, medication reminders, meal preparation, errands, household chores, pet care and companionship.

Jewish Family Service☎☎ 206-461-3240��www.jfsseattle.org

Comprehensive geriatric care manage-ment and support services for seniors and their families. Expertise with in-home assessments, residential placement, fam-ily dynamics and on-going case manage-ment. Jewish knowledge and sensitivity.

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The only Jewish retirement community in the state of Washington offers transition assessment and planning for individuals looking to downsize or be part of an active community of peers. Multi-disciplinary professionals with depth of experience available for consultation.

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Spear Studios, Graphic Design Sandra Spear ☎☎ 206-898-4685

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Eastside Insurance ServicesChuck Rubin, agent ☎☎ 425-271-3101

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I have more than 30 years exerience helping people deal with getting past the parts of their lives that leave them feeling stuck or unhappy. My practice relies on collaboration, which means that together we will create a safe place in which we can explore growth together. I believe that this work is a journey and that I am privileged to be your guide and your wit-ness as you move to make the changes that you wish for.

Jewish Family Service Individual, couple, child and family therapy☎☎ 206-861-3152

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Expertise with life transitions, addiction and recovery, relationships and personal challenges —all in a cultural context. Licensed therapists; flexible day or evening appointments; sliding fee scale; most insurance plans.

Dentists

Toni Calvo Waldbaum, DDSRichard Calvo, DDS☎☎ 206-246-1424

Cosmetic & Restorative Dentistry Designing beautiful smiles 207 SW 156th St., #4, Seattle

Warren J. Libman, D.D.S., M.S.D.☎☎ 425-453-1308��www.libmandds.com

Certified Specialist in Prosthodontics: • Restorative • Reconstructive • Cosmetic Dentistry 14595 Bel Red Rd. #100, Bellevue

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Care Givers

HomeCare Associates A program of Jewish Family Service☎☎ 206-861-3193��www.homecareassoc.org

Provides personal care, assistance with daily activities, medication reminders, light housekeeping, meal preparation and companionship to older adults living at home or in assisted-living facilities.

Catering

Matzoh Momma Catering Catering with a personal touch☎☎ 206-324-MAMA

Serving the community for over 25 years.Full service catering and event planning for all your Life Cycle events. Miriam and Pip Meyerson

Certified Public accountants

Dennis B. Goldstein & Assoc., CPAs, PSTax Preparation & Consulting☎☎ 425-455-0430

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Newman Dierst Hales, PLLCNolan A. Newman, CPA☎☎ 206-284-1383

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Tax • Accounting • Healthcare Consulting

College Placement

College Placement Consultants☎☎ 425-453-1730

☎✉ [email protected]��www.collegeplacementconsultants.com

Pauline B. Reiter, Ph.D. Expert help with undergraduate and graduate college selection, applications and essays. 40 Lake Bellevue, #100, Bellevue 98005

Linda Jacobs & AssociatesCollege Placement Services☎☎ 206-323-8902

☎✉ [email protected] Successfully matching student and school. Seattle.

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www.jtnews.netwww.jew-ish.com

W MeDIcal MIND PaGe 18

A Matter of Size (2009, Israel)Directed by Erez Tadmor and Sharon MaymonMenemsha Films

This film closed last year’s Jewish Film Festival, and it got the top billing for good reason. It was hilarious! Herzl is over-weight, he can’t commit to his girlfriend, he can’t find a decent job, and his mother (who he lives with) is sick of him. He can’t even get respect in his diet group.

But then he gets a job as a busboy at a Japanese restaurant, and all of a sudden things start looking up. Rather than lose weight, Herzl is encouraged to gain — because his new employer finally relents and allows him to train to become a sumo wrestler. From there begins the work-out adventure of a lifetime, and the path to happiness as Herzl finally gains con-fidence in himself, with of course a few stumbles along the way. As our regular film reviewer Michael Fox wrote last year about the cast, “One of the pleasures of A

Matter of Size is watching good actors who don’t fit the leading-man model and likely aren’t offered such meaty roles very often. For viewers fed a steady diet of Hollywood movies, it’s downright bracing to hang out with characters who aren’t drop-dead, blow-dry gorgeous.”

A Matter of Size is available on DVD on Dec. 6 at www.menemshafilms.com. If you preorder you’ll even get a free stress ball.

W DVD reVIeWs PaGe 5

focus on how one part in our life would be affected by a particular side effect of a treatment. In doing that, we fail to see how adaptive we can be to living without perfect health, Groopman argues.

Various models now ask people to place a value on different aspects of health such as sight or sexual potency. However, Groopman says it is nearly impossible for a healthy person to really imagine what life would be like without those things, so plac-ing a value on them is irrelevant.


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the politics of griefrabbi rachel eSSermaN The vestal, NY reporter

Who owns a public memorial? How should a nation decide which symbol will express its grief? Should the families of the dead receive special consideration? Does the intent of the artist matter or the work alone? These are only a few of the ques-tions raised in Amy Waldman’s absorbing first novel, The Submission (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), which envisions an Amer-ica looking to commemorate those killed in a 9/11-style attack. The memorial selec-tion process is an anonymous one, yet the winner proves controversial: The chosen design was submitted by a Muslim.

What need is there for a memorial? The head of the selection committee notes several commercial and political reasons for having a concrete symbol. For exam-ple, “the developer who controlled the site wanted to re-monetize it and needed a memorial to do so, since Americans seemed unlikely to accept the maximiza-tion of the office space as the most elo-quent rejoinder to terrorism.” Yet the emotional needs of the population also had to be taken into consideration as they affect the political climate of the times: “The longer the space stayed clear, the more it became a symbol of defeat, of sur-render, something for ‘them,’ whoever

they were, to mock.” Something is needed to fill the space so the public can either heal or, at a minimum, move on.

Yet, it’s not its discussion of politics that makes The Submission such interest-ing reading, but the personal perspectives offered by its characters. Waldman creates a group of fascinating, realistic people who are forced to look at their lives and prej-udices during the course of a very public and emotional debate. Her complex stud-ies show how public opinion can affect people’s personal desires and thoughts, leaving them wondering what path they should follow. Among the many charac-ters are:• Paul Rubin, the grandson of a Russian Jewish immigrant. The retired banker sees his chairmanship of the memo-rial committee as a first step into a life of public service.• Mohammad (Mo) Khan, a non-prac-ticing Muslim architect who refuses to defend or disguise his heritage.• Claire Burwell, who became a single parent when her husband Cal died in the attack. At first a defender of the memo-rial, she starts to second guess her deci-sion when Khan refuses to explain his design choices.

• Sean Gallagher, whose brother died in the attack and who looks to redeem himself in his parents’ eyes by opposing the memorial.• Asma Haque, an ille-gal immigrant whose husband also died in the attack and who seeks to remain in the U.S. for the sake of her infant son.• Alyssa Spier, a reporter who’s always looking for the big story, whether or not its revelations will destroy other people’s lives.

All of these people find themselves being forced to view the world in shades of gray, even as they search for black-and-white answers, those easy answers that no longer exist in contemporary times.

The Submission also looks at how the process of assimilation into American culture has changed. One conversation between Rubin and Khan shows the shift in thought between generations. Rubin notes that “my grandfather — he was Rubinsky, then my grandfather comes to America and suddenly he’s Rubin. What’s in a name?

Nothing, everything. We all self-improve, change with the times.” Khan, on the other hand, feels he should be accepted as is, suggest-ing that “not everyone is prepared to remake themselves to rise in America.” Do people need to change and assimilate in order to be accepted? While many of those who arrived

in the U.S. during the 20th century did so without thought, the Muslims in Wald-man’s novel feel they can be fully American and fully Muslim at the same time.

Waldman’s greatest success is making readers understand the thought pro-cesses of all her characters. She does this by showing their strengths and their weaknesses in a way that makes it easy to empathize with them. Readers may find themselves agreeing with first one point of view and then another as each side of the debate is eloquently portrayed. The Sub-mission is an impressive work, offering readers a view of an America searching to define itself in the 21st century.


college placement

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friend. Unable to speak out or be listened to, she cannot save her from destruction. Years later, as a young wife haunted by Devory, she understands what she had seen and eventually finds courage to break through the earlier silence forced upon her by the community she trusted. The author, whose pen name was unpronounceable by the Third Place Books clerk I asked for

help in locating the book, is truly a woman of valor for making clear that walls built to keep out the cold, terrifying world can also make people forget that the greatest ene-mies always grow from within.

Let her speak for herself: “This is for all the children—past and present—who still suffer. I have used a fictitious name, Yushive, for the main sect in Hush. I did this because I refuse to point a finger at one group, when the crime was endemic

to all.”Sarah Darer Littman’s honor book,

Life, After, was of particular interest to me since I have family in Buenos Aires. Dani’s life, before, exploded when the terror-ist attack on the AMIA building in 1994 killed her aunt and her unborn child. That insecurity expanded exponentially as the terrible economic crisis of 2001 destroyed the middle class and her family’s future in Argentina. The story follows teenaged

Dani and her family as they decide to emi-grate and deal with making a new life in New York.

The final teen honor book, Once, by Morris Gleitzman was reviewed in an ear-lier column on Holocaust books. Read it first, before its sequel, Then, now available. I recommend both books, and their depic-tion of innocence and evil, with the author’s own words, “This story is my imagination trying to grasp the unimaginable.”

W chIlDreNs’ books PaGe 8


U.S. Postal ServiceSTATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP MANAGEMENT AND CIRCULATION

(All Periodicals Publications Except Requester Publications)1. PUBLICATION TITLe 2. PUBLICATION NO. 3. FILING DATe JT News 0021-678K 10/18/11

4. ISSUe FReQUeNCY: Semi-monthly. 5. Number of issues published annually: 26 6. ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION PRICe: $56.50 7. COMPLeTe ADDReSS OF KNOWN OFFICe OF PUBLICATION (Not Printer): 2031 3rd Ave., Seattle, WA 98121-2412 CONTACT PeRSON: Joel Magalnick, 2041 3rd Ave., Seattle, WA 98121 8. COMPLeTe MAILING ADDReSS OF THe HeADQUARTeRS OR GeNeRAL BUSINeSS OFFICeS OF THe PUBLISHeR (Not Printer): Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, 2031 3rd Ave., Seattle, WA 98121 9. FULL NAMeS & COMPLeTe MAILING ADDReSSeS OF PUBLISHeR, eDITOR AND MANAGING eDITOR: PUBLISHeR: Karen Chachkes, 2041 3rd Ave., Seattle, WA 98121 eDITOR: Joel Magalnick, Same as above MANAGING eDITOR: None 10. OWNeR: Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, 2031 3rd Ave., Seattle, WA 98121

11. KNOWN BONDHOLDeRS, MORTGAGeeS, AND OTHeR SeCURITY HOLDeRS OWNING OR HOLDING 1 PeRCeNT OR MORe OF TOTAL AMOUNT OF BONDS, MORTGAGeS, OR OTHeR SeCURITIeS (if none, check box) None

12. TAx STATUS: (For completion by nonprofit organizations, authorized to mail at nonprofit rates.) The purpose, function, and nonprofit status of this organization and the exempt status for federal income tax purposes: Has not changed during preceding 12 months.

13. PUBLICATION TITLe: JT News

14. ISSUe DATe FOR CIRCULATION DATA BeLOW: October 14, 2011

15. Extent & Nature Average No. Copies No. Copies of Single of circulation each Issue During Issue Published Nearest Preceding 12 months to Filing Date

a. Total Number of Copies (Net Press Run)

(1) Mailed Outside-County Paid Subscriptions Stated on PS Form 3541. (Include paid distribution above nominal rate, advertiser's proof copies and exchange copies) (2) Mailed In-County Subscriptions Stated on PS Form 3541. (Include paid distribution above nominal rate, advertiser's proof copies and exchange copies) (3) Paid Distribution Outside the Mails Including Sales Through Dealers and Carriers, Street Vendors, Counter Sales, and Other Paid Distribution Outside USPS (4) Paid Distribution by Other Classes of Mail Through the USPS (e.g. First-Class Mail®) c. Total Paid Distribution (Sum of 15b (1), (2), (3), and (4)) (1) Free or Nominal Rate Outside-County Copies Included on Form 3541 (2) Free or Nominal Rate In-County Copies Included on Form 3541 (3) Free or Nominal Rate Copies Mailed at Other Classes Through the USPS (e.g. First-Class Mail®) (4) Free or Nominal Rate Distribution Outside the Mail (Carriers or other means)e. Total Free or Nominal Rate Distribution (Sum of 15d (1), (2), (3), and (4))f. Total Distribution (Sum of 15c and 15e)g. Copies Not Distributed (See Instructions to Publishers #4 (page #3)h. Total (Sum of 15f and 15g)i. Percent Paid (15c divided by 15f times 100)16. Publication of Statement Ownership Publication required. Will be printed in the November 11, 2011 issue of this publication.17. Signature and Title of editor, Publisher, Business Manager, or Owner Date Joel Magalnick, editor 10/18/11

I certify that all information furnished on this form is true and complete. I understand that anyone who furnishes false or misleading information on this form or who omits material or information requested on the form may be subject to criminal sanctions (including fines and imprisonment) and/or civil sanctions (including civil penalities).

d. Free or Nominal Rate Distribution (By mail and Outside the Mail)

b. Paid Circulation (By Mail and Outside the Mail)

3,775 3,800

661 615

2,890 2,928

25 25

0 03,576 3,5680 0

0 0

0 3

0 00 33,576 3,571200 2003,776 3,771100% 100%

Love at First Bark: How Saving a Dog Can Sometimes Help You Save Yourself, by Julie Klam (Penguin, cloth, $21.95). Klam has already writ-ten one dog-oriented memoir, continuing here with the rescue of Morris the pit bull, found chained to a fence and abandoned in their not-so-savory New York neighborhood. We also learn of her rescued and wacky Boston terriers, her trip to New Orleans to rescue dogs abandoned in the aftermath of Katrina, and how caring for animals helps her and her family put their own problems in perspective. Klam can laugh at herself, and we get to laugh along with her.

The Smartest Woman I Know, by Ilene Beckerman (Algonquin, cloth, $15.95). This whimsical, appealing memoir of the author’s grandparents focuses on Beck-erman’s grandmother, Ettie Goldberg, a

tough and blunt immi-grant with a barely communicative hus-band. The grandpar-ents eked out a living from their tiny sta-tionery store on New Y o r k ’ s M a d i s o n Avenue, and raised

their granddaughters, whose mother had died and father had aban-doned them. With short chapters and funny illustrations, the author shares memories and lessons from her uncon-ventional childhood.

HistoryThe People of the Book: Philosemitism

in England from Cromwell to Churchill, by Gertrude Himmelfarb (Encounter, cloth, $23.95). “And everybody hates the Jews,” goes the punch line to Tom Lehrer’s 1968 song, “National Broth-erhood Week.” Professor Himmelfarb

(emeritus, City Uni-versity of New York) has grown tired of Jewish history focus-ing on anti-Semitism and reminds us here that Jews have had supporters, too. In this entertaining and enlightening read,

she covers English thinkers who wrote and spoke favorably of Jews in the centuries after Jewish repatriation to the British Isles in 1655, among them Newton, Locke, Smith and Churchill.

Rasputin and the Jews: A Reversal of History, by Delin Colón (independent, paper, $15 at Amazon). As the infamous adviser to Tsar Nicholas II, Rasputin’s perceived main fault may have been his belief in human equality, including for the Jews, and his anti-war stance. These views were reviled by the Russian aristocracy in a time of warmongering and feverish

anti-Semitism. As for Raspu-tin’s prophetic powers, Colón writes, “it does not take a psy-chic to foresee that the extreme oppression of a large popula-tion will…lead to agitation and revolution.” This book becomes a short course on revolutionary Russian history and gets gold stars as an example of a well-produced self-published book.

PoetryLakol Z’man: A Time for Everything,

by Yossi Huttler (independent, contact the author at [email protected]). This little book of short, free-verse poems reflect on the Jewish holiday and liturgical cycle. Many are prayer-like and will enhance the holiday experience. For example, Elijah is a “herald in whose silence/I strain to hear/divine tidings.” The detailed glossary is welcome as Huttler shares his feelings about all major and minor holidays.

W book brIefs PaGe 7

TONY Saturday, December 17Tony Bennet at the Paramount, 8pm

KLEZMATICS Thursday, December 22Klezmatics at the Neptune, 8pm

WOODY Monday, December 26Woody Allen and his New Orleans Jazz Band at the Paramount, 7:30pm

Win a pair of tickets to see any or all of them!

Here’s how: (1) LIKE US on Facebook at either /jtnews or /jewishdotcom and (2) in separate posts, write TONY, KLEZMATICS, OR WOODY on our wall.

We’ll draw winners at random and post their names December 9 on our Facebook pages.


When you let JFS “Tribute Cards” do the talking, you send your best wishes and say you care about funding vital JFS programs here at home. Call Irene at (206) 861-3150 or, on the web, click on “Donations” at www.jfsseattle.org. Use Visa or MasterCard. It’s the most gratifying 2-for-1 in town.

2-for-1 “Get Well Soon” Cards

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“And maybe served with a little kasha varnishkes,” said Weinstein, when I asked what his character might like to have as a nosh with it.

Like 007, Weinstein’s Oy-Oy-7 has a license to kill, but when he is attacked by a bear in his hotel room, he is reluctant to use it. He only has his milchig knife with him and does not want to mess up his kashrut.

But his most dangerous weapon is his wit, or at least half of it; the puns and one-liners he flings with far deadlier aim than when Oddjob tosses his derby. (That’s a “Goldfinger” reference, kids. Look it up).

I asked Weinstein, now in his 80s and living in New Zealand, and who wrote jokes in Hollywood for Bob Hope, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr., to explain his incorrigible punning.

“I’m a paronomasiac,” he answered, which he defines as a person addicted to

wordplay and puns.Even the book’s femme fatale, always a

key element in a Bond tale, does not escape his pen.

“If Ian Fleming can have a character named Pussy Galore, I can call my charac-ter Poontang Plenty,” Weinstein reasoned.

In fact, in contrast to the Jewish sexual neuroticisms of Philip Roth novels, Wein-stein’s Bond is a bold, self-assured, wise-cracking Jew — “quite a hunk of man,” even if Weinstein has him hailing from “the Land of Milk and Magnesia.”

As to why to reprint the books now?“I want to make a few bucks,” said

Weinstein, whose reply this time seemed to come from a man for once playing it straight. Plus, “I want to spread a few laughs around, and some Jewish feeling.”

All four Oy-Oy-7 books are available at www.oy-oy-7.com in paperback, or at amazon.com as a Kindle e-book or as a Barnes & Noble Nook e-book.

W oy-oy 7 PaGe 24



finding a garden — and a bestsellervicKi cabot Jewish News of Greater Phoenix

It began with a story.A bit of family lore that lured a bright,

young writer on a quest to find out more, and then, as can sometimes happen to very lucky, and very good, first-time authors, to find a story that begat a story and then another and then another and lo and behold, a book. And not just any book, but one that has snared the attention of the book world, snagging huzzahs from crit-ics in such high places as The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

So Brook Wilensky-Lanford tells it, as she chats about her recently released Para-dise Lust: Searching for the Garden of Eden (Grove Press, $25 hardcover), which maps the journeys of a parade of paradise seek-ers looking to locate the earthly garden.

“A little kernel got the wheels turn-ing,” she explains from her Jersey City, N.J., condo where she lives with boyfriend Gianmarco Leoncavallo and their two res-cued cats, Garlic and Saison, “and I began pulling on the thread.”

The intriguing kernel was a story, as Wilensky-Lanford relates in the book’s prologue, that her great-uncle, William Sherman, an upper East Side Manhattan allergist at Columbia University’s Medical Center, where his father, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, had dis-covered the structure of vitamin B1, had had a penchant for paradise and some-time in the 1950s hatched a plan to go find it. Alas, she later learned from William’s daughter, Phoebe, the plan was never real-ized, but it was enough to fire up Wilen-sky-Lanford’s imagination and inspire her search.

She takes readers along with her from the North Pole to outer Mongolia to Mes-opotamia with stops closer to home in places such as Ohio, Missouri and Florida.

She relates the well-researched tales of the seekers, beginning with great-uncle William, with a light, often whimsical touch, prob-ing the appeal of the bib-lical Eden for each and the particular theory of its location. Each pur-suit begins with the same passage in Gen-esis 2:10-14 that puts Eden on the biblical map — “A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches” — but often ends in an entirely different geo-graphic place.

“The Bible sounds positively nonchalant: If you can pinpoint the four rivers, you can locate par-adise,” writes Wilensky-Lanford. But, she observes, of the four r ivers m e n t i o n e d , only two, the Tigris and the Euphrates, can be found; it’s uncertain as to where the others, the Pishon and Gihon, are or were.

Yet even more intriguing than the pursuits of William F. Warren, a Meth-odist minister and the first president of Boston University or German Assyriologist Friedrich Delitzsch or Chinese revolutionary,

businessman and journalist Tse Tsan Tai, each of whom war-

rants a chapter in the book along with others, is the

philosophical scaffold-ing on which Wilen-

sky-Lanford hangs t h e e n t i r e e n t e r p r i s e . B e g i n n i n g wi th great -

uncle William, Wilensky-Lan-

ford probes the ten-sion between religion

and science that under-scores each of the stories and the

potent implications of their mix.She uses her quirky cast of char-

acters to frame a discussion of bibli-cal literalism, delving into the conflict

between evolutionists and biblical creationists that still rages, and to make a case for biblical criticism and its multivocality.

“I do not believe that there is any one inter-pretation of any part of the Bible,” says Wilen-sky-Lanford. “There are so many transla-tion systems and not every one is as good as every other one. I wanted to line up a whole lot of dif-ferent stories and show that there are a lot of seri-ous people who went about it in

a different way.”

Wilensky-Lanford’s intellectual gravi-tas really surfaces toward the end of the book where she maps Eden’s — and the Bible’s — place in the current political firmament. Relating the story of science education professor Lee Meadows, who has spent his career trying to reconcile his deep Christian faith with science; visiting the multimillion-dollar Creation Museum in northern Kentucky; and tracking the Mormon migration and search for para-dise on earth, Wilensky-Lanford estab-lishes both the immensity of her inquiry and its relevance in today’s world.

Wilensky-Lanford comes by her inter-ests — and her accomplishments — by way of a degree in religion and theater from Wesleyan University and an MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia Uni-versity. She’s carved out a niche writing literary essays for Huffington Post, Salon, Triple Canopy, Killing the Buddha and other outlets, working on the side as a free-lance copy editor.

Growing up in Maine, literally, says Wilensky-Lanford, in the children’s book-store owned by her mother, Sheila Wilen-sky, a former social studies teacher and now assistant editor of the Arizona Jewish Post in Tucson, imbued her with a love of stories, a fascination with history and an abiding idealism, absent any particular religious grounding.

Her mother, justly proud of both her daughter’s and her son’s successes (Ethan Wilensky-Lanford is also a writer), says her children’s involvement in the world of ideas is cause for hope.

“I’m about changing the world, all about changing ourselves,” she says. “I have great faith in them and people like them.”


license to kvell: the return of oy-oy-7edmoN J. rodmaN

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — Have I got a secret agent for you!

When Hamas is smuggling missiles, and Iranians are building A-bombs deep underground, to whom can Israel turn? 007? No way. He’s too busy playing bacca-rat or keeping the world from being fried by space lasers. He hasn’t time for the Middle East.

But Israeli secret agent Israel Bond, code named Oy-Oy-7? Now he’s the man to call, or was, when author Sol Weinstein first created him in the 1960s.

With the recent reissue by About Comics of Weinstein’s four novels paro-dying the works of Ian Fleming, we can discover if Bond — that is, Israel Bond — can again rise to the occasion and save the day.

Originally published in 1965, the books feature the yiddishe derring-do of an Israeli secret agent whose cover is as a salesman for Mother Margoles’ Old World Chicken Soup. Looking at them now, the titles seem much like a precursor to the bubbling over of American Jewish pride that would follow the Six-Day War in 1967.

According to Weinstein, the four books — Loxfinger, Matzohball, On the Secret Service of His Majesty, the Queen and You Only Live Until You Die — were reported

t o h a v e sold a mil-lion copies. L o o k i n g back at that figure now,

Weinstein feels it was lower.“Certainly a few hundred thousand,”

he said. “I was wallowing in total obscu-rity, and now I was a semi-unknown.”

Before the publication of the books, Weinstein was a writer for The Trenton-ian, a New Jersey daily. Loxfinger, the first title in the series, originally appeared in condensed version in Playboy magazine. It imagined a Jewish secret agent fight-ing evil in a world where swimming pools are filled with chicken soup and the Israeli

spy headquarters is shaped like the giant can from which the soup might have been poured. It’s such a Jewish world, the pray-ing mantises come with their own prayer shawls and poison darts are shot from mezuzahs.

The book is unadulterated Jewish slap-stick, a world away from the sober Fed-eral District of Sitka, Alaska created by Michael Chabon in The Yiddish Police-men’s Union. In the 1960s, I remember seeing one of the titles, Matzohball, on my parent’s nightstand. Having just seen Thunderball, I felt in on the Jewish joke: Israel Bond was our secret agent, saving Israel from destruction in a quick-reading cartoonish plot.

Now, more than 40 years later, with the

battle for Israel’s security front-page news and Jewish humor 10 notches broader than the Borscht Belt, are the books still good for the Jews? Hit-ting the market when 1960s-themed shows like “Pan Am” and “Mad Men” are drawing an audience, I wonder if Loxfinger would work now as a touch of Jewish retro, a test of how yesterday’s Jewish sensibilities would play today.

As I read Loxfinger, I saw how Weinstein’s hero still successfully played off of Fleming’s tall, suave and murderously gentile James Bond.

Everyone, including the original Bond’s archenemies, know that he likes his vodka martini shaken, not stirred. Israel Bond, we soon discover, prefers egg creams — and not just any old way.

“The seltzer should be cold enough to stand on its own with a 3.5 ratio of pin-point carbonation,” says Bond (Israel Bond).

“A fourth of the glass should be filled with Walker Gordon non-pasteurized milk,” he continues. “Only Fox’s U-Bet syrup should be used…mixed delicately with an 1847 Rogers Brothers spoon, dairy silver of course.”

Of course.

X PaGe 23

jtnews | november 18, 2011

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