My Challenge Wrap-Up

Today is the last day of Callista's Jewish Literature Challenge, but I'm not quite done. I'm in the middle of Peter Beagle's A Fine and Private Place, and I'm also listening to Night, by Elie Wiesel, on my iPod, but am not quite finished with it, either. So I'll continue to read and listen to these final choices even though the official challenge is over.

The books I have completed for this challenge are:

• In the Name of Sorrow and Hope, by Noa Ben Artzi-Pelossof


• The Devil's Arithmetic, by Jane Yolen


• My Grandmother's Stories, by Adele Geras

I enjoyed this challenge very much and look forward to it again next time! Thanks for hosting, Callista!

Another author I have just discovered, and am so glad I did, is Adèle Geras. I've been aware of her name, seen some of her books, but had never read anything by her. I just finished a most delightful books of stories by her, and can't wait to read more of her work! Here's what Booklist said about My Grandmother's Stories: A Collection of Jewish Folktales.

“Like all good stories in the Yiddish tradition, the pleasure of Geras’ collection comes as much from the telling as from what happens. These are stories within stories: the narrator remembers herself as a young child hearing them from her grandmother, as they cooked, hung up laundry, prepared for the Sabbath, or cleaned house for Passover. This framing of the stories emphasizes their continuing pleasure across generations; and customs, idioms, traditions, even recipes that the Jews brought with them from Eastern Europe are an unobtrusive part of the telling.”

Each story was inspired by Geras's grandmother, and each one teaches a lesson in the kind and endearing way a grandmother would teach her beloved grandchildren. This collection was illustrated by Anita Lobel, whose illustrations were as delightful as the stories.

This book won the Sydney Taylor Book Award in 1991. I read it for Callista's Jewish Literature Challenge, and it was a wonderful find.

The Devil's Arithmetic

"We all have such stories. It is a brutal arithmetic. But I--I am alive. You are alive. As long as we breathe, we can see and hear. As long as we can remember, all those gone before are alive inside of us."

Last year I read Jane Yolen's Briar Rose, a beautiful retelling of the fairy tale as a holocaust story. I have just finished listening to another one of her books, The Devil's Arithmetic, a story of the holocaust for young adult readers. It, too, was beautifully written and a very powerful story, and the audiobook was beautifully read by Barbara Rosenblat.

Hannah is a young girl who is "tired of remembering." She doesn't understand or appreciate the family rituals of remembering family members and friends that were lost in the holocaust, and she doesn't want to hear those stories of the past again and again. But during the family's Seder, when she "opens the front door to symbolically welcome the prophet Elijah, she is transported to a polish village -- and the year is 1942." She become "Chaya" (which means "life") and she experiences the holocaust first-hand.

It's a powerful experience to read this book or listen to the audiobook version. There's not a word out of place. It was honest and riveting, (which is such a Jane Yolen thing) and it was heartbreaking. But it was also full of hope ... if we remember.

In the Name of Sorrow and Hope

(This post was originally posted on my own blog on January 1st.)

As I was preparing for Callista's 2009 Jewish Literature Challenge, I found this book sitting patiently on my TBR shelf. It has such a wonderful title, In the Name of Sorrow and Hope, and with all that has been going on in the Middle East in the last few weeks, I decided it was a book that might help me understand a little better what is happening there. It's a poignant little book, written by a young woman about the loss of her beloved grandfather.

Noa Ben Artzi-Pelossof is the granddaughter of Yitzhak Rabin, who along with Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994. Noa was very close to her grandparents, and especially to her grandfather.

From a very early age, because of difficult family circumstances resulting from a serious injury suffered by my father, Jonathan and I grew up at my grandparents' house in Ramat Aviv. A very special relationship was forged. My grandparents showed us so much love, understanding and patience that the generations seems to blur. Grandpa was both my father and my grandfather, and he became the main pillar of my existence, the reference point for my life. He belonged to me. I was his only granddaughter, and he was my guide, my mentor, my model.

She was still a teenager when he was assassinated, and I think this book was part of her attempt to come to terms with her own terrible loss. It was also her attempt to understand the bigger picture of this loss. She was part of a political family, a witness to history, and I think she felt the need to explain, defend, preserve memories, and perhaps come to understand for herself the complexities of her grandfather's beliefs. He was her Hero. She is not a professional author, but she wrote with heart and honesty, and with hope.

Above all, I hope my memories of Grandpa will touch young people. I want young Israelis, young Arabs, in our neighboring countries, and other young people to know that behind the politician there was a man of honesty and principle, a man who never stopped believing that his dream of Middle East peace could become a reality.

My own sorrow is that we have lost so many of the great and strong peacemakers over the years! But I also have hope! As we begin another new year, we must once again dedicate ourselves to finding ways to resolve our conflicts without violence or war. My own beliefs about how peace happens were formed as a young exchange student immersed in another culture. So on this first morning of 2009, I share my hope with you for a more peaceful year. The motto of my exchange program, the American Field Service (now AFS Intercultural Programs), became my own deeply-held belief:

Walk together, talk together
O ye peoples of the earth
For then and only then
Shall ye have peace.