Product Description
This book tells the stories of the Jewish women who came of age in Brownsville, Brooklyn, in the 1940s and 1950s. Through in-depth interviews with more than forty women, Carole Bell Ford explores the choices these women made and the boundaries within which they made them, offering fresh insights into the culture and values of Jewish women in the postwar period. Not content to remain in the past, The Girls is also a story of women who live in the present, who lead fulfilling lives even as they struggle to adjust to changes in American society that conflict with their own values and that have profoundly affected the lives of their children and grandchildren. ... Read more

Product Description
This reader's guide recommends books on the Bible, Talmud, Jewish history, the Holocaust, contemporary Israel, religious life and customs, mysticism, Hebrew and Yiddish literature, and Jewish feminism to readers of all backgrounds and at all levels of expertise. "Indispensable for those wishing to study Jewish life in depth."--Joseph Telushkin (Jewish Literacy). ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Great resource
Helpful, informative book on Jewish books. Great for librarians or anyone interested in what-to-read about Judaism.

Good on history, weak on the arts
The historical overview chapters are of interest as an annotated bibliographic guide to finding specific texts on dimensions of Jewish history and theology. The book ends in a real klinker: The final chapter, on Jewish American Literature, is turgid, judgmental, and pretty useless to consult for new finds. Instead of guiding readers, the literary guide codifies the importance of Bellow, Malamud, and Roth, while attacking some of the best books of both Bellow and Roth. ... Read more

Product Description
Nickelsburg introduces the reader to the broad range of Jewish literature that is not part of either the Bible or the standard rabbinic works. This includes especially the Apocrypha (such as 1 Maccabees), the Pseudepigrapha (such as 1 Enoch), the Dead Sea Scrolls, the works of Josephus, and the works of Philo. This CD-ROM, includes biblical citation hyperlinks to the NRSV, web links to primary documents, chapter summaries, discussion questions, and about 100 images of related sites and artifacts. ... Read more

Product Description
Documents the influence of Jewish music on American popular song. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Excellent reference - and fun!
A superb book - lots of fun - but digestible only in little bites.There is a lot of information in here!

SO FUNNY :-)
This book is a must read - it was so entertaining and funny, I had pop comming out of my nose laughing! And my friends and I had a great time sitting around the piano playing and singing the composed musice enclosed! We even added a few lyrics of our own to the already hilarious lyrics ;-)
Have Fun!

Learning, laughing and loving Gottlieb's book
If you share my growing concern at the musical cross-over tendencies in synagogue songs and how "un-Jewish" much of today's Jewish music sounds, you'll find a charming antidote in Dr. Jack Gottlieb's new and original coffee table book: Funny, It Doesn't Sound Jewish. Gottlieb's earnest musical detective comparisons and analyses invite us into joyfully playing the "sounds like" game. After we chuckle in consternation, at the Yiddish or liturgical roots of a pop song's pedigree, we marvel at the truism that there seems to be "nothing new under the sun"; especially under the show biz music lights.

Gottlieb loves to make puns and burst bubbles. This effervescently entertaining study is filled with anecdotes, song sheet covers, musical illustrations, photos of composers and performers, and even an accompanying Audio CD to bring home his astute assertions.

Some of my favorites include: Did you realize that -

George Gershwin's It Ain't Necessarity So is kin to the Torah blessing Barachu Et Adoshem Ham'vorach?

The Torah cantillation for Merchaw R'via inspired both Bach's Oh Sacred Head Now Wounded and Paul Simon's American Tune?

Rozhinkes Mit Mandlin prompted Irving Berlin's Blue Skies.... and my all time favorite

I Am A Gay Caballero, I'm back again from Janeiro is both Y'hei sh'mei rabah m'vorach from the Kaddish and Ashrei yoshvei veitecha od y'hall'lucha selah

Are you curious to follow Gottlieb's unearthing of more of these amusing affinities? There are dozens of other examples, some more apparent than others, but all will cause you to "aha!" pause, smile, and, most importantly, think about what we consider immutable Jewish traditional melodies.

Dr. Gottlieb is an engaging author and lecturer (this book began as a touring presentation with him at the piano). He is a published composer of both secular and synagogue music who most recently was honored by The Milken Archive of American Jewish Music when it distributed a CD of his works on the Naxos label. He is also a meticulous researcher, program notes writer, and former assistant to Leonard Bernstein. In all these endeavors it is quite obvious that he is also a passionate lover of all thing musical and Jewish.

We offer kudos to Dr. Gottlieb for this wonderfully endearing study of Jewish melodic ties to mid 20th century pop music and enthusiastically recommend it as both an urbane entertainment and a carefully documented study. Buy it and enjoy!

You Don't Have to be Jewish ...
Over 30 years ago there was a famous ad campaign for a brand of "Jewish rye bread," showing an American Indian eating a deli sandwich, and the caption read, "You Don't have to be Jewish to Like Levy's Rye Bread."

With regard to this book, this was never so true. Anyone who love the "Great American Song Book" spanning the first half of the last century cannot afford to miss this book.

Especially remarkable is that it IS a scholarly book, complete with footnotes and bibliography, but the tone is also so jocular.

The accompanying CD of musical examples alone is worth the cost of the book.

Do yourself a favor - Order this book, but pass on the Most book offered by Amazon.com in tandem. It is hardly as comprehensive and definitely pales by comparison.

The Definitive Book on Jewish Music
Don't be mislead by the title of this book. It isn't glib or lightweight--in fact, it's a brilliant analysis of the subconscious effect synagogue music and Yiddish song have had on our most beloved popular music. When I picked it up (out of curiosity) I found myself mesmerized and couldn't stop reading.

The book is peppered with musical examples that continually evoke "I never realized that song was related to that"! Gottlieb must have spent decades researching this and it seems unbelievably thorough. He doesn't stop at musical analysis; he also includes a good examination of the history behind everything, particularly focusing on the heavy periods of emigration, when most of the (now) well-known Jewish composers came to America. The book made me look at some of the best known popular songs in a new light, yielding a deeper understanding of what went into their creation.

It may seem a little expensive, but you also get a CD packed with great rare recordings that have never been released before (try Bernstein performing Blitzstein's classic "Zipperfly" or Jolson singing "Khazn oyf Shabes" in Yiddish).

Gottlieb decides to pay limited attention to some of the living composers who focus on Jewish themes (for example, Jason Robert Brown and Osvaldo Golijov are only mentioned casually) but I suspect he could write another book on them. Let's hope he does--I would line up to get a copy. ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: Jewish literature; History / Jewish; Literary Criticism / Jewish; Religion / Judaism / General; Religion / Judaism / Rituals ... Read more

Product Description
Modernism valorizes the marginal, the exile, the "other"--yet we tend to use writing from the most commonly read European languages (English, French, German) as examples of this marginality. Chana Kronfeld counters these dominant models of marginality by looking instead at modernist poetry written in two decentered languages, Hebrew and Yiddish. What results is a bold new model of literary dynamics, one less tied to canonical norms, less limited geographically, and less in danger of universalizing the experience of minority writers.
Kronfeld examines the interpenetrations of modernist groupings through examples of Hebrew and Yiddish poetry in Europe, the U.S., and Israel. Her discussions of Amichai, Fogel, Raab, Halpern, Markish, Hofshteyn, and Sutskever will be welcomed by students of modernism in general and Hebrew and Yiddish literatures in particular. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

best book i've read on modern hebrew poetry
an excellent study of hebrew modernism as well as a fierce critique of contemporary constructions of modernism which focus mainly on "central" literary traditions. ... Read more

Product Description
Medieval Jewish literature from the 10th century onwards drew heavily on Arabic literary models. This study first discusses the introduction of fictionality into Classical Arabic Literature, the mechanics of the basic rhyming model in Classical Arabic poetry and the medieval Arabic theory of rhyme. It then analyzes the introduction of Arabic literary models into 10th-century Jewish literature, Karaite influences, the roles of Hebrew and Arabic and bilingualism, metrical innovations and literary contacts in later Jewish literary works. ... Read more

Product Description
Ten Minute Readings From The World's Best Loved Jewish Literature from the Bible, Talmud, Midrash, Stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer, Y.L. Peretz, Sidney Taylor, Jewish Folklore, Kaballah, and much more! ... Read more

Product Description

An exciting new treasury of Jewish stories and storytellers, from ancient tales and classics re-imagined to contemporary family stories, parables, and humor

"Why were human beings created?" goes a traditional Jewish saying. "Because God loves stories." Storytelling has been part of Jewish religion and custom from earliest times and it remains a defining aspect of Jewish life. In Because God Loves Stories, folklorist Steve Zeitlin assembles the work of thirty-six Jewish storytellers, each of whom spins tales that express his or her own distinctive visions of Jewish culture. Contemporary storytellers re-interpret stories from the Talmud for modern sensibilities, the Grand Rabbi of Bluzhov tells tales of the Holocaust, beloved comedian Sam Levenson regales readers with hilarious vignettes of Jewish life in America, and much more. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Excellent folktales collection-- non-Jewish reviewer.
Any folktale fan can enjoy this. You don't need an extensive background in Judaism to enjoy the stories.
It is all quite readable, & not a bit dry.
The stories are lively, & range from the funny to the chilling, most told from a very intimate, personal point of view.

God Loves Stories and So Do I
Because God Loves stories is a excellent collection of Jewish stories from ancient times, through the Holocaust to modern humor. Not knowing many Jewish people, I was delighted to learn about Jewish culture and history.

Following is a story which illustrates that every culture has its Mendels:

Another time Mendel was walking down the road when a stranger came up to him and said, "Take this Yankel." Then he punched Mendel. Mendel fell to the ground. As soon as he hit the ground he began laughing. The stranger said, "What are you laughing about? I just punched you. I knocked you to the ground."

Mendel looked up and said, "The jokes on you, I'm not Yankel."

I recommend this book to all those who love literature and those interested in learning about Jewish history and customs. It's a great gift for shut-ins.

disappointingly light
I was not impressed in the least by this collection, for several reasons. First, a great deal of introductory material is offered--discussing the context of the contributor's life and works--generally at the expense of the material per se. Second, the material is weighted toward anecdotes and away from folktales, myths, legends, and other traditional literary forms. Third, with so much coverage devoted to the modern period--where Judaism has all but unraveled into bits here and nits there--any sense of continuity of cultural momentum is sacrificed altogether. The author endeavors to give us a realistic taste of such crucial institutions as the American Yiddish theater but ultimately fails to do so in any cogent manner. Indeed, to any reader who is familiar with the corpus of Jewish fantastic literature, the material is as repetitive in places as it is lightweight in others. You should most definitely take a "pass" on this work and instead stock your library with important collections by Sadeh, Frankel, and Schwartz. For the more scholarly material that hearkens of the Hasidic era, stick to Patai: both Schwartz (in this particular context) and Buber are stand-out disappointments.

Stories from all walks of American- Jewish life
The idea of the anthology is a good one, though I wished it had included more stories about 'Eretz Yisrael' which is after all the center of Jewish yearning for generations. The work focuses on American- Jewish stories and storytellers, although of course many touch upon Old World experiences. The storytellers themselves come from a variety of walks of life, some being professional storytellers, some well- known Jewish cultural figures and some being ' everyman' . The stories often have a folk quality about them, and are often entertaining, and instructive.
However the stories also point up the difference between stories which are stories in the street, anecdotal stories, and stories which are more complex literary creations. In this I think stories of the folk kind cannot possibly have the kind of aesthetic value that for instance a written story of Bashevis Singer might have.

Because we love stories...
What a joy to read this anthology!In a world where the media is constantly on our nerves with the ever-going show of human misery, to read this set of stories is a therapy.It makes you laugh, it makes you wonder,it brings you closer to God and His creation, it revives a deep-rooted"jewishness" that we seldom are aware off or have simpleforgotten.It makes you feel like a child savoring his favorite ice cream:when it is finished, he cries out for more! ... Read more

Product Description
A history of the Jewish people from bris to burial, from “muscle Jews” to nose jobs.

Melvin Konner, a renowned doctor and anthropologist, takes the measure of the “Jewish body,” considering sex, circumcision, menstruation, and even those most elusive and controversial of microscopic markers–Jewish genes. But this is not only a book that examines the human body through the prism of Jewish culture. Konner looks as well at the views of Jewish physiology held by non-Jews, and the way those views seeped into Jewish thought. He describes in detail the origins of the first nose job, and he writes about the Nazi ideology that categorized Jews as a public health menace on par with rats or germs.

A work of grand historical and philosophical sweep, The Jewish Body discusses the subtle relationship between the Jewish conception of the physical body and the Jewish conception of a bodiless God. It is a book about the relationship between a land–Israel–and the bodily sense not merely of individuals but of a people. As Konner describes, a renewed focus on the value of physical strength helped generate the creation of a Jewish homeland, and continued in the wake of it.

With deep insight and great originality, Konner gives us nothing less than an anatomical history of the Jewish people. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

The Jewish Body
Interesting. Nothing revolutionary or new to a medical scientist like myself, but a good seminar jumping off point for discussion with an educated lay group.
Well written and easily understandable to the non-medical community.

The Jewish Body
Konner, Melvin. "The Jewish Body" Schocken, 2009.

The Jewish Body

Amos Lassen

Melvin Konner gives us an examination of the Jewish body with thoughts of the implications of Jewish genes as well as references to Jewish mysticism and ideas as to how this body has spanned the ages and still remains something of a mystery. He traces the body and its impact through the course of Jewish history. This is also an exercise in understanding the Jewish mind and the Jewish contributions to society. In actuality this is a study of Jewish history and identity.
Quite naturally this is an epic study as Konnor looks at sex, circumcision, menstruation, and the concept of the Jewish gene. Here is a discussion of the relationship between the Jewish concept of a God that has no body and the relationship between a body of land and a people. One reviewer calls this an anatomical history of the Jewish people.
There are a variety of issues looked at here. One such example is the way Konner deals with the way Jews try to change their physical appearance and Konner suggests that this came about because of the Jewish desire to fit in after the Holocaust. However he also looks at what men consider to be beautiful and he maintains that is also the concept of fertility which goes with younger women and this causes men to be attracted to them. Therefore men favor women with youthful features--blondes with small noses and light skin.
He also maintains that Jews are better fighters (boxers) but there is really no explanation of this except that Jews became fighters in order to protect themselves from facial bruising.
On the issue of whether or not that Jews are a race as well as a religion, Konner tells us that Jews from the Middle East are similar genetically to non Jews from the same place and that European Jews are more like other Europeans than Arabs. In other words the Jews have managed to develop their own gene pool.
This is a fascinating read and even though it is written by an anthropologist, it is highly readable and informative.

mildly interesting
This little book describes a wide variety of issues related to the Jewish body: circumcision, Jewish law related to sex and menstruation, the periodic oscillation of Jewish opinion between reverence for and apathy towards physical strength, and common public stereotypes of the Jewish physique (and Jews' attempts to avoid looking like those stereotypes).

A few of the more interesting points:

*Konner suggests that biblical rules about menstruation (which hold that women who menstruate are ritually impure for some days afterwards) might mean that menstruation was viewed as threatening in traditional culture.He reasons that since pregnant women don't menstruate, persistent menstrual cycles might have suggested infertility- not a good thing in an agricultural society where each child was another person who could help work the land.Interesting speculation, though I can't say whether it makes sense. (And of course, Konner's theory doesn't explain why later rabbis broadened those rules).

*Why were Jews often excellent boxers in the 19th and early 20th centuries? Konner suggests that Jews "became superb defensive fighters in order to avoid getting their faces bruised, which would alert their Orthodox parents [who Konner assumes were more hostile to fighting than non-Jewish parents] to what they are doing."But were Jews really better fighters than other immigrant groups trying to make their way up the social ladder?

*Konner's most interesting chapter focuses on Jews' attempts to change their physical appearance; for example, rhinoplasty (which makes noses smaller) was very popular among Jewish women in the mid-20th century.Konner suggests that this fad might have something to do with a Jewish desire to blend in after the Holocaust. But he ties this issue into broader discussions of what men tend to find beautiful; for example, since younger woman tend to be fertile, men who were strongly attracted to young women have had greater reproductive success.As a result, men have evolved to favor women with childlike features, such as lighter hair, lighter skin, and smaller noses.

*To what extent are Jews a race? Konner answers 'somewhat.' He points out that all Jews are genetically similar to non-Jews from the Middle East- but at the same time, Jews in Europe resemble their non-Jewish counterparts more than they resemble Arabs, suggesting a substantial local genetic influence.And Ashkenazic Jews have developed their own gene pool in some ways; for example, some diseases common among Ashkenazim are less common among other Jews. ... Read more

Product Description
Selections from twenty-seven Hebrew poets, many of whose poems appear here in English for the first time. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Diverse, bracing and vivid
With all the ugliness in the Middle East, I was delighted to receive 'Poets on the Edge: An Anthology of Contemporary Hebrew Poetry'. This poetry from Israel reveals a culture far more diverse than American stereotypes would suggest. Almost half of the poets are women; the religious and political affiliations of the 27 poets touch are bracingly varied. What they share is a precision of language and feeling that should seem both familiar and fresh to non-Israeli readers of poetry. The translations are expert, as you'd expect from Tsipi Keller, a veteran translator and the author of the brisk and original novel, 'Jackpot'.

Review/Alicia Ostriker
This is a feast of a book. Twenty-seven Israeli poets--religious and secular, Ashkenazi and Sephardic, immigrant and native-born, mostly straight but some gay, almost half of them women, all of them vital, most never published in this country before, each represented by an ample selection of poems--brilliantly translated by a gifted poet. For American readers, who are likely to know much more about Israeli fiction than its poetry, or know only a few names like Amichai, Dan Pagis, Dahlia Ravikovitch and Yona Wallach (all of whom have been well translated into English), Poets on the Edge will be a revelation.

"On the edge," one might ask, of what? "Edgy" is a term we use in art to imply modern or postmodern wit, irony, bite, a cool playfulness, a possible undertone of violence. Edgy in the sense of "nervous and uneasy" certainly describes Israeli society in the `80's and `90's, when most of these poets were published, and it's a mood that saturates and stimulates their writing. For Israeli poets, the edge also suggests the far limit of what Hebrew can do, rooted in its old magnificence as the language of the Bible, lashon hakodesh, the holy tongue, which remains alive in present-day Israel, bracingly interleaved with modern slang, curses borrowed from Russian and Arabic, technical terms lifted from English, and the abundant energy of its reincarnation. Aminadav Dykman's Introduction usefully tracks the history of 20th-century Hebrew poetry in terms of a series of generational transformations, from earnest nostalgia and messianic aspirations, to the mythmaking "place poems" of the Zionist 1940's, and on into the more skeptical language of the street, the kitchen, the bedroom.

One way to read Poets on the Edge is to browse, and let poems snag your attention. In this way I discovered the allegorically inclined David Avidan (b. 1934), and poems like "The Stain Remained on the Wall," which begins

Someone tried to scrub the stain off the wall.
But the stain was too dark (or conversely--too bright).
At any rate--the stain remained on the wall.

In this way I found a Dahlia Ravikovitch (1936-2005) poem I had not known, evoking how "a smelly Mediterranean city/ squats on the water.... her feet covered with scabs,/ her sons dealing knives/ to one another." Evidently Tel Aviv, the city is "flooded/ with crates of grapes and plums... pumpkins, cucumbers and lemons,/bursting with juice and color," and though "not deserving,/ Not deserving of love or pity," the poet writes, "how my soul became bound to hers." Cognizant of Ravikovitch's significance as a peace activist, Keller has included both the famous "Tale about the Arab who Died in the Fire" and the less-well-known poem "But She Had a Son," invoking a present-day Rachel who works at City Hall but speaks day and night to her fallen son, saying (with a piercing echo of Lamentations), "I'm Rachel, your mother,/ Possessed of cognition and free will,/ There's no comforting me."

Other poets who seized my attention included Meir Wieseltier (b. 1941) writing equally straightforwardly of politics and of "the basics/ like a kiss or eating cheese," the provocatively sexy Agi Mishol (b. 1947) with her "complementary nipples,/ one red one green," the sensual Dan Armon (b. 1948) whose poems celebrate squash, apple, cucumber, plum, and "the wondrous wilting of a flower/ in the calm of a vase," and the astonishing Raquel Chalfi, (no date given) whose poem "German Boot," the longest piece in the book, is a masterpiece of realistic and comic self-mockery laced with pungent midrash, ultimately turning surreal, mythic, and terrifying. I won't quote a word here. You have to read it.

Why translation? It is often said that poetry is what gets lost in translation. My own view is that translation of poetry, provided the translations are live poems in the new language, enriches our collective humanity and expands our awareness of "others, and many others," which Shelley said was necessary for the moral life. In any case, Poets on the Edge will send readers who know Hebrew scrambling for the originals of many of the poets here, and will make those who don't know Hebrew want to learn--precisely because these translations are so alive. For English-speaking readers (and writers), both Jewish and non-Jewish, the book will explode whatever lingering stereotypes there may be about Israeli culture. More broadly, it will confirm Israel's place in world literature today as a cornucopia of poetry.

Alicia Suskin Ostriker/JBooks, January 2009
... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Original, dark, funny, breaks your heart
How I found this, I can't remember.I read the connected stories in one sitting and have already started on the sequel Anna in the Afterlife.Perhaps the stories told by a grumpy, smart, disappointed, often mean-spirited, culturally alive woman as she passes from her 70s into her 90s will only appeal to a small demographic.Anna got me right in the solar plexus.The details of her life were her own story and not mine but her impossible attempts over and over and over again to try and make the world welcoming, appreciative, softer -- that Sisyphean struggle is my struggle, too.She can't abide the lies that are everywhere and on everyone's lips, the greed, the self-serving betrayals.And she is still, after all is said and done to her and to her view of history, she still is surprised and enraged by the lunacy of it all.I am going to read every Gerber book.Cynthia Ozick who is one of my absolute favorite authors among a baseline list of at least 50-60 must-read writers (I guess I need to make a list), heaps praise on Gerber, and Ozick never lies.

Edit:I have now read the sequel, Anna in the Afterlife, where Anna is in limbo between death and burial and in this not-resolved state she "visits" the past.She is there.During one of these visitations she discovers hat a terrible thing has been done to her and she had blocked it.In the never-ending war of her entire life with her sister, Gert, even more details become known.These two books back-to-back are absolutely remarkable.

Author discusses ANNA IN CHAINS
ANNA IN CHAINS was published the week my mother died at the age of 90.The stories in ANNA IN CHAINS are based on my mother's life as it was reported to me during the years of her widowhood, her life in a retirement home, and, finally, the seven years she spent in a nursing home, paralyzed and on a feeding tube.I was able to show her the cover art of the book the day before she died.It displays a picture of an old woman's hands, in chains, playing the piano. My mother was pleased by this representation of her life and its main torment, that she was unable to play the piano in the later years of her life. Four of the stories were given dramatic readings on Jan 12 in the New Short Fiction Series at Beverly Hills Library; this took place less than two weeks after my mother's death: to hear her voice reproduced by the actors, to see her humor, her sharp and sometimes cynical view of the world, was to reveal to me that more was in the stories than I ever guessed at. Merrill Joan Gerber ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A Secular Life Gone Bad
author of Cooking Jewish: 532 Great Recipes from the Rabinowitz Family

from the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles
June 28, 2002

It's the ultimate fantasy: You have a seat at your own funeral. Now imagine that while hovering in limbo between your death and burial, you have the power not only to witness the preparations and critique the eulogies, but also to eavesdrop on critical moments in your past for a reality check.

Such is the premise of Merrill Joan Gerber's latest, "Anna in the Afterlife," which chronicles Anna's four-day journey between her grueling death at 90 and her burial.

When last we left Anna in "Anna in Chains," she was lying helpless in a nursing home, paralyzed in one arm, feeding tube gurgling, begging for death. Not exactly the stuff of comedy. Yet in "Anna in the Afterlife," after seven agonizing years chained to her bed, Anna finally nears that "famous tunnel she'd heard about on Oprah," and what would have turned maudlin from a lesser writer is at once poignant, riveting, even amusing in Gerber's capable hands.

"Anna warned [her daughters] constantly: they mustn't do anything illegal and end up in jail. Neither one was familiar with firearms, neither one had access to heavy barbiturates and no one could figure out how to get her to a bridge railing. Ropes, razors and drinking drain cleaner did not appeal to Anna, nor did a plastic bag over her head."

At last "the great and famous moment" arrives, and Anna relinquishes "the spark every tiny ant and worm wants to keep hold of, the force that makes flies evade the swatter and convulses fish off their baited hooks." In death, she is free to revisit her past, and memorable characters materialize: her mother's bigamist first husband; her jealous 86-year-old sister, Gert, attempting suicide in a red peignoir; and her half-brother, Sam, who she learns had molested her and her sister. ("I thought it was his thumb," claims an unperturbed Gert.)

Loosed in death from the shackles of physical suffering, she is free to unlock her family's many secrets and long forgotten mysteries: Did her brother really drown while fishing on erev Yom Kippur? ("Who needed fish that fresh"?) Did Anna really win her husband by parading in front of her sister's date in a negligee?

For the first time Anna confronts her own racial prejudice, her sexual reluctance, her stinginess. "`Nothing but the best" was not a phrase Anna had thought her children should live by. Now she was feeling the consequences of her philosophy -- she'd have third-rate corned beef at her funeral reception, seedless Christian rye bread and prune Danish made with lard, with not a single salty black olive or a plate of pickled herring in sour cream on the table."

Now this feisty woman, whose raison d'être had been indignation, experiences doubt. "Should she have been kinder? And to whom?"

Gerber knows only too well the degradation and suffering of the elderly, kept alive beyond their time in "a holding pen for dying animals." She had watched helplessly as her own mother begged for death.

"But Anna is not my mother at all," says the prize-winning author. "She didn't have that irony, that speed of retort. She is a combination of what I knew about her life, what I imagined a certain voice in her head would sound like -- which is a combination of me and her -- and my invention."

A fiction-writing instructor at California Institute of Technology, Gerber is a careful observer of those thousands of details that forge family dynamics and skillfully transforms life's ordinary and gut-wrenching moments into compelling prose.

We see Anna as a young mother in "The Kingdom of Brooklyn," even more strident from a child's point of view. Nearly 80 in "Anna in Chains," she shuffles, still independent, through her Fairfax neighborhood, then sinks into ever descending circles of hell: retirement home, nursing home, utter dependence. In the end, Gerber tells us: "Anna accepted her fate."

With Anna gone, Gerber wastes no time with idle retrospection. Look in November for "Botticelli Blue Skies," the saga of her sojourn in Italy, and a book of essays, "Gut Feelings: A Writer's Truths and Minute Inventions," due in Spring 2003.

LA Times: "One of the best novels of 2002"
The LA Times chose this novel as one of the best of 2002.

December 8, 2002
LOS ANGELES TIMES
BEST BOOKS OF 2002

Fiction

Anna in the Afterlife

Merrill Joan Gerber

Syracuse University Press / Library of Modern Jewish

Literature: 124 pp., ...paper

Merrill Joan Gerber is not only one of our most underrated contemporary writers, she also may well be our least pretentious. Her utter lack of pretense is a major source of her raw power as a writer. In her latest novel, a tough little gem called "Anna in the Afterlife," Gerber returns to one of her most memorable characters, Anna Goldman, the forceful, discontented mother of the young heroine in "An Antique Man," more recently glimpsed in her 80s lying immobile, resentful and furious in a nursing home in the story collection "Anna in Chains." Now, after seven years in the chains of her illness, Anna finally dies. The opening whisks us into the world-weary mind-set of its heroine: "Once her dying got underway, Anna could not really complain about how the process moved along." Like Saul Bellow, Gerber has a genius for the irritable, the acrid and the embittered: The visitor from another planet who doesn't know what it means to kvetch would need to look no further than Gerber's fiction for superb illustrations of the phenomenon. Unlike Bellow, she does not venture far beyond the personal. Her eyes are trained on the quotidian, but the acuity and intensity of her vision are no less extraordinary... ... Read more

Product Description
Library Journal ReviewOctober 1, 2007

Gerber, Merrill Joan. The Victory Gardens of Brooklyn. Syracuse Univ. (Library of Modern Jewish Literature).Nov. 2007. c.406p. ISBN 978-0-8156-0892-9. $24.95. F

A prequel to Gerber's award-winning The Kingdom of Brooklyn (1992), this work explores the lives of Rachel and Rose, immigrant sisters whose unsatisfactory husbands and arduous lives on New York's Lower East Side become a template for the lives of Rachel's three daughters and her granddaughters as well. Individual chapters are narrated from the very different perspectives of the four main women characters. We see thwarted loves, betrayals by relatives, and the poverty that marks their lives. Both Rachel and her daughter Ava marry for security rather than love; Rachel's spoiled daughter Musetta deliberately weds the man her sister Gilda loves. World War II brings catastrophic changes, taking brothers and sons. Gerber's unblinking portrait of immigrant Jewish lives during the first half of the 20th century creates a realistic view of the complexities of families who for better or worse manage to stay connected by swallowing resentments, coming to terms with life, and trying to achieve some measure of contentment. Recommended for large public libraries and those serving Jewish communities.­Andrea Kempf, Johnson Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Overland Park, KS ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

I loved this book!
Will keep it on my Kindle, I enjoyed it from beginning to end and just wanted it to continue!

Amazing epic
Merrill Joan Gerber has created a world that one never wants to leave.It's full of strife, joy and pain and it's real.She allows us in to the minds of almost every character and I felt so deeply for them.She is an incomparable writer who knows how to describe life with all of it's complications and also make it feel as if it's our own.

LIFE IMITATES ART
Without fictional artifice, the author reveals the hearts and souls of her characters who are so like my mother and her five sisters who sprang from Russia and Brooklyn.Merrill Joan Gerber has again produced an insightful, human story that makes you keep reading and thinking.

Three Generations of Jewish Women In New York
Book Review in National Jewish Post and Opionion April 16, 2008
By Morton I. Teicher


The Victory Gardens of Brooklyn by Merrill Joan Gerber. Syracuse, NY:
Syracuse University Press, 2007. 360 Pages. $24.95


Prolific author of short stories, novels, and books of non-fiction, Merrill Joan Gerber teaches fiction writing at the California Institute of Technology. She is a one-woman refutation of the canard that those who cannot do, teach. Her well-warranted popularity is reflected in her many fans and the prizes she has won, including the Ribalow Award for her outstanding novel, The Kingdom of Brooklyn.
Gerber's prowess in prose is fully demonstrated in her new novel, The Victory Gardens of Brooklyn. She vividly recounts the afflictions and adversities of three generations of Jewish women in New York. The story is divided into two parts: "The East Side, 1906-1925" and "Brooklyn, 1925-1945." Two sisters, Rachel and Rose, have immigrated to America and settled on the Lower East Side of New York where Rachel is married to a ne'er do well, Nathan, and Rose is married to Hymie who is disliked by Ava, Rachel's daughter. The hostility Ava feels for her uncle is intensified when she is forced to live with Rose and Hymie after Rachel catches her husband with another woman. Nathan leaves and Rachel has to make a living by working as a midwife. She is unable to look after Ava or her son, Shmuel, who is sent to an orphanage. This melodramatic opening is followed by a series of emotional events.
One of Rachel's patients dies in childbirth; she marries the widower, Isaac, telling him that her first husband, Nathan, is dead. Rachel and Isaac have two daughters, Musetta and Gilda, who have a complicated relationship with each other and with their half-sister, Ava. The three girls represent the next generation and their ordeals with their parents and with men are filled with complexity and difficulty. World War I provides the backdrop for their arduous adventures.
As the saga unfolds, all sorts of problems emerge � making a living, Jewish-Gentile relationships, family rivalries, intermarriage, dubious romances, shady activities, tragic losses, difficult illnesses, and many more. The situations in which these issues arise are intensively described. Throughout, emphasis is placed on the vantage point of the women.
The second half of the book, opening in 1925, during the era of American prosperity, begins with the families moving to Brooklyn. Ava gives birth to a second son while Musetta and Gilda undergo many difficulties. Eventually, Musetta reluctantly marries and has two daughters, Issa and Iris. This brings us to the third generation with continuing complications, especially involving male-female relationships. The Great Depression contributes its share of complexities as it gives way to World War II and its accompanying tragedies. At the end, Rachel and Rose, still alive, look back on their ordeals and Rose sums them up by saying, "We're here, we have a life, we suffer, we love."
This powerful and perceptive presentation describes the adaptation of Jewish immigrants to America and the experiences of the next generations, all poignantly set forth as encountered by the women. In this book, Merrill Joan Gerber continues to display her remarkable talent.


Dr. Morton I. Teicher is the Founding Dean, Wurzweiler School of Social Work, Yeshiva University and Dean Emeritus, School of Social Work, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Witness The Passions of Four Jewish Women
Merrill Joan Gerber opens the door of a tenement household over a hundred years ago and invites us into the sounds, smells, lives, and drama of a Jewish immigrant family struggling to survive on New York's Lower East Side. In this family, Ava is abruptly separated from her beloved, handsome, philandering father; then from Rachel, her Mama, and her brother as Mama works as a midwife to pay for a divorce.

Ava finds herself an unwelcome guest in Mama's sister's home until Mama marries a cold, tyrannical tailor so that her family can be together once again. Ava finds refuge in school and tries to be invisible as she is excluded again and again when her half-sisters are born. She finds meaningful work, then marries the brother of her friend Tessie. Here the saga begins to include her younger stepsisters, Musetta and Gilda. Although Gerber's three generations of women dominate this rich stew of mothers and daughters, aunts and uncles, a couple of sons and a couple of husbands during the two World Wars have a deep psychological influence upon how the women respond to life's joys and difficulties.

The Victory Gardens allows us to witness the passions, both positive and negative, and personal growth of four Jewish women. Gerber is skilled at inviting the reader into the story with her strong, realistic prose. This drama of the not-so-distant past captured my interest from beginning to end.

by Judith Helburn
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women

... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Jewish and Christian Icons- origins and development
If you are interested in the origins of Jewish and Christian iconography, or in the way in which early Christians like Origen and Eusebius understood Jewish histories, then you will enjoy reading this richly illustrated book. I will quote from the jacket:

"The Jewish ancestry of Christianity is not merely a matter of religious sentiment but the object of scholarly research. One of the aims of this series is to analyse how Jewish cultural elements were assimilated by and adopted to the needs of the arising new religion. The present volume contains two seperate studies. Schrekenberg shows how successive Christian authors turned Josephus's description of the fall of Jerusalem into a confirmation of Christian superiority. Next he demonstartes how this view of the Jewish historian and his works appears in medieval Christian illustrations. In another contribution, Schubert discusses the existence of a Jewish pictoral tradition and its influence on early Christian art. Such influence was all the more likely where Christian artists were unaware of potential conflicts of the Jewish iconography with Christian doctrine. This volume is richly illustrated with reproductions of the pertinent works of art."

You may also enjoy "The Resurrection and the Icon" by Quenot. ... Read more

Product Description

Over the past four decades Ruth R. Wisse has been a leading scholar of Yiddish and Jewish literary studies in North America, and one of our most fearless public intellectuals on issues relating to Jewish society, culture, and politics.In this celebratory volume, edited by four of her former students, Wisse's colleagues take as a starting point her award-winning book The Modern Jewish Canon (2000) and explore an array of topics that touch on aspects of Yiddish, Hebrew, Israeli, American, European, and Holocaust literature.Arguing the Modern Jewish Canon brings together writers both seasoned and young, from both within and beyond the academy, to reflect the diversity of Wisse's areas of expertise and reading audiences. The volume also includes a translation of one of the first modern texts on the question of Jewish literature, penned in 1888 by Sholem Aleichem, as well as a comprehensive bibliography of Wisse's scholarship. In its richness and heft, Arguing the Modern Jewish Canon itself constitutes an important scholarly achievement in the field of modern Jewish literature.