In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin by Erik Larson is a book which Larson does best: an intelligent non-fiction narrative that reads like fiction.  The title is a bit salacious, but Larson must sell books.

As the Dodd family becomes more exposed to the nascent Nazi government, it is difficult not to draw parallels with today’s events.  The United State government fails to realize the Nazi menace, or decides to ignore it due to more pressing matters.  Ambassador Dodd realizes, fairly quickly, that the Nazis mean to conquer all of Europe, regardless of their protestations of peace.

We are now knocking on a door much like this. When a radical menace exists, how do we act?  Do we hope that menace will mellow with power?  Do we take steps to meet and squash that menace?  Do we trample the rules of democracy to save democracy from autocrats?  Difficult questions.

Looking back, it is obvious that France and Britain should have invaded Germany once they began to militarize in violation of the Versailles Treaty.  They had a window, but no one stepped through it, and millions upon millions died.

As these incidents at Cornell continue, it is all the more apparent that Cornell is not a safe place for Jewish people. Or more charitably, it is growing less safe every day. I get the feeling we are more and more on our own despite the good intentions of many. It may be time to firm up and organize our own resources for community awareness and self-protection

The slow and halting response by the Cornell administration only provides incentives for people to commit anti-semitic acts. Only swift and immediate action and a punishment with real teeth will make the price of anti-Semitic expression too costly for even for the most hardened Jewish hater. Cornell needs to do better. If not, we Jews must take control of every aspect of our welfare and safety.

My great concern is that the slow response is indicative that non-jews at Cornell are beginning to accept anti-semitic incidents as a part of our new social landscape. I hope the administration and Mr Lombardi's delay is not indicative of this shifting level of tolerance toward antisemitism - even passively. All forms of racial, religious and ethnic bigotry are abhorrent. But the rise of American anti-semitism should worry Jews, non-jews and Mr Lombardi. Growing anti-semitism in a culture is an indication of a social disease driven by conspiratorial thinking, the failure to see reality as it is, and the need to simplify a society's problems to a easy to digest , and hate filled formulas. All this bodes poorly for American democracy.

Three Swastikas in 9 Days: Anti-Semitic Incidents on Cornell’s North Campus Stoke Fear

Sing, Unburied, Sing: A Novel

Jesmyn Ward novel Sing, Unburied, Sing: A Novel, is a very conventionally successful novel which highlights a community which often does not have a “voice” in the wider world.  Ward is strong writer, and knows how to exploit the form of the novel.

I suppose I am a bit disappointed by the multiple voices for each chapter.  There is not much of a difference in tone or sentiment from voice to voice (although what they express is mostly profound and moving).  I would have also liked a lighter touch on the multiple ghosts that inhabit this novel.  The theme is not lightly used, and gets cumbersome toward the end.

With all that, this novel is still a tantalizing read.  Ward delivers a strong work.

The Radical American Judaism of Mordecai M. Kaplan

Mordecai Kaplan, lived to 102, June 11, 1881 – November 8, 1983

We are very fortunate that Mel Scult has written The Radical American Judaism of Mordecai M. Kaplan.  Kaplan is one of the most influential Jewish figures of the twentieth century, but he is often not credited for the legacy he left behind.  Scult goes to great lengths to show the strengths of Kaplan, how he changed the nature of modern Judaism, while never shying away from some of Kaplan's weaknesses. 

Kaplan set about on the very necessary project of reorienting Judaism for twentieth century American Jews.  He was a naturalist and process theologian, who was influenced by the philosophy of John Dewey, William James, and the writings of Emerson.

Kaplan is the father of reconstructionist Judaism, and part of the reason he is not well known, and is no longer read widely today, is from the very dynamism of the movement he formed.  In moving Judaism away from fixed and traditional worship models, he created a process rather than an entity.  Most Jewish people who are reconstructionist or are influenced by it would not find much in Kaplan’s writings that is overtly familiar.

In 1945, Kaplan was excommunicated by a group of 200
orthodox rabbis for the publication of his
 Sabbath Prayer Book 

Scult’s book shows us why this is the case; Kaplan crafted a creativity unstable movement.  Designed to change, in many ways it has changed beyond anything Kaplan would imagine.  The author is also very honest about the difficulty and deficiencies of Kaplan’s writing style.  Unlike Buber and Heschel, two other influential Jewish thinkers and writers in the twentieth century who wrote well and clearly, Scult needs to rescue Kaplan from his own opaque works, mainly through his now published diaries.

So if you want your Kaplan, this is the book.  As someone who has never gotten through a long work by Mortdecai Kaplan, Schult’s work is essential.

The first page of Kaplan's writ of excommunication 

Salvage the Bones: A Novel

Jesmyn Ward’s novel Salvage the Bones is about as perfectly paced as a novel can be; the author continues to build on events in the work, and by the end, the reader is fully invested in the characters and their outcome.

The characters in this novel are up against so much: race, poverty, climate change, yet they persevere. This is a most refreshing outcome.

The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank

Leo Frank at the time of his trial

The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank is the subtitle of a book by Frey Seitz Frey and Nancy Thompson-Frey (the title is awful, no doubt a concession to the publisher to sell books).  Despite this salacious title, this book is a well-researched, sober and organized attempt to make sense of the murder of thirteen year old Mary Phagan in Atlanta in 1913 in a pencil factor. 

Factory manager Leo Frank, a Jewish man, was charged with the murder.  Despite flimsy circumstantial evidence, the threat of mob violence and antisemitism Frank was convicted and sentenced to death.  In 1915, the governor of Georgia commuted his sentence to life in prison, believing that with time and a more sober assessment of the evidence, Frank would be eventually pardoned.  

Men and boys posing with Leo Frank's body, in a patch of woods near Marietta Georgia

But he never lived to see that day.  He was lynched in 1915 after being kidnapped from prison by the so-called “Knights of Mary Phagan”.  The core of this group became a resurrected Klu Klux Klan, which would grow in strength in the years before World War Two.  The blatant antisemitism of the Frank lynching led to the founding of the Anti-Defamation league.

In 1986, Leo Frank was pardoned by the state of Georgia.  He bears the unfortunate title of the only (known) Jewish person to be lynched in the United States.  Until recently, it was a high-water mark of Anti-Semitic violence in America.

Marker at the site of Leo Frank's lynching, just off highway 75 in Marietta 

Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China

Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China by Evan Osnos is an extraordinary book, giving the reader real insights into the darkly ironic society of Communist China and its capitalist economic system.

At first, this book has the unfortunate tone of ridiculing the Chinese.  Osnos writes about people with extreme idiosyncrasies.  But as the book progresses, it drops this tone, and the author is able to paint a picture of the nearly unbearable pressure of both ordinary and famous citizens of the PRC.  He talks to people from all walks of life, and draws insights into their predicaments.

The "Peoples" Liberation Army suppressing the people, 1989

What we get at the end is a book that chronicles the nearly unfathomable amount of change that China has experienced in the last few decades through the lens of its people. Osnos certainly suggests that China, politically, economically, and socially, can’t be sustained.  The state apparatus to suppress criticism and revolt, and the growing legions of well-heeled Chinese people who want greater reforms and freedoms – will certainly clash.  And what it will bring no one knows.