Over Blood River: The Rise and Fall of the Afrikaners

Kajsa Norman’s Bridge Over Blood River: The Rise and Fall of the Afrikaners is a travel log focusing on South Africa’s Afrikaner strongholds, particularly Orania.  She is not interested in Afrikaners in cities, so much, as she is to those who have “adapted” to post-apartheid life by establishing all white communities far from established settlements.

She explores the ethos and myths of the Afrikaners, their complex relationship to multicultural South Africa, their abiding fears of physical violence and cultural assimilation to English speaking white South Africans.

The book delves into complex topics.  The Afrikaners were the masterminds of Apartheid, and now they find themselves a minority in a county they once ruled.  They are suffering a political and cultural crisis.  Norman’s account documents all sides of this – the good, the ugly and always the complex. 

A Breslov Commentary on the Megillah Esther

Next to Rosh Hashanah, no yom tov is more beloved among Breslov Hasidim than Purim.  At first glance, this minor Jewish holiday, which outside of Israel and Orthodox circles is relegated to a children’s celebration, appears to be an odd match.

But A Breslov Commentary on the Megillah Esther sets about to illustrate this match, and it provides very interesting reading.  In a general sense, the plot of Esther conforms to Breslov religious and messianic expectations.  Mordechai is the true tzadik along the lines of Rebbe Nachman, and the action conforms to Breslov theology: God works secretly through the world, a world that fails to even call God by name.  Yet God does work indeed, and through the agency of the true tzadik, develops outcomes that are favorable to Jewish people.  This is the trajectory of the coming of the messianic age; and this is the story of Esther. Therefore, Purim is an ideal holiday for Breslov Chasidism.

In recent decades Breslov has been publishing books in English, in an attempt to reach a wider audience of Jews.  I hope they continue to do so; like Chabad, I believe they have many practical and common sense approaches to Judaism which if wider known, would prove useful.  Their books should be more widely read.

A Long Drawn Face

I knew Homa when she was a graduate student at Cornell University.  She is a talented person, and could have easily become a professional writer (she is an economist).

A Long Drawn Face showcases her gifts.  She presents original themes in all her poems, but most form a singular thread.  One is the female voice.  In “Two Women” she writes of a character who would “sooner / choke than go without words.”  In “The Letter Aitch” she writes “we lose a foundational piece of our souls when we pigeonhole our mouths.”  In “String and Bow” “untuned words came out of you / and instead of disbanding into white noise / they condensed in me / like a leaky faucet”

Homa provides a range of voices in this collection that are fresh and clear.  Each poem contains a vital message about communication, understanding, and language.

Hanging Ruth Blay: An Eighteenth Century New Hampshire Tragedy

Hanging Ruth Blay: An Eighteenth Century New Hampshire Tragedy, by Carolyn Marvin, is the kind of historical work I greatly admire, and would one day like to write.  

Marvin takes the largely orally told story of the execution of a thirty-year old school teacher in colonial America who has a baby out out marriage, and then is hung for the death of the infant under uncertain circumstances, and translates legend to history.  She seeks out primary documents, and contextualizes Ruth's story.

Gallows Hill, in Portsmouth, where Ruth Blay was executed

Ruth Blay’s execution was pointless, a tale of a society that was still running on the fumes of its puritanical past.  Her story was told and retold over the centuries, in print and orally, with embellishments.  Marvin provides us with historical records that give Ruth an authentic voice, and therefore “rescues” the historical Ruth Blay.

Ruth Blay is buried in an unmarked grave in this field

The Parable of the Sower

The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler is the first of a pair science fiction / dystopian novels in this series.  

The country is falling into social chaos, and this novel shows how the survivors, especially the protagonist, Lauren Oya Olamina, copes.  She founds a new religion, where God is change - a pretty handy theology for this chaotic time.  She gathers disciples, and they retreat from LA to the mountains in Northern California.

Butler received much acclaim over her career as a black woman writing in a largely white man’s genre. She deserves it; she hits all the key notes of this kind of novel, but adds a dimension of spirit and compassion to the behavior of her characters that is refreshing.

Globalization, Translation and Transmission: Sino-Judaic Cultural Identity in Kaifeng, China

Globalization, Translation and Transmission: Sino-Judaic Cultural Identity in Kaifeng, China by Moshe Y. Bernstein, explores the unique heritage and identity of the small community of Jews who settled in Kaifeng, China.  Bernstein examines the history of this group, and their descendants, using very modern scholarly tools.

He stresses that Sino-Judaic identity was unique among all other Jewish communities.   A synagogue in Kaifeng survived for seven-hundred years – as long as some of the oldest synagogues in the world, even when the group was cut off from other Jewish communities for centuries.  The Confucian element in Sino-Judaic identity was a molding agent – its reverence for ancestors and tradition meshed well with Jewish values, allowing the community to maintain a nearly thousand year cohesiveness.

Bernstein also plots the trajectory of the revival of Judaism in Kaifeng.  In this section, he examines issues such as Jewish identification, the politics of religions in the PRC, and the inherent difficulties of staging a full scale revival of a dormant religion.

This book is an informative and comprehensive treatment of this most fascinating community of Jews. 

Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past by David Reich

Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past by David Reich is an excellent survey of some of the recent advances in DNA technology.  As Reich convincing shows, we are in the middle of a DNA revolution.  Human pre-history is being peeled back by some very clever and rigorous science.

Yet the title is misleading.  This book does not tell us who we are.  That is more a religious or philosophical question.  What are homo sapiens?  Reich’s book does not address that; if anything, it throws the concept of humans as a distinct species in crisis.  If we could breed with other hominids, then is there really a difference between us and Neanderthals?  It appears we are headed toward a definition of ‘human’ that is more fluid; which exists across a continuum. 

How we got here is not addressed.  We got here from Africa.  But why did hominids even exist in Africa?  What special conditions brought this about?  Why was Africa the cradle of all Great Apes and Hominids?