Dirshuni: Contemporary Women’s Midrash

 

Dirshuni: Contemporary Women’s Midrash by Tamar Biala (Editor) and Tamar Kadari is an interesting and often unexpected dive into Torah from the 50% of Jews largely excluded from study – women.  This collection is from Israeli women and no doubt the original Hebrew was an amazing excursion into Israeli Hebrew being used to cast and recast Hebrew stories of different ages and stages.  The translators give us a flavor of the word play involved – wordplay which is key to midrash in all its forms.  This is a wonderful, enriching collection of Torah works.

A Deep Dive

 

Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam by Fredrik Logevall is probably the go-to book for the Franco-Vietnam War.  It is certainly very thorough and at over 1000 pages, you should really be interested in this topic to take this book on… this is not casual reading but a deep dive into Vietnam before the American involvement.  This book is brilliant, but detailed.

Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland

 

Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland by Christopher R. Browning shows how under the right circumstances, most men can become mass killers.  They do not even have to be heavily indoctrinated by ideology.  Peer pressure works just fine.  

These police units were given the task of killing Jewish men, women, and children, most of the time at point-blank range.  The task was considered difficult – not because of an inherent compassion for Jews, but because killing large numbers of people takes a psychological toll on shooters.

The men of Reserve Policy Battalion 101 did not have to participate in the mass killings.  They were given the options of other assignments.  Some did take them, and this made them outsiders to their comrades, forcing others to do the unpleasant work.  The mechanics of this are very simple and scary.  People can grow accustomed to bloodshed just like any other difficult job - just because they want to belong. 

And of course, when these men were prosecuted by West Germany, most were not convicted.  And due to German laws, their names can’t be released to the public.  Disgraceful.

Hasidism: A New History

 

Hasidism: A New History by David Biale, David Assaf, Benjamin Brown, and others, will probably be the definitive history of this Jewish movement for some time.  There is the scope of the work, from the very early day of Hasidism, when it really wasn’t even an organized movement, to its present-day forms, where Hasidic groups have been revitalized after their terrible losses in the Shoah.  There is also its detailed orientation: contemporary scholars have reassessed historical investigations of Hasidism, to ask new questions and reach new conclusions.

This in-depth work is for anyone interested in Hasidism who wants to go knee-deep. 

The Non-Dual Siddur, and More

 

Well of Living Insight: Comments on the Siddur by Arthur Green is a handy commentary on the siddur, written from Arthur Green’s distinctive angle on Jewish non-dualism.  This is the kind of book you want to read a bit at a time, soaking it in; it is also the musing of a man who has studied the siddur for years and comes at it from a variety of interesting, often unexpected angles.

The Stoic’s Guide to Emotional Mastery: Learn How to Stay Calm and Disciplined

 

The Stoic’s Guide to Emotional Mastery: Learn How to Stay Calm and Disciplined by Winston Meskill, is one of the many books about Stoicism to come out in the last few years.  I think we live in a quintessentially Stoic age: we are part of a dying empire, living many degrees away from feeling any power or control of our own lives.  Stoicism worked in the Greco-Roman age as it gave its adherents control over what they could control, and the tools to let go of what was not under their control.  We need these skills as well – and this book is an excellent guide.

Revisionist Reading

 

I haven’t read D.H. Lawrence in more than a decade.  After seeing a decent movie version of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, I decided to read, once again, the novel.  Understand that Sons and Lovers, Women in Love, and The Rainbow deeply influenced me as a reader and writer when I was young.

Now, over a hundred years since it was written, Lady Chatterley has not aged well.  Few people would agree with Lawrence’s notions of the role of the sexes, both in and out of bed.  What was radical in 1928 is no longer so - and some of his words are harmful.  Lawrence’s fascist tendencies are also on display here, with the narrator’s sweeping and narrow generalizations about humanity. Returning to this book was a real exercise in revisionist reading.