Harry Freedman writes excellent popular books on Jewish subjects, and his Shylock's Venice: The Remarkable History of
Venice's Jews is no different. The
Venice Jewish community looms large in the annals of Jewish history; it was surprising
to me that they never numbered more than five thousand. Read this book and learn about their sustained success in a time and place which should have prevented them from becoming a
great Jewish society.
Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution by Cat Bohannon is a very engaging build, decentered the male-centric game of biology at every turn. Bohannon creates a compelling counter-narrative of the centrality of the female body in mammals. At times rare time the theories propounded here seem a bit far-fetched, but this does not take from the overall excellent research.
Certainly there is much to be said about Butler's work, but Kindred fell short of my expectations. I tried, and stopped, reading this novel several times, and decided I would read it regardless. It was difficult to understand the mechanism of the time travel (yes, it just happens). That is fine, but reality was never suspended for me. The novel felt like a forced exploration of a topic that is important, and probably hard to write, but in there somewhere. It is just hard to see what Butler was after in this novel.
Cherry Valley Road sits in a small valley for much of its course. Like Tanner Valley, Cherry Valley moves in a north south orientation:
It runs from the intersection of 11th Street, all
the way down to southern border of the village.
We can see the slight valley on this typographical map in the deeper green color:
At the north end of Cherry Valley Avenue are some of the “steep”
hills we see in the north end of Tanners Valley:
The dry valley of Cherry Valley Road quickly becomes a stream
just south of the village:
As detailed in Hidden Waters this stream flows down to Valley Stream Brook.
Looking at the map further out there are only two dry valleys in Garden City:
Tanners Pond
to the left, and Cherry Valley to the right, cross both the north and south border of Garden City.
Hidden Waters says this about the terminal point of Cherry Valley:
“To the north of Hempstead Turnpike on Cherry Valley Avenue,
there is a public works storage yard. Often, public utilities such as salt
storage, depots and garages used by local governments stand at sites once used
for pumping stations, as I’ve found with the Kissena Park DOT storage yard.”
This is the Village of Garden City’s Department of Public
Works Yard. Just north of it is the Garden
City Pool. When I was a child trash was
still being burned in the yard. Sometimes when swimming, charred paper would
fly into the pool.
I was in second grade in 1978, in Garden City, New York, and Mrs. Tiernan taught us local history. Down a very small slope from our school, was a street named Tanners Pond Road:
It runs from the northern border of GC, down to village’s
waist. From there, it picks up the name
Edgemere Road:
Edgemere ends at the southern border of the village. Mrs. Tiernan told us there was a pond in or
at Tanners Pond Road. She taught us that
tanneries are smelly and need lots of water to operate. This is true, but was there really a pond at
Tanners Pond Road? Is this true?
I think I have marshalled enough evidence to prove that
there was a watercourse from the north of Tanners Pond Road to the south of
Edgemere Road. Here is the evidence:
The elevation above sea level of my old house is 96ft:
Tanners Pond Road is at the bottom of a slight valley at 77ft:
Several blocks passed the road the tiny valley reaches 96ft
again:
So Tanners Pond Road sits in a valley that is nearly 20ft deep. Interestingly, the elevation at the north end of Tanners Pond Road is 86ft:
And at the southern end the elevation is 69ft:
I have measured at the base of a small pond at the Garden City Country Club Gold Course for reasons I will explain below. So, both Tanners Pond and Edgemere Road run through a north-south a slope that loses 17 feet in elevation.
So these roads sit in a valley of about 20 feet, and slope
gently but firmly from north to south.
This is in keeping with the geography of Long Island. The North Shore of Nassau County’s highest
point is Harbor Hill at 350 feet. The
South Shore tappers off to sea level.
You can see one particularly “steep” slope of the valley here, at the
northern end of Tanners Pond Road:
The elevation is 94ft just beyond the top of the hill, where
the slope levels off, and on Tanners Pond Road, it is 83ft, so Tanners Valley
here is 11ft deep. The slope of this
valley is considerable gentler elsewhere, and is not highly visible on Google
Street view.
That is the evidence from elevation and topography. There are two small, but important pieces of
evidence from names. Tanners Pond Road has an obvious connection with water,
but so does the name this road takes on from the mid-to south side of the
village. Edgemere is an Anglo-Saxon word
that means by the water’s edge. The road
was probably named this because it skirted water or a marshy area.
Indeed, to the east of Edgemere Road is the golf course of
the Garden City Country Club is two water courses and a connecting stream:
And from above:
This pond has a more “natural” appearance in that the
visible banks are deep, showing patterns of erosion that may be indicative of
water flow.
The other pond to the east appears to be human made, or at
least managed:
It has a raised berm and an aerator. In the dry pond to the south, there is a
culvert leading out of the golf course:
It is extremely difficult to say if this culvert simply
leads to water drains or continues as a water course to the south. There are suggestions that it does. South 2.3 miles is the Franklin Square Museum. On this property, a culvert emerges from the
north:
This is the headwaters of Valley Stream Brook, which
continues, with some dips under the ground, until it empties into Jamaica Bay:
I am not claiming that the valley at Tanners Pond Road, or the
ponds at the Garden City Country Club are the sources of Valley Stream
Brook. However, I believe the Tanners
Valley is one of the seasonal brooks that once fed Valley Stream Brooks.
Garden City was built on the Hempstead Plains. This 60,000 acre grassland was formed by the
outwash debris of the glacial hills to the north. Streams and creeks running south from these
hills created the outwash, sandy plain that would become the Hempstead Plains.
In an article THE
HEMPSTEAD PLAINS OF LONG ISLAND, by Roland M. Harper
In the journal Torreya,
December, 1912, Vol. 12, No. 12 (December, 1912), pp. 277-287, the author
discusses these ancient stream beds:
The surface of the Hempstead Plains, like the rest of the southern or unglaciated portion of Long Island, is for the most part very flat, and slopes gently southward at the rate of about one foot in 300. It ranges in altitude from about 60 to 200 feet above sea-level. Traversing the plain in a general north and south direction are a number of nearly straight broad shallow valleys, ten to twenty feet in depth, which are believed by geologists to have been formed by glacial streams and not by recent erosion. Within the limits of the prairie most of these valleys are now dry at all seasons, but farther south some of them contain permanent streams.”
In this same article, the author provides a photograph
looking up from one of these dry valleys:
It is hard to get a sense of scale, but we are probably safe
to say he is looking up from an incline similar to the one I show above.
The evidence points toward the Tanners Pond Road valley as
not ever being a pond. In fact, a historical
market in Garden City points to a different location for the pond:
Tanners Pond Rd. connected Courthouse Rd., which originated
in Franklin Square, to the Tanner property [which had a pond], west of New Hyde
Park Rd. and north of what is now Marcus Avenue near Lake Success.
If the information behind this sign is correct, then the
road is named after the Tanner family, who had property to the north and west
of the area that is currently named after them, and their pond. So, my second grade teacher was somewhat
correct. There was a Tanner’s Pond, but
it was named after a family, and not an occupation. It is also in the wrong area. Why, then, was this road called Tanners Pond
Road. Did it continue to run north along
what is now Denton and Marcus Avenue?
In the article from 1912 this bit of information is crucial:
“Within the limits of the prairie most of these valleys are now dry at all
seasons, but farther south some of them contain permanent streams.” This is exactly what occurs in the Tanner
Valley. The valley is dry, but in the
very south, those who created the golf course probably utilized the old stream bed
and its occasion flow to build two, or possibly three ponds. Further south, as this valley feeds into
Valley Stream Brook, the flowing water begins in fits and starts until it is
the kind of permanent stream detailed in 1912.
This valley, and those like it, began to be formed 10,000
years ago. The Tanner Valley may be an
old feature indeed.
Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art by Rebecca Wragg Sykes is a ringside seat to the revolution occurring in the study of human origins. In a way, this revolution has been occurring since the heliocentric theory of the solar system became widespread. The earth-centric world envisioned people as the center of the universe. Existence existed for us.
Since then, the hallowed centrality of homo sapiens has been on the defensive. For sometime this seems not to be the case. The theory of evolution was widely misread regarding modern humans. We were here because we were smarter, better, and faster than other hominids who are long gone. Even in a decentered world we maintained our primacy.
But the recent DNA evidence of interbreeding between homo sapiens and Neanderthals, and Denisovans, and Neanderthals and Denisovans, shows that the dividing line between hominids was and is fuzzy. If you can breed with another species, are they really another species?
And now a book like this, which further illustrate that Neanderthals were quite like us. Our survival and their extinction seem less preordained the more we learn about these people and their abilities. Survival seems more about who is lucky, than who is fit.
Discovering Second Temple Literature: The Scriptures and Stories That Shaped Early Judaism by Malka Zeiger Simkovich is a refreshing walk though the Second Temple written record. This time was a time of transition (most times are) so it is great to see the different ideas and shades of Judaism that existed in once place. The Judaism of that day spanned the entire range of the Greco-Roman world, and then some. We should all be aware of this!
I tried to read the go to book on the Salem witch trials,
but it was too confusing. The narrative was
convoluted. Instead, try A Storm of
Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience, by Emerson W. Baker. The writer brings us into this world, but we
don’t drown in it. Also, the author is
not wedded to any one theory of the ‘cause’ of the trials. This is not a book that purports to ‘solve’
the cause of the witch trial with some wacky theory. There is
no one cause. It was a complex event,
with multiple origins You will read that, and more in this excellent account.
Hidden Waters of New York City: A History and Guide to 101 Forgotten Lakes, Ponds, Creeks, and Streams in the Five Boroughs by Sergey Kadinsky is a guide book, in a way, to New York City before it was one of the largest cities in the world. This is a book about the effacement of nature beneath the city, and how to find those traces that remain. As such, it is a book that examines mysteries buried beneath our feet.
The Emperor Far Away: Travels at the Edge of China by David Eimer, is an excellent account of China’s vast and confusing array of ethnic “minorities” to the west and south of the Middle Kingdom. Eimer is both well versed in both contemporary and historical Chinese that reading this is effortless and educational at the same time.
Scattered Among The Nations, by Bryan Schwartz, Jay Sand, and Sandy Carter is a gentle investigation of various groups around the world who are already Jews but isolated, or groups that are isolated and are rapidly becoming Jews. This book is about the little known process of "Judaization,” although the authors never use that word. It is interesting to think that these groups may be part of the future of Judaism.
The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Biography (Lives of Great Religious
Books) by John J. Collins is part of an excellent and readable series of how to
read, or what to expect from reading, great religious books. Another great biography in this series is on
the Talmud. For someone like me, who
paid close attention to the Dead Sea Scrolls in the 1990s, when there was a
great deal of controversy concerning the dissemination and publication of the
scrolls, this volume is a great way to get caught up without diving too deeply
into details.
Sacred Treasure - The Cairo Genizah: The Amazing Discoveries of Forgotten Jewish History in an Egyptian Synagogue Attic by Rabbi Mark S. Glickman is a compelling history of the Cairo Genizah. The similarly titled Sacred Trash is also about the genizah and is a good companion to this book.
Odd that I did not know this (or forgot) this: the entire contents of the genizah were removed and put in the courtyard of the Ben Ezra Synagogue a few years before Schechter arrived, due to a badly needed renovation of the shul. The image of the genizah has always been as a place hidden from view for centuries. How did such delicate documents hold up on the transport to the courtyard?
Valley of Death: The Tragedy at Dien Bien Phu That Led America into the Vietnam War is an near daily account of the battle that destroyed the French and opened the way for the partition of Vietnam. It is detailed, but also a compelling read. The suffering was tremendous, and for the Vietnamese people, it would continue.
Maimonides and the Book That Changed Judaism: Secrets of "The Guide for the Perplexed" by Micah Goodman is less about the secrets of the Guide, and more about the heavy lifting the Ramban accomplished in this work. As Goodman says in the subtitle of this book, the Guide did change Judaism. The Rambam set a high mark on mature, thoughtful Judaism – a Judaism of the head (and the heart) we so desperately need.
I read No Place to Call Home: Inside the Real Lives of Gypsies and Travellers, by Katharine Quarmby, in part to learn about modern Roma life. This book, however, is not strictly about the Roma, although they are featured. Rather, it is about a confusing (for an American) array of road people in Britain. These people seemed to have caused much consternation among settled peoples in the 1990s and early 2000s. This is their story.
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| letter in the Rambam's hand |
Maimonides Guide of the Perplexed entranced me as a younger
man, and I have read portions of it several times. However, I read though the entire book this
time, and I have some new insights. Yes,
the Guide is about the “secrets” of the Torah, but it is much more than
that. This book is really an ambitious attempt
to define and redefine all of Judaism. It
is that monumental work. I won’t take so
long to read it entirely again.
The Necessity of Exile: Essays from a Distance by Shaul Magid is an important book. As the title suggests, Magid sees the Jewish exile as necessary; it is not some state of existence that will one day be amended by Zionism. If you have an open mind and want to learn about topics that might distress you, as a Jew, but are vital, read this book.
North Woods: A Novel by Daniel Mason, is an excellent, very accomplished work. Although it would seem that it would fall into clichés, the old house passing from person to person, it largely does not. I hoped it would not become a novel about ghosts, as that seemed a cliché too far. Alas… despite that, this is a compelling novel that keeps you reading.
The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World, by Vincent Bevins take us into the clandestine world of anti-communist crimes committed by the United State and other totalitarian allies during the Cold War. The author explains that the US feared that Indonesia would fall to communism; this large and well populated country had to stay out of the American orbit, at any cost. And the mass murder and terror campaign used to accomplish this became a program of sorts. The Jakarta Method was the brutal installation of right wing dictators in countries that America feared would fall to communism. The result was a nightmare.
Heaven's Gate: America's UFO Religion by Benjamin E. Zeller takes a detailed and scholarly look at the millennial religion that made the news due to the group's collective suicide in 1997. The author treats Heaven’s Gate as a religion, not a cult. In religious scholarship, there is no fundamental difference between a religion and a cult.
For much of Heaven Gates’ history, it had more hallmarks of religion than a cult. But in the 1990s, it took a dark turn. More of the characteristics of a classic cult were enacted, like wearing ritual clothes, pooling money, control of food and sleep. Zeller wants us understand the inner reasons that made people want to commit suicide.
But by examining this group this way, from the inside, we are actually lose our objectivity. If the only moral guideline is that people believe what they are doing - there is not much more to say about the topic.
Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam by Nick Turse will be a difficult read for anyone who believes the United States is the global knight on a white horse. You are going to be very upset. The premise of the book is that the massacres and murders that the has dogged the American perception of the war, was not the case of a few bad apples. The people of South Vietnam were viewed as legitimate targets as part of American strategy.
The People’s History of the United States is a difficult book to critique, as its assumptions and results align with my social and philosophical worldview. But is that enough to say this book uses sound methodology to reach its conclusions? I think not. This book is massive in scope, and therefore uses secondary sources. Yet looking at the sources Zinn choses leaves me skeptical.
Toward the end of this book, he writes that his work is “...a biased account, one that leans in a certain direction.” We can certainly say this of this work, and other more ‘mainstream’ histories. It is biased in one direction, as are all historical accounts. So how do we make decisions about historical veracity?
In Massacre in the Clouds: An American Atrocity and the Erasure of History, by Kim A. Wagner, we learn that a feature of colonial warfare was the atrocity. By this Wagner means the wholesale massacre of indigenous, civilian men, women and children by an occupying power under the guise of military necessity. When the massacre documented in this book took place, in 1906, many other colonial powers were engaged in similar behavior. Unlike in European wars up to that point, where efforts were made to protect civilians, indigenous peoples were viewed as sub-human, and their lives were not considered important enough for the laws of war. This atrocity – and the other American actions during the colonization of the Philippines, is no longer remembered in the US. The people of the Philippines, however, remember them well.
