Elie Wiesel Books

I love the work Borges has givne us. It is a great display of some people in Tibet that are special in their character, soul, and appearance. His rendition of the photos in a combined B&W and slight color tint really works. His description and obvious connection with each of the subjects is strong and it comes through in his work. I liked the children especially, for despite their most difficult of circumstances, they appear hopeful and dignified. Wonderful job.

This book was sent to me by a friend overseas, and I fell in love with it the moment I opened it.
Borges' photographs capture the very essence of these proud, wonderful people, and every person I have shared it with has falled in love with it as well.

Namaste.

Phil Borges presents, through the medium of photography, a project that brings attention to the situation in Tibet. Both stylish and yet sensitive, Borges uses an extensive cross section of subjects to accomplish this. He brings to the project, like I mentioned above, an extensive cross section not just of subjects but locations as well that exemplify the phenomenal complexity and diversity in that country. An example is the portrait of Yama, which caught my eye, who could be any child in any place in the world. I might be waxing "noble savage" here but does she not deserve a childhood just like any child in the globe? With text from such notables as Nobel Peace Laureates like Elie Wiesel and His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso - the book is a sure hit and a must for every home. Not to be outdone are other contributors who themselves are "heavy hitters" in the discourse of Tibet and Tibetan issues - Robert F. Thurman and the late Galen Rowell. Phil Borges presents us with nothing less than a tour de force of visual stimulation coupled with profound text and a stylish presentation. A keeper that will stand the test of time.

Miguel Llora

Phil Borges amazing photography, accompanied by words from the Dalai Lama make this book not only beautiful to look at, but inspiring as well.

Each of these faces is pure incarnation of a human feeling...from joy to worriness, from amazement to pride.Some of these people will haunt you for long after you turn the last page (See little 4 year old Pemba's eyes...) Sent the book to friends overseas...just the kind of work you want to share with your closest ones.

Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach was the epitomy of humility and cared about everyone with whom he came in contact. These stories are examples of his selflessness .... truly inspirational!

This is one of the most inspiring of the books written about Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. It tells the stories of his remarkable life in teaching, in prayer, in Tsedakah and in giving to others. One of his greatest pupils the Holy Teacher David Herzberg Z"l related many stories similar to the ones here in which Shlomo dedicated all his time and all his money unceasingly to helping others. There is a story that at the funeral of Shlomo Carlebach among the many people crying was one who shouted , "Shlomo , you were the only one who ever loved me" For so many of the lonely and broken of this world Shlomo Carlebach was there. This book gives so many remarkable examples of this that it is a treasure not only in Jewish example and teaching but of how human love and caring enriches us all.

Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach

After much thought, I've decided to completely revamp the review I wrote of this book. I decided to do this to bring a more balanced approach to his memory both positive and negative.
Rabbi Carlebach was a living legend. He had the type of influence and charisma during his life, especially in the
State of Israel, that very few individuals manage to achieve. One day, when I was part of his entourage and we were in Haifa, a non-religious Jew who was driving a car on the Sabbath, stopped his car to run out and to hug and kiss Shlomo. He was beloved by many people as one of the few rabbis with clout who backed the State of Israel. And he helped and expressed love to people desipite any differences of belief.
Shlomo definitely was most impressed with the 1960's and the hippy movement. After that time period he still gave concerts but he became somewhat of an anachronism. The world became a more difficult place to live in and Shlomo had to readjust to it.
Shlomo made his living by touring the globe giving concerts from America to India. Everywhere there were Jews or people willing to hear him, he traveled. He was on what you'd call the "spiritual circuit" consisting of religious leaders of all persuasions who wanted to do interfaith sharing of ideas. He was considered a voice of tolerance from within the orthodox community.
Shlomo loved the State of Israel, where he was a household name, perhaps as well-known as "Coca Cola".
He gave concerts there on a frequent basis and his followers have a settlement near Lod (Lyddia) airport called Moshav Me'or Modi'in. The settlement is where the Maccabees used to live during the Jewish revolt against the Greeks. I've lived on that Moshav for about 8 months and still have friends there among Shlomo's "hippylach"
But he was a very controversial figure because he hugged and kissed women despite orthodox Judaism's ban on people of the opposite sex touching each other. I went to a Haredi yeshiva,D'var Yerushalayim, in '78 which made it difficult on me because I followed Shlomo even though I was not one of his mainstream Chasidim. Someone actually insisted the Rabbi Carlebach wrote one of his songs, "L-rd, Get Me High", while on LSD no less. I never saw Shlomo take drugs nor did I ever smell even marijuana on his person.
I met Shlomo in '74, when I was 15 years old. And his melodies touched me in a way that no other style of music by any other composer touched me. I met him in the Bellmore, LI, NY Jewish Center and sat at his feet during the intermission.
I was a member of the Ben Yishai cult back then and the leader, Pastor Jack Hickman, encourage us to seek out orthodox Jewish leaders who'd teach us about orthodox Judaism. Shlomo made himself accessible to me and he opened himself up to all of us in the cult as a resource. He wasn't intimidated by us at all as he was firmly rooted in his own beliefs.
I became a frequent attendant at his concerts and events and started collecting his recordings which at one point numbered over 50 of his recordings. Just like there were Jesus freaks, there were Shlomo freaks and I definitely flipped out over this rabbi's whole thing.
When the Arabs attacked Israel, Shlomo would fly to Israel to sing to the troops to encourage the Israelis to fight back. He firmly believed Israel was Jewish property and he was staunch friends with Ariel Sharon.
I remember Shlomo talking about how he was somewhere during the liberation of the Western Wall and he was near some orthodox Jews who were talking about what happened. They dedided to say some "Tehilim", Psalms, anyway. Shlomo said that they were just "too into their darkness", but in retrospect it seems that Shlomo was too optimsitic about what the future held for the Jews as a people. He said about a month before he passed on that it was "heartbreaking but the nations of the world are trying to make us homeless again."
There was an article that came out in "Lilith" magazine which was an expose of his supposedly molesting women including young girls. I saw Shlomo hug and kiss women and I saw him have sexual contact with a woman twice but I never saw him do anything besides that. But so many women complained that something must have happened. I'm hoping that these women seek counseling to help them cope as survivors of abuse.
I was attacked by anti-Semites as a child and I developed mental problems as a result. I never went to counseling over it until years later. The only thing that seemed to make me feel better was listining to Shlomo's music and visiting him. My late dogs, Duchess and Zeus, also used to play with me and make me feel better but Shlomo saw how miserable I was one time and told me as he wrapped his capo around the neck of his guitar, "Don't worry, brother, the Mashiach is coming to redeem you." And for me, Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach was definitely somewhat of a messiah for me.
Shlomo made some connections for me that I still have. He introduced me to a rabbi, who later moved to LI, after I came back from Israel in '79, I attended his shul.
Shlomo was a pillar of spirituality. He supported many people financially as well as spiritually and mentally. But the question remains, "How will history judge this man in light of everything positive and negative".
I lost my last computer programming contract a month after Shlomo's petirah (passing) and I went to Israel in order to get a new start. I went to a headhunting firm who knew the couple I was staying with and when the headhunter found out who I was living with I had a snowball's chance in hell of getting a job from them.
I was inspired by Shlomo to become involved with orthodox Judaism but I couldn't keep up with it. My father complained that I'd get into his music heavily, then I'd go to him and his people and bomb out and then I'd go to Chabad Lubavitch where I'd get my head blown off.
This happened a few times, not just once.
Today, Carlebach minyanim are popping up all over the place as his influence is expanding in Jewish circles around the globe. Even people who barely knew him if at all are being impacted by him. According to Chasidut, when a tzaddik passes away, his soul expands throughout the world. Supposedly descended from King David himself, the saying "David Melech Yisrael, Chai V'kayam", "David, King of Israel lives and endures", can be spoken of the late sweet singer of Israel as well about his ancient forebear.

This book will make you laugh and make you cry. It will sway you like Rabbi Carlebach managed to sway so many...Shlomo lives on...

Holy Brother is a book that everyone, whether Jewish or not, whether on a spiritual path or not, should read. Rabbi Schlomo Carlebach was a gift to human aspiration, a living manifestation of heavenly love. The stories of his boundless goodness, earthy personality, and prescient mind touch the miraculous and the mundane all at once. I am very disappointed that the book is out of print, as I was about to order several more copies for dear friends met at the Parliament of World Religions in Cape Town, South Africa at the end of the millenneum. This book would be a wonderfully uplifting gift for anyone who is downhearted for any reason. It is easy, eloquent and lucid reading, and can be read in small segments, or all at once. I found it impossible to put down and re-read it often. If you can find a copy, read it! Not to be missed!

I believe this book is a wonderful introduction to the history and events leading up to, and including the horrible years of the holocaust. I gave it to my grandaughter who is ten years old. I am a child of a survivor. The book is a valuable part of education of a time that now seems so distant, and when most of the survivors have died. It speaks for them to future generations
nd as always, Elie Wiesel is warm, and honest, but never bitter. We are now the witnesses for those who experienced hell.

Dare to stick you head and heart into the cruelity of mankind and you come away from this powerful book enlightened--and looking over your shoulder at today's racism. An equally moving book is Walking the Trail, One Man's Journey Along the Cherokee Trail of Tears by Jerry Ellis.

This is the third book I read by Elie Wiesel, first I read "Night" which is my favorite, second I read "The Forgotten" which I thought was very good too. Now this one, is much shorter but the tetimonials by other Holocaust victims and the photographs makes it an excellent book. The generation of WWII survivors are dying and we need books like these to keep reminding us and future generations of the horrors of the war, so we don't repeat it.

Elie Wiesel is the writer who more than any other made the world aware of the Holocaust. He through the years has been a voice of remembrance for the victims, a voice of integrity and courage, a witness of what is the greatest example of Man's inhumanity to Man known in human history. For the Holocaust was the deliberate effort of Nazi Germany, a people sitting in the center of Europpean civilization to wholly destroy, man, woman and child the entire Jewish people. One third of the Jewish people was murdered in the years 1939-1945, and the greatest share of European Jewry destroyed.
Now in this work Elie Wiesel presents a small historical over-view of the Shoah, and accompanies this with testimonies of others who passed through this world of nightmare.
It is a short moving volume, another work of invaluable testimony.

Those who do not believe that there was, and still is, a legend in the name of 'Holocaust' are kindly invited to visit Ghaza and Lebanon (North and notably South) to look and see how such a word is actually pronounced.
They will see a thorough destruction involving extensive loss of life through a carnage of fire and cold-blood slaughter of civilians.

Thank you.

This is a non fiction book by Joseph Roth whose other books are mainly fiction - he was a prized journalist and writes like the best of both worlds - this book is an extraordinary picture of a period of life which we don't know enough about - because WW II got in the way and rendered information about Jews and life in Germany and eastern Europe in the 20's and 30's sort of academic and moot - It is an important and compelling and sad book - sad because we readers know facts that the author doesn't - we know what happened and he doesn't know the future. It is a valuable book which I have recommended and given to many friends.

"The Wandering Jews" of the title are the displaced and unwanted Jews of Eastern Europe (from where Roth himself came before he made himself into one of Western Europe's foremost journalists and writers) before World War II. As Roth puts it, "Eastern Jews have no home anywhere, but their graves may be found in every cemetery." And as Roth foreshadowed (that line originally was published in 1925; this translation also includes the preface and an afterword to the later 1937 edition), the plight of the Eastern Jews only promised to become more dire. Indeed, one senses that Roth despaired that any strident alarm would be in vain. Thus, more than an alarm, THE WANDERING JEWS is a requiem. (And Roth went on to drink himself to death in 1939.)

In the first part of the book, Roth sets out to limn the character and essence of the Eastern Jew. I am willing to believe that he is thoroughly successful. (Example: "None of the many untrue and unjust accusations that are brought against Eastern Jews by the West are as untrue and unjust as the accusation that they are what the gutter press likes to call Bolshevik. Of all the world's poor, the poor Jew is surely the most conservative.")

In the second part of the book, Roth provides snapshots of five different aggregations of the Eastern Jews -- in the ghettoes of Vienna, Berlin, and Paris, in America (where there are "people who are more Jewish than the Jews, which is to say the Negroes"), and in Soviet Russia. As for the future of the Jews in Russia, Roth was somewhat optimistic in 1925, but by 1937 that optimism had been dispelled altogether. (Roth thus proved himself more cold-bloodedly realistic than many contemporary European liberals.)

Joseph Roth was a superb writer and a masterful polemicist. (I recently read a collection of H.L. Mencken's journalism, this particular one "A Religious Orgy in Tennessee", dealing with the Scopes Monkey Trial, and while there are obvious similarities between Roth and Mencken, who were contemporaries, Roth was by far the better and more cultured writer.) Here, the sardonic and sarcastic tone, albeit understandable, is at times wearing, but it is readily tolerated and forgiven by virtue of the sheer acuity of Roth's intellect and insights and by his compassion.

Roth is extremely prescient, not only about communism and Soviet Russia and about the Nazis and the Holocaust ("Centuries of civilization are no guarantee that a European people, by some ghastly curse of fate, will not revert to barbarism."), but also, startlingly so, about the Zionist/Palestinian dilemma. With regard to that last conundrum, I will let Roth, once again, speak for himself:

"Zionism and nationhood are by their nature Western European ideals * * *. Only in the East do people live who are unconcerned with their "nationality", in the Western European sense. They speak several languages, are themselves the product of several generations of mixed marriages, and fatherland for them is whichever country happens to conscript them. * * * Natiionality is a Western concept."

"The young halutzim [Zionist Jews who seek to establish a Jewish presence in Palestine] are brave farmers and workers, and they demonstrate the willingness of the Jew to work and till the fields and become sons of the soil, in spite of having spent hundreds of years among books. Unfortunately the halutzim are also oblighed to take up arms, to be soldiers, and to protect the land against the Arabs. Thus the European example has been carried into Palestine. * * * The Jew has a right to Palestine, not because he once came from there but because no other country will have him. The Arab's fear for his freedom is just as easy to understand as the Jew's genuine intention to play fair by his neighbor. And despite all that, the immigration of young Jews into Palestine increasingly suggests a kind of Jewish Crusade, because, unfortunately, they also shoot."

This is a remarkable and brilliant portrait of a marginal and now tragically vanished people by a remarkable and brilliant person.

Joseph Roth's "The Wandering Jews" is one of the best written and most important books about East European Jews ever published. At a time of growing anti-Semitism (the first edition was written in 1926 and an update was published in Paris in 1937) and an immigration crisis affecting Germany as countless refugees poured into Berlin from the East, Roth--himself a Jew from Galicia, the easternmost part of the former Austrian empire--creates a sympathetic yet clearsighted portrait of contemporary Jewish life. In the process he effectively responds to all the stereotypes and libels heaped on East European Jews. For the contemporary reader, however, what is most affecting about this portrait is Roth's ability to convey a panorama of Jewish life on the brink of destruction. Though no one (except maybe Hitler) could have predicted, even in 1937, the extent of the devastation that would be visited on European Jewry, Roth's writing in this book serves as an indelible and moving memorial to a civilization that would soon disappear forever. It must therefore count among the first books in what would now be called "Holocaust literature," and one of the most meaningful works of protest literature--protest against the stereotypes that reduced Jews to objects of scorn and contempt; protest against the violence that would ensue from these stereotypes--of all time. Michael Hofmann's understated and articulate translation of this poignant, heartbreaking little book is a tremendous service for English-language readers. It fills in a vital space in the emerging image of Joesph Roth, a writer finally receiving his due in the precincts of European modernism, and it should be read by everyone interested in good writing and the problems of 20th century history.

Again and again--with one neat phrase--Roth puts anxieties into words that it took others whole books to communicate, and then, only vaguely. Not even the magnificent Kafka comes close to a tidy phrase of self-condemnation such as this, referring to the deracinated Western Jew, with his "secret perversities, his cringing before the law, his well-bred hat held in his anxious hand". This statement took my breath away. So did many others in this short book throbbing with love, fear, and sadness. Roth was himself a Jew, one of the thousands who had served his "adopted 'country' " in the Great War (as so many other Jews did for so many other countries) only to have reality--eternal victimhood, eternal wandering--thrust him away, from Vienna, to Berlin, and then to Paris. Like so many educated Western Jews, he looked back to the shtetl with admiration for its nurturing of an authentic self (coupled with a faint relief at not having to live there). This tension--and its guilt-feelings--are so tidily explained in Roth, and his predictions made in the 1930's so chilling--that I jumped almost with relief on his touting the Soviet Union as a better place for Jews. Ah...but an afterward to the second edition contains Roth's warning that things in the USSR have changed, and perhaps his enthusiasm was misplaced...

Then, reader, I cried uncle. Joseph Roth was perfect. Anger and love mix with poetry and humility. He neither rolls in the mud of guilt, nor clutches an ideology through all contrary evidence. Instead, he sings Kaddish for a people gone, a people authentic and pure and of, as Kafka said, "the prayer shawl, now flying away from us..."

This book was a paen by a 'civilized (read westernized)' Jew on the cusp of WW2 and the holocaust. Roth travelled in most of post-WW1 Eastern Europe to learn the plight of his Jewish compatriots. In the original edition (written in 1926) he speaks of Eastern European Jews (mostly those of Galicia and the remnants of the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires) being able to find freedom of conscience and a world without anti-semitism by moving to the West. Unfortunately, by the West he meant Germany.

In the epilogue of the 1937 edition (which he wrote from self-exile in Paris) he takes the "New Germany" to task for the treatment of the Jews. He make major points as to the failure of the League of Nations to protect the Versailles Treaty 'national minorities' and specifically the treatment of DPs (displaced persons, people literally without a country). He makes the point that animals are protected in most countries better than Jews and DPs.

He is prescient when he speaks of an 'impending disaster' and seems to presage 'donor burnout'. He tells how right after a calamity, everyone seems to want to pitch in, but after awhile, except for a few philantropists, everyone pretty much wants to go back to their own lives.
This book is among the strongest statements made prior to WW2 of the approaching calamity, not just for Jews but all of Europe.

What is incredible is how Vishniac captured the variety of Jewish life in late 1930s eastern Europe--from the streets of Warsaw, Cracow, and Lublin, to villages in the Carpathians. His photographs also contrast the extreme poverty many Jews fell into at the time (especially as a result of official boycotts of Jewish establishments) with the richness of intellectual and religious life (the two being inseparable in that time and place).

We are shown grandfathers and babies, sages and porters, tzaddiks and merchants, women in the market, boys in cheder, children at play. While strife, anxiety, and resignation are seen on the faces in many of the photographs, there are also many smiling faces--some shy, some beaming at the camera. The most beautiful are those of small children--a girl returning home with a pot of soup and a bottle of milk for the family's dinner, so pleased; a small boy looking off at something his classmates do not see; a boy on a crowded street giving the photographer a friendly wave.

Also of great value are Vishniac's captions, printed at the front of the book. One hopes that some publisher will bring this valuable book back into print.

I was amazed at the quality of the images and the sensitive approach to what has become an amazing record of that,which many of us could only imagine from verbal accounts.It is without doubt the best photographic recording of a society which was to be brutally decimated. Vishniac's photographic artistry in my mind are on a par with Cartier Bresson whom I greatly admire. Thanks to the publisher for printing such a wonderful book.

This book is probably the greatest book I have seen on the subject of the vanished jewish 'shtetls'. It is very moving, and also, at the same time, a wonderful piece of art to put on the table in the living room. If this book were to be re-printed, many people would want to own one. No doubt about that.

One look at the pages of this wrenching book will tell the story. Roman Vishniac, secretly, in some cases, shot thousands of pictures of the Jewish population of Eastern Europe, shortly before they were swallowed up by the Holocaust.

Young, old, in-between are shown going about their ordinary lives, some already paying the price of the prevalent Eastern European anti-Semitism, virtually oblivious to what was coming their way.

You can't look at these pictures and not shudder: certainly no one in these pictures can still be alive, and it's not just because of the passage of time. Most of the people photographed here lived in the smaller villages, segregated in many cases from the Gentiles, wearing clothes that quickly and easily identified them to their destroyers.

Vishniac shot an estimated 16,000 pictures, but managed to get only about 2,000 out when he fled to the United States in 1940. We should be grateful for what he's given us, and mourn all that was lost.

Open this book and you will enter a world of the vanished, but not vanquished. Roman Vishniac's stunning black and white photographs of the destroyed Jewish communities of Eastern Europe will surely enter your heart, as they have mine. The simple, sometimes stark compositions are primarily of the faces of Jews long lost in the flames of the Holocaust. Most of the photographs have a brief explanatory comment that gives them context. Vishniac takes us into the tiny basement apartments of Warsaw's Jewish porters, the logging villages of Carpathian Ruthenia, and the narrow streets of Vilna. I found myself drawn into that world where Jews worked, studied, walked on their way to and from synagogues or markets, plowed fields and played in the streets. My own family originated in that world, and I thank Roman Vishniac for giving me a glimpse of it. I highly recommend this book.

This is an awesome book. I am a novice at family genealogy, with a research background. When I became interested in tracing my family's roots, I was intrigued by the data available on the web. It was hard to figure out where to look first. I saw the reviews for this book on Amazon, and I first took this book out from the library. When I realized how much I'd use it, I bought my own copy.
This book is very easy to read, especially in terms of how to sort out the kinds of information you can look for, hints about where to find it, and realizing that it's okay to decide for yourself how far to delve. The enthusiasm of the author is contagious. I couldn't put it down.

Having become interested in doing the genealogy of my family about two years ago, I began by going it alone and stumbling around Google and visiting some resources in New York City including the fascinating Municipal Archives.

I was told about this book some months ago and, voila!, it has opened the whole world of Jewish geneaology for me. I've bought 14 other books on the subject and find this the most interestingly written and the most complete. There are updates to the book so I'd caution the buyer to get the latest one from Amazon rather than one of the much older ones being sold as used. The list of resources is exhaustive and clearly organized and each area of investigation is illustrated by the author through sharing his journey of discovery of his own roots.

You'll find information about how to use resources in the US and in the major cities like NY and Chicago as well as information about national resources such as YIVO, the National Archives, the Mormon Church's extensive records and how to access them. Special interest groups for Rumania, Latvia, etc. are listed and you'll eventually find many rich sources which you'd probably not discover on your own except by accident.

This is the book I wish I'd had two years ago and I would have saved much time, money and frustration. No one book can be the only one worth having, but I'd definitely buy this one first, read it through with a highliter and post-it notes to mark sections worth exploring again more deeply.

While this book focuses on one man's search for his family history, his examples could be of value to anyone who is considering beginning a research project. Mr. Kurzweil's joy of discovery is very compelling, and was probably a big reason why I got into the hobby myself.

There is plenty of practical advice on how to start, where to look for documentation, how to interview, etc. While the book lacks depth in some areas, it covers every important facet of Genealogical research, and provides a point to jump from in search for more information.

Along with the new Avotaynu Guide, indispensable.

Kurzweil's book is not as lengthy and technical as the Avotaynu book, nor as concise and tightly organized as Barbara Krasner-Khait's Discovering Your Jewish Ancestors (2001). But what it offers is something unheard of in genealogy textbooks - a work that reads like a novel. He is not afraid to be expansive and anecdotal, even chatty. His personal stories with genealogy, dating back to 1970, are gripping. Especially so because Kurzweil (unlike many genealogical authors) knows how to tell a story. The book is often lyrical and intensely earnest, without being melodramatic or overwrought. His passion for discovering his ancestral roots is sincere and infectious. In fact, his discovery of a descent from a famous Hasidic rabbi led him to embrace more traditional Judaism in his spiritual life.

But the book is not ALL personal stories, as interesting as they are. He packs the bulk of these into his opening chapters, and then sprinkles them as useful illustrations throughout the work. He covers all of the important topics, and is quite up to date on the online resources (through about late 2003). He has a great command of the details of doing Jewish genealogy, and he has some very brilliant recommendations for some unique and creative sources. (He was a founding father of Jewish genealogy in the mid-70s, and has given something like 600 lectures around the country).

His enthusiasm is infectious, and he makes strong arguments for the moral and spiritual value for Jews to explore their roots (bolstering his case with short gripping quotes from the Old Testament, Jewish sages, and Talmud). Further, he makes a good case against cremation (with which this Christian reviewer agrees).

The only shortcomings of the book:
1. As noted above, this is not absolutely comprehensive. You will want both the Avotaynu and the Krasner-Khait books to fill in all of the blanks.
2. While a good scholar and critically oriented, he is generally a littel more eager than I am to accept oral traditions or unproven claims of rabbinic lines. See, for example, the material pp.30-34. At the end he is willing to claim it is `likely' he is a direct descendant from King David, because a certain famous rabbi living 1500 years after David claimed descent from him (how could he know?). And another rabbi living 600 years later claims to be a descendant of that rabbi, etc. Four or five jumps like that and Kurzweil makes it to his famous 3x-great-grandfather rabbi. Utterly unprovable beyond perhaps the first or second `jump' backwards, and pretty unlikely. But in fairness, he acknowledges the problems with these rabbinic genealogies.

In any case, a wonderful read, and a good practical tool.

It might make a nice gift for a relative who is mildly interested in their family history, but in need of inspiration to get more involved. Also, every synagogue library, public library, and local historical society needs to have a donated copy (along with the Avotaynu guide). And at just $16 (for a beefy, nicely illustrated hardback), VERY affordable.

As a Christian who's seriously dating a Jew, I ordered the book to help me understand what being Jewish is all about. This book has a wealth of information about embracing Jewishness, raising a Jewish family, and maintaining Jewish traditions and identity. Much of the advice is geared toward those who wish to bring more Jewish faith and culture into busy, modern lives. I appreciated the honest and suppportive perspective on interfaith relationships. The prayers, blessings,and quotes throughout the book give an inspiring picture of an embraceable faith, as well as lots of insight as to how that faith can be woven into daily life. Wonderful book, a real gem.

I reccomend this book highly! Not only is it practical and informative, it's a great read. Fun and accessible. Don't miss it!

This is a good book to use to plan activities and ways of celebrating the various holidays in a manner to make children more interested in their own culture rather than the Christian culture that surrounds them. I think it would also work for those who became bored with the Judaism offered them as children but who wish to re-enter the Jewish way of life (or converts).

What a great tool for helping to bring up your children in a Jewish home. We're a mixed couple and it really strengthened our marriag

I read this book when going through a particularly difficult loss. While I share very little in common with the author, I found all three stories to be profound and touching. While I cannot be thankful for the suffering and tragedy that Elie Wiesel experienced, I will always appreciate that he wrote about it.

The cries of a madwoman on an Auschwitz-bound cattle car are just one of many portents shepherding doomed souls on their way to Nazi furnaces. In "Night", the first of three books in this collection, Elie Wiesel recounts his deportation to the death camps where the rest of his family perished. The tragic weight of his witness to this obscene cruelty burdens the reader with the fates of the inmates and his reflections on the meaning of evil. Wiesel questions his god and his faith. He sees sons kill fathers: "Meir. Meir, my boy! Don't you recognize me? I'm your father... you're hurting me... you're killing your father! I've got some bread... for you too... for you too..." (p.106), and becomes intimate with death.

In "Dawn", Wiesel has migrated to Palestine and faces the duty to execute a captured prisoner. His long night of contemplation and uncertainty exposes his preoccupation with killing and killers and again with death: "Death," Kalman, the grizzled master, told me, "is a being without arms or legs or mouth or head; it is all eyes. If ever you meet a creature with eyes everywhere, you can be sure that it is death." (p.140). It is a preoccupation to be squeezed only from one who has not fully lost his faith or his humanity. A beggar explains the face of the night: "Listen," he said, digging his fingers into my arm. "I'm going to teach you the art of distinguishing between day and night. Always look at a window, and failing that look into the eyes of a man. If you see a face, any face, then you can be sure that night has succeeded day. For, believe me, night has a face." (p.126) Fear, night, suffering, and evil are his companions, and he explores them constantly. "Being afraid is nothing. Fear is only a color, a backdrop, a landscape." (p.174).

Until, in "Day", he survives a terrible accident and is faced with his own complacent acceptance of mortality. He struggles with the urge to explain to his talented young doctor the futility of fighting against death, and reaches an epiphany when he understands the tragedy of splashing others with his suffering. "Suffering brings out the lowest, the most cowardly in man. There is a phase of suffering you reach beyond which you become a brute: beyond it you sell your soul - and worse, the souls of your friends - for a piece of bread, for some warmth, for a moment of oblivion, of sleep." (p.247).

These stories are powerful and frightening,. Death is an implacable enemy, but also a partner for life who never goes away and will always win in the end. Wiesel has stared at evil, his stories are wrenching.

This was one bound volume of Wiesel's first three books, which concern the Holocaust, survival, and humanity. Night is Wiesel's personal memoir, which relates his personal story before and during World War II, as he and his father are separated from his mother and sister and interned in a series of concentration camps. Dawn is the story of a member of the movement to free Palestine from British occupation and Day concerns how one could move from a past that consumes one's every thought (or even if one should).

Quote: "Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never."

I read Night in high school, and always think of it as being a particularly long book, which it is not. Wiesel manages to pack more than I would think possible into a little over a hundred pages, which relates the story of himself and his family during the Holocaust. It is a beautifully written work that relates a terrible story. I found the story of Wiesel's loss of faith and the relationship he had with his father particularly memorable. If you somehow missed this in high school, pick it up, if you didn't, find it again. It's worth it. Dawn and Day are not as catching as the first work, but are still interesting in their own way.

This book should simply be read by everyone interested in Judiasm or the Holocaust. Just read it!

a powerful trip across the mind of a holocost surviver wandering the haunted and enchanted streets of the old city in search of a lost friend. rich with emotion and stunning prose, this narration tells the story of the beggars and madmen who gather at dusk in the shadow of history, allowing the narrator to question his very memories. this is a text which lies on your table demanding to be read again and again, revealing bits of its mystery.

As i watched Elie Weisel on the Oprah show i cried..when ivbought his first book Dawn** i cried, and with every purchase i intend..i will cry and say thank you GOD!! and Mr Weisel..
I am a descendant of slaves, and i can now look back on what was done by MLK, Nelson Mandela, and others who have dedicated thier lives to freedom..for all people and dedication to our own cultures..Thank you Mr Weisel..Thank U..
U have opened my own eyes to the fact..that there is something i can do..
I also thank the Jewish people of this world who have survived to tell thier stories..

1986 Nobel Prize Peace Winner Elie Wiesel is one of the great moral figures in the modern era. His classic work 'Night' perhaps more than any other work made horrifically clear the pain and suffering of the Holocaust. He has written over fifty works of literary and moral testimony, a number of which are not simply classics of literature but which changed the course of history. One of those was his 'Jews of Silence' on the fate of Russian Jewry.
This present work is written about the Six- Day War of June 1967. It is written with the same humane quality, the same mystical lyricism that pervades much of his work. It expresses something of the relief felt in the Jewish world in 1967 when Israel overcame the threat of destruction from the Arab world initiated at Nasser's closing of the Suez Canal.
The work moves back and forth from the Jerusalem of the present to the small Eastern European village world Wiesel lived in before the Holocaust. The work despite its poetic and revelatory qualities is confusing in its narrative line, and in my judgment far from one of Wiesel's best. Yet it does express something of the longing of hundreds of Jewish generations to return to their ancestral home in Jerusalem, and the land of Israel - and to dwell there in peace with their neighbors. It is a book written in the same humane and generous spirit ( And thus follows the ancient Jewish adage- that the greatest triumph is to make a friend of a former enemy) of all Wiesel's works.
This work does give some feeling of that great exaltation the Jewish world felt in 1967 at its escaping existensial danger and returning to its holiest places.

How does one review a book by Wiesel? He speaks the truth, is a modern day "righteous Jew", and makes one think of the meanings of life

Elie Wiesel here speaks with Richard Heffern on major questions of our moral and ethical life. The fourteen chapters of this work discuss such questions as "Am I My Brother's Keeper" " The Role of the Intellectual In Public Life" " The State: Its Proper Role in Our Life " " On Being Politically Correct" "Nationalism and Upheaval" " The Anatomy of Hate"
"Taking Life Can it be an Act of Compassion?" " Making ourselves over in whose Image?" " The Mystic character of Memory" " Anti-Semitism"
Heffern a veteran broadcaster is an extremely intelligent moderator. Wiesel is as always wise and humane . He for instance in the opening dialogue talks about the problem many of us face, of where to focus our attentions in a world in which there are so many problems, so much suffering, so much need for help. Wiesel the witness of the 'Shoah' whose book 'Night' perhaps more than any other made a wider publc feel the horror of the 'Holocaust' is not simply a spokesman for the Jewish people, but for all of Mankind. He is a person who cares and has done much to help. His description of his first efforts in Biafra shows once again how he extended his caring for all of mankind.
Anyone who wishes to have real insight into the moral and political dilemnas facing Mankind today should read this outstanding book.

Elie Wiesel is an extraordinary figure in history and literature. As a Jew who survived the Holocaust and horrors of the concentration camps when he was but a child, he has spent his life questioning the very nature of his faith and his fellow human beings. In "Conversations With Elie Wiesel" readers are given the opportunity to hear his viewpoint on a wide range of topics that concern America, and the entire world, today.

These conversations have been honed from numerous interviews with Richard D. Heffner, moderator of the public television show "The Open Mind." Together these two men discuss religion, tolerance, hate, compassion, capital punishment - almost every so-called hot button that exists in the political, social and moral concerns of our world. Elie Wiesel proves himself to be a thoroughly intelligent man, who raises questions even while recognizing that some may never be answered. His distinct experiences and his Jewish faith play a role in all that he says or does.

These conversations are interspersed with interludes that give true Wiesel fans insights into the inner workings of his mind. Wiesel argues for the necessary role of compassion in human interactions. We need to care about our brothers, in spite of our differences, if there is to be any peace and understanding within our world. He holds out hope for the day when everyone could come together and put aside all the differences and squabbles that separate us and tear us apart. This truly is a thought-provoking read for anyone interested in religion, philosophy, and the fate of our world.