Book Reviews

A Rage For Order—The Middle East in Turmoil: From Tahrir Square to ISIS Robert F. Worth Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016 259 pages, $26 ISBN978-0-374-25294-6 When Robert Kaplan published his collection of articles, Balkan Ghosts, in 1995, it was immediately recognized...

Three Minutes in Poland (Discovering a Lost World in a 1938 Family Film) Glenn Kurtz Farrar, Strauss and Girioux 415 pages, $33 It began on July 23, 1938, almost a year before the outbreak of WWll in the European theatre, when David and Liza Kurtz from Brooklyn, New...

Celebrate Elizabeth Kurtz To benefit Emunah of America Feldheim Format 35 pages, $34.99 Four-pound recipe books, however gorgeously illustrated, are not usually my favorite. However, this one caught your reviewer’s eye, first, because the proceeds were going to...

Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier’s Story Matti Friedman Algonquin Chapel Hill, 2006 243 pages, $25.95 ISBN 978-1-61620-458-7 The least knowledgeable military planner understands the advantage of holding “the high ground.” Using this rationale, young men (and now women) have...

The War Reporter Martin Fletcher St Martin’s Press, 2015 306pp., $25.99 Martin Fletcher, former NBC Middle East correspondent and Tel Aviv Bureau chief, won the American National Book Award in 2010 for Walking Israel: A Personal Search for the Soul of a Nation and...

Leaving Iran: Between Migration and Exile Farideh Goldin Athabasca University Press, 2016 291pp., $22.95(paper) ISBN 978-1-77199-137-7(pbk) 1-177199-138-4 (pdf) 1-177199-1-137-1(epub) Leaving Iran, 13 years after Wedding Song, reminds one of a reunion with a college...

Pastrami on Rye An Overstuffed History of the Jewish Deli Ted Merwin New York University Press, 2015 189pp. plus notes ISBN 978-0-8147-6031-4 “I’ll have what she’s having!” Who doesn’t remember that line from Rob Reiner’s 1989 hit When Harry Met Sally? No current book...

An Improbable Friendship: The Remarkable Lives of Ruth Dayan and Raymonda Tawil and Their 40-Year Mission to Build Understanding Between Their Peoples Anthony David Arcade Publishing, 2015 312 pages As we observe the tide of rising rage and violence in Israel,...

Myths of the Oil Boom Steve A. Yetiv Oxford University Press, 2015 251 pages, $29.95 ISBN 978-0-19-021269-8 Does anyone remember (only yesterday?) when “unleaded regular” gasoline approached $4 a gallon? Just this summer, people were grumbling that prices were...

The Sea Beach Line Ben Nadler Fig Tree Books, 2015 224 pages, $15.95 Author Ben Nadler has created a novel steeped in Judaica, yet a mystery. Izzy Edel, not quite wasted on drugs, determines to search for his father, reported deceased, but possibly alive. What follows...

The Greatest Jewish-American Lover in Hungarian History Michael Blumenthal Etruscan Press, 2014 218 pages Michael Blumenthal has been called “one of the natural poets of his generation” by no less than the late Irish poet Seamus Heaney, a winner of the Nobel Prize in...

How About Never Is Never Good For You? My Life in Cartoons Bob Mankoff Henry Holt and Company 285pp, $32 ISBN 978-0-8050-9591-3 Cartoon: Three men: Man on the left is wearing a deerstalker (yes, deerstalker) hat; man on the right is an older man; man in the middle is...

Cooking Inspired: Bringing Creativity and Passion Back into the Kitchen The Best of KosherScoop.com Estee Kafra Feldheim Publishers, 2013 366 pages, $35.99 ISBN: 978-1-59826-048-9 It takes a lot of confidence to publish expensive, glossy cookbooks—and pricey ones at...

Joy of Kosher: Fast, Fresh Family Recipes Jamie Geller William Morrow, 2013 375 pages, $30.00 ISBN: 9780062207821 EBOOK ISBN 9780062207838 $23.99 Jamie Geller is the author of the Quick & Kosher series, magazine publisher and operates a leading kosher food and...

My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel Ari Shavit Spiegel & Grau, 2013 445 pages, $28.00 ISBN: 9780385521703 eBook ISBN: 9880812984644 Winner of the newly established Natan Book Award, Ari Shavit’s My Promised Land is the most recommended book about...

Thanks. I Needed That (And Other Stories Of The Spirit) by Robert Alper Read The Spirit Books 2013. 182 pages We can respond indeed to the book’s unusual title—Thanks. I Needed That—with the same spirited and gracious words to Robert Alper, the gifted author of this...

Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth Reza Aslan Random House, 2013 296 pages, $27.00 ISBN 978-104000-6922-4 Reza Aslan, currently associate professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside, is a highly regarded scholar of religions...

Cook in Israel: Home Cooking Inspiration Orly Ziv 245 Pages, Hardcover $35, ISBN: 978-9659207107 Readers will doubtless recall the featured revue of Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi’s gorgeous Jerusalem, A Cookbook. The Mediterranean menu, with its de-emphasis of meat...

Jewish Luck A True Story of Friendship, Deception, and Risky Business Leslie Levine Adler and Meryll Levine Page Salt Mine Books, 2013, 380 pages ISBN: 978-0-9897356-5-0 Disclosures first: Leslie Levine Adler is our own Sally Adler’s daughterin- law, and Meryll Levine...

Losses by Lea Goldberg, edited with Aftermath by Giddon Ticotsky Bnei Brak: Hakibbutz Hameuchad-Sifriat Poalin Publishers, 2010 380 pp, In Hebrew Lea Goldberg (1911– 1970), distinguished author, poet, translator (From Russian and English to Hebrew), and chairwoman of...

A Shepherd’s Journey The story of Israel’s first Bedouin diplomat Ishmael Khaldi Prestige PrePress, 2010 131 pages, ISBN 978-965-555-473-1 …God used the descendants of Ishmael to save the Jewish nation Could one person be a Muslim, a Bedouin, and an Israeli diplomat?...

National Security through a Cockeyed Lens: How Cognitive Bias Impacts U.S. Foreign Policy Steve A. Yetiv Johns Hopkins, 2013 155 pages, $24.95 When we reviewed Old Dominion University Professor Steve Yetiv’s 2011 book, The Petroleum Triangle, it was our opinion that...

The Rage to Live Anna Andlauer Create Space, 2012 225 pages, $17.00 ISBN 978-1479322-2893 They were a band of broken children: From infants on the verge of death from exposure and starvation to young children, teenagers, and young adults who had lived through hell and...

Chaim Potok: Confronting Modernity Through the Lens of Tradition Daniel Walden, Editor The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2013 184 pages Chaim Potok, who died in 2002, shared two things with your reviewer. We both graduated with Bachelor-of-Arts degrees in...

Recipes For A Sacred Life (True Stories and a Few Miracles) by Rivvy Neshama Divine Arts. 2013 239 pages, $16.95 Author and social activist Rivvy Neshama delights us in an inviting conversational style with a feast of spiritual food, nourishing the soul—just as her...

Russ & Daughters Reflections and Recipes from the House that Herring Built Mark Russ Federman Foreword by Calvin Trillin Schocken, 2013 205 pages, 25.95 ISBN 978-0-8052-4294-2 What are Anthony Bourdain, Oliver Sacks and Martha Stewart in total agreement on? You...

Autobiography of a Delicatessen—Katz’s Photographs by Baldomero Fernanadez Text by Jake Dell Bauer & Dean, 2013 383 pages, $39.95 ISBN 978-0-9838632-6-7 This autobiography is a wonderful photo album of a New York City landmark; plus a few dozen pages of text...

Israel to Go-Look and Cook Book Lara Doel, editor Lunch Box Press, 2013 119 pages Taglit-Birthright Israel sends Jewish adults between the ages of 18 to 26 to Israel to strengthen individual Jewish identity. The program has been a very successful partnership between...

Jerusalem, a Cookbook Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, 2013 320 pages, $35 ISBN 978-1-60774-394-1 For months this at once beautiful and practical cookbook (covered in plastic so food and liquid stains can be easily wiped off) was among this...

Cdr. Harold H. Sacks, USN (ret) Parke Press 2013 220 pages $19.95 (paper) ISBN 978-0-9883969-3-7 Baby boomers and pop culture fans may remember a hit sitcom that ABC aired in the 1960s— McHale’s Navy. The series, which ran for four years, was filmed in black and white...

The Smarter Bomb Women and Children as Suicide Bombers Anat Berko Rowman & Littlefield, 2012 196 pages, $45.00 ISBN 978-1-4422-1952-6 After some “light” reading, your reviewer tackled a rather grim subject, one which exposes the exploitation of women and children...

Call Me Oklahoma! Miriam Glassman Holiday House, 2013 123 pages, $16.95 ISBN 978-0-8234-2742-0 Call Me Oklahoma is an amazing fictional book written in a “young” and easy to understand language; clearly by an author who is familiar with the life of girls. I recommend...