After sixty years, texts that were written in the Warsaw ghetto whiel constantly faced with death have been published by the Council for the Protection of the Memory of War and Suffering.read more »

Poland-based Institute for East-Central Europe [Instytut Europy Środkowo-Wchodniej] has recently published a bilingual, English and French volume devoted to that region, containing texts by eminent historians touching both upon history and current issues.read more »

Michael Szporer

Yannick Haenel’s "Jan Karski" is an odd concoction--not really novel, but a compilation of two rudimentary summaries and a monologue, Yannick Haenel as Jan Karski. I have no problem with first person monologues, which may or may not resemble the author, and understand that first person, even in an autobiography, can be treated as a literary persona, or mask.read more »

http://en.auschwitz.org.pl

New English language edition of the Auschwitz Memorial Oś magazine is available on-line. Read the publisher’s announcement below.read more »

Yair Sheleg, Haaretz, 24 Sept. 2009

Just about everyone knows that the Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, or Maimonides) was a key figure in the annals of the Jewish people, but not everyone knows why, or just how, this unparalleled Torah scholar was central to our history. Moshe Halbertal’s new book, the 10th in the Shazar Center’s series of biographies of great Jewish thinkers and writers, makes clear exactly what Maimonides’ significance was.read more »

www.anhri.net, posted August 18, 2009

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, ANHRI, in collaboration with The International Campaign For Human Rights In Iran have published the Arabic translation of Child Executions, A Study of Roots and Proposed Intellectual And Jurisprudential Solutions, by the Iranian human rights defender and winner of the 2009 Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights, Emad Baghi.read more »

Mya Guarnieri, The Jerusalem Post

Who knew that Dr. Ruth, the grandmotherly sex expert, was a Hagana fighter in the War of Independence? How often the Nazis considered the "final solution" a public health program? And when we think of the nose job do we categorize it as a form of therapy, as some did in the 19th century? Surprises such as these are sprinkled throughout Melvin Konner’s The Jewish Body.read more »

Małgorzata Pasicka

Thanks to the joint effort of the Committee for Protection of Jewish Heritage and Regional Museum in Tarnów (Southern Poland), we have received a brilliant English-language guidebook through the over 400 years’ history of the town’s Jewish cemetery – a booklet that also provides glimpses into the traditions of the local Jewish community, presented as an integral element of the town’s life.read more »

http://web.ushmm.org

In this heart-wrenching book, Father Patrick Desbois tells the poignant story of how he spent most of a decade locating 800 mass gravesites and other execution sites of Jews exterminated by Nazis in Ukraine.read more »

The New York Times

Dwight Garner

Here’s a book with a striking title, a handsome cover and genuinely absorbing subject matter: the life and times of Taha Muhammad Ali, a gruff, working-class Palestinian poet who, exiled from his hometown during the creation of Israel in 1948, has owned and operated a souvenir shop near the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth for more than 50 years, playfully calling himself “a Muslim who sells Christian trinkets to Jews.”read more »

Benjamin Rosendahl, The Jerusalem Post

What is in a translation? Volumes have tried to answer this question, each one with a different answer. Can a text be translated without losing its meaning? Does the Bible lose its holiness, Joseph Heller his wit and Gogol his Russian soul (or the "dead souls" of his book of the same title)? Should a translator be close to his source? Or is that a futile task like "neutral news reporting"? Those were only few of the topics discussed at a recent Israel Translators Association conference in Haifa. In the beginning was the word, but soon enough came the translation.read more »

Wendy Lesser

First novels by young writers who see the world with a fresh, original vision and write about it with clarity and restraint are rare enough to begin with. When you add in the fact that Chloe Aridjis’ “Book of Clouds” is also a stunningly accurate portrait of Berlin, as well as a thoughtful portrayal of a young Mexican Jew drifting through her life abroad, this novel becomes required reading of the most pleasurable sort.read more »

www.auschwitz.org.pl

The first issue of the monthly magazine "Oś – Oświęcim – Ludzie – Historia – Kultura" [Axis Oświęcim, People, History, Culture] has been published in English. It is a project by the Auschwitz Memorial Museum in cooperation with the International Youth Meeting House, the Jewish Center, the Center for Dialogue and Prayer in Oświęcim. English edition of “Oś” is financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland.read more »

Siobhán Dowling

It has been described as a publishing sensation. Helene Berr was a young French student murdered in a Nazi concentration camp. Her recently discovered journal has hit French bookstores – and become an immediate bestseller.read more »

Intelligence Report winter issue (no. 132) is now available. The prize-winning magazine is part of Intelligence Project, which monitors hate groups and extremist activities throughout the U.S, under the auspices of Southern Poverty Law Center read more »

Judaism.com recommends a newly published book devoted to the fate of the Mizrahi, i.e. Oriental Jews, historically disparaged by their Ashkenazi brethren. Author Rachel Shabi traces the history of the split and the still existing strained relations. The brief review is quoted below. read more »

The International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust has published the proceedings of the international conference on Remembrance, Awareness and Responsibility, held last year on the 60th anniversary of the opening of the State Museum at the site of the Nazi Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. read more »

Ruth Ellen Gruber, JTA

The idea of Jewish topography and the spaces and places -- physical and metaphysical -- in which Jews live, dream and interact forms the basis of a fascinating new book, "Jewish Topographies: Visions of Space, Traditions of Place." read more »

Ruth Franklin, The New York Times Book Review

The most dramatic scene in the movie “Schindler’s List” takes place not in a cattle car or a gas chamber, but in an office. As the accountant Itzhak Stern’s typewriter clatters in the background, the names of the fortunate workers whom Oskar Schindler would ultimately save appear on a blank page that fills the screen. Finally...read more »

Editorial Board

Broad circles of people have been involved in the Polish discussion on the crime that was committed in Jedwabne. A number of them have made important statements. This anthology presents texts chosen from among the articles published by the Polish press.read more »

Dexter Filkins, The New York Times Book Review

Five years is a long time in the Middle East — and especially the five that just passed – writes Dexter Filkins: Two new books by eminent scholars of the region offer different perspectives on the present crisis. It’s a measure of how dire things are that neither one inspires much hope.read more »

Ori Golan, The Jerusalem Post

Wibke Bruhns counts in zillions. There were zillions of German widows after the war, zillions of stories, zillions of versions and zillions of letters. And recounting her father's story, it seems she is zillions of light years removed from it. read more »

Witold Ponikło

“Someone Must Survive To Tell The World” shows Holocaust from personal point of view. Written many years after the II World War is recalling 4 years (1941–1945) of young Jews girl life. Reminiscences by Tosia Szechter are part of the project "Let us not forget" by Polish-Jewish Heritage Foundation of Canada.read more »

Forum for Dailogue Among Nations Foundation, American Jewish Committee

The book “Difficult Questions in Polish-Jewish Dialogue” is the first endeavor in Polish publishing to build bridges of understanding between Poles and Jews in a way that takes equal account of history, politics, and daily life.read more »

John Patrick Diggins, The New York Times Book Review

„We haven’t yet solved the problem of God,” the Russian critic Belinsky once shouted across the table at Turgenev, “and you want to eat!” – J.P. Diggins about the Charles Taylor new book "A Secular Age". read more »

www.diapozytyw.pl

This author's reminiscences are one of the most drastic records of the history of the Holocaust. The author, a teenager at the time, was in hiding with his family. read more »

www.diapozytyw.pl

This is Jerzy Eisler’s second book concerning the events of March 1968. His previous book, written during 1980s was published in 1991 as the first, so ample a monograph of the March events. read more »

Elaine Margolin (The Jerusalem Post)

Joseph Hollander left Poland for America in 1939 at 34, equipped only with a law degree and a sense of dreadful foreboding about the fate of the Jews. He spent the next few years fighting within the American legal system for refuge. Left behind in Poland were his mother, three sisters and their husbands and two young nieces, all eventually butchered by the Nazis. Hollander had pleaded with them to leave with him, but they had decided to remain. read more »

Steve Pollak

Jan T. Gross’ 2006 book, “Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz” appears today in author’s Polish translation (“Strach. Antysemityzm w Polsce tuż po wojnie”). read more »

Diapozytyw

At first, a handful of facts. After two days’ absence, nine-year old Henryk Błaszczyk returns home. He went to his friends in the countryside; he played with his peers and picked cherries.read more »