Books

At the zoo: British journalist Amelia Thomas chronicles the operations of the indomitable Qalquiya zoo.

by Sandee Brawarsky
Jewish Week Book Critic

New Takes On The Middle East

In time for the 60th anniversary
of Israel’s independence, several upcoming books offer new and uncommon perspectives on Middle East history, diplomacy and contemporary life.
From Benny Morris, a leading figure among Israel’s “New Historians,” those who take a second look at the country’s founding myths, comes a work described as groundbreaking and deeply revisionist, “1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War” (Yale, April); it focuses on the political dimensions of the war.
When asked about lessons to be learned from his study of the 1948 War, Morris replies, “To be sure, many Israelis will learn that they must remain strong and technologically advanced; otherwise they will be overwhelmed by Arab numbers and fervor. The Arabs might

learn that they must improve themselves, at least on a technological-scientific level, and better their societies and armies, if they hope to overcome Israel, though it is possible that if they do, they may lose the desire to destroy Israel.”
Dr. Sami Khader is the only zoo veterinarian in the Palestinian territories, and the zoo he oversees in the once prosperous farming town of Qalquiya is a place with animals in rusting, broken cages, and few visitors these days. But Dr. Khader hasn’t given up: His dream is to turn the zoo into one of international caliber. The zoo was founded in 1986, with the help of Israeli zoologists, vets and wildlife workers, but most of them now find it too dangerous to travel there. As told by British journalist Amelia Thomas, “The Zoo on the Road to Nablus: A Story of Survival from the West Bank” (Public Affairs, April), is an account of the operation of this indomitable and colorful institution, and a chapter in the unfolding tale of Middle East history.
In “Kingmakers: The Invention of the Modern Middle East” (Norton, June), Karl E. Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysan examine the region’s history through the lives of particularly colorful characters who were key players, some forgotten, some infamous. The authors, a pair of married journalists, point out the name of the region is an Anglo-American invention.
“American Priestess: The Extraordinary Story of Anna Spafford and the American Colony in Jerusalem” (Nan A. Talese, June) by Jane Fletcher Geniesse, a former reporter for The New York Times, looks closely at a community established in Jerusalem in 1881 by American Christians with unorthodox beliefs. They befriended all the peoples of the Middle East and supported the return of Jews to their ancestral land. Their institution, the well-known American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem, still stands.
Bernard Avishai has been writing and thinking about Israel since he moved there to volunteer in the 1967 War. Now a political economist, he calls on Israel to forge a more complete democracy to ensure a peaceful future in “The Hebrew Republic: How Secular Democracy and Global Enterprise Will Bring Israel Peace At Last” (Harcourt, April).
“Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation” (Norton, May) by Saree Makdisi is an intimate view of the bureaucratic hurdles faced by Palestinians, the perceived loss of control in their lives, and their eroding their hopes for freedom. Makdisi, a professor of English and comparative literature at UCLA, compares the Palestinian territories to open air prisons.
In “The Much Too Promised Land: America’s Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace” (Bantam, March), Aaron David Miller, an adviser to six secretaries of state over the last 20 years who helped shape U.S. Middle East policy, provides a critical first-person narrative. Miller is now a public policy fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center.
A celebratory book, “Israel at Sixty: An Oral History of a Nation Reborn” (Wiley, February) by Deborah Hart Strober and Gerald S. Strober, the authors of several oral histories, includes interviews with more than 30 Israelis and American activists and is illustrated with many unpublished archival photos.

Non-fiction
One book can lead to another
in surprising ways.
Award-winning and bestselling author Julie Salamon got an unusual call after her last book was published. “Rambam’s Ladder” is a book about charity and philanthropy, based on the teachings of medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides, also known as the Rambam. She was contacted by the woman in charge of community outreach at Maimonides Medical Center in Borough Park, Brooklyn. They met, and Salamon learned a bit about the hospital that had been named for her subject.
Soon after she was invited (independently) to a series of lectures by an oncologist at St. Vincent’s who had also read her book, and, then, coincidentally, heard from a friend who had cancer that her beloved physician — the same oncologist — was leaving St. Vincent’s for a new cancer center. He was headed to Maimonides. Soon after, Salamon was headed to Maimonides too, taking the subway out to visit — and she realized that she had the subject of her next book.
“Hospital: Man, Woman, Birth, Death, Infinity, Plus Red Tape, Bad Behavior, Money, God and Diversity on Steroids” (Penguin Press, May) is the story of how a large hospital works, from the point of view of the people who work there. Salamon had full access, and spent a year following doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers, cleaners and patients. After a few visits, she came to see Maimonides — where 67 languages are spoken — as an epicenter of contemporary and often conflicting social forces, “a Petri dish of the post 9/11 world,” as she writes.” As her sub-title implies, she found an impressive place full of complexity, an institution fueled by egotism, rabbinic edicts, politics and insurance policy, with much daily drama and comedy, and with compassion at its core.
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For Harry Bernstein, who published his first memoir last year when he was 96, one book also led to another.
His second book, “The Dream: A Memoir” (Ballantine, April) continues the family story he began in “The Invisible Wall.” In this sequel, the British-born Bernstein tells of his family’s arrival in America after impoverished years in a Lancashire mill town. The author — “Arry,” as he is known — is the son of a selfless mother and brutish father. Upon arriving in Chicago, they learn of difficult family secrets, and ultimately, in the Depression years, again face the poverty they thought they had left behind. He and his mother move to New York City, and later as a young man he falls deeply in love — and begins what would become a 67-year loving marriage. It was his wife’s death several years ago, and the loneliness he faced, that inspired him to begin writing.
As he told The Jewish Week last year, “I don’t know if there was another married couple that got along as well as we did. When she passed away there was a void that had to be filled somehow. I wasn’t going to forget her.”
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“The Uncertain Art: Thoughts on a Life in Medicine” (Random House, May) collects stories drawn from Sherwin B. Nuland’s long and distinguished career as a surgeon, teacher and award-winning writer.
“Have You No Shame? And Other Regrettable Stories” (Villard, April) is Rachel Shukert’s debut. The New York writer, actress and comedian has written a memoir of growing up Jewish in Omaha, Nebraska.
In “Ten Days of Birthright Israel: A Journey in Young Adult Identity” (Brandeis, June) professors Leonard Saxe and Barry Chazan (Brandeis, June) analyze the free 10-day educational experience. Ten chapters that parallel the trip emphasize how exposure to one’s heritage can inspire identity formation.
Fiction
Spring’s novels and short
stories offer new and familiar voices, and some 21st century takes on traditional themes.
Elisa Albert manages to break your heart and make you laugh out loud in her debut novel, “The Book of Dahlia” (Free Press, March). With the edgy humor and fearlessness evident in her recent collection of stories, “How This Night is Different,” she writes about a 29-year old woman who learns that she has terminal brain cancer. Albert explores the culture of death, as Dahlia looks back on her life’s adventures, few accomplishments and limited relationships with raw honesty and wit.
Albert was inspired to look more closely at this subject by the cancer-related death of her own brother when she was in college.
“Dictation” by Cynthia Ozick (Houghton Mifflin, April) presents a quartet of stories, including the never-before-published novella of the collection’s title. It imagines a meeting between the female secretaries to Henry James and Joseph Conrad. The four stories probe emotional truths, by way of comedy, illusion, deception and revenge.
Lara Vapnyar, who emigrated from Russia in 1994 and taught herself English, presents her second collection of short stories in “Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love” (Pantheon, June), following her novel, “Memoirs of Muse” and her first story collection, “There Are Jews in My House.” The latest stories also involve Russian immigrants, and here they struggle with love, romance and desire. Food is tied in with their longings for home, and the author includes some of her own recipes.
Michael Gregorio’s historical mystery, “Day of Atonement,” (St. Martin’s, April), is set in Prussia under Napoleonic rule. After a murder, townspeople seek a scapegoat among the Jews. The investigator’s mentor is the philosopher Immanuel Kant, from whom he learned his powers of deduction and the maxim that truth is revealed in the details. The novel provides an unusual view of Jewish identity in Napoleon’s empire.
“The End of the Jews by Adam Mansbach (Spiegel & Grau, March) is an intergenerational tale of a family of Jewish writers and artists, set across the 20th century, from the Old World to the Bronx to the suburbs, with part of the story taking place in pre-democratic Prague. Mansbach touches on religion, history, creation, race, art and betrayal in this novel, not at all a traditional family saga. He’s the author of two previous novels, “Angry Black White Boy” and “Shackling Water.”
Rivka Galchen’s debut novel, “Atmospheric Disturbances” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, June), is informed by her experience studying medicine at Mount Sinai — particularly her time among psychiatrists and psychiatric patients. Her narrator is a psychiatrist whose wife disappears, leaving behind a woman who looks and behaves exactly like her, fooling all but her husband. In Galchen’s hands, the novel, which is at once a love story, a psychological thriller and a dark comedy. The novel is set partially in Argentina, where Galchen spent time doing public health research. In addition to her medical degree, she has an MFA and is the winner of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award.

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