Tag: jews

Book: Boris Akunin “Bashō’s Frog”

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Boris Akunin has repeatedly experimented with the form of his prose, incorporating interactivity in one way or another. Sometimes it was limited to links to video clips that could be opened online by scanning a code from the book; other times it took the shape of full-fledged “quest books,” where the narrative depends on the reader’s choices.

I myself am quite conservative when it comes to reading, so I prefer a straightforward novel, without all these branching paths and detours. External links didn’t appeal to me either when I encountered them before. Still, I decided to give this kind of genre another chance and read Bashō’s Frog, knowing in advance that it is built precisely around choice.

There were several reasons for that:

  • I like Akunin’s work, but I have by no means read everything he has written.
  • This book is about Erast Fandorin, my favorite character created by the author.
  • The narrators are either the Georgian Lazo Chkhartishvili or the Jewish Aron Brazinsky. Both of these colorful peoples appeal to me greatly (especially the latter, since on my mother’s side I am Jewish myself).

The choice of narrators is far from accidental. They are the great-grandfathers of Boris Akunin himself (known in everyday life as Grigory Shalvovich Chkhartishvili). He chose to construct the narrative from their perspectives, imagining how representatives of these nations might tell a story, complete with both real and invented stereotypes.

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Mosab Hassan Yousef “Son of Hamas”

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Hamas hasn’t left the news cycle—both in a negative light and, from pro-Palestinian quarters, in a positive one. Yet back in 2010 a book came out about the organization that shows it from the inside—and hardly in a laudatory vein.

It’s called Son of Hamas, and with good reason: it was written by Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, one of the seven founders of this Palestinian group. The eldest child in his family, Mosab was raised fully in line with Hamas policy. At 18 he was arrested by Israeli law enforcement for attacks on Israeli soldiers. About a year later he was released and for a long time became his father’s trusted aide.

Only no one knew that from that moment he spent nearly ten years working for Shabak (Shin Bet), Israel’s security service. During that time he managed to prevent numerous terrorist attacks and save many lives on both sides. He helped in the arrest of high-ranking Hamas operatives, and in 2007 he left the Middle East; three years later he was granted political asylum in the United States—something that required Israeli services to officially reveal his identity.

Mosab renounced Islam and in 2005 was secretly baptized in Tel Aviv. Since then he has been an outspoken opponent not only of Hamas but of Islam as a whole.

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David Gay “The Tenth Circle: Life, Struggle, and the Destruction of the Minsk Ghetto”

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Right now, when the whole world has turned viciously on Israel, when denying the Holocaust is fashionable and being an antisemite has suddenly become not shameful again, even politically correct, it is a hundred times more important to remind ourselves what real genocide is. At least to oneself, because those unwilling to hear won’t hear anyway.

Books about the Nazis’ “Final Solution to the Jewish Question” have always held a special place on my list. Because, as I’ve said many times, for me this is not an empty phrase and not a “Zionist fabrication.” And then, unexpectedly for me, the BAbook publishing house began selling a book I had never heard of before, even though it was first printed back in the USSR. Now, its author, David Guy, has decided to reissue it, in part in response to the October 7 massacre in Israel.

And I’m grateful the book caught my eye, because people know very little about the history of the Minsk Ghetto. The one that’s usually on everyone’s lips is the Warsaw Ghetto, vast, on whose ruins—among other places—the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 fought, only to be crushed by the Nazis when Soviet troops were already not far off. The ghetto itself has been shown more than once in cinema, and Roman Polanski’s Oscar-winning The Pianist is almost entirely devoted to the story of one Jew in that ghetto.

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Solomon Plyar’s Letkajenkka

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Not long ago, my wife and I watched another episode of Leonid Parfyonov’s brilliant show Namedni—this time dedicated to one of the years from the 1960s. One of the topics covered was the dance “Letkajenkka,” which gained massive popularity in the USSR during that era. Interestingly enough, as a dance it was incredibly simple—so simple, in fact, that it felt more suited for kindergarteners than adults, at least in my view.

The melody was originally created in Finland and very quickly evolved into a dance. From there, it swept across the globe, even slipping past the Iron Curtain. Variations with locally adapted lyrics were performed in 92 countries. In the USSR, the dance likely spread so freely because it was completely innocent in nature—simple, cheerful, and definitely lacking any hint of bourgeois undertone. (Though, to be fair, neither rock’n’roll nor the twist had such undertones either—but that didn’t make them welcome in Soviet leadership’s eyes.)

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Book: Garik Korogodsky, “How to Spend a Million You Don’t Have”

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Since childhood, I’ve had a weakness for beautiful books. I might not even read them, but I’ll buy them just for their beauty (although lately, I’ve been buying more electronic ones).

That’s how Garik Korogodsky’s book first caught my attention — because of its design. I had no idea who this Korogodsky was, but the book sitting on my friends’ shelf simply demanded that I reach for it. And once I read the subtitle “and other stories of a Jewish boy,” its fate was sealed (I guess I have a genetic affinity for stories about Jewish boys). Interestingly, the book came to my friends from the previous owners of their apartments, and my friends hadn’t read it themselves.

First, a few words about the author. Garik Korogodsky, born Grigory Davidovich Korogodsky, has always been called Garik within his family. However, in the USSR, they didn’t want to put such a name on his birth certificate (I had a similar situation with my mom). Garik is a Ukrainian businessman and philanthropist, a dollar millionaire.

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Book: Viktor E. Frankl “Man’s Search For Meaning”

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I continue reading books about the experience (though calling it “life” is impossible) in Nazi death camps. This time, I’ve taken up a short but well-known book by world-renowned psychologist Viktor Frankl. When he was sent to a concentration camp, he tried to hide the manuscript of his book, but he couldn’t save it. So, he began gathering insights and “writing” the book in his mind and secretly on scraps of paper, as a way to hold onto sanity amidst the horrors of the camp and to find something to cling to—something to survive for.

When he was finally liberated, he quickly recorded all he had reflected on during those horrific years in the form of a book, which he initially didn’t even want to publish under his real name, though he was eventually persuaded otherwise. In 1946, the book was published as Man’s Search for Meaning.

Although Viktor Frankl lived many more years, passing away in 1997 at the age of 92, this book is considered one of his greatest works.

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Heather Morris “The Tattooist of Auschwitz”

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Those who have known me for a long time remember that the Holocaust holds a special place on my list of important subjects. I read about it myself, and I tell my children what happened and how it happened. Such things must be remembered. So, not a year goes by without me reading a book on the topic or watching a related film.

No one recommended The Tattooist of Auschwitz to me; I happened upon it on a bookstore shelf, and then my wife read it before I did. Although it’s a novel, it is based on the real-life memories of Lale (Ludwig) Sokolov, who worked as a tattooist in Auschwitz for several years during the war, survived, and eventually moved to Australia.

Heather Morris, the author, merely recorded his memories and turned them into a novel. Before this book, she wasn’t well known, working in a hospital and trying her hand at screenwriting. Then she was introduced to Lale…

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Laurence Rees “Auschwitz. The Nazis & The Final Solution”

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I have written more than once that the topic of the Holocaust is very important to me. I’m certain this is directly tied to the fact that the extermination of Jews during World War II personally affected my family. But this is also an example of something people must never forget so that it never happens again.

The book Auschwitz by Laurence Rees didn’t exactly fall into my hands by chance; modern algorithms recommended it to me because I had read other books on this topic. Until that day, however, I knew nothing about the author. Laurence Rees is a British historian who has devoted much of his career to studying Nazism, its causes, and its rise. Auschwitz: The Nazis & the Final Solution is just one of his books, in which he attempts to explain not only the history of one of the most infamous death camps but also the development of such a horrific concept as the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question.”

Before I share my thoughts on the book, I’d like to quote the author’s own words with which he concludes the book. I couldn’t put it better myself (I have read the book in Russian and couldn’t find the original quote so here I place the back translation from Russian, sorry):

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Auschwitz: A History in Photographs

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auschwitz

In 2013, my wife and I took a road trip through Poland. One specific stop on our itinerary was Auschwitz, not the town, but the museum located on the site of the former concentration camp. This was a place I absolutely wanted to visit. The genocide of the Jews is part of my family’s history.

I won’t talk about the museum itself right now, that’s a subject for another conversation. But before leaving, I bought a photo album titled Auschwitz: A History in Photographs from the shop near the exit. It’s one of the few books I took with me when we moved to another country. However, for some reason, I only started to study it in detail five years later. I don’t quite know how to write about this book, but I still want to.

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Life is Beautiful: I couldn’t make it

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It so happened that I had never watched Roberto Benigni’s film Life is Beautiful. I had heard of it, vaguely knew the plot, but had never seen it.

I decided to correct this, as I’ve never avoided the topic of Jews and Nazism — I’ve watched all the significant films and read many books on the subject.

But the film turned out to be different from what I expected. The first half is a sort of prelude, with nothing about Nazis. It’s about the main character — what he’s like in life. Both the character and Benigni’s acting style (he plays the lead role) were a bit irritating, but I managed to endure it, waiting for other developments.

However, as soon as the film started addressing the story of Jews and the concentration camp, I couldn’t take it anymore. Knowing how Jews were really treated and what happened in the camps, this buffoonery irritated me too much. It seemed to me that this couldn’t have happened in reality. In my opinion, it felt more like an insult to what actually happened.

Maybe I’m wrong, but at some point, I realized that I didn’t want to and couldn’t continue watching. I simply turned off the film, though I understand that many people love it (8.6 out of 10 on IMDB).