Reviews

The Partisan's Coat

A mysterious historical novel set in Israel

By YEHUDIT COLLINS, JANUARY 27, 2024

Excerpt from The Jerusalem Report:

"The Partisan’s Coat is Grenimann’s second novel. In a way, it could be called a coming-of-age novel."

"Yehiel Grenimann is the son of Holocaust survivors. His mother escaped not only the Nazis but also a Soviet work camp; and his father fought with the partisans. Grenimann was born in Australia and made aliyah in 1973, when he enlisted in the army. Having retired from his position as field director for Rabbis for Human Rights five years ago, Grenimann is now making a name for himself as a distinguished writer. He lives in Jerusalem with his wife, with whom he has four children, and seven – soon to be eight – grandchildren.
The Partisan’s Coat is Grenimann’s second novel. In a way, it could be called a coming-of-age novel, as it follows Joey (Yoseph), a shy boy, trying to fit in as a normal Aussie, through to becoming a middle-aged Israeli husband and father. Coming from an assimilated Jewish family, Joey is pulled between a volatile father, so traumatized by the war that he no longer wants any association with Judaism or Zionism; and his mother, who wants him to retain some connection to his Jewish roots. And this becomes a source of friction in his parents’ marriage.
While playing one day in the shed where he hides to escape his parents’ arguments, and an annoying sister, he finds and becomes obsessed with the coat, of the title, and is intrigued to learn that the mysterious previous owner, named Bora, had been a partisan leader. He is even more thrilled to find a genuine bullet hole in the coat. The coat follows him through the book to the very end. It becomes a sort of talisman and an object of veneration linking him to imagined, heroic deeds, which he aspires to emulate."
.......
"The book sustains page-turning interest, while giving an authentic view of Israel, warts and all – often good, sometimes bad, and occasionally ugly, but always a beloved country."

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-783561

The Weight of Gold: Attaining Your Potential Through The Lens of the Bible
by Moshe Silver

A rabbi offers ancient insights from the Torah to contemporary readers of all faiths.

Initially written for an audience of one, this book’s origins began with Silver’s friendship with an African American Christian who asked him for “the Jewish point of view” on biblical passages. This “new reading of the Torah” emerged from the friends’ conversations. As an Orthodox rabbi who lives in Jerusalem, Silver has a keen understanding of Jewish philosophy, tradition, and history. Here, this expertise is combined with pragmatic ways that readers of all faith traditions can make a “better world.” The rabbi begins with a brief introduction to Judaism geared toward gentiles, providing definitions and backgrounds on central terms that range from Torah itself to Maimonides and Hasidism. Silver’s Torah commentary forms the main body of the book and offers Jewish interpretations on stories that span from Adam and Eve through Moses. Complementing the accessible distillation of Jewish traditions is an emphasis on practical applicability.

Reminiscent at times of self-help literature, the author provides uplifting messages relevant to contemporary life (one chapter is even centered on the modern parlance of social distancing). The story of Isaac, for instance, teaches a universal message: “It’s not what we inherit, but what we do with it that makes all the difference.” Though a distinctly Jewish text, the book succeeds in its efforts to welcome all. Readers are just as likely to encounter Talmudic literature and the Psalms as they are the philosophies of Malcolm X, Bob Dylan, and Bob Marley. The teachings of other religions, from Christianity to Buddhism, are also referenced. Even while holding fast to his Orthodox training, Silver is ever sensitive to contemporary reevaluations of spirituality, carefully avoiding, for example, using gendered pronouns (He/Him) to refer to God. Though a bit more background on Jewish terminology and practice might be useful to neophytes, this “Torah for everyone” is a captivating primer on Jewish teachings.

A smart, inclusive, and approachable introduction to the Torah.
…Kirkus Reviews

To Whom Was the Promised Land Promised? Some Fundamental Truths About the Arab-Israeli Conflict.
by Abraham A. Sion

This book presents a challenge to those institutions and individual scholars who deny or minimize the Jewish people’s ownership rights over Mandatory Palestine in international law. The author, an emeritus professor of law, Ariel University, insists upon the vital importance of decisions made during and after the First World War. The defeated Ottoman Empire renounced its rights to most of the areas of the Middle East which it had ruled in favor of the allies who had defeated them. Thus, the Balfour Declaration, the San Remo Resolution, and the Mandate for Palestine created a new political and legal reality in the Middle East, creating new Arab states in Lebanon, Syria, and Mesopotamia and a Jewish national home in Palestine. Sion explores this history closely (including Britain’s failure to live up to the requirements of the mandate it held over Palestine) and reads the documents closely. This is an important contribution to the research and debate concerning international law, the State of Israel, and the Land of Israel.
…Association of Jewish Librarians

MENACHEM BEGIN: A Legacy of Leadership and Resilience by Dov Peretz Elkins Mazo Publishers, Jerusalem, Israel, 2024, 154 pages, paperback

Reviewed by Jack Riemer

Menachem Begin was surely one of Israel’s most controversial figures. He was considered by many people to be a rabble rouser, a rigid and uncompromising negotiator, and a threat to Israel’s democracy. But in recent years there has been a re-evaluation of Begin and a new appreciation for his character. He was supposedly rigid and uncompromising, and yet he was the one who made the agreement at Camp David that gave the Sinai back to Egypt. He was considered the great opponent of Ben Gurion, and yet, on the eve of the Six Day War, when it became clear that the country needed Ben Gurion back in power, he was one of the six members of the Knesset who made the journey to Sdeh Boker in order to persuade Ben Gurion to return to the leadership of the country. He was considered a threat to democracy because he tried to bring a ship full of ammunition into the country in the first days of the state and wanted some of this military equipment to go to his own soldiers, but when Ben Gurion ordered the ship that was bringing these arms into the country fired upon, he was the one who ordered the people on board the ship not to fire back because Jews don’t kill Jews, and by that decision he prevented a civil war. And this may someday be understood to have been his finest hour.
Begin had a great many faults. But Dov Elkins reminds us of some of his virtues that should not be forgotten. Among them are these:
He was a product of Brisk, which was one of the great centers of Jewish learning in Eastern Europe, and it was in Brisk that he absorbed the respect for the Jewish tradition and the pride in the Jewish heritage that he demonstrated all through his life. Begin was undoubtedly the most traditional of all the prime ministers that have ever served Israel. The moment at the White House, for example, when he was called upon to speak in the presence of President Carter and President Sadat on the occasion of the signing of a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt was surely a highpoint in his life and in Israel’s history. But what other prime minister of Israel would have marked the occasion the way Begin did by putting on his kipa and reading Psalm 126 in Hebrew? For him, this treaty was not just a political agreement, and he was not there just as the prime minister of Israel. At that moment he saw himself as the representative of all the Jewish people down through the centuries who had kept the idea of Zion alive in their hearts and who had hallowed this dream of someday returning there by reciting these words every single Sabbath for twenty centuries.
Begin had an enormous sense of Jewish pride. When an American president pressured him to meet his demands by threatening to withdraw America’s military support of Israel, he drew himself up with anger and said: “Israel is not a banana republic that must obey the commands of any superpower. We will fight with your support---or if need be, without your support.” I cannot think of many other leaders of small and dependent countries that would say something like that to the great power that they depended on for their support.
And when Ben Gurion negotiated an agreement with Germany in which Germany would pay millions of dollars and in which they would supply Israel with economic aid and military equipment that it desperately needed, Begin took to the streets and led a demonstration around the Knesset building in protest, because he felt that this agreement was a betrayal of all those who had died in the holocaust. It was the term that was used for this agreement:”