The Life of Jews in Poland before the Holocaust: A Memoir - Softcover

Gold, Ben-Zion

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0803271751 ISBN 13: 9780803271753

Publisher: University of Nebraska Press, 2013

Synopsis

Ben-Zion Gold’s memoir brings to life the world of a million Jews in pre–World War II Poland who were later destroyed by the Nazis. Warmly recalling the relationships, rituals, observances, and celebrations, Gold evokes the sense of family and faith that helped him through the catastrophe that followed. With him we experience the life and institutions of the time: the heder and hooky playing, his encounter with Hassidism, the courtship and marriage of his oldest sister, and the author’s own first inkling of love. And with him, we recapture the memories that made life worth living in the face of disaster, along with the experience of the human capacity for evil that tested and transformed his faith as it devastated his world. Finally, Gold tells of the fate of his family and of his own escape from that fate.

About this title

About the Author:

Ben-Zion Gold was born in 1923 in Radom, Poland, and grew up in a traditional Jewish home. The sole survivor of his family, he arrived in the United States in 1947. For more than forty years he served as the director and rabbi at Harvard-Radcliff Hillel, where through teaching, innovative programs, and unique personal interactions, he inspired and motivated Jewish students, faculty, and the surrounding community to deepen their commitment to, and knowledge of, Judaism.

Review:

"Rabbi Gold writes with a rare combination of insight and understanding; the result is a fascinating, instructive and uniquely intimate memoir."--Ruth Anna Putnam, professor emerita of philosophy at Wellesley College and editor of "The Cambridge Companion to William James"--Ruth Anna Putnam (09/08/2005)

"This beautifully written and moving account of his youth as a member of a traditional religious Jewish family in Radom in central Poland, by Ben-Zion Gold, stands out among Holocaust memoirs. Gold lovingly recreates this destroyed world and attempts to convey its deep spirituality, while distancing himself from its fundamentalism and ethnic self-centeredness. This is one of the most uplifting accounts of the resilience of the human spirit I have read in recent years."--Antony Polonsky, Walter Stern Hilborn Professor of Judaic and Social Studies at Brandeis University and coeditor of "Contemporary Jewish Writing in Poland: An Anthology"--Antony Polonsky

"This book is quite different in character from existing Holocaust memoirs. It is an eyewitness account of a lost milieu and it tells us, as the saying goes, not how European Jews died but how they lived."--Robert Alter, professor of comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of "The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary"--Robert Alter (09/08/2005)

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0803271751
• ISBN 13: 9780803271753
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 168