by Lorraine Blatt, Librarian
This month’s selections are two books
for students in grades 5-9.
“Broken Song”
By Kathryn Lasky
Though it is a work of fiction, this book is based on the historical research of life in Russia during the 1880s and on. The author brings to the young reader the history of anti-Semitism in the Pale of Russia in the late 19th and early 20th century.
At the beginning of the book, 15-year-old Reuven Bloom, a violin prodigy, focuses his life on music and also attempts to balance it with his Talmudic studies. But the vicious activities of the Czar’s army change his life. His best friend, a gifted Talmudic scholar, is kidnapped and taken to be a soldier in the Czar’s army. Then his mother, father, and older sister are murdered when his parents will not give Reuven up to serve in the army. Only Reuven and his baby sister, Rachel, survive the attack, but his cherished violin is stolen by one of the Russian Cossacks. These awful circumstances allow Reuven to find his courage as he determines to save himself and his baby sister. Reuven sets out to escape the Cossacks and find his way to Vilna, Poland, where a cousin might be able to help him escape to America.
Reuven carries Rachel on his back in a basket and encounters a number of difficult situations as he escapes to Vilna. When Reuven finally gets there, he finds that his cousin is part of a partisan group fighting for the Jews in Poland. His cousin encourages Reuven to stay and fight with him and arranges to send Rachel to America with his own wife and children. Reuven stays with his cousin and joins the Revolutionary Jewish Bund as a spy and saboteur. Eventually he encounters the Cossack who stole his violin – and Reuven fights him to get it back. It is six years before Reuven is able to go to America to join his sister.
Once in New York, Reuven has the opportunity to audition for the Russian Symphony. The man auditioning him realizes that Reuven is a prodigy and takes him to audition with the New York Philharmonic. The immensity of Reuven Bloom’s talent was immediately recognized. He joins the Philharmonic and eventually tours the world as a violinist and also as a composer.
The book is a testament to the Jews who fled and fought the violent persecution in Eastern Europe at the turn of the nineteenth century.
“Letters from Rifka”
by Karen Hesse
12-year-old Rifka’s journey from a Jewish community in the Ukraine to New York’s Ellis Island is filled with many difficult times. During this novel, based on the true story of an elderly aunt of the author, the family is beset by numerous obstacles and hardships. Rifka tells this story through letters she writes to a cousin in Ukraine.
First Rifka must outwit two Russian soldiers so that she, her parents and two brothers can escape by train to Poland and continue their journey to America. In Poland the family is struck by typhus, but the family manages to recover from this often deadly disease, and continue their journey to Warsaw. There, the family is to get money sent to them by their older sons in America, where they plan to take a ship to New York.
While on the trip to Warsaw, Rifka comes down with ringworm from another passenger and she is forbidden to leave; her family must travel to America without her. Rifka is sent to Antwerp, Belgium, to stay with a family until she recovers; she does, but during her recovery she loses all her beautiful golden hair. Finally she boards the ship to America, but it encounters a deadly storm at sea and then quarantine. The resourceful Rifka tells of her journey and adventures in letters she writes in the margins of a book of poetry by Pushkin given to her by her cousin Tovah. One of Rifka’s strengths is her facility with learning languages, and she uses this skill to help her throughout her journey to finally reunite with her family.
Sale Book Cart: Books for Bucks
Check out the Books for Bucks book cart in the Sha’are Shalom lobby. We are selling used paperback and hardcover books as a continuing fundraiser for the synagogue. Paperbacks are 50 cents and hardbacks $1. Put your cash or check in the container on the cart.
Donations to Books for Bucks will become the property of the Congregation. Please donate books only in good condition and in quantities of fewer than 25. Leave your name, phone, email, and the date of your donation in a note with any books you donate.
Contact Lorraine Blatt at [email protected] or 772-359-7370.
Please remember to leave a note with your name when dropping off books at the library. Thanks!