Books
is a shame, because in those Bomb” “revives and reimagines”
first 10 pages, it’s right there for the Book of Isaiah, a phrase that
second family, Joe, introduces the taking.

calls to mind a “spiritual sequel”
new drama in its recapitula-
or a production of “Hamlet” set
tion of what the reader thought
in, like, a student government
they already knew. But in Going Beyond a
or something. I look askance at
learning the stories of, say, Joe’s Reimagination
that phrasing not because it’s
ex-girlfriend’s dead husband’s
not a worthy goal, but because
secret English lover, I found “Wolf Lamb Bomb”
I don’t really think that’s what
myself missing the original Aviya Kushner
Kushner set out to accomplish,
story too much to justify the Orison Books
or what she ultimately did here.

distance from the principals.

Kushner, a columnist for The
The incredible premise, so rich To embark on a reinterpre- Forward, was a National Jewish
with possibility, felt forgotten, tation of the Book of Isaiah, Book Award finalist for “The
and the low status afforded the as Aviya Kushner does in her Grammar of God: A Journey
second family by their class debut poetry collection “Wolf into the Words and Worlds of
and race seems to have been Lamb Bomb,” is a serious the Bible.”
unintentionally reinforced. We undertaking. Isaiah’s complex
Her five-part collection feels
just don’t hear all that much narrative structure, its centu- like a chevruta session with an
about them.

ries-old literary and liturgical especially humane and close
Silber is a gifted writer, and value, the generations of reader. To read anything along-
to write in the risky, house- writers that have picked it side her, one feels, would be a
of-cards way that she does is apart for meaning — it’s a lot rare gift. Her insights into the
artistically courageous. But to contend with it.

tragedies and opportunities of
there’s something missing in
The PR material for Kushner’s war, God and love are rendered
“Secrets of Happiness,” which book says that “Wolf Lamb in her unfussy diction, and her
Continued from Page 21
From our Family to Yours
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Harry Rothenberg, Esq.

Marc Rothenberg, Esq.

Beth Rothenberg Halperin, Esq.

Ross Rothenberg, Esq.

Scott Rothenberg, Esq.

Melissa Rothenberg-Kapustin, Esq.

Randi Rothenberg Marlin, Esq.

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of Isaiah is certainly as a poet,
but the scrutiny that Kushner
brought, on a line-to-line level, is
what distinguishes “Wolf Lamb
Bomb” from work that simply
“revives and reimagines.” It’s
practically a commentary. l
jbernstein@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0740
Bold Rabbi’s Tale Reads Like a Movie
B O O KS
BAT AMI-ZUCKER | JE FEATURE
“The Rabbi of Buchenwald”
Rafael Medoff
Yeshiva University Press
THERE IS A REMARKABLE
scene early in “The Rabbi of
Buchenwald” that sounds like
something out of a movie —
and perhaps should be.

It takes place in May 1945,
soon after the United States
army liberated that notorious
Nazi concentration camp. The
Swiss government offered to
admit 350 Buchenwald children
under the age of 16. The problem
is that not enough children
survived that Nazi hell to take
full advantage of the offer.

An intrepid U.S. Army
chaplain, Rabbi Herschel
Schacter, tries to pass off a
number of young adults as
young teens so they can board
the train taking them to a new
life. A suspicious Swiss Red
JEWISH EXPONENT
Cross inspector, one Sister
Kasser, disqualifies many of
the would-be passengers for
exceeding the age limit.

Schacter finds a printer
in nearby Weimar to create a
rubber stamp bearing the Red
Cross emblem. The rabbi and two
confederates break into Kasser’s
office, help themselves to blank
cards of the type she gave to
qualified passengers, and spend
the night forging the signatures
needed to confirm that the holder
is of the required age.

The next morning, as Kasser
stalks through the train in
search of stowaways, older
children in cars ahead of her
elude discovery by jumping
from the train and running
back to the cars through which
she has already passed. In this
madcap fashion, many more
than 350 Buchenwald children
make it to Switzerland.

Rafael Medoff’s new study,
“The Rabbi of Buchenwald,” is
at once a biography of Schacter
and a history of postwar U.S.

Courtesy of KTAV.com
§²› yearning for greater under-
standing of the interplay
between sins and disasters of
the past and dreams for the
future are deeply affecting.

Kushner’s poems are linked
by their engagement with the
Book of Isaiah’s contradictory
sense of inescapable failure and
the possibilities of the future.

“In the imagined life / the next
step is always / a problem,”
she writes in “Stubble”; and in
“Two Love Songs To Denial,”
she asks, “How can anyone
expect the infinite ? from the
finite?” And she asks with the
experience of someone who’s
been burned in the past by that
misplaced expectation.

Kushner’s fluency with her
source text is something to
behold. She doesn’t stop with
“swords into plowshares” and
call it a day. Her engagement
with the full text of the Book
Courtesy of Orison Books
L ifestyle /C ulture
Jewry, viewed through the lens
of the many leadership positions
Schacter held and the ways he
impacted the community.

During the course of nearly
half a century in Jewish public
life, Schacter was the rabbi of
a successful synagogue in the
Bronx and a pioneer in early
U.S. Orthodox outreach efforts,
as well as chairman of national
Jewish organizations such as the
See Rabbi, Page 32
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM