ELECTION TRIVIA FROM ISRAEL — This week was the second time in just three months that Chronicle contributing writer Sybil Kaplan and her husband have voted. Now living is Israel but still American citizens, they voted by absentee ballot before the U.S. election in November. On Tuesday they headed for the polls for Israel’s 19th general election. She reports that there is no such thing as voter registration in Israel. In general, three weeks before elections, every eligible voter is notified which of the more than 10,000 polling places they should report to. After showing Israeli identity cards, voters are handed envelopes and directed behind a cardboard stand. There on a table were boxes with the symbols of all the 32 parties from which to choose a paper, insert it into the envelope, seal the envelope, emerge from the closed-in area and drop the ballot into a box. This is more than a little different from the computerized voting machines many of us in Johnson County are accustomed to!
NEVER FORGET — As Jews, the phrase “Never Forget” is engraved in our brains. As such, it is important for us to make note of such dates as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The U.N. General Assembly has designated Sunday, Jan. 27 — the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau — as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. On this annual day of commemoration, every member state of the U.N. has an obligation to honor the victims of the Nazi era and to develop educational programs to help prevent future genocides. This year’s theme is “Rescue during the Holocaust: The Courage to Care.” As we remember the Holocaust, you will find a glowing recommendation by Andrea Kempf of Kansas Poet Laureate Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg’s new book “Needle in the Bone: How a Holocaust Survivor and a Polish Resistance Fighter Beat the Odds and Found Each Other.” The author will present the book, at an event co-sponsored by the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education and the Kansas City Public Library on Thursday, Jan. 31.
NEVER JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER — This statement is so, so true. More than a year ago The Chronicle received several review copies of the book “Christmas for Joshua” by Avraham Azrieli. It gets a 4.61 rating from Barnes & Noble reviewers and a 4.5 from Amazon readers, but I didn’t bother to check this out because the cover just didn’t appeal to me. Besides the unappealing title, the cover features a Christmas ornament hanging from a tree. My co-workers and I just couldn’t figure out how this book was relevant to us other than the author being Israeli. But I was bored a few weeks ago and finally picked up the book. I would agree with readers on those two websites that the book is well worth your time. Reviewer Lucie describes it very well, writing, “Rusty, a converted Christian and his Jewish wife, happily married, are suddenly torn by conflicting ideas and feelings when their daughter marries an Orthodox Jew. The ensuing saga is heart-rending.” After I read the book I recommended it to a coworker, who also enjoyed it. The author Azrieli served as an IDF Intelligence officer before graduating from Columbia Law School in New York. He has also written “The Jerusalem Inception,” “The Jerusalem Assassin,” “The Masada Complex,” “One Step Ahead” and “Your Lawyer on a Short Leash.”
