Books Briefly
Books Briefly Jewish Renewal THESE HOLY SPARKS: THE REBIRTH OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE by Arthur Waskow Harper & Row. 210 pp. $11.95. Arthur Waskow leads two lives—or, rather, one life that fuses two...
...The Evertons restore their house and reopen the mine, and slowly they are accepted by the villagers and the parish priest...
...14.95...
...Jews groping their way toward a new peoplehood, he suggests, may still have a role to play in helping humanity to fashion a new kind of society...
...These Holy Sparks brings these strands together in an impassioned plea for Jewish renewal...
...The "stones" of the title are metaphoric, signifying a remembrance, a commemoration...
...The "rest of their lives" becomes six years, after they learn Richard has leukemia...
...They in turn are affected and changed by the villagers' acceptance of fate and the trials of life...
...MacDougall's thoroughly documented thesis in Superstition and the Press is that newspapers—even respectable ones like The New York Times—have fed their readers a heavy diet of arrant nonsense about such varied fakes and follies as the Abominable Snowman, the Bermuda Triangle, the Loch Ness Monster, Pyramid Power, the Shroud of Turin, spoon-bending, faith-healing, astrology, ESP and UFOs, ghosts, cults, and miraculous visions...
...The late Will Rogers said, "All I know is what I read in the newspapers...
...214 pp...
...He is, on the one hand, a theoretician of the Left, a founding fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies, an antiwar organizer and strategist, an authoritative analyst and critic of the nuclear arms race...
...At a time when many dominant elements of the Jewish community seem to be sinking into placid—or even combative—conservatism, Waskow has set himself the heroic task of summoning Jews to a new (and ancient) radicalism...
...616 pp...
...This exhaustive compilation of betrayals of trust is presented as much in sorrow as in anger...
...With pathetic resignation, the penniless Mexicans live out their lives in ignorance, superstition, violence, and submission to the church...
...Acceptance of Fate STONES FOR IBARRA by Harriet Doerr Viking Press...
...29.95 cloth...
...If that's all you know, says Curtis D. MacDougall, you're in a heap of trouble because you know a lot of stuff that simply isn't so...
...He is, on the other hand, a Jewish theologian, author of religious works, and teacher at the Recon-structionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia...
...16.95 paper...
...Arthur Waskow leads two lives—or, rather, one life that fuses two unlikely sets of interests and commitments...
...They and the Mexican peasants live in different worlds...
...MacDougall, emeritus professor of journalism at Northwestern University and long-time radical activist, clings touchingly to the notion that newspapers have an obligation to tell the truth...
...From a deeply religious perspective, he persuasively makes the case for a Judaism that embraces feminism and a Zionism that supports self-government for the Palestinian nation...
...Stuff and Nonsense SUPERSTITION AND THE PRESS by Curtis D. MacDougall Prometheus Books...
...In this remarkable first novel written with polish and wit, Harriet Doerr presents a vivid contrast of two cultures along with a poignant story of a marriage...
...Richard and Sara Everton, fortyish, leave their comfortable California home to spend the rest of their lives in a remote Mexican village in the central plains where Richard's grandfather had abandoned his house and copper mine in the 1910 revolution...
Vol. 48 • April 1984 • No. 4
