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The University of Alabama has just released Crossing the River by Shalom Eilati. It is available through Ingram, Baker and Taylor etc. "A piercing book."Amos Oz Crossing the River (University of Alabama Press, 2009) is both a personal memoir and a valuable historical resource. Against the backdrop of Lithuania's occupation first by the Red Army, next by the Germans, and then again by the Russiansit is a story reflected through the prism of a sharp-eyed young child, Shalom Eilati. His story starts in the occupied Kovno Ghetto and ends with his flight across the Soviet border, through Poland and Germany and finally, his arrival in Palestine. The adult survivor, while recalling the terrorized child that he was and how he then perceived the adult world, also takes stock of his present life. Throughout the memoir, Eilati attempts to reconcile his present life as a husband, father, scientist, and writer, with the images, feelings, and thoughts from the past that have left an indelible mark on his life and that continue to haunt him. About the author: Shalom Eilati was born in 1933 in Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania, a world center for Jewry both in religious and cultural terms. His mother was a nurse and a poet, and his father a teacher, historian and an author. In 1941, he and his family were imprisoned in a ghetto created by the occupying Germans. In 1944, at his mother's initiative, he escaped from the ghetto alone. He emigrated to Palestine in 1946, where he became a member of a kibbutz, an officer in the Israeli Defense Force, an agronomist with a Ph.D. in horticulture, a tour guide, and an editor. He has served as a lecturer in the Faculty of Agriculture at the Hebrew University in Rehovot, and was one of the founders of and editor for the Israeli Environmental Protection Service. The Hebrew original of Crossing the River was published as Lahazot et Hanahar by Carmel/Yad Vashem in 1999. Vern Lenz is a technical writer in Boise, Idaho, and is past director of the Ahavath Beth Israel choir. A student of languages, he lived in Israel with his wife for 15 years. Reactions: "The Holocaust is a dark and bottomless abyss, endlessly churning up, like boiling lava, testimony and stories that stir our emotions and broaden our understanding in whatever form they appear. When such testimony is combined with talent as brilliant as that revealed by Shalom Eilati, and when that talent is guided by an artistic sensibility capable of navigating such a complex story, we are able to see it plainly."A. B. Yehoshua "The book has invaded my sleep at night, bringing home the terror and helpless longing of those times. . . . >From all I have read about the Aktionen (and I have read not a little), [Eilati's] descriptions of this one and the one against the children are perhaps the most trenchant. . . . A piercing book."Amos Oz "A special achievement has been attained . . . a complex artistic work has been wrought." Avner Holzman Stuart Schnee Public Relations, Marketing & Sales US Tel: 973-796-2753 Israel Tel: +972-54-790-9120 Fax: +972-2-561-0943 --- Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL) =========================================================== Submissions for Ha-Safran, send to: hasaf...@osu.edu SUBscribing, SIGNOFF commands send to: Listproc @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu Questions, problems, complaints, compliments;-) send to: galron.1 @ osu.edu Ha-Safran Archives: Current: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html History: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/history.html AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org
