(no subject)

[seekingferret]

I've been reading various posts about this nonsense about a romance between a Jewish concentration camp inmate and the camp commandant being a finalist for a major RWA award with growing sadness and fury.

Now seems like a good time to mention that I came across this book at a library book sale a few weeks ago, and I bought it, because that way nobody else would have the chance. I haven't decided what I'll do with it. Maybe I'll just throw it out. Maybe I'll rip it to shreds and then throw it out. Maybe I'll burn it and then throw it out. Maybe I'll just keep it on my shelf as a reminder that it exists. As if I needed another reminder.



There is so much good and beauty in Judaism. Sometimes that makes it harder to accept how hard it is to be a Jew.

Comments

[morbane]

my vote: tear in quarters by its spine, then tear in quarters across, then throw away.

I am sorry you must reconcile it and Judaism and the world.

My own understanding of Judaism's beauty is clumsy and distant, but I would like to stand with you in recognising it.

[sanguinity]

:-(

I have a whole boxful of books I've bought at library booksales, just so no one else would have the chance. I tell myself I'll pulp them and grow mushrooms on them, but I haven't yet.

[seekingferret]

:(

[brainwane]

I offer my condolences. Not that it's enough.

[ghost_lingering]

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wtf

I think you should shred and recycle it; alternatively donate it to a Jewish Library/Museum/etc, so that the reminder isn't just on your bookshelf, but on shared bookshelf of people whose reactions would be in tandem with your own.

[seekingferret]

This is not the first copy of this book I've seen. The first time I encountered this book was at Yad Vashem. No, this is not a book Jews need to be reminded of. Entirely unrelated to this, this week my father was reminiscing about old cars he's owned. "Jews owned Oldsmobiles and Pontiacs," he said, "But never Fords."

[ghost_lingering]

Ack, yeah, if it's well known then shred and recycle! If Jews as a whole don't need the reminder then you as an individual certainly don't.

[ambyr]

Tangential to your tangent, my dad, in his unpublished memoir, talks about my grandfather's response to seeing a German-made car in a Jewish Community Center parking lot in the late 1960s:

"Somovabitch!" he shouted out. That a Jew would own a German car was unacceptable. He brought out his fists and started pounding the car door.

As bad luck would have it, the owner of the Mercedes walked out of the Jewish Center as my father furiously tried to dent the door. The funny thing, though, was that the car was so well made that, strong though my father was, he couldn't damage the metal. I tapped my father on the shoulder to stop him when the guy was about twenty yards away.

"Is anything wrong?" the owner asked, walking up with a buddy.

"No," my dad said. "You know, that car of yours is made very well."

[seekingferret]

:D