Library News
Agudath Sholom Congregation has an extensive library that includes resource and reference books as well as Jewish fiction, literature, history, and a wide variety of books on Jewish living. Books may be checked out by members of the congregation for a period of two weeks and may be borrowed by non-members after contacting the librarian, Kaye Chandler, at 847-0491. The monthly newsletter generally includes a review of new books that have been added to the library. Donations of gently-used books or money to purchase new books and library supplies are most welcome. Book donations may be left in the library on the shelf underneath the check-out box. Please include a note with your name so your donation can be noted in the library data base. A donation of money may be sent to the office with a note stating that the donation is for the general library fund or for a particular book.
Book Recommendations ---(Click on a book image for a link to amazon.com)
Entering Jewish Prayer, by Reuven Hammer.
“Participating in a service should not be like attending a theatrical performance. It means being able to be an active players. .. We want to understand why we are saying these words and how they relate to the entire service and to being Jewish.” This book could be a great companion to Rabbi Terry’s Siddur Hebrew class.
Would you like to donate a book to the Temple Library? Consider one of these:
I Am Marc Chagall, by Bimba Landmann.
“Inspired by Chagall's biography, My Life, Landmann has merged the artist's life and the development of his artistic style into this visually dramatic children's book. The text tackles several difficult topics, ranging from self-development, self-identity, the creative process and the ability to verbalize personal desires within a family structure. In a compressed timeframe, Chagall's life is integrated into the historical events of the century. Landmann uses the historical references to establish Chagall's concept that the real world is within each of us. Judaic elements run through the story. Chagall the boy goes to Hebrew school and studies Torah while searching for his identity. The events of revolution, war, hardship and escape, and their impact on Jews, are woven into the text.” ($8.00 used from Amazon.com)
Walter Benjamin, The Story of a Friendship, by Gershom Scholem.
“Gershom Scholem is celebrated as the twentieth century's most profound student of the Jewish mystical tradition; Walter Benjamin, as a master thinker whose extraordinary essays mix the revolutionary, the revelatory, and the esoteric. Scholem was a precocious teenager when he met Benjamin, who became his close friend and intellectual mentor. His account of that relationship (which was to remain crucial for both men) is both a celebration of his friend's spellbinding genius and a lament for the personal and intellectual self-destructiveness that culminated in Benjamin's suicide in 1940.” ($10.00 from Amazon.com)
Emma Lazarus, by Esther Schor.
“Emma Lazarus’s most famous poem gave a voice to the Statue of Liberty. She was a woman so far ahead of her time that we are still scrambling to catch up with her–a feminist, a Zionist, and an internationally famous Jewish American writer before these categories even existed. Drawing upon a cache of personal letters undiscovered until the 1980, Esther Schor brings this vital woman to life in all her complexity. Born into a wealthy Sephardic family in 1849, Lazarus published her first volume of verse at seventeen and gained entrée into New York’s elite literary circles. Although she once referred to her family as “outlaw” Jews, she felt a deep attachment to Jewish history and peoplehood. Her compassion for the downtrodden Jews of Eastern Europe–refugees whose lives had little in common with her own–helped redefine the meaning of America itself.” ($15.00 from Amazon.com)
Kaye Chandler 10/27/06