Zipporah is my Hebrew name so it goes without saying that I think she is a strong, wonderful, female role model in the Torah. Though in the real Five Books of Moses, Zipporah has a very small part to play, author Marek Halter, does a nice job of creating a beautiful midrash around the relationship between Moses and Zipporah. Halter gives Zipporah an important role in helping to inspire Moses to step and return to Egypt. He has fled after killing an Egyptian taskmaster who was beating an Hebrew slave. She is the woman behind the man, pushing him forward to go back and save his people. Her father is a great inspiration to Moses but Zipporah is the one who really encourages him all along the way.
This book shows us the story from Zipporah's point of view. We learn about her upbringing and her family relationship. We also learn about the relationship between her and Miriam and Aaron, Moses' siblings. All of this is created from the imagination of the author, but it makes a wonderful story about a time gone by. It gives women a much more important role than the Torah describes.
Zipporah is a woman ahead of her time. With Zipporah standing behind him, Moses becomes a defender of the oppressed and and aa liberated of the enslaved.
Thursday, May 21, 2015
Thursday, May 7, 2015
Mademoiselle Chanel
What a wonderful story! I must now go to a perfume counter at the nearest mall and take a whiff of Chanel No. 5. This book leaves you amazed at the life of Coco Chanel. The author, C.W. Gortner, who admits to being a lifelong admirer of Chanel, has written a novel that really grabs the reader. This book has left this reader completely intrigued with Coco and her life.
I know that when I mentioned on Facebook that I wanted to read this book a friend said she wouldn't read about Coco Chanel because she was Antisemitic. But actually I came away from reading this book feeling that Mademoiselle Chanel might actually have assisted Jews escaping France by letting them hide in one of her country homes. During the war she is involved romantically with the German, Baron Hans Gunther von Dincklzge. Though this probably is part of what has led to the suggestion that she was a Nazi sympathizer, this book leaves the reader with the impression that Dincklzge may have been working with resistance to help Jews escape. So Coco did not do anything purposely to help and yes she did denounce her business partner with Parfums Chanel, but she may have been helping indirectly.
The story of disagreement with the perfume distributors, the Wertheimer brothers, was based on the fact that she had negotiated a contract for 10% of the proceeds. When she finds out how popular the perfume is and how quickly it is selling she wants to renegotiate the percentage they receive but they refuse. She tries to take them to court and fight but they win. When the war breaks out so,done suggests that this is her chance to end her involvement with them and cancel the contract by denouncing the, as Jews. In the end it does not help her of of the contract and the Wertheimer brothers escape to America.
The woman was driven and the men in her life helped her attain her goal of starting her business and opening stores but she never wanted to beholden to anyone. She insisted on being self sufficient. This interlude between Chanel and two of her men friends shows her strong feelings when she says, "He's going to help me open my shop. I'll not be kept by anyone.' Balsan rolled his eyes, emptying his glass. 'Again with the shop! G-d save us, she's as stubborn as a mule...She'll ruin you if you indulge this fantasy of hers. She'll take every centime you have.' Boy replied, ' I'm prepared for it, You may think her ambition frivolous but I do not. I'm extending her a loan to be repaid with interest."
The story of Chanel's life is a fascinating one. She is orphaned as a young girl when her mother dies and her father sends her and her siblings away. She is raised in a convent by nuns who teach her to sew. She has an inner passion to work that drives her through her life to succeed. She starts her working life as a mistress and a shop owner who makes and sells hats. She grows her business over the years expanding to casual clothing for women, releasing them from corsets, then she creates the little black suit and Chanel No. 5, Coco's signature perfume. And finally she leaves a legacy of the Chanel suit, a collarless jacket and straight skirt and the smell of Chanel No. 5.
C. W. Gortner has done a fabulous job of creating a novel that though not a true biography gives the reader real insight into the life and world of Mademoiselle Coco Chanel.
I know that when I mentioned on Facebook that I wanted to read this book a friend said she wouldn't read about Coco Chanel because she was Antisemitic. But actually I came away from reading this book feeling that Mademoiselle Chanel might actually have assisted Jews escaping France by letting them hide in one of her country homes. During the war she is involved romantically with the German, Baron Hans Gunther von Dincklzge. Though this probably is part of what has led to the suggestion that she was a Nazi sympathizer, this book leaves the reader with the impression that Dincklzge may have been working with resistance to help Jews escape. So Coco did not do anything purposely to help and yes she did denounce her business partner with Parfums Chanel, but she may have been helping indirectly.
The story of disagreement with the perfume distributors, the Wertheimer brothers, was based on the fact that she had negotiated a contract for 10% of the proceeds. When she finds out how popular the perfume is and how quickly it is selling she wants to renegotiate the percentage they receive but they refuse. She tries to take them to court and fight but they win. When the war breaks out so,done suggests that this is her chance to end her involvement with them and cancel the contract by denouncing the, as Jews. In the end it does not help her of of the contract and the Wertheimer brothers escape to America.
The woman was driven and the men in her life helped her attain her goal of starting her business and opening stores but she never wanted to beholden to anyone. She insisted on being self sufficient. This interlude between Chanel and two of her men friends shows her strong feelings when she says, "He's going to help me open my shop. I'll not be kept by anyone.' Balsan rolled his eyes, emptying his glass. 'Again with the shop! G-d save us, she's as stubborn as a mule...She'll ruin you if you indulge this fantasy of hers. She'll take every centime you have.' Boy replied, ' I'm prepared for it, You may think her ambition frivolous but I do not. I'm extending her a loan to be repaid with interest."
The story of Chanel's life is a fascinating one. She is orphaned as a young girl when her mother dies and her father sends her and her siblings away. She is raised in a convent by nuns who teach her to sew. She has an inner passion to work that drives her through her life to succeed. She starts her working life as a mistress and a shop owner who makes and sells hats. She grows her business over the years expanding to casual clothing for women, releasing them from corsets, then she creates the little black suit and Chanel No. 5, Coco's signature perfume. And finally she leaves a legacy of the Chanel suit, a collarless jacket and straight skirt and the smell of Chanel No. 5.
C. W. Gortner has done a fabulous job of creating a novel that though not a true biography gives the reader real insight into the life and world of Mademoiselle Coco Chanel.
Hotel Moscow
Hotel Moscow, by Talia Carner is the story of life in Russia during the break up of communism. Brooke Fielding is a thirty eight year old investment manager working for a company in New York City. While her company is in the middle of a take over she is given a two week vacation. She joins a group of women going to Russia to teach business skills to Russian women starting up small businesses.
Brooke is the child of holocaust survivors. She has been affected by the legacy of her parents, who survived the war when so many others did not. Brooke grew up hearing the stories and fears of her parents. Her parents are Russian Jews who were persecuted during the war and sent to concentration camps. As she travels through Russia, Brooke feels the fear and trepidation her parents felt back during the prewar years. As the story progresses Brooke grapples with her feelings about being Jewish. As her character grows she becomes more understanding of her parents and more comfortable with her Judaism.
Brooke is the child of holocaust survivors. She has been affected by the legacy of her parents, who survived the war when so many others did not. Brooke grew up hearing the stories and fears of her parents. Her parents are Russian Jews who were persecuted during the war and sent to concentration camps. As she travels through Russia, Brooke feels the fear and trepidation her parents felt back during the prewar years. As the story progresses Brooke grapples with her feelings about being Jewish. As her character grows she becomes more understanding of her parents and more comfortable with her Judaism.
Brooke is traveling with a group of women entrepreneurs who will be teaching businesswomen in the newly free Russia skills that will help them succeed in the emerging market.
Traveling in a communist country things are not always what they seem. The story develops with many layers and different perspectives of life in Russia during the 1990s.
Traveling in a communist country things are not always what they seem. The story develops with many layers and different perspectives of life in Russia during the 1990s.
The reader follow the thoughts and feelings of Brooke as she interacts with the women she is trying to help and educate about independence and business skills. She also runs into a criminal scheme being practiced by a group of upper level government employees. Brooke begins to understand her mother better and feels more connected to her Judaism than she ever has before.
This novel is based on personal impressions this author had while traveling in Russia during the political uprising of the Russian parliament against President Boris Yeltsin. Carner has used her own story to write this novel. In an essay written in December 2011, Carner writes, "There were so many women desperate to provide for their children in a country where the majority of households were run by women because the men often drank, beat their wives, and died of alcoholism at the average age of fifty-seven."
Motivated by the Russian women's courage Carner makes a second trip to Russia in October 1993 landing in Moscow two hours after the uprising begins against President Boris Yeltsin. Using the art of the novel, creating wonderful female characters and the intrigue of illegal business dealings, Carner gives the reader a realistic feeling for what it was really like to be in Russia at this time in history.
Motivated by the Russian women's courage Carner makes a second trip to Russia in October 1993 landing in Moscow two hours after the uprising begins against President Boris Yeltsin. Using the art of the novel, creating wonderful female characters and the intrigue of illegal business dealings, Carner gives the reader a realistic feeling for what it was really like to be in Russia at this time in history.
Also quite fun are the patterns of speech used by the Russian women. Here are some examples of the sayings used by the characters: When the character of Olga is explaining to her husband that she wants to help build a better country for her granddaughter, she is outraged that Yeltsin puts out a directive to give all available jobs to men. She says, "it is easier for a donkey when a woman gets off the cart." Another beautiful saying, "Even nightingales can't live on fairy tales." Then later in the story as the women are figuring the criminal scheme that the mafia is putting together Olga tells Brooke, "Even a blind horse can pull a cart, if he 's being lead to water." One last wonderful quote, as Olga tries convince a friend to help make Russia a better place for women to live and work says, "Make yourself into a sheep, and you'll meet a wolf nearby."
Talia Carner won the Forward National Literature Award in the historical fiction category in 2011 for her novel, Jerusalem Maiden. She also wrote Puppet Child and China Doll. She has worked for both Redbook and Savvy Woman magazines. In 1993, Carner was sent twice by the United States Information Agency to Russia, and in 1995 participated in the NGO women's conference in Beijing, China. She is a board member of HBI, the Hadassah, Brandeis Institute, the Jewish women's research center at Brandeis University.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)