PTBE maintains a modern Jewish library. The collection is strong in classical Jewish texts, contemporary Jewish fiction, guides for Jewish living, Israel and Jewish history. We have an extensive children's and young adult section.
Our books circulate to the community. There is a fully searchable online catalogue in the library as well as a paper catalogue by title and author. We invite you to visit our library any time during office hours.
  
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We invite you to visit our library!
Sigal Kletter is the temple's librarian. If you would like to join the temple's library volunteers or have a question about the library, please contact Sigal at 650-341-7701 ext. 242 or skletter@ptbe.org. The libaray is staffed on Mondays and Thursdays.
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Check Out These and Other Books and Movies in Our Library
Jews, God and History by Max A. Dimont
Reviewed by Joshua Jaffe
On rereading Max Dimont’s history of the Jews and the relationship to God, I felt a warmth and close affinity with many of the leaders who came forth to aid in the salvation, or rather, the furtherance, of our beliefs.
Theodor Herzl was a writer in
Vienna and was cynical about the Dreyfuss Affaire in
France. He, at first, believed in the guilt of Dreyfus but, as he studied it closely, he came to see the anti-Semitism that was behind it.
Overnight, he threw himself into the problem of survival to offset the cries of the French mob “Death to the Jews.”
He then began to organize what was to become the Zionist ideal. The wealthy Jews rejected the idea but the poor and the orthodox flocked to the concept: of a Jewish state.
The effort to secure land in
Palestine followed and the Arabs and Turks sold the poorest land at outrageous prices, but…it was a state!
World War I almost ended the drive for statehood but the Balfour Declaration kept the concept alive. The struggle for survival, leading to the quick acceptance of the State of
Israel by President Truman, gives each Jew today the gift of that statehood.
This history of our people is more than 500 pages but reads quickly.
Enjoy!
Friendly Fire by A.B Yehoshua
Book review by
Sigal Kletter
A. B Yehoshua is one of the most prominent authors in
Israel. He has many years of writing under his hand. Though the last couple of novels did not find a sympathetic echo in my heart, this novel quite surprised me.
To begin with, it is a short novel, uncharacteristic to Yehoshua’s writing. The story reads on the surface as a ‘simple’ story: A family saga that touches four generations with many life situations: some sad events and some funny situations, some very intimate incidents; everyday people who live in a family cluster and which their acts reflect or affect each other.
The characters are rounded and are easy to relate to: The old man on his wheel chair who needs so much help and his last flame of love; the foreign worker from the Philippines, his kindness and care and close relationship of his family to the Israeli family; the brother-in-law that has escaped to Africa to deal with his grieving sorrow over his son and wife.
The women in this novel are all modern independent women: One who leaves her husband of 40 years to travel to
Africa all by herself for a whole month: One who is a professional engineer who is ‘an old maid on principal,’ an old independent psychologist; an independent thinker daughter-in-law.
If you looking for the under current meanings, you might find many: one of Yehoshua’s philosophical idea of a defected gene in the national, collective identity: fanaticism of a God in contrast of the a zealous husband; a strong under current motive that repeats itself is the idea of disengagement, separation and disconnection of Israelis who leave their birthplace seeking a place to live their life as opposed to Israelis who live on a land not theirs and ‘return to their birthplace [Gaza disengagement] or those that want to live in Israel.
There are other clues to Yehoshua’s views on life, but you will have to read the novel, find the comforting level to relate to it and only then, dig in for more hidden motives and opinions.
Warm recommendation!
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, 2008
A film review by
Sigal Kletter
Watching movies, especially foreign ones, is one of my preferred things to do. As with other movies, I watched this movie, without reading a thing about the plot beforehand.
Although the name gives a hint for what might be the topic, cataloging it as a Holocaust movie just doesn’t do it. The time period is the Second World War in Nazi Germany, but the rest of the plot…one just dives in whole.
Nothing in the plot is as expected, nor is the end. The cinematography is professional and well thought out. The actors have not a single expression of pretense. The setting is meticulously well displayed. And the eyes, Bruno’s eyes, they stay with you for days!
I wouldn’t say it is a must for a Jewish person to go watch the movie. I am not sure I would include it as a Holocaust movie for teens to learn from. But I would say it is a movie for every citizen of the world to watch.
It is a movie that projects the concept that each one of us, each person, is always a part of a bigger group, that there is a bigger picture. Each of us has some effect on circumstances that shape and form societies, laws, way of life. Even if one isolates himself or ignores the surrounding, the events, other people’s reflections or the writing on the wall – one day, someday, sometime it will come back and bite you unexpectedly.
The known poem by Martin Niemoller, was paraphrased by the American alternative band False Impression in 2002:
They first came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics, I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak up.
And this concept is still so very true, even when taken out of the Jewish history context!
The movie is based on a novel by John Boyne, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
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