Last week, Booknik looked for a bride, thought about intricacies of love for Jews, shared other people’s reminiscences, tried to become a museum exhibit, invented a electric engine, and was surprised to learn that Napoleon was not just a cake. At the same time, Booknik Jr. learned why the winter this year was one day longer than usual, and cooked potato pancakes with Pettson and Findus.
Farewell to Illusions, by Vladimir Pozner
No matter how one might feel about the author of the book, Vladimir Pozner had a fantastic and improbable life. He has lived through the entire modern history. He was the son of a French aristocratic lady and a descendant of Spanish Jews. He was in Paris when Nazis occupied it. He was a teenage boy in New York where a street hood asked him for the first time if he was a Jew, and he replied, “Mind your own frigging business.” He went to school in East Berlin occupied with the soviet troops, and graduated and fell in love in Moscow, during the notorious “doctors’ case.” Booknik’s book critic and author Leo Gursky seems to have a mind for turning Vladimir Pozner into a character in of his own books.
Anti-Semitism and Heroism
The Diary, by L.V. Shaporina
In one of her first diary entries, Shaporina quotes the new, just published novel by Leo Tolstoy, Resurrection. In the end of her private chronicle, she copies down the Western intellectuals’ response to the Sinyavsky and Daniel’s trial. It was amazing that Tolstoy and Sinyavsky could fit into one human life, our literary critic Mikhail Edelstein writes, but it is even more amazing that someone took pains to chronicle, day by day, that monstrous reality that was between those two literary figures of different epochs.
…and many other charismatic chronicles in the Books & Reviews section.
Booknik’s special reporters Gali-Dana and Nekod Singers talk with the Jerusalem Museum of Nature Yevgeny Reznitsky. The museum is sixty years old, and its first exhibits are of the same age. In the 1950s, some Germans came here from Munster, with the idea of helping the Jewish people after the Shoah. They spent three months with the museum, creating and establishing a number of its present collections. It sounds ambiguous but it was true, stuffed animals were a sort of retribution, they served a compensation of some kind to the Jewish people.
…and many other natural notches in the Articles & Interviews section.
Madame Expertise. The Memoir by Rakhil Gladshteyn, Part 3
“We are entering the House of the Unions’ Column Hall. Lenin is drowned in wreathes and flowers, he lies as if he is alive. The mourning music rings in our ears. Yes, he does not speak any more, neither he runs to and fro on his podium in agitation. Yet he is forever with us. There are no other thoughts these days, neither there is any other news in newspapers, everyone writes only about him. The Central Committee throws encouraging slogans, like, Lenin is alive! Lenin will always remain with us!”
The Abomination of Destruction
Booknik’s far-flung Israeli reporter Elisha Zinde is alien to nostalgia, and nevertheless he writes about Moscow of his childhood years. “There was a special enchanted place in Moscow at that time. When we lived downtown, and my dad, let his soul rest in peace, was not drunk or busy working (this concurrence of circumstance never happened too often), we walked to the Dynamo Stadium. We went there to watch people playing gorodki, to gather chestnuts in the alleys, or watch games from the stands where it was possible to bring either beer or lemonade to.”
…and many other remembrances of things past in the Columns & Columns section.
Haim Be’er was born in 1945, and grew up in Eretz Yisrael. He authored a book of poetry and five novels, and he teaches Hebrew literature. He also leads tours around the literary places of interest in Israel. Booknik is proud to present an excerpt of his novel, translated into Russian .
…and many other exceptional extracts in the Stories & Essays section.
Perpetuum Schmobile 29: Boris Jacobi and an Electric Motor
Moritz Hermann (Boris Semyonovich) von Jacobi is an ideal example of a scientist who does not have anything more important than the science itself. He changed his universities, motherlands, fields, religions and even names, only to further conduct his studies of electrical physics.
Hebrarium, the Lexicon of Jewish Whatnots, Sh-5
Who found the bride for our video magician Kirill Chichayev? Where did the soviet Jews come from? Why do they blow shofars? Watch our Hebrarium and be amazed.
The Flickering Jew 17: The Jew We All Loved
David Gotsman presented an entirely new image of a Jew in Russian cinema. Our viewers have never seen a Jew like him. He was courageous, honest, patriotic, and charming, Odessa-style. The mix worked well, and Gotsman became another good guy, much beloved by the public. The TV series Liquidation did not evoke the charms of the soviet past for its viewers, it did not emphasize any special historical roles the Jews played, but it told the cop story well, with much comic detail. This is what our favorite Jew Booknik’s editor-in-chief and film critic Sergey Kuznetsov believes.
…and many other favorite pharaohs in the Video Blog section.
There is a motley colored city in Israel, Tel Aviv. There they have blue sea, green palm trees, houses of wonderful forms and constructions, and very bright people who do not look like anyone else. That city has the Most Multicolored Street, and it is called Nachalat Binyamin. More often, it is just a street though, like any other one, with its old houses, cafes, and little shops. Yet twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays, it turns into a veritable City of Artisans, and it is a wonder to behold. A carnival and a fair start there.
The Extra Day. Ten Facts about February 29
Statistically, there are about four million people on this planet who were born on February 29. They comprise less than one-tenth percent of the total Earth population. The chance of being born on this day is only 0.066 per cent.
The School for Leaders
In the perestroika time, Jewish organizations emerged almost everywhere in the Soviet Union, yet educational institutions were clustered principally in capitals. The situation changed however in the late 1990s—early 2000s when the Or Avner Foundation schools network appeared. The Volgograd school principal Yelena Nikitina told our reporter what they teach kids there.
Lessons from Findus
Pettsons och Findus Kokbok, by Sven Nordqvist and Christine Samuelsson
It all started when Findus found a scrap of paper in the pan cupboard where a recipe for potato pancakes was written. Therefore, Findus and Pettson decided to collect all such scraps throughout the house, and this is how this cookbook began. Findus did all gathering and collecting, and he does not like sharp smells and boring tasks. Pettson helped him in peeling potatoes. The third person on their team was Sven Nordqvist who drew all illustrations and wrote the recipes down. When your hands and paws are filled with kitchen knives and rolling pins, you do not have anything to hold your pen with, do you?
…and many other remarkable recipes at Booknik Jr., also known as Family Booknik, our own web site for kids and their parents.
We don't have any towels. We had one once, but it was stolen by a hotel. Booknik and Family Booknik are supported by the AVI CHAI Foundation.
