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Author: Ruth Goldhor Chlebowski
2012 Austin Jewish Book Fair
by, Ruth Goldhor Chlebowski
November 10, 2012

The 29th Austin Jewish Book Fair was held October 28 through November 1 at the Dell Jewish Community Campus. It was a pleasure to sit with my “sistahs” again at the fair (Sisterhood members of Congregation Agudas Achim), but the contrast between last year and this was noticeable. Last year the fair opened with the book lover’s luncheon, and this year it closed with it,… [Read More]

Filed Under: Austin Jewish Book Fair, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Maggie Anton, Rashi's Daughters, Rav Hisda's Daughters, Sydney Taylor
1 Comment
Texas Book Festival 2012
by, Ruth Goldhor Chlebowski
October 30, 2012

Austin hosted another Texas Book Festival over a beautifully crisp and sunny fall weekend, October 27-28. Having gone over budget at the vendor tents last year, I resisted temptation this time by heading straight for the capitol to hear authors speak. Not realizing that I would have to stand in line for a security check and then make my way through the bowels of the… [Read More]

Filed Under: Bill and Hillary, Clinton, H.W. Brands, John Spong, Lonesome Dove, Texas Book Festival, Ulysses Grant, William H. Chafe
1 Comment
Cheap Reads
by, Ruth Goldhor Chlebowski
October 23, 2012

I love books. I love bargains. I love bargain books. Where do you do your bargain basement book buying? My first forays into used book buying were with my dad at the venerable Holmes Book Company on 14th Street in Oakland, California. Built in 1924, the store was spacious but dark with unpainted wood everywhere—floors, stairs, display cases, shelves—like Fezziwig’s warehouse crammed with books. My… [Read More]

Filed Under: 99 Cent Only Stores, bargain, Book, dollar store, Half Price Books, Recycled Reads, used books
No Comments
Book Review: Unorthodox by Deborah Feldman
by, Ruth Goldhor Chlebowski
May 29, 2012

Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots (Simon & Schuster, 2012) is Deborah Feldman’s memoir of growing up in Brooklyn in the most insular of Chasidic sects, the Satmars. Fathered by the village idiot and abandoned by her mother, Feldman is raised by her grandparents, a bride at 17, a mother at 19, and a divorcee at 22—at which age she enrolls in Sarah… [Read More]

Filed Under: Chasid, Deborah Feldman, Hasid, memoir, Satmar, Unorthodox
No Comments
Gated Grief by Leila Levinson
by, Ruth Goldhor Chlebowski
April 24, 2012

How does one combine memoir, ethnography, self-discovery, and history, while contributing to two important bodies of literature—Holocaust and psychotherapy—in an eminently readable book? Do what Leila Levinson has done in Gated Grief: The Daughter of a GI Concentration Camp Liberator Discovers a Legacy of Trauma (Cable Publishing, 2011). The breadth of her project is evident even in the awards it has won—one for women’s memoir… [Read More]

Filed Under: concentration camp, ethnography, Gated Grief, Holocaust, Leila Levinson, memoir, Nordhausen, post traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, transgenerational trauma, veterans, World War II
1 Comment
Review: Marriage Rules by Harriet Lerner
by, Ruth Goldhor Chlebowski
February 7, 2012

I begin with two confessional caveats. One, Harriet Goldhor Lerner is my second cousin; we communicate by email, but have never met. Two, I am not Marriage Rules’ (Penguin, 2012) target audience even though my husband of 16 years and I have been in marriage counseling for two years. In 1985, Harriet (she’s family, I can call her by her first name) took the world of… [Read More]

Filed Under: counseling, couples, Dance of Anger, feminist psychology, Harriet Goldhor Lerner, Harriet Lerner, marriage, Marriage Rules, psychology, relationships, therapy
No Comments
Book Review: No Biking in the House Without a Helmet
by, Ruth Goldhor Chlebowski
December 22, 2011

Author Melissa Fay Greene I had the pleasure of meeting Melissa Faye Greene at the Austin Jewish Book Fair in November. She was there to sign No Biking in the House Without a Helmet (Sarah Crichton Books, 2011) and to provide the opening address. No Biking is a memoir chronicling how she and her family of six (mom, dad, four kids) adopted five orphans from overseas—one… [Read More]

Filed Under: adoption, Austin Jewish Book Fair, international adoption, Melissa Fay Greene, memoir, No Biking in the House Without a Helmet
No Comments
An Unspeakable Crime: The Prosecution and Persecution of Leo Frank
by, Ruth Goldhor Chlebowski
December 1, 2011

The case of Leo Frank—the Cornell-educated, Jewish supervisor of the Atlanta Pencil Factory who was convicted for the murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan in 1913 and lynched for the same in 1915—has been with me much as of late. In the last three weeks, I have reviewed Steve Oney’s And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank… [Read More]

Filed Under: Alphin, An Unspeakable Crime, And the Dead Shall Rise, Austin Jewish Book Fair, Elaine Marie Alphin, Leo Frank, Mary Phagan, Musical Parade, Oney, Steve Oney
No Comments
Banquet of Books: Austin Jewish Book Fair 2011
by, Ruth Goldhor Chlebowski
November 19, 2011

It seems fitting that the People of the Book, known for these words of wisdom—“essen epes” (eat something)—should open a book fair with a banquet. The 28th annual Austin Jewish Book Fair, held November 3-12 at the Austin Jewish Community Center (JCC), started with the Book Lovers Luncheon, featuring five-time National Book Award nominee, Melissa Fay Greene, discussing her memoir: No Biking in the House… [Read More]

Filed Under: Austin Jewish Book Fair, Austin Jewish Community Center, Jewish Book Council, Jewish Book Month, Melissa Fay Greene, No Biking in the House Without a Helmet
2 Comments
Review: And the Dead Shall Rise
by, Ruth Goldhor Chlebowski
November 17, 2011

In 2009, when my boss offered me tickets to see the musical “Parade,” I of course said “yes.” I knew that “Parade” retells the story of Leo Frank, the German-Jewish superintendent of Atlanta’s National Pencil Factory, who was convicted of slaying 13-year-old factory worker, Mary Phagan, in 1913. Later, when Frank’s death sentence was commuted to life in prison, an angry mob sprung him from… [Read More]

Filed Under: And the Dead Shall Rise, Anti-Defamation League, Leo Frank, Musical Parade, Steve Oney
2 Comments

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