#JAHM Throwback: "The Book of Life in America," 2006

4:21PM Apr 29, 2025

Speakers:

Heidi Rabinowitz

Linda Glaser

Phil Myzel

Susan Shane-Linder

Susan Goldman Rubin

Nancy Pearl

Keywords:

Jewish life

Bridge to America

Linda Glaser

Phil Meizel

American Jewish summer

Susan Shane Linder

Susan Goldman Rubin

Le Chaim

Nancy Pearl

book recommendations

Jewish music

Camp Coleman

Jewish history

New Amsterdam

Rebecca Gratz.

[MUSIC, INTRO] Welcome to The Book of Life, a show about Jewish people and the books we read, the music we listen to, and the movies we watch. I'm Heidi Estrin. The Book of Life is a podcast service of the Feldman Library at Congregation B'nai Israel in Boca Raton, Florida. In this July, 2006 episode of our podcast we celebrate Jewish life in America. We'll talk to Linda Glaser and Phil Myzel, author and subject of the novel Bridge to America. Musician Susan Shane Linder will review the CD American Jewish Summer. We'll speak to Susan Goldman Rubin, author of L'Chaim, To Jewish Life in America. And we'll get book recommendations from Super-Librarian Nancy Pearl. So light up your sparklers and get ready for some great Jewish summer reading. [MUSIC FADES]

Bridge to America, published by Houghton Mifflin in 2005, was named a Notable Children's Book of Jewish Content by the Association of Jewish Libraries. The novel was written by Linda Glaser, based on the life story of Phil Myzel. Fivel, as he was called back in Poland, lived through hunger and attacks by Cossacks as the family waited for Pa to send them tickets to America. Glaser shares Fivel's story of life in the old country and his transformation into Phil, an American boy living in Minnesota. Phil Myzel lives in Duluth to this day, and is a member of Linda Glaser's synagogue. We spoke to both of them by phone.

How did you learn of Phil's story in the first place?

He came in one day to my daughter's sixth grade Sunday school class and shared his life stories from the shtetl. And he had such an incredible spirit despite all the hardship, and I found his story very compelling, especially because my grandparents came from that same part of the world, and I didn't know their stories that well, but here I'm with someone in the flesh who actually had lived in quote, unquote, the old country and knew about that life. And I think I woke up at two in the morning that night with the whole story swirling around in my head, and I thought, I must write this down. And so that's the way I got started.

I'd never talked to any kids before. First thing I said was, it's so beautiful to see a bunch of nice kids like you, so well dressed. Well, I says, I noticed that you're all having something to eat. I says, When I was your age in the old country, we didn't have anything like that to eat, I says, and I noticed you all have white bread, and to me, that was a big delicacy, because white bread was so rare. You know, in our little shtetl, we used to have the real hard, dry rye bread made out of potatoes and turnips and whatever you could, and a little flour, whatever you could put in. And it was so heavy. A loaf of bread, the size of a pound loaf here weighed about five pounds. It was so heavy, and it was hard when it came out of the oven. And since we didn't have much to eat, we used to keep it in our mouth until it got softer, and then we could eat it. By that time we were so tired we couldn't eat anymore.

I felt like one of the themes in the book was also about kindness. That right before the book was going to press, I found this wonderful Yiddish proverb about the highest form of wisdom is kindness. And I thought, Yes, that's what this book is about.

I could write a whole book about Beryl the baker, the people that he saved by by helping them out, you know, the people on top of being poor, they were religious too, so they couldn't cook on Saturday. And this Beryl, he had a bakery, and he had a few chickens in the back and a cow, so he had milk. And we would bring our meal that we did on Friday, which wasn't a lot, you know, potatoes and soup and a few beans or whatever we could find, and we would take it over to his bakery store and keep it overnight, so that Saturday, it would be nice and warm. When I would bring the stuff home on Saturday, we'd find little pieces of meat and some bones and stuff like that to make the soup taste a little better. And we weren't the only ones that he did it for. He did it for all the villagers in that little shtetl, but I often think of this man. And you know, sometimes when I go to bed, I think I wonder what happened to Beryl the baker.

Ma had said, grow up to be like Beryl with a big heart. And I knew that Phil had a big heart. Phil and I did book signings; each presentation that we went to, at least one person from the audience was someone from his past who came up to him and said, You helped us when we were really poor. You gave us food. He and his brother had a grocery store. And I said I would have put it in the book if I had known and he said, Well, I don't like to brag. It's a good feeling to know that people think, well of you.

Well, I feel good about that book. The reason I'd like to have them read it is to show what a wonderful, wonderful country this is in America, the freedom. You can go out. You don't have to worry about being attacked. You can go to school if you want to. But this is really all I want to tell the kids in America, how grateful they should be living in a beautiful country like this, where you have all the freedom you want, and it's really wonderful to know that you can just about be anybody you want to. And in the old country, you couldn't be anybody because you were Jewish and you were poor, and that's the way it remained.

This story really seems to touch people. Kids have come up to me, not even Jewish kids. It somehow seems to touch a core with people. In fact, there's a mother who just called me who said that her fourth grader told her, we have to get this book and I want to read it together, because her teacher had read it to them, and the mother was so taken with it that now she has asked for permission to make it into a play for their Community Playhouse. It really, really is touching people. It just has astounded me.

That Linda is really one wonderful person. And you know, the reason the book is so good and I cry when I read it, is because when she wrote it, you think that she was part of the family that lived there and went through all these things that I did, she cried as much as I did when I used to tell it, because it's all true. It's exactly the way it happened.

Well, thank you so much for sharing all these memories.

Thank you. This has been really fun.

Heidi, I wish I'd have the pleasure of meeting you and Linda, I would take you out for a wonderful dinner if you ever come to Duluth.

I'll remember that!

Well, honey, that's that's a deal. When, when I say something, a promise made is a debt unpaid. It's all on me, baby! Just remember that.

I will!

[MUSIC: NOT BY MIGHT] Susan Shane Linder is the music director at Congregation B'nai Israel in Boca Raton, Florida, and a recording artist in her own right. A long time camper, Susan reviews for us the CD American Jewish Summer: Songs of the Jewish Youth Camping Movement compiled by Michael Isaacson for the Jewish Music Group in 2005.

[MUSIC: SHALOM RAV] I grew up at Camp Coleman in Cleveland, Georgia. Went there from 1974 to 1981 and then I went to Camp Kutz in Warwick, New York, which is a leadership camp.

Great memories, great memories. It almost puts me physically in a different place because certain songs I hear, I remember the first time I heard it. I remember where I was at a summer camp in a particular building, and remember hearing it for the first time.

This is a great CD, just from all the great artists, new and old. You can come to one place to find the great music.

[MUSIC: MITZVAH GORERET MITZVAH] Summer Camp. Your Jewish music style is a little bit different. Fun, spirited. During the summer, it sort of gives you an opportunity to let your hair down and just rock and roll, not only learn new songs, but make summer camp memories. From this CD, I would say that they're probably all my favorites. I love Not By Might, Shalom Rav, Mitzvah Goreret Mitzvah is a big hit. Shabbos by Sam Glazer, another fabulous one.

[MUSIC: SHABBOS] They say that cantors and song leaders pray twice, once in their reading and once in their singing. It sort of brings everybody together. Everybody can read separately in their own book, but then when you come together and you sing it together, it brings it to life. And it just always bring a smile to my face. Makes me feel happy. [MUSIC FADES]

Susan Goldman Rubin is the highly acclaimed author of 15 books for children. She mainly writes non fiction, social histories and biographies, and her love of art shines through all her work. We spoke to her during her recent visit to Florida about her book L'Chaim: To Jewish Life in America, a Notable Children's Book of Jewish Content, published by Abrams in 2004.

Susan, one of your recent books is L'Chaim: To Jewish Life in America, which you wrote in celebration of the 350th year of Jewish life in America. How did those first Jews arrive so long ago?

They came on a ship called the St Catherine, and they arrived in New Amsterdam, which later became my hometown, New York, in 1654. Now, I've got to admit this was news to me when I started the project, and the book was published in association with the Jewish Museum of New York, and I met with the educational director, who said, "and of course, the first community of Jews came to to America in 1654" and I just nodded my head as though I knew this all along, but I didn't.

How has living in America affected the Jewish people?

I don't know if I'm the one to be qualified, because I grew up in the Bronx, so from my perspective, everybody was Jewish. You know, the whole school was not there for Jewish holidays. Maybe two kids showed up. But I realize, of course, that it's very different in other parts of the country, and there's this ongoing challenge to maintain our Judaism and to face the temptation of becoming more assimilated.

How have Jews affected America? Oh, my goodness. This is so thrilling and fills me with so much pride. As I researched the book, L'Chaim, there was so much to leave out. I discovered stories of people that I hadn't even known of before, like Rebecca Gratz, who established the Sunday School movement. It is said that she was the model for Sir Walter Scott's book Ivanhoe. She was the model for the character named Rebecca. The story of Ben and Jerry and their ice cream business. And, of course, the movie business. Steven Spielberg, I had written a whole book about him. But there have been so many people in the arts, which is the field dear to me. Frank Gehry came from Canada. The fish is his symbol. He still talks about his grandma keeping a live carp in the bathtub to make gefilte fish. In proportion to our numbers, I think it is staggering the number of Jews who have made significant contributions in all the fields, government, business, finance, the arts, science. So I think our contribution has been phenomenal.

What was the most interesting thing that you learned as you were researching L'Chaim?

One of the funniest things was that Wyatt Earp's common law wife was a German Jewish woman, and that they lived together as man and wife for 46 years, and that he is buried in a Jewish cemetery in Colma, California. I was amazed to find out that there were Jewish pioneers in Alaska, and that there are three mountains named for Jews in Alaska, Mount Ripinski, Mount Neuberger and Mount Applebaum. And I was amazed to find out that there really were Jewish cowboys. And for those of us who grew up in New York, this was just staggering that they really were there. I did a talk recently in Tucson, and I had used a photograph of the first mayor of Tucson, who was Jewish, and his son, and they're standing there holding Winchester rifles. And the photograph, to me, was so hilarious and curious. Well, when I went to Tucson, everybody knows that photograph. It turns out this man was a fastidious dresser who always wore a long morning coat and tie and starched collar. But he owned stock in the Winchester rifle company, and they dressed up in these outfits for the purposes of the picture. So the wonderful thing about doing these books and going out and talking is that you meet people and learn more about the very stuff you thought you knew that you were the authority of and you're not at all. It just adds information all the time.

Tell us about your newest book, The Cat with the Yellow Star.

Oh, this book is dear to me. This is a book done with a co author, Ela Weissberger. It's her story. Ela, who came from Sudetenland in what was then Czechoslovakia, was imprisoned at Terezin when she was 11 years old, and she was there for three and a half years until liberation, and her story of what friendship meant to her and art and music. Terezin was an incredible place because of the cultural life that went on there. And Ela was selected to sing the part of the cat in a children's opera called Brundibar and she sang in all 55 performances. And it was one of the most joyous experiences of her life, as she said, "when we were singing, we forgot all our troubles," and when she was performing as the cat, it was the only time she was allowed to remove her yellow star. I felt this was a story that had great significance for all of us, because, again, it's a story of hope and courage and the dignity of the human spirit in the worst of times, in the most evil of periods, to let friendship and music sustain you.

The research for these books must be very intensive. How do you go about it?

I'm so glad you asked me that question, because I love to use primary sources. Of course, I always start any book with reading, reading, reading, and these days, the reading is augmented by videos, by a lot of sound recordings, music. With Terezin. I listen to the music composed at Terezin, and I watch documentary films. But very important to me is meeting actual people, people who either lived that period I'm writing about, or who knew the person I'm writing about. So I do that with every book I do.

Susan Goldman Rubin, thank you so much for speaking with us.

Heidi, thank you for asking me, I am just honored to be a guest on your show. [MUSICAL STING]

Nancy Pearl is something of a cult figure among librarians and other book lovers. As a librarian and reading advocate, she created the One Community, One Book movement in 1998 with "If All of Seattle Read the Same Book." She reviews books on National Public Radio, on her Pearl's Picks website, on her podcast from KUOW's, The Beat, and on her monthly TV show on the Seattle Channel. She is the author of Book Lust and More Book Lust, and is the only librarian ever to have become the model for an action figure. We spoke to Nancy by phone at her home in Seattle.

Nancy, you are the queen of book recommendations with suggestions on your website, your podcast, your TV show. What Jewish book can you recommend to our listeners?

Well, one of my favorite books in the last year is a historical novel by Mary Doria Russell. The book A Thread of Grace is set in the last years of World War II, and one of the things that Mary wanted to do in this book was explore why in northern Italy, close to 90% of the Jewish residents, both Italian Jews and those who came as refugees from other countries, survived World War II, whereas, as we know, the percentage was pretty much the opposite in other Eastern European countries. As she was writing this book, what she did was take a very, very diverse group of characters, Jews from all different walks of life, as well as non Jewish Italian characters, and present them with this really important question, what would you do to survive or to help someone survive? What I liked about this book so much is the fact that she raises all of these really great moral concerns. When I had a chance to interview Mary Doria Russell, I asked her how she decided who lived and who died in her book, and she gave me this just a really interesting answer, which was that she asked her son for each character to flip a coin, and heads that character lived and tails that character died, which is when you think about it, not so different from what happened during that war.

Were there any other books that you wanted to recommend?

Last Days of Summer by Steve Kluger, oh, it's so wonderful. It's the story of Jewish boy in Brooklyn just before World War II. Joey Margolis is searching for a role model in his life, and he fastens upon a New York Giants baseball player named Charlie Banks. And this book consists of letters between Charlie and Joey. Joey's report card, notes home from his teacher or his principal to his long suffering mother, and it's one of those books that has a laugh on every single page. I mean, it is just the most fun to read. You read the last page and you're just laughing, but at the same time, tears are rolling down your face. So that's another great book.

Can you tell us about the Rule of Fifty?

I had been really thinking for a long time how important it is that people give themselves permission not to slog through books that they're not enjoying. Just because a book won a prize or because your best friend loves the book, if you're not enjoying the book, what that really means is that that book, for that moment, it's not the right book for you. So I always say that what you need to do is put books down and not feel guilty. It's really important to me that people love to read, not just read because they feel they have to, although I have to say, Heidi, if it's a school assignment or for your book club, I do think you need to read the whole book. So I came up with the Rule of 50, which is that you should give a book 50 pages, and at the bottom of page 50, ask yourself, "Am I really enjoying it?" If you're not, return it to the library or lend it to a friend or put it on the bookshelf and wait until maybe your mood would change and you want to try it again. And that rule for me worked really, really well, until my own 50 started edging ever closer to 60. And then I realized that when you're over 50, time is really short, and the world of books is really, really large. And so I had to give a little corollary to my Rule of 50, which is that when you are 51 and older, you subtract your age from 100 and that number, which grows smaller every year, is the number of pages that you should read before you give up on a book. What this means is that this is a great reward for those of us growing old. And it also means that when we turn 100 and we can judge a book by its cover!

That's great! Nancy Pearl, thanks so much for speaking with us.

My pleasure. Heidi.

[MUSIC, OUTRO] If you'd like to share a page from your own Book of Life, or to express your opinion on our show about a particular book, CD, or video owned by the Feldman Library, email me Heidi Estrin at heidi@cbiboca.org or call our new listener comment line at 206-880-8265. Just just so you know, this is not a toll free number. Our background music is provided by the Freilachmakers Klezmer String Band from Sacramento, California, whose CDS feature upbeat music from the Ashkenazic and Sephardic traditions with Brazilian, Gypsy, and Celtic influences. Borrow their CDs at the Feldman Library or buy your own copies at Freilachmakers.com. To download episodes of The Book of Life podcast, visit us on the web at JewishBooks.blogspot.com. That's Jewishbooks (one word) dot, B L O G S P O T dot com. Links to the books and CDs mentioned in the show are available on this website. Thanks for listening, everybody and happy reading.