Books, Poetry & Short Stories

Three plots make ‘Karolina’s Twins’ exciting reading

Karolina’s Twins by Ronald H. Balson; © 2016 St. Martin’s Press; ISBN 9781250-089045; 306 pages; $15.99. By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO – Author Balson skillfully weaves three plots together.  There’s the story of a Holocaust survivor and the twin girls she hopes are still alive; a court drama prompted by that elderly woman’s son […]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison

Author Gaines recalls his mental illness treatment

One of These Things First by Steven Gaines; © 2016 Delphinium Books; ISBN 9781883-285715; 196 pages; $14.95. By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO – If you like a story well told, with perhaps a smidgen of name-dropping, you’ll be entertained by author/ columnist Steven Gaines’ recollections of his tumultuous adolescence. It was a period when

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison

‘We are Jews Again’ tells of Refuseniks’ progress

“We Are Jews Again,” Jewish Activism in the Soviet Union by Yuli Kosharovsky, translated by Stefani Hoffman, edited by Ann Komaromi, Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, NY, © 2017, ISBN 978-0-8156-3519-2, p. 319, plus appendices, notes, bibliography, and index, $37.95 By Fred Reiss, Ed.D. WINCHESTER, California –  Many Jews participated in the 1917 Russian Revolution, ousting

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, International, Jewish History

Former IDF clerk finds identity in cartooning

Story by Donald H. Harrison; photo by Shor M. Masori SAN DIEGO – Miriam Libicki, whose graphic memoir about life as a clerk in the Israel Defense Forces was on sale at the annual Comic-Con Convention, has been plunging into issues of personal identity:  hers and those of Russian-born friends. She grew up in Ohio

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Shor M. Masori

The Library of Congress opened its catalogs to the world. Here’s why it matters

By Melissa Levine, Lead Copyright Officer, Librarian, University of Michigan. The Library of Congress is in Washington, D.C. Valerii Iavtushenko/Shutterstock.com Imagine you wanted to find books or journal articles on a particular subject. Or find manuscripts by a particular author. Or locate serials, music or maps. You would use a library catalog that includes facts

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories

Were the Jack the Ripper murders an elaborate anti-Semitic frameup?

Author Stephen Senise says it’s no coincidence that Britain’s most infamous unsolved crime is alleged to have been committed by a Jew — it was planned that way all along By Robert Philpot LONDON — It is the greatest whodunit in British history. For nearly 130 years, writers, criminologists, historians and amateur sleuths have pondered

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, International, Jewish History