Oliver Pollak

[caption id="attachment_104750" align="alignright" width="100"] Oliver Polla[/caption]

Oliver B. Pollak, a professor emeritus of history at the University of Nebraska Omaha, and a lawyer, is a correspondent now based in Richmond, California.

His books, available on Amazon, include:

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*A State of Readers: Nebraska’s Carnegie Libraries
* A Year at the Sorbonne: A Proustian Life
*Conflict in Vietnam: An Historical Perspective
*Empires in Collision
*Jewish Life in Omaha and Lincoln: A Photographic History
*Nebraska Courthouses: Contention, Compromise and Community
*Rhodesia/ Zimbabwe
*Theses and Dissertations on Southern Africa
*To Educate and Serve: The Centennial History of Creighton University School of Law, 1904-2004
*University of Nebraska at Omaha  (With Les Valentine)
*Welcome to Omaha

He also contributed to
*Journal of Burma Studies Vol 3: Rise of a Mainland Trading State
*Western States Jewish History, Vol XXXIII, Number 2

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Books That I Declined to Review

When I read a new book I want to turn my hours of page turning into a review. I have done this hundreds of times. Even compulsion has its limits. I list unpublished reviews in my 18,000 word resume under “Unsubmitted.” They were not rejected by an editor, they were never sent to one. Until yesterday it contained three books published between 2007-2014, and now has increased by 33 percent to four titles, totaling 1323 pages. I’m a non-fiction reviewer wary of speculation, creative non-fiction, and historical fiction. [Oliver B. Pollak, Ph.D]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Oliver Pollak

Pandemic Postcard Messages, 1918-1920

The Jewish Welfare Board was created on April 9, 1917, three days after the U.S. declared war on Germany. It wanted to provide services to Jewish troops similar to what Catholic servicemen received from the Knights of Columbus and Protestants from the YMCA. In 1919, after the war was over, the JWB printed tens of thousands of these reassuring cards depicting a grinning doughboy and distributed them to servicemen to send to family and friends. [Oliver B. Pollak, Ph.D]

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Jewish History, Lifestyles, Oliver Pollak, Science, Medicine, & Education, USA

Growth of Jewish Communities Promoted in the Early 20th Century

The headline in the adjoining news clipping is hype. “May” is not “will” or “shall.” Booster describes real estate developers, hucksters and visionaries who wanted to profit from growing communities and increases in real estate prices. Saul Voorsanger, who emigrated from Holland with his wife Sarah in 1893, promoted the growth of the Jewish population. He was a salesman and publicist and the brother of Temple Emanu-El’s Rabbi Jacob Voorsanger. The rabbi started Emanu-El, San Francisco’s weekly Jewish newspaper in 1895 and died in 1908. Sol, Saul or S. became editor. During 1912 several newspapers reported Voorsanger’s visiting chambers of commerce in San Diego, Visalia, Fresno, Modesto, Kings, San Joaquin, and Dinuba. He solicited advertising for a special 75,000 copy edition of Emanu-El to recruit better-off Russian Jews to buy and farm California land, a chimera. [Oliver B. Pollak]

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Jewish History, Oliver Pollak, USA

Thoughts on Organizing: Letter to a Younger Scholar

I started contributing to San Diego Jewish World in November 2017. About 100,000 words later this is my 102nd story. The ingredients are facts, imagination, inspiration, rigor, memory and the compulsion to write. Wife Karen and editor Don are faithful and critical readers. [Oliver B. Pollak, Ph.D]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Lifestyles, Oliver Pollak, Science, Medicine, & Education

The Vietnam Generation: A Personal Reflection

It’s the 4th of July and 60 years since, at the age of 17 while in high school, I enlisted in the U.S. Navy Reserve. My parents, refugees from Germany and Austria, reluctantly gave their consent. My family wore British and German uniforms in WWI, in WWII English, Czech and Theresienstadt garb. [Oliver B. Pollak, Ph.D]

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International, Lifestyles, Oliver Pollak, San Diego County, USA

Historians Will Grapple With Events of January 6, 2021

I woke up Wednesday gratified. An African American and a Jew had won the two Senate runoffs in Georgia. The Democrats would dominate the Senate. Mitch McConnell would be minority leader. Chuck Schumer would be the majority leader. I was working in the garage converting wooden wine boxes with my new Dremel saw into whatever. My wife said, “come up stairs, you’ve got to see this.” The elation was short lived. I watched television from 10 am to 11 pm as I flipped between CNN, MSNBC and FOX, which dropped its “Fair and Balanced” motto in 2017. [Oliver B. Pollak, Ph.D]

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Oliver Pollak, USA

Bibliophilia, Bibliomania and Bookworms

This striking coffee table book is a mix of Architectural Digest treatment visiting homes with gorgeous interiors, and crucial space dedicated to books, and brief philosophical blurbs about loving books. Thirty-two vignettes with lush photography reveal volumes owned by book collectors, authors and bookstore owners, and with a little help from a magnifying glass, the authors and titles on their shelves. [Oliver B. Pollak, Ph.D, J.D]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Oliver Pollak

There are museums for so many interests

The Reader’s Digest in July 2019 highlighted one quirky museum per state: the Alaska Hammer Museum;  the Banana Museum in Mecca, in California’s Riverside County; Colorado’s Washing Machine;  Mississippi’s Apron;  Iowa’s Matchstick;  and Ohio’s Pencil Sharpener museum. These are brick and mortar museums with street addresses, not the burgeoning online website museum. The author, Marissa Laliberte, overlooked the venerable Kool-Aid Museum in Hastings, Nebraska, in favor of the Klown Doll Museum in Plainview. I’ve been to the Mustard Museum in Horab, Wisconsin, and Idaho’s Potato Museum in Blackfoot. [Oliver B. Pollak, Ph.D]

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International, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Oliver Pollak, Travel and Food, USA