Author: Webb

The Unknown Holiday

• The invisibility of Shavuot in the Jewish community is simply the reflection of a wider American problem.

[…] Our communal leaders may express deep concern about Jewish “continuity,” but when they fund Holocaust memorials more lavishly than day schools, we have reason to doubt their sincerity.

An American Jew in … Not Quite Paris

Book writing is a solitary profession. As the sole author of my works, I take the credit, I take the blame. About once a year, usually when my hardcover book is published, I am encouraged to venture out of my cocoon to publicize my work on what is known in the biz as the book tour. I like book tours. They allow me to do some face-to-face interaction with those who buy and read my books. My fans are wonderful — honest and sincere. I get feedback — mostly good, sometimes not so good, but always given with an honorable heart. Why else would they stand in line, sometimes for over an hour, just to have their books inked with my scrawl?

In Israel, Holocaust education has become, for many, a last resort in creating a sense of identity and attachment for a younger generation which has become increasingly alienated from a country which is continually fighting for its existence and to which this same youth is being asked to fight and, perhaps, make the supreme sacrifice. The use of the Israeli flag as a blatant symbol of nationalism during the March of the Living is, at one and the same time, a moment of pride for the youth of a country which rose from the ashes of the mass extermination, but equally a cynical manipulation of history’s greatest human tragedy to promote nationalism and to cover up for the failures of the education system back home in creating a sense of identity and loyalty to the state in which they reside.