Related Content

• Q & A | Doug Stanton: Drawing lessons from U.S. troops in Afghanistan
• Q & A | Joe Starita: Chief Standing Bear's journey for justice 130 years ago
• Q & A | David Wolman: From old English to e-mail
• Q & A | S.L. Price: A tragedy's impact on baseball
• Q & A | Jeff Leen: A heroine of female wrestling
• Q & A | Ralph Nader: Describing his vision for America -- and why he uses fiction to explain it
• Q & A | Carolina De Robertis: Tribute to Uruguay
• Q & A | Gerald Martin: On Gabriel García Márquez
• Q & A | Benjamin Moser: On Clarice Lispector
• Q & A | Aryeh Rubin: Jewish sages of today
• Q & A | Zeida Cecilia-Mendez: On Fernando Bujones
• Q & A | Peter Golenbock: On George Steinbrenner
• Q & A | John Dufresne: Balancing fiction, autobiography
• Q & A | Gina Montaner: Women in literary life
• Q & A | Melvin Van Peebles: Filmmaker writes a graphic novel
• Q & A | Lars Schoultz: U.S. and the Cuban Revolution
• Q & A | Joyce Purnick: On Michael Bloomberg
• Q & A | Andrés Neuman: A musical childhood in Argentina
• Q & A | Cecilia Rodríguez Milanés: Marielitos, balseros and other exiles
• Q & A | Tracy Kidder: A Burundian student's experience
• Q & A | Sid Jacobson: Lessons from Vlad the Impaler
• Q & A | Stuart E. Weisberg: On Rep. Barney Frank
• Q & A | Francine Prose: On Anne Frank
• Q & A | Ana Menendez: Writing novels
• Q & A | Dennis Lehane: FIU is fertile ground for literary stylists
• Q & A | Lyah Beth LeFlore: African American mothers and daughters
• Q & A | Al Gore: The former vice president issues a call to action
• Q & A | Joan Biskupic's 'American Original': What's inarguable is that Scalia remains a source of curiosity
• Q & A | Jaime Bayly: A conservative antibourgeois
• Q & A | Jack E. Davis: On Marjory Stoneman Douglas
• Q & A | Liz Balmaseda: True life inspires fiction
• Q & A | Roxanna Elden: Joys, perils of teaching
• Q & A | Bob Graham: An owner's manual on government
• Q & A | Sadia Shepard: On memoirs
• Q & A | Meg Cabot: Advice for girls

A book's inscription and Jewish tragedy

During a trip to Israel earlier this month, I stopped in Stein's secondhand bookshop on King George Street in Jerusalem.

Stein's occupies a very special place in Israel's Central European heritage. When the Jews of Frankfurt, Vienna, Berlin and Linz fled to Palestine to escape the Nazis in the 1930s, many left in time to ship their furniture and books with them. Others, who escaped later, fled with only a suitcase or two. But even then, being Central European Jews -- among the most well read and highly educated people in all of Europe -- they often brought their precious books along. Goethe and Schiller, Heine and Lessing.

Over the decades, as these German and Austrian Jewish refugees have grown old and died in Israel, their children and grandchildren -- most of whom do not read German -- have brought their books to Stein's by the box load.

Jewish cemetery desecrated in eastern France

A Jewish cemetery in eastern France was desecrated Wednesday, with at least 18 gravestones marked with swastikas and overturned, police and Jewish officials said.

The desecration in a Strasbourg cemetery came as Jews marked the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz death camp, a symbol of the Holocaust, when the Nazis killed millions.

France's main Jewish organization, CRIF, said at least 18 tombstones at the Cronenbourg cemetery were found Wednesday marked with swastikas and 13 of them were overturned.

Honor for anti-Semite

O n Jan. 22, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko honored Stepan Bandera by posthumously bestowing on him the state honor, ``Hero of Ukraine.'' The Soviet KGB assassinated Bandera, a Ukrainian nationalist-in-exile, in 1959. Many Ukrainians, including Ukrainian emigre groups in Canada, pressed Yushchenko to grant the honor, which, according to one group, ``would restore justice and truth about Bandera and the . . . struggle for liberation that he headed.''

To this day many Ukrainians view Bandera as a martyred freedom fighter. But as Radio Free Europe reports, Bandera remains a ``controversial figure.''

There should be no controversy. Bandera was a Nazi collaborator who lived with his deputies under German protection after World War II began. In preparation for the attack on the Sovet Union, the Nazis recruited Bandera's followers to act as Ukrainian-speaking policemen and to serve in two Ukrainian volunteer army battalions. By working with the Nazis, Bandera hoped to free Ukraine from Soviet rule

`Meditate and discover wonders around us'

I n synagogues worldwide Jews today beseech God for grace and mercy. It is the celebration of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, the opening of the book of life, which closes on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

According to Jewish tradition, God gets closer to us during these 10 days, so an exemplary behavior is expected before the holy days end in a fast.

While many Jews find the traditional prayers to be meditative in themselves, for a small group of Jews, forgiveness can be secured through other means: by feeling our inner emptiness and imperfections through contemplation and visualization, even repeating a mantra to achieve a state of deep concentration.

Author appearances

WEDNESDAY

Abdella Taïa and ``Salvation Army.'' 6:30 p.m. Books & Books, 265 Aragon Ave., Coral Gables.

Martin Fletcher and ``Breaking News: A Stunning and Memorable Account of Reporting from Some of the Most Dangerous Places in the World.'' 7:30 p.m. David Posnack Jewish Community Center, 5850 S. Pine Island Rd., Davie. $10.