Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A Life

Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A Life by Jane Sherron De Hart, 723 pages.

A wonderfully detailed, and accessible biography of America's most popular, iconic, and, arguably, the most consistently fair Supreme Court Justice.
The author met Ginsburg in 1998 or so, and between 2000 and 2006 was able to interview the justice about once per year.
De Hart follows Ginsburg from her childhood in Flatbush, through law school at Harvard and Columbia, her time teaching at Rutgers, and at NYU, and her travels and writing on comparative law. The author does a wonderful job showing Ginsburg as a woman committed to her work and her family as she  began expanding her career and working on cases for the ACLU.
After a series of key cases before the Supreme Court, Ginsburg was appointed to the D.C. Circuit in 1980 by Jimmy Carter, and then to the Supreme Court by Bill Clinton in 1993. Throughout all of this De Hart keeps the book moving at a pace that keeps you reading. It's a fascinating story and it is extremely well-told.

Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations

Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations by Ronen Bergman, 753 pages.

Bergman, a correspondent for the Israeli newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, presents a detailed, and well-indexed history of the Israeli government's evolving program of assassinations. Targets have varied over the years from very specific individuals, with layers of approval necessary, to the "Grass Widow" method that at times seems like "anyone within a given area with a gun is a target."
It was amazing to see how many future Prime Ministers were involved in the various incarnations of these programs, from Menachem Begin as commander of the Irgun, to former paratrooper Ariel Sharon as IDF commander, and then Defense Minister, to Yitzhak Rabin as defense minister.
From letter bombs (which almost never worked), to the failed tracking a terrorist to Oslo which resulted in the  gunning down the wrong man, to the carefully planned, but almost comically botched poisoning of Khaled Mashal in Jordan right outside of the Hamas offices, the Mossad and Shin Bet were not always as successful as their reputation would indicate.
The more recent methods involving computers, drones, decoys, and shooting blinds seem to be more effective and have a quicker response time, but the morality is perhaps even murkier. This interesting, and provocative book raises many questions.

The Rescue Board: The Untold Story of America's Efforts to Save the Jews of Europe

The Rescue Board: The Untold Story of America's Efforts to Save the Jews of Europe by Rebecca Erbelding, 368 pages.

An interesting look at a little-known group of Americans who attempted to overcome the strong antisemitism in the United States government and to do something, anything, to rescue as many of Europe's Jews as possible. While they were able to claim some successes, and the tireless work of John Pehle, Florence Hodel, and Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau did help save a number of people, they were hampered by the antisemitic attitudes of members of the State department and members of the British government (both State and the British seemed to object to any plans). Often they were stymied by the "best way we can save everyone is by winning the war" attitude of the military. And so the War Refugee Board and its agents attempted to get non-combatant and allied governments to agree to take Jewish refugees in. They attempted to get visas and papers to Jews, to bribe Nazi officials, anything to let Jews leave occupied territories. Raoul Wallenberg worked for the WRB, as did a number of other interesting agents, some selfless, and some more on the self-serving side of the spectrum. A fascinating book.

Paper Love: Searching for the Girl My Grandfather Left Behind / Sarah Wildman 386 pp.

Wildman's Grandfather Karl was a successful medical doctor in the United States, but in 1939, as a young man, he was forced to leave Vienna with several other family members.  In spite of losing several members of his extended family in the Holocaust, and enduring serious financial stress during his early years in the US, he went on to lead what could be called a charmed life:  happy marriage, loving family, tremendous career success, exotic travel, and good health.  It is only after his death that the granddaughter discovered that Karl had a 'true love' he was forced to leave behind in Vienna.

Paper Love is Wildman's attempt to find this woman, Valerie (Valy) Scheftel.   Her research takes her to the Czech Republic, Vienna, Berlin, and London over a period of many years.  The memoir is a multi-layered reading experience.  We learn Valerie's story, Karl's story, Sarah's story as she meets contemporary German and Austrian historians and gleans their perspective on their countries' dark histories.  It is also the story of unraveling the paper trail left behind by the bureaucrats of the Third Reich.

Wildman's writing is eloquent, fluid, and deeply emotional.  Although the reader can guess Valy's fate in broad strokes, the details are quite suspenseful in Wildman's retelling through Valy's many letters.   Perhaps it is Karl's story that is even more interesting though.  A man whose most salient characteristic was optimism, Sarah comes to understand that Karl would have spent his life as a survivor, always coming to terms with what he had left behind.

I Pity the Poor Immigrant / Zachary Lazar 249 pp.

A fascinating novel that I can't quite categorize.  Hannah is an American journalist in Israel investigating the murder of a poet.  She is estranged from her father, as the poet was estranged from his son.  In a way I can't explain, this is all connected to the story of  gangster Meyer Lansky who, when faced with prosecution in the US, spent time in Israel before being re-patriated.  (He too had strained relations with his son, severely disabled from birth.)  Another character is a Holocaust survivor who might have been Lansky's mistress, and who surfaces in New York during Hannah's childhood.  Nominally this is the story of the poet's murder, but it's written as almost a collage of parent/child images with a strong echoes of the Abraham and Isaac story.  The writing is graceful and strange without feeling overly 'experimental.'  Appreciated if not quite understood.

Falling out of Time / David Grossman 193 pp.

This is a work that can't be classified: part poem, part drama, part surreal prose, it is a meditation on death, and specifically the death of children.  (So whatever it is, I hope it isn't autobiographical.)  But I wonder.  We first meet The Walking Man and his wife.  The Walking Man circles the town, night and day, trying to get 'there,' the place where his son is.  "There is no there," says his wife, but he goes anyway.  He meets the Centaur, half man, half desk, in a house piled with children's furniture and toys.  There are the Town Chronicler, the Duke, and several others.  They are all circling, moving, trying to get 'there.'  Exquisitely painful and beautiful reading.
P.S.  I wish I hadn't done it, but after publishing the above, I looked.  Grossman's son was killed in '06 in southern Lebanon when his tank was struck by a rocket.

The Golem and the Jinni / Helene Wecker 486 pp.

I really wanted to like this book.  It's the story of Chava, a freshly-made Golem who finds herself all alone on the streets of late 19th century New York until she meets Ahmad, a centuries-old Jinni in much the same circumstances.  And Wecker wrote a terrific beginning, setting the stage for a story that promised suspense, romance and fairy tale magic.  The end was not bad either, wrapping things up in a satisfying if unsurprising way.  But the middle!  It went on for far too long so that finishing the book became a chore.  More disappointing was the inability to warm to either of the main characters. Yes, Chava is meant to be a destructive automaton made of clay, and she transcended that, but not by enough.  And Ahmad is peevish and 2-dimensional.  (A good trick, since his essence is fire.)  Wecker also seems to have backed away from the promise of the title: shouldn't such a book have something to say about the intermingling of the two cultures represented by all the Golems and the Jinnis of the world?  I couldn't find any strong contemporary resonance here, only hints of a better book that never materialized.