Hadassah
Letters to the Editor
Letters to the Editor: Keep Buying Jewish Books

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A novel Jewish read set in Argentina
In “A Stone for Elka” in the July/August 2025 issue, writer and family genealogist Jennifer Wolf Kam references several sources of information on the trafficking of Eastern European Jewish women to Buenos Aires in the early 20th century. One title missing from the list is the excellent first novel by Nathan Englander, The Ministry of Special Cases. While focusing on the “dirty war” in Buenos Aires, it provides a great amount of detail on Jewish prostitution in that city and the divide between “pure” and “impure” Jews.
Judith Ruderman
Durham, N.C.
Similar to Jennifer Wolf Kam’s quest, I tried for years to track Raquel Boyarsky from Poltava, Ukraine, to Buenos Aires in the same era and finally gave up. I know only a couple of words in Russian, and that language barrier made it difficult. The internet did not exist back when I was looking. After reading this wonderful article, maybe I will try again.
Hope Luxemberg
Amador City, Calif.
Vintage Hadassah
I wish the article “Women With Vintage Appeal” in the July/August issue, about female winemakers in Israel, had included Ruthie Ben Israel. She is the sommelier at the Shfeyah Winery at the Hadassah-supported Meir Shfeyah Youth Aliyah Village. Created in 2005 and run by Ben Israel along with a staff of students trained at the school, the winery produces 3,000 bottles annually. Meir Shfeyah is the only high school in Israel accredited to teach vineyard management and winemaking.
Lauren Stern Kedem
Meir Shfeyah, Israel
The giant footsteps of our founder
My thanks to Carol Ann Schwartz for her informative column, “Shoulder to Shoulder,” in the July/August issue and its fascinating portrait of Henrietta Szold. As a proud life member of Hadassah who bought life memberships for her daughter and granddaughters, I shamefully admit that, though I knew Szold founded the organization, I knew little of her remarkable life.
Armed with this new knowledge, today I am even prouder of my membership. I humbly serve on my local Kol Tikvah Board and will continue to follow, albeit with little steps, in the giant footsteps of our founder.
Dorothy Steinmetz
Lake Worth, Fla.
Let’s keep buying Jewish books
I am glad that Hadassah Magazine featured Ghosts of a Holy War: The 1929 Massacre in Palestine That Ignited the Arab-Israeli Conflict by Yardena Schwartz in the July/August issue, but I would like to add one takeaway that I did not see in the review. Schwartz points out that both the 1929 Hebron massacre and the accompanying attacks in Jerusalem and Safed were triggered by false charges from Arab leaders that Jews were plotting to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque and replace it with a third temple.
Arab leaders today, along with imams and media figures, have continued inciting their people with these claims, resulting in riots and terror attacks. Tellingly, Hamas named its October 7, 2023, attack Al-Aqsa Flood. This is one reason that Schwartz argues that the 1929 massacre and the October 7 onslaught were similar—not only in their barbarism, but in their cause. Unlike the reviewer, I found her attempts to connect the dots between the two convincing.
I was also happy to read Leslie Gonzalez’s letter to the editor about author Leah Lax, and to learn that my Jewish book club was not the only one whose members decided to buy and read Lax’s Not From Here: The Song of America upon learning of her cancellation. Let’s keep buying books by Jewish authors, especially those who’ve been shunned like Lax.
Rachel Peck
Corvallis, Ore.
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