Dr. Chesler touches on the debilitating effects to the mind that the era of “infotainment” has had on an entire generation. As the word implies, it is a hybrid of sorts, a medium that incorporates ostensibly hard news with spuriously researched celebrity gossip and headlines that are redolent of the yellowist of tabloids.

While reading may become a lost art, Dr. Chesler hits the nail on the proverbial head when she speaks of books that are slapped together by ghost writers for the sake of cashing in on the latest celebrity rage or cultural phenomenon. While the internet, Kindle or other quick reads may be sufficient for the MTV generation, I believe that there are those who still hunger for well written books. On that note, I’d like to propose the idea that Dr. Chesler pen a book on Torah concepts. She did, after all, sum up the entire Torah in her last sentence,
“love or regard our neighbor as we love and regard ourselves,” to be kind to others, try to do no harm, to do some good on earth, and to walk humbly with God.”

Is your daughter’s work on line? Can we view it? I would like to see it.

Phyllis
You touched that soft chord in me again. I am weepy sitting here with my books all around me – people are shocked that my front room is just another room for my books – only an extra chair at the huge table for guests. I also no longer lend books and write all over them, use them, talk with them.

But of all the beauty of this post,this is what I sent to my friends:

“that once, she’d had dreams about peace that have been chipped away at, tarnished, even shattered. She asked me what I thought about this.

“Don’t give up your dreams or your ideals, simply allow reality a place at the table. Anyway, Jewish dreams, Jewish ideals belong to a Messianic Age. We’re not there yet. Our job is to take up our places in the great chain of Being, to “love or regard our neighbor as we love and regard ourselves,” to be kind to others, try to do no harm, to do some good on earth, and to walk humbly with God.””

A beautiful, thoughtful, very moviong speech and an essay I will treasure.

As someone who not only writes books, but also reviews them, edits them and when possible sees them through the press, I value them as treasures we cannot ever afford to lose.

Though I depend heavily on email and the internet, those electronic media are ephemeral and are valued only insofar as they support my love of books, rèal books, physical books, embodiments of history, language, and culture. Ebooks, kendel, and whatever–fimne as supplements, but not as replacements for the tangible objects, which we can feel, smell, taste and hold lovingly in our hands.

When my son had to go through a conversion process before his marriage, one of the key questions he was asked by the rabbis was: How would someone know your home was Jewish. His answer: It is full of books. That is clearly what they wanted to hear.

When he told me that story, I knew my wife and I had managed to keep alive our ancient tradition for at least one more generation.

My daughter makes books as works of art, some very tiny, some intricate and labyrinthine constructions, some as big as a room through which you can walk. That too is a real and manifest continuation of our Jewish civilization.

Norman

As Harry Golden used to say, “Enjoy, enjoy”.

The people of the book, rich and poor, male and female alike have been continually literate and thinking abstractly far longer than any other people. A voluminous Bible and an extensive liturgy have demanded literacy of Jews of all classes for more than two millennia. Business letters regarding her property by a Jewish woman in hiding from the Romans were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Technology will replace printed, quarto-bound books just as books replaced hand-written parchments. Literacy and numeracy, however, will remain critical skills. The telephone replaced letter writing; film and television buried the American short story and the magazines that carried it. But in a completely unanticipated turn, e-mail and the blogosphere have revived writing among millions of ordinary people.

Blogging is a brand new medium whose broader parameters are not yet defined. For the moment it’s the Wild West of communication. Anybody anywhere can say anything he or she wants to as many people as wish to listen. Good ideas and bad, sane communication or insane—it’s all grist for the electronic mill, archived forever. Governments can’t yet control it and businessmen haven’t yet figured out how to profit from it. But as the last national election demonstrates, its impact is enormous.

For those of us who love books, the passing of this cultural artifact is profoundly saddening. But it will pass and sooner than most people anticipate. American book publishing is mostly in the hands of German publishers. Editorial and design standards are in the sub-basement. The Kindle is merely the crude beginning of a much larger change. The book as we know it is on the way to the boneyard.

But literature, if not the novel, textbook, cookbook and how-to book, will in some new form survive.

My three daughters attended Rabbi Arthur Schneier’s Park East Day School on very generous scholarships. We could not have afforded a Jewish education for them otherwise. The education they received was sufficient to qualify all three for Stuyvesant High School, New York’s premier science school and for outstanding universities thereafter. All three are currently headed for advanced degrees, two in Bible related fields. The third, building on stellar performance in math contests for which she was trained and coached by a brilliant Park East teacher from sixth through eighth grade, is headed for a career in mathematics.

The glorious sunshine you experienced during your visit is the only weather Park East children know.