By Dr. Steve Rubin / Special to the BJV

Dear Readers,

It’s Spring! Although probably not beach weather just yet, so we’re still suggesting indoor reading, at least for the time being. This month I am recommending When We Flew Away, a fictional account of the early life of Anne Frank by the well-known author, Alice Hoffman. And as long as we are on the subject, I am also recommending that we read (or re-read) the original: The Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank, published in English in 1952 and translated into more than 70 languages.

Designated as a “young adult” novel, the recently published When We Flew Away (2025), is nevertheless a worthwhile and interesting read for all ages. Hoffman imagines Anne and her sister Margo as they go about their daily life in Amsterdam, confide in each other, and share their growing anxieties about the pending war and Nazi occupation. Anne is “nearly eleven” and Margo fourteen. Margo is pretty, a good student, and “diligent.” Anne is imaginative, impulsive, and somewhat of a free spirit—in short, a budding writer. Hoffman aims to normalize the life of Anne, to de-mythicize the young girl whose name has become synonymous with the Holocaust. By allowing us to imagine Anne and Margo as normal young girls, with all the hopes, dreams, and worries typical of their age, Hoffman makes their tragic end all the more human—and all the more devastating.

Although The Diary of a Young Girl, originally published in 1947 in Dutch as Het Acterhuis (“The Annex" or literally "the back house") never mentions the death camps, it is perhaps the most recognized book dealing with the Shoah, one that tugs at the heart, not so much due to its content, but because of our knowledge of what comes after. The Diary is required reading in many middle schools (I know it was in mine). But I venture to say few of us have returned to the story in adulthood: not the play or any of the several films derived from the original diary (all of which romanticize and/or mute the tragedy of Anne’s situation), but the diary itself. Please do—it will be worth your time and will, once again, remind you that one must never forget the murder of the six million at the hands of the Nazis.

Jewish Poetry

April was National Poetry Month as established by the Academy of American Poets. Accordingly, I recommend three noteworthy anthologies of Jewish Poetry: two of Holocaust-related poems, and my own collection of Jewish American poetry.

Holocaust Poetry (1996), edited with an introduction by poet and translator Hilda Schiff, contains more than a hundred poems by a wide range of poets—Jews, several of whom were survivors of the camps (Eli Wiesel, Primo Levi, Paul Celan); non-Jews (Stephen Spender, W. H. Auden Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Anne Sexton); as well as several by those who perished in the camps whose work, preserved after their deaths, gives testimony not only to the horror they endured, but to their will to survive as well.

Poetry of the Holocaust: An Anthology (2019), Jean Boase-Beir and Marian de Vooght, eds. is a more recent, multi-lingual collection of poems from throughout Europe published here in both their original language and English translations. Like the Schiff volume, Poetry of the Holocaust contains work by those European Jews most affected by the events of the Shoah. But it also includes poetry from members of other communities targeted by the Third Reich: the Roma, homosexuals, and those deemed disabled. It’s a unique and moving collection.

Telling and Remembering: A Century of American Jewish Poetry (1998), edited by Steven J. Rubin, is a comprehensive collection of poems by more than fifty poets of the past century. Beginning with the immigrant generation and continuing with a number of well-known mid-century writers (Stanley Kunitz, Karl Shapiro, Alan Ginsberg, Muriel Rukeyser), and concluding with more contemporary poets (Robert Pinsky, Marcia Falk, Louise Gluck), this volume is a reminder of the rich tradition of Jewish poetry in a century that was nevertheless dominated by the work of such fiction writers as Bellow, Malamud, Roth.

Please tell us what you have been reading. We may very well use your suggestions in a future column! I can be reached by email: sjr@adelphi.edu

Steve Rubin, Ph.D. has written and lectured extensively both here and abroad on issues relating to Jewish culture and literature. He also moderates Federation’s popular Current Events seminar, which resumes on Thursday, June 12.