Shosha

A beautiful mosaic of people, ideas, and loves make up this heart-wrenching tale of human desire, intellect, and dignity. An aspiring writer and a man of the modern world, Aaron has left behind his home and the ways of his parents and grandparents on Krochmalna Street in Warsaw's Jewish ghetto. A patron of the city's Writer's Club, young Aaron is part of a social circle that includes Yiddishists, socialists, and Zionists, both men and women, all hoping to make something of themselves in a hostile world that somehow, on the eve of the Holocaust, still seems to them promising and full of opportunity. No matter his intelligence and talent, at heart Aaron is as inextricably tied to a past, personal and cultural, as his heart is bound to his childhood love, and when he rediscovers Shosha on a visit to Krochmalna, the simple truths of love and the depths of human compassion and dignity are movingly brought to bear.

This is a haunting and compelling novel about love, loss, redemption and the horrors of the holocaust. Set in Jewish Warsaw just before its destruction, Aaron Greidinger, an aspiring writer has the chance to flee and survive the horrors that are to come by heading for the safe shores of America. However he finds he is compelled to stay on, forsaking safety and riches for the simplistic love of Shosha his childhood friend, now a girl-woman for whom time has stood still. Intellectually stunted yet surprisingly wise, Shosha has always loved Aaron, and as death dogs them in the guise of the inevitable destruction of Jewish Warsaw, Shosha and Aaron begin a doomed love affair that will reverberate though the blood and ashes of Poland, to the birth of nation half a world away, Israel... A wonderful book, that is a richly satisfying read from beginning to end.

In Shosha Singer reminds us to focus on the journey as human beings rather than on any specific destination. Shosha, as a love story, asks us to look at what it means to be a living, thinking, feeling being even as the world falls inexorably into a chaos where definitions of normalcy no longer make sense. Even as Hitler, the Nazis, the Communists and, indeed, much of an uncaring western world threatened the continued existence of Eastern European Jews our cast of characters persisted in their exploration of the nature of God and man. While emmeshed in their rituals of relationship and love, they seek to make sense of the perils of day to day existence in an anti-Semetic world. This is a book that allows the reader to look at the world as it was in the late thirties and forties, looking outward from the hearts and minds of a thriving Jewish community soon to be destroyed. We see what the consequences were for people who chose for centuries to not lift up the sword. Past, present and future seem to exist simultaneously. Spiritual and intellectual exploration thrive even in the face of personal and cultural annihalation. There is a somwhat distant and dreamlike quality to the life, loves and adventures of Singer's characters, but it fits the events as they unfold. And, while the story ends with the birth of Israel and new beginnings for survivors of the holocaust, we are reminded that what was continues to live only as long as those who were there are alive to relate the facts, to tell their stories. We are cautioned that when individual and collective realities that surround evil, suffering and loss are lost the universe becomes ever more flawed. This is a tale of evil and catastrophe, as well as a tale of hopefulness and wonder and resiliance of the human spirit. A copy of this book sat on my shelf unread for a long time. I am glad that I read it now, given the almost surreal times in which we are living. Singer's tale of love and survival of the human spirt is as relevant now as it was when it was written. It is not an easy book to read, but one well worth reading.

This man cannot write a weak novel. The character though not lovable are quite intelligent and understandable; you feel for their plight. This is a novel illustrates the life of Polish/Russian jews without the romanticism and sentimentality you often see in literature that illustrates the plight of the jews during World War Two. It is a powerful novel that you will find impossible to forget.

This book about a playwright and the artistic community into which he falls takes great pains to remind the reader that these people are Jews in Poland in the 1930s and that their entire way of life will soon be destroyed. The title character is the embodiment of innocence which the narrator desperately wants but has no tolerance for; a fact painfully spelled out for him by the other women in his life. Deftly the plot spins out of control and the people began talking more and more and before you know it you are in the ideas of what is God? Why do people suffer? Who makes the universe? What should be our place in it? Some of the most profound and compelling insights fall from the characters' lips. So profound that you forget that the plot has fallen by the wayside. Like Kundera, Singer can give us philosophy and compelling storyline and succeed marvelously in both