What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank by Nathan Englander

I really like the author's 'New American Haggadah', which has some really great stories to read aloud at your Seder while you are going through the usual traditional story.  I have not been one for different haggadahs--I do not need the feminist haggadah or the hippie haggadah or the hip haggadah.  I wasn't born Jewish so I did not arrive in adulthood with any preconceived ideas about what a Seder should and should not include, but I do think that if you are going to participate in a ceremony that is millenniums old that you really should stick to the historical roots for the most part.  For me, the whole point is to be rooted in the past, and then to make that past relevant to the present.  He really did a remarkable job at that.

This is a collection of short stories that are really very much centered on being Jewish and all the manifestations of what that might mean.  There is the good, the bad, and the ugly, all mixed together.  Englander tells it like he sees it--no candy coating and without a chip on his shoulder.  The first story (which is the title story) has a 'Who will hide us?  Who will be the righteous Gentile for me?'  It was a childhood story shared between two firends, but now that they are grown, one of them has 10 children--hiding her family would be a task indeed.  Clearly she was not thinking of having to be kept hidden when she was family planning.  And it is ironic, because in the United States for the foreseeable future the targeted group for hatred would be more likely to be Muslim.  Would I hide or help in that scenario, risking my own family?  I quickly realize that the answer is 'It depends".  Which is not the answer I wanted to have, but the story (and another book I read recently, 'Hope: A Tragedy') made me realize that there is a lot to consider, and then to marvel at the fact that people did in fact do that during WWII.

Englander has a deft way of making us laugh and enjoy and cry and these short stories are a great example of 21st century Jewish story telling.