Match made in Afghanistan

Announcement here (ht tabletmag).  

New book

Forthcoming book on General Grant and the Jews. If I ever get a copy, I'll review it here.

Jewish documents from Afghanistan

An treasure trove of Jewish documents from Afghanistan is on the auction block.

Ed Koch and the Jewish military experience

This podcast has Ed Koch, former mayor of my city, telling a tale of being drafted during WWII with a cohort of other kids from NY, about a quarter who were Jewish.  While the non-Jews were good at the physical stuff, the Jews were better at the more academic stuff, like map reading. One of the soldiers in his training platoon kept insulting the Jews during the training sessions. Koch, at one point threatened the guy and they fought.  Koch lost the fight, but standing up to the guy put an end to the slurs.

Incidentally, the motif of the Jewish soldier not being so good at the physical stuff, but really good at the "theory" is reminiscent of Micha Joseph Berdyczewski's short story "Military Service". The story, originally in Yiddish, is over 100 years old, and took place in Czarist Russia, but still a good read. (To read that story, download Yiddish Tales from Google Books and go to page 281.)

Oh, and while experiences vary, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't much much much better at the academic theory stuff than the physical stuff.

Happy Purim everyone.

Congregation B’nai Kabul

Tablet mag has the story here.