Customer Reviews

Menorahs, Mezuzas, and Other Jewish Symbols

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Who would trust a book that begins with an egregious error in the very first paragraph of the first page of its introduction? "Righteous Noah and his family," writes author Miriam Chaikin, "were saved (from the flood)...along with two of every kind of animal."

So this author, who presumes to instruct her readers on the meaning and significance of Jewish symbols, doesn't even know that Noah took fourteen (seven pairs) of each clean animal into the ark. Only the others were limited to a single pair.

On page three, Chaikin asserts that "God made a pact with Abraham and Sarah" in which they promised to abandon their pagan beliefs and "worship only God." In return, "God promised to protect them and make their descendants into a powerful nation 'as numerous as the stars.'" Check the biblical text and you'll find that, much as a feminist reading might wish it, Sarah is absent from that conversation, which is between Abraham and God alone. Chaikin may infer Sarah's - or anyone else's - inclusion in that event, but she is not welcome to misrepresent the text.

Moving on to her first chapter, Chaikin attempts to explain the Sabbath and its symbols. In doing so, she asserts that "there is a saying that Orthodox Jews hate to see the Sabbath end...(and that there is another) saying (that)Orthodox Jews smell the spices for the sake of the Sabbath soul." One wonders where she found a saying that limits itself to Orthodox Jews, or where she got the idea that only a particular group of Jews are reluctant to take leave of Sabbath delights or inhale sweet odors to recall its pleasantness.

And so, for nine chapters, Chaikin wanders across a vast universe of of Jewish concepts, superstitions, and symbols, attempting to explain everything from angels and demons to circumcision. Like a student writing a term paper, she has consulted a number of sources but, lacking scholarship or discernment, the information she imparts is of varying accuracy or insight.

Unfortunately, Chaikin's book is nicely printed on fine paper with pleasant illustrations. So it has garnered positive blurbs from the Kirkus Review and the ALA booklist. (Which by itself should be a caveat for relying on those sources for recommendations).

It's astonishing that a woman of so little information and insight should be the author of numerous children's Jewish books. I haven't read any of them and, as a result of this one, don't intend to.

As for the reader who really wants to know about anything touched on in Chaikin's book, he or she should obtain a copy of the very estimable Encyclopedia of the Jewish Religion, edited by Zwi Werblovsky and Geoffrey Wigoder, which contains concise and precise entries on a truly broad range of Jewish religious life and ideas.