Yosl Rakover Talks to God

Zvi Kolitz

ISBN 10: 022406035X / ISBN 13: 9780224060356

Published by Jonathan Cape, 1999

About this Item

THERE ARE NO TARIFFS OR CUSTOMS DUTIES ON BOOKS. As the German tanks advance street by street, destroying the Warsaw Ghetto, one of the few remaining fighters, Yosl Rakover, writes out his last words to God, he seals the text in a glass bottle and thrusts it into the rubble before preparing to die. This text surfaces in Europe in the 1950s, is passed from hand to hand, broadcast on Radio Berlin, where it is heard and acclaimed by Thomas Mann as a religious masterpiece, is anthologised, and translated into many languages. But what is hailed as the greatest testament of the entire Holocaust is in fact a short story, written for a Yiddish newspaper by a remarkable young Jew, Zvi Kolitz, in 1946, in Buenos Aires, where he is raising money for the Underground in Palestine in their struggle to establish a State of Israel. The story of what happened to the text, and to Zvi Kolitz in the 50 years since, and their eventual rejoining, forms the second part of the book recounted by Paul Badde, the German journalist who discovered it all.Published 1999 Hardback. As new.

Seller Inventory # 431604

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Yosl Rakover Talks to God
• Publisher: Jonathan Cape
• Publication Date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 022406035X
• ISBN 13: 9780224060356
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

Libro usado en buenas condiciones, por su antiguedad podria contener seņales normales de uso

Review

Yosl Rakover Talks to God, a short story that was thought for years to be a nonfiction testimonial, is one of the most highly regarded works of literature to emerge from the Holocaust. It presents itself as the last words of a dying Jew to God. Yosl Rakover, a resistance fighter against the German assault on the Warsaw Ghetto, and the last surviving member of his family, takes pen to paper on April 28, 1943, and writes a searing confession of strength and humility. ("The sun probably has no idea how little I regret that I shall never see it again.") He then seals the story in a glass bottle and hides it in the rubble before returning to the battle in which he will die. This edition of the story includes a long essay about its composition and reception by journalist Paul Badde, an essay from the 1950s by the French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, and a response to that essay by Leon Wieseltier (the author of Kaddish). This is a strange and beautiful book, with great power to persuade its readers that we must take time to state for ourselves the nature of our belief or unbelief. Yosl Rakover cherishes the story of a Jew who escaped the Spanish Inquisition and prayed: "I will always believe in You. I will love You always and forever--even despite you." Many readers will cherish Yosl Rakover Talks to God in a similar way. --Michael Joseph Gross