Book Review: “From Meidelach to Matriarchs: A Journal”

Description:

In recent years, journal writing, or engaging in expressive writing, has been proven to have a positive impact on the participant. It helps one to be more mindful, to be grateful. It helps improve focus and alleviates stress. But studies have shown that simply writing onto a blank page doesn’t necessarily produce positive benefits. As with everything else, it’s the intention that matters. It’s about introspection and connection. In this journal, you will have the opportunity to become acquainted—or reacquainted—with one hundred Jewish women of yesteryear. You will have one hundred opportunities to motivate your creativity, your philanthropy, your Jewish observance—your Jewish identity. Jennifer Wulff, Certified Spiritual Director, states, “Expressive journaling becomes a sacred and holy space where you can explore your deepest questions and strengthen the connections between yourself and the Divine.” Take a few minutes each day. Allow yourself to be inspired. There are prompts to jot down your thoughts, but use the other space to scribble a few notes, ask G-d for guidance—put things into perspective. There is no pressure, no judgement. That’s the beauty of this journal. No one needs to know; it’s just between you and the Woman of Valor that lives inside you.

Author Bio:

Mirta is a second generation Argentine; she was born in Buenos Aires in 1962 and immigrated to the United States that same year. Because of the unique fringe benefits provided by her father’s employer- Pan American Airlines- she returned to her native country frequently- growing up with “un pie acá y un pie allá” (with one foot here and one foot there).

Mirta’s fascination with Jewish history and genealogy, coupled with an obsession for historical period drama, has inspired her to create unique and enlightening novels. She has been a guest speaker for book clubs, sisterhood events, genealogy societies and philanthropic organizations. Sharing her knowledge of Jewish Argentina has become her passion.

Besides being an avid novel reader, she has had a lifelong love for choral music and is a devoted Beatles fan. Follow Mirta on Amazon, Goodreads, Instagram, and BookBub or stop by her blog: www.mirtainestruppauthor.com

My Thoughts:

First of all – apologies to the author for taking so long to finish “From Meidelach to Matriarchs: A Journal.” Had a few things come up this year that derailed me from reviewing books. I just want you to know, I loved every minute of reading your devotional.

Some months ago, Mirta Ines Trupp, author of “Celestial Persuasion,” and “The Meyersons of Meryton” published a devotional, “. Now, I’m not great at reading devotionals. I tend to lose interest midway through. But when I learned it was about Jewish women in history, in relation to the Woman of Valor passage in the Bible (Eshet Chayil; Proverbs 31), I was intrigued. I love history and I’ve always been interested in Judaism. I’m a Christian, so there would be parts of it that I wouldn’t understand, or be able to relate to. But since I enjoyed Mirta’s other books, I wanted to read it. I bought a copy and dove right in. I learned so much, not only about history and Judaism but about myself as well. In each section we are introduced to a Jewish woman of valor and we learn her story. Each section contained five questions, and more than a few made me cry. I don’t know why this devotional stirred up emotions in me, but it did. It also had me scouring the internet for more information about the ladies I learned about.

I recommend this for whoever enjoys history and is searching for the Woman of Valor within! I kind of hope there will be a sequel devotional ::hint, hint:: because I didn’t want it to end.

A friend of mine whose husband survived the Shoah said to me the other day, "The historical and logical endgame of antisemitism is ritual murder. Most recently, on an industrial scale. It is historically acceptable and has sometimes been considered praiseworthy to kill Jewish people for the last two thousand years. That’s the underpinning of the thing. You can't have casual antisemitism, really. It's a repeat offender on a gigantic scale."

I've been thinking about her words a lot lately.

i’m willing to believe some people are genuinely idiots who don’t know that 90%+ of polish jews were killed in the holocaust (and made up half of all poles killed in wwii), but. it’s almost like this shit helps nothing and no one

“When my father was a young man in Vilna, every wall in Europe said, ‘Jews go home to Palestine.’ Fifty years later, when he went back to Europe on a visit, the walls all screamed, ‘Jews get out of Palestine.’”

-amos oz, a tale of love and darkness

almost like people perceive “don’t live here or here either or here either or here either” as “don’t live”. almost like i/p doesn’t boil down to “jews living in a place”

Reminder, part 9 :

Let's debunk an awfully common antisemitic conspiracy theory!

It's called "blood libel" and it's the belief that Jewish people use the blood of non-Jews for religious rituals. We were accused of doing this to Jesus, then to Christians, and lately to Palestinians. So as you can see, it has been used for multiple millenia to demonise us.

Obviously, we don't don't do this, at all. Blood is not even kosher. But even those who don't keep kosher don't do this. Because we just do not.

And even though Jews and allies have debunked this conspiracy countless (truly countless) times before, antisemites — again under the cover of antizionism — keep reusing this same old form of hate.

So please. If you consider yourself an ally, and have the capacity to, educate people about why conspiracies like this are harmful.

Let’s eat! 🍲 🥯

hey. cannot believe i have to say this but the holocaust was about killing jews.

the holocaust and ww2 are not synonymous. the holocaust refers to the "final solution" put in place by the nazis with the explicit intent of killing every single jew in europe. it was the "solution" to the jewish question. the word "holocaust" comes from the greek holokauston which was translated from the hebrew word olah, which is the word for a burnt sacrifice offered whole. this is in reference to the way the nazis burned whole bodies in crematoriums, sometimes just piling them high in the middle of the camps.

six million jews, nearly 2/3 of all jews in europe, were murdered alongside hundreds of thousands of romani and sinti who were also specifically targeted for extermination, as well as queer people, slavs, jehovas witnesses, and political prisoners. jews have still not recovered our pre-shoah population numbers, and i very rarely even see discussions about romani and sinti victims of the holocaust.

there were many things that motivated ww2, and there's plenty of conversations to be had about that. but it is frankly horrific that i have to remind people that the fucking holocaust was specifically and explicitly about exterminating jews. and to be very fucking clear, attempts to frame the holocaust as somehow not specifically about jews is a form of holocaust denial. stop. holy fuck.

From Hollander-Waas Jewish Heritage Services: Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. We gather to mourn the 6 million Jews, 500,000 Romani, and countless others who were murdered for who they were, along with victims of all other genocides both past and present. The long term genealogical ramifications of genocide are hard to imagine. In this infographic prepared by co-founder Caitlin Hollander, you can see just how significant the scale of loss truly is for the Jewish community long-term.

While I don’t have data for this, I think assimilation is a major reason why even the post-Holocaust rate is so low. It’s also other factors like changes in class and education level (which impact how many children people have), but there were many many Jews outside of Europe who saw what happened in the Holocaust and decided that the only way to keep their families safe was to assimilate and raise their children non-Jewish. Even without that, cultural assimilation pressure is intense and hard to fight.

a list of don'ts for goyim in regard to jews and jewishness

stephen fry: I’m Jewish and concerned about antisemitism, and indeed all violence and prejudices, and encourage you to find pride in your identity and humanity to connect with others

the internet, upon hearing him say he’s Jewish: disgusting baby killing genocidal monster showing his ugly side

Jewish Pride Always

Seems like a good time to remind people that the phrase "from the river to the sea" - while apparently popular on this hellsite, is basically a call for the total eradication of not just the Israeli state (and by that I don't mean the government, I mean EVERYTHING) but of every Jew in that area.

SO. If I see it on your blog? Bye. I do not trust you to have anything even remotely approaching a nuanced take to this fucking tragedy.

leftists on tumblr have been so fucking bold the past few days like literally just blatantly calling for genocide:

like????? hello??????? half the world's population of jews lives in israel, whether you like it or not. calling for all israelis to "die brutally" is calling for jewish genocide. ironically, it would be about the same percentage of jews who were killed during the shoah. this isn't activism. this isn't helping palestinians. this is making things actively worse for them just so you can get your antisemitic reactionary rocks off.

People will make posts saying "land back doesn't mean we will kill all the white people" when talking about the US then say genocide is necessary for Palestinians to return to their homes.

People will make posts calling out Israel's use of collective punishment then say all Israeli citizens should be punished for the sins of their government and far-right movement.

A lot of people have convinced themselves that everyone living in Israel is a rich (not true) Jew (not true) who moved there as an adult (modern Israel has existed for nearly a century lots of the people living there were born there) which means it's ok to wish them dead because they are oppressors actively stealing land.

The double standard is obvious.

Also, many of the people who did move there as adults were refugees from ethnic violence and expulsion from, not just the European diaspora, but also from all those Arab Muslim nations western leftist historical revisionists keep claiming would be happy to have peace with Israel if Israel would just stop defending itself from attacks funded by some of those nations.

Just to give some hard numbers on @noparlpf's point. Oh, and just to really ram it home on the "they can go back where they came from!" line?

Yemen, to give one example, has passed laws making it legal to murder Jews.

Not only is the double standard obvious, but the intent is obvious, in that there are only two places where it is acceptable for Jews to exist.

Crushed under the boot as a subjugated minority, or in the grave as a moral lesson.

antisemites will just say antisemitic things these days

yeah this is. it's really hard to listen to people when their base understanding of the facts is so fucked and so antisemitic.

so let's recap:

most israelis are descended from refugees who came to israel because they had to leave their former homes. most israelis do not have dual citizenship anywhere else, and most cannot obtain it.

some of the most common stories are holocaust survivors who came to israel after the holocaust, when going back to their pre-war homes was either impossible to dangerous or just too much to stomach. most holocaust survivors had their homes taken over by non-jewish townspeople, and those who did try to return encountered things like being told they should've died rather than come back.

another very common origin are jews who were forced out of their homes in the middle east and north africa after nationalism arose in those regions and jews were defined out of national identity. they arrived under duress and were treated poorly by israel when they arrived, often being placed into transit camps called maabarot. their descendants are oppressed and marginalized within israel.

the above people have do not have a "second passport" or any country they can return to. most MENA countries will not even allow israeli citizens to visit for any reason. dual citizenship with those countries is impossible.

getting an eastern european passport as a jew with history there is possible, but difficult. you need to correct documentation and most jews i know have not gone through this process. most do not have the documentation or know where to get it, nor do they know where to get the language help to do this.

regardless you have to realize a person cannot simply pick back up and move to poland or hungary or belarus when they don't know the language, know no one there, and do not have a job there just because that's where their great-grandparents are from. i cannot emphasize enough that the holocaust destroyed our communities and that it's not as simple as "moving back." there are jewish communities there but they are a tiny fraction of their former selves. to go "back" would be immigration.

i'm not sure if you thought all jews are maintaining vacation villas in minsk and tunis or something.

though, i do recognize this trope. in the middle ages, france and other countries would routinely expel jews so that they could take all their money, and then allow them back in a few years later. the expelled jews would stay with family in other countries, then come back, and the cycle would repeat. this is where the "dual loyalty" trope comes from.

anyway, it's fascinating to spin "jews have historically always been precarious and on the verge of losing their homes and needing to flee elsewhere" into "those cushy rich jews will always have a safe landing place so go ahead and murder them it's fine"

y'all just hate us, tbh. whether we're in israel, or france, or algeria, or lithuania, or the US.

CW: antisemitism, pale of settlement, pogroms, genocide, cultural erasure

I don't think goyim can really conceive of how much Jews actually hold back in our criticism of antisemitism in media, and when you hear us it is often because we see a dangerous message that you don't... Yet.

I have a complicated relationship with Tim Burton's rendition of The Corpse Bride. I love it as a beautiful piece of stop motion art, but it isn't what it should have been, he took a Jewish story from the Pale and with intention stripped it of its Jewish origins. This alone is incredibly antisemitic. The criticism you will hear has probably been "this is a Jewish story, it should have retained its Jewish elements" but have you heard why we feel strongly about this story?

The story of the corpse bride is incredibly important to me and was born from Jewish trauma and Christian violence. Mobs would routinely attack Jewish weddings, they would murder brides and they would bury them in unmarked graves by the roadside still in their wedding clothes, they reasoned that without Jewish wives there are no Jewish mother's. Jews are intrinsic to the story.

It is antisemitism to take our story, about our pain, at the hands of non-jews and strip it for "useful" parts, in fact it is heartbreaking every time.

We are often forced to pick our battles and fighting a battle over a movie that has already been released by a director with a cult following is not worth it, you only hear us speak up in numbers when the antisemitism may lead to another century of violence, because raising our voice means picking a fight, because so many of you already see our pain as inconvenient and it is exhausting to never be heard.

-anyone can reblog

Rabbis who've studied Judaism all their life: "But again, I am just a human. I can't possibly know everything and this is all my understanding. There is no limit to how much you can learn about Judaism, so there's always more I can learn and more perspectives I can discover."

Goyim on the internet: "Here's what all Jews believe, based on my very thorough research of 'watched Fiddler on the Roof once', and here's why I know more about Judaism than you silly Jews."

being a jew studying preholocaust european jewish history is just *mourns over what could have been, mourns over what could have been, mourns over what could have been, mourns over what could have been, mourns-*

WWII alternate history stories always go “What if the Nazis won.” WHAT IF THE JEWS LIVED?

That’s actually such a good point about alternative history. So many ask “what if we got the bad ending?”, ignorant of the fact we did, that’s just a worse ending.

Asking “what if the Nazis won” allows one to live in the safe world where the Nazis were the root source of evil in WWII. Asking “what if the Jews lived” forces you to confront the fact that almost all of Europe was complicit in their eradication. Every European power, the United states, everyone involved hated the Jewish people. Everyone was complicit in antisemitism, everyone just sat back and let it happen.

It took an invasion of Poland for the UK and France to act, and it took a direct attack on the US for the US to officially get involved. All of the torture, enslavement, and murder of Jews before this were overlooked because not even below the surface, the German antisemitism wasn’t unique. And basically nobody has the guts to address that.

Here’s some history behind one of America’s favorite breakfast foods!

Note: There are also different myths/stories of how bagels came to be which are pretty interesting to read too!

Sources: The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand to New York. The Bagel: the Surprising History

of a Modest Bread.

Dani Ishai Behan

Jewish Pride Always