40 Years after Yom Kippur

For a 16-year-old new immigrant, the siren interrupting Yom Kippur prayers was very unexpected. The war took the entire country by surprise.

The siren blared suddenly, unexpectedly, just after 2pm. Like many other observant Jews in Jerusalem at that moment, I was in synagogue, anxiously waiting for the Yom Kippur Musaf service to end so that I could take a break from the never-ending prayers. I was  totally unprepared for a siren on the holiest day of the year. The other congregants were unprepared as well.

I had made Aliyah the previous year from Sioux City, Iowa, where nothing ever happened. In my first months of living in a new country I was initiated as an Israeli. There was a horrific terrorist attack at Lod Airport, and a few months later, Palestinian terrorists killed our athletes, including a classmate's father, in Munich. I grew up quickly.

Every Holocaust Survivor Has a Story

There is no number tattooed on the arm of Sal Wainberg, yet he is a survivor of the Holocaust. According to Deb Levy, who penned Wainberg's memoir, entitled Bury the Hot, what Sal "doesn't have branded on his skin, he carries deep inside… he doesn't have a number; just a narrative."

Wainberg "has wanted to write his story for a long time," Levy writes. "Seeing the written testimony is the final step he needs in the five stages of grief. He needs to know he's left his legacy."

Levy, whose parents are long-time friends of Wainberg and his wife, never knew that he had a Holocaust story to tell. As she began to interview him with the purpose of putting his memories into book-form, she wondered how he could recall, with such detail, the horror of growing up in war-torn Poland. "There are memoires, sensations as clear to me now as they were some 70 odd years ago," he told her. "They swim through my mind, with traces of understanding I had as a child and reconciliations I've come to in my later years."

Israel's Leading Crime Writer Debuts in English

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Sarah Glazer, an 82-year-old grandmother who lives in a quiet Tel Aviv neighborhood, has nothing better to do with her time than to use a recently purchased, and quite expensive, pair of binoculars to spy on her neighbors. There's this young man from down the street who walks his dog in the middle of the night. Sarah observes the man carefully, ready to make an official complaint if the man doesn't clean up after his dog's nocturnal messes. This time, she sees, the man bends down to collect the dog poo with a bag.

Sarah takes her medicine. After all, the doctor told her to space the pills six hours apart, and that is why she is awake at this ungodly hour. But then, something else brings her back to the window. She readjusts the night vision of her binoculars and spots a man and a woman, going at each other like animals. They are animals, she thinks, but she keeps her eyes glued to the scene.

Sarah Glazer doesn't realize it at the time, but she has just witnessed a brutal rape. The police are called in and hurry to solve the high-profile case. Detective Eli Nahum sees an easy conviction when he quickly arrests a likely suspect. Nahum pushes for the victim to positively identify the suspect in a line-up, but as the case becomes complicated due to legal technicalities, Nahum begins to doubt the suspect's guilt.

How to Write a Thriller like Dan Brown

I remember boarding a flight from Israel to the United States in January 2004, with a copy of The Da Vinci Code in hand. The plane made a stopover in Prague but I barely paid attention. When we landed in Newark, I had just finished reading what I considered the best thriller I had ever read. On my return flight to Israel, I read Angels and Demons in its entirety.

Ever since those non-stop reading sessions, I have been enthralled by the novels of Dan Brown. I purchased and eagerly read Deception Point and Digital Fortress. I pounced on The Lost Symbol shortly after it was published.

Now I have just finished reading Inferno. While I no longer read at the speed of flight, I still finished the novel in a very short time. This won't be a review stating how much I enjoyed the book and why. Instead, it's a review of what makes Dan Brown such a successful writer of thrillers.

Thrills in Exotic Locations

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In the opening action sequence of the James Bond movie, "Skyfall", our hero is racing on a motorcycle after an unnamed assailant through the streets of Istanbul, Turkey. The bikes drive over the rooftops of the Grand Bazaar and then crash through a window into the souk itself, where they speed past startled shopkeepers and shoppers. Eventually they reach the railroad tracks where we witness a fight to the death atop a speeding train.

"Take the shot," the command comes from London and a rifle is fired. James Bond plunges off the train to the river far below. The opening credits of the movie begin to roll across the screen.

Rewind to the motorcycle chase. While most viewers are wondering how 007 manages to stay on the bike as it bounds up stairways and through glass, I am enthralled by the scenery barely glimpsed behind the motorcycles. The minarets of Istanbul's amazing mosques. The exotic attractions and fragrances of the markets. The scenic valley through which the train travels. These scenes of a fascinating city bring back memories of my own visit to Istanbul in the spring of 2010.

The Gates of Jerusalem

Jaffa Gate

A small, walled area in the center of Jerusalem contains holy sites revered by followers of the three major monotheistic religions. The Temple Mount, where the First and Second Temples once stood, is now home to the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The retaining wall of the Temple Mount is known as the Western Wall (formerly the Wailing Wall) and it is the largest outdoor synagogue in the world. And Jesus walked along the Via Dolorosa carrying his cross to his crucifixion. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is considered by many Christians to be where Jesus was buried and the purported site of his resurrection.

The Old City of Jerusalem is without a doubt the most colorful tourist destination in Israel. The narrow passageways of the Arab shuk. The modern housing and reconstructed synagogues of the Jewish Quarter. The wide Cardo street passing on the very stones put into place by the Roman conquerors of the city. The many restaurants, the yeshivot schools, the carcasses of animals hanging from their hooks in tourists' faces, the carpets and olive wood souvenirs in the Christian Quarter. No one can understand Jerusalem's uniqueness without a visit to the Old City.

While people have lived in this area of Jerusalem since early Biblical times, the current walls were constructed in 1538 by Suleiman the Magnificent, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. Legend says that Suleiman's architects mistakenly left Mt. Zion outside the city walls. Mt. Zion is revered as the traditional location of the Last Supper and the burial site of King David.

Join me on a colorful virtual tour of the gates of the Old City. And then visit Jerusalem to see them yourself!

Let Fiction Be Your Passport to the World

I recently finished reading The Art of Hearing Heartbeats by Jan-Philipp Sendker, an inspirational love story set in Burma. Admittedly, I don't usually read love stories, and I'm not too keen on inspirational novels either. What fascinated me most about the book was its setting. Burma! Burma - a land of impoverished villages, superstitions, and Eastern values. I really know nothing at all about Burma, yet I was swept away by this novel's descriptions of the country and its people.

This is what I enjoy most about reading. Whenever I pick up a book set in an unusual location I find myself traveling there in my mind. I dive into the customs, history, and cuisine of a place that I imagine based on the narrative and the way the characters interact in that setting. Reading a good book is the perfect way to see the world. I don't read science fiction or fantasy; there is enough in the real world to keep my interest for a long time.

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I Am Fascinated by Jesus

No, not by the central figure of Christianity. I am interested in the Jewish rebel leader who stars in Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan.

There is history and there is belief. As a Jew living in the modern State of Israel, I am putting my beliefs and faith aside and openly stating that I am interested in the historical figure that lived in this land two thousand years ago. There are two hard facts about Jesus of Nazareth. First of all, Jesus was a Jew who led a popular Jewish movement at a very tumultuous time. The second fact is that Rome crucified Jesus for doing so.

These two facts set the stage for the meticulously researched biography by Reza Aslan, published just last month. Entitled Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, this book challenges many long-held assumptions about the man whose life and teachings form the foundations of Christianity. Aslan is not the first author to consider the case of the historical Jesus, but his jargon-free, unprejudiced, reader-friendly presentation of both Scripture and history will ensure that his message will reach a large lay audience.