New York – The Orthodox Jewish author of a new art-lit. book on the Holocaust says he’s hoping that the single word “Jew” will make readers stop and reflect on the enormity of the pain and destruction inflicted upon Jews during the event.
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THE NEW YORK TIMES (http://bit.ly/LZCPCW) reports that the book, titled “And Every Single One Was Someone,” is conceived and written by Phil Chernofsky, a former math, science, and Jewish studies teacher at Yeshiva of Central Queens in Kew Garden Hills.
Viewed by Chernofsky as a conversation starter, testament to those lost in the Holocaust, and book on self-reflection all rolled into one, “Every Single One” contains 1,250 pages of the single word “Jew” written in small font, side-by-side, 6 million times.
The idea for the book—which creates almost an optical illusion for readers as they flip through its pages—came to Chernofsky back in the 1970s while teaching in Queens.
Charged with heading up the school bulletin board for Holocaust Remembrance Day one year, Chernofsky said he had his students write the word “Jew” on a blank sheet of paper as many times as they could over a half-hour period.
“We added up the whole class,” Chernofsky said, “It was 40,000—nothing.”
Chernofsky said when going through the book he wants readers to stop and focus on a single “Jew” entry, and think.
“That Jew could be you. Next to him is your brother. Oh, look, your uncles and aunts and cousins and your whole extended family. A row, a line, those are your classmates. Now you get lost in a kind of meditative state where you look at one word, ‘Jew,’ you look at one Jew, you focus on it and then your mind starts to go because who is he, where did he live, what did he want to do when he grew up?”
And what exactly will this book accomplish? The 99% of the earth who know of the Shoah don’t need this to be reminded, and the 1% who don’t care or deny won’t read it. The $ needed to be used toward living Jews in need.
I like it. The nishmassam tzura btsror hachaim. Its to gove a slight idea what millions is
old ive seen this book before
who is going to buy it?
Story interest. Will you think of the hatred when you see all the names “jew” listed or as myself, do you think of the fact that each time they write Jew, it refers to a human being.
If the man can sell enough of them to turn the profit on the book that didn’t cost so much to produce and certainly didn’t take any time, effort or creativity to write, why not?
Wow, I am up to page 352 of a review copy. I hope it gets better.