Avraham Rosenblum
And Diaspora
Jerusalem Is Calling (Aderet)

The Diaspora Yeshiva Band first made its mark on the world of Jewish music in the late seventies. Its clever, unapologetic rock, played to Hebrew and English Jewish-themed lyrics, found a ready audience among younger people who longed for a Jewish band that performed contemporary music. Many a yeshivah or seminary student in Israel spent countless a motzei Shabbos on Mount Zion, at Diaspora’s legendary melavah malkah performances.

This writer had many opportunities to see the band, led by Avraham Rosenblum and Ben Zion Solomon, in the seventies and early eighties. They never failed to impress.

Having made its last album, the stunning The Last Diaspora, almost fifteen years ago, the group had settled for the occasional reunion concert. Now Diaspora is back (the words “Yeshiva Band” are history), with Jerusalem Is Calling; and while it does not measure up to, say, The Last Diaspora or At the Gate of Return, it contains several excellent songs, enough to make the cassette or CD a worthwhile purchase.

Among the fine songs are the title track, “Bar Yochai,” the playful “Rhythm Messiahs,” and the absolutely gorgeous “Hinei Yamim Ba’im” (a Shlomo Carlebach composition). One criticism: Diaspora proved long ago, on “Hakol Yoducha,” that it could effectively reproduce the Philadelphia soul sound; the band does not duplicate this success on the weak “Shma B’nee.”

This writer saw Diaspora at a recent concert, and can report that their live performance is as powerful as ever. Rosenblum’s brilliant guitar and singing are complemented by Solomon’s intense vocal styling and his talent on several instruments. Now that The Last Diaspora wasn’t, we hope to hear yet more from this truly great band.

Insight, by Baila Susholz
(Hard cover, 130 pp., distributed by Feldheim)

Here is a wonderful book of poetry on themes inspired primarily by Tanach. The author, a veteran educator in the Bais Yaakov system, has an eye for the beauty of nature and an expressive pen, and her poetry is certain to inspire readers.

Each poem is accompanied by a photograph or painting, some of nature scenes, others with Jewish themes. A portion of the photography is striking.

Insight is an excellent coffee table book.

There Once Was a World, by Yaffa Eliach
(Hard cover, 818 pp., $50; Little, Brown)

Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, zt’l, was quoted as saying that one cannot appreciate what the Jewish people lost during the Holocaust until we understand what existed beforehand. There Once Was a World goes a long way to fill that void. We have here an unprecedented study of a shtetl, from its origins until its horrible last moments.

Prof. Yaffa Eliach, one of twenty-nine survivors of 3,500 Eishyshok Jews, has written a monumental monograph that brings to life the Europe that was. She masterfully weaves the grand Jewish history of Eishyshok through the Middle Ages until its destruction in 1941. The result of her copious research is a comprehensive sociological study of Eishyshok’s culture — its rabbis, its rules, its charitable organizations, its warp and woof.

Ultimately, this book is about the Holocaust. Prof. Eliach’s reputation among Holocaust historians was secure even before the publication of There Once Was a World. Now there can be no doubt; her place is etched in stone.

—Reviews by Avraham M. Goldstein