The Girl Who Counted Numbers

by Roslyn Bernstein

"This compelling, character-driven story will captivate even those with limited knowledge of Jewish history, the Nazis, or Eichmann and teach valuable lessons along the way. An engrossing mystery wrapped in a coming-of-age story and the heart-rending legacy of the Holocaust." - Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)Susan Reich is a 17-year-old American who goes to Israel seeking to solve a family mystery. Susan’s quest takes her to unexpected places where she confronts layers of history that she never knew. While trying to find her missing uncle, with the Adolf Eichmann trial in the background, she explores awakening emotions in herself and gets involved in the political struggles of the moment.

The seven months that Roslyn Bernstein spent in Jerusalem in 1961, when she listened to the stories of immigrants and survivors and daydreamed about their meanings, was a source of inspiration for The Girl Who Counted Numbers. She has been attentive to historical accuracies of time and place but the story of Susan Reich, her family, and friends is fictional.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Jewish

290 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 12, 2022

Reviews

[Vivian · Rating 4 out of 5]

With three stories interwoven into one main one this book is a complex study of human insight, self reflection and growth, and forgiveness of oneself, interwoven with the story of Israeli society in the early 60s.
The Holocaust, Eichmann trial in Israel, differences in society treatment between Ashkenazis Jews and Moroccan Jews in the Israeli society and a taboo love are some of the themes that the book explores and that make you think and search deep inside yourself.

[Paula S.]

This book tells a compelling story of a deeply imagined group of individuals. At the same time, it evokes a critical moment in the evolution of the state of Israel. In its precision and descriptive richness, it is also a record of a place and a time that moves and informs today's reader.

[Cassidy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel takes the reader back in time to Israel in the 1960s. A time when refugees from all over the world were establishing their homes here. A very complicated time period. The cultural divide between the Ashkenazi (European) immigrants and the immigrants from non-Ashkenzi (e.g., Moroccan, Egyptian, Yemenite) backgrounds was a real thing. The author does an excellent job conveying the plight of Morrocan Jewish immigrants – the rampant prejudice they faced and their economic plight. At the same time, the book highlights the Eichmann trial and the atrocities inflicted on Europe’s Jewish population.
Susan’s journey is an interesting one – she learns a lot about Israel, the Jewish people, and herself as she is exposed to both sides of the cultural divide. She is bright, open-minded, and able to identify with the plight of the Morrocans she meets. She is also moved by the holocaust survivors’ testimonies broadcast daily on the radio. Finding information about her uncle’s fate is no easy task. But in the end, the truth is revealed, bit by bit, with more than a few surprises in store.

[Retsu · Rating 5 out of 5]

As an Asian American man in my 50s, no doubt the threads that I found connection to in the story of Susan and her quest (and discoveries) will differ from those of other cultural backgrounds. But this novel works on numerous levels, giving ample opportunities for the reader to meditate on personal connections.

The story unfolds straight forward enough: we see young-adult Susan’s relationship with her father, living in New York in the start of the 1960s.as she lets herself be talked into embarking on a quest for information about his missing brother—her uncle.

As Susan hits the ground in Israel and begins her quest, the landscape of the story also begins to broaden. Where she started living her young adult life, her concerns were primarily centered around her corner of the world. As she begins life in Israel, in the throes of the Eichman Trial, she’s confronted by the limitations of her own identify up to this point in her life: a young Jewish woman from New York. While learning about the trial, we see her simultaneously struggle to try to understand the people’s rapt attention to the trial day after day. At the same time, she continues on her mission, to try and learn of what became of her uncle.

What I saw here in Susan’s narrative through the arc of this story is the evolution of her own identity as she’s confronted by how the people in her life manifest different kinds of Jewish identity, specifically as it relates to the Holocaust, and more broadly as they relate to the then-young nation-style of Israel.

I believe readers who’ve tried to understand their own identity in relation to a culture and country, and how different individuals’ connection to that cultural narrative differs from generation to generation, person to person, will be rewarded in this story by discovering Susan’s quest to solve the mystery of the fate of her uncle, runs in tandem to the story of her own evolving sense of self. I found this parallel story an unexpected delicious treat—almost like an “Easter egg” (little nuggets of references hidden in often visual arts—video games, movies, etc.— to serve as a wink and a nod to those who recognize the references) for readers who’ve been on this quest themselves.

This novel is a quick engrossing read that sneaks up on the reader who’ll find themselves mulling deeper thoughts about their own place in society.

[rendezvous_with_reading · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you for the gifted book Mckinney Media Group.

"She was guilty of counting. On the winding streets of Jerusalem in the shops, she counted the number of people she saw with numbers on their arms. Just yesterday, she'd reached 99-- a woman in a flowered dress in the supermarket. Her groceries were lined up meticulously: six eggs, two containers of cottage cheese, two apples, two tomatoes, and two cucumbers. When she reached into her mesh bag for her wallet, Susan saw the numbers on her left arm. She just couldn't stop herself from counting. ...She was the girl who counted numbers. It was an obsession. ...The numbers were small but each new sighting was a hopeful sign. ...They didn't know each other. But she knew them. They were all bound together in her book, men and women who'd somehow managed to escape death..." ~Roslyn Bernstein

Inspired by the author's trip to Israel in 1961, this is an interesting look at post-Holocaust Israel and the struggles between the different Jewish immigrants who have been drawn there looking for security, justice, and a better way of life. Seventeen-year-old, Susan, a New Yorker, has been raised by her father with a comfortable life and has a lax attitude toward her Jewish heritage. When she proposes a gap year, her father offers to send her to Israel to study in a Jewish heritage program and to search for her uncle who has been missing since the Holocaust.

Susan's time there coincides with the Adolf Eichmann trial which allows her to experience the old wounds opened by the trial as witness after witness comes forward to recite the horrors they survived. Susan is awakened to her heritage and can no longer take a lackadaisical view of what it means to be Jewish. As she befriends European Holocaust survivors and Moroccan Jews with different struggles, she sees a different path forward for her future. This self-discovery seems to be more the focus of the novel than her search for her lost uncle, but I enjoyed that thread of the story as well.

The author really makes Israel of the 1960s come alive and gives a unique perspective on the everyday struggles of the people there. It was eye opening to me to learn what a melting pot of people Israel was composed of at the time and how fractured they were instead of being united in their common heritage. This is really a unique look at a specific window in time.

[Robyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book the delves into the holocaust and takes place during the trial of Adolf Eichman. Susan Reich travels from America to look for her missing uncle that her father hadn’t seen since the rest of the family migrated from Poland years before the start of the war that took the lives of so many Jews. The book also delves into the many Jewish immigrants of various descents that migrate to Israel and the struggles they all face. While this is historical fiction about Susan Reich, the events and the struggles are real. Author Roslyn Bernstein spent seven months in Jerusalem in 1961 where she listened to and learned from migrants and survivors.

One can never truly understand why or how such things happen in this world.

Thank you #GoodreadsGiveaways #RoslynBernstein and #AmstedamPublishers for the copy of this book.

[Gary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ros Bernstein has created a compelling portrait of Jerusalem in the 1960s, at the time of the Eichmann trial. Susan Reich, a young NY girl, goes to Israel with orders from her father to find out what happened to his brother, Yakov. Yakov had refused to join the rest of the family when they fled to the US, and he disappeared from sight during the Holocaust. Susan falls in love with a Moroccan emigre, and her quest for answers about her uncle introduces her to a world that is tough, raw with emotion, and deeply ambiguous. This is a well paced mystery story with a message that is far from the idealized image of a land of milk and honey. Susan does not become a Zionist, but she stays to address the real problems of a real society.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Susan Reich is a spoiled 17 year old American Jew who arrives in Israel with a mission from the father who is paying her way. Find her Uncle Yakov. She meets Moroccan immigrants frustrated with their second class citizen treatment, Holocaust survivors, and long lost relatives. The book is set with the Adolf Eichmann trial taking center stage to the plot points. An interesting story of family and immigrants spread out across the world surviving and forgiving themselves for the choices they made to live.

[Kerry Pickens · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book but have mixed feelings about Holocaust stories. There are just so many books being published that could focus on more positive events instead. This book is a Jewish version of finding your roots when a young woman is sent to Israel to locate her uncle who disappeared during the Holocaust. Like Finding Your Roots the family history doesn’t always facts you necessarily want to know.

[Ma'lis Wendt · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's 1961 and Susan Reich decides to take a year off after high school and hang out in Greenwich Village. Her father decides a trip to Israel would be a better idea--she could learn more about her Jewish faith and look for his older brother Yakov, who had remained in Poland when the rest of the family came to America. Against a background of the Adolf Eichmann trial, Susan lives in Jerusalem , makes friends and searches for her uncle.

[Lois Ernst · Rating 5 out of 5]

An impelling read

This is an exceedingly well written story that moves rapidly along. Filled with history, intrigue, mystery, self knowledge and evaluation with a background to challenge the reader to evaluate one’s own relationship to being a Jew, to being Jewish. Hi

[I. Crocker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well-written and fascinating. I couldn't put this one down. Yes, it is fiction, but there was so much truth in it. A great insight into how survivors feel. Highly recommended.

[Fara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this!!!!

[Amber · Rating 4 out of 5]

good read

I loved the stories and how everything was put together! Was very enlightening and a good read definitely one I would recommend if you like storytelling

[Helen Joyce · Rating 5 out of 5]

This excellent and well-written book introduces us to Susan, a spoilt American teenager who is dispatched to Israel in 1961 on a quest to discover the fate of her long-lost Uncle Yakov by her demanding, successful father Yehudah. Yehudah is proud of his achievements since arriving in America as a young, penniless Jewish immigrant. Susan, burdened by the weight of her father's expectations and her father's pre-holocaust memories of Shtetl life in Rozwadów struggles to assert her independence and agrees to the trip before starting college. Her father is anxious to trace the fate of his favourite older brother Yakov who disappeared during the holocaust and about whom he has discovered no trace. The year, 1961, is pivotal as the young State of Israel is wracked by the trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of the architects of the holocaust.
This novel is part coming-of-age as Susan struggles with her Jewish and Zionist identity, part holocaust memoir and part historical reflection of the schisms in the new state. Bernstein highlights many of the social problems which confronted the new state at that time. The struggle between the founding Ashkenazi elite, the influx of underprivileged Moroccan immigrants who suffer discrimination in terms of housing, jobs and education and the grieving numbers of holocaust survivors whose lives were torn apart and must relive their agonies anew as the trial unfolds, dominates the news and grips the public imagination.
Bernstein weaves her complex plot with great skill highlighting the many issues that tore Israel apart at that time and still have relevance to this day. Above all, she creates believable characters whose lives, cultural backgrounds and history intersect in a realistic and absorbing manner. A book well worth reading for anyone with an interest in the Holocaust or the foundational years of the State of Israel. Highly recommend.

[Shael Shapiro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fiction speaks truth, at least it does in this coming-of-age novel, The Girl Who Counted Numbers.
Set in Jerusalem in 1961, during the Adolf Eichmann trial, the narrative tracks Susan, an American girl's search for her Uncle Yakov, missing since the Holocaust. It is a time of great tension in Israel with survivors listening to painful radio broadcasts of the trial and new immigrants struggling in raise themselves from abject poverty.

The book is full of love and sorrow, secrets and more secrets. We do find out what happened to Yakov and we watch Susan grow in her understanding of what it means to be Jewish. Not necessarily the Zionism of her father but a passion to build the land.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not Just Another Holocaust Book

This book was so much more than I expected, multilayered with surprising parallels to current American culture. I'm not Jewish or religious but having spent a month in Tel Aviv in 1963, I could relate to many things in the story. As a child, I watched the Eichmann trial when it was shown on the grounds of the American Embassy even though I had to leave to vomit. But, this book was more than another account of the Holocaust. The plight of Moroccan immigrants, along with the prejudices they faced, could have been lifted from today's headlines about border states. Being called unpatriotic if you find any faults or want improvements still prevails. The thread that dealt with homosexuality also rings true right now. This book is more than what it means to be a Jew or an Israeli. It's about humanity. I highly recommend it.