Curtis’s Reviews > Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund > Status Update

Ending was best part--especially Warsaw uprising. Overall, lots of wasted potential. If not for the inherent intensity of this history & my interest in it, it'd be 2 stars. Author keeps getting in her own way, chopping narrative to pieces to insert bloviating self-inserts, while skimming Bund's surface/philosophy in favour of fanfic inventions. Too zoomed in. I learned lots, but better books on the topic must exist.

Horrific by this point as holocaust ramps up; engaging despite author's weaknesses. Shocked how Zios/Bund refuse to cooperate in resistance. Rapid intercutting now seems an obligation as many cut-aways add less than nothing. Author continues fanciful invention around what people thought or did, like historical fic instead of history. Can't tell what's from historic accounts or her ideas. Spells out modern connections

Presumes knowledge of con. camps in France & elsewhere w/o explanation? Structure becoming increasingly fragmentary, but at least covers things I'm fresh to: goings-on of interwar Poland cozying up to Nazis, Zionists allying w/ nationalist goals to expel Jews; Bund increasingly popular in Jewish areas, winning Polish elections up to invasion. Attempts to flee rebuked by every country. Horrific. Hope it sticks landing

Picks up with revolution but intercutting prevents lingering on Russia's transformation. Same with Nazism's rise. Hightlighting pogroms horrificly eye-opening; lends credence for why many Jews roped into Israel settler project. Anyone would want to flee, Bundism seemed a losing prospect in the face of that. Would be accidental Zionist argument but for its justification of influcting similar violence on Palestinians.

As it goes, the less author can justify including her ancestor, who was barely involved to begin with (she speculates he was more involved than is proved). Now he's fully irrelevant to Bund narrative. Bund themselves are sidelined; minimal description with differing Jewish philosophies, & focusing tightly on handful of Bundists means hard to get broad picture of Bund's aims. Saved by the history being so interesting.

Written in engaging, un-academic way, using g. grandfather as framing. Though bit tenuous, works to introduce us to world he's fighting against, showing why Jewish Bund is needed, linking it to modern intersectionalism. Immersive; love the history it covers. But author gets in her own way at times: memoir-izing distracting, invented character thoughts/dialogue rarely works. Praying she doesn't over-indulge this.