The Lost Artist, Book Review

The Lost Artist LOVE PASSION WAR (PART 1) by Eric Hausman-Houston is a totally amazing book about an extraordinary person. It's the story of one of Israel's and the Jewish People's unsung heroes. According to the author, Eric Hausman-Houston, it's only slightly fictionalized. It's the story of his father, Fritz Chaim Fred Hausman.

Fritz Hausmann was sent to Mandate Palestine at the age of thirteen 13 by his parents who insisted on staying in Germany. He found himself at Ben Shem, an agricultural high school, where boys lived and studied. At that point the war hadn't yet begun in Europe, and he kept hoping that his parents would join him in what was then called Palestine. But like many successful Jewish German businessmen and German army veterans, his father refused to believe that there would be actual danger to Jews in Germany. Also, even as things became difficult for Jews there, he still thought it better than living in primitive, poverty-stricken Palestine.

The Lost Artist begins as a mystery of sorts. A young Israeli mother goes on a quest to discover who was the illustrator of her favorite children's book, "And There Was Evening." In the first part of the book, chapters alternate between her search for the illustrator and the story of a little Jewish boy in Germany named Fritz. It becomes a book just about Fritz at one point, and we never find out how they connect. I asked the author, Eric Hausman-Houston, and he said that mystery will be solved in Part 2.

Fritz, renamed Chaim to help him fit in, proved to be a good student, hard worker on the farm and learned Hebrew. Hebrew wasn't his first foreign language. While still a child in Germany, he picked up a number of other languages whenever traveling with his family to other countries for vacations.

Even though Chaim was Jewish, his being German set him apart from most other students. He hadn't grown up surrounded by children, which was probably part of his social problem. One day he came upon a beautiful black horse. The person in charge of the stable insisted that the horse was dangerous, but not with Chaim. That horse became his "best friend."

Due to Chaim's intelligence and hard work he was admired and appreciated, and from a very young age he became part of the illegal Jewish self-defence and pro-immigrant group, the Haganah. He seemed fearless and was secretly trying to establish a peaceful, tolerant state in which his father would be willing to live. For that he even met with Arabs. Since Chaim was tall, confident and very cosmopolitan, people didn't realize how young he was.

I found it hard to put The Lost Artist down. It's very well written. It's a real adventure story, especially as Eric Hausman-Houston writes about his father's World War Two army service in the British Army for which he was awarded Britain's highest medals for bravery. That's one of the reasons that Houston wrote the books. His father was listed as a recipient of the honor but never received the actual medals. When Houston tried to get them, he discovered that someone had apparently stolen them, figuring that the  family would never make a request for them.

The family wants the medals back and hope that the book will put pressure on whoever is now holding them and make the British Government take responsibility for the loss.

I highly recommend The Lost Artist whether buying it for yourself or as a gift for teens and adults alike.

Product details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 1 edition (April 19, 2017)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1545569886
• ISBN-13: 978-1545569887

Cheap Junk Food and Treif Faux Kosher Meat in Germany, Surprised?

The Israeli media spent some time trying to rev up the public in favor of the "olim liBerlin" socio-economic protest group. Apparently it started more as a joke by Naor Narkis, a yored, an Israeli who left Israel for Europe and posted a picture of a cheap chocolate pudding on his facebook page.

Of course it's pretty dumb to act like these unhealthy snacks are vital to people's diet. And the fact that the Israeli Milky is supposed to be of higher quality than the German pudding Naor Narkis promoted as a bargain worth moving to Berlin for.

According to Narkis, Milky pudding is “just an example of a simple pleasure that became expensive, that too many parents have to think about twice before putting in their shopping cart. (Jerusalem Post)

Do to the extremely unhealthy aspects of these puddings, whether Israeli or German, parents should "think twice" before buying and serving them!

Very few people showed up at the rally, not even Narkis bothered. It was a joke.

Dozens file into Rabin Square October 14 to learn about how to emigrate to Berlin. (photo credit:Lahav Harkov)

But what isn't a joke is the revelation that for years one of the largest kosher butchers in Germany has been lying and cheating their Jewish clients, including a Jewish school and old age home,  selling traif, meaning non-kosher meat.

Two Jewish men in Germany, accused of passing off non-kosher meat as kosher to members of the Frankfurt Jewish community over a period of two years, according to local media.
In all, 40,000 kg. of non-kosher meat was sold to unsuspecting customers for a period of years, according to the Juedische Allgemeine......The butcher shop supplied kosher meat to a Jewish school, a nursing home and numerous private residences both within Frankfurt and other locales.

There's more than a simple localized irony in this.

It's not just a German story. It's a story of Jews living in Israel versus any place else in the world. The aim of the Nazis was for Germany to take over the world and to destroy the Jewish People. As we all know, the Nazis were defeated. Germany was divided into two countries for a few decades. And the State of Israel, the only Jewish State in the world was established in our ancestral Homeland.

Despite the loss of six million Jews to the antisemitic Nazi murder machine, the Jewish People, with the Help of G-d, established a state that has survived many defensive wars in its sixty-six years. As small as we are, there's international focus on everything we do and everything our politicians say. We stand diplomatically alone without any reliable allies.

Life in the diaspora may seem attractive with its cheap pudding, but it all ends up traif, like the fake kosher butcher. The myth of the "easy American life" is easily proven a lie when you add up tuition for Jewish education, outrageously expensive healthcare, Torah observant Jews being forced to use all of their vacation days on Jewish Holidays, no mandated maternity leave and more difficulties.

There's only one place a Jew should live, and that's the Land of Israel. We've been here since soon after our wedding in 1970. Then it was still rather unique for American Jews to make aliyah, move to Israel. Now there's hardly a Jewish family abroad without members or friends here.

Yesterday I was interviewed for Arutz 7's aliyah radio show. I'm not quite sure when it will be broadcast, but it should be this week, because the them of the show is "Bereishit," in the Beginning, new beginnings. I spoke about education, helping your children adjust to new schools and the importance of learning Hebrew.