Bella Shaier. Children’s Mate: Two Novelettes and a Short Story

The book by Bella Shaier, an Israeli writer born in Chernivtsi, consists of two novelettes and a short story. The first novelette is dedicated to the Chernivtsi streetlife of the 1960s. Its characters are children yet this delicate psychological work full of precise observations is not for children. The second piece tells about the twenty years of life of two Tel Avivians, Galit and Gordon, touching upon the topics of love, family relations, and unrealizable dreams. The storyline of the short and dramatic story Fortwo revolves around the issues of loneliness, emigration, and family relations and also takes place in Israel.

The book Children’s Mate was shortlisted for the prestigious Israeli Sapir Prize and awarded the prize of the city of Ramat Gan. This is the first complete translation of the book.

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Mikhail Mitsel. Politics and Paranoia: The Communist Party of Ukraine against “International Zionism” (1953–1986)

The book examines a “vegetarian” period of Ukraine’s Soviet history when the regime had already stopped practising mass repressions, and yet the ideological pillars of late Stalinism, though slightly modified, remained the same. One element of propaganda was the so-called “fight against international Zionism.” The content of Party, state, and secret police documents impresses the reader with its ideological rhetoric and latent antisemitism as well as a combination of distorted reality and lies. Based on the archival collections of the Communist Party, the book shows that the methods of “anti-Zionist” propaganda were too distant from reality and could not influence the minds of those who did not find their place in the tight grip of the Soviet society.
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Yelena Bonner, Andre Glucksmann. Defending freedom (Ukrainian translation of Le Roman du Juif universel )

This book represents dialogues of iconic figures of the century turn – the French philosopher and politician André Glucksmann, and a well-known Russian public figure, human rights activist Ielena Bonner. The dialogue topics are: human rights, overcoming of the communism effects, international terrorism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism in the world today. The texts will be interesting for anyone who feels oneself responsible for human life and fates in the XXI century. (more…)