Non­fic­tion

Sur­viv­ing

Aki­ra Ohiso and Ellie Ohiso
  • Review
By – September 9, 2011
This small but pow­er­ful book tells a sto­ry in deeply emo­tion­al terms, yet man­ages to fol­low a straight­for­ward path that points direct­ly at Juda­ic love, and by doing so not only reflects our own, but at the same time broad­ens and strength­ens it. Aki­ra wrote the words and his wife, Ellie, designed the pages, cul­mi­nat­ing in a book that is a plea­sure to hold, read, look at, and absorb. Com­plete with a time­line that traces the roots of Akira’s Judaism back to his Jew­ish great-grand­fa­ther and down to his baby son, it takes the read­er on a jour­ney from the Russ­ian pogroms of 1911 to the birth of Boaz Jules Ohiso in New York City in 2006. Aki­ra him­self was born in 1970, the child of inter­ra­cial par­ents, his moth­er an Irish-Russ­ian Jew, his father a Japan­ese immi­grant. He con­vert­ed to Judaism in 2003, a year before his mar­riage to a Jew­ish woman, find­ing him­self at a spir­i­tu­al cross­roads that offered to both enhance and rein­force his beliefs, offer­ing him the kind of Juda­ic nour­ish­ment he now lov­ing­ly pass­es on to his son. This book is the sto­ry of that journey.

Lin­da F. Burghardt is a New York-based jour­nal­ist and author who has con­tributed com­men­tary, break­ing news, and fea­tures to major news­pa­pers across the U.S., in addi­tion to hav­ing three non-fic­tion books pub­lished. She writes fre­quent­ly on Jew­ish top­ics and is now serv­ing as Schol­ar-in-Res­i­dence at the Holo­caust Memo­r­i­al & Tol­er­ance Cen­ter of Nas­sau County.

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