Incredible India-Mumbai

Anyone who has visited the  Jewish community in Mumbai, aka “First City of India,” knows how difficult it is to get around the city’s traffic jams. Welcome news from Mumbai, India. A monorail to ease traffic congestion begins Sat. Feb. 1  About 5,000 Jews live in Incredible India, most in Mumbai. For more on the Jews of India, check out “The Scattered Tribe: Traveling the Diaspora from Cuba to India to Tahiti & Beyond,”(Globe Pequot Press.) http://amzn.to/J3Z47T  Check out my blog at www.bengfrank.blogspot.com “I Travel the World.” Follow me on twitter @bengfrank :   

"Revolutionary Romance Book casts Jews in fast-paced adventure through Russian history."
Morton Teicher
Special to the Detroit Jewish News

http://www.bengfrank.blogspot.com/

Klara's Journey Review

Incredible India

India is certainly one of the most popular destinations of Israeli tourists. No wonder that “India Travel on Line” reported that the largest number of tourists this month to attend Pongal, a four-day festival, were from Israel. This special tourist event took place in Trichy, a city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. For more info on the small but active Jewish community of “Incredible India,” check out “The Scattered Tribe: Traveling the Diaspora from Cuba to India to Tahiti & Beyond,” (Globe Pequot Press). Wherever books are sold: http://amzn.to/J3Z47T Check out my blog at www.bengfrank.blogspot.com “I Travel the World.” Follow me on twitter @bengfrank :

 

 

Book Talk 1/23/14

Great time last night at Boca (Boca Raton, FL) Sabra Hadassah group for a book talk on “Klara’s Journey, A Novel,” --“a story of betrayal, high drama and love.” Talked about my travels in Russia, including Siberia, tracing Klara’s Journey: Irkutsk, Khabarovsk and yes, even Harbin in China, as well as my experiences on the Trans-Siberian railway so I could understand the long journey she took alone.

Good reception by the group as many read the novel before my talk.

 

“Klara’s Journey,” an historical novel, (Marion Street Press) is a gripping account of the Russian Civil War and its consequences.

 

Available on all ebook formats and wherever books are sold.  http://amzn.to/13Sp769 

 

 

 

 

Lest we forget: On January 13, 1953, an article appeared in Pravda, titled, “Vicious Spies and Killers Passing Themselves off as Doctors and Professors.” The newspaper item said that a group of the country’s most eminent doctors---all of them Jewish---had allegedly been plotting to poison Stalin and other members of the Soviet leadership. The accusations were intended to serve as a prelude to a vast purge of Soviet Jews. Boxcars were already in place at train stations throughout Western Russia to deport Jews to Siberia Fortunately, Stalin died on March 5, a few days before the trail was to start. A month after his death Pravda announced that the doctors were innocent.

For more on this and two chapters on Russia today, check out my “The Scattered Tribe, Traveling the Diaspora from Cuba to India to Tahiti & Beyond,” (Globe Pequot Press).  http://amzn.to/J3Z47T  

 

The opening salvo for Birobidzhan in Siberia.

Thanks to the JTA archive, I discovered what must have been the opening salvo for the establishment of Birobidzhan in Siberia, the Soviet answer to Zionism, a report in the Herald Tribune in 1926, that a plan was in the works in the former Soviet Union. So, in 1934, tens of thousands of Jews traveled eastward to the “Jewish paradise in the Russian Far East. But they were duped; it was a sham. Many would suffer in the Stalin purges later that decade. But the Jewish community survived. Today there are several thousand Jews in Birobidzhan. I traveled there. Check out what I saw there a few years ago  in “The Scattered Tribe: Traveling The Diaspora from Cuba to India to Tahiti & Beyond,” (Globe Pequot Press). http://amzn.to/J3Z47T

JTA: : http://www.jta.org/1926/08/16/archive/soviet-government-plans-jewish-republic-in-siberia-kalenin-says#ixzz2qVlUpd4x

 

Observation of a Cuba watcher

For the past year, this Cuba watcher has been reporting a “slow but steady improvement in relations” between Cuba and the U.S., including talks on direct mail service, migration, cooperation in reactions to oil spills. A senior American official Edward Alex Lee last week said in Havana, the U.S. is “very open” to building a new relationship with Cuba. He also visited jailed U.S. government subcontractor Alan Gross, adding that the U.S. was “deeply concerned “about his wellbeing and expressed the hope that Cuban government would free him. 

 For more information on Cuba and its small Jewish community and the Gross case, check out my chapter on Cuba in “The Scattered Tribe: Traveling the Diaspora from Cuba to India to Tahiti & Beyond,” (Globe Pequot Press) http://amzn.to/J3Z47T  

 

 

Today’s news not only brought polar weather in much of the U.S, but also told of the annual amazing ice city unveiling  of huge snow sculptures in Harbin, China. After and during  World War I and World War II, Harbin was a sanctuary for Jews fleeing the Bolsheviks in  Russia and the Nazis in Germany. In October, 1918, Harbin had 65,000 residents representing 53 nationalities, including 25,000 Jews, among them Klara Rasputnis.  “Welcome to Harbin, in winter, the coldest place on earth,” the concierge informed  Klara whose story of “betrayal, drama and love” is told in “Klara’s Journey, A Novel,” (Marion Street Press) Available wherever books are sold and on all ebook formats. http://amzn.to/13Sp769 Also,nook,ipad,Kobo,etc.

Much talk in Burma these days on President Thein Sein saying he backed changing the country’s Constitution to allow “any citizen” to become president, apparently a reference to Daw Aung Suu Kyi, the Nobel Prize-winning democracy advocate whose “political ambitions have been thwarted for decades by the military,” according to The New York Times. Suu Kyi has said she will run if allowed.

 Check out my chapter on Burma and its rich Jewish heritage, including the small Jewish community in Yangon, in “The Scattered Tribe: Traveling the Diaspora from Cuba to India to Tahiti & Beyond,” (Globe Pequot Press). Wherever books are sold. http://amzn.to/J3Z47T  Check out my blog at www.bengfrank.blogspot.com “I Travel the World.” Follow me on twitter @bengfrank :  

 

Possible changes in world relations with Cuba continuing.  Good analysis of European attitude to Havana. For info on U.S-Cuba possible revision of policy, check out my Cuba chapter in The Scattered Tribe, Traveling the Diaspora from Cuba to India to Tahiti & Beyond,”  (Globe Pequot Press). http://amzn.to/J3Z47T  Also an ebook.