Rating: 
Summary: Required Reading
Review: I cannot say how much this book is needed. After centuries of pograms and wanderings, after the holocaust, I was raised with the worldview that Jews were a scourge race that would be victimized and hunted everywhere they went, for as long as they existed, whether they were good people or bad people, for no good reason at all. The self-image of Jew as victim, as nebbish, as whiner, has been popularized by people like Woody Allen and Philip Roth, and that pathetic self-image has profoundly crippled the self-respect of the Jewish people as a whole. A book like The Avengers shows that there have indeed been Jews since the Maccabbees who have fought for their freedom and dignity. This book should be required reading for all Jewish teenagers. It's the kind of book that changes your life. When I came to this book, I had been reading treatises on nonviolent resistance: buddhism and taoism. The Avengers has made me rethink the feasibility of nonviolence. One of the essential issues in The Avengers is that by taking on the violent methods of the Nazis, the Avengers lost their morality and became indistinguishable from their enemies. But the book also implies that those who practiced nonviolence were killed, that under certain circumstances nonviolence does not work. It raises profound questions about what it means to be a Jew and how a Jew should act, what is ethical for a Jew. Is it better to be killed when you have acted ethically than to act out of hatred and survive? The book doesn't answer this question. It raises it. The Avengers changed my whole thinking about Israel and Zionism. At this time when war is again breaking out in Israel, The Avengers implies the necessity of Zionism and the necessity of violent defense of a land for the Jews. Many things about the religion, Judaism, disturb me, particularly its treatment of women, and I have had an uneasy relationship with the religion my entire adult life. I know I come from an intellectual, funny people, an amazing number of whom have accomplished great things in medicine, science, music, literature, philosophy. But that is not enough. I need to know that my people have a backbone. The Avengers has given me this. It shows me there is something to be proud of, that Jews -- not just Israelis -- can be heroic, and that you can be a Jew and have self-respect at the same time. What we need now is stories about Jewish nonviolent resistance that have succeeded, because it is much more difficult to resist without violence, and it takes even more courage. Bravery with violence is only the first step. We need these stories to act as guides of how to be an ethical, good Jew and not to be victimized.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Read
Review: I had to keep reminding myself I was not reading a merely great novel, but rather an incredible true story. The story is riveting and at the same time chilling and inspiring; thrilling and enormously sad. From one page to the next I found myself alternately astounded, grief-stricken, uplifted and outraged. The author tells an important story and tells it in the best traditions of the gifted story-teller. World War II, the Holocaust, the Vilna Ghetto, the Partison Underground--all the way to the founding of Israel! I sent 30 copies of this book as Christmas presents!
Rating: 
Summary: Sadly, disappointing.
Review: I loved Cohen's first book, "Tough Jews", which covered a most interesting chapter in American/New York/Jewish history, and which was well written and compelling. I found "The Avengers", however, disjointed, trite, and a far less enjoyable read. The most compelling thing going for this book is the story itself, which is remarkable, but I did not care at all for the fictitious conversations, the oversimplifications, and the generalizations which are sprinkled liberally throughout the book. The writing is somewhat staccato-like, and although I learned what the characters did each day, I didn't learn enough about what motivated or caused them to become the heroes they were. I'll look forward to the next one by Cohen.
Rating:
Summary: The Avengers
Review: I picked this book up after watch "UPRISING" the mini-series. I can't tell you what a compelling and interesting story this is!!! I fell in love with the main characters. They are written just they were, the witer does not make them out to be good or evil, just says it like it was.
This book shows a completely different side to Jewish life during WWII. It is amazing!! For so long we have seen images of "walking dead" jews from WWI. These "avengers" are completely alive, fighting to live and fighting for justice during and after the war.
Rating:
Summary: The Avengers
Review: I picked this book up after watch "UPRISING" the mini-series. I can't tell you what a compelling and interesting story this is!!! I fell in love with the main characters. They are written just they were, the witer does not make them out to be good or evil, just says it like it was.
This book shows a completely different side to Jewish life during WWII. It is amazing!! For so long we have seen images of "walking dead" jews from WWI. These "avengers" are completely alive, fighting to live and fighting for justice during and after the war.
Rating:
Summary: An Important Story
Review: I started reading this on a Saturday night and had it done by Tuesday morning. Granted, that did include a two hour train ride, however, it is a book that is hard to put down. Not that this is a pleasant story, much of it is not. However, it is an important one and one well told by the author. It tells the story of how a handful of people, not raised or trained to be warriors, chose to fight, rather than die without struggle. Heroes are born of circumstances not of their making. These people did not want to be heroes. However, they were determined not to be silent victims. Mr. Cohen tells their story, sometimes bluntly, but with the ring of truth. This is a book that should be read by everyone, especially those who think that no one fought back, the Avengers did. Buy and read this book.
Rating:
Summary: Out of the ashes
Review: I was drawn to this book by the story of Abba Kovner--a Vilna native, a partisan and a poet. Although Cohen's writing is fine, it offers little poetic value. But like other readers, I could not put the book down. This novel-like non-fiction offers many layers. The book opens with the author's discovery of his family and roots in Israel. Cohen's grandmother--one of nine siblings in Plosk, Poland--immigrated to America in 1920. The family intended for everyone to follow, but like so many poor Eastern European Jews, ran out of money. No one else was able to leave. Several years after World War II, Cohen's grandmother learned from a former Polish neighbor that nearly every Jew in Plosk had perished. But her eldest brother's daughter, Ruzka Korczak, had survived as a partisan in the forests near Vilna, fighting with Abba Kovner and Vitka Kempner. She was the only member of the family in Poland who survived. The book swiftly transports readers to the Vilna ghetto and a tale of survival and great courage. Shortly after Hitler and Stalin signed their non-aggression pact and German divisions flooded her area and town, Ruzka determined to move to Warsaw, where she hoped to meet the Zionist Youth Guard, HaShomer HaTza'ir. She planned to return to Plosk a few months later, when things calmed down. About 10 miles outside Warsaw, with the city in flames, she ran into a friend who told her HaShomir had moved to Vilna, in the Russian zone. She traveled three weeks to reach Bialystok and then crossed at night into Vilna, where shortly afterwards she met Vitka Kempner and Abba Kovner. At that time, 200,000 people lived in Vilna, a third of them Jewish. But the Jewish minority was heavily divided into factions--the communists, who distrusted Bundists, who distrusted Zionists, who distrusted Orthodox Jews. All of them distrusted assimilated Jews, and all feared the Soviet police, the NKVD. Threatened with arrest, Vitka fled Vilna, but returned weeks after the Nazis overtook both Vilna and her own location. On September 6, 1941, 30,000 Jews were forced into the Old Jewish Ghetto, where before only 1,000 had lived. By then, the Jewish people were gravely threatened. Abba Kovner hid in a nearby convent. But rumors of the murder of thousands in the forest of Ponar brought him back to Vilna, at Vitka's behest, to hear the story from a single survivor named Sara. At this dramatic juncture, Kovner realized that the Jewish people could escape only by battle. In December, 1941, he told fellow Ghetto residents that Ponar was a death trap and began to search for arms, an effort assisted by a former communist named Isaac Wittenberg, and Joseph Glassman. Together they located, bought and smuggled weapons into Vilna through the sewers, even obtaining grenades from the Mother Superior who had earlier hidden Kovner. Wittenberg was forced to surrender to the Nazis and committed suicide in prison. By 1943, the Germans were taking Jews from the Ghetto by increasing thousands and Kovner recognized that most would never return. He planned his escape, taking Vitka, Ruzka and others with him into the forests to fight. Leaving his mother was the hardest thing he had ever done. Her last words to him--"What will become of me?"-- forever rang in his ears. But Kovner put the survival of a few Jewish fighters above his family. When World War II was over, he went on fighting, alongside David Ben-Gurion, for his people's right to their ancient Jewish homeland of Israel. Nowadays we sometimes use the word hero lightly. Kovner and two daring female fighters really earned the label: They helped to lead the Jewish people triumphantly out of the ashes into an era of rebirth. We owe Rich Cohen our gratitude for bringing these heroes once again to life. Alyssa A. Lappen
Rating: 
Summary: Kids who raged, "We won't go like lambs to slaughter!"
Review: I'm a slower reader. I get bored by a lot of books but this was impossible to put down. Rich Cohen covers the pivotal story of young people confronted with outrageous injustice. While others were trying to placate the Nazis & the local Gentiles these teenagers said: NO--! The writing is very good with a combination of novelistic and journalistic styles. I feel very enriched by having read it and recommend the book 100%.
Rating:
Summary: Kids who raged, "We won't go like lambs to slaughter!"
Review: I'm a slower reader. I get bored by a lot of books but this was impossible to put down. Rich Cohen covers the pivotal story of young people confronted with outrageous injustice. While others were trying to placate the Nazis & the local Gentiles these teenagers said: NO--! The writing is very good with a combination of novelistic and journalistic styles. I feel very enriched by having read it and recommend the book 100%.
Rating:
Summary: good intentions, but disappointing
Review: I'm glad I read this book for the subject matter, though there were so many problems with it I can't wholeheartedly recommend it. Cohen bases the book on the memories of old people, and some of their resistance efforts sound like pretty tall tales. I couldn't help but make the comparison with an 89-year-old gentleman I know who claims he sat on a purse snatcher until the police came. Some of the feats they credit themselves with accomplishing are simply unbelievable. There are also discrepancies. For example, Vitka is once called upon to bury a body in a forest in great haste, and I assume we're supposed to think she did it with her bare hands since she had no tools with her. Then much later in the story Vitka sees a dead body for the first time. Huh? Vitka, however, is the real heroine of the story, brave and selfless. Abba is an intriguing person, but my impression was that he gave the orders and took care of himself while his women did all the work. His fanaticism in later years was disturbing, though after what he lived through it is hard to judge him fairly. It's uplifting to know some Jews did fight back and that many lives were saved because of their courage, and that's the best part of the story.
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