NOTE: I was not paid to review this book. It is an unbiased and objective review. If you have a book with Jewish or Israel related content and would like me to write a review, contact me for details of where to send me a review copy of the book.

Book Review: The Blind Angel, by Rabbi Tovia Halberstam and Joshua Halberstam

The Blind Angel was a book I enjoyed reading, partially in spite of its content.

I am not a big fan of the Chassidishe story, the maiselech, the tale, but mostly because, more often than not, the chassidishe tale is poorly written with a flourish for pumping up the rebbe's miracles with the lesson and moral of the story buried under the rebbe's unbelievable miracles.

The Blind Angel is a compilation of chassidishe stories, but is different. It is well-written. The moral of the story, the lesson to be gleaned, is the focus of the story. The miracles, the insights, the rebbe - they are all there, but they are props in the telling of beautiful and poignant stories, rather than the other way around.

The Blind Angel is written by Joshua Halberstam, taken from stories told, in Yiddish, by his father, Rabbi Tovia Halberstam, in the mid-20th century on Yiddish radio in the United States, mostly enjoyed by the flood of immigrants from Europe.

Joshua Halberstam sifted through his fathers papers to select the stories for the book, and then he had to translate them to English, and write them down in a way that would retell the story while bringing out the intended lesson behind the story, all while retaining the style of the old chassidic tale that probably worked best in Yiddish - as the blurb in the book mentions retaining the charm, the rythm, and the authenticity of the originals. All too often, this is what is missing in most chassidic stories nowadays - that charm, that lilt while reading - most chassidic stories I read.are too rushed with too much emphasis on the miracle-working rebbe, and less on the charming background, the simple Jews who are part of the tale, the lesson behind the miracle of the rebbe.

Halberstam did a wonderful job in his task of translating and retelling these beautiful stories in The Blind Angel. The characters are all on display, each beautiful story with a lesson transmitted, retaining the charm of the old chassidic tale.

And I would be remiss if I left out two other points of the book that, while perhaps minor and secondary, I felt were significant pieces.
1. Halberstam's introduction: he describes some of the history of the times when his father was on the radio telling these tales and how they came to be.
2. at the end of the book Halberstam includes some additional notes on each story. Sorted by story, Halberstam describes some more about each story, including the lesson and some of the background of the setting of each story, along with some biography of the rebbe or or other figures that were portrayed in each story.

I think those two, albeit short, sections of The Blind Angel, are invaluable additions that both help the reader put it into historical perspective and context and add a lot of flavor to the stories.