Description:
A collection of short stories inhabited by inheritors of the Holocaust striving to seize whatever life has left to them.
Brief description: Helen Schary Motro is a writer and attorney whose award-winning writing spans the gamut of opinion journalism in the world's leading press, including the New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, Boston Globe, Haaretz, and Newsweek. Motro is recipient of the Common Ground Award for Journalism in the Middle East. She taught law at Tel Aviv University and was a columnist for The Jerusalem Post. Author of the non-fiction Maneuvering Between the Headlines, her short stories, poetry, and essays appear in anthologies and magazines. As the child of survivors, Motro has written extensively on the Holocaust and the experience of the Second Generation.For more info see: helenscharymotro.org
Review Quotes:
Motro is a magical author. Her stunning stories add a masterful contribution of love and understanding to humanistic Holocaust literature. - Shraga Milstein, Holocaust survivor; Mayor of Kfar Shmaryahu, Israel 1983-1998
Helen Schary Motro's The Right to Happiness is a compelling series of short stories, each unique in their own right, readable in isolation, but each building one on the other to offer the most pointed insights into the post-Holocaust experience of survivors and the second generation. Having grown up surrounded by children of survivors and of those who found refuge in the New York on the eve of World War II, I had a deep familiarity with her characters and the world that she depicted and thus an intensified appreciation for what she has achieved. One can read these stories as an elaborate depiction of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome in all its variety and intensity. Reading it after October 7th and during a visit to Israel, I wonder how soon in our world, Jews will be able to experience a post-traumatic world, but when they do, they could hardly do better than using Motro as their guide. - Michael Berenbaum, Former Director Holocaust Research Institute, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum; Distinguished Professor of Jewish Studies, Director Sigi Ziering Institute, American Jewish University
Intimate and gripping tales that tell small human stories yet reveal greater truths. You feel the love and care of the writer for her characters. - Martin Fletcher, former NBC News Bureau Chief, Israel