Ida Nasatir writings   List of honorees         Louis Rose Society         Jewishsightseeing home

Book Review  by Ida Nasatir

Young Hearts by David Maletz

Aug 18, 1950—Ida Nasatir, book review, Young Hearts by David Maletz, Southwestern Jewish Press, pages 6:  Editor's Note: This review ran without a byline but was accompanied by Ida Nasatir's photo.

Written by a yong Israeli, thi book is less impressive as a work of fiction than it is as a social commentary on communal living.  Manahem and Hannah, the young couple around whom the story revolves, are earnest pioneers, drawn not as individuals but as types. Many of the other settlers too are portrayed as stereotypes, the philosopher of the commune, the idealist, who, under the stress of daily living, loses sight of his idealism; the rebel against society who attempts to persuade women that fidelity to one man is old-fashioned. The story is composed of single scenes, each of which is separate from the next, but tied together, they make a cohesive whole. The set speeches of the "scientist" Nahum; the pronouncements of the philosopher of "sweat and labor" Tamari; the lectures of the soil "experts" are projected with awkwardness rather than with skill. But the life of the Jews in the kvutzah is drawn with acuteness. Young Hearts, showing how hard life is in the kvutzah, both physically and spiritually, may not always be pleasant reading but it is factual and realistic.