Lament for a Father: The Journey to Understanding and Forgiveness - by Marvin Olasky (Paperback)
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<p/><br></br><p><b> About the Book </b></p></br></br>"Marvin Olasky explores how his Jewish American father was impacted by World War 2, Reconstructionist Judaism, and social Darwinist teaching at Harvard-facing pain in order to understand and forgive"--<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br>Marvin Olasky played catch with his father, Eli, only once--it didn't end well. Eli never laughed, rarely spoke with his son, and was periodically lambasted by his wife for his lack of ambition. How had a Harvard graduate failed to achieve all that he had once hoped for? Author Frederick Buechner confessed, "I dealt with the sad parts of my life by forgetting them." Seeing a danger in this, Olasky draws on his investigative journalist skills to uncover his father's past--facing Eli's pain and his own in order to understand and forgive. He follows Eli's story from his Orthodox Jewish childhood in Boston to his days as a commuter student at Harvard to his untold experiences in Germany following World War II to his embrace of Reconstructionist Judaism, describing a "spiritual and psychological death by one thousand cuts"--and discovering what he owes to his parents.<p/><br></br><p><b> Review Quotes </b></p></br></br><br>"What is Marvin Olasky's Lament for a Father? Is it a tracing of the plummet of 20th century intellectual life into eugenics and antisemitism? Is it the chronicle of Jewish suffering in World War II? Is it a critique of the secularization of American society and education? Is it an attempt to understand the psychology of how brutality passes from generation to generation? Is it a son's attempt to understand the dysfunction of his parents' deeply unhappy marriage, his father's failure and his mother's scorn? Is it the story of a broken actor on a broken stage? It is all of these, but ultimately it is one man's agonizingly circuitous journey to faith in Christ, gratitude, and finally to honoring a tragically flawed and tormented father." "...Olasky's agonizingly circuitous journey to faith in Christ, gratitude, and finally to honoring a tragically flawed and tormented father."--Douglas Bond, Author, Stand Fast in the Way of Truth (Fathers & Sons)<br><br>A sense of longing and loss pervades Marvin Olasky's tribute to his father--a reckoning with his Jewish heritage that remains sensitive to time and culture, faith and freedom. A beautiful lament suffused with gratitude and honor.--Trevin Wax, Author, Rethink Your Self, This Is Our Time, and Gospel-Centered Teaching<br><br>After spending more than 40 years with Marvin Olasky the journalist, I needed this great little book to discover several other facets to his colorful persona. There are no "bare facts" in this man's life. Everything is part of a sovereign design--Joel Belz, Founder, World magazine<br><br>For decades, few voices have been more important in the American church than that of Marvin Olasky, as he has shaped a generation of Christians to apply the good news of the gospel toward the flourishing of healthy communities. But in this book, Marvin pulls back the layers of his own storied life, one that itself is a dramatic tale of God's saving grace, from Marxism to Christianity. Now, Olasky allows us, us to see the story behind the sage, sharing for the first time his difficult relationship with his father, sharing in emotional and poignant words the aching longing in his heart for a father that could have been and the satisfaction he has found in the Father he knows. Every human being, no matter how accomplished, wants to know and be known by their dads. Pick up this book, read it and buy an extra copy for a friend who needs to read it. You will not be disappointed.--Daniel Darling, Senior Vice President, NRB; Best-Selling Author, A Way with Words, The Dignity Revolution, and The Characters of Christmas<br><br>I first discovered Marvin Olaksy through his book 'The Tragedy of American Compassion" which told the history of faith-based charities designed to lift people out of poverty by transforming their lives, not sustaining them in poverty. Newt Gingrich, the future Speaker of the House, was so impressed that he bought copies to distribute to his fellow Members of Congress. In his latest book, 'Lament for a Father, ' Marvin takes us through the early part of his life in ways that sound depressing until you get to the end. The work of a brilliant writer and thinker, Marvin consoles those who had difficult parents and shows through his own experience they do not have to determine the course of the lives of their children.--Cal Thomas, Syndicated Columnist<br><br>In this accessible true-life tale, Marvin Olasky truly fathoms his father for the first time, uncovering a loss of faith in God that led to a collapse of faith in self, and eventually an evaporation of all confidence in the promise of life. It's a searing, unblinkingly honest, yet ultimately consoling story of family life, ethnicity, and growing up. Capped by an engrossing appendix in which the author describes his own recovery of faith.--Karl Zinsmeister, Author, Journalist, Consultant<br><br>Marvin Olasky has been an intellectual, theological and economic treasure for decades. In Lament for a Father, he serves up a poignant, intimate and engaging memoir crammed full of lessons about what makes for manhood with honest meditations on themes ranging from anti-Semitism to redemption. Beware: this book is addictive.--Robert A. Sirico, Founder, Acton Institute<br><br>Marvin Olasky is an extraordinarily gifted man: journalist, editor, professor, theologian, and a writer with a talent for doing relentless research. In this book, he turns his microscope on a man he didn't like, who disappointed him and failed him, a man he wanted to admire but couldn't: Eli Olasky, his father. Eli graduated from Harvard, a brilliant man with scholarly ambitions, but after returning from military service at the end of WWII, he drifted from job to job and became a stoic who never laughed or played baseball with his son. Why? What happened? It's a gripping story about family, faith, suffering, and forgiveness. A true Lament.--John R. Erickson, Author, Hank the Cowdog series<br><br>Marvin Olasky's memoir of his quest to understand his inscrutable father whisked me from working class New England to the brutal execution of his Russian great-grandparents to the concentration camps of the Third Reich. With the diligence of a journalist and the penitent longing of an errant son, Olasky digs up his father's past to learn what changed him from a passionate scholar to a remote stoic whose wife called him "lazy and lacking ambition." The result is a vividly drawn journey during which Olasky exchanges scorn for honor and bitterness for grace. Lament for a Father is a poignant reminder that even our most deeply rooted family resentments can be gloriously and unexpectedly redeemed.--Lynn Vincent, New York Times Best-Selling Author, Investigative Journalist, Navy Veteran<br><br>Marvin Olasky explains how he finally came to understand, appreciate, and forgive his brilliant but emotionally distant and underachieving father who died in 1984. Through painstaking but fascinating historical research, Olasky comes to understand his father's difficult life growing up as a young boy in a Jewish immigrant community in early 20th-century Boston, and who then experienced debilitating stress as a U.S. Army soldier assigned to help clean out the horrible remains of Nazi atrocities in Jewish death camps at the end of World War II. Olasky has written this book to honor his father's memory, but also to explain how he himself changed from an atheistic, zealous communist to a born-again evangelical Christian who has edited World magazine for the past three decades. Anyone who has experienced a difficult parent-child relationship will appreciate the wisdom in this book.--Wayne Grudem, Distinguished Research Professor of Theology and Biblical Studies, Phoenix Seminary<br>
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