Bells and Pomegranates / Till Then - by Rachel Pomerantz???

I couldn't resist, and bought it. Now I'll end up wasting hours at the computer in the office... (my imamother surfing is done from my not-so-smart phone).
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Diamond Member Joined: May 20 2007 Posts: 2838

I finally got the tech stuff figured out - seems my ISP was blocking the download for some reason. I connected to another wireless network and got it after much frustration.

I want to re-read the book but on the first reading, it took me longer to get into it than the other books. But by the middle I was very interested. She has some very good points in there, as always.

Gold Member Joined: Aug 23 2011 Posts: 1576

I reread Wildflower and Cactus Blossoms before reading Till Then so I had the story pretty clear in my mind.

I loved some parts of the book and hated other parts. The author definitely had a good point the she brought out well.

Spoiler Alert:
It is 1999 (8 years later) and elections are approaching.
Ronny is now a 21 year old Gerrer Chossid who is having a very hard time finding a suitable shidduch (He now visits his mother in the mental home regularly.)
Naomi is married and pregnant. (Her husband's name is Yoel. IIRC, someone is a Time to Rend, A Time to Sew had a son named Yoel- was it Beth?)
Gila Robinson is in seminary in England (Gatehead, I would imagine.)
Rina Robinson is in seminary in Yerushalayim and her mother is searching for a prince charming for her (I smelled a shidduch from the second chapter, ladies!)
Barbara and Chaim had a 2nd son named Motti and he's 5. Aviva and Danny had a 2nd daughter.

Galit is only mentioned in passing.

Ariel Ben Ami who is 17 now decides he wants to take a yeshiva deferment when he turns 18 instead of continuing on to a Hesder Yeshiva as originally planned.
He reminds me of Danny in Wildflower, he is very easygoing and likable.
What bothered me about Ariel is that the author never really explains what led to his decision to attend a Chareidi BM instead of the Yeshivat Hesder he originally planned to attend. It's a HUGE jump and I wished she would have explained his reasoning behind it.
Also, Ariel doesn't really come across as the "I wanna sit and learn in Beis Midrash all day" type so I was really, really wondering at what was the catalyst for his decision. (Laura Hirsch does suggest that Ronny may have had something to do with it, but it doesn't seem likely since Ronny is already planning to go work in his father's company.)

I found Aviva to be just plain annoying. I wanted to bang her head against a wall.

Bentzi Ben Ami, age 15 and aspiring army officer. He is very into the upcoming election and the various politics that go along with it.
I don't like politics so I didn't really care for Bentzi.

Laura Hirsch is OVERBEARING.

New Characters:
Ilan and Smadar- secular Israeli media people
Arab Professor (I don't remember his name.)
Yehuda Levy and family, Nissim Danino and family- Chareidi Sephardim and supporters of the Sephardic Hertitage party (I'm assuming this is corresponding to Shas).

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO RANDY?
After he triefed up Barbara's freshly kashered kitchen in Wildflower, we don't hear from him again. Did he get married, find a job, get killed in a train wreck or is he still sitting in the living room watching TV?

I didn't love the election angle, but I am not a fan of politics.

I read Til Then and I really enjoyed it. I just got the feeling that the Book Promotion part was directly out of Rochel Pomerantzes own experience.

I liked the subtle reference to the Harpers when discussing a shidduch for Ronny.
I found the part about the Arab mathmatics professor very interesting.
I got a bit lost in the politics because all the names of the parties had been changed and I'm not familiar enough with all the parties to identify who is who.
I didn't get Bentzi's who adventure very well, but I found that bit about the Daninos Mafia interesting.

The whole book actually reminded me a bit of 'One More River'. Has anyone read it, and it's sequel 'Broken Bridge'?

Why does everyone think that Bells and Pomergranates is a sequel to A Time to Rend? I thought its part of the Wildflower series. Till Then keeps referencing to a crashing argument that Ronny and Rina had before he went to Yeshiva, so I thought it comes up in Bells and Pomegranates. I thought it would be about Naomi's shidduch. Maybe it also discusses why Ariel decides to change from Hesder to Yeshiva.
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Active Poster Joined: May 08 2012 Posts: 49

Gold Member Joined: Aug 23 2011 Posts: 1576

Active Poster Joined: Nov 19 2011 Posts: 32

saw on Targum press website that Bells and Pomegranates is coming out September 3 - anyone see it?

I just looked and saw it--anyone know where it's available in Israel?
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Beginner Joined: Dec 22 2010 Posts: 15

I just finished reading Till Then as an e-book and really enjoyed. The author has a familiarity with so many sectors of Israeli society and I enjoyed how she tried to portray their conflicts. If you were a fan of her previous books, it's fun to read what happens to the characters as they grow up...

I just saw that the Bells and Pomegranates is available to buy from Targum website, and available from Amazon as an e-book. I read the preview and noticed that it takes place BEFORE Till Then. So please, do yourself a favour and don't read Till Then till you've read Bells and Pomegranates!

Till Then was a bit too political for me, although I'll probably understand it better second time round. In all RP's books I'm constantly mentally back-translating Hebrew expressions from English, but it this one I felt I wasn't getting some of the references. I enjoyed it anyway, but not as much as the others (the digital format may have contributed to that). Now I need someone to bring me Bells and Pomegranates. Is it widely available in bookstores yet?

Diamond Member Joined: Dec 28 2005 Posts: 4656

Per an e-mail I got from Targum, Bells & Pomegranates will not be out until Chanukah time. [I was looking forward to reading over Succos, oh well.]

Platinum Member Joined: Nov 17 2008 Posts: 5049

Ah, so I can stop nudging my husband about a "book I want from America, now!"

You can buy Bells and Pomegranates on Kindle. If you download the Kindle program for computers you can read it on your PC too.

Gold Member Joined: Aug 23 2011 Posts: 1576

I took a sneek peek at Bells and Pomegranates on Amazon.

Hidden:

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Diamond Member Joined: May 20 2007 Posts: 2838

I was wondering about that. The Bermans are new characters? Devorah's last name is definitely not Berman and she didn't adopt AFAIK.

Gold Member Joined: Aug 23 2011 Posts: 1576

Is A Time to Rend available in stores? I think it's the only RP novel I don't own, and I'd really like to re-read it.