The Jewish Pilgrimage An Exploration of Reality, Mainly in
Verse

The Jewish Pilgrimage by Geoffrey Hoffman is clearly
written to inspire philosophical discussion. This book
depicts the authors personal journey to find some form of
understanding about man, our various versions of God and
how this effects society and the use of its knowledge. He
debates moral issues and provokes deep thinking in
several areas that will never leave my mind as I travel along
my own road.

Geoffrey questions the justness of creation itself and the gift
of consciousness. Also he cleverly uses metaphors when
he depicts various pieces of himself by using the universe,
planets and astrological colors. Without a doubt this student
of life, takes joy in nature. Throughout the book the author
makes his awe in the vastness of the universe quite
apparent.

My personal favorite piece was Beautiful Among The
Buildings, which used powerful visual statements like:

“Night sprawls among the broken lives that line the broken
street;
The lonely and unpitied men whose waste is our defeat.
Men stagger from dank cellars; men, imprisoned in their
cars,
Go roaring into sightlessness unmindful of the stars.”

And the equally powerful anti-war piece, No Frontiers:

“The father carrying the limp body of his child,
The soldier staring at his amputated hand,
The little girl among the bloodied pieces of her parents
What does it matter if they are of one side or another?
Dogma cannot grieve.
It is the pain of individuals that sears.”

I also really appreciated Half Sight, which discussed the
inability to witness the good and love in life when there is so
much horror to distract us from it. Today Near Watford
Market was a very moving piece for me in that it was so
visual. It describes an event where the author witnesses a
man speaking to the public about his lack of belief in
religion. And “circling like wolves, the true-believers snarled,
snapping at both his arguments and him.” Yet nearby an
elderly women fell, sprawling her shopping items on the
ground around her. The non-believer ran over to her side
and helped her on her way, “jostling to her assistance
through unmoving ranks of true-believing ice”. It is a
beautiful story about seeing God where you least expect it.

In the later part of the book, the author moves away from
poetry and gets in to verse debating who the Jewish people
are, what they are perceived as being and the persecution of
this group of people through the ages. His interesting look
at the holocaust does not dwell on the sorrow or loss of the
people rather it centers on the people themselves.

By far, Jewish people are not the only race of people who
have suffered at the hands of man and I think the author
means to use the example as a tool to accelerate the
intellectual growth of mankind.

ISBN#: 1-4137-7281-1
Author: Geoffrey Hoffman
Publisher: Publish America

Book Reviewer: Lillian Brummet - Co-author of the book
Trash Talk, a guide for anyone concerned about his or her
impact on the environment Author of Towards
Understanding, a collection of poetry.
(http://www.sunshinecable.com/~drumit)