"...a truly remarkable book"

Katherine R. Jolluck reviews They Called Me Mayer July in Biography 31:4 (2008):756-758.

This is a truly remarkable book—as are the story of its making and the world that inspired it. Through descriptions, anecdotes, sketches, and paintings, Mayer Kirshenblatt recreates the daily life and culture of a small Jewish city in Poland before the Holocaust. It is a world remarkable in part because of its complete destruction by the Nazis, but also because of the richness of its characters and customs. “What I’m trying to say,” Kirshenblatt explains, “is ‘Hey! There was a big world out there before the Holocaust. There was a rich cultural life in Poland as I knew it’” (353). He fulfills his mission with insight, affection, and vibrancy...This is a truly valuable creation—informative, colorful, moving, funny, and at times, sad...With this book, Kirshenblatt restores and celebrates the life and culture that characterized prewar Apt, ensuring that others can share some part of it, long after he and the other surviving inhabitants have passed away. Read whole review.
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