HeppnerBooks

09/11/2024

“Forgiveness is only five percent declaration; the other ninety-five percent is completion. If you wear forgiveness as a badge of honor, the memory of a forgiven injury continues to be a burden."

That's the theme of the story, "The Man with the Miniature Backpack." He was so proud of his forgiveness that he kept remembering the injury. This doesn't work. See the story in Unexpected Encounters

09/06/2024

I'm sharing the positive, can-do attitude of my father that shimmers through his autobiography. Here is an example:

In 1939, we were traveling home from Switzerland until the train was stopped at the border between Belgium and Holland. They announced that war was imminent and the train wouldn’t proceed because Holland had sealed its borders.

Passengers started to fret about being stuck in Belgium forever.
Instead of joining in the negativity, I looked out the window. I saw
that police had parked their vehicles at the head of the train, but from our wagon, nothing was in place to block foot traffic across the border.

My wife Irene and I picked up our suitcases, and we stepped
across the imaginary line separating Vise, Belgium, from Maastricht, Holland. A train that had been stopped on the other side was waiting there. We climbed aboard, and soon it turned around and brought us safely back
to Amsterdam.

Read his whole story in the autobiography I published not long ago:

Albert describes his internal conflict with realistic and heart-breaking emotion as he is forced to live as a “submerger” with no identity,

09/05/2024

For me, the basics of a messianic hope is that it requires us to be ready for it. We need to prepare a human society that the Messiah will be happy to visit and inspire. At the moment, we aren’t ready, we haven’t gotten our act together. We need to adopt a messianic spirit to be worthy of receiving the Messiah.

You can find a good discussion of this in my book:

A Vision of Love for Christians and Jews

09/05/2024

See my full line of books at

Heppner Books is your portal for discovering and buying books by Max Amichai Heppner. They are his legacy, based on his experiences from a long and varied life on three continents. Currently, available are:The Submergers (new, October 2020) I Live in a Chickenhouse (Revised, updated, expanded, Oct.....

08/30/2024

Forgiveness isn't a one-time done deal. I have forgiven some really painful acts and the people who inflicted them. And yet memories come back--and I am called to forgive again. So when is forgiveness over? I've heard it said: "When you no longer want to change the past." Or, "When you see a clear field of possibilities ahead, unclouded by the past." That certainly is something to strive for. And I guess that's what I do for myself when I write stories, articles, and books like the one I'm reposting here:https://www.amazon.com/Vision-Love-Christians-Jews/dp/0692444394/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1580429412&sr=1-1

08/29/2024

I spent most of my life as a bureaucrat--a public relations specialist in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. I know the impact of the chain of command in the organization. Then just today, a friend pointed out that this set-up was ever-so-useful for the N***s to carry out the Holocaust. You put in an order at the top of the machine, and like a marble in a small rolling ball machine, out comes the result at the bottom of the run. Any color marble will work. That's why I wrote, write, and will write about the Holocaust, so bureaucrats can establish a line between orders from above (in the bureaucracies) and morality orders from above (God, the Universe, the wakeup call). See for example my memoir, "I Live in a Chickenhouse." It's a one-person wakeup call:

I Live in a Chickenhouse: A son’s story of escape and hiding from the N***s (Escape and Hiding: Lessons from the Holocaust)

08/28/2024

I appreciate what a student wrote after I spoke to her 7th grade class: “One lesson I learned from Mr. Heppner’s speech is that acceptance of others can do so much as saving a life. When I see someone suffering alone, I can remember this day when he spoke, and I can reach out to help them. The Holocaust started because the N***s couldn’t accept the Jews into their community. When one is accepted, it can change their life.”

When I can get a student to think this deeply about life, I’m encouraged. That’s why I write books and tell stories. The books from which I spoke to the 7th graders was intended to generate this type of reaction. These two companion books are:

“I Live in a Chickenhouse”
https://www.amazon.com/Live-Chickenhouse-escape-Lessons-Holocaust/dp/1734895322/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1NXO6SC1ODGPI&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.hNpnbieaQdIRvlu23weg-ta5FwXdtNX41FT8ryMtEvhIe9y0_c1xodaSyPrqHOpwxigN9ZEjOxXJeOQzlgvSGhqJwZMwrZDAYtc2MbVKmEMrTo-vOGVEpuVelxgipo4xtVa8Ne1UtAoyX3EO-FKRLg.1vLcVFIFUqG4TQUXj1Z1wJmQtoX3LT-WLyBKouQviFI&dib_tag=se&keywords=max+amichai+heppner+book&qid=1724855539&sprefix=Max+amichai+heppner+,aps,125&sr=8-1

And
“A Guide for Teachers of the Holocaust”

https://www.amazon.com/Guide-Teachers-Holocaust-father-Lessons/dp/1734895330/ref=sr_1_5?crid=1NXO6SC1ODGPI&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.hNpnbieaQdIRvlu23weg-ta5FwXdtNX41FT8ryMtEvhIe9y0_c1xodaSyPrqHOpwxigN9ZEjOxXJeOQzlgvSGhqJwZMwrZDAYtc2MbVKmEMrTo-vOGVEpuVelxgipo4xtVa8Ne1UtAoyX3EO-FKRLg.1vLcVFIFUqG4TQUXj1Z1wJmQtoX3LT-WLyBKouQviFI&dib_tag=se&keywords=max+amichai+heppner+book&qid=1724855539&sprefix=Max+amichai+heppner+,aps,125&sr=8-5

A Guide for Teachers of the Holocaust: A father and son’s story of escape and hiding from the N***s (Escape and Hiding: Lessons from the Holocaust)

08/27/2024

For decades, I've exchanged thoughts with Joy Smith on how to manage our practice of religion and spirituality in the face of knowing that folks around us may not do it my way--or may even dislike the way I'm doing it.

Lately, our correspondence has blossomed again (there are long periods at times where we exchange little), and It's so encouraging for me to have joy restate her way of handling things.

Recently she texted: 'In the hospital setting, I go to bedsides as one who loves; one who offers prayers. If the patient is Jewish, I end my prayer "In the name of the Redeemer" as that name for the Lord is throughout the First Testament of the Bible or Tanakh. Otherwise, I pray with all others ending with, "I pray this in the name of Jesus, my Lord and Savior." I believe God takes us where we are at.' To see more of our take on this subject, see the book we crafted over the years:

A Vision of Love for Christians and Jews

08/24/2024

The most amazing aspect of one book I wrote was the inspiration for it. My friend Joy Smith and I were drawn to sit quietly in the Chapel of Mary, below the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC. There I experienced an actual VISION, in the form of an etherial personage above the altar who silently said: "Love each other." He didn't mean "Love Joy." He meant, Love your neighbor, love the world, love life, love love." I knew all that because these words that no one else could hear seared into my heart and I've never to this day been able to remove them and I don't want to. I am left with the other message I heard: "Spread that love." That's so easy to say, and so hard to put into action. That's what I tried to do in the book: "A Vision of Love for Christians and Jews." I am all ears to hear whether the book does its job and spreads love exactly the way I was urged in the vision. Let me know:

A Vision of Love for Christians and Jews

08/23/2024

A friend again asked me in all sincerity to "come to Jesus" and be saved. What's hard to explain is that I'm already "saved." Jews are pre-saved, pre-Jesus, pre-original sin. We are happily filled and sated and don't need further stuffing. Our souls are pure and our hearts are unblemished. Does that mean that we're so conceited as to think we're perfect. No. No. No. We're as human as the next person; our difference is that we're linked to a different tradition. in 221 pages, I cover that difference in my book, "A Vision of Love for Christians and Jews." We can love each other regardless of our traditions. Look!

A Vision of Love for Christians and Jews

08/22/2024

I am still learning how social media and technology works. So I decided to learn what means and does. As I studied, I came to realize that my whole life has been . Everything seems to have a sound, or smell, or remembrance of the Holocaust for me. It’s a hashtag that I’m determined to stop using in life. I don’t have to see everything in the light of the Holocaust. That’s what I’m adding to what I wrote in 2018 in my book, “A Vision of Love for Christians and Jews.” This type of post is a good medium to make such additions. To see the start of this journey, have a look at the book:

A Vision of Love for Christians and Jews

08/21/2024

My challenge in life is to leave the past in the past and still have it remembered as a prod to guide us to a better present and future. A stage in that journey for me is in my book, "A Vision of Love for Christians and Jews." Have a look at it, and you'll see how I saw things in 2018. Now I see with more urgency, that we need to deeply appreciate all people for who they are and who they are not. Others don't have to be like us, and we can and should still love them. Can you see this shine through the book?

A Vision of Love for Christians and Jews