Yiddish Policemen's Union

I recently followed my mother's recommendation and read Michael Chabon's "The Yiddish Policemen's Union" (PS 3553 H1.5 Y5.4 2007). My mother said she really enjoyed reading it because of all the Yiddish words and Jewish references which she doesn't encounter so frequently in Jewish life in Davenport, Iowa.
Certainly the Jewish life portrayed in the novel has very little in common with that of Davenport, Iowa. The setting of the novel is based on two fictional premises: 1) two million Holocaust refugees have been allowed to settle in the then territory of Alaska and allowed limited autonomy in the so-called District of Sitka - in fact a 1940s American version of the Pale of Settlement. Sixty years later, the arrangement is about to end with reversion of control to the now state of Alaska and a presumed expulsion of the Jews 2) the loss of the 1948 war by the Zionists and the subsequent non-existence of the state of Israel. Together, these two circumstances create (for us post Holocaust and post 1948 American Jews) an unreal Jewish world which resembles the Galut existence of pre-war Europe. Although Jewish life in Sitka has been pretty good, all that is about to come to an end and the Wandering Jew will once again have to gather up his/her few possessions and find a new no doubt temporary home in Madagascar or Australia. Many of the characters created by Chabon are reminiscent of Eastern European Jewish characters, luftmenschen trying to make ends meet or living out a poor existence playing chess. The book's hero is a down and out Jewish policeman just trying to hang on until the "Reversion" and then, who knows what.
But the action of the book has a contemporary spin. The apocalyptic coming demise of the District has caused among some of the Jewish residents a messianic fervor. A local hasidic sect who has become wealthy through organized crime is, in cooperation with a fundamentalist Christian administration in Washington, D.C., trying to bring on the end of days by destroying the Al-Aksa mosque and rebuilding the Temple. In the process, American and Jewish plotters bring suffering and even death to Arabs, Alaskan Indians, District Jews, and even their own potential Messiah.
The book is good reading. The characters are compelling. I found myself identifying with Meyer Landsman, the poor Jewish detective trying to put all the pieces together while trying to work out a new relationship to the ex-wife he cannot live without and find meaning in a life speeding toward an apocalyptic turning point.
But I can't help feeling that even if Chabon does not want to equate the messianic Hasidic criminals with our contemporary Islamic "fundamentalists", the comparison of poor secular Jews just trying to make sense out of their disintegrating Galut existence with these extreme bringers of the messiah is not flattering to the latter. Is Chabon trying to tell us that religion is the source of everything destructive in the world? Is the book a vote for a secular Jewish identity based on Jewish solidarity and Enlightenment humanist values? Or is he just following a common Jewish habit, posing questions about the meaning of Jewish and human life and letting the reader find his/her own answers?

Too Good to Miss #7

Contrary to popular belief or mythology, neither do I read every book that arrives at the Library nor do I know every book in the Library. But every now and again a book passes over my desk that makes me sit up and take notice. In that case I might skim it. If the skimming grabs my attention then I might read it. And if I am deeply impressed by it, I will go out of my way to bend every ear possible, to alert everyone to check this book out, for it is too good to miss.


Yesterday I received the donation of a book to the Library. As I withdrew the book from the package and I saw its title, my hands began to shake! Not many books have such an effect upon me.


The book is entitled, We Want To Live, by Jacob Rassen.


The book bears no International Standard Book Number; the title-page bears no city or name of publisher. The verso of the sparse title page tells that the book was first copyrighted in 1949 by Jacob Rassen and in 2007 by the family of Jacob Rassen. The Acknowledgements includes thanks to Professor Murray Sachs (professor emeritus of French literature) at Brandeis University.


The book's subtitle reveals its contents: "On the arduous journey of Jewish martyrs across Lithuania, Latvia, Byelorussia, Poland, Germany, and distant seas to a new life, to the Land of Israel."


So why did my hands shake?


Jacob Rassen was my Hebrew school teacher the year of my bar-mitzvah fifty years ago. He was a Holocaust survivor, and we were spoiled suburban kids "bored out of our gourd" by Hebrew school. And oh, were we rotten to him! He only remained in Providence only that one year and moved with his family to Boston. We were even proud to have broken this teacher such that he left town. Such can be the cruelty of the young...


We had heard he had written a book about his experiences during the War, but as it was in Yiddish, none of us had a clue as to its contents, i.e., what this unfortunate man had gone through. Remember, there was almost to "Holocaust literature" in English at this time. Indeed, even the word "Holocaust" referring to the Jewish experience during World War II was not even coined until 1965 (by Alexander Donat, in his classic The Holocaust Kingdom)!


Last year I re-discovered his book in our stacks, with an autograph dedication to Rabbi Stephen S Wise by a name in Hebrew I did not recognize. Perhaps it was a name Mr. Rassen had used. This time, armed with the knowledge of Yiddish I had gotten over the past twenty-five years I read his book. It was slow going because the author's language was uncommonly rich.


The subtitle only scratches the surface. Lately, with so many Holocaust memoirs published and being published, we think we have an inkling of the contents. But Jacob Rassen's was different.


To keep his sanity as he moved from place to place, from camp to camp, Jacob Rassen kept diaries and composed verses in Yiddish chronicling his experiences, writing them down on any scrap of paper to come his way. Many scraps did not survive his ordeal, but we are fortunate that at least some did.


When I finished Mr. Rassen's book I knew immediately what made his book different from those published in the past twenty years. The countless accounts published over the past generation were written by individuals who had been adolescents during the War, their view of the world frozen in time as an adolescent. And many are written with the assistance of a ghost writer.


Jacob Rassen's book was written by a man already in his forties, a man who had been an adolescent during World War I. His accounts have the immediacy of having been written first in his diaries and then within a few years, in this book. There is no hindsight, only immediacy.


And then there are his poems! How many great poems have been written in Yiddish about the Holocaust? More importantly, how many were written by Survivors? Rassen's are outstanding. I am sure there is more I could say about his poems, but it would be gilding the lily. Again, the immediacy of his work is what makes it so outstanding.


If anything, We Want to Live is one of the earliest (if not the earliest) works that combines the historical genre of chronicle and the literary genre of verse. To say Jacob Rassen's book is "unique" would hardly be an understatement.


When I finished reading the Yiddish original I made a silent vow to translate the book into English, but, I sadly confess, since then I had not progressed very far.


I "Googled" Mr. Rassen and found out that he had died in San Francisco in 1986 and that his widow was still living there. On Purim of 2005 I telephoned Mrs. Rassen and had a lovely conversation with her. When she found out I speak Hebrew she insisted on carrying on the remainder of the conversation be-'ivrit.


I did not tell her of my vow, lest I fail and disappoint her. Or in the event that she was not alive, I disappoint myself. Perhaps I ought to have told her, for then she might have informed me that a translation was well under way.


I can only praise Professor Sachs' translation, for it is clear his Sprachgefuehl (native feeling for the language) is far greater than mine.


I cannot give you a call number to jot down, for the book is so new that it is not yet in the bibliographical data-base we use for cataloging. It could possibly get a number putting immediately next to the original, but the Library of Congress has developed a more developed classification scheme for books of Holocaust content than it used in 1949.


All I can do is suggest you write down the name of the author and his book.


NB Cincinnati and Los Angeles Libraries: If you did not receive a copy of the book, please be in touch with me and I'll pass one the name of the donor.

This just in

NO EMBARASSMENT OF RICHES

I thought I would come back crawling from a very frenzied summer, filled with the excitement of visiting with friends & colleagues at the annual AJL convention, the pleasure of “cleaning house” by weeding & shifting parts of our collection, and the planning of the next Jewish Book Month events. Instead, I decided to come back to this blog with the “big bang” of describing the latest creative, scholarly & intellectual crop from Israel, as evident in one shipment of books & periodicals that just landed on my desk. Some of it is cool summer reading, some – profound soul searching, and some -scholarly pursuits of the kind that makes you stop and say to yourself: now, why didn’t I think of that!
So kick back and relax. Here is another taste of Israel.

Amos Oz’s: The slopes of the volcano [‘Al midronot har ha-ga’ash] (Keter, 2006)
In these three essays, Oz looks into the changing nature of the relationship between Germany and Israel through his own process of reconciliation with German culture.
Oz speaks of the tension between his childhood determination to avoid anything German in his life and his reclaiming of the “good Germans” through reading post WWII German literature as a young man. He confronts anti-Israel sentiments in modern European societies and traces them to familiar Antisemitic stereotypes, while struggling with moral issues facing the state of Israel.
If you can’t read the Hebrew – look forward to the English translation, which I am sure will follow soon.

Jewish Renewal [Kirvat Elohim], by Zalman Schachter-Shlomi and Ruth Gan Kagan (Yedi’ot Aharonon: Sifre Hemed, 2006)
The book’s subtitle, “Integrating Heart and the World”, invites us to a journey redefining Jewish reality, to an ongoing dialogue with God, and to an examination of the religious experience as a direct & personal one. This is the first book written in Hebrew by Rabbis Schachter-Shlomi and Gan Kagan.

Questioning Dignity: On Human Dignity as Supreme Moral Value in Modern Society [She’elah shel kavod], edited by Joseph E. David. (Magnes & The Israeli Institute for Democracy, 2006)
A collection of articles contributed by Israeli & international authors that raise “the issue of the religious and cultural sources – together with philosophical, ethical and legal aspects – of the concept of ‘human dignity’”, in light of “the necessity for the intellectual grappling with [the concept] in Israel at the beginning of the 21st century.” (from the English summary).

Suppression of the Erotic: Censorship and Self-Censorship in Hebrew Literature 1930-1980 [Dikui ha-Erotika], by Nitsa Ben-Ari (Tel Aviv University Press, 2006)
An original look at the Sabra identity from the perspectives of sexuality and representations of the erotic in Hebrew literature, exploring the canonical and non-canonical texts, and the mechanisms of censorship and self-censorship in them, as shapers of the desired New Hebrew. The book looks at issues of language, pornography and legislation as represented in the writings of established authors as well as marginal ones.

And from the universe of periodic literature:

Ha-Kivun Mizrah (13:2007) focuses on a critical debate of soccer and its role in defining national, ethnic, gender and class identity in Israeli society.

Bikoret u-Farshanut (39: 2007) is a special issue of studies on Hebrew poetry in Spain and its influences.

Mikedem umi-Yam (9:2006) features Jewish “mother communities”: Fez & Meknes (in Morocco).

Dor le-Dor (XXVIII: 2007) is a monograph written by Leah Shagrir on Teacher Education Curricula in Relation to Changes in Israeli Society.

Helicon (75:2007) brings us a new batch of new Israeli poetry in Arabic & Hebrew.

Israel Journal of Psychiatry (Vol. 43:4, 2006) has a special section on mental health and intellectual disability,

And finally,

Eretz Aheret (37:2007) deals with the love of Israel after Post-Zionism.

So hurry up & finish reading Harry Potter, and come back to us…

Happy Summer
yaffa

A Treasure and a Bargain!

While doing research on early Reform prayerbooks, I read through the first few volumes of the CCAR Yearbook.

I expected (and found) discussions of the need for a Union Prayer book to be used by all Reform congregation in America.

I was surprised though to also find long passionate discussions about the music used in synagogues. In 1892, Rabbi Gutman said:

You will agree with me that the Jewish Synagogue is indeed sadly in need of Jewish music. We can indeed say we sing, but our music is not the outgrowth of Jewish production. We sing Methodist music and Presbyterian and Catholic. I may say that my congregation may not be a praying congregation, but my congregation is a singing congregation ...[emphasis mine]

Dr. Wise continued the discussion by stating the importance of uniformity of practice and that any hymnal they produce, should be updated periodically so that all congregations could use the new songs.

Rev. Dr. Kohler added:

... But with prayer the soul is seldom touched unless the song unites. Music is the language of all languages, is the language of humanity, and we have as yet been in the formation, in the composition, in the making up our our prayer-books too intellectual and too little emotional. We need not become Methodists or Mooody or Sankey men, but we should touch the soul, make people what they seldom do in our synagogues, cry ...

Another interesting find was the discussion of the possible closure of the World's Fair on Sunday. Apparently Congress had been talking about passing a law requiring the Fair to close. The CCAR felt that if the Congress was closing to Fair to comply with Christian customs, then the conference should object. However, if the Congress was passing the law to give the workers a much needed day of rest, then the conference should approve it.

I found many of the topics to be amazingly timely: Jews and the public schools, dealing with Antisemitism, marriage and confirmation practices, race relations, etc.

And ... all this can be your's! While I was poking around the CCAR site to see if the Yearbook had been digitized (it's not), I found that they did have their reprint of the first 3 years on sale for $3.00 ! Alas, I'm not on commission ;-)