Shanda by Letty Cottin Pogrebin

´(...) how sacrosant privacy once was´.

Shanda. A Memoir of Shame and Secrecy by American Jewish journalist and author Letty Cottin Pogrebin is not only a historical testimony of Jewish life after the war, but also offers to the reader an unique example of memoir writing and researching.

Secrets are part of the Jewish life, particularly for the post-war generation, but Pogrebin set the culture of shame and secrecy into a larger realm of cultural context and sociological understanding. Secrets are more than a pathological temptation of lying, but they are the result of (sometimes too high) social expectations and communal curiosity. Some facts are better left untold and the culture of sharing - the naked social self built under the pressure of social media exposure, among other things - is not necessarily meaning a better family connection. It is just a different relationship no more or less authentic.

There are different ways in which Pogrebin is able to trace those secrets and deleted traces of assumed social shame: her own memories, random pictures found in family throves or forgotten enveloppes, discussions with different family members, her own genealogical researches. Although I loved to follow up the Jewish story, this part was in many respects more fascinating, as it shows the many diverse ways in which a good memoir and a family research in general can be done. 

Shanda is a testimony of diversity of Jewish life in America and a model for anyone - Jewish or not - is interesting in the art of memoir.

Rating: 5 stars

On the Mikvah Strike

Since few days, the religious Jewish Internet is boiling hard on the mikvah strike. The details of the initiative started by Adina Sash aka Flatbush Girl, are getting more and more spicy - religious women do go to mikvah at the end of their period, this act permitting them to their husbands for sexual relationships - obliterating - with or without intention, Gd knows which is true - where did it start for.

Divorce is not only a goyishe recognition of the failure of a marriage. As long as there are halachic prescriptions about the circumstances of giving a get - a divorce  according to the Jewish law - it involves that from immemorial times, divorce was a possibility of ending a marriage. There are many reasons to do it, some of them also halachically requested. The stigma associated with children of divorce - with lower chances to get married, as introduced by various shadchanim - and the refuse to accept abusive behaviors of men, some of them respected religious figures - may make people - women particularly - reluctant towards such a dramatic step. Also, the situation of agunot - women chained to their ex-husbands who are not willing to give them a get; according to the Jewish law, a man can marry another woman while still not officially divorced by his first wife, while the woman she cannot re-marry without a get, as her children with the new man may be further considered mamzerim, bastards - may discourage women to ask for divorce. Thus, the man can keep the control over the woman´s body, preventing her from starting a new life, re-marrying , being free...

Adina Sash, aka Flatbush Girl, is a smart and creative Jewish Orthodox woman, educated and mother of two. I follow her account for a very long time and I appreciate her unique personality. She shows that a Jewish Orthodox woman can wear proudly many hats in an open Orthodox Zionist way. She is part of a larger movement within the Orthodox Judaism of knowledgeable women who are decided to not allow extremist religious men randomly decide their fate, like Chochmat Nashim, pioneering among others against the erasure of women from the public space, without any halachic basis in this respect. 

What Flatbush Girl and other organisations and individuals - mostly women, but not only - are fighting for - literally, as their vigils in the front of synagogues may esclate sometimes - is the injustice done to women. I can count on more than two hands the cases that I´ve heard about of women manipulated into staying with abusive men, or refused the get for the sake of ´honor´ and/or money rewards. Women threatened to be taken away the children from men - and their families. (Here is a beautiful visual essay by Frieda Vizel about her experience getting the get while leaving the Hasidic community.)

Malky Gold is waiting her get. Four years have passed and her ex-husband whose family is manipulating his mental weakness  refuses to grant it to her. For Malky, and many other women like her - many waiting for more than ten years, or dying without being granted the get. This is a crisis that affects deeply the soul of the Jewish women and families.

In Israel, strict rules against get deniers are aimed to prevent such situations and reluctant men can even go to prison. But when they escape to galut, or men who are living in galut, cannot be forced as the local - non Jewish laws - do not have any previsions in this respect. The strike is extreme - the good point is that the discussion about marital relationships are becoming more talked about lately which is a very normal adult thing to do - but the situation requires such intervention. Men, women, people of good faith should get together to end this crisis. Until no more women are about to suffer an absurd manipulation of not-wise men, any mean should be used to challenge this situation. We can do more, men, women, people who could not accept this abuse against our mothers and sisters any more. 

Between Satmer and Neturei Karta

This is a note I wanted to write for a long time. But after the tragedy of October 7th, both Satmer and Neturei Karta were mixed together in the fish bowl of anti-Zionism. Which at a certain extent they share, the difference being in the manifestation and the extent of the anti-Zionist take.

Both movements do share a common opinion about the state of Israel: Zionism is wrong, and the real return of Jews to the land of Israel should happen only when Moshiah will come. In the words of the late Satmer Rebbe Yoel Teitelbaum - who was helped to escape Hungary during the war thanks to the efforts of a Zionist, Kasztner : ´even if the members ofthe Knesset were righteous and holy, it is a terrible and awful criminal iniquity to seize redemption and rule before the time has come´. Both Satmer and Neturei Karta may do mention lack of religiosity as a cause of the Shoah, but such outrageous statements are usually normal for the religious self-righteous.

But except those points of contact, the gap is only getting bigger and bigger. Among others, Satmer are a Hasidic group, while the Neturei Karta, founded in the 1930s by Amram Blau - whose late wife Ruth Blau was a very interesting character - , following the split with Agudah Yisrael is rather anti- and non-Hasidic.

Satmer, a Hasidic group originary from Satu-Mare/Szatmar/סאטמאר currently Romania, usually avoid political and ideological statement against the state of Israel. On the other hand, Neturei Karta, whose representatives wearing Palestinian shawls and carrying ridiculous billboards at pro-Hamas gatherings, are actively taking part in dismantling the state of Israel. Satmer is usually avoiding any kind of association with NK, and every normal human will do it. NK has a provocative history of being associated with PIJ or Hamas, and used to regularly receive money fromt the Palestinian Authority. Some of their representatives even visited Tehran in order to participate at an infamous Holocaust denial event. 

Hopefully, those distinctions will be helpful to properly associate ideological and ideatic patterns in relationship with certain anti-Zionist religious trends.

Aviva vs. the Dybbuk by Mari Lowe

 

Time and again I am returning to midgrade novels because the age of such novels - 8 to 12 years - is formative for this kind of readership. It is the age when children are learning their ways through life, being faced with the adult world while still remaining anchored in the fantastic worls of the childhood.

For the Jewish - Orthodox segment, it is not easy to find such novels with girls characters. Devora Doresh mysteries are one of a kind - hopefully soon would be able to write an extensive review of the story - but I am still on the look for more characters relevant for the nowadays young Jewish Orthodox girls, their concerns and interests.

Last week, I had the chance to read Aviva vs. the Dybbuk, the debut novel by Mari Lowe. Actually, it was a delightful chance as the book is well written and paced, with an unfolding story touching upon an impressive amount of topics: parental loss, friendship, depression and other mental health issues, antisemitism, the power of community. It is a long list of topics, but it does reflect the random subjects anyone living in a Jewish community in the diaspora may face it. In addition to the specific Jewish layer, many of the topics are relevant for the gender/age categories of the book.

Aviva is a sixth grade girl, curious and with a fuzzy hair. Her mother, once a teacher, is now, after the ´accident´ - the event during which her father lost his life, that is explained to us only at the end of the story - is a mikvah attendant, rarely leaving the house. She is observing her mother at work, with a dybbuk as her only companion.

Either you are midgrade or not, it´s hard to put this book down. Aviva is in the middle of different situations - either as a main character or as a storyteller. The turns are impredictable, but the author uses the occurrences to add more details about the characters who are therefore evolving at the same time with the story. You feel that every single element comes along together in a perfect puzzle, at the end of a process both eventful and insightful.

Aviva vs. the Dybbuk has relatable characters and a well built story. It is recommended to any curious girl from a modern Orthodox background that loves to read and discover her world through characters speaking her language.

Rating: 5 stars

A Cold War Exodus by Shaul Kelner

From the early 1960s until beginning of the 1990s, the American public opinion mobilized in favor of the Jews living in the Soviet Union, requesting in various ways the authorities in Moscow to ´let them go´. Jews from the Soviet Union represented the noble cause of many politicians - Jewish or not - cultural and religious personalities, in the US and abroad. 

In October 1963, wrote professor Shaul Kelner in his forthcoming A Cold War Exodus. How American Activists Mobilized to Free Soviet Jews, the members of a synagogue club in Cleveland, Ohio, established a Committee on Soviet Anti-Semitism. This will be the first American organization dedicated to aiding Soviet Jews. In addition to the efforts of the state of Israel herself to offer a smooth passage through Nativ and other initiatives more or less public, a whole network of organisations and movements operated in the US on behalf of them, both from the right and from the left.

What the book extensively analyses is the extent of the network and the strategies, including by tracing the specific alliances between some of those organisations with stake holders and non-Jewish organisations and initiatives. ´For a generation, this social movement shaped Jewish Amerians´ civic and religious culture´, mentions Kelner and his efforts are aimed at revealing important aspects for the general history of social and cultural movements during the Cold War.

Kelner´s book is an important contribution that tries to extract the lessons learned of the mobilization on behalf of the Soviet Jews in the US for the overall history of social movements. It uses fine anthropological and sociological approaches and sources of very diverse nature. A recommended book for historians of the Cold War as well as researchers in the field of Soviet Jewish studies.

Rating: 5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Jewish Stories in Germany: Gewässer im Ziplock by Dana Vowinckel

In Germany, as anywhere in the intellectual (-related) world, there are many people repeating ad nauseam the same old tropes on topics of general interest, only for the sake of getting public attention, but there are also quiet, more intellectually productive and creative individuals whose achievements may be shadowed due to the noise of those with not too much to say. Nevertheless it is intellectually refreshing to discover books and authors not necessarily asked to express their opinion on almost everything, always delivering the same battle lines, but still writing and creating their works.

Thus, I was more than delighted to spend some days listening to the audio version of the debut novel by Dana Vowinckel, Gewässer im Ziplock. The book was published last August and as for now, is only available in German.

The action of the book has Germany in the background but the characters are not German. Margarita, 15yo, is born in Hannover, in an American-Israeli family. Her father is religious, a cantor in a synagogue in Berlin, while his mother, American by birth and a linguist, abandoned her as she was a little child, unable to cope with life in Germany. This summer, after a stay with her grandparents in Chicago, she is sent to spent some time in Israel with her mother. During a short time, during the summer vacations, Margarita is going through conflictual events and emotional challenges, not only getting to know her mother and secrets from her past that may dramatically change her perception of identity, but also is getting a different grasp of the world around - her first sexual encounter, body perception, starting to understand relationships (through her parents and grandparents interactions).

The book is intense and so are some of the characters - Margarita and her mother, Masha, in particular, and the women characters in general. The women characters do have an attitude and issues to deal with in the society or the family. Men, however, do lack a certain consistency and they are mostly hard to understand - especially Avi, Margarita´s father, both in emotional and religious terms.

My favorite character was definitely Margarita, assigned a clear voice and attitude. Her growing up experience within such a short amount of time sounds natural and relatable. The snippets of Jewish life building up the environment of the story fit naturally into the story.

Gewässer im Ziplock is definitely representing a different way of writing literature about Jewish life in Germany, in German. I hope to be able to discover this year more such individual literary voices, with definitely a lot to say within the Jewish literary stage.

Rating: 4 stars

The Things with the Fetish

Imagine you have a family member that comes to your house. It´s kind of picky, as he/she -gender really does not have any relevance here - and already had some bad experience him/herself - with life, relationships and his/her own family. He/She doesn´t like your house, doesn´t like you, and even if you may be the other person in the world, he/she will not care a dime about you because the idea is to keep playing the role of the outsider no matter what and when.

The story of Jewish community in German after the war and particularly in the last three decades is complex and complicated, both in terms of human resources and conflicts, halachic challenges, perceptions and membership. For everyone coming from Israel or the USA, the difference is huge, but I suppose a Jew from Germany will feel the same about communities and traditions in the USA or France. 

Most of the people who are members of the community in Germany, do want to earn their life, have a place for the holidays, educate their children in the Jewish tradition, celebrate a Bar/Bat Mitzvah and eventually be guaranteed a place in a Jewish cemetery. Not everyone has plenty of time to play the star and conceptualize their identity. 

One of the things I always find impressive when I moved to Germany was to hear the stories of Jews coming from the Soviet Union. People who went to prison because they wanted to learn Yiddish, people who were harassed because they were Jews, no matter how high the personal status they reached. People who insisted to remain Jews no matter the challenges of being a Jew. There are not too many former communist countries whose Jews are so proud of their identity.

By attacking those humble people whose stories are worth so many good novels, someone is just following a pathway of those extremists this person is assuming she left to become herself. It´s so convenient to be an outsider in this country, talk about ´fetish´ while being oneself part of the system allowing only those funny individual people to take the floor. Claiming cancelled membership in a community does not promote you to an expert and even the less a judge in all things related to a community whose ´deep knowledge´ was acquired from newspapers or encounters in the bar around the corner. 

Playing the role of the outsider for purely personal branding reasons may work for a while, but repeating over and over again, on a highly pitched indignant voice the same empty sentences learned by heart to an audience paying you to play this role is aimed to fail. It does not take too long to figure out the intellectual kitsch.