Tuesday 15 November 2016

Book review: This is not a love story, by Judy Brown

I till remember how shocked and deeply moved I've been by Hush, written at the time under the pseudonym of Eishes Chayil - a woman of valor.  After the book created controversies and awe at the time in the Hasidic community, faced publicly with a reality often hidden under the carpet, there were rumors about the real identity of the writer, but Brown decided to make the revelation during another dramatic moment: the murdering in Brooklyn of the 8-year old Leiby Kletzky. 
Part of a long lineage of Rabbis, Brown who is no more Hasidic nowadays, returns under the lights of the literary world with an equally beautifully written memoir, focused on the acceptance and lessons of loving her 'cursed' brother 'crazy as a bat'. When a child with special needs is born in a religious family, everyone seems to have its own explanation, like they just called Gd and got the answer. Either the family is not religious enough, or, in this case, the parents met directly not through a shadchan - matchmaker -, or they are cursed for old and hidden sins. Although nowadays the situation changed as there are much more children with Down Syndrome or various ADHD and autism-related needs, the perception remains, but at least the social services and assistance for families - and even the degree of acceptance, improved. Children with special needs are no more given away 'as a disposable', but integrated in special classes, undergoing therapy or taken care in the advanced and highly efficient health and therapy system created for decades in Israel. 
But at the time Judy Brown was growing up in America: 'Being sick was a much better thing (...) than being sick'. The curious Menucha wants to know why her brother Nachum is not 'normal', why Gd is not answering her prayers and doesn't reward her attempts of fasting. 'If I were Gd, I'd keep things much more simple and straightforward. Then I wouldn't have to listen to so many tearful prayers'. The misunderstandings around Nachum is a source of tension not only among children, but also for the parents. A terrible episode is describing the father trying violently to convince Nachum to say a blessing. He was unsuccessful, but kept shaking the poor speechless boy. 'My father couldn't stop. It was as if he was ripping down the wall around my brother's mind with his bare hand, trying to tear my brother out of there, and drag him over to our side, where he belonged'. The fear of the unknown and incomprehensible - the poor Nachum unable to defend or say something, like we all do - is always there and can explain, without justifying certain behaviors: 'where there are no words, there is always fear'.  
It is an emotional, well written, from the point of view of a small girl and a grown up, wiser, teenager, book, depicting perfectly deep feelings, contradictions and sadness, but also curiosities and funny childhood moments - I personally loved the sweets bargaining.
I first recommend reading this book because it is a good book, but also for the story of love and acceptance and growing out of social and religious borders and finding a voice and the own path. And sharing stories with the world. I can't wait for her next book, as Judy Brown is a writer to include on the Jewish literary radar in the years to come.

Thursday 10 November 2016

Golem Exhibition at the Jewish Museum Berlin

Until the end of January 2017, the Jewish Museum in Berlin hosts a temporary exhibition dedicated to the frightening, mythical and often misunderstood figure of the Golem. Does this exhibition make justice to it, bringing more clarifications and countering the anti-Semitism associated to it?
To start with the news lead: during the wandering through the various artifacts and explanations, and some movies too, I hardly found anything that haven't been told about the Golem. In a bric-a-brac style I encountered in the case of other exhibitions hosted here, you are introduced to an enormous amount of information and objects. From Made in China plastic warriors to work of art playing with calligraphy and new-Age Kabbalistic visions and manga, the exhibition succeeded to cover almost everything.
But too much information, especially when presented in a quite uncritical and - maybe - shyly to assume some standpoints doesn't help too much, especially when your audience is not an expert and it is possibly expecting to understand more about a specific topic than to encounter various manifestations of the topic.
Obviously, there is never enough time to properly approach such a controversial topic, and eventually one can read more about the Golem before and after the exhibition. The first reference to the creation of such a being is mentioned in the secret Kabbalistic book of Sefer Yetzira - Book of Creation - attributed to Avraham Avinu. It is supposed that Maharal of Prague created the first Golem, in Prague - late 16th, beginning of the 17th century. In the 19th century, the legend was that a Golem may protect Jews from persecutions. The other meaning is that a Golem is a symbol of political crazes going amok, but by extension it can be applied to robotics, Artificial Intelligence or genetic engineering. The artists exploring the mysteries of creativity are supposed to brought to life powers that may be bigger than life and thus, dangerous if misused.
In the German-speaking realms, the predominant representation of the Golem was influenced by the movie with the same name, Paul Wagner, extensively presented at the exhibition. Without grasping the deep understanding of the legend and the meaning, the interpretations slightly entered the well-known register of anti-Semitism. This is, in my opinion, particularly the risk encountered by presenting too much information: everyone can pick up a single sentence and meaning, out of the original context, and play it in the unexpectedly wrong way. Call it the Golem's curse, maybe...
Despite the problematic part, if you plan to attend the exhibition with an open mind and a notebook for some further inspiration and documentation, there are things to learn about, especially when it comes to the works of art and the creative representations of the Golem. Shortly, this is one of the exhibitions it is snobbish to eff it, because everyone else in your group was there, but not necessarily the headline of the season, obviously for a good intellectual reason.