Tzili (transl. from Hebrew to German by Stefan Siebers) by Aharon Appelfeld

 

A simple girl from a poor family, situated in an unnamed country - there is a mention of a grandfather in the Carpathian region, and the Danube shore but anything specific -, but in a region whose Jews were wipped out from the face of the Earth, Tzili survived the war while hiding in the forest. The survival instinct helped her and also the survival drove her on her way to Palestine after the war was over. 

The homonymous book by Czernowitz-born Aharon Appelfeld is a non-sentimental story set on the foreground of the Shoah. All her family, except her bed-ridden father disappeared and by instinct, she left the house and either hid in the fields or in the forest, by performing menial works in the houses of local Christians. No one took her for a Jewess, as she always introduced herself as the daugher of Maria, a local prostitute. 

Compared to Katerina, Tzili is more realistic and less reflective on the past. The voice of her own story, she may not have a high self-awareness and her school results were less than mediocre, but maybe this simpleton attitude saved her. She did not think too much, lived her life with a strong will of survival. She may have heard from the village what was going on with the other Jews, but she never looked back, not even to go back to check on her father. Embarking to Palestine is a wise decision because what else can expect her here. 

At the end of the war, she is 15, pregnant with a man, Mark, she encountered while in the forest, another sad soul like her, that left her too without a trace that she loves, and so she loves his family - wife and children - that disappeared. Her human relationships are limited to basic interactions and the shild we may take it as a way to take distance from the rest of the world is just a philosophical artifact of our minds thirsty for human mysteries. In fact, she is just a simple person, with no future and past, just the present.

In Tzili, emotions are created without offering to the reader an emotional writing itself. Descriptions and interactions are the way in which the story takes shape. As a way to write about those terrible times, it helps, although may render the characters empty and cruel.

I had access to the book in an excellent translation from Hebrew into German by Stefan Siebers.

UltraOrthodox

I rarely had the chance to read a book belonging to the emerging Jewish literary genre of OTD-Memoirs with such a gentle and angerless take as Akiva Weingarten´s. Born and raised in the midst of the insular Satmar community in NYC, he eventually moved to Israel languising for knowledge in Bnei Brak while being trapped in the emptiness of a mimetic family life.

With 1000 USD in the pocket, out of it 40 Euro he had to pay the fine for buying the wrong metro ticket, Weingarten arrived in Berlin decided to radically leave behind his past and start anew. Maybe as a doctor. But one can dream when there is no clear proof of academic evaluation, one cannot move forward towards achieving an university profile. Sadly by co-existing in a separate, sometimes antinomic educational system, the members of ultraorthodox groups automatically limit the chances of professional achievement. Of course, there is a subtle way of controlling the knowledge and the information coming in and out the group, a more subsidious kosher filters Weingarten used to promote for a short amount of time, but nevertheless it is a sad reality.

To my knowledge, this is the first such memoir completely written in the German language - Deborah Feldman was first ´famous´ in the English-speaking realm before making a media and publishing career in Germany anyway. Although the explanation of different practices and terminology takes an important part of the book, the focus is on the journey and the search for meaning. Life meaning, once one lives religion and its mental and physical comfort. 

After spending a couple of years in Berlin and graduating from Avraham Geiger Kolleg in Potsdam, Weingarten founded a Besht Yeshiva in Dresden. Named after the initiator of the Hasidism, Baal Shem Tov, the yeshiva is aimed to help people who left Orthodoxy settle in their new life. At the beginning, long before the Shoah, Hasidism was created as a reaction against the ´institutionalisation´ of Jewish institution, represented by the Litvische mainstream at the time. Nowadays, it evolved itself as a very conservative mainstream of Judaism. History repeats itself in a different timeline and with a different approach.

I enjoyed reading UltraOrthodox and I wish the book will be translated into English soon too. It is an intellectually passionate journey that deserves a larger audience, for sure.