Fear by Chana Blankshteyn translated by Anita Norich

 

Yiddish women writers are becoming discovered lately through excellent translations. After the Blume Lempel and Yenta Mash who were relatively known among the Yiddish knowledgeable, the short stories of a well travelled Vilna based author, Chana Blankshteyn seen the light of the English-speaking literary realm, in the translation of Anita Norich. 

For those curious about an Yiddish-English translation of the short stories who gives the name of the volume, Fear, they can practice this exercise offered by In Geveb Yiddish publication. 

Blankshteyn is relatively less known outside her time and Vilna. Contemporary with Isaac Babel, she dies on a natural death in 1943. Her collection of stories was originally published under the title Noveles with a foreword by Max Weinreich and was one of the last Yiddish books to appear in Vilna before WWII. There are only a few copies available right now from this collection, out of which only two in the US. The author who felt at ease with the world and travelled extensively, especially throughout Europe, was eulogized as a writer and a pioneer for women´s rights and the poor. 

The first English volume of Fear recently published includes nine short stories. The story that gives the name to the volume deserves fully to be given the title of the volume because it is an admirable collection of emotions and contrasts, a vibrant episode from the life of a character, full of dramatism and suspense. It is so well written that one may need a break before continuing with the rest of the stories. Almost all the stories though look like sequences from the life of some characters brought together temporarily, as it usually happens in life. After the story ends, we may guess they life continued but it is out of the sight of our literary imagination.

There are mostly women with voices represented in the stories, and they are coming for various layers of Jewish life, especially non-religious ones - although in one of the stories there is a ´comrade rabbi´ requested to officiate a chupa - Jewish wedding - to two secular Jews, one of them the granddaughter of a Hasidic rebbe. There is a world on the move, changing both in social, political and economic ways. Not surprisingly, there is the character of the ´foreigner´, more or less Jewish, who is entangled in relationship with local Jewish girls. The foreigner is the messenger of a globalized world, and so are becoming the relationships too.

The women in the stories are orphans, single mothers by choice and not because widowed, working women, women not interested to have a relationship at all. In most cases, the location of the story is not mentioned - except Paris - and so is their Jewish identity. Although, the references to High holidays in autumn or the month of Tammuz - actually, the only month mentioned; Tammuz usually takes place between the Gregorian June-July and is the month where the 17th of Tammuz fast takes place, which marks the beginning of the three weeks leading to Tisha B´Av; overall, not a happy month in the Jewish calendar - are a reference that we are moving within the Jewish realm. References about anti-Semitism and pogroms do exist too, but one must remember that in this part of the world, such events were rather the rule than the exception therefore they were part of the everyday Jewish reality.

With calm and cold blood, analytically and observing, sometimes from very afar, Chana Blankshteyn is a witness of her times, a literary journalist of a world that soon is about to disappear. We - me including - may be tempted to judge it according to the current literary standards and expectations. But this is a wrong take. Rather, we should open our curiosity towards exploring the Yiddish world of past times. I wish there are more such books brought to the editorial light, they mean more than any historical reference because they are slices of life as it once was.

Rating: 4 stars 

David Grossman: More than I Love My Life (transl. into German by Anne Birkenhauer)

 

Included on the 2022 International Booker Prize Longlist, More Than I Love My Life (transl. into English by veteran Hebrew to English translator Jessica Cohen)/Was Nina wusste (transl. into German from Hebrew by Anne Birkenhauer) is a multi-generational women story. Vera, originally from Yugoslavia, now in her 90s and at the beginning of Alzheimer´s, is back to the feared Goli Otok Island, the Adriatic Alcatraz where she was imprisoned and tortured for refusing to betray her non-Jewish husband, involved in the anti-Tito resistance. The return is part of a movie, her granddaughter Gili is making about her, and her daughter, Nina, who abandoned Gili when she was 3, is also taking the trip.

The novel is inspired by the story of one of Grossman´s confidante and I felt actually that this story has the emergency of writing down before it is too late, before the story is lost. Therefore, although it is far from being a short read, there are some parts which look like they were either wrote too fast, and therefore, not all the details come along together and the characters may have less depth. In other places, the emotional aspects take over the prose and it is not necessarily in the advantage of the writing.

Nevertheless, there is a certain attraction of the writing, as usual in the case of Grossman´s books, although personally I feel like his last books are somewhere floating on a sea of incertitudes and the characters look like unfinished paintings. 

Rating: 3 stars

Get Ready for a Summer of Gazoz

In full honesty, I don´t like - I deeply despise actually - most of gazoz - a word of Turkish origin desining ´gas´ - based drinks. I am not even a big friend of champagne...lame, I know, I know, I know...

But I cannot resist to think about new creative way to drink my summer, especially when my summer - compared with the long friendly Tel Aviv summer - is usually very short. Finding for inspiration that may help improve my hobby bartender skills is always a good idea, especially when one of the author of the collection of various gazoz recipes is Adeena Sussman, the popular chef of Sababa fame. The other author of Gazoz is Benny Briga who brought back in fashion in Tel Aviv the old soda. 

The drinks offered in the book do use a big variety of spices, ingredients, confits and fermented fruits. They are inspired by various seasonal harvest and by the local flora diversity. Fruits are combined with herbs and spices and flowers and as someone almost addicted to everything roses I am sure will dream by night about different drinks including rose petals as their featured ingredient. 

More than the recipes - which are relatively easy, only the ingredients may be a bit problematic to acquire if living outside Israel and the Middle East - in themselves, those sparkling soda glasses do share stories. Think about the rosewater syrup your grandma made for you, all the jams made of the fruits picked up fresh from your garden or the herbs your neighbour decided to share with you. In every glass, besides spices and a drop of syrup, there is so much humanity too.

After all, there may be a ´fizzy power of bubbles´ that I am willingly staying away of it...for now.

At the Death of a Journalist

The death of a journalist is the death of so many potential stories aimed to reveal the truth. When a journalist dies, the hope of representing the voice of the under-represented dies too. The killing of veteran Al Jazeera American-Palestinian journalist Shirin Abu-Akleh, while reporting in Jenin while wearing a Press-inscribed vest is beyond tragic. And nauseating is also the horrible view of the ambush that took place during her funeral the Friday after.

Reporting about and from the Middle East is complex for all the wrong reasons. Reporting from any place in the world should actually be complex, but the ideological and emotional weight of the reporting in this part of the world, particularly when it comes to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is poisonous.

Journalists die or are under threat all over the world. In one month only, in Ukraine, Russian forces killed five journalists. Others are missing in action. In 2021, 45 journalists were killed in connection with their work, Mexico being considered the most dangerous country for fair and honest reporting. Do we know the names of those journalists? Do we have long-length editorials and media outrage from politicians, diplomats, other journalists, social media users? Rarely so. 

In death, we are all equal, indeed, but when the circumstances of the death are as gruesome than those surrounding the death of Shirin Abu-Akleh, it´s unsatisfactory. I wish all those responsible for the death of journalists should be punished. I wish the circumstances of the death of journalists are investigated and made public. I also wish people make vigils for all the journalists - and academics - rotting in prisons of dictatorships. Are we informed every day a couple of times about the fate of the opposition Belarusian journalist Roman Protasevich and his girlfriend, both EU citizens, who were literally kidnapped from their Ryanair flight? Are people outraged on social media a couple of times the day about them being paraded on the local TVs and forced to confess crimes they never comitted? 

In addition, I also wish myself that the Middle East will be, one day, a normal part of the world, where humans no matter their religion and flag can mourn, report about news, sip quietly their coffee without the need of staining everyhing with ideology and political militantism. It´s suffocating and kills the soul. Something new should happen. 

Book Review: Alef by Katharina Höftmann Ciobotaru

I was very curious about Alef by German-born, Israel-relocated Katharina Höftmann Ciobotaru, as, based on the book descriptions. I feel for a long time that the German- - as well as Hebrew- - speaking literary realm is missing stories reflecting a reality my generation is experiencing: the relationships between young German and Israeli, both on generally human, but also very personal level. Given the complicated historical background, such interactions, particularly the ones involving relationships and love, could offer a very interesting source of literary creativity. Plus, it reflects an enfolding reality both in Israel and Germany for over a decade.

Maja, a 21-year old German from Rostock, meets during a backpacking trip Eitan, a decade older Israeli. The womanizer with a mixed Iraqi and Romanian heritage is falling in love and they start writing their own love story. First, long-distance, after he joins her in Berlin, feels unhappy and following a 6-year break-up, she moves to Israel. His grandparents are Shoah survivors, her relatives do have open Neo-Nazi allegiances and who knows what her granpa did during WWII. She takes a giur  (conversion) classes, after many hesitations, and after some personal hardship in accepting religion she is becoming Rivka and is supposed to give birth to a Jewish child to her husband.

Alef is both a love story and a story of belonging. What one may expect from such topics. Sometimes it may be exactly like this in real life. The love story in itself, the idea of two random people from two remote corners of the world meeting and falling in love is beautiful and this is what alef - beginning, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet - can be all about. The poetic ending of it - Höftman Ciobotaru is also a poet - was for me one of the best parts of the story. The fact that love - in any kind of story, but especially a German-Israeli one - comes with a heavy historical burden is also properly represented in the book.

However, there are some aspects that did not impress me greatly. For instance, the fact that 48 hours after their meeting, Eitan is asking Maja to convert really made me laugh very hard. Seriously, who will ever do this, especially an Israeli hanging around in India? It sounds so cliché that practically made for me the rest of the story largely and annoyingly unlikely. In general, I´ve found all the part regarding Eitan´s observance as well as Maja´s encounter with Gd largely unrelatable and too much cliché, although I am sure it relates to some of the German readers with an experience of a certain extent. However, it would have been so much place for a more ´natural´ approach, especially because being and becoming Jewish can happen in so many beautiful and non/anti-stereotypical ways. 

Another details that did not satisfy my literary tastes at all were related to the projections of the characters´ encounters. For example, when the focus is on one cast of characters and assumed that the other cast may have a certain involvement as well. It makes everything so predictable, although one may already expect that a love story happens anyway. 

The fact that diferent part of the story are in a complex way developed but without ever coming together it is a minus as well, as it would have make the story even more complex and relatable. 

Alef adds testimonies to the German-Israeli collection of common stories, in a similar vein with Mirna Funk´s books. Still, there is so much yet to be told, maybe in a more natural, Israeli-relaxed kind of way. Looking forward to more such books though.

Rating: 3 stars

Two Inspiring Jewish Books for Children

Pesach is always a good time to connect with family and spend more time with children. Inspired by the story-centered ambiance, it is much easier to continue after the Seder with even more Jewish-related stories, with or without a holiday topic.

This Pesach I´ve had the chance to read to my boy two inspiring and beautifully illustrated stories, courtesy of Kalaniot Books, a unique edition house whose books I hope to have the chance to review again soon. 

The Melody by Oded Burla, translated from Hebrew by Ilana Kurshan

Translated by Ilana Kurshan, The Melody is told in the pace of the old Yiddish stories. Created by the late Oded Burla, the founder of children´s literature in Hebrew, it is the parable of the Jewish connection with Gd. Took by the wind, a melody is looking for the right voice to told its story, but most potential beneficiaries, refused it up front. Until it finally reaches the mother about to sing a lullaby to her son. The mother´s voice embraces the melody putting the son to sleep.

Similarly, Gd tried to offer the Torah to other peoples but only the Jewish people accepted the gift without too much ado. 

The beautiful illustrations are signed by Assaf Benharroch.

A Persian Passover by Etan Basseri

Set in the Iran in the 1950s, A Persian Passover by Etan Basseri is more than your usual Pesach-related kind of story. Although it has reference at customs and traditions typical for a Persian seder - for instance, the haleq and the funny custom of hitting your neighbour during the seder with the leek - it is also a story of kindness and good neighbourhood. 

The super active Ezra is running too fast, stumbles and fells in the middle a puddle, and together with him the precious bundle of freshly prepared matzah for the Seder. After desperately trying to find some available matzah on the eve of the Seder, the generous neighbour next door will share hers, and in exchange the children - Ezra and his sister, Roza - invite her to their family Seder.

It is a kind story, with colourful dynamic illustrations that suit it perfectly, created by the very talented Rashin Kheiriyeh. 

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