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.

Book Review: Bread Givers by Anzia Yezierska

´The whole world would be in thick darkness if not for men like me who give their lives to spread the light of the Holy Torah´.

Anzia Yezierska is a chronicler of the poverty and hardships of the first generations of Jews coming to America, the ´goldene medina/the country of gold´ (a diluted version of milk and honey). Her memoir Red Ribbon on a White Horse is a testimony of her personal experience of growing up in a family dominated by a dictator of a father dedicated to religion but neglecting his own family, but also of the struggle for every crumb. Growing up poor in this world is like a sickness which usually occurs sooner or later anyway. 

In the novel Bread Givers, part of her personal story served as an inspiration for some of the characters. As in her real life, the father of the family, Reb Smolensky, is a Torah scholar oblivious to the needs of his daughters and wife. The daughters are his source of revenue and marrying them is a business that should help him survive. For him, women are just an add-on, who may bring some money into the house besides keeping the house lit for the comfort of the learned men. ´Women had no brains for the study of God´s Torah, but they could be the servants of men who studied the Torah. Only if they cooked for the men, and washed for the men, and didn´t nag or curse the men out of their homes; only if they let the men study the Torah in peace, maybe, they could push themselves into Heaven with the men, to want on them there´. Maybe...Surprisingly or not I´ve heard such platitudes more than once in our current times.

Ironically, there are the women characters, all of them, who are more sympathetic and stronger than the men. They are not only ambitious and successful in their endeavours, but also are pretending men to offer them comfort and praise their presence. The switch from the generation of women from the ´old country´ to the ´Americans´ is done. 

The brave main character of Bread Givers is the little Sara who´s running away from a house blackened by poverty and the dictatorship ruling of a narcissistic father. She will be the only sister who will achieve a professional career - as a teacher - and a rewarding relationship, through hard work and resilience. The resilience of people who survived pogroms to move to America and start a new life, but in most cases, those chances happened rather for their children and grand children. 

Literally speaking, it´s clear that the audience of this book has a very different profile as the readership of today, both Jewish and American. However, there is a deep humanity of the characters which appeals across ages and times, including Sara´s late reconciliation with his abusive father and her emotional attitude when faced with the death of her mother that she willingly separated. The way in which the story is told creates a special ambiance and set up a story which is interesting to follow because of its universal human interest.

Every time I am reading books like Bread Givers I feel like a whole history of American Jews is becoming more human and easier to understand. It is a hard history of struggles and hardship that helps to understand how far they succeeded. It´s a sociological and anthropological insight that may explain a lot.

Rating: 3 stars

Rather Laugh Than Cry: Stories from a Hassidic Household

With a detachement and a sense of humour only someone having to deal with an overwhelming daily challenge could have, Malka Zipora is sharing her wisdom and experience about being a Jewish Orthodox mother. Far from being a memoir, her short stories collected under Rather Laugh Than Cry. Stories from a Hassidic Household, are not only interesting for the information shared - from little cooking tips to parenting and insights about the observant life - but also for the good waves and inspiration sent to the reader.

At the very big sense of the world, the stories could be considered short fragments of a memoir, with personal accounts being the base of her writing. But even if you take them as just stories and personal accounts, it does not diminish at all the quality of the writing. 

Born in Israel to Hungarian Shoah survivor parents, Malka Ziporah lived in Australis and New York before settling to Montreal where she is raising her family. Her book was on my to-read list for a long time, first because I was very curious to check a woman author with a very traditional background. Although in the last years, more women from Hassidic families are taking the challenge of becoming writers, many of them might share mostly their religious and personal struggles. 

Malka Ziporah also has lots of struggles to cope with round the day, but her emunah and resilience place her on the other side of the stories, where life was accepted already as it is and her desire to write doesn't contradict her status of a Hassidic woman. Her faith is a source of inspiration and strength and by sharing her experiences she is opening up her usually reclused world to an universal audience. The authenticity of her voice is part of her contribution as a writer to displaying an unique sparkle worth being included to the literary experiences. 

My biggest regret was that the book finished and there are not other books by Malka Ziporah I can keep reading to remain in this world, in her world.

The Ruined House of Intellectual Self-Sufficiency

'He has never been a pedantic library rat. Scholarship is an art for for him. His light, airy manner suggest a painter or a sculptor working in a spacious, well-lit studio, whisting to himself as he works. Most academics of his generation, products of the ecstasis of the sixties, transliterated their own youthful rebellion into political radicalism, but that did not necessarily lead to methodological creativity. Andrew had never succumbed to the cheap temptation of being a professional rebel or playing the exhibitionistic role of the university enfant terrible. Although well versed in the standard critiques of capitalist society and proficient in teaching them to his students, he had never fallen prey to the anger and bitterness that characterized many of his colleagues. The buoyancy of his ideas keeps them afloat. From above, they can easily shift perspective, sometimes tumbling into creative free fall like Alice down the rabbit hole'.

Meet Andrew P. Cohen, professor of comparative culture at NY University. He is easygoing, divorced with 2 children, dating a much younger former student, enjoying the good life and the high social status conferred by his impressive intellectual and academic achievements. He is not going through an identity crisis and doesn't want to be anywhere else he is already. Moderate, not dillematic and crossed against himself and the rest of the world as the academics portrayed decades ago by Saul Bellow or Philip Roth. He doesn't care about religion more than he should. It doesn't match anyway the average aesthetical outline of the NYC intellectual landscape.

At least, he used to be so until the crisis occurred. His reality started to get intruded by strange creatures from the time of the Temple, Cohanim and their ancient rites, to whom theoretically Andrew belongs too. Only that his temple sits on a different ground or he insisted to believe so. It is not a matter of life and death and the world of comparative cultures doesn't accept a hierarchy. Can you live without a basis, your own, not all the world's cultures?

The fact that often, regardless of educational background one needs a basis to stand is a basic issue, and has often a stereotypical solution. The ways in which Ruby Namdar created his story, the construction of his literary temple is outstanding and although I've often felt overwhelmed by the bias, I couldn't leave the book because of the beautiful writing and images created. The book was beautifully translated from Hebrew which make me curious to look into the original version that it might be a fundamental work of Hebrew language too. The Biblical knowledge is equally outstanding, with Talmudic commentaries and episodes that require dozen of books and additional commentaries to understand.

The Ruined House is a fundamental literary work about intellectual perception and identity and marks a complete new shift into the mainstream contemporary approaches. Its contribution to the history of ideas and Jewish mentalities is an important brick into our Temple after the Temple projections.

Rating: 4 stars 

Book Review: When We Danced on Water, by Evan Fallenberg

Two artists, Vivi and Teo, she in her 40s, he in his late 80s, she an artist still looking for her creative identity, he, a national brand nd the creator of the ballet school in Israel, meet in a coffee in Tel Aviv. Vivi is the waitress there and he is usually having his coffee there. Slowly slowly, they are connecting not only through their creative searches, but by their individual personal stories.

I couldn't leave the first half of When We Danced on Water, by Evan Fallenberg and I cannot clearly mention one single reason for that. The writing flows beautifully with extraordinary descriptions of dance and debates about art, but there is also the impulsive artistic ambiance of Tel Aviv that I miss so much once in a while. 

But as I was advancing through the second part, my disappointment grew as I started to see story flaws everywhere. First, Vivi's Berlin failed love story: it takes place too fast, seems just to fill up some narrative space before the most important story - which actually occupies the most place - Teo's, takes place. On the other hand, Teo's story, which takes place during the war while he is kidnapped by a sadistic German official with whom will share a villa in Grunewald for a couple of years, apparently the same villa where Vivi lived during her Berlin adventure, would deserved a larger space and is what really matters in the story. It would have been worth a book in itself. 

The last quarter is also taking place too fast and looks equally artificial. The events leading up to the end seemed for me just added up details with a kitschy soap opera taste. I grew up more and more disappointed, although sparkles of brilliance were still spread all over the book, such as Vivi's artistic idea to recreate life stories based on pictures, material memories, in addition to personal narratives. 

When We Danced on Water is a book that has many interesting ideas and make you think about the destinies of the characters, but personally would have expected a more coherent story. Although, after so many literary approaches, writing a fiction novel with episodes taking place during Shoah is becoming more and more difficult and requires a lot of creativity to produce a good yet literary balanced story.

Rating: 3 stars

In another time and space 'A Man Lies Dreaming'...

This is a very challenging book, unique for its approach and creativity. Every successful book should be unique for...but, some topics are much harder to be creative with than the others. 

In 'A Man Lies Dreaming', Shomer (watcher, in Hebrew) an inmate of Auschwitz is re-creating a world where the cursed German dictator is just a refugee turning into a refugee, in an England openly unfriendly towards the difference - actually this last part is not a fictional projection. 

The time of the story alternates from the adventures of detective 'Wolf' aka Adolf, hired to find the whereabouts of a Jewish girl mysteriously missing on her way from the - communist - Germany to the free England. In the good tradition of the shund - the Yiddish version of pulp noir openly despised by Sholem Aleihem who criticized the popular author Shomer for his un-literary and bad taste writings - there are a lot of sexual encounters and misadventures. During the story, 'Wolf' is having his own private 'bris' and will emigrate to Palestine with Exodus, while 'In another time and space' Shomer lies either 'dreaming' or 'sleeping'.

The entire story - with its many stories and references, from the top members of the Nazi establishment to various literary references, more or less familiar - with its absurd episodes and hard-core moments its a run against the clock for survival. This is how Shomer, who lost his children and wife at Auschwitz is able to survive the daily nightmare, so well that it will simply disappear, becoming maybe himself one of the characters of his own stories. Or this is the hope that he did so. 

In a very gentle way, this book is a praise to the world of imagination and the work of spirit, which sometimes can won even in the most disgraced places. It is not guaranteed but at least it is worth a try. It makes life more bearable, whatever the circumstances.