Celia Gurevitch Jewish Community Library

The last few weeks of my life were louder than usual, thanks to the blessed noises and cries of our newborn. Agnon‘s book was the perfect retreat to at least inner quietness. Whenever I read any of his books, the near-Biblical language he is using and the pace of his books always provide the calmness I seek from them. I was not disappointed this time either; I could transfer myself to mellower times by reading In the Heart of the Seas. The constant reference to the heroes as “our men of good heart” greatly contributed to the pleasant atmosphere the book emanated.

The plot of the story sounds simple; a group of Hasidim make aliyah, emigrate to Israel. On one hand this does not sound too exciting; after all, nowadays lots of people travel, emigrate or even make aliyah. On the other hand we have to consider that these travelers made their journey back in the day, when traveling was a much more arduous process. Furthermore, making aliyah is not just any journey, but THE journey for a devout Jews of the 19th or any century, it requires as much spiritual preparation, strength and persistence as physical. Agnon’s story draws a clear parallel between the physical, spiritual and lifelong journey. By the last I mean that it is possible to read the book at a deeper level as a metaphor for life journey. We start out somewhere low and as we aspire to higher ground, we do everything we can to get there. What we strive for more of is not material wealth, but getting closer to G-d. This is Agnon’s main point in my reading.

Another focus is that the journey cannot be done alone. The value of community is essential for our travelers. They would not be able to survive alone. They value each other and each others’ differences. The group develops from a band of travelers to a close-knit congregation through their tribulations.

There are two literary connections I could not escape noticing. Joseph Campbell described the monomyth, aka the hero’s journey, in The Hero with a Thousand Faces as a tri-stage process,

A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.

In this case (most of) our heroes do not return, but they definitely follow the rest of the pattern Campbell recognized. In this sense Agnon’s book is a typical monomyth.

The other famous book where ten people travel together and tell stories to each other is Boccaccio‘s Decameron. It is mostly known for its erotic and tragic content, but that too deserves more attention. There the characters escape from the Black Death. Here they are not escaping from death but going towards fulfillment of their lifelong dream. There Lady Fortune, aka fate, is the decisive factor of what happens. Here divine authority saves or condemns people, who have the power through their actions and prayers to influence their life. Rather different outlooks, wouldn’t you say?

Just last week I wrote that I like reading fiction books for their plot and character development. I forgot to mention that I enjoy descriptive just as much. Shmuel Yosef Agnon is a master of that. (I spelled out his first and middle name on purpose, because almost all the time he is referred to only as S. Y. Agnon. He deserves his full name to be known. And not just because the Nobel Prize for Literature he won in 1966.) Here is the very opening of the book, setting the tone for the rest,

Just before the first of the Hasidim went up to the Land of Israel, a certain man named Hananiah found his way to their House of Study. His clothes were torn, rags were wound around his legs, and he wore no boots on his feet; his hair ad beard were covered with th dust of the roads, and all his worldly goods were tied up in a little bundle which he carried with him in his kerchief.

I cannot omit mentioning the work of I. M. Lask, who magnificently translated the book from Hebrew to English. T. Herzl Rome illustrated the book with nine pictures. His style of drawing with simple, yet powerful lines fit well the book’s theme. Here is Hananiah himself,

I selected Esther Kahn for our filmclub unseen, based on the reviews only and for the hope the Summer Phoenix, the lead actress would provide a great performance. We’ve seen her a few weeks ago in Believer (as Carla). I just watched the movie and can honestly recommend that indeed, she is a phenomenal actress in a fascinating role. The other name from the cast you might recognize is Ian Holm’s, who besides playing Bilbo in The Lord of the Rings series played in indie movies like Garden State and blockbusters like The Day after Tomorrow. I also liked him The Fifth Element and Brazil.

The reviews ensured me that the movie has enough Jewish content to grant a showing in our program. Having watched the movie last night though I have to admit that the Jewish aspects are prevalent in the first half hour, but then they virtually disappear. The rest of the movie is a visual essay on stage acting in 19th century London. The main theme of the movie is how Esther Kahn struggles with obstacles to become good at acting. If you are interested in theater it is a great analysis. If you are not interested in it, you may enjoy less the story. But the cinematography is still beautiful and enchanting. For that itself I think it is worth your time.

The movie is not rated in the US, but I suspect that because of brief frontal female nudity and one violent scene it would get a PG 17 rating. For comparison I can share that in Switzerland it got a 14 and up rating, while in Portugal a 12 and up. It is 2 hours and 20 minutes long, so bring pillows to make your chair more comfortable.

You can watch the three-minute preview below:

Last week’s filmclub taught a few lessons again. For example as we’ve seen, showing movies from VHS tapes via a projector is not a good idea, because the image gets to blurry. I can blame this mishap partially on the tape, which is after all more than twenty years old and even on a TV it would have not been as sharp as our eyes would trained on DVDs the last few years, would like it. Nevertheless I would lie to say thank you for all 16 people who watched the movie with me. We had plenty of people who showed up for the first time.

The advantage of using the projector was that the experience was more cinema-like. We had the projector set no a table in the center and as people could not sit in front of it we had a natural aisle there. Thus the seats were set in 4 rows each side. It started to resemble to a real movie theater.

Somebody asked the day before the showing whether War and Love was a good movie. I could not answer with a reassuring yes. I believe the consensus supported my opinion that it was worth watching it for the story and for a peak at young Kyra Sedgwick. Unfortunately the main actor was not the best choice, I believe. I may not be the only person thinking that because the actor did not get to many roles after this. Nevertheless we all had a memorable time.

When I wanted to find information about 17th of Tammuz, a minor fast day, that will happen on Sunday, I came across “Jewish Days, a book of Jewish life and culture around the year,” edited by Francine Klagsbrun and Mark Podwal. As it is organized chronologically and goes through literally every significant day of the Jewish calendar it was easy to find what I was looking for. The two and a half page description starts with,

Five dreadful things happened on the seventeenth of Tammuz, the Mishnah informs is: Moses broke the tablets of the Law; the daily sacrifice in the First Temple ceased; the Romans breached the walls of Jerusalem; and someone named Apostomos burned the Torah scroll and placed an idol in the Second Temple.

The authors then go through rabbinic and academic sources to expound the history of these events. Independently from what they establish about their historical accuracy they conclude

Whether all these events actually happened on that day-and just what they were-is less important in Jewish thought than the concentration of emotion around the destruction of the First and Second Temple, both represented in this list.

For a day-by-day cultural and religious history of Judaism check out Jewish Days, or just read about certain days in the library itself.

I am a pretty fast reader, albeit I do not do speed reading. Nevertheless I like to plough through books for different reasons. In the case of (good) fiction I am curious about the plot and character development to turn the pages fast. When I am reading non-fiction I want to learn as much as I can as fast as I can, along with trying to figure out the main point(s) of the book.

Reading, however Toby Knobel Fluek‘s “Memories of my life in a Polish village, 1930-1949” I had to slow down. In order to get the most out of this book I had to savor each page as long as it took to sink in me. There are several reasons for my recommendation for you to do the same. Each page has a reprint of one of the author’s paintings or drawings. You have to take your time to explore the images in order to fully “get” them. Not to mention that the pictures in the first half of the book are fun to look at and explore. Part of the fun was the nostalgic atmosphere they emanated of the old world. By “old world” I refer to both Poland, part of Europe, and also “old” in the sense that these depict pre-Shoah scenes. The text accompanying each picture gives us the memories that inspired the artist to create them. They are written in a simple style using short sentences and not too many, carefully selected adjectives. This style amplifies the longing feeling one gets reading these passages for a simpler times.

In the first four chapters Fluek shows her family, Sabbath preparations, how they celebrated holidays and her family’s neighbors. The second half of the book details the Russian and consequent German occupation and the eventual liberation. In the years covered here Fluek suffered from hunger, cold, loneliness, fear and by the end of the war she lost most of her family. The style of writing and painting did not change form the first half, thus the dissimilarity of the subject matter is providing sharp contrast. If you are ready to encounter the author’s personal recollection of the Shoah do not skip the second half of the book. But, if you only want to submerge to Jewish life in a small Polish village life I recommend reading and looking through the first half. For example here is the painting from page five titled Our Kitchen along with the description.

In this room my mother cooked the meals and baked the bread, and the washwoman did the laundry here. Mother baked the bread for a whole week at a time. The kneading of the dough took a lot of elbow grease; it was done in a large wooden tub. There were two wood-burning stoves for cooking and an oven for baking. Every farmhouse had similar stoves. The poor lived in only one large room like this one, with a bed in the corner.

I spent about 20 minutes before the show trying to hook up the projector, so we could watch the movie on big screen. I was only half successful: the image came in fine I could even make it sharp. However the built-in speakers in the projector had dismally low volume. I tried to use the TV-set’s speakers but no sound came out of them unless the picture was coming through there as well. So I gave up and we ended up watching the movie on the TV itself.  As it was twelve of us (including two people who visited the synagogue the very first time) we sat in 3 and half rows. I admit that the volume sometimes was not loud enough in the back row, even after I cranked it to the maximum.

The Believer was clearly the most disturbing movie we’ve seen in the series so far. When it was over there were a few minutes of shocked silence.  Then we asked and answered a few clarifying questions about the plot itself. We also tried to talk about the emotionally charged issue of the capacity for evil within every one of us and questioned from where we can get the courage and power to fight it. These were just some of the tough questions the movie raised in us.

The library has an interesting little package titled The Tribe. It contains a postcard a deck of cards with special instruction on how to play them, a booklet containing facts and inspiration about Jewish life throughout time and space. The main item in the box, the one that gave the content and context for the others, is however a 15 minute long DVD. On the top level it is the story of the Barbie doll that was created by a Jewish woman. On a deeper level though, it is a socio-anthropological exploration of Jewish identity. First it situates within the context of wider society what belonging to a certain tribe means. Then it goes through various aspects of what being Jewish means. Finally at the end it points back to the original framework of how small and integrated the Jewish community is within the whole of humanity. I assure you the video is much livelier than this dry description. The clever usage of well-known images and clips mixed with lesser known ones, along with intelligent narration creates an overall rather enjoyable presentation. To learn more about the film check its website, watch the trailer below or better yet borrow the DVD from the library.

A two year old article from The Times has been circulating recently about Jews in India, “Tolerance, integration and kosher curry: The vibrant Jewish communities of India have declined — but live on in the diaspora.” It gives a very short introduction and overview of the topic that can fit on the columns of a newspaper. Or those who would like to know more we have four books. The oldest one, from 1952, follows the travels of Louis Rabinowitz, the South African Chief Rabbi, on the Far East, mostly India and a bit of Singapore. The title of the book is, appropriately, “Far East mission.” Within the context of the travel book it talks about the origins, social conditions, customs, architecture and many other aspects of the various Jewish communities of this subcontinent.

Interestingly the other three books are all about woman. “Ruby of Cochin, an Indian Jewish woman remembers” contains the memoirs of Ruby Daniel, born in 1912 in Calcutta, edited and co-written by Barbara C. Johnson. It is

the first book written by a Jewish woman from Cochin. It is the rich description of Jewish life on the Southwest coast of India, spanning many centuries. It is the story of one woman-yet it is also the story of the Jews of Cochin, from the earliest settlements, when the Maharajah granted the Jews their land and privileged status, until today, when a transplanted community is finding new life in Israel.

“Burnt bread and chutney, growing up between cultures – a memoir of an Indian Jewish girl” by Carmit Delman takes us to a more recent time and to another Indian Jewish community, the Bene Israel in Bombay. Ms. Delman grew up there, feeling and being different. In her memoir, which was recommended for the Ballentine reader’s circle, she explores her heritage and contrasts and analyzes her memories.

The final book I want mention was edited by Jael Sillman and is part of the Brandeis series on Jewish women. “Jewish portraits, Indian frames; women’s narratives from a Diaspora of hope” contains four indepth autobiographical essays. Being a scholarly volume it also has extensive reference section, index and numerous footnotes. The context setting preface, introduction and conclusion takes up a fifth of the book.

I always appreciate when I learn something that helps me imagine life before I was born. I read a fair amount about the Shoah and World War II, but almost all of it was written after the war. “Address unknown” first appeared in 1938 and is set 1932-34. It gives such a different perspective than the books written with hindsight knowledge. It shows the process as it happened, how intelligent and decent people were swept away by the Nazi ideology in Germany in the 1930′s. Through a series of letters we get acquainted with a Jewish art dealer in San Francisco and his long-time friend and business partner. The latter was of German origin whose move back to Germany in 1932 gave an opportunity to revive their correspondence. Step-by-step the German businessman becomes engrossed by local politics and the prevalent ideals of his country, to the point… No, I will not post spoilers here to what extremes he changes, you just need to find it out for yourself, from this short, 64 page long book.

The foreword is also worth reading. That’s where I learned that the story was first published in Story magazine, but it was thought to be too strong coming from a woman, so it was published under the “Kressmann Taylor” name, Kressmann being the author’s maiden last name and Taylor her husband’s. The history of the piece includes being published in Reader’s Digest, despite their policy of not publishing fiction and gaining popularity throughout the US. It had no chance of getting known in Europe because shortly after its original publication the Nazis occupied most of Europe and banned the book, along with many other.

For a chilling effect, read through the letters and meditate with me how deep mass psychosis, desperation, need for self-esteem can drive people.

War and Love is a coming of age love story of two teenagers who happen to fall in love right before the creation of the Warsaw ghetto. The film shows their romantic story from beginning to end amidst the chaos and uprising of the turbulent times.  The film is adapted from a book the library has a copy of, Jack Eisner‘s The Survivor. Kyra Sedgwick, aka Mrs. Kevin Bacon, in her very first motion picture role, plays the young woman in the movie is portrayed. I did not find a trailer for the movie, thus as a teaser I posted a two minute segment online myself.

The film was shot in Budapest, Hungary in 1984, when I was sixteen. My grandmother was an extra in the movie and she managed to get me invited on the set as well. You cannot really see either of us, because we were in crowd scenes only, but I know exactly where I was in the few scenes where I should be visible. The working title of the movie was “The Children’s War.” I have been looking for a copy of the movie ever since I started to use the internet. Finally, when I learned few years ago that the final title of the movie was not the working title I managed to purchase a VHS copy from eBay. It never came out on DVD and I doubt it will.

Join us July 17, Thursday night at 7:30 to enjoy this 108 minutes long, PG13 movie and its recreation of pre-war Warsaw, young love and heroic struggles.