To all my friend and colleagues:
My new book: Portraits in Literature: The Jews of Poland. An
Anthology has been reviewed by Jonathan Kirsch in the Jewish Journal
in Los Angeles of September 16-22, 2011.
The Gift Poland Once Offered,
The long history of the Jews in Poland has been almost wholly
eclipsed by the Holocaust. Fully half of the victims of German mass
murder were Polish Jews, who numbered approximately 3.5 million on
the eve of World War II. But the fact remains that Poland was the
seat of a vibrant and enduring Jewish civilization that survives on
the printed page, and in a real sense, in many of our own ideas about
what it means to be Jewish.
The point is vividly and memorably made by Hava Bromberg Ben-Zvi
in the pages of "Portraits in Literature: The Jews of Poland. An
Anthology" (Vallentine Mitchell: $74.95), an extraordinarily rich
collection of more than 50 excerpts from fiction, reportage, poetry,
memoir, correspondence, folklore and humor, all touching in one way
or another on the Jewish experience in Poland.
"My Jewish ancestors resided in Poland for approximately 1000
years," affirms the author, who shares a Polish-Jewish heritage with
millions of American Jews. "This book is a saga of Jewish life in
Poland as reflected in the mirror of literature."
Ben-Zvi has selected some of the most affecting and enlightening
passages from her remarkably diverse source material, and she makes
them even more meaningful by providing her own annotations and
illuminations. For example, she begins with a passage from Sholem
Asch's story "The Rebel," and she introduces the once-revered Yiddish
writer to a new generation of readers who know little or nothing
about him or his work. She points out that his novels about the life
of Jesus, intended to show "the common roots of Judaism and
Christianity and to bridge the gap between them," resulted in a
charge of apostasy. "Misunderstood, he defended himself for the rest
of his life," she points out, "mostly without success."
Other selections are meant to remind us, quite literally, of the
rhythms, sound and tastes of Jewish life in Poland. A charming memoir
by Nina Luszczyk-Ilienkowa, for example, evokes the experience of a
modest little store that was, in the eyes of the writer, nothing less
than a place of wonder. " Look, ladies and gentlemen, what we have
here. Hats of Vilnius milliners, from Zamkowa Street, slightly out of
fashion, but at convenient prices. Christmas ornaments and colorful
tissue paper, laces, beads, pins, ribbons, clasps for girls' braids.
Tooth-combs, side combs, and gloves of fabric and wool, or lightly
knit and transparent, On the other side, on little shelves, choice
morsels galore." Even now, the writer confesses, " I swoon at the
memory of the aromas long forgotten, not experienced for sixty
years." And so do we.
Of course, Ben-Zvi feels an obligation to remind us that the
victims of the Holocaust were flesh-and-blood human beings and not
merely numbers. Aliza Melamed recalls the unspeakable sights that she
saw in the Warsaw Ghetto, but she also gives us a glimpse of the
famous ghetto fighter Mordecai Anielewicz at an unguarded moment: "He
always wore a gray coat, sports trousers and golf-socks; he had a
thin face and greenish eyes with daring in them, which would
sometimes smile, and then they looked so fatherly and forgiving."
Another intimate view of Anielewicz is given in an essay by the
ghetto documentarian Emanuel Ringelblum, who recalls how the young
man would borrow books on history and economics. "Who was to know
that this quiet, modest, pleasant youth would, three years later, be
the most important person in the ghetto, and that his name would be
spoken with veneration by some and with fear by others?" Anielewicz
himself, who died in combat during the Warsaw ghetto uprising, speaks
for himself in a brief letter: "The last aspiration of my life has
been fulfilled," he wrote in the last moments of his heroic life.
"Jewish self-defense and Jewish revenge are a reality."
"Jewish literature and culture did not perish from the face of
the earth," Ben-Zvi concludes. "Inherited and transformed by a new
generation of writers, it was reborn, changed and enriched, finding
new configurations, images and expressions." Ben-Zvi's beautiful and
stirring book is a superb example of the same phenomenon.
Jonathan Kirsch, author and publishing attorney, is book
editor of the Jewish Journal. He blogs on books
atjewishjournal.com/twelvetwelve and can be reached at
bo...@jewishjournal.com
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