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Sarna, editors, Women and American Judaism: Historical Perspectives Annelise Orleck, with photographs by Elizabeth Cooke, The Soviet Jewish Americans Ilana Abramovitch and Seán Galvin, editors, Jews of Brooklyn Ranen Omer-Sherman, Diaspora and Zionism in Jewish American Literature: Lazarus, Syrkin, Reznikoff, and Roth Diaspora and Zionism in Jewish American Literature Lazarus, Syrkin, Reznikoff, and Roth Ranen Omer-Sherman Brandeis University Press Published by University Press of New England Hanover and London Brandeis University Press Published by University Press of New England, Hanover, NH © by Brandeis University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America This book was published with the support of the Koret Foundation. Excerpts from Poems –: The Complete Poems of Charles Reznikoff Copyright © by Marie Syrkin Reznikoff and reprinted with the permission of Black Sparrow Press. Excerpts from Sabbath’s Theater Copyright © by Philip Roth. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company.All rights reserved. Excerpts from American Pastoral Copyright © by Philip Roth. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company.All rights reserved. Excerpts from The Human Stain Copyright © by Philip Roth. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company.All rights reserved. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Omer-Sherman, Ranen. Diaspora and Zionism in Jewish American literature : Lazarus, Syrkin, Reznikoff, and Roth / Ranen Omer-Sherman. p. cm.—(Brandeis series in American Jewish history,culture, and life) ––– (pbk.)— ––– (cloth) . Jewish literature—History and criticism. Zionism in literature. Jewish diaspora in literature. Lazarus, Emma, –—Criticism and interpretation. Syrkin, Marie, –—Criticism and interpretation. Reznikoff, Charles, –—Criticism and interpretation. Roth, Philip—Criticism and interpretation. I. Title. II. Series. . '.—dc In warm memory of Yeruham Yarden. Palestine was a halting place, One of many.Our kin, the Arabs Wander over their desert. Our desert Is the Earth. Our strength Is that we have no land. Nineveh and Babylon, our familiar cities, Become dust; but we Jews have left for Alexandria and Rome. When the land is impoverished, as lands become, The tree dies. Israel is not planted, Israel is in the wind. — A time must arrive when cultures will have no need of armies to maintain their uniqueness . The Yiddish-speaking Jew,his fear of physical and spiritual effacement, his desperate effort to sustain the values and the languages of his history,his struggle for independence and his actual dependence on the good will of others—this Jew symbolizes to me the whole human species. Man must be both himself and an integrated part of the whole, loyal to his own home and origin and deeply cognizant of the origin of others. He must possess both the wisdom of doubt and the fire of faith. In a world where we are all basically strangers, the commandment “And thou shalt love the stranger” is not just an altruistic wish but the very core of our existence. — Contents Acknowledgments xiii Introduction . “Thy People Are My People”: Emma Lazarus, Zion, and Jewish Modernity in the s . “It Will Not Be the Saving Remnant”: Marie Syrkin and the Post-Holocaust Politics of Jewish American Identity . Convivencia, Hybridity,and the Jewish Urban Modernist . “Palestine Was a Halting Place,One of Many”: Diasporism in Charles Reznikoff’s Nine Plays and Beyond . “No Coherence”: Philip Roth’s Lamentations for Diaspora . “A Stranger in the House”: Assimilation, Madness, and Passing in Roth’s Figure of the Pariah Jew in Sabbath’s Theater (), American Pastoral (), and The Human Stain () Conclusion: Jewish Dreaming, Jewish Geography in a Transitional Age Notes Works Cited Index xi Acknowledgments I first studied Jewish literary modernism and the Objectivist poets with Stephen Fredman, and it is a great pleasure to acknowledge my debt for his invaluable guidance, encouragement, and advice. Like most readers of Charles Reznikoff, I recognize that without Milton Hindus’s early commit- ment to the poet’s legacy,we would all be impoverished, and I thank him for his work, which has benefited so many of us. Thanks are due also to Gerry Bruns, Norman Finkelstein, Andrew Furman, Glenn Hendler, Sandra Gustafson, Anita Norich, Alicia Ostriker, and Stephen Whitfield, who read substantial portions or complete drafts of the entire work and made numer- ous insightful comments. For their incisive comments in the late, critical stages of revision I’m grateful to Emily Budick, Anne Dewey, and Paul Vita. Phyllis Deutsch gave me the benefit of her acumen, experience, and strong commitment to this project; without her guidance it would have been impos- sible to see this book through its last stages. I wish to thank the editors of MELUS, Modern Jewish Studies, and Shofar for permitting republication of parts of chapters , , and that appeared in earlier forms that were housed in those journals. I am delighted to express my deepest appreciation to the wonderful staff of the American Jewish Archives, located at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, as well as for a fellowship that allowed me to spend a rewarding month of research there in the summer of . The visionary and beneficent Koret Foundation helped pay for publication costs. In a less tangible way, I am also indebted to the desert landscape and the people of the spectacular Arava desert, especially Kibbutz Yahel,where I be- gan my own search for a sense of Jewish place and where in many ways my heart still resides. Without the early encouragement of Russ McGaughey and other members of the English faculty at Humboldt State University, I would never have set out on this journey.I owe a debt to my University of Notre Dame and University of St.Louis students who participated in my courses in Israeli, Jewish American, and Holocaust literature, for their stimulating responses to many of the ideas presented here. My mother, Betty Sherman, provided good humor and love during some of the most challenging years of my life. Above all I thank my wife, Gilat Omer, for her intellectual companionship, patience, and numerous sacrifices. My daughter, Kesem, kept me sane during difficult times with her exuberant laughter, bravery,and wisdom. With all my love, I dedicate this book to them. xiii Diaspora and Zionism in Jewish American Literature Introduction Diasporic cultural identity teaches us that cultures are not preserved by being protected from “mixing” but probably can only continue to exist as a product of such mixing. Jewishness disrupts the very categories of identity because it is not national, not genealogical, not religious, but all of these in dialectical tension with one another. When liberal Arabs and some Jews claim that the Jews of the Middle East are Arab Jews, we concur and think that Zionist ideology occludes something very significant when it seeks to obscure this point. —Daniel and Jonathan Boyarin, Diaspora I believe in the Diaspora, not only as a fact but a tenet. I’m against Israel on technical grounds. I’m very disappointed that they decided to become a nation in my lifetime. I believe in the Diaspora. After all, they are the chosen people. Don’t laugh. They really are. But once they’ve huddled in one little corner of a desert, they’re like anyone else: Frenchies, Italians, temporal nationalities. Jews have one hope only—to remain a remnant in the basement of world affairs—no, I mean something else—a splinter in the toe of civilizations, a victim to aggravate the conscience. ...I am only trying to say that