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Xerox University Microfilms 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 7 6 -1 7 ,9 8 3 GEALY, Marcia Booher, 1931- THE HASIDIC TRADITION IN THE WORK OF BERNARD MALAMUD. The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1976 Literature, modern Xerox University Microfilms , Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 © Copyright by Marcia Booher Gealy 1976 THE HASIDIC TRADITION IN THE WORK OF BERNARD MALAMUD DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillm ent of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Marcia Booher Gealy, B.A., M.A. ****** The Ohio State University 1976 Reading Committee: Approved By John M. Muste Julian Markels Marc Lee Raphael Adviser Department of English For my husband, William J. Gealy ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank Professor John M. Muste, my adviser, who gave me the encouragement and direction that made the w riting of this dissertation a rewarding experience. I wish also to thank the other members of my committee, Professor Julian Markels, who introduced me to the study of Jewish lite ra tu re and Professor Marc Lee Raphael, who introduced me to the discipline of Jewish history. Finally, I am grateful to Bernard Malamud, who granted me an interview and who answered my letters with promptness and attention. VITA November 19, 1931. Born - Brooklyn, New York 1 9 6 1 ................................... B.A. with honors in English, summa cum laude, Howard College, Birmingham, Alabama 1962-1964 ............................ Instructor, Department of English, Howard College, Birmingham, Alabama 1965 ................................... M.A. with honors in English and Compara­ tive Literature, Columbia University, New York, New York 1965-196 6 ............................ Instructor, Department of English, Dallas Baptist College, Dallas, Texas 1966-197 0 ............................ Instructor, Department of English and Comparative Literatu re, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas 1970-1974............................ Lecturer, Division of Comparative Litera­ ture, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1974- ................................ Instructor, Department of English, Otterbein College, Westerville, Ohio PUBLICATIONS "Lonely at the Front of the Room" in The New Teachers. Edited by Don Flournoy and Associates. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1972. FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Twentieth-Century British and American Literature. Professor John M. Muste American Literature through the Nineteenth Century. Professor Julian Markels Romantic and Victorian Literature. Professor Ford Swetnam Modern Jewish History. Professor Marc Lee Raphael iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page DEDICATION................................................................................................................i i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.............................................. i i i V IT A .............................................................. iv INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................... 1 Chapter I . THE HASIDIC MOVEMENT ................................................ ...... 5 I I . THE QUEST FOR SALVATION: THE NATURAL . ............................. 27 I I I . THE FATHER AS TEACHER: THE ASSISTANT............................................. 46 IV. THE SUPREMACY OF THE HEART: A NEW L I F E .........................................71 V. THE REALITY OF EVIL: THE F IX E R .........................................................91 VI. THE ACCEPTANCE OF THE STRANGER: THE TENANTS ............................ 114 V II. THE SANCTITY OF THE TALE: THE SHORT STORIES ............................ 131 CONCLUSION . ....................... 157 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................... 162 v INTRODUCTION The achievement of Bernard Malamud is dependent, in large measure, on the way in which his writing reveals a Jewish past. His treatment of Jewish trad itio n and Jewish history are the particulars which, paradoxically, often give his best work its most distinctive claim to universality, a point that has been noted by more than one c r itic . Thus Sidney Richman, who published the f ir s t book-length study devoted exclusive to Malamud, writes: Perplexingly, one finds that the best of Malamud's novels, and the best of his stories, willfully culti­ vate attitudes and backgrounds which are as sp ecifi­ cally Jewish as the author can make them and which often represent a return to conditions long past. Moreover, these are exactly the works which have re­ ceived the longest share of c ritic a l and popular acclaimJ But neither Richman nor any other c r itic examines the Jewish influences on Malamud's w riting in any kind of extended study. While examining Malamud's work in relation to its Jewish backgrounds, I have been repeatedly struck by the Hasidic elements which inform i t . Modern Hasidism, a Jewish religious movement, was founded shortly before the middle of the eighteenth century by the East European saint and mystic Israel ben E liezer, the Baal Shem Tov. Though other c ritic s , including Richman, have noted Hasidic strains in Malamud's work, none has investigated them fu lly .^ Thus some interpretations of Malamud's work are incomplete a t best and misleading at worst. Some of the most interesting aspects of the Hasidic movement, a transformation or re-interpretation of an older Jewish mysticism which made i t accessible to the masses of the people, are the emphasis i t places on a personal, inner salvation, the concern i t shows for the fo lk and the stranger, the importance i t attaches to the relationship between teacher and pupil, the joy with which i t accepts the dark side of lif e , and the significance i t places on the te llin g of tales. I see these emphases reflected in the work of Bernard Malamud and have attempted to show how an understanding of Hasidism can lead us to an enriched appreciation of Malamud's most creative work. In no way have I tried to prove that Malamud consciously utilized Hasidic sources in his work. On the contrary, I believe that Malamud's relation to a religious force like Hasidism is primarily a result of his having lived in a culture which absorbed the tradition rather than of his having studied i t d irec tly . My views were substan­ tiated when I spoke to Malamud,3 fo r he told me that he was aware of no direct influence of Hasidism on his work and that he had read noth­ ing of Martin Buber's until after he had finished The Assistant. On the other hand, he also said that he has been familiar with some Yiddish fic tio n in translation (in particular, Sholem Aleichem and I. L. Peretz) and "perhaps there's an indirect influence through it."^ What I find even more significant is that Malamud's parents were Yiddish speaking Jews who emigrated to America from a shtetl in the Ukraine, a center of Hasidic influence. Malamud's father came from "Zbrish in or around Kamenetz Podolsk,"5* a city in the western Ukraine and a former capital of Podolia. Podolia is the lengendary birthplace of the Baal Shem Tov and was an important early center of Hasidic influence.® Thus while Malamud's family were not themselves Hasidim, i t would seem plausible to surmise that they were exposed to - a basically folk tradition which permeated the culture of the East European shtetl until its destruction in the twentieth century.^ If Malamud recalls for us the humor of Sholom Aleichem, and more s ig n ifi­ cantly, the irony of I. L. Peretz, if his tales infuse us with the same sense of mystery that we find in the recreated Hasidic tales of Martin Buber, i t is because

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