Judaic Studies

FRANK E LY SPEAKING January 2011 Jean & Samuel Frankel Center for Judaic Studies From the Director 2 Writer’s Block: Julian Levinson 3 Upcoming Events 4 Kalman Weiser and Max Weinreich 6 What and Where Are Jewish Languages? 8 Voices of the Italian Holocaust 9 Deborah Lipstadt to Deliver Belin Lecture 10 Mazel Tov! 11 Frankel Center for Judaic Studies University of Michigan 202 S. Thayer St. Suite 2111 Ann Arbor, MI 48104-1608 [email protected] (734) 763-9047 Alfred Stieglitz. “The Steerage” © 2010 Georgia O’Keeffe Museum/ Artists Rights Society www.lsa.umich.edu/judaic (ARS), New York From the Director: The Strange Career of Deborah Dash Moore, Director, The Frankel Center Frederick G.L. Huetwell Professor of History Stieglitz’s The Steerage In 1907 Alfred Stieglitz boarded a The photograph (printed on the cover one that emphasized its title and its steamship heading to Europe. He had of Frankely Speaking) justly deserves connection to the photographer’s already made a name for himself as a its reputation as an iconic image. It Jewish identity. talented photographer and outspoken is visually complex, requiring no proponent of photography as an art manipulation to achieve its power. American Jews laid claim to The form. His gallery on Fifth Avenue Stieglitz often pointed to the man’s Steerage. Not looking too closely at in New York City and his magazine round straw “boater” hat as what the photograph, people have routine Camera Work promoted pictorialist caught his eye. The tilt of the man’s misrecognized the shawl as a tallit, photographs, noted for their soft focus body contrasted to the slant of the even failing to notice that it covered and dreamy qualities. Mist, snow, stairs and the thrust of the triangle- the head of a woman, not a man. smoke, and their effects appealed to shaped mast, while echoes of his Noting the date of the photograph pictorialists, even when they pictured hat’s circle reappeared on the links of and its correlation with peak years New York’s dynamic cityscape. the gangplank. The photo captures a of Jewish immigration to America, Stieglitz had yet to proclaim his credo: moment—what Stieglitz would call viewers have disregarded the purpose “I was born in Hoboken. I am an “the living moment” and the goal of of the voyage. Jews have imagined American. Photography is my passion. all of his subsequent photography— that the ship was bringing immigrants The search for truth my obsession.” as well as a historically freighted to the United States, instead of taking But at 43, with a wife and daughter situation. During the preceding year, them back home. In short, Stieglitz’s accompanying him, his trip back to 1906, record numbers of immigrants iconic photograph did not only capture Europe, where he had first studied had entered the United States; Jewish “the living moment” as Stieglitz photography, provided the setting for immigration was at its peak, with over termed it (or “the decisive moment” as perhaps his most famous photograph. 150,000 arriving. the famous French photographer Henri “If all my photographs were lost, and I Cartier-Bresson called it), in spite of would be remembered only for Despite Stieglitz’s later accounts itself, the photo also came to represent ‘The Steerage,’” he once said, “I would of the taking the photograph and an historical moment, encapsulating be satisfied.”1 its importance, he did not print The decades of mass immigration that Steerage until 1911. Yet once it entered reshaped Jewish history in the Stieglitz traveled first class, appropriate into visual commerce with his other 20th century.3 for his station as the son of wealthy photographs, The Steerage occupied German Jewish immigrants who a critical place, pointing to a shift in The Steerage now occupies such a supported his photographic ambitions. photography away from pictorialism powerful place in Jewish narratives But after a couple of days at sea, he toward vernacular modernism, marking about America that it is unlikely to grew bored with the amusements perhaps a new vision appropriate for be dislodged. The photograph graces available and wandered away to peer the 20th century. the cover of the Columbia History of at how less prosperous passengers Jews and Judaism in America (2008) traveled. Looking down at the steerage Stieglitz lived a long life, dying in and it introduces the exhibit devoted and across at other travelers on the 1946 at the age of 82. His most to immigration from 1880-1945 in ’tween deck, Stieglitz had an epiphany. extensive comments on The Steerage the National Museum of American His epiphany had nothing to do came four years before his death. Jewish History that just opened in with social class differences or even With the rise of New York City as the Philadelphia. In these contexts, The immigration. As he later recounted center of the western art world after Steerage now epitomizes arrival: of his experience, he saw “a new picture the end of World War II, Stieglitz pious Jewish immigrants who suffered of shapes, and underlying it, the new attained posthumous prominence as to reach the golden shores of the vision that held me.” Rushing back one of the most influential American new world and of talented Jewish to his stateroom for his camera, photographers. But at some point after artists like Stieglitz who innovated Stieglitz used the one unexposed his death, interest in The Steerage and transformed photography into a negative he had to capture a picture shifted focus from the white straw powerful means of creative expression. that, were anyone to move, “would no boater on the young man on the longer exist.”2 ’tween deck to the white shawl with It’s not a bad career for a 103-year-old 1 Quoted in Hans-Michael Koetzle, “The Steerage,” in Photo a black stripe worn by a woman in Icons: The Story Behind the Pictures, 1827-1926 (Köln: photograph, but it sure is a strange one. Taschen, 2002): 138. steerage. That shift accompanied a 2 Quoted in Joel Smith, “How Stieglitz Came to Photograph new interpretation of the photograph, Cityscapes,” History of Photography 20:4 (Winter 1996): 322. 3 Conversation with Jonathan Boyarin. 2 2 The Languages We Cannot Understand: Henry Roth and My Summers in Israel Samuel Shetzer Associate Professor of American Jewish Studies, by Julian Levinson, English Language & Literatures, University of Michigan “These things are not secrets but mysteries.” – Seamus Heaney What is it like to listen to a language you can’t understand? The experience is similar in some respects to listening to music, but then again with language we know that something specific is being conveyed, though we cannot understand what it is. Whether due to our belatedness in history, lack of training, geographical displacement, or mere ignorance, we find ourselves stranded on the far side of meaning, deaf to some message, suggestion, question, demand, warning―some content that others appear effortlessly able to grasp. For modern Jews, this experience is hardly unfamiliar. From the synagogue-goer who can’t understand the prayers to the American-born Jew of previous Lifeguard house, Tel Aviv, Israel generations whose parents turned to Yiddish just when things got juicy, countless Jews have stood in the presence the young David, the reader is left in the dark about these of impenetrable words that seem to contain important, details, at least initially, and we join David on the far side of even decisive matter. meaning: “[His mother’s] eagerness tantalized him, goaded When I was a kid, the most dramatic experiences him into sharper listening. It was no use. He scrutinized of not-understanding came on a regular basis when I would his mother. The color had risen in her throat. Now her travel to Israel with my brother and visit the beaches of Tel eyes stared and were dark and she spoke rapidly…. What Aviv. To be sure, these were wonderful beaches: soothing hurt her?” David becomes an expert at reading facial cues water, perfect waves, and popsicles brought right to our and responding to tones of voice. Rather than retrieving chairs. But what was that piercing, metallic, urgent voice some set of facts, he begins to feel something of the sheer calling through the loudspeaker? Breaking through the depth of his mother experiences, her fears, frustrations, tranquil air, it could be traced back to a lifeguard; it issued and longings. To miss the straightforward content of the from high white chairs. But what could it possibly be message is to gain access to the texture saying in tones veering from concern to downright rage? of emotion. Presumably the lifeguard was addressing some stubborn Later in the text, David goes to cheder and bather. But where was the culprit? Sometimes I could glean begins to read Hebrew. Once again the sounds take on an two words: “geveret” (“Lady”), uttered with mock politesse, independent life, as instruments of evocation rather than and “yeled” (“Kid”), said with scorn. Otherwise I was at a as means of communication. Since he knows Hebrew is the loss. The situation hardly seemed to require this level of medium of “God’s syllables,” he tries to enter the very heart engagement, this intensity. Evidently, these were warnings of the language. David senses that some ultimate truth that knew more than I could ever fathom. about him lies within the Hebrew words. And paradoxically, Years later, when I read Henry Roth’s 1934 novel this profound yearning for knowledge coupled with his Call It Sleep, I understood the special role played by failure to understand makes David the most pious character indecipherable languages, how they can sharpen our in the entire novel.

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