book reviews 149

Edna Nahshon, ed. and Shoes. Oxford: Berg, 2008. 288 pages, ill., $34.95.

Jews and Shoes—who knew? In Edna Nahshon’s Nahshon carefully positions shoes as integral to quirky anthology, the unlikely subjects of Jews Jewish survival. and shoes intersect in a series of fourteen essays, Shoes also function as social and gender markers, creating new pathways into the discourse of Jewish as does the removal or hurling of shoes. We need studies.1 As in Maria Balinska’s recent book, The only recall the irate Iraqi journalist who recently Bagel: A Cultural History, Nahshon’s edited volume hurled shoes at President George W. Bush as a takes part in a developing trend within Jewish stud- statement of disparagement. In Muslim cities like ies that traces the Jewish experience through an Baghdad and in Morocco’s imperial cities, Nahshon uncanny symbol and travels around it 360 degrees, reveals, “footwear and barefootedness were at times purposefully searching for unexpected interstices imposed on Jews as part of a dress code system to enrich and extend both knowledge of the sym- intended to mark the differentiation and humiliation bol and the culture in which it appears. Jews and of non-Muslim protégés of the Domain of Islam.”3 Shoes, thus, takes the reader on a journey from the Within the Jewish context, Nahshon recalls images biblical past to the postmodern present, with stops of Yemenite Jews whose otherness was pronounced along the way in Palestine, Israel, Eastern Europe, as they walked barefoot toward the Holy Land. At Berlin, and America. The shoe is examined both the same time, however, this physical connection to in its multifarious roles and as a sign with multiple the land became an important feature of the Zionist connotations from the religious to the political, the ethos and the spirit of the chalutzim—pioneers. artistic to the fetishistic. What results is an insightful Nahshon also acknowledges the prevalence of the anthology that features the shoe as an artifact lac- Jewish shoemaker from Eastern Europe to America ing together thousands of years of Jewish history over centuries of Jewish history. Though often held and cultural experience from the Holy Land to the in low regard and viewed as the epitome of the frail, Diaspora. Jews and Shoes demonstrates to scholars powerless Diaspora Jew, Dorit Yerushalmi subverts the value of widening the subject matter of Jewish this position in “The Theatrical Shoe: Utterance studies to include the signs and material artifacts, of Shoemaking: Cobblers on the Israeli Stage.” no matter how seemingly mundane, of the Jewish Yerushalmi traces the theatrical performances cultural and historical landscape. By considering of Sammy Gronemann’s comedy, King references to both shoes and shoelessness within the and Shalmai the Cobbler as a palimpsest that “bears context of Jewish biblical, social, and cultural history, the mark of its transformations from the original Nahshon’s study provides new points of departure German text to its conversion into Hebrew.”4 and suggests new conversations. This is the great Yerushalmi illustrates how each version of the play strength of Jews and Shoes. since its 1943 debut in Tel Aviv reveals the social, Nahshon’s lengthy introduction provides a political, and artistic context of its time. Perhaps provocative and intriguing context for the shorter more significantly, though, the play succeeds in essays that follow. By “outing” shoes from the closet, paying homage to the humility and wisdom of the Nahshon illustrates how shoes, shoemakers, shoeless- cobbler, who, after switching identities with the ness, and wandering have been central emblems king, yearns to make shoes, while the king fails to within the discourse of Jewish representation in convince the masses that he is not a cobbler but, the Diaspora. Identifying shoes as metonyms for actually, their king. Holocaust victims, Nahshon invokes Holocaust Writing on “The Israeli Shoe: Biblical Sandals survivor and author Primo Levi’s statement, “When and Native Israeli Identity,” Orna Ben-Meir com- war is raging, one has to think of two things before ments in her epilogue, “At first, writing about sandals all others: shoes and food . . . he who has shoes can seemed like a marginal scholarly activity. However, search for food.”2 With this powerful statement, researching and contemplating this item of Israeli

1 Edna Nashon, ed. Jews and Shoes. Oxford: Berg, 2008. 4 Dorit Yerulshami, “The Theatrical Shoe: The Utterance of 2 Nashon, Jews and Shoes, 1. Shoemaking: Cobblers on the Israeli Stage,” 181. 3 Ibid., 16.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2009 IMAGES 3 Also available online – brill.nl/ima DOI: 10.1163/187180010X500289 150 book reviews clothing has completely changed my initial response. Shoe-Shaped Tombstones in Jewish Cemeteries in It is in the paradoxical nature of this type of dress the Ukraine.” In a fascinating study—ostensibly the that it is perceived as minimal and at the same time first of its kind—the reader is introduced to the so symbolic.”5 As Ben-Meir implies, considering idiosyncratic appearance of boot-shaped tombstones the shoe as metaphor and symbol elucidates the in the Western Ukraine, Kiev, and the regions of depth and richness of Jewish traditions, culture, Volhyn, and Podolia. Tracing the origins of these and society. Even opposing political positions can graves to 1840 (the year 5600 according to the find common ground when examined through the Jewish calendar), Parciack turns to the Zohar, which symbol of the shoe. Ben-Meir opens her essay by reveals that this was precisely the year when some referring to a recent dress code proposal submitted Jewish mystics believed the Messiah would come. by the ethics committee of the Knesset, specifically Parciack argues, “Just as the ancient are focusing on shoes. The proposal to ban the wearing commanded to have their shoes on in readiness of sandals in the Knesset was opposed by Chaim for their journey as explained in Exodus 12:11, so Oron, a left-wing kibbutz member, and Uri Aviel, will the redeemed make their way and cross riv- a right-wing settler. Other than a shared pioneering ers with shoes on, encasing their feet as written in spirit captured in the symbol of the Israeli sandal, Isaiah 11:16.”8 These tombstone graves were thus these members are on opposite sides of the politi- built when local believers felt that the coming of cal spectrum: the Messiah was imminent. Parciack offers another possible interpretation for the anomalous appear- In a nation involved in a constant struggle for its very ance of the tombstone shoe, now suggested by the existence, the topic of sandals recently stirred up quite teachings of Chabad Hasidism, who believed that a public debate. The ethics committee of the Israeli hiding their departed loved ones in the “protective parliament, the Knesset, submitted a draft for a dress encasement of a shoe would guard them from fall- code, with special emphasis on footwear. A ban on ing prey to the evil demons thought to exist within wearing sandals in the Knesset chamber became an 9 explosive issue. It was especially irritating for two mem- cemetery soil.” Here, again, shoes and protection bers, who both wear sandals year-round for personal are synonymous. reasons, and as a recognizable sign of their ideological Within the framework of twentieth century Jewish and political identities.6 history and Jewish memorials more specifically, shoes have arguably become the preeminent symbol of the Besides symbolizing the Zionist ethos, the sandal and Holocaust. In Nahshon’s words, “Heaps of empty its removal is also addressed in the , when God shoes have become its visual icon, an assemblage of commands to take off his sandal. Here, God’s death that represents lives barbarously brought to directive symbolizes more than the obvious—that their final destruction, each shoe a story into itself.”10 Moses stands in holy space; according to Ora Horn- Any consideration of the shoe as metonym for the Prouser, it marks that Moses was being humbled Holocaust undeniably brings to mind a dialectical before God so as to accept that the future of the relationship between embodiment and loss. This Israelites was beyond his control. She concludes that tension becomes the focus of “The Holocaust Shoe: God’s requests for the ’ removal of shoes Untying Memory: Shoes as Holocaust Memorial happens when God is seeking a certain intimacy with Experience,” by Jeffrey Feldman. In a highly origi- humans. Horn-Prouser discerns that by removing his nal and compelling essay, Feldman foregrounds the shoes and trusting God, Moses realizes that he and importance of materiality, physicality, and embodi- the Israelites will be protected by God.7 ment when it comes to processing the atrocities of Likewise, Rivka Parciack considers the protec- the Holocaust, for these “topics which linger just tive function of shoes in “The Tombstone Shoe: off the page of Holocaust studies” have eluded

5 Orna Ben-Meir, “The Israeli Shoe: Biblical Sandals and 8 Rivka Parciack, “The Tombstone Shoe: Shoes-Shaped Native Israeli Identity,” 77. Tombstones in Jewish Cemeteries in the Ukraine,” 70. 6 Ibid. 9 Ibid., 72. 7 Ora Horn-Prouser, “The Biblical Shoe: Eschewing Footwear: 10 Nashon, “Jews and Shoes,” 29. The Call of Moses As Biblical Archetype,” 39–44.