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2000 Menorah Review (No. 50, Fall, 2000)

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This Full Issue is brought to you for free and open access by the VCU University Archives at VCU Scholars Compass. It has been accepted for inclusion in Menorah Review by an authorized administrator of VCU Scholars Compass. For more information, please contact [email protected]. NUMBER 50 • CENTER FOR JUDAIC STUDIES OF VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY • FALL 2000

For the Enrichment of Jewish Thought

firsttime with the most controversial play he tunity to celebrate their achievement with a The Merchant of Venice ever wrote. production of The Merchant of Venice. and Skylock's "Christian It is possible, although unverified, that WernerKrauss, a Nazi himself, plays Shylock Problem" the one Jew who we know was living in as something revoltingly alien, greasy, dirty, Williamsburg at the time also was in atten­ repulsive--<:rawling across the stage. dance that night. He was a Sephardic Jew Now it is June 1999 at the Shakespeare 2000 Brown Lecture whose family came from Portugal during the Theater in Washington. Hal Holbrook plays Inquisition. John de Sequeyra was born in Skylock as a tall, straight-backed, proud London in 1716, came to Williamsburg when man who speaks with authority and dignity. The following article is excerpted from the he was 29 and died there at the ripe age of 79. A revolting Shylock in Vienna. A noble lecture presented by Dr. Jack D. Spiro for During 22 of those years he was the visiting Shylock in Washington. Who the Williams­ the 15th Selma and Jacob Brown Lecture physician at the "Lunatic Asylum," which is burg Shylock was we may never know. held last March. This annual lecture is now called Eastern State Hospital. He was But what we do know is that with only sponsored by the Center for Judaic Studies also one of the most respected physicians in 400 lines, on stage for only five of20scenes­ and the Friends of the Library of Virginia early Williamsburg. And something as glit­ there is no character in Shakespeare's reper­ Commonwealth University(VCU). Dr. Spiro tering as opening night of the firstlegitimate tory who can run the gamut of diverse and holds the HarryLyons Distinguished Chair theater may have enticed him to occupy one contradictory interpretations like Shylock. in Judaic Culture at VCU and edits this of its seats. Ay, there's the rub! Is there any way that we publication. De Sequeyra could have been moti­ can possibly know Shakespeare's Shylock­ vated also by the major lead in the play-a the Shylock that his peerless creator wanted William Levingston, a merchant in 18th­ Jew named Shylock who may have been of to present? Has any of his plays provoked as century Williamsburg, Virginia planted the Sephardic descent since he lived in Venice. much passionate contention as The Mer­ seed for the first legitimate theater in the Did the play make him uneasy and uncom­ chant of Venice? Indeed, no. Through the colonies. In May 1752, the Hallams, a fortable? Did the play agitate the non­ decades and centuries, critics have been so at theatrical company from London, electri­ Jewish audience? Of course we don't know odds with each other that you might think we fied the theater-goers of Williamsburg by but chances are it did in some way because were reading a vast assortment of different transforming their stage into the first truly it has been agitating audiences since its plays altogether. legitimate theater of the New World. initial performance at the end of the 17th One of the reasons for this is that What an evening that must have been! century at the Globe Theater in London. Shakespeare ingeniously creates a profu­ Read all about it in the Virginia Gazette of It is not only a play that agitates. It also sion of equivocal signals to the point where August 21, 1752: confuses and bemuses people; it mixes them the play is always urging us, as the famous "We are desired to inform the Publick, that up and baffles them; it provokes and embar­ critic Hazard Adams put it, to "look again." as the Company ... lately from London, have rasses them. Categorized as a comedy, it's No matter how many times I see and read the obtained His Honour the Governour'sPer­ not at all amusing. play, I always seem to be looking again and mission, and have with great Expense, en­ But in May 1943, it delights its audience again and again. tirely altered the Play-House ofWilliamsburg at the Burgtheater in Vienna. The Holocaust But before anything else, I must put to a regular [i.e., legitimate] Theater, fit for has been raging for 17 months; the city on aside the idea heard so often-that the reception of Ladies and Gentlemen, and the Danube is Judenrein; Viennese Jews Shakespeare was anti-Jewish. Let me give the Execution of their own Performances, have been transported in cattle cars to the you a quick example of why he was not by they intend to open on the first Friday in eastern death camps. Members of the Nazi referring to another source. One of his great September next, with a Play call'd 'The party in Vienna consider it a perfect oppor- tragedies, as you know, was Othello. Actu­ Merchant of Venice,' (written by ally, the full name of the play is Othello, the Shakespeare) .... The Ladies desired to give IN THIS ISSUE Moor of Venice, just as our play is The timely notice .. .fortheir places in the house, Merchant of Venice. In Othello there are at • Skylock's and on the Day of Performance to send their The Merr:hant of Venhland least 15 references to the color of Othello's servants early to keep them in order to 'Chris/ian Problem' skin, which is black, and 67 times he is prevent Trouble and Disappointment." • JewsSlaves and referred to as being a Moor, which is equiva­

• Lambs and WorVes? lent to an ebony hue. The references are all The opening was dynamite. Not one racist remarks-especially by Brabantio, • RabbicAuthority in Babylonia empty seat, the house packed with excited Desdemona's father, and by !ago, Othello's • Is an first-nighters including the Royal Governor M andUterature of the Holocaust unknown antagonist. Does the racism in the and his officialfamily. Shakespeare came to Possible ... play mean that Shakespeare himself was a a legitimate theater in the New World for the • NoteworthyBooks racist? And similarly, do the defamatory 2 Menorah Review, Fall 2000

remarks about Shylock's Jewish identity preoccupied with financial metaphors and be kind and generous rather than mean­ indicate that Shakespeare was anti-Semitic? the entanglements of money, love, power spirited and villianous? lf he behaves kindly, Yes, you can say he was both a black hater and justice. Nothing is left to the imagina­ Shylock must be Christian. Such is the only and a Jew hater; you could say that if you tion with regard to the highly questionable logic available to a soft-spoken bigot like were not familiar with the concept of"nega­ integrity of every individual. In this realm, Antonio-but such is Antonio's world. The tive capability." Shylock is not alone. world in which Shylock and his people have One of the most amazing characteristics But in every other way, he is alone. endured; it is their badge, the fate of the of this artist has been described as"negative ...reaching a point in his life when he is outsider, whose possibility of being let in is capability," an idea first developed by Wil­ agonizingly and, then, intolerably alone, re­ beyond the imagination. liam Hazlitt and then by John Keats. But jected, maligned, dehumanized-more than Being the outsider is keenly dramatized even Shakespeare himself seems aware of ever, ever before. We will get to that criti­ when Shylock is in court. Venetian society this, one of his special gifts, when he wrote cally unbearable moment soon. But first, appears to permit Shylock a legal standing in Sonnet Ill: " ...my nature is subdued to look at Shylock in his world-the world of and yet the legal protection, supposedly his, what it works in, like the dyer's hand." Venice where his primary confrontation is is undermined by the process of one law What did he mean? His very being is with a Christian merchant named Antonio. subverting another, the law as applied to subdued in what the artist happens to be What is Shylock's experience with Anto­ him-the Jew, the stranger, the alien, the working. Probably that he possesses "nega­ nio-several encounters validated by Anto­ outsider-is a sham. tive capability;" that is, the creative, unpar­ nio himself and verbalized by both men. Just as the trial scene is a satire on a alleled genius of giving mutually conflicting court of justice, Portia's speech on mercy is notions full imaginative development­ Shakespeare held the mirror up to also a satire in terms of her own hypocrisy in opening the mind to all kinds of possibilities, demanding more than justice. It turns out to letting "the mind be a thoroughfare for all the nature of anti-Jewishness as it be nothing more than the exertion of power thoughts." The negatively capable artist is truly existed in Venice and by the insiders against the impotence of the one who can get out of himself and his outsider, having nothing to do withjustice or environment, subdue his own ego totally, throughout Europe... the centuries due process or the evidentiary standards of a and get into the persons and worlds his of irrational animositybeyond court trial. The image here is of individuals imagination creates. To enter the minds and who believe in one forrn of justice for them­ understanding... worlds of others completely. Hazlitt said selves and another altogether for the mere that Shakespeare saw Life through the minds alien or outsider. Instead of a court of law; of others, representing both the good and the When Bassanio brings the two together Shylock is sequestered in an enemy camp of evil, the noble and the base in the 250 three­ for a business deal, Shylock reminds Anto­ urbane vigilantes. dimensional characters he created. nio that he, Antonio, has embarrassed him in Portia refers to Shylock as an "alien" Now back to our play. Shakespeare public, he has called him a cut-throat dog, a (4.1.345), which, incidentally, indicates yet could imagine himself into other human misbeliever; he has spat on Shylock and another contradiction since she also told him beings, into other places, other cultures and kicked him, calling him a dog. And what is earlier that "the Venetian law cannot im­ also into a world where anti-Semitism was Antonio's response? I'll do it again to you! pugn you as you do proceed." (4.1.174) pervasive and endemic. Shakespeare held "I am as like to call thee so again, to spit on There is a different justice for the alien, the themirror up to the natureof anti-Jewishness thee again, to spurn thee too" ...and then outsider. But he lives his entire life, not just as it truly existed in Venice and throughout Antonio accentuates his loathing by saying his hours in court, as an alien. Wherever he Europe-the mirror reflecting the real na­ that "if we are going to do business, then it goes, whatever he does, others treat him this ture of the negative, pernicious and ulti­ will be done only as enemies." way. He lives in an alien world, facing mately perilous interconnections between Repeatedly, Shylock is not referred to alienation of Venetian (a.k.a., English) citi­ Jew and Christian-the centuries of irratio­ by his name but by his religion--<:alled"the zens. His life is merely tolerated only be­ nal animosity beyond understanding; the Jew" 72 times throughout the play, a usage cause he can at least engage in his business persistence of substituting the label "Jew" meant to have the same offensive connota­ of making loans, which chose him more than for human being; the unwillingness to en­ tions as "nigger," "wop" and "spick." In he chose the vocation itself because, like gage in genuine dialogues; the literal, un­ other words, in his world, Shylock is classi­ Jews throughout Europe, he was not permit­ questioning acceptance of the anti-Jewish fied pejoratively by his religious identity ted to engage in many other kinds of busi­ portions of the New Testament as absolute and is never perceived in terrns of his hu­ ness. In the feudal economy, he was pre­ truth; the imposition of a Christian world of manity. Always the outsider-but more so, vented from entering all guild organizations, unmitigated torment on the tiny minority of always the inferior, subordinate pariah­ from owning land, from engaging in any of Jews wherever they lived; the hostile pos­ spumed, humiliated, disgraced at every turn, the "normal" occupations. Because of un­ ture of Christendom; and the refusal to com­ wherever he goes. And what is Shylock's predictable expulsions and other forms of municate with the other because the other is response? Well, it is his way of life in persecution, he had to be ready to leave his either "insider" or "outsider." Venice, as it is throughout Europe. His home at a moment's notice. So investing in Every character in the play we are ex­ response is, "Sufferance is the badge of all money, jewelry and pawnbroking was prac­ amining is an insider except for the major our tribe. Humiliation is what we Jews must tical and necessary because it was portable. role of Shylock, the minor role of Tubal and endure; we know it and we live with it-and Shakespeare created a world in which the dubious role of Shylock's daughter, Jes­ we try to befriend those who hate us any­ Jews were outrageously abused in the name sica, who tries to get inside by converting to way." He says to Antonio: "I would be of Christian teaching. The primary speech Christianity-but doesn't seem to succeed. friends with you, and have your love, forget exemplifying Shylock's sense of his own Shylock is presented as an unattractive, in­ the shames that you have stained me with, relentlessly assailed humanity is the famous vidious person-but the same can be said for supply your present wants and take no doit "Hath not a Jew Eyes." "Am I not a human all the characters. Every insider-Antonio, of usance for my money ....I'll lend you the being just like you?" Shylock says to those Bassanio, Portia, Nerissa, Gratiano-they money with no interest." And the only thing who taunt and ridicule him. He has the all have countless flaws. They're all hypo­ Antonio can say in response to Shylock's courage to repudiate the Christians who want crites, they are all absorbed in the influence kind offer is: "The Hebrew will tum Chris­ to stereotype the outsider, expressed clearly and power of money, their conversations are tian, he grows kind." That is, how can a Jew by the Duke in speaking to Shylock: "Thou Menorah Review, Fall 2000 3

shalt see the difference of our spirits," one particular moment when Shylock turns them, there is no Jewish future. Morris (4.1.368) showing the Duke's "us-them" into a monster of rage and vengeful vio­ Carnovsky, who acted the role of Shylock, mentality. lence? said that she is "really a little bitch, who Shylock is not only, specifically, a Jew Yes, the moment when he discovers willingly changes her religion to have a but, generally, an outsider as all non-Chris­ that his daughter Jessica has betrayed him: good time." What Shylock's people have tians are outsiders. But the Jew is the quint­ from leaving his keys with her to lock and died for to keep alive, she has killed in one essential outsider, the "archetypal other," in secure the house(a symbol of his trust in her) reckless evening. It was not just goodbye to the English imagination since he was offi­ to the moment when he learns that she has Shylock but goodbye to his Jewish heritage. cially expelled in 1290 and didn't return done just the opposite-moving from open How well he knows the sufferance of until 1655 as a result of negotiations be­ trust to slippery betrayal, conspiring with his nation! A cankerous wound festering not tween Oliver Cromwell and Menasseh ben Lorenzo's friendsand being used by them to just in one Jew's lifetime but for hundreds of Israel, leader of the Amsterdam Jewish com­ deceive her father so she could escape from years, a palpably never-ending tragedy of munity. his house, rather than protecting it with the opprobrium that he never felt in its deepest More generally, perhaps, everyone is an money bags of his prescient dream and her dimensions, as he says, "until now." ************ outsider who is not included in, or who heedless defection from Judaism. Betrayal! differs from, the category of White Protes­ Robbery! Apostasy! Isolation! My name is John de Sequeyra; I'm the tant "Englishness." This word "English­ In the entire play, Shylock breaks only Jewish doctor in Williamsburg, andl'vejust ness" is elusive. But if you have it, you know at this tragic moment. When he learns that left the theater after seeing the play for the what it is and you know what it isn't. It is his daughter has robbed him, run away to first time. I have read Marlowe's, which similar to the difficulty of defining "pornog­ marry a Christian and forsaken her heri­ portrays my fellow-Jews pretty much in the . raphy," but you know it when you see it. tage-the legacy he has tenaciously upheld loathsome ways they have been depicted for And you certainly know that Shylock the at the risk of his dignity and his life, as so centuries. In this play, however, the com­ Jew is "not one of us." many of his "sacred nation" before him. fortable prejudices and stereotypes of my Shylock makes the insiders reflect on At that moment when Shylock reaches fellow Virginians have been called into ques­ their own values and beliefs. They are the zenith of his vehemence, Antonio recog­ tion in a shattering way. Maybe they, too, discomfited because the outsiders, by their nizes the futility of opposing Shylock's pas­ feel an indistinct sickness like Portia's "day­ very presence, provoke questions about ide­ sion with reason. You might as well argue light sick," because I realize with a heavy als and morals that the insiders have always with a wolf, he says, tell the tide not to come heart, as I make my way home, that this so­ taken for granted. The insiders' identifica­ in or command the pines not to sway in the called comedy is not meant to have any tion with a particular tradition or group in­ wind. The metaphors reveal his intuition winners. In a warped world of intolerance vites them to turn their back on outsiders that what he is dealing with is no ordinary and segregation, there are no winners. who question the ways of the group. Their human feeling within Shylock but elemental "When malice [of bigotry] bears down values are incommensurable with the values forces that have swept in to take complete truth," (4.1.210)therearenowinners. There of outsiders. They are to be understood only possession of him. It is elemental in charac­ can be no winners in Belmont, in Venice, in by brothers and sisters within their own ter because it comes out of something much Williamsburg. closed, cozy circle. People like to retreat greater than the individual wrongs Shylock There is something else I feel: a sink­ inside a thick, comfortable, traditional set of has suffered: it is the injustice suffered by ing, apprehensive feeling about Act Five in folkways and not worry too much about his ancestors over many generations. its entirety-that opulent, handsome suburb their structure, or their origins, or even the Shylock is the consequence of the cen­ of Belmont. Shylock has vanished but his criticisms they may deserve. Reflection turies-old hatred of Jews. He is wearing his presence is still eerily powerful; Jessica is opens the avenue to criticism and the folk­ tribe's badge of sufferance. And what is the there, but she is no longer Jewish. This ways may not like criticism. In this way, recompense for that sufferance? No money Christian paradise of Belmont is exclusive; ideologies become closed circles, primed to but the right to dignity as a human being. Jews are kept out with no external signs feel outraged by the mind that's different. Slowly but surely, he is robbed of his hu­ needed. It is a "Judenrein" world just like The Merchant of Venice makes the insider manity, climaxed by the treachery of his the world of England for three centuries. feel alienated because the alien asks too daughter who forsakes the centuries that her Throughout Act Five, a metaphor in many questions. Shylock asks more ques­ people have struggled and sacrificed every­ and of itself, it is impossible to dismiss the tions than anyone else in the play. thing, life itself, to hold on to their faith and image of Shylock as the Belmontese banter And with all the insults and epithets legacy. Shylock's Jewish future is killed by away until dawn. His presence is command­ heaped on this outsider-he's called an old Jessica's apostasy. For Shylock and his late ing in its veryabsence. What a great tour de carrion, a Jew dog, an inhuman wretch, wife Leah, Jessica's womb will not be a force: A striking metaphor is created out of fiend, wolfish, bloody, starved and raven­ home for Jewish children; and therefore, for his nonappearance. As we go about our ous, cruel devil, currish Jew, villian with a business in London or Stratford, our play­ smiling cheek, a goodly apple rotten at the wright seems to be telling us, through his MISHLO'ACH MANOT heart, even when "all the boys in Venice usual genius of masterfulmetaphor, that the follow him, crying his stones, his daughter, Purim Gift Jewish image continues to haunt us in the his ducats" (2.8.23t)-despite all the ex­ Judenrein world of England. The rabbi danced me pressions of personal demonization,Shylock And, once more, what of the Chris­ maintains a self-control beyond comprehen­ round our kitchen cluttered with Purim tians? Have they been true to themselves? If sion, even while being tormented by Jew­ preparations as if escaping Hamans they have, as Portia puts it, "then chapels baitingstreeturchins. WedoseethatShylock slaughtering so long ago had been churches and poor men's cottages can hate and hurt as any human despite being princes' palaces" (2.2.12). But "the world stripped of his name, his dignity, his human­ were joy today and under all the food­ is still deceiv'd with ornament" (3.2.80). ity. But still he holds on to an admirable chopped boiled and baked- Have we, the audience and readers, allowed degree of reticence until.. Until when? were blessings getting ready to feed us ourselves to be deceived by "outward shows" When does he cross the Rubicon, be­ comfort startled into joy. of love, mercy, charity and friendship? coming irrevocably obdurate in his wrathful -Richard Sherwin "In religion, what damned error but commitment to physical revenge? Is there some sober braw will bless it, and approve it 4 Menorah Review, Fall2000

with text, hiding the grossness with fair Coriolanus nor a lonely adolescent like Juliet poses in writing this book. ornament? There is no vice so simple, but nor a green-eyed oddity like Leontes nor a In the last few years, he writes, certain assumes some mark of virtue on his outward hypocrite like Angelo. He may have been all pseudo-scholars and hate-mongers, largely parts ..." ( 3.2.77f) these or none of these, or much more or of the radical group associated with Louis What is the seeming truth that can "en­ much less in the creation of 250 three-di­ Farrakhan, have raised the charge that Jews trap the wisest," and what is the real truth? mensional characters. One thing, however, dominated and propelled the slave trade and (3.2.100) In Shylock's business, ostensibly is certain: He was subdued to this art "like are, therefore, guilty for having caused many one based on the motive of greed, all that is the dyer's hand." of the sufferings of Blacks today and for expected in return for a loan of money is He was the pre-eminent master of rep­ centuries past. Even the Spanish Inquisi­ more money with clear boundaries. The resenting the world as he-the master art­ tion, they claim, was in part an attempt to imprecision of Antonio's generosity, osten­ ist-saw it, as no one else before or after him restrict the widespread Jewish slave trade. sibly based on love, makes Bassanio 's in­ could possibly see it-always holding his Sunday Blue Laws in early America resulted debtedness ambiguous and unresolved. celebrated mirror of truth not only up to from Jews trading in slaves on Sundays When introducing Antonio to Portia, nature but to the nature of humanity and (they really do say these things). Bassanio says: "This is Antonio to whom I community. It is a mirror into which we Professor Friedman's response is this am so infinitely bound" (5.1.134f). To be must always be willing to look, even when it carefully researched, scholarly tome. "infinitely bound" is to be boundlessly obli­ hurts, for the sake of our own humanity. Friedman questioned whether he should in­ gated. clude certain information that might give his What is appearance and what is real­ opponents more fuel. Out of respect for ity? The caskets' exteriors can be deceptive. Jews and Slaves scholarly truth, he decided to include it. Shadows are misleading. Certainly, the book would be less complete Haltingly, I make my way home, not at without it. In any case, the claims of his all, as the play puts it, "satisfied with these Jews and the American Slave opponents are based on their own emotional events at full." The lovers retire from the Trade needs, not on data. Facts or lack of facts will stage to pursue their fantasies, and I am left by Saul S. Friedman be ignored or twisted to suit. There is some outside with Shylock stirring about alone at New Brunswick, NJ : Transaqtion support for Friedman's approach in Rab­ the end of Act Four and with Antonio stirring Publishers binic thought as well. Why should we, as the about alone at the end of Act Five. Mishna in A vot suggests, know what to ************ answer the heretic? Because, explains the A Review Essay The Merchant of Venice conveys a Maharal of Prague, we have an obligation to by Matthew Schwartz haunting message of the Jew as alien-a help truth prevail over falsehood. deep-rooted tradition in Christianity, solidly Nevertheless, Jews have usually sought and densely embedded in its own scriptural Let us set parameters for a discussion on to avoid inter-communal debates through roots, continuing to the present and undoubt­ Jews and the American slave trade by para­ the ages, and for good reason. Neither losing edly beyond since the anti-Jewish passages phrasing a most pertinent passage from nor winning such a debate ever did much to of the New Testament are not going to van­ Maimonides' Code (Avadim 9:8). A Jewish lighten the burdens of the Jews whether one ish. Although Shakespeare depicted the master must treat even a Canaanite slave thinks back to the quarrels with the Greek constricted, obdurate world of his own age, with proper kindness and wisdom. He must Judeophobes of ancient Alexandria or the centuries of indisputable evidence persuade not work the slave excessively and must forced debates of the High Middle Ages. us that abhomence of the Jew is not a tran­ provide him good food and drink. He should Friedman feels there is a need to refute the sitory phenomenon. It is a dogged perver­ not embarrass him nor show much anger. He calumnies of these new pseudo-historians sion that can surface at any time, in any should listen carefully to the slave's com­ and to let the truth be known. Perhaps his place, especially where the New Testament plaints. Cruelty and a lack of compassion information will be helpful, at least, to hon­ continues to hold uncritical dominion over are found, Maimonides says, only among est people who have lacked the weapons the minds and hearts of its readers. For idol-worshippers. But Jews, the descen­ with which to respond to the false accusers. centuries, its reading and its influence have dants of Abraham, to whom God commanded Several charges, he writes, have been turned the Jew into a symbol of whatever the mercy and justice of His Torah, are circulated: (1) The suffering of millions of definesa "less-than-human" dog or a "more­ merciful and just to all. God has com­ Afro-Americans constitutes a Black holo­ than-human" devil. Deeply ingrained in the manded the Jews to be merciful even as He caust that dwarfs the Jews' experience in mind-set of Christendom, the Jew is a peren­ is and to remember that the slave is a human Nazi Europe; (2) The chief villians in all the nial stereotype, a complex caricature-not being just like anyone else. degradation of the Black slaves were Jews, necessarily a three-dimensional, unique per­ Essentially, the slave bears certain limi­ while the Jews have falsely but successfully son. The Venetian world could not under­ tations of status, but he is not to be demeaned painted themselves as chronic victims; and stand Shylock as a human being. Relent­ or mistreated by capricious owners. Other (3) The Jews not only masterminded the lessly construed by everyone in the play as passages set careful guidelines as to the slave trade to and in America but have con­ outsider, alien, and pariah, he reflects the acquisition and manumission of slaves and tinued to exploit Blacks down to the present. broken humanity ofJewish existence through dictate that an owner who kills a slave shall This point of view is expressed in a book 20 centuries in the distorted mirror of Chris­ himself be put to death. Nor is there any published by the Nation of Islam and in tian antipathy, stemming from the earliest suggestion in Jewish literature that slaves speeches and articles by Louis Farrakhan, scriptural sources of this fragmentation. are inherently different or inferior to mas­ Leonard Jeffries, Khalid Abdul Mohammed Shakespeare's portrayal has proved to be ters, as Aristotle argues in his Politics (I ,5). and others. Farrakhan has been quoted as true for all ages, which compels us to be Slavery is an unpleasant fact of world saying that Jews owned 75 percent of the dissatisfied "of these events in full." history, and I could never comfortably read slaves in the South on the eve of the Civil Shakespeare was not anti-Semitic like this book, Jews in the AmericanS/ave Trade, War. It should be recognized that the lines Antonio and Gratiano nor was he a racist like at a public library table where Black passers­ on this matter are drawn not so much be­ Portia and Brabantio nor a sociopath like by might silently wonder what I was finding tween Blacks and Jews or between Blacks Richard Ill nor cynical like Jaques nor cra­ in it. Likewise sensitive to such feelings, and Whites generally. Serious Black schol­ ven like Parolles nor disdainful like Professor Saul Friedman discusses his pur- ars of this topic, like Professor John Hope Menorah Review, Fall 2000 5

Franklin, also find Jews' role in American were themselves hardly accepted. Massa­ Hermann Langbein, a veteran anti-Fas­ · slavery wholly insignificant. chusetts did not harbor a Jewish community cist and survivor of Dachau and Auschwitz, Is it suitable to blame people today for until the 19th century. The famed 18th­ has now composed the definitive study of misbehaviors of their ancestors or predeces­ century Jewish settlement in Newport, Rhode resistance in the Nazi concentration camps, sors? Not necessarily. The Talmud avers Island never numbered more than a few in a study that puts the lie to the assertion that that the descendants of Haman taught Torah dozen. Maryland's handful of Jews had no the incarcerated victims of the SS state did inBneiBrak. Kar!Marx's daughterdevoted real political rights until the famous Jew Bill nothing to alleviate their condition. Not herself to helping Jewish immigrants in the of the 1820s. only does he consider the ongoing battle poor neighborhoods ofLondon, and a grand­ Jews in South America and in the Car­ between the so-called "Reds" and son of Richard Wagner is today an active ibbean Islands in the 17th century formed a "Greens"-respectively, the Communist philo-Semite. Yet, if the Farrakhanists are larger percentage of the European popula­ prisoners and the common criminals who to cast blame for the slave trade, they should tion and were more involved in agriculture. were placed in the camps for the purpose of know well that slaves were traded in Africa As might be expected, they owned more brutalizing others-but he also looks at the before Europeans came. Both Black Afri­ slaves. Again by the standard of the times, ways in which the multitude of different cans and Arabs traded in African slaves long none of this seemed unusual and the Jews ethnic groups in the camps interrelated and before and long after those slaves became played no disproportionate role in the slave found common cause in their struggle to stay part of the Western way of life. African trade. What is more surprising and is ne­ alive and combat the Nazis. traders, often kings, raided their own vil­ glected by those deterrnined to find fault Langbein is concerned to point out that, lages for people to sell to foreign buyers, and with the Jews is the fact that many free contrary to much earlier scholarship of the they often killed prisoners whom they could American Blacks owned slaves, even as "lambs to the slaughter" variety, there was ·not sell. Slavery and slave trading were early as the 17th century. By 1830, 3,700 resistance in the concentration camps. This important in Africa's economy. The role of freeBlacks owned slaves, some as many as was, moreover, effective in numerous Arabs in the Black slave trade was large, as I 00. Mulattos, too, owned many slaves. A ways-particularly in smashing through the is noted in sources going back at least to the statistic of 1820 shows U.S. Jews owning image of the SS as an invincible terror orga­ seventh century. Arabs and local Blacks only 70 I slaves out of more than 1.5 million nization against which the prisoners had no often cooperated in raids. in the country. Cherokees and other Native power. A resistance "attitude," even where Captives and slaves were typically Americans owned far more Black slaves a fully-fledgedmovement did not exist, was treated heartlessly, and their numbers reached than Jews did. Three Cherokees in 1835 are of importance; it showed both the prisoners many millions over the centuries. The famed listed as owning more than 50 slaves each. and the SS that the issue of humanity re­ Dr. David Livingstone has left a chilling By 1861, Choctaws and Chickasaws owned mained alive regardless of Nazi ideology or description from the 1860s of Nyassa vil­ 5,000 slaves with one Choctaw chief own­ prisoner degradation. However one mea­ lages depopulated by slave trade, with con­ ing more than 400. sured success, the very fact that resistance torted human skeletons lying in every direc­ took place at all was an effective measure of tion. Other travellers of that time also wrote Matthew Schwartz is professor in the de­ the prisoners' faith in the future. of unbelievable horrors. As bad as slavery partment of historyat Wayne State Univer­ Langbein's is perhaps the most compre­ was in the American South, it did not often sity and a contributing editor. hensive study of resistance in the Nazi con­ reach such large-scale utter brutality. Per­ centration camps and, for this, it deserves haps most incredible is the continuation of respect. While most of his analysis ad­ slavery, with all its evils, well into the 20th Lambs and Wolves? dresses resistance as a physical action in century in some parts of Africa and, until this which the prisoners actively confronted their moment, in the Sudan. persecutors, he does from time to time ex­ Slavery did exist in ancient Israel, as in AgainstAll Hope: Resistance in amine issues pertaining to what might be all ancient societies, and was accepted in the Nazi Concentration Camps, termed moral or spiritual resistance; those Jewish law. However, the treatment of slaves 1938-1945 areas in which a prisoner's "no" was enough was regulated by the law to provide at least by Hermann Langbein to reinforce his or her sense of humanity and, some standard of well-being and respect for New York: The Continuum thereby, endow them with the strength to the slave. The Talmud goes so far as to Publishing Company keep going for yet another day. caution in this regard that whoever acquires Another issue is that of the heteroge­ a slave, acquires himself a master. neous nature of the prisoner population, and For Jews in early America, slavery was On the Road to the Wolf's Lair: Langbein looks in depth at the national and part of the environment. A few participated German Resistance to Hitler political groups of which it was comprised. in the slave trade, including well known by Theodore S. Hamerow In separate chapters on Germans, Commu­ merchants like Aaron Lopez, Moses Lindo Cambridge, MA: Harvard nists, Social Democrats, Austrians, Poles, and maybe even Haym Salomon. Some University Press Russians and others, Langbein demonstrates Jews owned slaves although this was limited the differences in response between each largely to house slaves. Only a few Jews A Review Essay group to their persecution and draws a pic­ owned large plantations and almost none by Paul R. Bartrop ture of an extraordinarily active resistance were numbered among the planter aristoc­ culture throughout the Nazi camp system. racy. On the eve of the American Civil War, Although he does not specifically address there was much debate among Jewish spiri­ In the immediate aftermath of the Sec­ the issue of Jewish prisoner per se, prefer­ tual leaders, including Isaac Mayer Wise, ond World War, a frequently asked question ring to subsume them under their national David Einhorn, Bernard !llowy and Morris of Holocaust survivors was, "Why did you groupings, he nonetheless also addresses Raphall, as to the legitimacy of slavery. allow yourselves to be led like lambs to the key issues related to the Holocaust. There were fewer than 3,000 Jews in the slaughter?" The offensiveness of such a All in all, Langbein's is a definitive colonies at the time of the American Revo­ question was often compounded by the sur­ account of prisoner resistance in the Nazi lution, and their impact on the society, the vivors' silence, a silence imposed through concentration camps. It deserves to be read, economy and, of course, the slave trade was numbness and the overwhelming trauma of and will take its place among the key litera­ negligible. Through much of this time they their experience. ture of all resistance to the Nazi state. 6 Menorah Review, Fall 2000

Theodore S. Hamerow has adopted a torship, such as Nazi Germany, where in­ different approach to the question of resis­ formers permeated every level of society Rabbinic Authority in tance though he too can be described as and communication between resisters often Babylonia definitive. He looks at resistance on the proved impossible. national level, focusing specifically on the Right from the start the Nazi regime had single case of Nazi Germany itself. its opponents, but it was only as the Third The Geonim of Babylonia and the All countries occupied by the Nazis Reich developed its stranglehold on power Shaping of Medieval Jewish have their martyrs and resisters. Memory of that anything resembling a resistance"move­ Culture such resistance has been primarily neces­ ment" appeared. Even then, it only began to by Robert Brody sary in countries where collaboration played have any sort of credibility once defeat in New Haven, CT: Yale University a role in helping the Nazis into power or war seemed likely. The emergence of ma­ Press keeping them there. Thus, France has its ture and effective resistance was a slow heroes of the Maquis, the Soviet Union its process that took place only after those with Red Army and Italy, Yugoslavia, Poland an interest in Germany's future-the armed A Review Essay and other countries their Partisans. The forces, the bureaucracy, the Churches, big by Leon J. Weinberger Catholic Church has its priests incarcerated business-sensed things were not going the inDachau, Czechoslovakia has the assassins way Nazism had at first promised. The author makes a convincing case of Reinhard Heydrich and Denmark has the Hamerow's book is therefore both an that a fresh survey of the literary and intel­ example set by King Christian X. explanation for the lack of more resistance lectual achievements of the Geonim is over­ Germany and Austria, the Nazi coun­ and a celebration of what resistance there due because of the rich yield of relevant tries themselves, have had difficulty claim­ was. Above all, he points out that Germany sources canting to light from the Cairo ing resistance heroes, notwithstanding the was a country in which resistance played a Geniza. The dominance of the Abbasid fact that there were many people of good role in keeping the honor of the country alive power centered in Baghdad and, extending will opposed to the Nazi dictatorship. As at a time when everything else seemed to be from Spain and North Africa in the west to evidence of this, we need look no further collapsing. the Indus River in the east, enhanced the than the examples of Klaus von Stauffenberg In this sense, Harnerow's arguments prestige and influence of Babylonia's Jew­ and the other conspirators of the Bomb Plot should be seen as acounterto those ofDaniel ish leaders. Along with their peers in Pales­ in July 1944 or to the ecclesiastical figuresof Goldhagen, whose popular and controver­ tine, they exerted a decisive moral and intel­ Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Niemoller. sial bookHitler' sWilling Executioners paints lectual authority over other parts of the Whatofthe German people themselves? an altogether different picture of German Diaspora in the Mediterranean world. Brody It has long been my contention that about the complicity with the Nazis. Harnerowshows divides his study into sections dealing with only resistance movement of any kind they convincingly that not every German was a the historical setting of the Geonim, noting can claim was the minuscule White Rose Nazi and that some actually offered their that the origins and development of their group, a small collection of students and lives to bring about Nazism's defeat. This authority is not easily dated and that the academics from Munich University who in should always be borne in mind when we transition from Savora'im to Geonim is dif­ 1943 distributed leaflets against the Nazi judge Nazism and the society from which it ficult to pinpoint. The author corrects an regime. They lost their lives in their efforts came. earlier view, based largely on Abraham Ibn to resist Nazism. The purity of their motives Daud, Sefer Ha-Qabbalah, that the Geonic and the innocence of their methods demon­ Paul R. Bartrop is an honorary Research period ended abruptly with the death ofRav strates a genuine attempt by a group of Fellow in the Faculty of Arts at Deakin Hayya Gaon in 1038 and the closing of the citizens to do something about the evil they University, Burwood, Australia, and a con­ Pumbedita academy, and argues for a pro­ saw in their midst. tributing editor. He also teaches in the tracted process prompted by a shift in Jewish Curiously, Hamerow makes but a single Jewish Studies Department at Bialik Col­ demography and intellectual prominence reference to the WhiteRose group in a book lege, Melbourne. from Palestine and Babylonia to North Af­ that otherwise explores a wide variety of rica and Europe. expressions of opposition and resistance to When dealing with the sources for the the Nazi phenomenon. The military, the inner workings of the Geonic period, Brody bureaucracy and the Churches form the es­ GO'S GRACE, GO'S RAIN cautions against relying on Muslim writ­ sential motifs against which this book has ings, which rarely concern themselves with been written, and smaller manifestations of The moon engraves internal Jewish affairs. On the vexing ques­ resistance do not, therefore, receive much its image on the gum tree wind tion concerning the correct reading in the consideration. This is a pity. winding through my blood. Epistle of Sherira Gaon dealing with the In any book of this kind, the defining How shall I escape this light redaction of the Mishna and Talmud, Brody, issue must be the notion of"resistance." Are this glory carved into bone. contra B.M. Lewin, argues for the Sherira we discussing, for instance, only examples reading: "And as for what you [Jacob b. of physical force against the Nazi regime? Oyes l sayrt is Nissim ibn Shahin ofQayrawan] wrote, 'How Can we include cases of intellectual or spiri­ not Gd, rt is not more were the Mishna and Talmud written?' The tual oppostion? If so, how may such issues than matters bubbling Talmud and Mishna were not written but be measured? These matters are resolved by oxygen and chalk inside redacted and theRabbis are careful to recite Hamerow through his adoption of a fairly where graven images live. them orally and not from [written] copies." narrow definitionthat focuses essentially on Brody notes that Sherira's invaluable data is both conspiracy to resist and the activities of It does not answer such answers. slightly flawed in his bias in favor of the those doing the conspiring. The result is an Pumbedita academy that he headed although The smell of eucalyptus rain excellent reconstruction of the triumphs and there is no reason to suspect him of fabrica­ between March storms consoles me tragedies that beset the opponents ofNazism tion. moonlight's absence of idols. in the Third Reich. The second primary source for this pe­ He also shows the difficulties found in -Richard Sherwin riod, the two-part version of Rabbi Nathan organizing resistance in a totalitarian dicta- the Babylonian, Brody considers plausible Menorah Review, Fall 2000 7

in its account of the contest between Seadyah and administrator of the academy, and au­ Siddur of the use of Biblical texts in prayer Gaon (926) and David ben Zakkai but sus­ thor of responsa and other literary works. (Siddur, pp. 47-58). pect in its folkloristic telling of the conflict The system of the Exilarch's authority Added to their conflicts with the involving the Exilarch Uqba, theGaon Kohen developed by Iranian monarchs and adopted Exilarchs and their struggle against Karaites Zedek ben Joseph of Pumbedita (926) and a by the Abbasid caliphs was designed to as well as other sectarians, the Babylonia group of prominent laymen from Baghdad. mediate between the government and the Geonim had to face competition from the Of special interest in Rabbi Nathan's source Jewish minority. Relations between the Palestinian center. The latter's eminence is the "coronation" of the Exilarch and the Exilarchs and the Geonim were amicable for derived from their greater antiquity and their activities of a Geonic academy during the the most part when the former focused on location in the Holy Land. Disputes be­ kallah month of Adar. temporal matters and the latter on intellec­ tween the two academies arose regarding the Before the Cairo Geniza discovery, the tual and spiritual issues. Conflicts arose establishment of the Jewish calendar. The Sherira and Nathan accounts and Abraham when their separate jurisdictional bound­ calendrical calculations of a Palestinian Gaon Ibn Daud's work were the primary sources aries became indistinct, as when the Exilarch in 921, presumably Aaron ben Meir, dif­ for Geonic history. In recent years, knowl­ Uqba attempted to usurp revenues that were fered from those of his Babylonian counter­ edge of the period has greatly expanded earmarked for the academy at Pumbedita. parts. After some initial variations between thanks to the publications of the Geonic Disputes among the Geonim also would the two communities on when Passover in responsa from the Geniza by J. Mann, S. result from disagreements over the alloca­ the Spring 922 was to be celebrated, the Assaf and S.D.Goitein. These shed light on tion of funds to their academies. In addition Babylonian practice was ultimately adopted the workings of the Babylonian academies to these intramural arguments, the Geonim by all. and their relationship with other Jewish cen­ had to contend with the formidable sectarian The independence of the Babylonian ters in the Diaspora. The Geniza also helps challenge of the Karaites to the Rabbinic Geonim also asserted itself in matters affect­ give new focus to the influenceand power of tradition and the authority of the Oral Law. ing the synagogue liturgy. One of their the Babylonian academies as the address for decisions was to adopt an annual Torah the resolution of academic or practical is­ reading cycle, in contrast to the triennial sues arising in distant Jewish settlements. The author makes a convincing cycle prevailing in Palestine from Talmudic Also, it is now known in greater detail that case that a fresh survey of the times. Brody mentions this Babylonian rul­ the academies were supported by taxes im­ ing in passing but fails to note its implica­ posed on the Jewish community, on volun­ literary and intellectual achieve­ tions. The decision led to dramatic changes tary contributions from Jews throughout the ments of the Geonim is overdue in those parts of the synagogue liturgy that world and on investments in real estate in a were related to the weekly Scripture lesson, kind of endowment fund. because of the rich yield of relevant primarily the qedushta' and yotzer. The Although the function of the Exilarch sources coming to light from the qedushta'ot ofYannai, a leading Palestinian was primarily political, he was at times in­ poet, designed for the triennial cycle had to Cairo Geniza. volved in the operation of the Geonic acad­ be refashioned in hybrid formations com­ emies. Some Exilarchs even maintained bining the practice of both communities. In lesser known academies operating under the In his account of the Karaite opposition, some cases, the hymnist, mindful of the shadow of the great school at Sura. Brody Brody traces its history from Anan b. David tolerance limits of his congregation, would suggests that in light of the Geniza responsa and his followers and cites Qirqisani' s wry have to drastically curtail the qedushta' to the reference in Geonic literature to the "two comment, "of those present day Karaites four short strophes, interspersed with academies" referred to by the Suran Geonim [lOth century] ...you will hardly find two of lengthier pizmonim (choral refrains). This might well include their own and that of the them who agree on anything." Feeling a practice of emasculating the qedushta' led to Exilarch. The Suran responsa also refer to need to place limits on excessive individual­ further abuses of the genre with the hymnist "The House of our Master in Babylon," ism, Karaites like Judah Hadassi (12th cen­ constructing his hybrid from works of sev­ likely a synagogue annex to the academy tury) and Elijah Bashyatchi (c. 1420-90), eral classical Palestinian poets and using with its own liturgical practices. Such prac­ both from Constantinople, used the "burden pizmonim by different authors. The new tices had not been standardized in the Geonic of inheritance" (seve/ ha-yerushah) or "tra­ construction also led to a pattern of compo­ period, and it is likely that the disarray in the dition" as a legal standard binding Karaites sition in strophes and refrains in other genres liturgy prompted Seadyah Gaon to compose to non-Biblical oral traditions. Brody (p. 90) and force large revisions in the synagogue his Siddur. suggests that this Karaite formulation was liturgy in Palestine and Babylonia. The routine of study in the academies is "apparently adapted from the Muslim doc­ During the Palestinian Geonate of Elijah now better known thanks to the Geniza trine ofijma'." It also may be that the above Ha-Kohen in I 062-83, the Palestinian acad­ responsa. It appears that only during the Karaites from Byzantium relied on a compa­ emy was exiled to Tyre and later to Dam­ kallah months of Adar and Elul did the rable Rabbanite standard "the practice of ascus. This weakened its authority as the academies function at full strength. During their forefathers that they upheld" (lit. "in academy of the Holy Land and exposed it to the rest of the year only senior scholars and their hands"), minhag 'avoteyhem bi­ attacks from other centers, which led to its staff were present whereas the others studied ydeyhem (bEruv. 104b). eventual decline. Despite their lesser clout, at home and worked on their farms. It is Brody lists the several polemical works the influence of the Palestinians can be seen likely, Brody suggests, that no urgent agri­ of Seadyah Gaon against the Karaites, in­ in the wide use of liturgical poetry adopted cultural work needed to be performed during cluding those recently published from the by Babylonian Geonim for their synagogues. Adar and Elul. Geniza. The author's statement that This happened despite Pirqoy ben Baboy, a The multi-faceted role of the Gaon Seadyah's Prayer Book contains "an argu­ disciple of Yehudai Gaon of Sura (c. 750), emerges from the sources. In additon to his ment against the use of Biblical texts as who argued in the name of his master that "it academic role as head of the academy and prayers" (p. 98) is misleading. What the is forbidden to recite any benediction which chief examiner of its students, he was also its Gaon intended to say (Siddur, p. I 0) is that is not found in the Talmud, and it is forbid­ principal fundraiser-much like the presi­ the Bible cannot be the exclusive source for den to add [to the liturgy] even one letter." dent of a modern university-president of prayer----<:ontrary to the view of Anan-and, Following his section on the historical the Gaon' s court Qudicial decisions required therefore, Rabbinic prayers are needed. setting of the Geonic period, its academies his confirmation), chief executive officer There are numerous examples in Seadyah's and its ties with other communities, Brody 8 Menorah Review, Fall 2000

continues with an overview of the intellec­ Whom have You abandoned eternally tual world of the Geonim, their responsa that You should cast us off forever? Is an Art and Literature of literature and legal codes, and concludes With whom have You always been the Holocaust Possible, or with the career of Seadyah Gaon and his indignant that You should be angry Does It Violate a Strict influence. The author correctly focuses on with us forever? .. Taboo? Seadyah' s sense of mission and his desire to Have You not allowed an escape from bring his teachings to the widest possible every snare and have I not seen a limit audience. Brody's assessment of Seadyah to each travail? Caughtby History: Holocaust as being fiercelyloyal to tradition even as he Why then is the time of my exile Effects in ContemporaryArl, was able to "leave scope for creativity and extended and widened, encompass­ Literature and Poetry individual expression of the highest order ing me from length to length? by Ernst Van Alphen and for assimilation of all that seemed best in The bitter rhetorical questions increase in Stanford, CA: Stanford the surrounding culture" is in the best tradi­ boldness as the poet pursues his argument: tion of historical-critical evaluation. He who remembers in mercy the alien­ University Press The author gives but a cursory treat­ ated, why does He refuse to pity his ment to Seadyah as poet and fails to mention intimates? his pioneering changes in rhyming patterns He who is gracious and kind to strang­ that were to be imitated by cantor-poets in ers, why is He not compassionate with Spain, central Europe and Byzantium. The his own? ... The author, Director of Communica­ prevailing rhyme pattern in the classical Seeing His children slaughtered be­ tion and Education at the Museum Boijmans period, be it the Qillirian type of rhyming fore His eyes, how can He remain van Beuningen in Rotterdam, is a non-Jew two root letters or its modification of one indifferent and restrained? born in the Netherlands in 1958. This book rhyming root letter, allowed for only an end Even more remarkable is Hayya's argument emerges from his experience of being taught rhyme in the strophe, thus, aaaa, bbbb, ecce, that Israel has not failed in her obligations about the Holocaust in the Dutch school etc. However, in the work of Seadyah, a under the covenant and is being punished system, with little effect, but later encoun­ pattern of multiple rhymes in one strophe unjustly: tering the Holocaust in another manner: can be seen, as in theabab, from his 'avodah Come [0 God] and see that we have "Whereas the education I received failed to for the Day of Atonement: been steadfast in observance, make the Holocaust a meaningful event for Ba-'adonay yitzddequ we-yoduhu; Even as our troubles have increased. me, Holocaust art and literature finally suc­ Penimah hokhmah lifnay To be sure, most of these conceits have ceeded ... 'Emunato yed'u wi-yahaduhu; their parallels in Ps. 44and 74. Even Hayya's This struck the author as ironic, for eye­ 'Omrey yes 'adonay. outcry, "Woe, who is the hard-hearted Fa­ witness testimony, the approach used in The strophes that follow in this 'avodah ther who has been like an enemy to his Dutch schools, has been viewed as the effec­ are constructed in bcbc, bdhd, and bebe children?" is based on Lam. 2:5, "The Lord tive means of remembering the Holocaust comprising a 16 cola unit for the letter 'alef has become like an enemy; He has destroyed while it has been an "unassailable axiom" Seadyah continued the pattern for the re­ Israel." However, it is the poet's effort in that utilizing the imaginative discourse of art maining 23 letters of the alphabet . Of equal choosing and editing for his own rhetorical and literature "violates a strict taboo." This interest is Seadyah's use of anadiplosis purposes the several scriptural verses that volume is Van Alphen's struggle with his (shirshur) not as a means of linking srophes, set these selichot apart and tempt a reader to own experience concerning that taboo. as was the practice in the classical period, characterize them as "revolutionary." Van Alphen's work is rich and com­ but as the opening and closing units Despite these minor issues, Brody's plex, capable of being read on several levels. (ba 'adonay... 'adonay) in each strophe, as in book is a comprehensive contribution to On one level it can be viewed along with its the sample above. understanding a crucial, albeit underrated, 38 illustrations as a study of four artists Sa'adyah's innovations in a flexible period in the growth of Jewish culture and is whose work has responded to the Holocaust. rhymed strophe influenced later hymnists worthy of serious study. These artists-Anselm Kiefer, Charlotte from Babylonia, such as the lOth-century Salomon, Christian Boltanski and Nehemiah b. Solomon b. Heman Ha-Nasi in Leon J. Weinberger is research professor of Arrnando--are intrepreted as developing a his prayer for rain in seven parts (shiva'ta') religious studies at the University of Ala­ variety of strategies of reenactment, with full alphabetic acrostic. Brody notes bama in Tuscaloosa and a contributing edi­ performative "Holocaust effects" and "in­ that the piyyutic activities of Hayya, the last tor. dexical languages," that confront the un­ Gaon of Pumbetida and a disciple ofSeadyah bearable and unrepresentable horror of the were "quite revolutionary" (p. 330) without Holocaust. The offered intrepretations of giving a reason for this claim. Hayya (939- GOLDEN BLUFF BOULDER specific works as well as the broader pro­ 1038) was the last of the prominent post­ gram of each ofthese artists is reason enough classical poets. He composed mostly rahatim the army wants the latest toys to read this volume in pursuit of some under­ and an occasional 'adonay malkenu hymn in the mothers want their grown up boys standing of the struggle necessary as artists strophes and refrains. He also is the author the nations want the land returned have sought to respond to the Holocaust of two sets of uncommon selichot for the that they and Gd required we earn without trivializing the event or replacing its ninth day of'Av. In the first set of six, Hayya by sending boys to war to grow pain with some hint of aesthetic pleasure. dispenses with rhyme in a manner reminis­ into the corpses and the men But Caught by Historyis not structured cent of the pre-classical poets. Yet, unlike their mothers know and do not know around the four artists so much as around a them, he signs his name in an acrostic span­ when they returned the land again series of issues raised by the popular prefer­ ning the full alphabet. The sets are unusual the time had come has come when Gd ence for history-centered testimony or docu­ in theme as well as form: The poet does not or men or both put up shut up mentary over any possibility of imaginative focus on Israel's sins or beg for forgiveness, or let he world spin on its flawed discourses responding legitimately to events as is common in the selichah. Instead he and wobbly way a leaky cup. so horrific. Van Alphen questions the di­ presents a list of complaints and charges -Richard Sherwin chotomy that contrasts historical discourse addressed to God: and imaginative discourse. Numerous re- Menorah Review, Fall 2000 9 NOTEWORTHY BOOKS

Editor's Note: The following is a list of books received from publishers but, as of this printing, have not been reviewed for Menorah Review.

Torahand Constitution: Essays in AmericanJewish Thought. By On God,Space andTime. By Akiva Jaap Vroman. New Milton R. Konvitz. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Brunswick,NJ: Transaction Books.

Press. From Catastrophe to Power: HolocaustSurvivors and the Emer­ TheJews: History, Memoryand the Present. By Pierre Vidai­ gence ojlsraeL By Idith Zertal. Berkeley: University of Naquet, New York: Columbia UniversityPress. California Press.

Spinning Fantasies: Rabbis, Gender and History. By Miriam B. Smothered Worcl<. BySarah Kofman. Evanston, IL: Northwestern Peskowitz. Berkeley: University of California Press. UniversityPress.

In theShadow of Catastrophe: GermanInteUectuols Between Traditions of theBihk: A Guideto the BihkAs It Wasat the Stmtof Apocalypseand Enlightenment. By Anson Rabinbach. the Common Era. By James L. Kugel. Cambridge,MA: Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress. Harvard UniversityPress.

TheLogic of Evil: TheSocial Origins of the NaziPorty, 1925-1933. TheIsraelites in History and Tradition. By Niels Peter Lemche. By William Brustein. New Haven, Cf: Yale University LouisviUe, KY: Westrninister John Knox Press. Press. GhettOKingdom: Taks of theLodz GhettO. By IsaiahSpiegel. lionhearts: Heroes of IsraeL Edited by Michael Ba-Zohar. New Evanston, IL: NorthwesternUniversity Press . York: Warner Books Inc. Abraham'sHeirs: Jews andChristians inMedieval Europe. By Self-Portraitof a Hero: Fromthe Letters of Jonathan Netanyahu, Leonard B. Glick. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse UniversityPress . 1963-1976. By Jonathan NetanyahiL NewYork: Warner Books Inc. TheHebrew Novel in CzaristRussia: A Portraitof Jewishlife in the Nineteenth Century. By David Patterson. Lanham,MD: Alchemy of the World: Cabala of the Renaissance. By Philip Rowman & Littlefield. Beitchman. Albany: State University of NewYork Press. FromBoycott to Economic Cooperation: The PoliticalEconomy of Stalin's ForgottenZion: Birobidz/u111 and the Making of aSoviet the BoycottArab of IsraeL By Gil Feiler. Portland, OR: JewishHomelamL By Robert Weinberg. Berkeley: Univer­ FrankPublishers. Cass sity of CaliforniaPress . The Politics of Yiddish: Studies inLonguage, liJerature andSociety. For the Future of IsraeL BySimon Peres and Robert LilteD. Edited by Dov-Ber Kerler. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Baltimore,MD: The John Hopkins UniversityPress . Press.

Fresh Wound<: EarlyNtliTUii ves of HolocaustSurvivaL Editedby A Drizzle of Honey: Thelives and Recipes ofSpain's Secret Jews. Donald L. Niewyk. Chapel Hill: University of North By David Gitlitz andLinda Kay Davidson. NewYork: St. Carolina Press. Martin's Press.

The Coming Age ofScarcily: PreventingMass Death and Genocide DividedMemory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanys. By Jeffrey in the Twenty-First Century. Edited by Michael N. Herf. Cambridge,MA: Harvard UniversityPress Dobkowski and Isidor Wallimann. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse (GreenwoodPublishing Group). UniversityPress . AmttOmy in the ExtremeSituatian: BrunoBettelheim, the Nazi Westem Jewry and the ZionistProjec� 1914-1933. By Michael Conceatration Camps and the MassSociety. By Paul Marcus. Berkowitz. NewYork: Cambridge University Press. Westport, Cf: Praeger Publishers (GreenwoodPublishing Group). The Terron Diary of GoldaRedlich Edited bySaul S. Friedman. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press. HolocaustScholars Writeto the Vatican. Edited by Harry James Cargas. Westport, Cf: GreenwoodPress . When MemorySpeaks: The Holocaust in Art. By NeUy ToU. Westport, Cf: Praeger Publishers. Israel and Europe: An Appraisal inHistory. By Howard M. Sachar. NewYork: AlfredA. Knopf Inc. Jews: TheEssence and Character of a Peopk. By Arthur Hertzberg and Aron Hirt-Manheimer. San Francisco: Jews AgainstPrejudice: AmericanJews and the Fight for Civil HarperSanFrancisco. liberti£s. ByStuart Svonkin. New York: Columbia UniversityPress . Be/sen: Theliberation of a Concentration Camp. By Joanne Reilly. NewYork: Routledge. The Holocaust: A GermanHistorian Examines the Genocide. By Wolfgang Benz. New York: Columbia University Press. Views in Review: PoUiiics and Culture in the State of theJews. By A vishai Margalit. NewYork: Farrar Straus and Giroux. Reading the Holocaust By lnga Clendinnen. New York: Cam­ bridge UniversityPress. Lost Londscopes: In Search of IsaacBashevis Singer andthe Jews of Poland. By Agata Tuszynska. NewYork: William Morrow Man of Ashes. By Salomon lsacovici and Juan Manuel Rodriguez. and Company Inc. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 10 Menorah Review, Fall 2000

lated questions are explored: Can we any longer believe in a NOTEWORTHY BOOKS, continued frompage 9 testimony that is not an intrepretation? Do obstacles to the remem­ bering of traumatic events further undermine our privileging of Invisible Walls: A GermanFamily Under the NurembergLaws. By testimony over the artist's construction? Was an emphasis on the Ingeborg Hecht. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University historical "archive" an element in the very violence of the perpetra­ Press. tors of the Holocaust, and so an element better used ironically by the artist than by the interviewer or testifier? Not the GermansAlone: A Son's Search for the Truth of Vichy. By Finally, Van Alphen turns to the issue of using an imaginative Isaac Levendel. Evanston,IL: NorthwesternUniversity approach to memory in the case of the Holocaust. The coming Press. together of survivor and listener in the pursuit of an emerging truth TheEmergence of AmericanZionism. By MarkA Raider. New is explored. Does the listener, in fact, become the Holocaust witness York: New York UniversityPress. before the narrator does? An emphasis on language, not in its referential capacity, but as constitutive of subjectivity, as an expe­ Zionism and the Creation of a New Society. By Ben Halpern and rience of the "hidden," is offered. One seeks to "know the unknow­ Jehuda Reinhan. New York: OxfordUniversity Press. able" through on ongoing conversation that is not "about it but with it." One seeks, with the artist, to be an exiled "master of amaze­ ThinkingAbout Creation: EtemalTorah and ModemPhysics. By ment," to keep alive the effect the past has had on us. Art and Andrew Goldfinger. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson Inc. literature are not to be divorced from testimony and documentary in their shared promises and failures. Art and literature can, in fact, Mothers, Sisters, Resisters: OralHistories of Women WhoSurvived the Holocaust Edited by Brana Gurewitsch. Tuscaloosa: reverse our individualistic repression in the presence of the unbear­ University of AlabamaPress. able and allow us to "touch the ungraspable, the unattainable, of the Holocaust." A ThousandKisses: A Grtuulmother's HolocaustLetters. Edited by Renata Poll. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. Cliff Edwards is chairman of the Division of Religious Studies, Virginia Commonwealth University, and editorial consultant of WhikAmerica Watches: Tekvisiugthe Holocaust By Jeffrey Menorah Review. Shandler. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Menorah Review is published by the Center for Judaic Studies of Virginia Commonwealth University and distributed worldwide. Comments and manuscripts are welcome. Address all correspondence to Center for Judaic Studies, P.O. Box 842025, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA 23284-2025.

Editor: Jack D. Spiro Editorial Consultant: Cliff Edwards Production Manager: Kay W. Brill Contributing Editors: Paul R. Bartrop Earle J. Coleman Frank E. Eakin Jr. Cliff Edwards Esther Fuchs Steven M. Glazer Peter J. Haas Herbert Hirsch Brian Horowitz Rafael Medoff Robert Michael Rochelle L. Millen W. David Nelson Matthew B. Schwartz L'r'O��S .• CURTIS A. Richard E. Sherwin ULS' SPEC COLL & ARCHH.IES Jonathan T. Silverman Kristin M. Swenson 842033 Melvin I. Urofsky Sarah B. Watstein Leon J. Weinberger Steven F. Windmueller Mark M. Wood