Insidetranslation a of Negotiating the Relationship, Rarely Straightforward, Between Author and Translator

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41/675 December 2010/Tevet 5771

A JOURNAL OF JEWISH RESPONSIBILITY

s an editor, I’m engaged constantly, in one way or another, in translation; so are all the writers — rabbis, academics, novelists, critics — in this issue. By translation, we mean a few different things: the act of rendering a work from one language to another — and the act InsideTranslation A of negotiating the relationship, rarely straightforward, between author and translator. It also Todd Hasak-Lowy means, as Joel Hecker writes, “transforming something from one state of being to another.” The Fear of Getting it This issue of Sh’ma includes a wide-ranging conversation between two writers — Sh’ma pub- Wrong, the Sound lisher Josh Rolnick and novelist Tova Mirvis — as they explore the magical transmutation of life of Getting it Right . . . . . 1 into a page of fiction. Naomi Seidman looks at the domestic implications of an untranslatable Joel Hecker Yiddish word. Mikhail Krutikov evaluates the literary career of a Russian Jew writing in Israel. Text, God, and Life Yehuda Kurtzer, Sara Hurwitz, and Barbara Mann take the temperature in a room of scholars and in Translation ...... 2 rabbis: How does the work of rabbis — who strive to translate religion and culture into sustain- Yehuda Kurtzer able and meaningful forces in our lives — resonate with the work of academics, who have an in- Translation without trinsic interest in Judaism, but who have no interest, per se, in “meaning”? And, Or Rose sits us Representation ...... 3 down at the table of his teacher, Arthur Green, as he and several colleagues translate for a con- Barbara Mann temporary audience the work of the Hasidic Maggid, Dov Baer. The Geniza and Me . . . . 5 As a people, Jews have experienced life in a multitude of languages and cultures. In this Sara Hurwitz issue, and in the pages of Sh’ma every month, we translate the traditions and teachings of Prayer: Serving Judaism into a meaningful discourse for ourselves and the peoples around us —S.B. a Purpose ...... 6 Discussion Guide...... 6 Tova Mirvis & The Fear of Getting it Wrong, Josh Rolnick An Illusion of Seamlessness ...... 7 the Sound of Getting it Right Irene Eber TODD HASAK-LOWY Sholem Aleichem in Chinese? ...... 9 he moment I sat down as a translator, something I knew was distinct precisely be- Eli Valley, Corinne opened the book for which I was now re- cause I couldn’t define it as anything but dif- Pearlman, Ilana Zeffren Tsponsible — Asaf Schurr’s Hebrew novel ferent. I couldn’t simply name or classify this NiSh’ma ...... 10 Motti — and read the first sentence, I suddenly distinctness and then move on. So my job as a Maya Arad & realized, with more than a bit of anxiety, that I translator was, I felt, to somehow render this Adriana X. Jacobs had no idea what I was doing. distinctness in English, even though I didn’t Another Voice: Now I was, as far as first-time translators go, know what it was. Letters on the Art of Translation ...... 12 at least theoretically qualified. I had to my name This distinctness was, obviously, linguistic a doctorate in Hebrew literature and two pub- in some sense, since his book was just that, a Naomi Seidman Meet the Makhatonim: lished books of fiction. The languages, narrowly collection of words. The word “tone” might Understanding speaking, weren’t the problem. But as I read and come closest to it, but it wasn’t quite that either; Ashkenazic Kinship . . . 14 reread that first sentence, I became aware of it was something singular, located in the rela- Or N. Rose how infinite was my task — not because this tionship among the words, the real-world things Around the Maggid’s novel is particularly long (it isn’t) or unusually they appeared to point to, and the hesitant man- Table: Translating complicated (it’s not), but because each sen- ner in which Schurr used them (the novel is full Black Letters and White Spaces...... 15 tence presented dozens of opportunities for me of strangely poignant hypotheticals and to make the absolutely wrong decision. painfully sincere, self-conscious asides). Even Mikhail Krutikov Memory Is Inseparable I feared I would make the wrong decision after giving it much thought, I still only under- from Imagination . . . . 16 because I believed that making the right deci- stood the novel's distinctness by the way it Karen Paul-Stern sion was a clear impossibility. I was drawn to made me feel. Try translating such a feeling. Sh’ma Ethics ...... 20 this text because I sensed Schurr had done Nevertheless, thanks to the authority I as- something new in Hebrew — not necessary rev- signed to the deadline in my international con- olutionary, but something wonderfully distinct, tract, I eventually started, forcing myself to string together a series of English words that seemed a I read Schurr’s book. In other words, I had reasonable version of the Hebrew original. stumbled upon a sort of synesthetic correspon- Then, I got lucky. I always listen to music dence between a work of literature and a piece SHMA.COM when I write or work. In the best of circum- of music. I still couldn’t — and can’t — fully stances, the music I’m listening to should still name what I felt in either case, but now I felt it be new to me, a piece I’m discovering as I dis- more clearly and more fully — I could feel it cover whatever it is I’m discovering as I write with the touch of a button. Better yet, the (for instance, I wrote at least half of a novel music, unlike the Hebrew novel, could be in while living inside Keith Jarrett’s “The Köln two texts at once. I could read my English in- Concert” for the better part of a year). side the same sonic space and know — by pay- I had, almost on a whim, recently pur- ing attention to the existence of various chased a single-instrument recording of Philip cross-medium harmonies and dissonances — Glass’ “The Orphée Suite for Piano,” performed whether or not I had captured the language and by Paul Barnes. Like all of Glass’ music, it’s meter and tone in my translation. quite repetitive. Only in contrast to the often The phrase “lost in translation” suggests, at breakneck tempo and overpowering dynamics least to me, a process that occurs not merely in much of Glass’ compositions, this recording over time but across distance as well. During is restrained, gentle, yet emotionally powerful. this act of translation, I often found myself feel- And plainly beautiful. As I worked through ing like a smuggler of sorts, transporting a mas- Asaf’s novel, I found myself returning to this sive, intricate, and fragile object in small, recording again and again until I accepted the intricate, and fragile pieces through a subter- fact that there was no point in pretending I ranean tunnel. My time spent underground, in wanted to listen to anything else. By the time I between Schurr’s Hebrew and my reconstruc- reached the last third of the translation, which tion in English on the other side, was both un- I finished in an insane hurry over the course of avoidable and taxing. I was certain I would Todd Hasak-Lowy is an a couple of weeks, it seemed this music was damage the goods en route or simply forget how associate professor of Hebrew playing inside the protagonist’s apartment. to put it all together once I got to the other side. language and literature at the So how exactly did listening to this solo But the music prevented either from happening, University of Florida. His most piano recording inform and even facilitate the to the point that I knew I was doing justice to recent works are Captives, a novel, and a short story actual process of translation? The answer be- Schurr’s novel well before I finished. Indeed, I collection, The Task of This gins with the fact that I’m certain this recording was a bit sad when I finished. But I had some Translator. made me feel almost precisely what I felt when consolation: I could still listen to the music. Text, God, and Life in Translation JOEL HECKER

n a legendary story from the talmudic trac- affirms that reading, but that’s for another tate of Megillah (9a-b), 72 rabbis were se- time). To avoid misunderstanding, they trans- Iquestered by the command of King Ptolemy lated the line as if it read, “Elokim bara Joel Hecker is associate in order to produce a Greek translation of the bereshit,” i.e., “God created in the beginning.” professor of Jewish mysticism Torah and, miraculously, they all produced the In another instance, accurately translated, the at the Reconstructionist exact same translation. Even more remarkable, Torah says, “On the seventh day, God finished Rabbinical College in Wyncote, they had all received ruach ha-kodesh, divine in- the work that He had been doing,” but in order Pa. He is the author of Mystical spiration, so that they all mistranslated certain to clarify the puzzling impression this would Bodies, Mystical Meals: Eating and Embodiment in Medieval passages for several specific reasons — to pre- give — i.e., that God was working on the sev- Kabbalah. Currently a visiting vent theological misunderstandings, to elimi- enth day until He stopped — the rabbis wrote scholar at the Shalom nate apparent contradictions in the text, to pre- that God finished his work on the sixth day. Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, clude disrespect for the Torah, to ensure the Tractate Soferim (1:7) notes that the trans- Hecker is working on a dignity of Jewish leaders, and to avoid the ire of lation of the Torah into Greek is comparable to translation and commentary of the Greek king. the worship of the golden calf. Why such a the Zohar’s mystical homilies For example, where the Torah says Bereshit harsh assessment of the translator’s craft? Is it on the biblical books Song of Songs, Ruth, and Lamentations bara Elokim, one might imagine that an un- because of the mistranslation wherein, over the for The Zohar: Pritzker Edition, spoken subject had created Elokim, i.e., that course of history, what was first condemned Volume 11. God Himself was created (the Zohar actually was later celebrated? Or is it that this story

[2] DECEMBER 2010 | TEVET 5771 refers to something that is ultimately mundane, inexpressible that is lost? making a text readable to those ignorant of the The Kabbalists and the Hasidim were inter- source language? Is there a way to explain these ested in translating from one form of being to an- two different attitudes toward translation? The other. If God spoke the world into being — and, SHMA.COM ,ברו שׁאמר והיה עולם Ptolemy story betrays a deep discomfort with after all, every day we say translation absent divine intervention. We blessed is the One who spoke and the world Subscribe! know that 72 translators would have produced came to be — and if speech is not discontinuous Join the Sh’ma 72 versions, none true to the original. with the speaker, rather emanating from the conversation, stay Three discreet ideas are included in the dic- speaker’s own being, then, in some sense, the tionary definition of translation: Most common world is not merely a creation by God, but also informed, and is translating from one language to another — a phenomenon emerging from God. As a result subscribe today! Ten that is, broadening the readership. A second of these assumptions, the mystical tradition issues are only $29. idea is to move a person or object from one stresses the importance of drawing blessing place to another (the word has Latin origins sig- down from the upper realms, translating it from TO SUBSCRIBE: nifying “bringing something across.” The final the ethereal to the material, the spiritual to the CALL idea is to transform something from one state of concrete. Translation in these instances is crucial (877) 568-SHMA being to another. I spoke recently about these for the sustenance of the world and much of the three definitions — and more — at my son Hasidic tradition, concerned about the profun- E-MAIL Razi’s bar mitzvah, where we celebrated his dity of the process, relegated it to the expertise [email protected] “translation” from the domain of childhood to of the rebbe, disbelieving that commoners could ONLINE that of incipient adulthood. effect such transmutations. www.shma.com Translation, in part, is about boundaries — In some of the non-exclusivist treatments of RETURN looking at something that ostensibly belongs the subject, we learn that mizvot have a direct subscription envelope to others, valuing it, and internalizing it. When impact on divinity; eating is a rite that draws in this issue we share some concept from our own expert- divine vitality within us, which we then restore ise, oftentimes we must search for the words back to God through prayer and Torah study. to explain it, moving the idea from an area of Thus, we translate the holiness that’s in the our own technical knowledge into a layper- tefillin, in the Torah, in the matzah, into some- son’s language. In translating legal, medical, or thing accessible to our neshamah, our soul, academic language for people who are not every time we perform a commandment with trained in those areas, we simplify, risking dis- holy intention. We are also translating ourselves tortion; we are accommodating others, not pa- into beings holier than we usually are, if not an- tronizing them, but rather respecting their gelic or divine, perhaps one step closer. difference. In all of these instances, we ask: I concluded the bar mitzvah speech by How much do we accommodate? At what point commenting that my children have made me is the person who is receiving the translation translators: the act of parenting is perhaps the no longer in contact with the authenticity of the signal act of translation. It includes the at- original? And what if we’re translating sacred tempt to communicate across a generation’s texts? Are these just words to be relayed from values, hopes, and dreams, reiterating and re- language to language, or is there something translating at every stage. Translation without Representation YEHUDA KURTZER Yehuda Kurtzer is president of Shalom Hartman Institute of learned from the great scholar of mysticism the Christian scriptures — with the exception North America, which bridges Joseph Dan an important insight about of a handful of words — represent the words of the academy and Jewish life Itranslation and its impact on Judaism and Christ mediated through the perspective of the with serious Jewish learning Christianity. The Hebrew Bible imagines itself Gospel writers and, thus, more importantly, opportunities for change as “the original,” the verbatim word of God de- through a translation into vernacular Greek. agents in the Jewish livered to Moses. As a result, much of Jewish Christian mysticism, therefore, tends to involve community. He has a doctorate in Jewish studies from Harvard mysticism involves a direct and unmediated en- activities and a focus extrinsic to the actual University and he previously counter with the actual words of the text words of the Bible. held the Bronfman Chair in (whether or not the mystic focuses on the The act of translation involves mediation, a Jewish Communal Innovation meaning of the words in question). In contrast, standing-in-between. Its impact lies not only in at Brandeis University.

DECEMBER 2010 | TEVET 5771 [3] what happens to the text, but, just as power- the interest of creating authentic (read: un- fully, in how those who receive the translation, mediated) religious experience. In fact, these those on the other side of the mediator, interact two professions thus involve opposite SHMA.COM and relate to the text in its new form. processes. Is translation a tool for understand- In the contemporary Jewish world, our ing, enlightening, uncovering? Or is translation treasury of scholars and intellectuals roughly meant to push back against the mystique of the divides into two professional classes: rabbis, in- untranslated, to create access for all to the mys- heritors of one strand of the Jewish intellectual tical and poetic? Either way, both rabbis and tradition and of political responsibility, who scholars live on the threshold of translation, possess a considerable set of professional re- and have much to gain from a mutual con- sponsibilities vis-à-vis the community; and sciousness about what they share. This point is obscured and complicated by While some scholars are themselves rabbis by profession, the fact that we train rabbis in academic institu- and vice versa, the two professions make different — and tions, creating an imbalance wherein future pro- substantial — demands on the mediation of knowledge. fessionals apprentice with masters whose craft they will explicitly not pursue. It is not difficult scholars/academics. Scholars, whether em- for scholars to see rabbis as inevitable transla- ployed in the academy or outside in related tors of material they alone received only in trans- fields (journalism, think tank, etc.), have a lation, rather than inheritors of firsthand access more ambiguous relationship to “the commu- to a shared body of material. I would venture nity,” especially in contrast to their rabbinic col- that this is where imbalance and awkwardness leagues. I suspect this existence of a lettered, are created in the rabbinic-academic exchange. literary, and yet functionally disconnected in- Scholars become skeptical of “applied” practi- tellectual elite is a new problem for Jews, rela- tioners; rabbis invariably see in the “applied” tively speaking. The safe harbor of the work this otherwise arcane material actually academy, which one academic colleague de- come to life and achieve its relevance. Of course, scribed to me as her “sacred secular space,” has the two are deeply intertwined. If we found ways enabled Jewish intellectualism to thrive outside within the academy for “applied Jewish studies” of whatever communal responsibility and im- not to be considered inferior to the allegedly pact might come with that knowledge. Then “purer” form of the work, and if we prioritized again, perhaps that distance has been critical to in the rabbinate the importance of Jewish ideas its success in the past quarter-century. and letters independent, sometimes, of what And yet these learned classes of Jews, “works” in building Jewish identity, we might divided between these two professional orbits, find ways in which these disciplines are not only inevitably serve as mediators and translators of interdependent but codependent. much of the same material. Be they housed sep- Secondly, let’s acknowledge a major irony arately, governed by different goals and rules, when we talk of translation. A huge gap exists they are ultimately joint inheritors with joint an- between the translation we know through its cestors; and perhaps we must acknowledge that over-metaphorization (kissing through glass, they are intrinsically related. What rules should anyone?) and the actual work of translation, govern an unruly family reunion? which is mundane, arcane, painstaking work. FREE Let me offer two basic programmatic The metaphor is seductive while the work is ac- Sh’ma E-Letter thoughts. First, let us acknowledge an often tually laborious. A meaningful encounter be- Take advantage of our overlooked reality: Neither rabbis nor academ- tween translators should not get lost in the FREE Sh’ma e-letter. ics have the upper hand as better translators, myths we generate and perpetuate about the Every month, you’ll nor is either group of scholars an exclusive pos- loftiness of the exercise; it must stay grounded receive updates on sessor of unmediated truth. In fact, both pro- in the recognition that on all sides of the page, featured essays, fessional scholars and rabbinic scholars this is difficult and serious work. While some exclusive bulk copy constantly dance between the work of transla- scholars are themselves rabbis by profession, offers, unique tion and the attempt to remain in the province and vice versa, the two professions make dif- opportunities for of the original. Professional scholars attempt to ferent — and substantial — demands on the subscribers, and encounter their material in an unmediated way; mediation of knowledge. Perhaps it is in the much more! their work, however, involves constant trans- gravity of the task, the weightiness of responsi- Sign up now at lating of their understanding to students and bility that comes with bearing the weight of the shma.com readers. Rabbis mediate religious experience tradition, that the clearest common ground can and the esoteric for their congregants, but in be found.

[4] DECEMBER 2010 | TEVET 5771 The Geniza and Me BARBARA MANN SHMA.COM y very first week teaching at the interpretation can ever fully explain how it is Jewish Theological Seminary (in that the best words in the best order never fail M2004), a student approached me and to move us. asked if the class handout containing a poem by I’m not sure, then, that rabbis and scholars the modern Hebrew poet Haim Nachman Bialik necessarily read differently. But it is possible that should be placed in the geniza, where holy texts we mean different things when we use the word are stored or buried rather than discarded. True, “text.” One large difference, of course, concerns the poem did contain allusions, even indirect the status of sifre kodesh, or sacred books, and quotations, of psalms, but it did not — to me at the ways in which we subject them to the tools least — seem “geniza-worthy,” and I told the of literary theory. But that, to my mind, is an old student so. The perplexed look on her face in- story, one whose specific trajectory may unfold dicated that she was not quite sure how to re- solve her professor’s seemingly blithe ability to Good readers are aware of the mediated ways in which dump a potentially sacred text into the garbage they encounter texts; the text is always, inevitably can and, I confess, I don’t know where that par- “translated” for the reader as much by the frame of the ticular piece of paper eventually ended up. The exchange remains for me emblematic text itself as by the teacher who happens to be in the of issues that arise when teaching Jewish stud- classroom. Or the beit midrash. Or the synagogue pulpit. ies in a non-Orthodox religious seminary. As a professor trained largely in the American acad- somewhat differently within a Jewish studies emy, I obviously had some sort of authority and program located in a university setting and one status as a mediator and translator (in Yehuda set in the seminary world. At the same time, Kurtzer’s terms) of the canonical texts of mod- however, the idea of disinterested scholarship ern Hebrew culture. At the same time, many of also seems a bygone fiction. That is, if we largely my students — whether enrolled in the rab- agree that everyone brings some sort of agenda binical school or in an academic degree pro- to their reading practice — call it religious, po- gram (and often in both) — clearly possessed a litical, or ideological — then scholars who de- relationship to the text that I did not; and so, construct Bialik and rabbis who teach Psalms are inevitably, they often greeted the texts on their not so very far apart. Or rather, Bialik and Psalms own terms. This turns out to be pretty much are found, in a sense, in the same Jewish book- the way most people read — anything, any- case, and discerning readers will note the gaps where. In fact, one of my goals as a teacher, and continuities between the two. perhaps sharpened by my experience at JTS, Indeed, Brenner’s idea of “self criticism” is has become “simply” to alert students to their an essential form of Jewish culture, and it may own prejudices as readers — and think through include becoming a more self-reflective reader, the meaning of this frame and also, inevitably, interacting with the text in a way that potentially the possibility of other ways of reading. changes both the self (that is, one’s behavior) Kurtzer suggests that rabbis and scholars and the text. Good readers are always aware of may read texts differently, or with different ends the mediated ways in which they encounter in mind. And though this sounds intuitively texts; there is no such thing as a “naïve” read- true, it is also the case that rabbinical students ing, and the text is always, inevitably “trans- Barbara Mann holds the are eager to plumb the messy particularities of lated” for the reader as much by the frame of Simon F. Fabian Chair in Hebrew Literature at the Jewish modern Jewish texts, to revel in what Yosef the text itself as by the teacher who happens to Theological Seminary in New Haim Brenner memorably called (in his appre- be in the classroom. Or the beit midrash. Or the York, where she also serves as ciation of the great 19th-century Yiddish writer, synagogue pulpit. Reading, in its essence, means an associate professor of S. Y. Abramovitch, aka Mendele) their tendency paying attention to the frame, to the text’s par- Hebrew literature. She is the toward “ha’aracha atsmit” (self-critique). At ticular qualities, which include its canonical ren- author of A Place in History: Modernism, Tel Aviv and the the same time, many of my students enrolled dering as kodesh or chol. An activity at the heart Creation of Jewish Urban in “secular” degree programs approach the text of both scholarship and rabbinic practice, read- Space and the co-editor in with a profound sense of awe and wonder, re- ing is never a transparent process. It is always — chief of Prooftexts: A Journal of alizing that no translation, no mediation, no in some sense — a translation. Jewish Literary History.

DECEMBER 2010 | TEVET 5771 [5] Prayer: Serving a Purpose SARA HURWITZ SHMA.COM n 1783, Moses Mendelssohn translated the whether my rabbinic eulogy, given after family Torah into German and, in doing so, he un- members had already expressed their grief, was Ilocked a text previously inaccessible to all necessary. Could my words adequately address except those formally trained in the language the void this family now faced? And then I re- and lore of the Jewish tradition. While many membered that my role as spiritual leader is to criticized Mendelssohn for allowing his read- offer a sketch of a person’s life through a lens of ers to sidestep the laborious and didactic Torah. If done well, the Torah has infinite pos- method of mastering the Hebrew language, he sibilities of providing comfort. granted thousands of Jews entrée into the Yehuda Kurtzer correctly asserts that rabbis world of Torah, allowing them to imbibe the “invariably see in the ‘applied’ work this oth- beautiful words and messages of Scripture. erwise arcane material actually come to life and Significantly, Mendelssohn also paved the way achieve its relevance.” And I have also wit- for rabbis to begin sermonizing in the language nessed — in my own congregation and else- of the land rather than the customary Yiddish where — scholars deploying their analytical or Hebrew. abilities and plumbing the depths of their re- spective fields with a passion that is at once ad- Could my words adequately address the void this family now mirable and contagious, and that inspires faced? My role as spiritual leader is to offer a sketch of a others to leap forward in their search for religious truth and edification. I think it is here, in person’s life through a lens of Torah. If this is done well, this passion, in a virtuous yearning to traverse the Torah has infinite possibilities of providing comfort. the abyss that separates humanity from the divine, where common ground can be found. In Hebrew, a sermon is referred to as a Rabbis and scholars who translate to inspire drasha, which derives from the same root as can transform our lives and communities. doresh, to seek out. But who is the seeker? Abraham Joshua Heschel once bemoaned the fact that the sermon had become an end unto Discussion itself. He wrote about the massive gulf between Guide sermons and prayer, and argued that sermons are meaningful only if they serve and inspire Bringing together a myriad of voices and prayer: “Preaching is either an organic part of experiences provides Sh’ma readers with the act of prayer, or hullin ba-azarah, profanity an opportunity in a few very full pages to in the domain of the sacred... The test of a true explore a topic of Jewish interest from a sermon is that it can be converted to prayer.” variety of perspectives. To facilitate a (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity, edited fuller discussion of these ideas, we offer by Susannah Heschel, p.117) the following questions: If a sermon is meant to complement or en- 1. What is the relationship of translation hance prayer, which is a form of communion to transmutation? To interpretation? with God, then the sermon (scholarly or poetic) is meant to serve an edifying purpose: to ele- 2. What role does listening play in the vate listeners from their discouraging spiritual art of translation? inertia and inspire them to action, be it in their 3. Translation allows for more people to inner lives or in the world at large. Accordingly, access sacred texts and engage in the Torah that Mendelssohn translated is meant Jewish learning. Does something get Rabba Sara Hurwitz is part to be further translated and explicated by oth- lost in the process? If so, what? of the rabbinic staff at the ers — and others and yet others — so that its Hebrew Institute of Riverdale in students can incorporate its unparalleled mean- 4. How is knowledge mediated by rabbis New York. She also serves as ing into their lives. The text, then, which itself and scholars? dean of Yeshivat Maharat, the first Orthodox school to is a work of deep religious inspiration, is trans- 5. How does translation impact the confirm women as spiritual lated in order to inspire and edify. global nature of Jewish life? and halakhic leaders. At a recent funeral, I momentarily wondered

[6] DECEMBER 2010 | TEVET 5771 An Illusion of Seamlessness

Josh Rolnick: As a writer of fiction, do you about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is re- SHMA.COM think of your work, in the broadest sense, as stored. We are given a shot at dancing with or translating — and why or why not? at least clapping along with the absurdity of Tova Mirvis: There is often the sense that life instead of being squashed by it over and fiction is translating life onto the page. When over again.” I wonder if fiction can truly ever people read fiction, they often assume that the capture the absurdity of life, to use her phrase, page is exactly as life is, but the writer always or is there always some real separation — al- takes the language of life and shapes it into a most like a mechitzah — between lived expe- novel or a story; it has a different shape than rience and the words on the page? life itself has. Josh Rolnick: Obviously, though, you must That is the kind of mirror that I want to hold up; it is work to make the writing appear authentic. not an external mirror, but some kind of fantastical Tova Mirvis: “Authentic” is a complicated question. Though fiction is made up, I use life creation — an internal mirror where we see the as my raw material, beginning with a spark or mess of things that exists inside us. snippet that comes from real life — and mix that with imaginative thinking. The magic of Tova Mirvis: I often return to Bird by Bird to fiction is that it’s all made up and yet it feels inspire my writing. Fiction at its best can cap- real. As a writer, I can translate it for the page, ture some flickering moment of life. And then, the story. Life is not narrative; we create narra- when we read it on the page, reflected back at Tova Mirvis is the author of two tive out of our lives through recollection. Life us, there is a moment when we find ourselves novels, The Ladies Auxiliary is broader and messier and episodic. in a different place than where we are — we and The Outside World. Her Josh Rolnick: When I finished reading The step out of ourselves to see ourselves in another essays have appeared in Outside World, I felt very emotional. In the final character. various anthologies and scene, the family is finally together, yet they’re Josh Rolnick: Capturing a moment is newspapers, including The New York Times, Good House- also individuals with different and competing ephemeral, but translating is very concrete — keeping, and Poets and trajectories; they have different doubts, differ- one language into another. Is there an ephemeral Writers, and her fiction has ent yearnings. I thought of my own life, my quality to this kind of translation? been broadcast on National own yearnings, and how complicated it all is. Tova Mirvis: As a movie version of a book is Public Radio. She is a visiting How do you use a writer’s toolbox to translate always condensed, so is the novel version of life scholar at the Brandeis Women’s Studies Research the complexities of life into a work of fiction? condensed. A novel rarely captures a charac- Center. She lives in Newton, Tova Mirvis: That life is complicated is what ter’s full inner-life experience. There would be Mass., with her husband and moves me as a writer. I’m very interested in the a “too-much-ness”; so I think about how to three children. outer presentation of the so-called orderly life, grab a thought or image as a means of telling a certainly in religious communities. It looks like fuller story. Josh Rolnick, a fiction writer, is everything lines up neatly, but the inner world Josh Rolnick: In The Outside World, Baruch the publisher of Sh’ma. He has served as managing editor of is teeming with so many more complicated and Tzippy are newlyweds and Baruch comes Moment magazine and as things. While structure enables me to think home after a long day of work at the grocery editorial director of the about character and dialogue and how I’m in Memphis and he’s talking about the meat Stanford Social Innovation building my book, imposing it runs the risk of and the chopped liver and they get under the Review. Three of his stories a rigid translation. We lose some of the loose covers and she pulls the covers over her head have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and his most ends, which are so much of what life is about. and makes a tent and says “hi” — creating an recent story, “Pulp and Paper,” The characters travel an arc, even if it’s a broad incredibly sweet moment of reconnection. appeared in the Harvard arc, sometimes crisscrossing the book. Real And then you go back to their wedding night Review. Rolnick holds a people are traveling many arcs at once or we’re and the next four or five pages after that, we’re master’s degree in fine arts not changing, not moving. Imposing structure in another moment. You translate that au- from the Iowa Writers’ or shape runs the risk of simplifying because thentic, wonderful newness of being a newly- Workshop. He lives in Akron, Ohio, with his wife and three life is messier. wed with just a line of dialogue, enabling a children. Josh Rolnick: In her book Bird by Bird, whole piece of the back story to unfold. Can Anne Lamott writes: “When writers make us you talk about how you know when to reveal For a fuller version of this shake our heads with the exactness of their and how you know when personal history conversation, see prose and their truths and even make us laugh becomes important to the front story? www.shmadigital.com.

DECEMBER 2010 | TEVET 5771 [7] Tova Mirvis: It’s finding the moment to re- lives is always so messy. It is almost the oppo- veal — knowing how far to go back, how to site of seamless — though that’s the end result. make a detour and then reconnect and re- How does an accurate translation of life ever SHMA.COM enter the present-day moment. I always try to evolve from that chaos? make it appear seamless, but while I am writ- Tova Mirvis: John Gardner said that fiction ing a scene, it feels like a puzzle; I’ll have lit- should be a continuous dream. But for the tle pieces and sometimes my impulse is to put writer, it is the most interrupted, fractured them in early on and then I sometimes feel like dream of all. It is the illusion of seamlessness I should wait. Unlike life, a narrative requires that we’re after, but the writing process is never that I move flashback moments around. seamless. A writer knows where things have Josh Rolnick: In The Outside World, Naomi been moved around. I know that my current is sitting in shul and has something like a reli- first chapter didn’t used to be my first chapter gious epiphany; she senses God close by. When — the multiple drafts live on for the writer. Baruch is studying in yeshiva, he sees “the Josh Rolnick: The author Richard Ford said shadow of God peeking out from behind the that the ultimate purpose of fiction makes read- words” — he, too, has a religious epiphany and ers feel something. It is not just edifying, enter- “realizes that it was all true, it was true that taining, or educational; it is emotional for the God existed.” If I ever try to write about any- reader as well. The very best novels and stories thing spiritually stirring in my own life — even change readers by opening windows into our in a journal — it loses its ineffable transcendent selves. It doesn’t have to be a grand epiphany. quality. Is writing about God and religious fer- It could be something small like, wow, I really vor different from writing about love, fear, lust, miss my sister. But we feel. Do you believe one or any other emotion? of the jobs of fiction is to hold up a mirror so Tova Mirvis: The difficulty about writing that we learn something about who we are? about God has to do with contemporary times Tova Mirvis: I am probably obsessed with and expectations — to write in ways where it’s this idea of outer presentations and inner truths not moralistic or sappy. We’re conditioned to that are hidden away — that we’re not allowed satirize moments of epiphany rather than help to see what goes on inside the jungle of feel- our readers enter into the experience. We’re ings inside people’s lives. That is the kind of conditioned to doubt a character’s belief in mirror that I want to hold up; it is not an ex- God in a way that we don’t doubt a character ternal mirror, but some kind of fantastical cre- who loves another person. ation — an internal mirror where we get to see Upcoming Josh Rolnick: Your book offered an incredi- the mess of things that exists inside us. in Sh’ma ble lens into an Orthodox world that I know Josh Rolnick: Can you talk about reading ex- ■ Succession: very little about intimately. Do you see yourself periences that have been translational for you? How We Rebuild as a translator for different segments of the Tova Mirvis: I went to a small Orthodox high Jewish Leadership Jewish community — for a more secular per- school in Memphis, and there read a book ■ New Visions for son to learn about Orthodoxy or for someone called Catholic Girls, an anthology about going Jewish Education in the Orthodox community to experience sec- to a Catholic high school. It was so outside my ular Judaism? world and yet revealed a great deal of similar- ■ Jewish Polarities Tova Mirvis: That does happen, but I have ity. It was an experience of translation — mak- ■ Where does History mixed feelings about it. It’s a world filled with ing text accessible to someone who speaks a Begin? detail and language and ritual, so as a writer — different language. Those fictional works trans- ■ New Jewish or translator — I’m responsible for those de- lated that Catholic world into my own lan- Identities: Trends on tails. I also have to think about how to translate guage, into my own experience. My desire to Inheritance, Identity phrases or words that would be awkward to write might have grown out of a recognition Formation, and use in English and still sound authentic. And of that writers create those experiences. Ethnic-Religious course the novel is not intended as an educa- Josh Rolnick: Do you ever learn something Expressions tional primer on Orthodox Judaism. I’m inter- about yourself when reading your own work? ested in the people, the experiences, what a Tova Mirvis: Sometimes I feel like I’m can- What Jewish conversa- character feels like. Some in the Orthodox nibalizing myself — using experiences or tion would you like to world become anxious that readers will think memories or uncomfortable pieces of myself. have? Send suggestions for future Sh’ma topics that all Orthodox Jews respond as these partic- I tell myself that I am just giving it to a char- to [email protected]. ular characters do. acter; it is not really me. This yields the most Josh Rolnick: The process of writing about fertile fiction.

[8] DECEMBER 2010 | TEVET 5771 Sholem Aleichem in Chinese? IRENE EBER SHMA.COM world without translated philosophical translation after settling in Jerusalem in 1938. and literary works is unimaginable. Translating is complicated. While transla- AUnable to learn the many languages in tors used to exercise great fidelity to the which the masterpieces of world literature source work, attention has now shifted to the have been and are written, we are dependent target text: how to evaluate a text in a new on translations. Without them, we would cultural environment. This, in turn, raises the know little about the cultures beyond our cir- question of a work’s afterlife or, in fact, the cumspect lives. afterlives of an original text. Thus, we’re find- My own interest in translating and transla- ing that classics are often in need of retrans- tion was awakened many decades ago by an lation. Cultures and linguistic expressions offhand remark of my then professor, Chen change, and what was clear and acceptable at Shouyi, who asked if I knew that Yiddish fiction was translated into Chinese. I answered, How is a text so far removed in time and place transposed into incredulously: Why would Chinese writers another culture of another time? How is the human drama that translate Sholem Aleichem, Y.L. Peretz, or infuses so many of the biblical stories conveyed? Translating Solomon Libin? And how would a Chinese reader relate to their stories in the target can be understood as an interpretative art form, the product language? being both identical with and different from the original. Reading these stories in the original Yiddish and then rereading them in Chinese, I one time is surely not so at a later period. A realized, of course, that they had been trans- work lives on precisely because it is translated lated from secondary languages — Esperanto and retranslated many times, as inevitable or English. Most of those translations dated changes occur. For example, the first transla- from the 1920s, the years when modern tion of the Tanakh into Chinese was published Chinese literature emerged, a literature in the in 1874 and prepared by Samuel Isaac Joseph spoken rather than classical language. Yiddish Schereschewsky (1831-1906), a Jew from literature thus provided models for the new lit- Lithuania. Schereschewsky’s superb translation erature about the common people — workers, raises many questions: How is a text so far re- peddlers, shopkeepers — and fidelity to the moved in time and place transposed into an- original was hardly a concern. Moreover, Jews other culture of another time? How is the were one of the “weak and small peoples” human drama that infuses so many of the bib- (roxiao minzu), who would resonate with lical stories conveyed? How are the many po- Chinese readers, a people who did not belong etic portions rendered? Translating can be to the strong and exploiting powers. understood, then, as an interpretative art form, Although Chinese translators rarely en- the product being both identical with and dif- countered Jews, the Jew did not remain en- ferent from the original. In the end, should a tirely unknown. And while Chinese writers text be faithful to the original text? Should it be were translating Yiddish fiction, Yiddish writ- literally translated? ers were translating Chinese poetry and liter- These are the questions that have inspired ary works. Like their counterparts in China, the my work for the past 30-odd years as a transla- Yiddish translators worked from intermediate tor; my task has been to serve both literary and languages. And they used translation — like intellectual history, to give new life to foreign the Chinese translators — as a window into an- works. Through translation, I hope to introduce other world; the Yiddishists were looking for a readers to the peoples and cultures who inhabit way to know the “other,” a bridge leading be- the original text. Sometimes, when I translate yond their own lives. Chinese poetry of long ago, I try to imagine the Martin Buber was an important translator world of the poet where he wrote the poem. who brought Chinese thought and literature to Similarly, I believe translators anywhere at- Irene Eber is the Louis Frieberg German readers as early as 1910 and 1911. tempt to see the world in which the text began Professor of East Asian Studies Moreover, he was the first to introduce Hebrew life before being able to imbue it with a new life (emerita) at the Hebrew readers to Confucian writings by means of of a different place and time. University of Jerusalem.

DECEMBER 2010 | TEVET 5771 [9]

through the events of Zeffren’s own life. These life. own Zeffren’s of events the through Israel in community lesbian and gay the explores Story, Pink novel, graphic 2005 Her Aviv. Tel in lives currently and Ashkelon, in up grew Rehovot, in 1972 in born days, she has a weekly magazine. comics column in a local entertainment Her work appeared recently in “Graphic Details: Confess ional Comics by Jewish Women” at San Francisco’s Cartoon Museum. Art emun he art on this page another medium provides SHMA.COM LET US HEAR December 2010 | Tevet 5771 December 2010 | Tevet to look at the work of a translate Novelists translator. life onto a page through words characters, — creating plot, use color, motion. Painters texture; musicians use design, Graphic rhythm. timing, sound, artists those on this — like page — combine some of the palette elements of a painter’s All vocabulary. and a writer’s artists use their imaginative spirit and a free-form sense of interpretation. Here are three to the question I answers posed: How do you translate your life into a comic strip? T

Eli Valley’s comics appear monthly in the Forward, and have been featured in Haaretz, Gawker, and Jewcy. His art has been described as “ferociously repugnant” by Commentary and “

, , Zeffren Ilana Museum. Art Cartoon Francisco’s San at Women” Jewish by s Comic Confessional Details: “Graphic in appeared recently work Her Editions. Myriad publisher independent the for works graphic ■ nists’ group Cartoon County. She commissions group Cartoon County. nists’ a founding partner of Comic Company, a coordinator of the cartoo a founding partner of Comic Company, Sh’ma Sh’ma Ilana Zeffren 2010 for The Comics Stripper Corinne Pearlman Rites Translation 2010 for in the United Kingdom. A resident of London and Brighton, she is , Jewish QuarterlyJewish Forward Eli Valley Photo Stroll in the Originally published draws a regular cartoon strip for the draws September 18, 2009 issue. September 18, Corinne Pearlman hilarious” by The Comics Journal. The author of The Great Jewish Cities of Central and Eastern Europe (Jason Aronson, 1999), Valley is currently finishing his first novel. His website is www.EVComics.com. ■ Another Voice: Letters on the Art of Translation MAYA ARAD & ADRIANA X. JACOBS SHMA.COM Dear Adriana, that I sequestered the English, late 20th-century ’m Israeli, so let me be direct. Adriana, why aspect of my heritage. I took the side of Natan did you choose to translate my novel Alterman against Natan Zach: of classical form IAnother Place, A Foreign City from Hebrew against free verse. into English? Your work is wonderful — the ex- So, what inspired you to translate this novel cerpt published in the journal Zeek offers a — this peculiar Russian-Hebrew experiment — sense of your translation, nuanced, fluid, en- into your wonderful English? tranced and entrancing — but how, and why, — Maya have you ever started imagining yourself doing ••• this? What’s more, why commit yourself to the Dear Maya, duration of more than 300 stanzas? You ask how I imagined myself translating your novel and what inspired me to do so, questions We care about translation because we care about history. that are, in my mind, mutually inclusive. I was not We need translation because we need the ironic distance familiar with your work until I received the task of translating an excerpt for the journal Zeek. In ad- it provides. Israeli culture tends to be too “literal” dition to translating and writing about Hebrew po- and too obsessed with its own state of being. etry, I also write poetry, a fact that seems to be common among translators of poetry. Perhaps it This is, of course, a bit unfair to you. One is because of the wider range of choices that could also ask the same of me. I am used to the translating poetry involves that poetry transla- puzzled question: Why write a novel in the tions tend to vary widely from one translator to Onegin stanza, with the same rhyme scheme another, sometimes becoming unrecognizable — eight syllables, nine syllables, eight syllables, transformations of the original work. nine syllables, iambic meter, and fourteen lines I subscribe to Octavio Paz’s assertion that in a row — that served as the vehicle of “all writing is translation,” but I also hold that the Russia’s greatest masterpiece, Pushkin’s Eugene reverse is true. The act of translation is very cre- Onegin? And I keep avoiding the question, usu- ative, and while experienced translators can pull ally just telling the same story: how I read The from a cache of tools and strategies to render a Golden Gate by Vikram Seth and felt that I text from one language to another quickly, an el- wanted to do the same in Hebrew. ement of inspiration is vital to the task. Because But the truth is, of course, there is no such of the sheer labor that goes into a literary trans- thing as doing “the same as Vikram Seth in lation, I have trouble undertaking projects that Hebrew.” His effort at a rambling romance in don’t inspire me. There has to be something in it Pushkinian rhyme could be so lighthearted be- for me — and I’m not referring to money! For ex- cause English employs an expansive attitude: ample, your novel adheres to a consistent It’s a conquering language; it has conquered prosody that requires tremendous flexibility on Maya Arad grew up on Kibbutz Nahal-Oz, and has a doctorate Seth’s native Calcutta and, through him, it the part of my English. While translating your in linguistics from University “Englished” Eugene Onegin without any trace work, I read many sonnets as well as numerous College, London. The author of of the Russian. English translations of Onegin, which enriched five Hebrew novels, Arad is But in Hebrew — I hope I managed to keep not only my translation but also my own writing currently writer-in-residence at it lighthearted! Everything was so freighted — and research. the Taube Center for Jewish and who would ever have wanted to leave no My motivation for translating your novel is studies at Stanford University. trace of the Russian! My point was to acknowl- also grounded in my identification with your char- Adriana X. Jacobs holds a edge a sense of debt to our Russian legacy, from acters. I understand Orit’s ambivalent relation to doctorate in comparative which Modern Hebrew literature emerged. I “Israeliness” as well as Jay’s desire for it, though, literature. She is currently a wanted to emulate Russia’s greatest master- on the surface, we share little in common. I am visiting scholar at Columbia piece, and to do so in meter and rhyme. This, of neither Israeli, Jewish, nor a native Hebrew University’s Institute for Israel course, was a deliberate statement — which speaker. But Orit’s fascination with Jay, a and Jewish Studies. Her translations of contemporary was how the book was read and received. It Canadian oleh, and her task of defining “Israeli Israeli poetry have appeared in was a statement about our identity. I put the identity” resonated with me on a very personal Zeek, Kritya, and Russian, early 20th-century aspect of my her- level. I grew up “outside the Beltway,” surrounded Metamorphoses. itage front and center, which necessarily meant by people — beginning with my Ecuadorian

[12] DECEMBER 2010 | TEVET 5771 mother — who were geographically, linguistically, right that my work addresses identity — Israeli, and culturally dislocated to varying degrees. This Jewish; these are my themes. But bear in mind dislocation always felt very natural to me — in- the irony in all of that, the sense that there is deed, inseparable from my sense of home. I even also something faintly absurd in all those Israeli SHMA.COM remember anxiously questioning my identity in obsessions. Identities are always clichés (they college and in the immediate years thereafter (not are, after all, what is supposed to make things coincidentally, around the age of your characters). identical). They make wonderful literary mate- The pull toward new places and languages even- rial — as a spoof or as an opportunity to expose tually brought me to the study of modern Hebrew the most contemporary flavor of philistinism. I literature, and it is here that I have settled, so to am distant from Israel, in several ways. speak, for the better part of the past fifteen So, I am there, in Israel, but not quite. years. But I have had to create my own relation to Where do you want to take your translation — Hebrew and Israel and have done so, in large that is, what is your attitude toward place, and part, through translation. how do you wish to achieve that in your work As an Israeli expatriate, the question of iden- as translator? tity looms large in your own personal narrative — Maya and it is often highlighted in reviews of your work I have no interest in creating a facsimile of your novel in (not to mention how often it comes up in inter- views). You live now in California and continue to English. This would presume that your “original” reader write novels in Hebrew for an audience that re- has a fixed identity that can be charted with certainty. sides primarily in Israel. Translation into other languages promises a larger audience for your work, Dear Maya, but how much does this matter to you and to I remember the first issue of Ho! very well, par- what extent is translation on your mind when you ticularly a section on English seafaring poems in are writing? It intrigues me — though it doesn’t Hebrew translation. You say that translation pro- surprise me — that the figure of the translator vides an “ironic distance,” but it strikes me that appears in your work. How much of that is a re- in your case, as well as that of many Israelis flection or commentary on your authorship and today, the distance is quite literal. At the end of your own “translated” identity? Another Place, A Foreign City, you vividly describe — Adriana Orit’s departure from Israel as a state of suspen- ••• sion between Tel Aviv and Vancouver, her new Dear Adriana, home. This image recalls Leah Goldberg’s famous What do I expect from translating Another poem “Pine,” with its iconic image of (Jewish) im- Place, A Foreign City? Indeed, what did I expect migration: “Only migrating birds know/ as they from publishing it? It took several weeks — the hover between earth and sky/ this pain of the two book languishing on the “poetry” shelves — homelands.” before it hit the jackpot of critical recognition I think of translation in similar terms. I have as a “novel” and its unlikely bestseller-dom. no interest in creating a facsimile of your novel in Now, I am confident that a bestseller, in English. In other words, I am not invested in recre- English, it will not be. And so I do not look for ating for the English reader an experience akin to a “wider” audience! Rather, I am attracted to reading the work in the original. This would pre- your project of translation for the artistic prob- sume, first of all, that your “original” reader has lems it raises. You are spot-on, pointing to the a fixed identity that can be charted with certainty. role translation plays in my own work. I often As a translator, I bring my own cultural and lin- think about Ho!, the journal edited by Dory guistic baggage to the enterprise, and I am sure Manor — who might be the foremost Hebrew that this informs the way that I translate to some poet of our generation — which expends much degree. In general, though, as I translate, my time and space to translation. Dory himself focus tends to rest primarily on my linguistic re- made his mark as Baudelaire’s translator. Why sponsibilities — am I getting this word right? Do this emphasis? We care about translation be- I fully understand an allusion (if I’ve managed to cause we care about history. We need transla- grasp it)? — to the extent that I sometimes forget Sh’ma Now tion because we need the ironic distance it to step back and see the bigger picture. This is provides. Israeli culture tends to be too “literal,” why my translations often need to sit on a shelf on Kindle too “direct,” and too obsessed with its own for a while, or pass from one careful reader to the Find us at: present state of being. It was against this back- other. A little distance is also good for translation. kindle.amazon.com ground that my generation rebelled. You are — Adriana

DECEMBER 2010 | TEVET 5771 [13] Meet the Makhatonim: Understanding Ashkenazic Kinship SHMA.COM NAOMI SEIDMAN ur fascination with the untranslatable is the couple. The term makhatonim reveals how not so difficult to understand. The word the relationship works structurally rather than Oor phrase without a linguistic equiva- affectively. Families, in their connection lent is a powerful tool to illuminate what is dis- through the marriage of their children, have a tinctive in a language or culture. There are relationship shaped by a set of conventions and words and concepts — chutzpah, kvetch — obligations that comprise a third space, a de- whose untranslatability is evident to all, and gree of connection “beyond” either the biolog- others whose cultural distinctiveness is masked ical or sexual. It’s almost as if the marriage of by the existence of a near-equivalent, a kind of the children works backward (to a previous cultural “false friend” — the term translators generation) as well as forward (to grandchil- use to describe words in different languages dren) to create family. The relationship is cer- that somehow mislead us into believing them tainly not only semantic: In the traditional to be equivalents (as in the French “marcher” world, parents played a far greater role — if not and the English “march”). the sole role — in choosing a mate for their The Yiddish term “makhatonim” is one children and negotiating the dowry and support such word. American Jews will confidently de- of the young couple. Newlyweds often lived clare that the word means “in-laws,” but there with one of the families in the first years of mar- is an important shade of difference that disap- riage (in a system known, untranslatably, as pears in such easy translation. The term “in- kest). I do not mean to suggest that this was an law” primarily describes the relationship idyllic or functional system. Jewish literature is between an individual and the parents or sib- filled with outrage against the deafness of par- lings of his or her spouse; it is thus a “diagonal” ents to the desires of their children, against a kinship term. system that put young bridegrooms at the Makhatonim, by contrast, are the parents mercy of cruel mothers-in-law (the young cou- of both spouses, and it is their “horizontal” re- ple ordinarily moved in with the bride’s par- lationship — between the parents of the bride ents) and burdened adolescents of both genders and the parents of the groom — that is the pri- with sexual and marital obligations. mary significance of the term. The traditional Makhatonim, then, were not so much Jewish community of Eastern Europe consid- “lost” as thrown overboard, deliberately or as a ered this an important kinship term, indeed, side effect of other choices: the right to choose and the loss of its equivalent in English, in the a mate, delay marriage, and live independently New World, marks a cultural deficit. in a very mobile society. Is there a price to pay The untranslatability of the term alerts us for these freedoms? Are we better off “alone” to two radically different conceptualizations of in our marriages, within the compass of senti- marriage. It is true that both systems revolve ment and children, to the exclusion of a wider around a couple, the apparent heart and — by sense of family? Perhaps, after all, romantic definition — the pivot of a marriage. The con- choice is a heavier burden than that of an temporary American system recognizes, of arranged, early marriage, or at least one in course, that a husband and wife have parents, which the marital relationship was “distrib- and recognizes that one spouse will have some uted” among the generations. relationship with the parents of the other Even my question here recapitulates our spouse. Folklore offers stories about the rela- cultural focus on the couple. What is lost in our Naomi Seidman is Koret tionship that connects a husband and his romantic isolation is lost, above all, for the older Professor of Jewish Culture and mother-in-law, stories that are often rich in ag- generation. Among the tragedies of Tevye’s old director of the Richard S. gressive humor and ambivalent tension. The age — exile, the death of his wife, a daughter’s Dinner Center for Jewish mother-in-law interferes, judges, prefigures her apostasy, a son-in-law’s incarceration, another Studies at the Graduate daughter’s aging; she functions as the “diago- daughter’s widowhood — is one that is nearly Theological Union in Berkeley. Her most recent book, Faithful nal” in an otherwise balanced scene. invisible, a side effect of his daughters’ roman- Renderings: Jewish-Christian The traditional marriage of the Jews of tic choices: Tevye, at the end, has sons-in-law, Difference and the Politics of Eastern Europe encloses the married couple in but he has no makhatonim. Beyond his daugh- Translation, appeared in 2006. a larger web, constructing relationships beyond ters, the world holds only strangers.

[14] DECEMBER 2010 | TEVET 5771 Around the Maggid’s Table: Translating Black Letters and White Spaces SHMA.COM OR N. ROSE ver the past several months, I have had — in brief comments following each text. the pleasure of engaging in a new trans- To help readers gain a fuller understanding Olation project with my teacher and col- of the worlds of Hasidic life and thought, we leagues. Arthur Green, Ebn Leader, Ariel Mayse, will also include an extensive introduction to and I have been meeting weekly to study and the book in which we discuss the social and po- translate the homiletic teachings of Rabbi Dov litical contexts in which the teachers lived and Baer (d. 1772), the Maggid of Mezeritch, and worked, as well as significant intellectual and several of his leading disciples. The Maggid was religious influences on them. one of the chief architects of the Hasidic move- ment, and his students, including Rabbis Levi We hope this volume will help to enrich conversations Yitzhak of Berditchev, Menahem Nahum of about the complexity of translating the ideas and values Chernobyl, Elimelekh of Lizensk, and Shneur of our Hasidic forebears into contemporary life. Zalman of Liadi, played a major role in the development of Hasidism in its formative stage. Among the many translation questions we We chose to translate the d’rashot (ser- have been discussing is how best to communi- mons) of these pioneering teachers because of cate some of the cultural resonances imbedded their exegetical creativity, psychological sensi- in the words before us. When, for example, is tivity, and spiritual insight. These rabbis were it important to consider how the rebbe may not only gifted intellectuals but also dedicated have said a phrase in Yiddish (the language of community leaders. Our vision of Jewish life Hasidic preaching) before it was written down and thought and our own work as rabbis have in Hebrew (the language of publication)? When been greatly influenced by these figures. As we does a Hebrew or Aramaic term carry with it seek to help renew the Jewish tradition in our an established rabbinic or mystical meaning, age, we turn back to these revivalists from an- and when is the preacher introducing a new in- other age and engage with them in conversa- terpretation? When does a word shift meaning tion across space and time. based on the context of a homily? In brief, how The goal of our project is to provide a broad can we translate both the black letters and the readership — including those who cannot eas- white spaces on the page, knowing that some ily access these texts in the original — with a things will be lost in translation? meaningful source for study and contempla- We have designed our project such that tion. The volume will also include the original each of us is primarily responsible for one Hebrew texts. The book is organized according Hasidic book from the Maggid’s circle. Every to the weekly Torah portions and Jewish calen- week, we take turns reading our translations dar, with four or five teachings in each section. and comments, inviting our study partners to We have structured the volume this way so that critique our work. While there is always some it can serve both as an in-depth introduction to anxiety about sharing our efforts, we are all early Hasidism and as a resource for Shabbat close friends and colleagues who trust one an- and festivals. other to offer constructive feedback. While we find many of the texts inspira- Of course, there are disagreements and mo- tional and instructive, others are challenging ments of tension. Most times, we work by con- and even disturbing — including teachings on sensus; other times, we defer to our teacher or the theurgic powers of the rebbe, the role of let the person translating a particular text have women in Jewish life, and the spiritual status of the final word. Challenging as this work can be, Rabbi Or N. Rose, a member non-Jews. Though we struggle with some of we remain committed to it because we find the of the Sh’ma Advisory these teachings, to exclude them from the vol- teachings of this mystical circle powerful and we Committee, is associate dean ume would be irresponsible, as we are trying to want to share these sources with others. It is our and director of informal educa- facilitate a genuine meeting between the Hasidic hope that this volume will help to enrich the cur- tion at the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College. He is the masters and our readers. What we have at- rent renaissance of Jewish mysticism, including co-editor of Jewish Mysticism tempted to do is to let the rebbes (Hasidic mas- conversation about the promise and complexity and the Spiritual Life: Classical ters) speak for themselves while offering our of translating the ideas and values of our Hasidic Texts, Contemporary own personal responses — including criticism forebears into contemporary life. Reflections (Jewish Lights).

DECEMBER 2010 | TEVET 5771 [15] Memory Is Inseparable from Imagination MIKHAIL KRUTIKOV SHMA.COM he literary career of Alexander Goldstein, intellectuals from Moscow or St. Petersburg. He who lived from 1957 to 2006, was un- found the bohemian atmosphere of South Tel Tusual in many respects. Though born in Aviv congenial to the Baku of his youth, and Tallinn on the Baltic coast, Goldstein grew up in soon carved for himself a niche in the bur- the cosmopolitan and multicultural city of Baku geoning world of the Russian-language press. on the Caspian Sea. While these cities are now His weekly literary columns in the major capitals of independent states, Estonia and Russian-Israeli weekly, Vesti, recently collected Azerbaijan, in Goldstein’s lifetime they repre- in a book entitled In Memory of Pathos, are sented two extreme poles of the Soviet empire, written in an uncompromisingly cerebral style west and east. This dichotomy runs through the that seems hardly suitable for an immigrant core of Goldstein’s thinking and imagination. paper. These essays, published in the late He envisions himself as a mediator between the 1990s, are astonishing in their thematic diapa- two worlds, and in this respect, Israel — more son and erudition. Goldstein navigates with precisely, Tel Aviv — became his natural home. amazing ease and confidence among V. S. He envisioned Russian culture as decentralized and Naipaul and contemporary Russian philosophy, Isaiah Berlin and Bertolt Brecht. But his posi- diasporic, a kind of virtual textual reality with no clear tion vis-à-vis Russian culture was always on the divisions among the original and the translation, outside; he once called the notion of unity the old and the new, the local and the global. among Russian cultures “unappetizing,” call- ing upon his colleagues, émigré writers, to What might seem surprising is that he “move as far as possible from the language achieved recognition and fame in Russia after metropoly” and cultivate their foreignness. He his immigration to Israel. To understand envisioned Russian culture as decentralized Goldstein’s unique position in Russian culture, and diasporic, a kind of virtual textual reality one has to keep in mind that he never physi- with no clear divisions among the original and cally lived in Russia proper, and his immigra- the translation, the old and the new, the local tion to Israel was in some sense a move from and the global. one corner of the Russian speaking cultural uni- Goldstein was the most cosmopolitan — verse to another. No less important is his per- and perhaps least “Israeli” — among Russian ception of Baku and Tel Aviv as cosmopolitan writers in Israel. While the details of Israeli life European seaport cities in the midst of the — particularly found in the poor neighborhoods Islamic world of the Middle East. of Tel Aviv, Lod, and Ashdod, which were pop- Having graduated with a degree in Russian ulated by a motley mix of Jewish immigrants Mikhail Krutikov is an literature from the University of Baku, from the FSU and Arab countries, as well as mi- associate professor of Slavic Goldstein found employment in the local grant workers — often serve as a point of de- languages and literatures at Russian press, writing reports and articles about parture for his brilliant cultural associations, the the University of Michigan and the life of the Soviet Azerbaijan. The collapse of idea of Zionism or Israel as a Jewish state seems an associate professor at the university’s Frankel Center for the Soviet Union, which was partly initiated by of little interest to him. In this part of the world, Judaic Studies. A columnist for the bloody war between Armenia and where he happened to spend his adult life, “na- the Yiddish Forverts, Krutikov Azerbaijan over the territory of Nagorny tions fight over primogeniture and miseries” and holds a doctorate in Jewish Karabakh, was accompanied by violent anti- every nation takes a “savage pride in disaster.” literature from the Jewish Armenian pogroms across Azerbaijan, and left In Baku, Goldstein learned that “There is no Theological Seminary and a the Russian-speaking Jews of Baku with little word more powerful than nation. … It gave diploma in mathematics from Moscow State University. He is choice but to emigrate — even though Jews blood to the veins, semen to the scrotum, vision the author of Yiddish Fiction were not the target of those pogroms. The out- to the eye, and I am a voluntary debtor to its and the Crisis of Modernity, burst of ethnic violence left a powerful impres- generosity.” He admits to once having a dream 1905-1914 (2001) and From sion on Goldstein, and the problem of about “strolling, like a rootless vagabond in Kabbalah to Class Struggle: cohabitation of Muslims, Christians, and Jews some Pax-Atlantic city, […] and, opening a hotel Expressionism, Marxism, and Yiddish Literature in the Life remained central to his writing. door, to announce hastily my rootless name to and Work of Meir Wiener Immigration to Israel was for Goldstein less the concierge. For half a century I wanted to (2010). of a cultural shock than for Russian-Jewish wander from one hotel to another, making a

[16] DECEMBER 2010 | TEVET 5771 sour face when asked about roots: it has was finishing his last novel, Quiet Fields, liter- become irrelevant long ago.” (Remember ally in his last hours, breathing with the aid of Famagusta, pages 20-21) Then, ironically, he an artificial respirator and refusing the mor- condemns this dream as a sin. phine that would quiet his pain but blunt his SHMA.COM This passage (which defies all my attempts consciousness. He achieved fame in Russia a to translate it into English and convey ade- few years before his death and won a few pres- quately its intricate grammar and rich syn- tigious literary prizes. His books were pub- onymic word play) has three different words for lished by the elitist NLO Press with “rootless,” all of which were, incidentally, used introductions by prominent contemporary in late Stalinist rhetoric to denounce the Jewish Russian writers. His works differ in themes and presence in Russian culture. Cosmopolitan at his genres, but they all have in common an inim- very core, Goldstein nevertheless takes nation- itable combination of arcane baroque style and alism very seriously. Dissolving himself in the precision of thought. Goldstein’s erudition was comfortable, post-nationalist Pax Atlantica enormous, ranging from medieval Armenian would mean losing his own self, a fate that, he and Persian poetry to contemporary American believed, befell Joseph Brodsky in America. In literature. He lived in the world of high culture, the obituary for Brodsky, Goldstein remarks: residing in squalid rented rooms near Tel Aviv’s “He has long been in separation from that bus station. He described his way of writing as speech that was once so congenial to him.” (In “literature of existence,” meaning that the Memory of Pathos, p. 83) For Goldstein, Brodsky writer must bear full responsibility for his the man has outlived Brodsky the poet. words. “I have become convinced that memory Goldstein lived and died in literature. He is inseparable from imagination.”

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The Right to Be Israeli: Race in Israel KAREN PAUL-STERN

he Ethiopian aliyah to Israel that began time in modern Israeli history, there has been EthicsSigi Ziering nearly 20 years ago has posed ethical an enormous influx of immigrants who stand Tproblems for Israel like no other immi- out not just because they stumbled into a new This year, our Sigi Ziering gration wave. With more than 100,000 country with new ways but because their skin column focuses on the Ethiopians living in Israel today, some already is dark. It is black. They are foreign in Israel in ethics of immigration. Each second generation, the community continues to a way that no one has been foreign before. month, an esteemed guest columnist wrestles with face numerous absorption and assimilation Racism in Israel today is often linked to the what Jewish texts and our challenges. First, there is the very question of Jewish-Arab conflict. It is manifest at soccer tradition teach us about who is a Jew within the Ethiopian community games, where anti-Arab epithets are some- our neighbors and itself. A number of Ethiopian immigrants are times hurled onto the field by the mostly ourselves. Each month, we considered to be “Falash Mura,” or now- Jewish fan base. peer into the immigration Christian Ethiopians who have an ancestry But another form of racism exists in Israel debate raging in America; rooted in Judaism. Yet they came to Israel as today, one that more closely mirrors the racism we’ll also look into part of a wave of Jewish immigration and, de- that Americans recognize. immigration issues and the lives of undocumented spite continuing questions about their lineage, When an employer in Israel sits across the workers in Israel. This they now live in Israel and deserve the same desk from an applicant who happens to be column is sponsored by treatment as any other immigrant group. Ethiopian, does the employer see only a poten- Bruce Whizin and Marilyn This debate points to the most burning im- tial employee, or does he or she see a person Ziering in honor of Marilyn’s migration question in Israel today: Who has the with black skin? Why would three religious husband, Sigi Ziering, of right to become an Israeli citizen? If one is not schools in Petach Tikvah refuse to accept blessed memory. Visit Jewish, no channel exists through which to be- Ethiopian students? How does Israel account shma.com to view the come naturalized. As Israel transitions into a for the enormous gaps in education and em- series and responses. multicultural, multiracial society, this question ployment in the Ethiopian community nearly may become one of the great issues of debate in 20 years after the first large aliyah? Israel in the 21st century. While Israel has al- A new generation of Ethiopian children is ways been a democracy, the very concept of already reaching adulthood in Israel. They did democracy may now be under siege. not grow up in refugee camps in the desert; Karen Paul-Stern is the “Who is a Jew” may soon become “who is they are modern and engaged, and they want to Washington regional director of an Israeli?” Israel’s Law of Return — which live their lives well and proudly in the country the New Israel Fund, as well as grants automatic citizenship to any Jew who that claimed it wanted them. a development and fundraising consultant to progressive non- wishes to live in Israel — is being questioned in They are forcing Israel to face questions of profit organizations. A writer, the 21st century in ways never intended by immigration that it has never before encoun- her work has appeared in Lilith Israel’s founders. Questions of immigration and tered. Who should be allowed to immigrate? Magazine, the Washington citizenship extend beyond the Ethiopian com- Who is Israeli? And what is a country’s respon- Post, Red Wheelbarrow Literary munity. Russian olim, foreign workers, and sibility to a population that was brought to its Magazine, Scribblers on the other immigrants, including Palestinians, all re- shores because of a decades-old contract with Roof, and Washington Jewish Week. She writes a weekly blog quire clearly articulated policies. its conscience, but for whom the questions of on the intersection of work and Finally, the elephant in the room regarding absorption and assimilation involve intractable parenthood for Current Mom. the Ethiopian community is race. For the first questions of identity and skin color?

[20] DECEMBER 2010 | TEVET 5771