THE BOARD OF RABBIS OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA PRESENTS ONE PEOPLE, O NE BOOK 5769 A Transdenominational Community Learning Program Participating Conservative, Orthodox, Reconstructionist & Reform congregations Adat Ari El • Ahavat Torah • Beth Chayim Chadashim • Beth Shir Sholom • Congregation Kol Ami • Congregation Tikvat Jacob • IKAR • Leo Baeck Temple • Malibu Jewish Center & Synagogue • Pasadena Jewish Temple & Center • Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel • Temple Aliyah • Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills • University Synagogue Westwood Village Synagogue A SOURCEBOOK FOR THE WORLD TO COME A NOVEL BY DARA HORN Compiled and Published by The Board of Rabbis of Southern California as part of ONE PEOPLE ONE BOOK 5769 One People One Book is a citywide year of transdenominational learning produced by The Board of Rabbis of Southern California. Several hundred people from over 25 area congregations, plus unaffiliated readers, engage in a year‐long study of a significant Jewish book, connecting it with traditional texts, through community‐wide programs and smaller discussion groups. The 2008‐ 2009 program on The World to Come by Dara Horn marks the fourth season of One People One Book. General Editor: Jonathan Freund Sarah Bassin provided invaluable editorial input in the creation of this volume The Board of Rabbis of Southern California 6505 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, California, 90048 323 761 8600 [email protected] www.boardofrabbis.org Copyright © The Board of Rabbis of Southern California, 2008 All rights reserved Except for limited use in educational contexts, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California. Contents Introduction – Rabbi Mark S. Diamond 4 Outwitting History: The World of Yiddish Literature in The World to Come – Rabbi Miriyam Glazer 5 About Marc Chagall and A Chagall Timeline 11 Understanding Chagall and L’dor V’dor: Family Memories and the Power of Chagall – Sarah Rensin 14 Discussion Guides / Lesson Plans 18 The World of the World to Come in Jewish Tradition 19 Acts of Transgression 21 Sleeping through the End of the World 22 Was Rosalie Right? 24 The Paper Bridge 26 Analyzing Chagall's "A Study for Over Vitebsk" 28 Appendix About the Contributors 30 Curtain Call: What does Chagall have to do with Russian Yiddish Theatre, by Dara Horn 32 Portrait of a Writer: Interview with Dara Horn 34 Further Reading 36 A Sourcebook for The World to Come by Dara Horn Introduction Rabbi Mark S. Diamond Executive Vice President, Board of Rabbis of Southern California ur tradition teaches that when even two people gather to study holy words, the presence of O God dwells with them. We are pleased that so many of us will, over the course of the year, gather together to study words and ideas, learning from and with each other and our shared tradition. The Board of Rabbis of Southern California as a cross‐denominational member organization of rabbis is proud to promote Jewish learning and living in all areas of life: Social Justice, Healing and Spirituality, Professional Growth, Interfaith Activities and Media Relations. Our One People One Book program stands at the core of our Community Learning Initiatives. This year, we are delighted to study Dara Horn’s The World to Come. Translated into eleven languages, this book was selected as an Editor's Choice in The New York Times Book Review and as one of the Best Books of 2006 by The San Francisco Chronicle. It is not difficult to understand why. Horn’s ability to seamlessly weave together lost stories of the old world with narratives of the new, mysticism and post‐modern angst, provides a point of connection for every reader. The One People One Book series is designed for a variety of educational settings, including formal presentations; discussions in classes, book clubs and havurot; and traditional hevruta (partnered) learning. We hope that this sourcebook for The World to Come will help you to understand and appreciate the many Jewish and universal themes employed by this talented young author. To guide your study and help you gain a fuller appreciation of the richness and complexity of the author's work, Rabbi Miriyam Glazer, Jonathan Freund, and Sarah Rensin have prepared essays and other resources focusing on key themes of Horn’s writing. In addition, for teachers and group leaders, we have developed a series of self‐contained lesson plans/discussion guides on themes found in The World to Come and beyond. Rabbis Miriyam Glazer and Daniel Bouskila serve as the 2008‐2009 co‐chairs of the One People, One Book program and we are indebted to them for their devoted leadership. We also express our deep appreciation to Sarah Bassin, Board of Rabbis rabbinic intern, for her invaluable contributions to One People, One Book. We are delighted that you have decided to join us on this journey of learning. Mishnah Peah 1:1 teaches us that there are many things in our world that are priceless, but the study of Torah is equal to them all. Now go and study the extended Torah of our people! 4 A Sourcebook for The World to Come by Dara Horn Outwitting History: The World of Yiddish Literature in The World to Come by Dara Horn Rabbi Miriyam Glazer, Ph.D. American Jewish University Executive Committee, Board of Rabbis of Southern California oven into the story that Dara Horn spins in The World to Come is the evocative world of Yiddish literature. In her passion to preserve the heritage of her own interrupted W childhood of Yiddish culture and literature, Horn’s character Rosalie Ziskind draws on – well, in fact she actually plagiarizes – stories by the Yiddish masters, which she then illustrates and publishes as children’s stories. Rosalie re‐tells stories by the Hasidic master Rebbe Nahman of Bratslav (1772‐1810), for example, and by the beloved Sholem Aleichem (1859‐1916), among others. But neither Nahman nor Sholem Aleichem have passed into oblivion. Today Rebbe Nahman has thousands of Hasidic followers all over the world, followers who tell and re‐tell the stories that Nahman told and who flock by the hundreds of thousands to visit his grave in Uman, Ukraine, once a year. And even if the actual stories Sholem Aleichem wrote are unknown to many today, his beloved, quirky, often heartbreaking and heartbroken character Tevye the Dairyman has moved millions in languages from Japanese to Hebrew through his re‐incarnation in the musical Fiddler on the Roof. But Yiddish literature is vastly richer than the spiritually charged tales of Nahman, or the wry, emotionally‐nuanced, but often good‐humored stories of Sholem Aleichem. How many of us are familiar with the works – or even the names! – of the great founders of modern Yiddish literature: Mendele Mocher Sforim (Shalom Jacob Abramovich, 1836‐1917), or Isaac Leib Peretz (1851‐1915)? Or of the generations of writers who followed them: Pinkhas Kakhanovitch, who called himself Der Nister, the “Hidden One” (1884‐1950); Isaac Reiss, who wrote under the pseudonym Moishe Nadir (1885‐1943), or Itzik Manger (1901‐1969)? Though born in eastern Europe, writers like Chaim Grade, Peretz Hirschbein, Jacob Glatstein, Shlomo Bickel, Joseph Opatoshu ‐‐ who published novels and poetry, along with essays and articles for the Yiddish press from the 1920s to the 1950s – were part of a Yiddish diaspora spanning Poland, Lithuania, Paris, London, Montreal, Buenos Aires, and New York. Nadir, born in Galicia, left for New York in 1899, and Manger, born in Rumania, led a wanderer’s life, living in Europe, England, and then finally in New York. Sholem Aleichem himself left Russia after the 1905 pogrom in Kiev; fled to Denmark when World War I broke out, and died in America two years after his arrival here. At the same time, those Yiddish writers and performers who stayed in Russia were all eventually killed: Solomon Mikhoels, actor and director of the Moscow State Yiddish Theatre ‐‐ for which Chagall did the paintings of which Horn writes ‐‐ was killed in 1948 in a staged automobile accident. David Bergelson, Moishe Kulbak and Itze Kharik were either executed by Stalin’s regime or died in a slave labor camp. So did Der Nister, who, figuring so prominently in Dara Horn’s novel, lived with Chagall at the orphanage in Malekova for young Jewish victims of the pogroms, and eventually died a painful death in a Stalinist camp. 5 A Sourcebook for The World to Come by Dara Horn In other words, the whole world of Yiddish literature, the whole world of its writers, was disrupted by history and torn apart by political upheaval, war, exile, suffering. In her brilliant and sardonic story, “Envy; or, Yiddish in America,” Cynthia Ozick describes how her character Edelshtein, sees it: …the language was lost, murdered. The language – a museum. Of what other language can it be said that it died a sudden and definite death, in a given decade, on a given piece of soil? Where are the speakers of ancient Etruscan? Who was the last man to write a poem in Linear B? Attrition, assimilation. Death by mystery, not gas. The last Etruscan walks around inside some Sicilian. Western Civilization, that pod of muck, lingers on and on. The Sick Man of Europe with his big blob‐head, rotting, but at home in bed. Yiddish, a littleness, a tiny light – oh little holy light!‐ dead, vanished. Perished. Sent into darkness. This was Edelshtein’s subject. On this subject he lectured for a living….Synagogues, community centers, labor unions underpaid him to suck on the bones of the dead.