Richard Elman's Powerful 'The 28t h Day of Elul

Richard M. Elman was born after
Hitler had acquired power in Ger-
many. But the literary critic and
author of novels and prose works
has learned much, has studied a
great deal about the Holocaust, and
his newest novel, "The 28th Day
of Elul," published by Charles
Scribner's Sons (597 5th, NY17),
emerges as a powerful addition to
the literature dealing with the ter-
rible /turban of our time.
It is the powerful story of Alex
Yagt)clah, who hailed from the
town of Clig, in Hungary, who set-
tled in Israel, was embittered, and
was faced with a serious problem:
he was informed that his late
uncle, in Clig, had bequeathed to
him the sum of $40,000, provided
he affirmed that he was remaining
in the Jewish fold.
Elman's powerful novel revolves
around this subject. It is Yagodah's
self-analysis, his review of what
had occurred, his answer to the
challenge.
Indeed, there is dspair and bit-
terness in his self-study, but in
the long run there is an affirma-
tion. Should God be blamed for
the death of the Six Million? El-
man's hero replies to Attorney
Rubin who made him the condi-
tional S40,000 offer:
"It is obvious that we were
formed in His Image, even to our
women with their vicious tempers,
their nagging voices; and so I be-
lieve in Him, in everything; and
I hold every bit of what happened
against Him.
"Only He betrayed us. He pro-
faned us. He took our prayers in
vain. He 'Pocked us. He rewarded
us with cruelty. He listened but
did not hear. He was there and He
was not there when we needed
Him. He led us into injustice, into
this place of asylum and exile
where there can be no asylum and
exile since we are all stricken with
the same history, have the same
horrible memories.
"I ask you, Rubin, was that the
work of a pigmy? It was the Jew-
ish God. The God of Sinai. Our
Father ... The Lord God of Hosts.
If not He, who then? If He could
make the Creation, was the Destruc-
tion too much for Him?"
But there is much more than
that. While he rejects the Zionist
lessons, he nevertheless affirms.
He sets forth the challenging
query:
"But there is still my uncle's
question which cannot be avoided:
Am I quite Jewish?"
And then comes the reply of
Yagodah from Israel:
"My answer is (and I will swear
to it) that there are no more Jews.
I cannot answer you any more
faithfully or explicitly than to say
that. There are no more Jews !
But, if there are, I am one of
them for sure. What other meaning
would my life have? I am a Jew.
What else should I call myself save
victim?
"Through the same agency which
brought me here I have learned
this much about the rest of my
family:
"My mother was arrested at Deb-
recen, shipped to a detention camp
at Mauthausen, from thence to
Auschwitz.
"Father died in forced labor dur-
ing a typhus epidemic, at a later
date in another section of the do-
mains of Dr. Mengele.
'Aunt Pepi perished of 'heart
failure' shortly after her appre-
hension by Slovak border guards.
"No doubt Sarah will tell you
her own story. As can Perl.
Strange, that my uncle of all peo-
ple should have liberated me from
this obligation. It is still very
much like a had dream, yet when
I reach out in my sleep to grasp
these solid everyday realities, I am
reassured by the void. How does
the horse transcend the glue fac-
tory? How?
"Still I want that money, Rubin,
and I am now ready swear to
anything. Understand, I am not
threatening you in any way, but
if I am not given my just share I
will have to take positive steps
to assert my rights. My rights, you
understand. It is not simply a mat-

ter of money any longer. I want
the money, yes, but I want my
rights; and I will swear to any-
thing you say. You have no cause
to make exceptions. If my sisters
are to be bribed, so must I. I refuse
to accept my sentence here. Noth-
ing but victims here. It's like a
prison. Yes, I want the money,
Rubin, and I am now ready to
swear to anything: that blood is
thicker than water . . . That Miklos
and I were brothers . . . That we
inhabited a house of the blind
in a country called death . . . or
that I—the survivor surviving—
self-consciously wish to affirm my
kinship with dung heaps and ashes.

"Why must this be denied? As
Clig in 1944 the doors to the Ark
were kicked open and gentiles
wiped their arses with the scrolls
of the Law. Who invited them into
the synagogue? Nobody seems to
know. Nobody seems to care. It has
happened before. It may happen
again. Heaven help some Jews if
it doesn't. Those who have nothing
to affirm save their blindness.
Those who still believe in the God
of Abraham, Isaac, and Max Wink-
leman. From the Land of Milk and
Honey I send greetings to my sis-
ters, wishing you also a good
health and long life. Ego to absolve
. . . or, as we say here, shalom !"

It is not all monologue. Elman's
story contains a love story, a rec-
ord of Yagodah's love affair with
his cousin Lilo. This, too, becomes
one of the great factors in an ex-
cellent narrated story of a sur-
vivor from Nazism who, in turn,
poses the questions "Are there still
Nazis? Are we still Jews?"
Elman's strong novel poses the
basic questions that follow the
Holocaust. It causes thinking, re-
evaluation of existing conditions,
challenges to faith and reaffirma-
tions. It will leave the reader with
disturbed feelings, requiring each
one who reviews the effects of the
Holocaust himself to offer a per-
sonal answer. Nazism emerges here,
again, as the scourge, the con-
demned element in a tragic era.
The story as Elman wrote it be-
comes a basic part of the vast lit-
elature on the Holocaust.

British Trade Unionists
Meet With Israel Leaders

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Two
British trade union leaders met
Sunday with Prime Minister Levi
Eshkol and Labor Minister Yigal
Mon and other Israeli leaders
during a three-day visit to Israel.
They were Frank Cousins, general
secretary of the Transport and
General Workers Union, and Fred
Hayday, chairman of the Trade
Union International Committee.
They came here as a two-man
delegation of the British Trade
Unions.
They met • also with Aharon
Becker, secretary general of the
Histadrut, Israel's labor federa-
tion, and with Foreign Minister
Abba Eban, with whom they dis-
cussed various problems stemming
from the new situation in the
Middle East since the June war.
The Leo N. Levi Memorial Hos- The labor leaders also visited the
pital in Little Rock, Ark., was Golan Heights in occupied Syria
and the West Bank.
dedicated on Nov. 1, 1914.

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Jews visiting the Soviet Union hear this
anguished question again and again
from their Soviet brothers. BETWEEN
HAMMER AND SICKLE tells why.
It tells why Stalin turned savagely
against Soviet Jewry after World War
II. Why the existence of the State of
Israel is vital for Soviet diplomacy. Why devout
Jews are persecuted and at the same time secu-
lar Jews are not allowed to assimilate.
The author, an Israeli born in Russia, has traveled

Friday, August 25, 1967-31

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extensively there and obtained his
story firsthand. He offers a specific and
sensible plan to help alleviate one of
the tragedies of our time—the slow dy-
ing of Soviet Jewry.
A best seller in Israel, where it was just
awarded the Ussischkin Prize for Literature for
1966-67, BETWEEN HAMMER AND SICKLE IS now
available from The Jewish Publication
Society of America, 222 North Fifteenth
St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19102. Price, $6.00