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Friday, May 4, 1984

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

PURELY COMMENTARY

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

Sholom Aleichem revivified in Aliza Shevrin 's English version of 'In the Storm'

Sholom Aleichem is the salutation that embraces Jews
of all climes into a peoplehood. With its "Peace unto you"
message, it is the unifying symbol of Jewry.
Adopting it as his literary pseudonym, Sholom
Rabinowitz reached the hearts and minds of readers
everywhere as Sholom Aleichem.
There is a mere echo in what had become a universal
recognition of Sholom Aleichem in Fiddler on the Roof In
the totality of what had become an enticement, as well as
an enchantment in the world of Sholom Aleichem, there is
the image of the shtetl, and with it the analysis that would
now be interpreted as psychological, in studying the ghet-
tos of Eastern Europe. The characters in Sholom Aleichem
are so thoroughly scrutinized that from the popular author
they emerge as supreme in sociological studies.
Sholom Aleichem fulfilled a great need historically, at
the same' time lending glory to the language in which he
excelled and produced his creative library that added glory
to the Yiddish language. Surprisingly, the complete
Sholom Aleichem story has not yet been told.
A series of new works are now commencing to make
their appearance in English translations, and with them
comes a revelation:
Only a third of the literary gems by Sholom Aleichem
have thus far appeared in English!
The revelation comes with the new translations pro-
vided in the series of works published by Putnam. The first,
published two years ago, is the hilarious Marienbad.
Sholom Aleichem wrote Marienbad in 1911, five years '
before his death. Unlike the usual Sholom Aleichem
stories, this one is not about the shtetl. It is an intrigue
about the Warsaw Jews who travel to Germany. It is the
place Polish Jews frequented as a vacation spot, not neces-
sarily a health center.
It is novel but not a running narrative. It is compiled in
36 letters, 14 love notes and 46 telegrams, and there lies the
genius of the famous humorist and the ingenuity of his
weaving a tale of intrigue, filled with rumors, gossip, suspi-
cion — all intertwined in the satire that spells Sholom
Aleichemism.
Marienbad as the Bohemian spa that attracts the
nouveau riche, with German and Polish Jews fraternizing
while hypocrisy rules the day, is the means used in this
story to ridicule the pompous, to expose the suspected in-
fidelities, to mock the religious hypocrites.

It all centers on the beautiful young bride Beltzi, who is
reportedly having an affair in Marienbad, while constantly
reassuring her much older husband of her fidelity. The
latter passes notes around to other husbands, the intrigues
and suspicions multiply, friends become bitter enemies,
threats emanate from all sides.
The letters and telegrams, spiced by the love notes,
assume the continuity necessary to create the novelized
form of a book that enriches the already-treasured Sholom
Aleichem library filled with the cherished humorous Yid-
dish stories.
Therein, with the publication of Marienbad and other
works of the great Yiddish humorist, is imbedded another
significant fact: It is the notable contribution to this new
effort of translating the hitherto unavailable Yiddish books

Sholom Aleichem's books are re-emerging in translations.

for the English readers by a brilliant master of Yiddish,
Aliza Shevrin.
Thus, all roads for the attainment of the fascination
with the Sholom Aleichem Yiddish masterpieces lead to
Ann Arbor.

•

`In the Storm' inspires
appreciation for revived
texts and translator Shevrin

Marienbad was only a beginning, a commencement, a
Bereshit in what could well be labeled a Supreme Rescue
Mission of Yiddish Literature. It invites gratitude for the
initiator of the great effort, the brilliant translator Aliza
Shevrin. Her first translations from Sholom Aleichem were
Holiday Tales and Marienbad. Now she is to be credited
with having enriched the Sholom Aleichem translations
into English with In the Storm, the newest in the series of
revived works. This one is also published by Putnam.
The Shevrin-translated manuscript will surely be wel-
comed as a blessing. Selected from the hitherto-ignored
Yiddish novels, Sholom Aleichem emerges from its text as
historical, social scientist, the judge of a generation under
stress.
In the Storm combines the pathos and the realism, the
interpretive and the commentative, depicting life of Jews
in the Russia of the Czars and pogroms. The cast of char-
acters in the stories are functioning in Kiev. The masterful
definition, in an area where the wealthy, side by side with
the impoverished, while not necessarily another shtetl, is
nevertheless a means of activating a community in all
aspects of Jewish pluralism.
This becomes possible because In the Storm is a valu-
able chapter in Russian Jewish history. While novelized, it
is a factual account of the events of 1905, the year of "revo-
lution" when Czar Nicholas "granted" a constitution, only
to demolish it almost overnight, crashing the hopes of the
revolutionary working class.
It all happened in the bloody October of 1905, when the
clamor for a Constitutzie was a central theme among the
revolutionary element in labor ranks, when the farce of
granting and immediately abandoning the hoped-for con-
stitutional freedom ended in pogroms.
Sholom Aleichem wrote this dramatic story in 1907.
By then he was among the emigrants who left Russia in
hordes after the 1905 pogroms, which included the
Kishinev massacre.
One of the most dramatic chapters in Russian Jewish
history is recorded in the events movingly told In the Storm.
The tale's scene is at 13 Vasilchikover St. in Kiev, and the
cast of characters is premiered by a trio whose views reflect
the differences that may be said to create the inner conflicts
in Jewish life. Here is Itzikl Shostepol, the representative
of the bourgeoisie, the wealthiest in the community, and
with evidence of arrogance.
Then there is Solomon Safranovitch, the assimilated
pharmacist, the anti-Zionist, who is so anti-religious that
he dips sausages in sour cream. •

Nehemiah the shoemaker is the third of the major
personalities in a story soon to be filled with drama echoing
the horrors of a depressive period in Jewish history.
Itzikl's beautiful daughter Tamara is not influenced
by her father's wealth and dominant role in the community.
She is in the revolutionary ranks. Agnostic Solomon's son,
Sasha, becomes a dedicated Zionist and pleader for Jewish
rights and traditionalism.
A vital role in the cast of characters is played by Masha
Bashevitz, the woodhauler's daughter. She was an inspira-
tion to the revolutionaries and her end was tragic. Just
prior to the proclamation of the constitution and its bet-
rayal by the Czar she committed suicide.
It all led to the pogroms, to the horrors of Oct. 5, 1905,
the outrages of "Bloody Sunday."
Leading up to itwas the ideological debate between the
characters, primarily Tamara and Sasha. The youths were
all students at the Petersburg University.It was on their
way home for the Passover of that year that Sasha was
propagating Jewish loyalties to Tamara, who was
staunchly socialist in. the revolutionary ranks.
Sasha was the great idealist who negated his father's
anti-Zionism and irreligiosity. Yielding to his son for ob-
servance of the Seder, he pulled down the shades not to be
observed in devotional posture.
It was on the way home from Petersburg to Kiev, sit-
ting next to each other, a love affair develops. While it is
introduced at the very beginning of the Sholom Aleichem
novel, it is vital to the entire theme. It echoes sentiments
that were heard, perhaps being repeated now, in the differ-

ing views of the right and the left, the Zionist and the
anti-Zionist.
It was on the train ride that this dispute ensued:
Sasha was sitting in a second-class carriage
with Itzikl Shostepol's daughter, Tamara, dis-
cussing the question of nationalism and cos-
mopolitanism with her, all the while gazing at her
intelligent dark gentle eyes that seemed to look
right inside him, laughing at him and caressing
him at the same time while drawing him to her
with an irresistible power.
"What do you expect me to do?" Tamara said
to him with a little laugh. "Do you expect me to
give up the highest ideal in the world, to shut my
ears and not hear the cries of a hundred million
people who are crying for bread and freedom for
the benefit of a handful of people who suffer no
more and no less than all the others? Just because
we are of the same religion and we share the same
history and are called by the same name?"
"— and have the same eyes and are stamped
with the same noses." Sasha finished the sentence
for her.
- "Now is not the time to look at such things,"
Tamara answered him.
"And yet people look hard at those very
things," said Sasha. 'Let me tell you what I have
to put up with from my friends at the university
because of the color of my hair."
"Ay-ay-ay!" Tamara interrupted him.
"They've surely been teasing you about your red
hair? First of all, it's the truth," she laughed, "and
second of all, how can you compare that suffering
with the suffering of the entire Russian people at
the hands of the regime?"
"If the entire Russian people suffer, then our
suffering is double — first as Russians and second
as Jews."
"What do you think carries more weight,
Monsieur Safranovitch, the suffering of a whole
nation or the suffering of your own Jewish
people?"
"It's not a matter of weighing and balancing,
Fraulein Shostepol. It would be as if you were to
ask me as a physician what would be worse, to cut
off a finger or a toe? To that I would answer: bad
as it is for one to lose a finger or a toe, it is twice as
bad for one to lose a finger and a toe. And if you
wish, Fraulein Shostepol, I'll tell you a secret. The
sufferings of the Jewish people upset me far more
than the sufferings of mankind. Do you kno
why? Because to these general sufferings
added humiliation and heartache. Why should NN,
as Jews be persecuted and enslaved by the
enslaved?"
Tamara Shostepol sat up straight and her
lovely dark eyes ignited like two flames.
"Not true, Herr Safranovitch, not true! Do you
hear what I am saying? I am saying that you and
all your colleagues, the nationalists, have in-
vented the lie that we are being persecuted by the
Russian people. It's a lie — we are being perse-
cuted by the bureaucracy, not by the people! You
are either great liars or great fools!"
"If that's the case, then we have nothing more

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