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THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Friday, May 25, 1984
83
BOOKS
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Saul Bellow remembers the folks back home
BY JOSEPH COHEN
Special to The Jewish News
'45
Without sacrificing any of Mouth presents Shawmut, a
his astounding intellectual music critic in financial
vigor, Saul Bellow has pro- ruin awaiting extradition
duced five substantial short from Vancouver, writing to
stories that are remarkable a librarian to atone for hav-
in charting for us the Nobel ing gratuitously insulted
novelist's progress toward her -35 years earlier, his
yellowness. Despite the epistle being an attempt to
.ndisguised presence of a placate the gods.
rich vein of humor first ob-
What Kind of Day Did
served in The Adventures of You Have, long enough to be
Augie March in 1953, and classified as- a novella, de-
fully unveiled in Henderson tails one day in the hectic
the Rain King in 1959, I life of an aging, ailing art
would have predicted until critic — the late Harold
recently that Bellow would Rosenberg was Bellow's
go on raging into eternity. model — and the young di-
So much for predictions.
vorcee who loves, him, the
Him With His Foot in His two of them enroute from
Mouth and Other Stories -:Buffalo to Chicago in late
(Harper & Row) gives us no winter, the fierce, threaten-
Achilles sulking in his tent, ing gloom of the season an
no Lear moaning in the apt metaphor for the cer-
storm, or even a Herzog tainty of the critic's ap-
licking his wounds, or a proaching embrace with
Sammler nursing ancient death, the taste of love's
injuries. The voice behind labors lost already in his
these narratives belongs to mouth.
a largely sweet-tempered,
Zetland: By a Character
long suffering but good-
Witness is a portrait of a
natured survivor who has writer as a young Jewish
sailed into a calm harbor prodigy growing up in
after years of crossing 'Chicago, not Bellow but his
choppy seas. Like Joseph close friend, the gifted
Conrad's Marlow, he has
writer Isaac Rosenfeld, who
some adventures to relate
died young, a major loss to
and they are well worth our American Jewish litera-
hearing. What are they ab- ture.
out?
Like this story, the two
Him With His Foot in His
remaining ones also have
Chicago settings.
A Silver Dish shows us a
Dr. Joseph Cohen is the
son, now 60, mourning his
director of the Judaic Studies
octogenarian father's death,
Program at Tulane University
in New Orleans.
recalling affectionately that
-
Saul Bellow
parent's
unscrupulous
exploitations in times gone
by, while Cousins describes
a protagonist who seeks to
mitigate the misfortunes of
his relatives only to dis-
cover his own mortality. All
three of these stories have a
common regard for the
lusty, vibrant rawness of
Chicago in the early de-
cades of the 20th Century, a
Chicago whose historical
vulgarity, past to present, is
still so full of life it com-
mands its natives' loving
allegiance.
If years ago A ugie March
insisted upon a young
writer's love of place, then
this collection of stories
reaffirms the depth of feel-
ing Bellow has always had
for the "stormy, husky,
brawling City of the Big
Shoulders."
Mellowness and place-
Golda Meir an admired heroine
for Jewish children of all ages
Golda Meir was admired
— and loved — and the re-
verence for her spanned the
age levels. She remains the
idol of all, including the
children, in the areas where
she was known in her
'lifetime and is recalled by
the persuant generation
where the story of Israel
continues in courses of
study.
The continuing admira-
tion for her is in evidence in
the very title of a new bock .
She i s treated a s Our
Golda in the fascinating
children's book by David A.
Adler (Viking Junior
\oks).
Adler takes Golda back to
her youth, thereby inspir-
ing the young readers, and
he traces her role as a
teacher in Milwaukee
schools.
Golda Mabovitch was
under five when she became
a witness to the pogroms
that ravaged Jewish com-
munities in her native Rus-
sia. First in Kiev, then in
Pinsk, she and her family
had to seek refuge from
anti-Semitic outbursts. The
agonized background de-
From Milwaukee she
Went to Denver where her
sister was being cured from
tuberculosis. There she met
Morris Meyerson, who was
to become her husband and
who accompanied her to
Palestine.
The roles in Palestine,
later Israel, were as a farm
worker tending chickens, in
sharing kibutz life, then in a
secretarial post with His-
tadrut.
These were introductions
to the ambassadorial post
representing Israel in Rus-
Golda Meir
sia, soon after the rebirth of
the Jewish state.
pitted in the Adler biog-
Thus, step by step, she
raphy introduces the future rose to the highest post ever
Prime Minister of Israel as attained by a woman, her
having been trained by the people's Prime Minister.
most testing of Jewish ex-
There is a summary of all
periences.
her achievements in the
The migration to America Adler book, in which the
followed, and then began author introduces the head
the early activism in Mil- of the State of Israel as also
waukee, where Golda having been a school
started the propagandistic teacher, librarian, almond
activities in behalf of picker and fundraiser.
Her brilliant career as de-
Zionism, as a soap-box
orator in her early teens, as fined in Our Golda is cer-
a debater in support of her tain to prove delightful to
young readers.
cause.
love apart, these stories are
enhanced by all of the Bel-
lovian qualities we have
come to expect: the grand
sweep of ideas, the grasp of
Western history and the
unmitigated contempt Be-
llow feels for the de-
molishers of urban civiliza-
tion, accompanied by his
compassion for their vic-
tims. Most of all, there is the
author's unflagging insis-
tence on "community" and
the obligation we as human
beings have to each other.
Here that commitment is
broadened by Bellow's
memorials to friends and
relatives no longer alive, ef-
fectively stirring autobiog-
raphy into the deep-well of
fiction.
West's savage humor on
that subject in The Dream
Life of Balso Snell; the
flavor of the story is almost
Nabokovian in Shawmut's
reminders, like those in
Lolita, that "the federal
marshal, any day now, will
be setting out"; and the for-
To say so much is still to
stay on the surface of these
tales. There is a lot under-
neath beckoning us into the
depths. For example, "Him
With His Foot in His Mouth"
offers itself to a whole range
of potentially illuminating
speculations. Shawmut's
pronouncements on physi-
cal infirmities are strongly
reminiscent of Nathaniel
mat unquestionably recalls
Isaac Rosenfeld's most
famous story, also in epis-
tolary form, The Hand That
Fed Me.
There is hardly a cubit's
distance between a mouth
with a foot in it and one that
has bitten the hand that fed
it. Indeed, both stories deal
with men who respond un-
graciously to a woman's act
"Him With His
Foot in His
Mouth and Other
Stories" by Saul
Bellow,
published by
Harper & Row.
of friendship and then try,
their pangs of conscience, to
justify their callousness.
But if there is pleasure in
discovering Bellow's enor-
mous versatility through
these linkages, it is nothing
compared to Shawmut's ex-
ceedingly funny but
nonetheless brutal attack
on the poet Allen Ginsberg.
What a wonderful commen-
tary it is on the plurality of
American-Jewish letters
that our giant of the novel
and our giant of the poem
are totally antithetical: Be-
llow from the start has op-
posed everything in the
lifestyle that Ginsberg has
enshrined.
That
Bellow
sees
Ginsberg as his brother, his
enemy, his double in the re-
versed mirror imagery
which literature so often
holds up to life is a surpris-
ing revelation and probably
one whose investigation *
would yield some interest-
ing insights. t mention it, in
closing, as just one more
illustration of how much
there is in Saul Bellow's fic-
tion to attract us.
Copyright 1984 Joseph Cohen
Volume offers contemporary
look at Jews from Arab lands
BY EZEKIEL LEIKIN
Jews of Arab and Islamic
Countries: History, Prob-
lems, Solutions (Shengold)
by Heskel M. Haddad repre-
sents another attempt to fill
the void in Jewish his-
toriography compiled in a
European environment and
geared chiefly toward a
community which was still
suffering from the results of
medieval Christian fanata-
cisvm.
With the establishment of
the State of Israel and the
beginning of the Ingather-
ing of the Exiles, including
large numbers of Jews from
Moslem and Arab lands, the
history of these "forgotten
Jews"-has been the subject
of considerable research
and study.
A native of Iraq and a
physician by training and
profession, the author pref-
aces the book with a brief
introduction and an equally
condensed overview of the
history of the Jews in Mos-
lem and Arab countries.
"No reliable census exists
from which we can accu-
rately infer the number of
Jews living in Moslem
countries in ancient and
medieval times," says the
author, "and whatever data
is available was pieced to-
gether from estimates made
by travelers." Some nine
pages are devoted to the
contemporary history of
Jews in the Ottoman Em-
pire, beginning with the
19th Century and until the
mass exodus to Israel fol-
lowing the establishment of
the Jewish state.
While the historic record
is woefully skimpy, the
story of the once-thriving
Jewish communities in Af-
rica and Asia makes for fas-
cinating reading. Major
portions of the book are de-
voted to polemical dis-
courses on the educational,
economic and political gaps
between the Sephardic and
Ashkenazi communities in
Israel, which, the author
claims, threaten to frag-
mentize the fabric of Israeli
society. In the final chapters
the author argues
passionately and repetiti-
ously that the disabilities
experienced by the Sephar-
dim in Israel deserve
greater attention and he
pleads for wide-ranging
economic and social reforms
to accelerate the process of
Sephardi integration in all
walks of life.
Haddad is highly critical
of Israeli establishment
organizations and institu-
tions, wnich, he claims,
have excluded the Sephar-
dim from positions of lead-
ership and power through
unfair manipulative tactics.
"The reality seems to be,
however, that power is
never given. It must be
taken."
Dr. Haddad is equally
critical of the Sephardi
community for its internal
rivalries, prejudices and
disunity. Lacking political
and organizational experi-
ence, the Sephardim are
inhibited from achieving
'Jews of Arab
and Islamic
Countries:
History,
Problems,
Solutions' by
Heskel M.
Haddad,
Shengold
Publishers.
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real power.
Dr. Haddad is not the dis-
passionate scholar, probing
a complex human problem.
He is a zealous, even
passionate pleader on be-
half of his Sephardi
kinsmen and objectivity is
not his forte. While there is
no gainsaying his sincerity
and integrity, the book's
impact suffers from repeti-
tion, overemphasis and un-
substantiated conjectures.
However, the volume is an
eloquent plea for justice and
equality.