STEVE ALMOND
E
Israel as the respository of highly charged Jewish
longing is not new; it has been inspiring dreams of
glory of all stripes for centuries.
, just finish Tithe Olsen's "Tell Me a
which Kadish herself was for some months,
All of which raises an interesting ques-
adding yet another layer of complexity to this
tion: what about Israelis who are not new
already rich story of the immigrant encounter
immigrants or religious fanatics or
with Israel. Similarly, Melvin Jules Bukiet's
Holocaust survivors - in other words, the
tragicomic 2001 novel Strange Fire is told in
Israelis my writer friend was talking about,
the voice of one Nathan Kazakov, a blind,
Israelis going about their lives in something
gay, Russian émigré who works for a hawkish
resembling the everyday? Is anyone from
Israeli Prime Minister and takes a bullet in the
North America writing about them?
ear (and loses it) for his employer.
Riddle," a story that, it seems to me,
says just about everything there is to
say about how families live and die
together. The line that stood out for me
was "How have we come from our
savage past, how no longer to be sav-
ages - this to teach. To look back and
learn what humanizes - this to teach."
The answer is: some. In her finely
It's an oddly didactic moment in a
The North American Jewish obsession
wrought story, "Allog," included in the
with the Holocaust, not surprisingly, spills
Best American Short Stories anthology for
story that is otherwise rooted in per-
out into its fiction about Israel. In Kadish's
2000, the sharp-eyed Edith Pearlman
sonal forms of suffering. The point, I
moving 2001 novel, From A Sealed Room,
gives us a slice of contemporary Israeli life
think, is that the human condition exists
the poignant delusions of Holocaust sur-
in an apartment on Jerusalem's Deronda
as an object lesson in suffering and
vivor Shifra form a major thread in this
Street, a building peopled with all manner
endurance, and in the hopes of spiritual
complexly braided work. Several of
of Israelis, including - and centering on -
betterment. This has very little to do
Papernick's stories include survivors, and
the Asian- caretaker from an unnamed
with the question of belief. Olsen's
Simone Zelitch's 2001 novel Louisa, a kind
country who comes to work for one of the
characters are culturally Jewish, but
of modern recounting of the Biblical tale
families. Children, old people, a third-
emphatically secular. I'm in the same
of Ruth, tells the story of survivor Nora Gratz
generation Moroccan family, a Spanish
boat. I don't follow the laws of Moses
and her German daughter-in-law as they
soprano, a teenager whose parents are on
or Leviticus. I don't even believe in God.
attempt to make a life in the young Israel of
sabbatical in the States: these residents go
But I do believe that Judaism, in its
1949. Even Philip Roth, the scion of
to school, to work, take walks, repair their
best, most generous form, demands
American Jewish fiction, puts the
appliances, go shopping. Opening our
that we look back at history to learn
Holocaust on center stage in his 1993
eyes to an Israel we don't always see,
what humanizes. And that we obey
book, Operation Shylock: A Confession.
In
Pearlman's story gives us what we North
this wild half-autobiography, half-novel,
American readers may perhaps most crave
Roth has a character running around
nowadays, available at least in fiction if not
Jerusalem named "Philip Roth" positing
in real life: an Israel that seems, above all,
the "solution to the: Jewish Problem" as
normal and normative. No catastrophe,
Diasporismt a plan to send all the Jews of
no great drama, no hovering dark shadow
war-torn Israel back to the now relatively
of the past, or a grim future, hanging over
benign cities of Europe.
the door.
s lessons.
stely co ection,
e to ea
Metal is out in paperback. His stories have appeared in
the Pushcart Prize Anthology, Best New Stories
from the South, and, most recently, Lost Tribe:
ewish Fiction from the Edge. His next book, a work
of non-fiction about obscure candy bars, will be pub-
lished in the spring by Algonquin,
NATIONAL FOUNDATION FOR JEWISH CULTURE