Jewish
Readers have gotten the hint. Most
sin, or of sex, but of the concept of death
American Jewish readers under 60, I think,
itself, in a world where death doesn't yet
could probably name three concentration
exist. That poem sent me back to the Book
camps. But how many of those readers
of Genesis, where I discovered something
could name three Yiddish writers? Is there
in the text that I had never noticed before.
a point to knowing so much about how
Adam and Eve weren't expelled from the
people died, if we insist on knowing so lit-
Garden of Eden because they ate from the
tle about how they lived?
tree of knowledge. Rather, after they ate
The greatest irony of this romantic
from that tree, God worried that they
ignorance is that for writers trying to por-
would soon discover and eat from the tree
tray the mystery of loss, Yiddish literature
of life, and live forever—so he expelled
offers a bottomless and largely untapped
them from paradise, and guarded the tree
well of riches. Despite the joyous oy's of
of life with a revolving sword. Manger's
those who celebrate Yiddish humor, I have
poem dangles just below the blade.
found in my own reading that the most
Each of these literary moments means
salient feature of Yiddish literature is
something different, of course. But what
something much more serious and diffi-
haunts me about each of them is the sud-
cult: a constant awareness, even in comic
den and stunning clarity with which both
moments, that eternity is breathing over
life and death are set before the reader, the
our shoulders, waiting to see if we will
blessing and the curse—and the insistence
notice. I'm thinking of Sholem Aleichem's
each time, no matter what the characters
story "The World to Come," in which a
may choose, that the reader choose life.
Choosing life can mean choosing laugh-
ter, too, and I could list many works where
writers made that choice. But laughing at
Yiddish simply as a language, the way
many Jews do today upon hearing a
Yiddish word, can mean mocking the most
sacred and defining elements of who we
are and who we could be. Consider, for
example, the supposedly hilarious word
"oy." Where does it come from? It would
be easy to dismiss it as nothing more than
a sigh of grief with a Yiddish accent—and
to laugh again at our ancestors' expense.
Yet the word "oy" actually emerged from
the lips of the prophet Isaiah. In the year of
the death of the ancient Hebrew king
Uziah, Isaiah had a vision of God seated on
a high and lofty throne, surrounded by six-
winged angels proclaiming God's holiness.
Upon seeing this astounding sight, Isaiah
young man volunteers to transport the
corpse of a rural innkeeper's wife to a
cemetery in a town nearby, with disastrous
results. Or Y.L. Peretz's story "The Dead
Town," about a town where the dead regu-
larly leave the cemetery and return to their
homes, while the living fail to notice. Or
Yisroel Rabon's novel The Street, about a
homeless veteran who describes the car-
nage on a World War One battlefield,
where he survives the cold by encasing
himself inside the carcass of a horse. Or H.
Leyvik's poem "The Wolf," about a rabbi
who survives a massacre in his town and
transforms into a werewolf whose presence
torments the living. Or Itsik Manger's
poem "Eve and the Apple Tree," in which
Eve's ignorance before eating the fruit of
the tree of knowledge isn't an ignorance of
Literary c _upplement
Reading Murray Friedman's What
Went Wrong: The Creation and
Collapse of the Black-Jewish Alliance
makes me wonder what became of
the once vibrant community discourse
on the status of African-American/
Jewish-American relations. The
subject seems to fall off the Jewish
radar screen in the absence of a
pressing crisis or calamity. This book
reminds us that it shouldn't take
another Crown Heights or Louis
Farrakhan to wake us up to the
importance of inter-group dialogue,
coalition-building, and cooperative
activism with African-Americans on
issues of mutual concern.
Letty Cottin Pogrebin is the author, among other
books, of Debra, Golda and Me: Being Female
continued on page 23
and Jewish in America and Three Daughters.
NATIONAL FOUNDATION FOR JEWISH CULTURE
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