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Bellow Remembered

An American writer who was a great Jewish one, too.

Jewish culture, Jewish sensibility
and a Jewish sense of holiness in the
everyday permeate his work.
Leverett, Mass.
As a child, Bellow attended Jewish
t disturbed me to hear on U.S.
schools and grew up in a Jewish fami-
public radio and read in the New ly, where he learned Hebrew thor-
York Times that Saul Bellow was
oughly and spoke Yiddish as a pri-
to be seen as simply an
mary language. It's a
American writer — which,
Yiddish that never
of course, he was — and not
went away.
significantly a Jewish writer.
Isaac Bashevis
Maybe they think they're
Singer's Gimpel the
doing him a favor? I think
Fool is read today in
they're bleaching out a lot of
Bellow's great trans-
the substance of Bellow, who
lation. Yiddish
died April 5, 2005, at 89. He
phrases and syntax
received the Nobel Prize for
are found in many
Literature in 1976.
of the novels. In
The Times quoted him as
Herzog, the protago-
saying he had no wish to be
nist is snobbish
part, along with Philip Roth
about the Yiddish of
and Bernard Malamud, of
his wife's lover.
the "Hart, Schaffner &
But more impor-
Marx" of American letters.
tant is a Yiddishkeit
Saul Bel low
Well, who would? No good
sensibility: never a
iffriter wants to be pigeon-
schmaltzy echo of
holed or limited in scope. But he is
Sholem Aleichem, but a reliance on
deeply a Jewish writer — not just a
the Eastern European Jewish heart
Jew by birth.
against which to measure life. I'm

JOHN J. CLAYTON
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

I

•

LAURA BEN-
OVIC, 74, of

Southfield, died
April 5, 2005. She
was the co-owner
of Bernie Benovic's
Men's Clothing and
Tailoring. She was
also active with
Benovic
B'nai B'rith and
was a member of
Adat Shalom
Synagogue.
Mrs. Benovic is survived by her hus-
band, Bernard Benovic; daughter and
son-in-law, Renee and Steven Statfield
of West Bloomfield; son and daughter-
in-law, Marc and Jamie Benovic of
Illinois; grandchildren, Tyler, Austin,
Kevin and Kyle Statfield, Adam and
Noah Benovic; brother-in-law, Irwin
Berghoff. She was the dear sister of the
late Helen Berghoff.
Contributions may be made to the
Adat Shalom Synagogue or a charity
of one's choice. Interment at Adat
Shalom Memorial Park. Arrangements
by Ira Kaufman Chapel.

thinking, for example, of Schlossberg
in The Victim, the old Yiddish jour-
nalist who makes the beautiful speech
that defines the moral vision of the
book. It's a great speech and central
to Bellow's vision.
Attacking those whose suspicions of
human life turn it into something
cheap and empty, Schlossberg says, "I
am as sure about greatness and beauty
as you are about black and white. If a
human life is a great thing to me, it is
a great thing. Do you know better?
I'm entitled as much as you ... Have
dignity, you understand me? Choose
dignity. Nobody knows enough to
turn it down."
Bellow has said of the "Jewish feel-
ing" within him that it resists the
claims of 20th-century romanticism,
the belief that man is-finished and
that the world will be destroyed.
The world in Bellow's fiction is
on the contrary, sanctified. The
sanctification is often ironic, often
in struggle against the neurotic pat-
terns of characters and the foolish,
vulgar, meretricious quality of con-
temporary life. Herzog, for instance,

74EIMUMVAREVES,

BERTA BRUKNER, 72, of Jerusalem,
Israel, died April 3, 2005. Originally
of Zurich, Switzerland, she was mar-
ried to the late Dov-Berisch Brukner
of Volbrum, Poland, for 29 years.
After the death of her husband,
Mrs. Brukner made aliyah to Israel in
1982.
Mrs. Brukner is survived by her
children, Heini Brukner of Zurich,
Tzvi and Atara Brukner of
Kedumim, Israel, Rabbi Yechiel and
Sara Brukner of Tal-Menashe, Israel,
Dorit and Tzvi Schostak of
Southfield, Sonja and Emanuel
Rosenthal of Yatir, Israel, Genja and
Amichai Lavi of Jerusalem, David
and Chana Miriam Brukner of
Jerusalem; 28 grandchildren; two
great-grandchildren.
Contributions may be made to
Kollel Torah Mitzion-Detroit, 28440
Brooks Lane, Southfield, MI 48034.
Interment was held at Har
HaMenuchot, Givat-Shaul, Jerusalem.
This notice was placed at the request
of the family by Hebrew Memorial
Chapel.

resists "the argument that scientific
thought has put into disorder all
considerations based on value ... The
peculiar idea entered my (Jewish)
mind that we'd see about this!"
Of course, Moses Herzog, like so
many of Bellow's Jewish characters,
feels ashamed that he can't live up to
his ideal, his Jewish ideal of a mentsh.
But it is a Jewish ideal — for Herzog
and for Bellow.
In novel after novel by Bellow,
there are Jewish characters in a signif-
icantly Jewish milieu. The Victim
concerns a character facing anti-
Semitism and-his own neurotic
defenses as a Jew. Seize the Day deals
with a son who wants love from his
cold, un-Jewish father; the novel ends
at a Jewish funeral with the protago-
nist weeping for the dead stranger
and for himself Herzog is centered on
the complicated world of a Jewish
childhood.
Even the late short fictions, espe-
cially A Silver Dish and Something to
Remember Me By, are deeply Jewish. A
Silver Dish, for example, sets a Jewish
world view against a Christian one. El

•

RUTH CAREL,

101, of Royal Oak,
died March 30,
2005.
She is survived by
her daughters and
son-in-law,
Marjorie and
Phillip Blinder of
Carel
Southfield, Marian
Kantor of West
Bloomfield; grand-
children, Michael (Sally) Blinder,
Jeffrey Blinder, Robert (Lisa) Kantor,
Bruce Kantor, Lori (Robert)
Goldstrom; great-grandchildren,
Regan, Dana, Evan, Jordan, Claire,
Scott and Bradley; grateful friend and
devoted caregiver, Nina Seimienczuk.
She was the beloved wife of the late
Samuel Carel; mother-in-law of the
late Dr. Sheldon Kantor; great-grand-
mother of the late Ryan Goldstrom.
Interment at the Clover Hill Park
Cemetery. Contributions may be
made to the Sheldon M. Kantor Fund
for Cancer Counseling and Research,
do the Sinai Guild, Weisberg Cancer

Treatment Center, 31995
Northwestern Highway, Farmington
Hills, MI 48334 or to the Molly
Kantor-Sam Carel Endowed
Scholarship Fund at Wayne State
University, Office of Development,
101 E. Alexandrine, Detroit, MI
48201 Attn: Elsa Silverman.
Arrangements by Dorfman Chapel.

LEONID CHERNYAK, 85, of West

Bloomfield, died April 5, 2005.
He is survived by his beloved wife,
Paya Chernyak of West Bloomfield;
son, Arkadi 'Art" Tcherniak of West
Bloomfield; grandson, Alex Tcherniak;
great-granddaughter; Michelle
Tcherniak.
Interment at the Clover Hill Park
Cemetery. Contributions may be
made to a charity of one's choice.
Arrangements by Dorfman Chapel.

ROSE E GOLD, 95, of Scottsdale,
Ariz., formerly of Southfield, died
April 8, 2005.- She was a bookkeeper

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