As many of my Jewish friends would quickly tell me, that title has so many contradictions in it as to be laughable.
Good. It is, then, as it should be. The literature of the Holocaust has much to make us weep, consider or ponder. There is no fault or shame in finding some literature to make us laugh!
Yiddish Literature if full of laughter. It is also filled with stories of such horror that such should not be read alone, or in one sitting.
I have learned through this course on the Holocaust much about the Jewry of Soviet Russia and Eastern Europe prior to the Nazi regime's ascent to power. I will never know all of it. I would love to learn more. Here is but one simple example.
"That is a very religious man. Every day is passover at his home."
I choose this saying because for me it exemplifies the Jewish nature during the time prior to WWI, and continuing into and beyond WW2. Perhaps this could be easily said today. But, do you know what is being said? If you are conversant with Yiddish, or more accurately if you have read one of the leading authors who wrote in Yiddish, you may understand this saying.
There is another story told in Yiddish.
A Jew has been run out of his home, and sent away to a concentration camp. After a few years the man returns to what was once his home, alone. There has been no word from, or of his family.
He comes to the door of his home, and sees that it is obviously being lived in. He knocks. An old friend of his opens the door. They talk.
"You have returned. They made me take your house. It is now my house. So how have you fared my friend?"
The old man looks at him, and says:
"They took away my dignity. They took away my family. They took away my home, my furniture, my belongings, and my business. For three long years, I did hard labor in a camp that expected me to die every day. Now I come to this place that I once called home, where I raised my family, read the Holy Books, sent my children to school with your children,
and come to find out the only thing I have left to own are the clothes on your back."
This week's literature takes us from Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, and the Jewish diaspora experienced there to a place much closer to pre-war Germany. Several decades will be journeyed through this week. i will post the references to the recommended literature at the completion of this post.
One of the truths I learned during this part of our weekly lectures with Dr. Murray Baumgarten was that there are several potential genres within each major writing. For him, this was a simple reality. For me, it was difficult to comprehend. With "Dry Tears" I understand the writing to be both a personal memoir and a historical solicitation of real facts as they occurred. I also came to learn that hers was a very personal narrative.
It (my understanding) came not merely from being able to identify certain parts of her story as one genre or another. Upon the completion of my reading of her work, I fully realized that several complete genres had been exposed, and most effectively used in the writing. I came to know her circumstance. I came to know the places she traveled. I came to understand what she herself did along the way.
The Soviet Jewry were "assimilated" into Soviet Russia as a result of several wars. In one the Polish lost, and Russia annexed their land--and their people. It was the same with the Austro-Hungarian Revolt, and the first Russian Revolution. The Pale of Settlements was established to give the Jews a place to live as far away from mainstream Soviet Society as possible. There was also a distinct impression the Jews, once in the Settlement would starve, and either leave or die.
At one particular point in Soviet History, some 248 pogroms against the Jews were carried out in less than five years, with many tens of thousands of Jews dying, or wounded. This was of no consequence to the Tsars/Tsarinas of Soviet Russia. In fact, it was laudable when a pogrom was initiated. Only during times of great social upheaval, the initiation of the pogroms kept the hate focused away from the government. If they landed squarely on the heads of the Jews...so be it
After all, the Jews were not assimilated or acculturated to Soviet life and lifestyle, so who cared?
Well, what do you do when you have no home? No land to call your own, or even your homeland? Remember, those sneaky Jews kept talking in their own language, probably making jokes about the Burgoise overlords anyway. Even the peasants couldn't understand what they were saying! They (the Jews) MUST be up to something. For the Jewry of Eastern Europe and Soviet Russia, their language became their homeland. Imagine.
Okay, let's step back just a step or several. I got a question in the course which, while it was kind of unfair for me to answer, pointed out a very important point. I will put it to you:
How many languages are spoken in your home? Are you a bi-lingual family?
The Jewish home was necessarily bilingual, you see. First was Hebrew, the written word of the law which marked the young sons as men. Then came a language which first flourished in the early 500 BC times, and was going strong in the Soviet Empire in the late 19th century. Chaucer used it. It was said to be the only language in which the Jew could express true love--with over 100 possibilities, no less. Yiddish was the second language of every Jew.
Using the Hebrew alphabet, and German syntax, and a melting pot of other derivations and mechanics, Yiddish is a very fluid, and fusion language. It is very friendly with foreign word concepts and constructs. Then, of course, one must assume the language of the nationality, no matter how oppressive it may be. If not to speak it, then surely to understand it sufficiently to know dangerous or friendly talk. When war comes, or great social upheaval, there is one thing you do have to take with you.
As shocking as it may seem to those of us who have never yet had to deal with such a reality, Yiddish became the homeland for the Soviet Jew. No matter what befell them, no matter where they were forced to subsist in abject poverty with every possible single law, rule, and pogrom against them, the Jewry had Yiddish. But, that makes sense. It has be rightly said that "Yiddish is a language of two people talking."
Yiddish is the family language, the business language, and the "home" language most often spoken by the Soviet Jew. "The Mother Tongue", Yiddish was common language for doing business, seeing your neighbor, or scolding your child.
I once had a good friend by the name of Martin Bertinelli. We were in Junior High School together. I loved visiting his home, because there was the most awesome food there. I felt there was love for family there, too. His aged Grandfather lived with the family. They would be talking over dinner, and all of a sudden...something akin to an Italian Hellspawn would rear its head, and the entire family would be ready to kill one another. Screaming, hollering, throwing, swatting...non-stop.
I was terrified! After some time, my friend and I repaired downstairs to his basement bedroom. I sat on his bed, and just watched him.
"What?" He would say.
"What just happened up there?"
"Oh, that? Don't worry about that. It happens all the time. It's how we love each other."
Wow.
They had a language they understood that I didn't. Evidently, violence was some measure of fealty I did not understand. They were a really close and loving family, I did know that. They accepted me as another son, and a brother to Martin. I just couldn't handle the "love" around dinnertime.
They understood it. I didn't. As long as Martin swore it was nothing, I let it go. I did have some nightmares about it though.
Imagine a Jew in Italy!! Oi!
The literature of the Jewry of Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (two different stories) is full, rich, and accurate. This is a concentration of time for the Jew, where antisemitism was authorized by the state, where there was no home, and where Jews were really hoped would die, or leave. It would get much, much worse. The Tsarist regimes in Russia would persecute the Jews mercilessly. There were, to be sure, several significant Jews playing large roles in Soviet Russia in the early 20th century that found no problem killing Jews, either. Among them:
Karl Marx
Peter I. Lenin
Triotsky
Many other Jewish Soviet Leaders, Military Officers who were purged, including the other two men meant to rule Soviet Russia with Josef Stalin. It's a very long list.
Or a Jew being taken, amongst hundreds to a place known as Babi Yar (warning: graphic with possible triggers) and systematically annihilated by the hundreds at the whim of a local constable. Yiddish is also a folk language; a language of spoken stories passed on from generation to generation. Among the most prolific authors and progenitors of current-day modern Yiddish is Sholem Aleichem. Hailed as the modern-day father of Yiddish writing, Aleichem was born in Russia, and learned the Russian Language. Many of his first works were published in Russian. He then learned Hebrew, and wrote many of his body of work in Hebrew. Then, he learned and modified the Yiddish Language, and wrote most of his most famous work in Yiddish. His work would later be translated into English.
One of the works, "The Stories of Tevya, The Dairyman" would bring him lasting fame and glory with the Broadway production of "Fiddler on the Roof". His would signal a dynasty of sorts.
His granddaughter, Bel Kaufman, would later pen the beloved "Up The Down Staircase". I re-watched "Fiddler" tonight, in light of some things I have learned in this course. I can tell you that for me, having produced and directed that show several times, I never ever got it right! Now, I know why.
This amazing literature which is still today affecting us all comes from the sadnesses of the Jews of Soviet Russia. Rethinking things can be difficult work. It can be enlightening work, as well. For instance, one of the central points of the character of Tevya is based around a Yiddish Proverb:
"God chose the Jews. Why did you pick on us??"
The literature of the Jews required something rather unique: Literacy. This, too was looked upon with suspicion by the antisemites. Yet, literature was a strong binding presence in the Jewish life, family and community. Language changes the reality, for good or ill. Through the examination of writings this week, we get to see the reality of Jewish life as it was lived, reported by those who lived it. This is not an "official" account, for no folk song or folk story would purely limit itself to reality. Where's the good in that?
While this diary is primarily dealing with Yiddish language, I would also be remiss if I did not mention Buenes Aires, South America, Mexico and Spain.
Buenos Aires is, today, the world center of Yiddish publication business, with a booming business indeed. It is supported locally by a grateful and numerous Jewish population who are not only employed in the work, but are avid readers, actors, and portrayers of the work as well. Also, the work may not, in fact, be written in Yiddish.
There was, in Western Europe, around Spain and the Iberian Peninsula, a second form of Yiddish that is known as "Ladino" Ladino uses Germanic and Spanish syntax, is written in Hebrew, and is an acculturated folk language as is Yiddish. There are several areas of Jews today who speak Ladino exclusively. Among them are communities in Brazil, Mexico and Spain.
The stories told in this language form are not of an epic nature. The Jew is not often seen, for instance as the hero. The primary characterization for the protagonist in a Yiddish story is the guy who doesn't get the girl, or the promotion, or the job, or the apartment. It is to him we look to find the rich tones of truth which will be revealed. Not a "mench" by any stretch, this character is most rightly identified as the "Schlmiel", the sad sack of society who is just trying to be able to get by. The "Schlmozel" is the guy who pours the hot soup on the Schlmiel. (Per Dr. Baumgarten). Not accurate, but close enough.
The other significant detail of works written in, or performed from Yiddish is that it is a dialogic language, in that the writer is narrator, telling the story of conversations he had had/heard--and you are a witness. The author speaks to you, as well. It's entertaining, and gripping.
And, among his most famous works were the folk stories Aleichem wrote dealing with the shtetl, and shtetl life in Russia. He introduces us to the individual dwellers of a particular village--sometimes as himself, and at other times taking on a different role altogether.
Aleichem's story is a very interesting one, and I hope you will spend a little time coming to learn of him, to appreciate the gifts he has given to the entire world.
Through the introduction to the Yiddish World, I felt transported. Not so much into misery and privation as to a place I more closely understand, the small insulated community of the shtetl. It wasn't so different from the little town of my birth and childhood in the safety of the Appalachian Hills of Eastern Kentucky. I suppose this is why I did enjoy this week's literary assignments. I hope you will take a look at them, and let me know what you think. Feel free to tell your Yiddish, Jewish, Russian stories in the comments, and share a dialogue of those times, those wisdoms, and how they apply to our world today.
Reading References: Aleichem "On Account of a Hat" (PDF)
Bauer. Chapter Two "Liberalism, Emancipation, and Antisemitism"
Appelfeld, Aaron. Badenheim 1939
"A treasury of Yiddish Literature"
Film:
"Everything Is Illuminated"
Research:
A History of the Shtetls
Sat Oct 05, 2013 at 12:38 AM PT: Update #1 : "SCHLEMIHL" (From 1906 JewishEncyclopedia
0
SCHLEMIHL:
Popular Yiddish term for an unfortunate person. It occurs also in the form Schlimmilius ("Jüdische Volksbibliothek," vii. 80). According to Heine ("Jehuda-ben-Halevy"), it is derived from the Bible name "Shelumiel," owing to the fact that the person transfixed by the spear of Phinehas for incontinence with the Moabite woman (Num. xxv. 6) was so killed by mistake. Others derive the term from a corruption of the expression "schlimm mazzal" (unlucky star).
Many of the most popular anecdotes of the ghetto relate to the experiences of persons who, through no fault of their own, are pursued by misfortune to the end, and endure it without murmuring. They resemble in Jewish folk-tales the Gothamites or "Schildbürgers" of English and German folk-lore. Chamisso used the term as the name of the hero of his popular story, "Peter Schlemihl," but without much reference to its Jewish meaning. He may have heard the term through Itzig, the Berlin banker, to whom Heine was indebted for his interpretation of the word.
Bibliography:
Chamisso, Peter Schlemihl, ed. Jacobs, Preface, p. xii., London, 1898;
D. Sanders, Deutsches Wörterbuch;
idem, Kritiken. ii. 137;
B. Felsenthal, in Geiger's Jüd. Zeit. vi. 60;
A. Wünsche, in Jüdisches Litteraturblatt, viii. 135
Sat Oct 05, 2013 at 12:52 AM PT: UPD #2
Schlemazel; schlemazl; ש×××××:
unlucky person, luckless person, person with perpetual bad luck; clumsy person
Yiddish Dictionary Online @ yiddishdictionaryonline.com
Because of your interest and help in the determination of these words, I give you the gift of a Yiddish Folk Tale to enjoy, and share:
"It Could Always Be Worse!"