American-Jewish fiction

Early Jewish writers were trying to persuade they can contribute to the American society and they not dangerous aliens. Later writing included mainly autobiographies, describing their coming to America and the new life. Till 1930s, Jewish poetry was considered marginal, mostly written in English, Yiddish and Hebrew. Writers who learned English wrote mainly prose as they felt they could not adequately express themselves in a foreign language, struggling with American Protestant vocabulary and culture. The main themes were return to the roots, multiculturalism and the search for identity with poems close to commentary.

ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER (1902-1991) was born in Poland. Upon moving to America, he became a leading figure in Yiddish literary movement and the Nobel Prize in Literature. He is famous for his memoir A Day of Pleasure: Stories of a Boy Growing Up in Warsaw (1970). He wrote both novels, short stories like a collection Gimpel the Fool and Other Stories and books for children like The Golem.

SAUL BELLOW (1915-2005) was originally from Canada but he later moved to Chicago. He is known for the translation of I.B. Singer's short story Gimpel the Fool. He writes in impersonal highly intellectual style, often describing changes in the European civilisation and its destruction. For that he was not very popular in America but still managed to get awarded with the Nobel Prize. His protagonists are often intellectuals, detached from the rest of the society and looking for a place in the modern life.

His first novel The Dangling Man (1944) was influenced by Franz Kafka as the protagonist is an average man of no importance. He joins the war and insists to get to Europe as he is unhappy in America, having lost his ideals and old way of life.

BERNARD MALAMUD (1914-1986) was born in New York to Russian Jewish immigrant parents and he often is describing Jewish heritage and the effects of immigration based on his own family experience. Malamud is a very moralistic and humanistic orientated writer, criticised for being almost too sentimental but his main value is always human life that is reflected in relationship to other people.

His first novel The Assistant (1957) is based on his father's life as the main protagonist spends his whole life working in a shop.

The Fixer (1966) was the most appraised novel, set in Russia. One Russian average Jewish man wants to escape ghetto but at that time Jews were not allowed to leave their ghetto without permission. He wants to forget his Jewish heritage a became a normal Russian but he is accused of a murder of a Christian boy and imprisoned. In the prison, he rediscovers his Jewish identity and is even willing to fight for it.

The Tenants (1971) deals with a complex relationship between Jews and Afro-Americans in the post-war America. Two writers live in an old house that is about to be demolished, one Jewish and another black. The black writer is described as violent, radical, believing in Black Art. The Jewish writer one is living only for his books, incapable of having meaningful relations to others. At the end, both their lives and books are destroyed.

The Magic Barrel (1958) is a collection of thirteen short stories where Leo is urged by his teachers to find a wife before he becomes a rabbi since he gets a bigger congregation that way. Because he is quite incapable he finds a marriage counsellor Salzman. He sees a picture of young girl and instantly falls in love and yearns to meet her. The girl turns out to be the counsellor’s daughter Stella and the counsellor states it's one of the photographs that should have been in the barrel; hence Finkle thinks of the barrel as magical. He gets to meet her anyway. The marriage counselor (her father) hides around the corner, chanting prayers for the dead but Jewish prayers for the dead include no mention of death as they are prayers for life and happiness.

The Jewbird (1963) is a short story about a bird flies into a room of a Jewish family simply because the window was open. It talks and describes that it is a Jewbird and is being pursued by anti-Semeets birds. The father wonders how a Jewbird can exist, not so much about it actually talking. The bird introduced himself as Schwartz and the family wonders whether he can be an old Jew changed into a bird. The bird slyly answers that nobody can understand God’s ways. Father allows him to stay because his son is lonely but taken the bird as a sly fox, only pretending to be a Jew to be allowed to stay and be fed. But the father still hates him, even though Schwartz helps his son to improve at school. He constantly harasses the bird, trying to drive it away. When the son one day receives zero point from a test, father attacks the poor bird openly, harming it and making up a story that it was the bird who attacked him. Later, the son and his mother find Schwartz by the river, wings broken. Mother tells the saddened boy that surely anti-Semeets did it.

Angel Levine /livájn/ (1958) is a short story set in Harlem during 1950s. The main protagonist, Manischewitz, is a Jewish tailor, a typical Malamudian victim of his own job. His job is ruined and his health gets worse every day as he finds himself to be unable to work at all which imposes a financial problem since his wife is seriously ill and needs medication. He asks the God why all this is happening to him. In the bar, he once meets a black man named Alexander Levine who proclaims himself being a Jews. Manischewitz had heard of black Jews but had never met one. However, Levine only used to be a Jew and claims that he became an angel, sent to offer him his assistance. Naturally, Manischewitz refuses to believe him and wants a proof which Levine cannot give him so the tailor gets even more angry, mainly because he is dissatisfied with the image of a black angel: "If God sends to me an angel, why a black?" Levine just says that if he changes his mind and will want help, he can be find in Harlem. Menwhile his wife's health worsens and she is at death's door. Manischewitz goes to a synagogue to speak with God but "God was strangely absent" which leaves the tailor without hope. Out of despair, Manischewitz goes to look for Levine and is willing to believe that he is an angel. Levine is really happy and tells Manischewitz to go home as everything should be all right now. Upon his leaving, the tailor sees a glimples of a figure with black wings and at home finds his wife in full health. Manischewitz is overjoyed and exclaims: "There are Jews everywhere," finally able to acknowledge that even the blacks can be Jews.

PHILIP ROTH (*1933) is using postmodernist techniques. He is dealing with the Jewish community only partly but when he does, he is very controversial.

Goodbye, Columbus (1959) gave him critical acclaim, depicting a story of a poor man who falls in love with a rich Jewish girl. At first, he is accepted into her family but when the family realises their relationship is not only platonically, he has to leave. He find out that is not only only her family that divides them but also his low social position and tradition as he is not Jewish.

His most controversial work is Portnoy's Complaint (1969) and was even rejected by the Jewish community. The protagonist from Jewish middle-class is obsessed with sex and spend most of his days daydreaming about his sexual desires. Later Roth became known for a series of novels employing his fictional alter ego Mr Zuckerman like in Zuckerman Unbound or The Prague Orgy that reflects his experience of visiting Prague (1985).

The Conversion of the Jews (1959) is a short story depicting a typical questioning of the faith during growing up. The story starts with a theological conversation between Ozzie and the rabbi in the school as the rabbi had denounced the virgin birth of Jesus as impossible. Ozzie was confused because he had been taught to believe that God was all-powerful, which would mean that He could create a divine birth. Ozzie pushes the issue, and Rabbi Binder says he needs to speak with Ozzie's mother. This is the third time that Ozzie's widowed mother will have to come speak to the rabbi about Ozzie's religious questions. The first two times were sparked by Ozzie's rebellion against the belief that Jews are the chosen people. Mother slaps his face for the first time in his life.

The next day, Ozzie asks his previous question about why God cannot do anything He chooses to do. The rabbi smacks Ozzie who curses him and escapes to the roof of the synagogue. The fire department is called to get him off the root as a cat. The fire engines arrive, drawing a larger crowd in the process. A fireman asks Ozzie if he is going to jump, and Ozzie says he will. The rabbi gets down on his knees and pleads Ozzie not to jump, while Ozzie's friends tell him to jump. Ozzie's mother arrives and also pleads Ozzie not to jump. Ozzie carefully considers whether he should commit suicide and tells everybody to kneel, making the rabbi and the assembled crowd say that they believe God can do anything, including making a child without intercourse, and that they believe in Jesus Christ. After this, Ozzie starts to cry, and he makes his mother and the rabbi say that they will not ever hit anybody over religious matters, like they did him.

EDGAR LAWRENCE DOCTOROW (*1931) is an author of historical fiction, famous for rewriting American history, combining historical events with fiction and using newspaper articles as a part of it. Welcome to Bad Times (1960) is about colonization of Wild West but without heroic characters. In The Book of Daniel (1971) the protagonist re-discovers history of his parents Rosenberg couple who had been put into death on an electric chair for spying for the Soviet Union.

Ragtime (1971) was filmed by Miloš Forman and describes 1920s of rag and jazz music, WW1, racism and immigration. The March (2005) is about the Civil War and describes how the northern army destroyed plantations, robbed houses and misuse woman. Black slaves hoped they would get food and shelter but the Northerners did not care so slaves returned back to plantations.

The Writer in the Family: Jonathan´s father Jack died. Afraid of the effect the news of Jack´s old mother will have Jonathan's aunts tell her that he has moved to Arizona. Because it is assumed that Jack has taken his entire family with him to Arizona, none of the family can visit his mother. This does not bother Jonathan, she never liked Jack's family. After a few weeks, Jonathan's grandmother begins to wonder why her retired son does not write to her from Arizona. Jonathan writes a letter, pretending to be his own father in Arizona. As Jonathan begins to compose the letter, he recalls his father, remembering, first, his failure to rise from the working class to the professional class but also good things. Jack's death has left his family in bad economic circumstances. Later, Harold notes that there is really no need for the elaborate letter charade. The father had a dream to travel across the sea but he was buried into the ground without a tombstone.

ALLEGRA GOODMAN (*1967) is a contemporary female author who explores the intersections between Judaism and modernity and concentrates on the Jewish American family. Many of early tales were set in the Hawaii of her childhood and she understands the subtle ways in which contemporary culture and Jewish Orthodoxy make fragile coexistence. Collection of short stories Sudden Immersion (1989).

Her short story Retrospective is about a Jewish family living in Hawaii that faces losing their public face. The local gallery plans to have a retrospective show of Lillian who was a famous nude model for many artists and after her death they want to honour her memory by exhibiting pictures of her. Sister of Lillian is horrified by the idea that everybody would discover her sister’s shameful occupation she tried to hide. She did it until old age since artists like portraying even old bodies as they are more interesting, they do not want to portray something perfect. She goes to the director of gallery to have it cancelled but the director does not understand her – for him her modelling was artistic, she was “perfect illustration of the mind at rest,” gifted to stand as a model. At the party, the narrator finds out that everybody already knew about her sister’s occupations she tried to conceive so hard and nobody is really surprised about the exhibition.

Holocaust fiction

Since the 1970s, America has become the centre of Holocaust studies. Until 1960s Americans had no direct information about what really happened to the Jews in camps. The term "holocaust" is very misleading since it originally from Greek means "religious sacrifice by burning." Better term, accepted by Jews, is shoah /šoa/ which means destruction.

JERZY KOSINSKI (1933-1991) was a Polish Jewish novelist who acquired American citizenship and almost all his novels were best sellers. His most controversial novel The Painted Bird was even banned in Poland and tells a story of a nameless boy who is handed over to the Polish villagers to escape being taken to concentration camp but as he travels thought countryside he realises some Christian Polish farmer are far more violent than Germans. The boy finds himself in the company of a professional bird catcher. When the man is upset or bored, he takes one of his captured birds and paints it several colours. When he watches the bird join the flock and by torn until it dies because other birds recognise it as intruder because of a different colour.

CYNTHIA OZICK (*1928) is dealing mainly with Jewish history, religion and culture. Her parents were Russian immigrants and Ozick experienced a great deal of anti-Semitism in her neighbourhood and school, being called a Christ-killer. She deals with an endlessly vexed question of what it means to be Jewish in American and after the Holocaust.

The Shawl (1989) is a short story of three women who struggle to survive the concentration camp. Rosa has a baby infant Magda whom she tries to hide in the shawl which also provides the only warmth. Stella, Rosa’s niece, is too young to handle the march and is jealous for the care that Rosa gives to Magda. She sees the shawl as a magical hiding place as well as something warm and protective. In addition, the baby seems as an alien to Stella since it has blue eyes and blond hair, revealing that Rosa was in fact raped by a German soldier so Stella was right that it was "one of their babies." Stella’s resentment leads to Magda’s death when Stella steals the shawl from the baby.

Although Ozick had no direct experience of the holocaust, she managed to create a story that was well accepted even but survivors. How? She is avoiding any concrete description of the camp (just hints of it like the fence) and Nazi and she is concentrating only on relationships. From the beginning of the story, it is clear that the baby cannot survive. The sequel Rosa describes their life after the holocaust.

ART SPIEGELMAN (*1948) explored the legacy that the Holocaust left on his parents and himself in a two volume comic MAUS (1986), finding an original and authentic form. Even though he achieved literary prominence, he said: “No matter what I accomplish, it doesn’t seem like much compared to surviving Auschwitz.” Drawing Germans as cats, the Jews as mice and the Poles as pigs, Spiegelman illustrates his father’s experience in Nazi’s occupied Europeand at Auchwitz. Symbolically, cats chatch mice and pigs are dirty. While doing this, he tells his own story of growing up as a child of survivors.

The comic features his father Vladek as a young man living in Poland. He meets an intelligent and rich woman Anja with whom he falls in love in 1936. After marriage, she gives birth but falls ill because of her fragile sickly body. They travel to Czechoslovakia for treatment and see the swastika for the first time but at that time they only hear about pogroms in Germany and do not think it can come to Poland. In 1938 Vladek is forced to join an army on the Russian side but is taken hostage by Germans. He manages to return home but his son is already two years old and food only on tickets. Anja is caught translating Communist texts and the police come to search the documents. She hides them at her acquaintance’s place and that poor woman is caught instead of her but because of lack of evidence she is let out of prison. The family tries to flee the country but are caught and put to Auchwitz. At a certain point, Jewish mice characters are wearing masks of pigs to pretend they are Polish, not Jews. Vladek’s position is not that miserable because he known English and teaches it to officials at the camp but he still experiences ovens, transport in cramped trains, diseases and hunger. He and Anja both manage to survive but his previous business is already taken by someone else who has no intention of returning it to the rightful owner.

Vladek is not presented as a hero, just someone who found his way out and managed to survive. Later Vladek even burned all Anja's journals when she committed suicide because he could not understand why she did it after surviving all that horror. In addition, Spiegelman shows also not so pleasant sides of Jewish community when Vladek is frantically saving money or has racist remarks against the blacks.

MELVIN JULES BUKIET (*1953) is a son of a survivor who came to attention with Stories of an Imaginary Childhood (1992) set in Poland and featuring Jews blissfully unaware of the impeding catastrophe. Bukiet does not write about the Holocaust directly, he studies what separates the children of survivors who did not experience terrors from their parents, the same as Art Spiegelman. However, his portrayal of the survivors does not always contain the usual sympathetic elements and criticises the way in which American scholars studies the Holocaust, trying to  preserve everything in the most horrible details.

The Library of Moloch features a professor Ricardo who makes videotapes of original testimony. Obsessed by his subject, he believes that in these testimonies he will find the meaning of life. The purpose of the library is to find the victims of Moloch (lord of Gehenna), to record them and preserve their suffering. Once one of his students asks him whether the human nature changes and the professor starts to examine the question. He becomes immerged into the matter, ignoring even his wife who wants to have children but for him the tapes were his children. Witnesses mostly volunteered because they believed they should verify the past that had become dream-like even to themselves. The professor’s argument to persuade some survivors who refuse to give their testimonies is to they have responsibility to tell these tales in order to “never forget” the past. Only one woman opposed: “Did you ever think that we might prefer to forget?” These historians as Ricardso are gravediggers, stirring the suffering from the memories. She never liked the word survivor, she knows she survived only out of lack, not a real ability. The woman says that victimisers never understood their victims who firmly believed in God and preserved no matter the punishment. Then she makes an offer of introduce God to him.