NY Jewish books: The Flame Alphabet by Ben Marcus

A language epidemic erupts among Jewish families; children’s speech makes their parents deathly ill. Soon it spreads to the rest of the population. This dark fantasy is the premise of Jewish New Yorker Ben Marcus‘s new novel, The Flame Alphabet published today by Knopf. In my New York Journal of Books review I write,

New York Journal of Books

“Ben Marcus was already known as a daring, experimental writer’s writer on the strength of his three previous books of fiction. The good news for the general reading public is that his fourth book, The Flame Alphabet, is his most accessible to date, and its comparative clarity and linearity in no way diminishes its power, inventiveness, and originality. The quality of the writing also compensates for the book’s thin character development. Instead, Mr. Marcus deploys his potent prose to tell a tale about a world in which all language becomes lethal.”

One of Mr. Marcus’ inventions is a new form of Judaism in which couples worship in forest hideouts on Thursdays instead of Friday nights and Saturdays. Like the epidemic itself, this aspect of the novel requires a suspesion of disbelief. The ominous nature of the fictional events lends the narrative a sense of gravitas that Mr. Marcus’ prose style is well equiped to express. While the book has all the necessary elements to make it a cult classic, a book this well written deserves the widest possible audience.

Arthur Green on Abraham Joshua Heschel and Hasidism

Rabbi Jeff Marker's synopsis of Arthur Green's talk on Abraham Joshua Heschel and Hasidism.

"For Heschel the most significant mitzvot are
  Feeding the poor, ending war, marching with MLK.
  These are spiritual acts, not just political.
  These are the acts for which we were created.

"Heschel’s God was very personal, but we must do the work for God."

Originally posted by at Arthur Green on Abraham Joshua Heschel and Hasidism

On Thursday evening I went to the Abraham Joshua Heschel School and heard a lecture by Arthur Green titled “What Heschel Learned From Hasidism.”  Green was a close student of Heschel when he was a rabbinical student at the Jewish Theological Seminary in the 1960s.  It was a brilliant talk, though I thought I would share what I managed to take down and remember.

First of all, Green said, Heschel would have hated the title of the talk.  He did not like divisions in Jewish life.  He bridged worlds and was critical of all of them.  He wrote about many of them.

Heschel was a living link to the lost world of Jewish Europe.  In his first real appearance on the public stage in Americal, at YIVO in 1944, he spoke about that lost world.  He later expanded this into his book “The Earth is the Lord’s.”  Around the same time, in 1943-44, he reclaimed his middle name.  Before that he was known, and wrote as, Abraham Heschel.  After this he was Abraham Joshua Heschel.  This was the name of his famous great great grandfather and reflected his Hassidic identity.  His family was from the Ukrainian school of hasidism which was a kind of peasant hasidism.  His father was an immigrant to Warsaw which was generally dominated by the Ger/Kutsk school, which was more rational and skeptical of miracle workers and similar stories.  There were no yeshivas reflecting his heritage, and his early education was under the influence of Ger.  Heschel later said he lived between these two worlds, Medzibush and Kutsk.

Heschel grew to see the Hasidic world as “small minded” and wanted a secular education.  It would have been a scandal for him, scion of a Hasidic dynasty, to go to a secular gymnasium in Warsaw.  His tutor arranged for him to attend a gymnasium in Vilna, a center of the anti-Hasidic misnagdim.  After a year he enrolled in university in Berlin.  He also wrote poetry.  In time he learned to speak in Biblical language which was accessible to both Jews and Chrisitians.

So, what did Heschel learn from Hasidism?  Green says five things, and he will especially expand on the fifth.

A sense of wonder -  “The whole world is full of God’s glory!”

There is nothing you can prove
    Religious truth is about testifying, not proving.  His book “The Sabbath” is an expansion on ideas in
    “Sfas Emes,” a book by an earlier Gerer rebbe.

He understood the need for charismatic religious figures, but saw corruption in the Hasidic world.
    So he went back to the prophets as his authentic “rebbes.”
    (Buber, the outsider, could romanticize Hasidic leaders, not Heschel)
    His lecture “Did Maimonedes think he had attained prophesy?” actually applies to him also.
    He did become a prophetic figure, and saw it in Martin Luther King Jr. which led him to accept it             also in himself.
    There is a Hasidic expression “Zogt Torah” - to speak Torah (different from to learn or teach).
        The word IS the Torah.

Chesed and Simcha - Loving Kindness and Joy
    Even his criticism is through chesed.  
    His Judaism is of love and joy.  He rarely spoke about sin or repentance (unlike Solevetchik)
    He focuses on action, to do good, not focus on sin and guilt.  There not much reference to                 Messianism.  He is more interested in We redeeming God, not God redeeming us.

“God in Search of Man” - God needs us!
    The way we act is meaningful to God, it makes a difference, even in a cosmic sense.
    (This is contrary to Mainmonedes who says God is perfect, has no needs)
    This idea goes back to Ramban, Nachmanedes.  Mitzvot bring the Shechinah out of exile.

Heschel traced this debate back to Rabbis Akiba and Ishmael in the second century of the common era.
    Ishmael - the Mishkan (Tabernacle) is only post Golden Calf.  The people need it.
    Akiba - Mishkan is renewal of creation, full of secrets of creation.

Heschel derived this from Hasidism
    For early hasidim, all mitzvot/acts have cosmic significance.
    For later hasidim, the acts of the rebbes have this significance.

For Heschel the most significant mitzvot are
    Feeding the poor, ending war, marching with MLK.
    These are spiritual acts, not just political.
    These are the acts for which we were created.

Heschel’s God was very personal, but we must do the work for God
    (still balancing Metzibush and Kutsk)

These are my rough notes on a very polished talk, but I hope they give a sense of it.

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The Economist: new research challenges Chomsky's linguistics

The evolution of language

Babel or babble?

Languages all have their roots in the same part of the world. But they are not as similar to each other as was once thought

Apr 14th 2011 | from the print edition

via economist.com

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2011 Jewish fiction and poetry books

2011 Jewish fiction and poetry books   (a list of Jewish fiction and poetry books I reviewed in the past year).

New York Journal of Books

In my other gig I write book reviews for New York Journal of Books; here is a list of Jewish fiction and poetry books I reviewed in the past year in reverse chronological order:

Adult Fiction:

Scenes from Village Life by Amos Oz, translated by Nicolas de Lange. In my New York Journal of Books review of the book I write: “Loneliness, lethargy, depression, and vague but unmistakable feelings of anxiety pervade most of the characters and the overall mood of the book. These senses of aloneness, isolation, and unease are reminiscent of the short stories of Anton Chekhov and Sherwood Anderson. Mr. Oz’s stories almost have a sense of the uncanny yet contain no supernatural elements.”

Paper Conspiracies by Susan Daitch, takes an indirect approach to late Nineteenth Century France’sDreyfus Affair by way of peripheral minor actors in the scandal and via cinema pioneer Georges Mèliés‘ contemporaneous dramtized documentary film L’affaire Dreyfus. The novel’s six sections alternate between 1990s New York and Paris in the 1890s, 1930s, and 1968. In my New York Journal of Books review of the novel I enthusiastically recommend the book “to fans of highbrow, erudite historical fiction. Readers who enjoy the novels of Umberto Eco, for example, will probably also enjoy those of Ms. Daitch.” I also draw an analogy between late Nineteenth Century French anti-Semitism and Twentyfirst Century American Islamophobia.

The Little Bride by Anna Solomon. In my New York Journal of Books review I describe the book as “. . . a plot-driven novel conveyed in crisp, descriptive, and thought-provoking prose via an engagingly intelligent third-person narrator. . . . an auspicious debut” and recommend it to both adult and precocious young adult readers.

Seven Days in Rio by Francis Levy is a hilarious account of a sixty-something New York Jewish mama’s boy and sex tourist’s vacation in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Leeches by David Albahari, translated by Ellen Elias-Bursac. In my New York Journal of Books review of Leeches I write: “David Albahari’s challenging yet engaging, cerebral, magical-realist, experimental, post-modernist novel Leeches provides a portrait of life in Belgrade, capital of an ideologically charged and xenophobic Serbia, in the months preceding the NATO bombing campaign. As elsewhere in history, Belgrade’s Jewish community is the proverbial canary in the Serbian coal mine; considering the Serbian government’s behavior toward other former Yugoslav republics and their ethnic groups, this should not be surprising.”

Young Adult Fiction:

Vaclav and Lena by Haley Tanner does not meet the high literary standard of the adult books listed above, but in my New York Journal of Books review I describe the book as “a tale of unconditional love; of attachment, separation, and reunion; and of trauma and healing.” It’s an engaging read that will appeal to teens, their parents, and anyone interested in the immigrant experience.

Poetry:

Hovering at a Low Altitude: The Collected Poetry of Dahlia Ravikovitch, translated by Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld. In my New York Journal of Books review of the book I describe Ms. Ravikovitch’s work as “sophisticated, intelligent, conscientious, and empathic,” and Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld’s translations as “strong and moving English poems in their own right.”

Leonard Cohen Poems and Songs (Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets series). In my New York Journal of Books review I describe the small handsomely made volume as a likely gift book for fans of the Canadian singer-songwriter.

The Hunger Moon: New and Selected Poems 1980-2010 by Marge Piercy. In my review inNew York Journal of Books in addition to mentioning that Piercy is a political and feminist poet, I note, “The Hunger Moon, her second volume of selected poems, a rich selection from the last three decades, … includes: narrative poems about her childhood in Detroit, young adulthood in Manhattan, everyday life with her husband and cats on Cape Cod where they are year round residents, among other subjects on all of which she is a terrific storyteller; nature poems that describe the fauna and flora of the Cape; love poems, some of which attest to the strength, devotion and passion of her current marriage, while others reflect the pain of less healthy previous relationships, pain that still smarts despite her current conjugal happiness; and religious poems that are popular choices for reading out loud at Jewish life cycle events, some of which are reprinted in “additional readings” anthologies meant to supplement non-Orthodox Jewish prayer books.”

For more info: David Cooper