Last November or December, my advisor and I talked about what it meant to study American Jewish history and why should I study modern Jewish history anyway. She made a point that much of influence for American Jewish history came from European Jewish history. European Jews brought their traditions, culture, language, and history with them to the United States. Then they infused it with American traditions and culture to create American Judaism. None of us (American Jews) could imagine our lives without Yiddish phrases, gefilte fish, songs, shtetl, socialism, and other remnants of central/eastern European Jewish life. They brought dreams and values that they passed down to their children such as education, importance of class, and social mobility. Yes, it made sense to learn about European Jewish history in order to understand American Jewry. And sometimes if we looked at American Jewish culture first, we could nitpick what was “American” and what was not American, which then was part of the baggage from Europe.
I also wrote a paper two years ago for my American Jew/Israeli Jew: A Comparative Perspective course on “Are We One?”. I concluded that Israeli and American Jews are not one people today or have they been. I saw so many contrasts between the two communities that it’s stunning how there have been cooperation to develop programs and friendships across the Atlantic to create a relationship between American Jews and Israelis.
It struck me today while sitting in JC’s lecture on Sholem Aleichem. Mind you, I was in a class full of Israelis with several Poles and Americans. The Israelis were quite participatory with their opinions and questions in their attempt to understand Yiddish literature. Their previous questions had been mainly related to literature analysis and understanding of the language. Today, their questions were different.
Sholem Aleichem was a man who wrote for the folk, the common mass. In this manner, he glorified Yiddish while his rivals tended to write for the highly educated and urban Jewish population across Eastern Europe. One of his strategies, Sholem Aleichem often wrote with a variety of voices and situations that Jews could relate to. In his collection of short stories or episodes, one could make sense of the life and culture of the Jewish world in the Pale Settlement, may the setting be in a shtetl or a city like Odessa. Personally, I never really quite picked up history books on Eastern European Jewry, simply because of Sholem Aleichem’s stories. They’re vivid and rich with details, voice inflections, quotes and idioms, and patterns of common Jewish behavior and grammar structure. Frequent themes were always played out such as politics, religion, God, pity, and so forth. In essence, Sholem Aleichem was your window to Eastern European Jewish life but not necessarily the policies of the czar. So I suppose that if you read his stories while studying Russian history, you’ll get a pretty good grasp.
That said, this was my, perhaps, fourth or fifth discussion on Sholem Aleichem over the last five years since I first read him in JC’s class. When I read a variety of stories for today’s class, I was amazed just how familiar the framework was, even more so than I remembered. I could just hear American Jews of immigrant generation doing all of this. It was almost like witnessing American Jewish experience in a different setting. I saw so many connections in terms of themes, language, and reactions. For example, most American Jews would flinch at the thought of anyone choosing to convert out of Judaism. American Jews are now fine with intermarriage because it’s not the end of the world- they can always raise the kids Jewish and they’d still have Jewish blood anyhow. For Tevye, he practically disowned Chava when she chose to convert to Russian Orthodoxy in order to marry a non-Jew. But he accepted Hodl’s marriage proposal to a non-Jew because of his progressive, world political views that were enriching Hodl’s mind. Also, there was another story called Menchem Mendel and it’s about a Jewish man who abandoned his family in order to travel and make money through stock exchange. This story was a series of letters between him and his wife. His thirst for wealth and success as well his obsession with urban life in Odessa tied with American Jews’ search for social mobility through wealth and success, and love for big cities like New York City and Los Angeles, filled with excitement and entertainment. Who wanted to live in a sleepy town? So reading Sholem Aleichem stories brought out a lot of mirroring with American Jewish life.
Now to the Israelis. They had trouble grasping the notion of Jewish identity in Eastern Europe. They asked if Tevye’s move to Israel was because of Zionism, or was there even Zionism in Sholem Aleichem’s works? Was Tevye religious man? JC said no. Well, was he secular? If he was secular, then he must be a Zionist, right? JC said no. Then what was he? JC tried to explain that he was just a traditionalist and perhaps Sholem Aleichem was more secular than Tevye. The Israelis were puzzled- either you’re religious or a nationalist. I tried to relate to them by saying that there just wasn’t an idea of a Jewish nationalism and what Tevye inherited was from his forefathers, just all the traditions of practice and wisdom. JC picked up on that and tried to elaborate what it meant to be “just” Jewish with understanding of Judaism.
This moment struck a chord on just how our understanding of Jewish identity contrasted each other. And how my advisor was right as well another moment of confirming my thesis that American Jews and Israelis aren’t one people. As American Jews, JC and I understood all the varieties of Jewish identities and thus could relate to different Jewish characters in Sholem Aleichem’s stories and in Yiddish literature. For the Israelis, they generally categorized three different Jewish identities: the ultra-Orthodox/haredim, modern Orthodox (usually American olim and Sephardim), and secular (all the rest). The secular Israelis saw Zionism as their religion. For them, their story of Jewish identity began with the origins of Zionism and early settlement in Palestine. In America, our Jewish story generally dated back to the Pale Settlement, where most of our relatives were from. Some American Jews, especially of German origin, might reach further into the mid-nineteenth century. Also, American Jews preserved some forms of Yiddish culture over the years whereas Israelis have rejected it upon their arrival in the Land of Israel and adopted of Zionism.
Just the notion of being Jew without being secular or religious (as in Orthodox) just confounded the Israelis. It’s no wonder why they can’t understand American Jewry. If you can’t understand American Jewry, you’re not going to understand Sholem Aleichem. Or vice versa.
I mentioned this to JC after class. He responded, “They just don’t know their European Jewish history!” Very true. I began to wonder how much my Israeli friends know. I do recall them saying that when they studied European history, the only “Jewish” thing they learned was the Holocaust. If they were studying “Jewish” history, it would be the history of Zionism and Israel. If they read “Jewish” literature, it would be Zionist or Israeli literature. Anything “Jewish” they learned, it was relevant to the Land of Israel and tanakh.
It’s one of these moments that makes me very glad to be in Israel and witnessing the Israeli mindset. While I’m not going to be doing any research on Israeli history or society, these moments and my experiences in Israel in general enriches my own research and understanding of American Jewry and the Diaspora. It’s especially important when I write about the American Jewish response to the Holocaust in terms of actions in the 1940s and consciousness. I think, “What would my Israeli friends say about Israel if it was Israel, not America? What makes American Jewry different from the Israelis?” Israelis are very proud of all the aliyot, rescues to help Diaspora Jews in distress like the Soviets and Iraqis, and protection of Jews abroad as well as the Law of Return. They challenge me, “Where was America?” Then I think of the tensions within the American Jewish communities among the Jews as they negotiated their dual-identities as Americans and Jews.
Sometimes I do get exhausted of always being in Israel because I’m just far away from my family and have been missing out on some summer traditions for the last three years. But I have to remember that my visits to Israel are important in terms of maintaining my relationships with my Israeli family and friends and my perspective as an academic in order to continue bringing in material to my seminars and discussions with colleagues. Many of my colleagues haven’t spent much time in this country or cultivated friendships with Israelis as I have so I bring a lot on the table.
Oh, and the guy who asked the first question about Tevye’s Jewish identity or notion of Zionism in Sholem Aleichem’s stories? He’s a lecturer/director of the Hebrew language program at Michigan. I was stunned. I thought he had been in America long enough to understand the complexities of Jewish identity. Evidently, I was wrong.
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