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The Brothers Ashkenazi: A Novel

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un libro fondamentale per chi vuole comprendere lo chassidismo, il mondo ebraico che parlava yiddish, affascinante e suggestivo, i rapporti tra uomini e donne, i riti, le tradizioni. Ma i fratelli Ashkenazi parla anche del fiorire dell’industria tessile nella cittadina di Lodz, degli ebrei che prima diventano vitali per l’economia del paese e poi sono perseguitati nei pogrom, della Polonia eternamente in balia dei paesi limitrofi, del capitalismo e dei moti di preparazione alla rivoluzione della classe operaia. In the Polish city of Lodz, the brothers Ashkenazi grew up very differently in talent and in temperament. Max, the firstborn, is fiercely intelligent and conniving, determined to succeed financially by any means necessary. Slower-witted Jacob is strong, handsome, and charming but without great purpose in life. While Max is driven by ambition and greed to be more successful than his brother, Jacob is drawn to easy living and decadence. As waves of industrialism and capitalism flood the city, the brothers and their families are torn apart by the clashing impulses of old piety and new skepticism, traditional ways and burgeoning appetites, and the hatred that grows between faiths, citizens, and classes. Despite all attempts to control their destinies, the brothers are caught up by forces of history, love, and fate, which shape and, ultimately, break them. I therefore regarded this mysterious I.J. Singer as an old fashioned and not that successful Yiddish novelist who helped his younger brother to sharpen up his own style and - perhaps - played a part in introducing him to the literary circles of first Warsaw and then New York. I don't think it's a coincidence that I.B. Singer's first published novel ('Satan in Goray') is set in 17th century Poland and revolves around religion while I.J. Singer's debut ('Steel and Iron') is set in 20th century Russia and very political. The Broth­ers Ashkanazi was the first book that I.J. Singer pub­lished after arriv­ing in New York from War­saw in 1934. Its ambi­tion and range were unprece­dent­ed in Yid­dish lit­er­a­ture and it called forth com­par­isons to Tol­stoy. The crit­ic Joseph Epstein has wit­ti­ly described it as the great­est Russ­ian nov­el ever writ­ten in Yid­dish.

Sullo sfondo seguiamo l’evoluzione della guerra in cui, vinti o vincitori, si trovano uniti dal comune elemento della rabbia, che viene abilmente diretta da coloro che sarebbero stati i veri responsabili, e che avrebbero dovuto pagare per questo, verso gli ebrei che diventano il capro espiatorio perfetto per tutti e in qualsiasi situazione, con la devastazione dei pogrom, soprattutto quando questi permettono di portar via le ricchezze accumulate. This is the novel that surpasses everything that Isaac Bashevis Singer has ever written and - what's more - it does it fourteen years earlier than I.B's masterpiece entitled 'The Family Moskat', a book that I love to the bone. Ho visto, raccontato tramite la storia, i pogrom e i semi dell’odio razziale contro il popolo ebreo, l’odio, l’arroganza e la violenza dei potenti a scapito dei più deboli.

A very powerful story has been seized upon by a very powerful story-teller Singer has a stirring gift of narrative; he always writes with verve, sometimes with intensity; his book has magnitude and color and, as it were, a consciousness of its weighty theme. Unlike Max, Nissan devotes himself selflessly to the cause of the working class, enduring beatings and prison sentences and humiliation in pursuit of that cause. How these contrasting characters fare in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution is (trying to avoid spoilers) yet another contrast in just desserts (or not). Based on the afterword, Nissan's experience in rejecting his rabbinical father's Orthodox Judaism early in life and communism in the immediate aftermath of the Revolution mirrors that of the author.

In fact, whereas I.B. Singer's writing his masterfully chiselled and engrossing but somehow reluctant to delve into topics such as politics and economics, I.J. Singer knew how to deal with that and therefore was a much more modern novelist than his younger brother. It is all but required, when intro­duc­ing the Yid­dish writer I(srael) J(oshua) Singer, to iden­ti­fy him as the old­er broth­er of the Yid­dish writer I(saac) B(ashevis) Singer. It was, of course the younger Singer broth­er who would go on to gar­ner the first and only Nobel prize award­ed to a Yid­dish writer. The rep­u­ta­tion­al asym­me­try between the broth­ers Singer is very unfair to Israel, and more than a lit­tle iron­ic. While the two broth­ers lived, it was Israel Joshua (1893 – 1944) who was famous, while Isaac (1902 – 1991) lan­guished dark­ly in his inter­nal con­tra­dic­tions and old­er brother’s shad­ow. The irony is height­ened when the occa­sion for the intro­duc­tion is the wel­come reis­sue of I. J. Singer’s The Broth­ers Ashkanazi. An unambiguously negative reaction was provided by the Polish authorities— in 1937, they banned the book as “offensive” to Poles. The news report accounts a controversy over the book two years prior, based on two chapters of the novel that aroused the anger of the authorities due to their portrayal of the Polish army and government. There is no reasoning given for the current legal proceedings against Singer, beyond an accusation that the novel is “insulting.” This is a short article that speaks volumes about the antisemitic climate in Poland in the years preceding the Holocaust. E accanto alle lotte di classe ci sono le corporazioni, gli scioperi, i comitati, la fame nera che attanaglia la povera gente contro i ricchi, le loro vacanze per fare i bagni, i loro divertimenti nel solito scintillio di denari.The success of I.J. Singer’s first collection of short stories, Pearls (1922), led to his association with the New York-based Jewish Daily Forward, and his enormously popular novel Yoshe Kalb brought him to America on the invitation of Maurice Schwartz, who produced the stage version. Singer stayed in America to write his masterpiece, The Brothers Ashkenazi (1936), about the rise and fall of rival Jewish magnates in Lodz. This was followed by East of Eden (“Comrade Nakhman” in the original Yiddish title), an ironic study of a true believer in Communism who has transferred his early religious allegiance to a secular messianism. This autumn witnesses a wonderful event in the world of literature: the re-publication of a forgotten classic, Israel Joshua Singer's The Brothers Ashkenazi. Lost to the English-language reader for too long, this new edition from Other Press resurrects the untouched 1980 translation – from the original Yiddish – by the author's son, Joseph Singer. Israel Joshua Singer’s Yiddish books are available through our Digital Library. Di Brider Ashkenazi was published in three volumes: one, two, three.

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