The Blessing and the Curse: The Jewish People and Their Books in the Twentieth Century

by Adam Kirsch

Overview

An erudite and accessible survey of Jewish life and culture in the twentieth century, as reflected in seminal texts.

Following The People and the Books, which "covers more than 2,500 years of highly variegated Jewish cultural expression" (Robert Alter, New York Times Book Review), poet and literary critic Adam Kirsch now turns to the story of modern Jewish literature. From the vast emigration of Jews out of Eastern Europe to the Holocaust to the creation of Israel, the twentieth century transformed Jewish life. The same was true of Jewish writing: the novels, plays, poems, and memoirs of Jewish writers provided intimate access to new worlds of experience.

Kirsch surveys four themes that shaped the twentieth century in Jewish literature and culture: Europe, America, Israel, and the endeavor to reimagine Judaism as a modern faith. With discussions of major books by over thirty writers—ranging from Franz Kafka to Philip Roth, Elie Wiesel to Tony Kushner, Hannah Arendt to Judith Plaskow—he argues that literature offers a new way to think about what it means to be Jewish in the modern world. With a wide scope and diverse, original observations, Kirsch draws fascinating parallels between familiar writers and their less familiar counterparts. While everyone knows the diary of Anne Frank, for example, few outside of Israel have read the diary of Hannah Senesh. Kirsch sheds new light on the literature of the Holocaust through the work of Primo Levi, explores the emergence of America as a Jewish home through the stories of Bernard Malamud, and shows how Yehuda Amichai captured the paradoxes of Israeli identity.

An insightful and engaging work from "one of America’s finest literary critics" (Wall Street Journal), The Blessing and the Curse brings the Jewish experience vividly to life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393868371
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	11/02/2021
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	660,325
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Adam Kirsch is the author of several books of poetry and criticism. A 2016 Guggenheim Fellow, Kirsch is an editor at the Wall Street Journal’s Weekend Review section and has written for publications including The New Yorker and Tablet. He lives in New York.

Table of Contents

Introduction ix

I Europe: The Future Disappears

The Road into the Open by Arthur Schnitzler and The Trial Franz Kafka 3

Red Cavalry Isaac Babel 15

Satan in Goray Isaac Bashevis Singer 22

The Diary of Victor Klemperer 29

The Diary of Anne Frank 38

Night Elie Wiesel 46

Survival in Auschwitz Primo Levi 54

Eichmann in Jerusalem Hannah Arendt 62

II America: At Home in Exile

The Rise of David Levinsky Abraham Cahan 73

Bread Givers Anzia Yezierska 81

Stories by Delmore Schwartz and A Walker in the City Alfred Kazin 87

The Adventures of Augie March and The Victim Saul Bellow 96

Stories Bernard Malamud 105

Goodbye, Columbus and Portnoy's Complaint Philip Roth 112

Stories Grace Paley 123

Stories Cynthia Ozick 129

Angels in America Tony Kushner 138

III Israel: Life in a Dream

Only Yesterday S. Y. Agnon 147

The Diary of Hannah Senesh 156

Khirbet Khizeh S. Yizhar 162

Where the Jackals Howl Amos Oz 169

See Under: Love David Grossman 179

Mr Mani A. B. Yehoshua 188

Dolly City Orly Castel-Bloom 194

Poems Yehuda Amichai 198

IV Making Judaism Modern

Three Addresses on Judaism Martin Buber 205

Religion of Reason out of the Sources of Judaism Hermann Cohen 211

Judaism as a Civilization Mordecai Kaplan 220

Halakhic Man Joseph Soloveitchik 229

God in Search of Man Abraham Joshua Heschel 237

To Mend the World Emil Fackenheim 245

Standing Again at Sinai Judith Plaskow 253

Select Bibliography 259

Index 263

Editorial Reviews

"The Blessing and the Curse—tell me about it! If it’s hard enough to be a Jew, and even harder to be a Jewish writer, can you imagine being a Jewish writer about Jewish writing? Adam Kirsch has been called to that task, and here in his new survey he shows himself its master. Kirsch wears the silver crown and wields the golden word processor of the tradition."

Joshua Cohen

"A mesmerizing—and urgently contemporary—reflection on how literary giants in Europe, America, and Israel wrestled with the twentieth century’s triumphs and tragedies. As poet and as exegete, Kirsch gives us literary criticism at its most vital and most supple."

Benjamin Balint

★ 06/29/2020

Kirsch’s excellent follow-up to 2016’s The People and the Books again explores “central aspects of Jewish experience” through essential reading material. This time he focuses on crucial works of 20th-century literature by authors including Saul Bellow, Martin Buber, Franz Kafka, and Elie Wiesel. Kirsch argues that events of the 20th century caused a “liquidation of the Jewish concept of exile” and also caused a dramatic expansion of Jewish literature, through which it became “possible to gain an unprecedentedly rich and intimate understanding of Jewish experience.” The ways in which exile was mooted—by the Holocaust, by American acceptance of Jews, and the creation of the nation of Israel—are explored in three geographic sections: Europe, where Jews saw their future disappear; the U.S., where, in Kirsch’s estimation, Jews could voluntarily abandon “most of what had long defined Jewishness”; and Israel, where writers confronted the “tension between Zionist dream and Israeli reality.” Kirsch smoothly places the unprecedented events of the last century in a broad literary context that will help readers deepen understanding of them. Kirsch’s wide, trenchant reading of Jewish writings provides insight for lay readers and scholars alike. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"Adam Kirsch, one of our finest critics, has written a wonderful introduction to the rich and brilliant field of twentieth-century Jewish literature, illuminating for us the work of some of its greatest contributors."

Nicole Krauss

★ 07/01/2020

In this far-ranging survey, celebrated poet biographer Kirsch (Who Wants To Be a Jewish Writer? And Other Essays) explores 20th-century Jewish literature through four primary themes, starting with the alienation and "exile" of Jews and the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe as depicted by (among others) Franz Kafka, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Elie Wiesel, and Primo Levi. Next, Kirsch traces the coming of age of Jewish-American literature in the 20th century, the literary and cultural achievements of Jewish writers in Israel, and the philosophical concerns of modern Jewish thinkers such as Martin Buber, Abraham Heschel, and Joseph Soloveitchik. At the core of this engaging, insightful book are literary analyses of some of the fiction, poetry, and essays of modern Jewish-American writers, chronologically from Abraham Cahan and Anzia Yerierska to Delmore Schwartz, Saul Bellow, and Bernard Malamud. More contemporary authors are discussed (e.g., Philip Roth, Cynthia Ozick, and Grace Paley), with thoughtful attention given to Tony Kushner's Angels in America. In the latter section, Kirsch evaluates literature written in Israel in light of its Jewish content, and in the final chapter elaborates on the nature of modern Judaism, starting with Buber's question: "Why do we call ourselves Jews?" VERDICT The focus throughout this illuminating and invaluable study is on secular modern Jewish writers from Central and Eastern Europe and their descendants. For all Jewish literature collections, and for informed general readers interested in modern Jewish secular literary culture.—Herbert E. Shapiro, Boca Raton, FL

Library Journal

★ 2020-05-26
Attentive review of major writings by Jewish authors in a century marked by tragedy and promise.

In this natural follow-up to The People and The Books: 18 Classics of Jewish Literature, Kirsch impressively surveys more than 30 significant Jewish authors of the 20th century. At the beginning, the author admits that any such study has its limitations, but the works he chooses are representative of the geographic, ideological, theological, and gender diversity of modern Jewish thought. They also focus the reader’s attention on a century of monumental change for global Judaism, marked by mass immigration, brilliant philosophical movements, the horrors of the Holocaust, the creation of Israel as a sovereign state, and unprecedented secularism. Kirsch divides his review into four sections, looking first at Jewish writers in or from Europe whose works relate to the seismic changes that led to the Shoah. Readers will be familiar with many of the authors: Franz Kafka, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Anne Frank, Hannah Arendt. Moving on, the author explores books by American Jews, juggling their place in American society with their Jewish heritage; forming a new, uniquely American Jewish identity; and battling, or embracing, assimilation. The author then looks at the writings of Israeli Jews, astutely examining the realization of Zionism from a variety of angles. As Kirsch shows, S. Yizhar studied the irony of an exiled people creating new exiles of the Arabs; Hannah Senesh, through her diary, exposed the guilt of being a survivor in 1940s Palestine whose mother was left behind to suffer persecution. Finally, Kirsch discusses some of the great thinkers, including Martin Buber and Mordecai Kaplan, who have helped create the version of Judaism that the current century has inherited from the last. Kirsch’s work serves as an engrossing overview and introduction to a wide variety of writers, making it especially useful to general readers.

Well-crafted, expertly balanced, and deeply humane.

Kirkus Reviews