From LISTSERV@MSU.EDU Sun Jul 28 21:44:25 1996 Date: Fri, 24 May 1996 00:07:44 -0400 From: Automatic digest processor Reply-To: H-Net Jewish Studies List To: Recipients of H-JUDAIC digests Subject: H-JUDAIC Digest - 22 May 1996 to 23 May 1996 There are 6 messages totalling 137 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. administravia on Shavu'ot (editor) 2. American writers cont. (Baskin) 3. Jew-bashing in American literature (Carmy) 4. Brivenshtelers (Yiddish letter-writing) (Glinert) 5. The ladder in Chagall's "White Crucifixion" (Murphy) 6. Seeking two articles (Shapiro) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 23 May 1996 18:06:23 -0400 From: J S Online Subject: administravia on Shavu'ot (editor) From: editorial office Subject: administravia on Shavu'ot I am taking Shavu'ot holiday off, and therefore, there will be no messages reposted until after the holiday. Avi ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 May 1996 18:08:38 -0400 From: J S Online Subject: American writers cont. (Baskin) From: Judith Baskin Subject: American writers cont. As the interesting remarks of Robert Michael and Jonathan Morse make clear, pre-World War II American writers are as likely as their English colleagues to have harbored and expressed anti-semitism in their literary works, yet as Morse also notes, these anti-semitisms take many forms depending on each author. Yet another example of the complexity of this issue is Willa Cather. In "The Professor's House," the Jewish character, the professor's son-in-law, represents all that is crass, vulgar, and self-serving in the changing society of post-World War I America. He is depicted in stark contrast to the daughter's noble and pure fiance who was killed in the war. The fiance was a self-made man from the Southwest who had discovered remains of a pre-European pueblo civilization (this part of the book is marvelous); he represents everything good about American individualism. The urban Jewish son-in-law, on the other hand, represents everything parasitic, materialistic, and self- serving about American life. On the other hand, I believe it is in "My Antonia," Cather represents a warm and cultured German-Jewish family who teach the book's prairie boy protagonist about art and music when he comes to university in the big city. Both are stereotypes, certainly, but perhaps we should also admit that both depictions reflect some of the individual Jews Cather encountered. And of course, this kind of anti-semitism is worlds apart from the, what I would call, "essentialist anti- semitism" which, as Louis Menands so convincingly argues in the recent NY Review of Books article, underlies T. S. Eliot's entire poetic oeuvre. Judith Baskin, Dept. of Judaic Studies, SUNY at Albany ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 May 1996 18:09:43 -0400 From: J S Online Subject: Jew-bashing in American literature (Carmy) From: Shalom Carmy Subject: Jew-bashing in American literature The well-known Catholic novelist Mary Gordon has just published a memoir of her father, a Jewish convert to Catholicism and a hack writer for popular magazines, titled THE SHADOW MAN. The author is shocked to discover that her father not only wrote for pornographic magazines, but engaged in ugly stereotyping of Jews in an apparent effort to appeal to his audience and perhaps convince himself that he is a regular American. I have not read the book, apart from several excerpts, of which one appeared a couple of weeks ago in the NY Times Sunday magazine. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 May 1996 18:10:55 -0400 From: J S Online Subject: Brivenshtelers (Yiddish letter-writing) (Glinert) From: LG Subject: Brivenshtelers (Yiddish letter-writing) Does anyone know of anything on the role of Brivenshtelers in Jewish life -- these were the collections of "model letters" for people who couldn't or wouldn't write their own. They went on being produced right down to this century. The only discussion I've seen is in "Life is with People". Lewis Glinert SOAS, London University ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 May 1996 18:12:07 -0400 From: J S Online Subject: The ladder in Chagall's "White Crucifixion" (Murphy) From: catherine.m.murphy.19@nd.edu Subject: The ladder in Chagall's "White Crucifixion" In Marc Chagall's painting, *White Crucifixion* (1938+) in which the horrors of pogroms and the Nazi atrocities swirl around the figure of a crucified and Jewish Jesus, a ladder leans against the cross (the motif is mirrored in the broken shutter of a Jewish synagogue to the right). Is this ladder simply part of the equipment of execution, or does it suggest other associations, such as Jacob's ladder? In the painting, the ladder rises from a base of flames on earth into a beam of light which illuminates both the cross and the mourning patriarchs/matriarch in the air above the cross. The painting hangs in the Chicago Art Institute, and that museum has published an article on the work by Ziva Amishai-Maisels of Hebrew University (*The Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies* 17:2 [1991] 138-53). This is the only interpretation of the painting that I have read. It reproduces several preliminary sketches and crucifixions by Chagall in which the ladder also figures (notably *Golgotha* [1912] in which a man carries the ladder toward? away from? the cross, and *The Descent from the Cross* [1941] in which the ladder leans parallel to the front of the cross and a man carries the crucified figure - in this case Marc Chagall - down the ladder). I would appreciate any ideas from members of this list about the ladder as well as any recommendations for further reading. Thank you. Catherine Murphy, University of Notre Dame ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 May 1996 18:13:26 -0400 From: J S Online Subject: Seeking two articles (Shapiro) From: toukie@zui.unizh.ch Subject: Seeking two articles I am seeking two articles which are unavailable to me locally: (i) an article by Steven Fine (title unknown) that was published in the April 1996 (or, perhaps, April 1995) issue of The Bible Review; (ii) Bettan, I., "The Sermons of Ephraim Luntschitz"; H. U. C. A. 8-9: 443-480 (1931-1932). If anyone is in a position to be able to mail me photocopies of _either_ of the above articles, kindly contact me _directly_ at toukie@zui.unizh.ch Thanks in advance to all responders. Sincerely, (Dr.) S. Shapiro Kilchberg (ZH), Switzerland ------------------------------ End of H-JUDAIC Digest - 22 May 1996 to 23 May 1996 ***************************************************