JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

english literature
of Affection (1982), Rose of Jericho (1984), and To Live in Peace
(1986). Friedman’s fiction demonstrates that the family saga
continues to be a popular form of Anglo-Jewish self-expression.
Chaim *Bermant’s The Patriarch: A Jewish Family Saga
(1981) is another example of this genre, as is Maisie Mosco’s
bestselling Almonds and Raisins trilogy (1979–81). Judith Summers’
first novel, Dear Sister (1985), is a woman-centered Jewish
family saga.
While much Anglo-Jewish literature continues to be set
in an English milieu, many Jewish novelists have begun to
reveal a fruitful interest in European Jewish history and the
contemporary State of Israel. Emanuel Litvinoff ’s Falls The
Shadow (1983), using the form of a detective novel, examines
the Jewishness of modern-day Israel and the relationship of
the Jewish State to the Holocaust. A more controversial account
of these themes is found in George Steiner’s The Portage
to San Cristobal of A.H. (1981). The 1982 West End stage
version of this novella excited a prolonged exchange of articles
and letters in the London Times and the Jewish Chronicle.
Steiner also published an interesting work of fiction, Proofs
and Three Fables (1992). Other works of fiction by Jewish critics
include Al Alvarez’s Day of Atonement (1991) and Harold
Pinter’s autobiographical novel The Dwarfs (1990 but mainly
written in the 1950s). Pinter, like Steven *Berkoff in his challenging
plays, was deeply influenced by his poor London
East End Jewish background. Provocative fictional accounts
of contemporary Israel are found in Simon Louvish’s novels,
The Therapy of Avram Blok (1985), The Death of Moishe-Ganel
(1986), City of Blok (1988), The Last Trump of Avram Blok
(1990), and The Silencer (1991). Louvish, who lives London,
was raised in Jerusalem and served in the Six-Day War. His
fiction is an iconoclastic, deliberately grotesque, portrait of
the State of Israel. Clive Sinclair’s Blood Libels (1985), his second
novel, also utilizes Israeli history, especially the Lebanon
War, and combines such history with a haunting imagination.
In fact, Sinclair epitomizes the explicitly Jewish self-assertion
and maturity of a new generation of Anglo-Jewish writers that
has emerged in the 1980s. He describes himself as a Jewish
writer “in a national sense” and so situates his fiction in Eastern
Europe, America, and Israel. In this way, he eschews the
usual self-referring, parochial concerns of the Anglo-Jewish
novel. This is especially true in his collection of short stories,
Hearts of Gold (1979) – which won the Somerset Maugham
Award in 1981 – and Bedbugs (1982). His later works are Cosmetic
Effects (1989), Augustus Rex (1992), and Diaspora Blues:
A View of Israel (1987).
Elaine Feinstein is another Anglo-Jewish writer who,
over the last decade, has consistently produced fiction of the
highest literary excellence and has demonstrated a profound
engagement with European history. Her fiction, especially
Children of the Rose (1975), The Ecstasy of Dr. Miriam Gardner
(1976), The Shadow Master (1978), The Survivors (1982), and
The Border (1984), all demonstrate the persistence of the past
in her characters’ lives. Apart from The Survivors, all of these
novels have a continental European setting. That is, Feinstein’s
fiction has successfully drawn on European Jewish history in a
bid to understand her own sense of Jewishness. In recent years
this has been clearly focused in her autobiographical The Survivors,
set in England, and her less overtly autobiographical
The Border which is set in Central Europe in 1938. The Border
received high critical acclaim. The novel, using the form of a
collection of letters and diaries, enacts the irrevocable march
of history leading up to the outbreak of World War II. In juxtaposition
to this historical backdrop, Feinstein’s rare lucidity
evokes her characters’ passionately differing sense of reality.
Bernice Rubens’ Brothers (1983) utilizes modern Jewish history
in more expansive terms than Feinstein, but, perhaps because
of this, with less success.
The growing strength of British-Jewish writing is further
indicated by a younger generation of Jewish novelists
which is now emerging. Work by them includes Jenny Diski’s
Like Mother (1988), Will Self ’s Cock and Bull (1992), and
Jonathan Wilson’s Schoom (1993). When this writing is coupled
with the plays of a number of young Jewish dramatists
such as Diane Samuels, Julia Pascall, and Gavin Kostick,
then the future of British-Jewish literature looks particularly
healthy.
The last decade has demonstrated that there is a coincidence
of interests between English literature in general
and the concerns of the Anglo-Jewish novel. In recent years,
much of the best English fiction looks to Asia, the Americas,
and continental Europe for its subject matter and sense of
history. It is not uncommon, therefore, for non-Jewish writers
to incorporate Jewish history into their novels. With regard
to the Holocaust, two of the most prominent examples
of this phenomena are Thomas Keneally’s Booker Prize winning
Schindler’s Ark (1982) – based on the life of the righteous
gentile Oskar *Schindler – and D.M. Thomas’ controversial
The White Hotel (1981).
[Bryan Cheyette]
Bibliography: E.N. Calisch, The Jew in English Literature
(1909), includes bibliography; D. Philipson, The Jew in English Fiction
(1911); M.J. Landa, The Jew in Drama (1926; repr. 1969); H. Michelson,
The Jew in Early English Literature (1926), includes bibliography;
L. Magnus, in: E.R. Bevan and C. Singer (eds.), The Legacy of
Israel (1927), 483–505; W.B. Selbie, ibid., 407–33; E.D. Coleman, The
Bible in English Drama (1931), a bibliography; idem, The Jew in English
Drama (1943; repr. 1970), a bibliography; H.R.S. van der Veen, Jewish
Characters in Eighteenth Century English Fiction and Drama (1935), includes
bibliography; M.F. Modder, The Jew in the Literature of England
(1939), includes bibliography; J. Trachtenberg, The Devil and the Jews
(1961), includes bibliography; J.L. Blau, The Christian Interpretation of
the Cabala in the Renaissance (1944); A.M. Hyamson, in: Anglo-Jewish
Notabilities (1949), 4–73; J. Leftwich, in: Jewish Quarterly (Spring
1953), 14–24; A. Baron, ibid. (Spring 1955); H. Fisch, The Dual Image
(1959); idem, Jerusalem and Albion (1964), includes bibliographical
references; D. Daiches, in: L. Finkelstein (ed.), The Jews …, 2 (19603),
1452–71; E. Rosenberg, From Shylock to Svengali (1960), includes bibliography;
G.K. Anderson, The Legend of the Wandering Jew (1965);
M. Roston, Biblical Drama in England (1968), includes bibliography;
D.J. DeLaura, Hebrew and Hellene in Victorian England (1969), includes
bibliography; Shunami, Bibl, 248ff.
440 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6