Customer Reviews

The Jewish War: A Novel (Library of Modern Jewish Literature)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The other reviewers' notes on this book's humor notwithstanding, do not expect to laugh out loud, IMHO. Although Reich valiantly attempts to convey an important story through humor, her approach ultimately fails to make good on the best outcome of humor: to take us out of our limited perspectives and connect us to deeper meaning. The book does convey the deep emptiness of fundamentalist thinking and its spiritual depletion. Unfortunately, unless you can follow Reich's path closely, the novel itself has that feel by the end, not having created any larger framework of meaning around the profound futility of what is described.

For those who don't know, there are two types of 'ultra'orthodox, those that do not believe in the existence of Israel, and those that believe in the Kingdom of Israel that includes the west bank (Judea and Samaria). Both exist in big helpings in this book. In fact the only sane people are the Israeli Sabras who with everyone, including the Arabs, would shut up and go on with life.

The reason I gave this book three stars is that it has four parts and the first three are great. They are a funny, irreverent, and satiric comment modern day religious extremism. Jerry Goldberg is a messianic orthodox jew who metamorphosis from Bronx social worker and Catskills camp counselor into Yehudi HaGoel, terrorist and polygamous leader of a band of American Jewish zealots who establish a short-lived secessionist Kingdom of Judea and Samaria based at Hebron on Israel's West Bank.

Joining Jerry/Yehudi in this doomed quest are his three wives (a Barnard-educated English literature scholar, a mail-order swindler and a conflicted divorcee); Jerry's trusted comrade, Herbie Levy (Hoshea HaLevi) of Brooklyn; and fellow Uzi-toting fanatics willing to die for their cause. Swinging from broad farce to tragic confrontation. Also along is the Reverand Charles 'Chuck' Buck, fast-talking evangelical preacher who joins forces with Yehudi to further his goal of building a Christian theme park on Jerusalem's Temple Mount.

Buck's sister Pam, has converted to judaism; to swell the ranks of The Messiah-Waiters, an ultraorthodox, anti-Zionist movement, she kidnaps boys. She is pursued by an old Arab sheikh (the spiritual brother of her blessedly passed on husband), Abu Salman, who's obeying a vision to marry her in order to produce a child.

The Jewish War which starts out as a comic vision of how the orthodox spend their summers in the Catskills, to an overly dramatic conclusion in the ancient city of Hebron. As the story advances, early absurdity and comic exhilaration begin to disappear. At the end, we are left with the absurdity alone, which is a poor foundation for a reasonble ending.

I loved The Master of the Return (which I review here as 'blond omnivore' and more fully on amazon.co.uk, mysteriously as 'a customer') but that addressed human absurdity Candide-style; here, in an all too real situation, the burlesque grows wearisome, the religiosity suffocating and the absurdity toxic; 'she can call herself a leper...if...she likes, but the main question is, What kind of leper is she? I mean, is she a Moslem leper, a Christian leper, a Jewish leper, or what?' In the vexed question of the Land of Israel not even black humour will serve any longer.

PS and the fact that the Pope is visiting the UK right now didn't help any either! But I have hopes of My Holocaust (if that is the right way of putting it...)

This is as provocative and timely a book as it was when it appeared in the middle of the last decade. Achingly funny and profund, it goes far to delineate the psychology and religious doctrine that guides Jewish fundamentalists. It is rare to encounter a book so funny that never diminishes the complexity it aspires to portray. Reich is a magnificient writer and a very sharp thinker.

As in most of her other works, Tova Reich has much to say about Jewish Messianic movements in The Jewish War; for the most part, she shows the horrible outcome when Jews try to bring about the redemption themselves, revealing her knowledge of Jewish history, with its failed Messiahs like Sabbatai Zevi and Jacob Frank. But she adds more modern concerns about cults and their charismatic leaders, making the mass suicide at the end, with shades of Jonestown, all the more plausible. As readers of Reich's fiction know she also brings in characters from previous works, here particularly from The Master of the Return. And as in all of her works (with the exception of My Holocaust) Reich balances satire and pathos like a woman on a high wire.