Between Allegory and Symbol, between Laughter and Tears: Mendele the Book-Peddler and the Negation of the Diaspora

Abstract

This article re-examines a common and long-standing interpretative practice, which many critics employed for interpreting the Hebrew works of Mendele the Book-Peddler (Shalom Yaakov Abramovich, 1835-1917). Consistent with a softened version of the ideology of negation of exile, this political-literary practice established Abramovich’s Jewish Shtetl as a canonical epitome of expressive-realist accomplishment. According to this view, Abramovich wrote a definitive literary depiction of the ‘real’ Shtetl, while at the same time allowing modern Jewish readers to criticize that form of life from a safe, modern, ‘territorialized’, position. Following a symbolic line of argumentation, followers of that tradition contended that Mendele the Book-Peddler used his unique position vis-à-vis the Shtetl for providing us a tidy object of historical and political knowledge. Once rigorously objectified by Mendele’s sharp discourse, the Shtetl is then delivered to the modern readers for ‘post-exilic’ criticism. Thus, the typical Jewish town becomes both an object of nostalgic passion and a target of political criticism. The symbolic harmonization of those two poles facilitates the reconciliation of past and present, a necessary condition for the progressive nationalist-idealist project.

While significant work has been done within this line of thinking – most recently by Dan Miron and Gershon Shaked – my contention is that Abramovich’s Hebrew works rebuff some basic traits of realist representation. Focusing mainly on the narratorial functions taken on by Abramovich, I try to trace some of the ethical and political content that his fractured literary form could suggest to a differentlyoriented readership.