Features
Mud: Shtetl to Shoah
By DAVID TOPPER A Note to the reader: I will preface this story with a remark about me. I often write stories and poems using the pseudonym Dee Artea (pronounced D R T, my monogram) when writing in a female voice. But this is the first time I have put Dee into a story.
I’m trying to decide what to do with the document that you’re reading. You’ll see shortly, I’m sure, what I’m talking about – that is, if you read on.
I don’t know what to do. I’m stymied. And it’s all because of this new assistant I hired. Dee Artea, who refuses to tell me anything about her past. Not where she’s from, her family, nor even the origin of her name. Nothing. Beyond her being Jewish, I don’t know anything about her.
Well, to be precise, I didn’t hire her, and I guess calling her an assistant is not quite right either – since we’re living together. So, I can’t really fire her, can I?
Which is why – or, at least, one reason why – I’m stymied.
Plus, it just occurred to me that you may agree with her point of view – and then, so-to-speak, take her side on this matter. Well, so be it. Still, what to do?
Many readers will agree with me. My point-of-view, I’m sure. Yes. I am.
There you go. That’s my friend Dee, butting in and making her point. Forcefully, I would say. What should I do about her, short of putting a password on my computer?
In the meantime, I need to bring in some back-story.
It all started when Dee saw my heart-rending book of Roman Vishniac’s photographs of Jews living in the Pale of Settlement in the 1930s. … Wait, before that: I wanted to write something for the local Jewish paper about the pogroms of the late 19th & early 20th centuries as precursors to the Shoah. … No, that’s not it, either. … I need to go … further back. Yes, here goes.
I first met Dee, who was out of a job. I think she got fired for insubordination and th—
That’s what my boss called it. Actually, I was just correcting his mistakes. Proofreading and such.
Okay, anyway, we met one warm day this past spring when I was sitting on a bench in the English flower garden in Assiniboine Park, reading a book. As she walked by, she noticed that I was reading a book of stories by Sholem Aleichem, so she sat down beside me and started a conversation. She immediately told me that Sholem Aleichem (meaning “peace to you”) was the pseudonym of Solomon Rabinowitz, born in the Ukraine in 1859 and one of the most famous Yiddish writers of fictional stories of shtetl life; but, having witnessed a vicious pogrom in 1905, he emigrated, and eventually settled in New York City for the rest of his life – all of which I already knew (well, maybe not the exact dates).
It was quickly clear that Dee was bright, Jewish, and knew a lot about some of the same things that fascinate me in Jewish culture and history. We “hit it off” as they say. Indeed, it was uncanny how much we thought alike – well, at least, on most things. When we parted and decided to meet on this same bench the next day, I thought to myself: bashert.
That’s a very strong statement, I’d say. Don’t you think?
Yes, indeed.
Well, clearly, I liked her. But I must say that I wasn’t attracted to her. She was friendly and all, but not physically appealing. To be honest, she looks a lot like me – which isn’t a compliment, since I’m a man. We are moreover about the same height, complexion, and body weight. There’s nothing particularly feminine about her physique and manners. Nonetheless, over time (really the short time we’ve been together) I’ve moved beyond these external matters, as we’ve become closer, a lot closer, as intellectual – and I might even say, as spiritual – mates.
Despite looking alike, we have different personalities. I’m the rational, level-headed guy, calm (at least, externally so) under pressure. Whereas Dee is passionate, compulsive, and readily shows her emotions. Of course, there is nothing unusual about this classic male/female dichotomy. Cliché? Well, so be it.
You know, there’s a reason for all of this, eh?
In subsequent meetings – initially in the park, then later in my home – I showed her my writings and told her about my research and plans for an essay on the 19th & 20th century pogroms, as portending the Shoah. She was very knowledgeable on this topic, and diligently read over the draft of my essay, correcting my mistakes as she went along. Her proofreading I found very helpful and not at all intimidating. Her changes to my original draft made it a much better essay. And I’m thankful to her for it.
As you should be.
Once she moved in with me, she had access to all my books. Quickly she read all the stories I have by Sholem Aleichem, which was the catalyst of our relationship, as you know. Next came Roman Vishniac’s book, mentioned before. Specifically, it’s called A Vanished World, published in 1983, with 180 photographs of life in the shtetls in Eastern Europe between 1935 and 1938.
Either Dee found it, or I pointed it out to her – but, in either case, she read the book and devoured it. She could not stop speaking about it for days – yes, days. She was that obsessed with it.
Yes, and I’m still obsessed because these pictures are almost too painful to look at. They break my heart. They should break yours too.
Yes, I agree. And it occurs to me that this is a good time to bring in some more back-story. Here goes. Roman Vishniac (1897–1990) was born in Russia and grew up in Moscow. In 1918 the family moved to Berlin (ironically because of the rise of anti-Semitism in revolutionary Russia). Hence it was from Germany, although sponsored by – namely, paid for – by the JDC (American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee), that Vishniac made several trips into Eastern Europe to photograph Jewish life. He frequently used a hidden camera to capture everyday life in the world of the shtetl (Yiddish, for “little town”), as immortalised, as was said, in the stories of Sholem Aleichem.
Since his trips took place in the years 1935-1938, the title of his book, A Vanished World, had a doubly tragic meaning: that the world of the shtetls was gone, but so were the lives of the people in the photographs, almost all of whom most likely perished by coldblooded murder. Vishniac himself narrowly avoided being another victim of the Shoah, but luckily ended up in 1940 as a refugee in the USA – alive, yet penniless, trying to make a living by taking pictures of people in and around New York City.
You know, he once took a series of pictures of Einstein.
I know.
Ah, of course, you would know that. Oh, and did you know that there is a crater on the planet Mercury named Sholem Aleichem?
Yes.
As I suspected.
As mentioned, many of Vishniac’s pictures were taken in the Pale of Settlement in Eastern Europe. This was a clearly marked area, roughly comprising Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus, and parts of western Russia and eastern Poland (including Warsaw). It was the creation of Imperial Russia under Catherine the Great and was controlled by the Russian army. Recall, for example, that the Jews in 16th century Venice were segregated or quarantined into what was called for the first time a “ghetto.” Well, I would call the Pale of Settlement that began around the late 18th century, a ghetto writ large. Except for Jews with specific professions, businesses, or other situations (such as Vishniac’s father, when they lived in Moscow), all Jews were forbidden to live or even to just be anywhere outside the Pale (such as in Russia proper) – a rule that was strictly enforced until 1914, around the start of the First World War.
Since Vishniac grew up in Moscow, he had a childhood that was fundamentally isolated from Jewish culture.
Yes, that’s true. Thus, those years in the Pale were his first exposure to shtetl life. Incidentally, to be accurate, the area over which Vishniac roved in those years 1935-1938 encompassed more than the Pale. It also covered other parts of Eastern Europe, such as Austrian Galicia, the Kingdom of Romania, and the Kingdom of Hungary – for they too had shtetls scattered throughout their lands.
Nonetheless, having so many Jews concentrated in such small areas between the east and the west, made them (crudely put) sitting ducks. Or, switching metaphors, the Jewish shtetls were islands in a sea of Christianity, prone to occasional violent storms or even hurricanes of hostility, often resulting in the loss of life. This was true, first with the series of pogroms out of Imperial Russia in the 19th and early 20th centuries in the Pale of Settlement; then, later, as armies criss-crossed Eastern Europe during and between the two World Wars. Whether it was the German army moving east, or the Russian army moving west – it didn’t matter. With the breakdown of the rule of law, murder became ordinary: gentile neighbours just walked in and killed Jewish neighbours, confiscating their homes, belongings, and land. The lawlessness often led not only to brutality, where Jews could be slaughtered where they lived, but also to sadistic acts of humiliation, torture, and rape – before being butchered. Then there were the mass executions where men, women, and children were marched into nearby forests or open fields or over ravines or along riverbanks by German army units, often accompanied by local militia (collaborators), and shot point blank – the bodies then dumped into mass graves or allowed to float down rivers to a grave in the sea.
Do you know what happened in Latvia under German occupation?
Sadly, I do. In German-occupied Latvia, a blue bus of commandoes (Germans and locals) traveled the countryside for six months (July – December 1941) killing the Jews of the towns and villages, murdering over 22,000 innocent children, women, and men – one-third of the population of Jews in Latvia. They went on to assist in other killings, so that the entire Jewish population of Latvia – minus a few survivors – died in the Shoah. These Nazi mobile killing units, roaming throughout Eastern Europe, slaughtered more than one-million Jews – often wiping out entire communities. Such extreme, excessive, meaningless, malicious, senseless, and unprovoked cruelty – is unique in history.
Importantly, today sites of these past atrocities are being excavated in Eastern Europe, as this mass murder is finally, painstakingly, and painfully exposing its gruesome tale.
Yes, finally. Historian Timothy Snyder has called these the European “killing fields.” Let me put it in perspective this way. Probably the common mental image of the Shoah for most of us is that of emaciated prisoners in a concentration camp, such as Auschwitz. However – and this is not commonly known – in fact, more Jews died in these killing fields than in all the camps combined. It’s what has been called “the other Holocaust.”
As you know, I too have read Snyder’s book. I agree with him when he says that “the crime of the Holocaust was unprecedented in that it was the only such attempt to remove an entire people from the planet by way of mass murder.” Indeed, he calls it “the single most murderous outburst in human history.” You know, I sometimes have trouble sleeping at night, knowing so many died in vain, while I’m living peacefully in my bubble in Winnipeg.
Yes, Dee, me too, as you know.
But back to life in the shtetls throughout Europe because there’s more I want to say, starting with another topic that deeply haunts me.
Ah yes, the other Vishniac book.
This other book is titled Children of a Vanished World, published in 1999 (after Roman died) and it is edited by Mara Vishniac Kohn (Roman Vishniac’s daughter, who chose the pictures from her father’s massive oeuvre) and Miriam Hartman Flacks (a Yiddish scholar). The text is in Yiddish (with English translations), plus some poems and music. The main motivating force of the book (for me, at least) is the imagery: 70 black & white photographs, exclusively of children, making it another “Vishniac book” that tugs deeply at the reader’s emotions. So many child Shoah victims: 1.5 million, who perished in the madness of hate – epitomized in these 70 or so innocent faces.
So difficult to look at these pictures and not imagine how, in addition to their already hard lives in the shtetls, they were destined to experience a horrific fate.
To me, the photographs reveal how the life of many shtetl dwellers was, in itself, miserable.
Yes, life in the shtetl was much worse than most of us realize. Actually, it’s there in Sholem Aleichem’s stories, if you look closely.
True, although there were also wealthy Jews here and there. Rich merchants, for example, usually living in large cities, such as Warsaw, Cracow, or Lviv. Perhaps epitomized by the Rothschilds in Paris.
Remember Shalom Aleichem’s story “If I were Rothschild?” An amusing little story where he dreams about what he would do with all that money, starting with paying for his Sabbath meal, then further helping his family, friends, others, and then all the Jews of the world. In fact, with all that money he could end all wars. But then he realizes that the source of all this trouble is money itself, and so he eliminates money altogether.
And so, he ends by asking: How will I now provide for the Sabbath? – thus coming full circle. Which brings me back to the lowly life of most Jews, especially in the Pale and other shtetls, which was economically bleak, with many living in poverty. Women worked almost exclusively in the home, of course. Men were primarily tailors, artisans, shopkeepers, carpenters, cobblers, push-cart peddlers, and tax collectors – as such they often interacted with their non-Jewish neighbours in the village and sometime at weekly fairs. Few Jews farmed because (with some exceptions) Jews were not permitted to own land. When they did own land, what was allotted was often of poor quality for growing crops. Overall, therefore, they were forced to live in the shtetls, where the buildings were shabby wooden structures, and the streets were unpaved.
Yes, and unpaved roads turn to mud when it rains. Mud, mud, lots of mud. Allow me to quote from a landmark book on shtetl life: “In the summer the dust piles in thick layers, which the rain changes to mud so deep that wagon wheels stick fast and must be pried loose by the sweating driver, with the assistance of helpful bystanders. …When the mud gets too bad, boards are put down over the black slush so that people can cross the street.”
Yes Dee. And because of the extensive poverty, Jewish organizations within the shtetls set up a social welfare system, with free medical treatment for the poor. According to some historical statistics, no shtetl in the Pale had fewer than about 15% of Jews receiving tzedakah (charity or relief). Some sources say the number was even as high as over 30%.
There is nothing to romanticize about in such a life. Believe me. A life steeped in mud.
Agreed. Nonetheless, and against these grave odds, the Yiddish-speaking culture flourished. Valuing education and intellectual proclivity, most males were literate (unlike many of their gentile neighbours, such as the peasants).
Here’s a line from a story by Sholem Aleichem: “Earlier in the day the ice had begun to melt, and the snow had turned into waist-high mud.”
The modern Yeshiva system developed too; here students learned Hebrew under a melamed (teacher), of course Hebrew being the alphabet of Yiddish. Showing Jewish fortitude and resilience, they were able to make a life out of the bleak world of the shtetl.
“Joseph the Righteous took my hand and we leaped across the mud. Night was drawing closer and closer, and the mud became deep and deeper. I imagined I had wings, I was being wafted in the air.”
For them the “shtetl” was not the place: it was the people. And the “home” was not the house: it was the family.
“I was plodding through the mud alongside Methuselah, … who pulled his legs from the mud.”
Such dogged spirit produced Sholem Aleichem, whose most well-known creation was Tevye the Dairyman.
“Well, from all the good luck, nothing is left, but nothing, nothing but mud.”
From his stories of Tevye came the Broadway musical and film Fiddler on the Roof. One of the highlights of Fiddler is the scene showing a pogrom, which disrupts the otherwise joy of a wedding scene.
“They slogged through the clay mud and seated themselves on a log.”
As depicted in the play and film, however, this pogrom is mild as far as pogroms go; it’s more like a nasty act of vandalism.
No wonder Philip Roth called Fiddler “Shtetl Kitsch.” And Cynthia Ozick said it was an “emptied-out, prettified romantic vulgarization” of literary master Sholem Aleichem’s Yiddish tales.
One of the first series of pogroms took place in Odessa in 1821, where 14 Jews were killed.
“Around here the mud is so deep that it took the wagon all night to pull through the town.”
But in the late 19th century and into the 20th century it got worse. A series of about 200 pogroms took place from 1881-1884 in the Pale. Thousands of Jewish homes were destroyed. At least 40 Jews were killed and there are reports of 100s of rapes. The next wave was 1903-1906 and much bloodier with over 2000 Jews killed.
“For a time, it even looked as if I might spend Passover axle-deep in mud.”
Thus, from the 1880s to about 1914, over 2 million Jews emigrated out of Russia ending up primarily in the UK, USA, & Canada. I’m sure many readers are where they are today because their forefathers and foremothers came over in one of those human waves.
“She admits that she’s a tinderbox. When a bad mood hits her, she’ll throw mud at anyone.”
Sounds like you, Dee. You, the passionate one.
“We greeted and shook hands, with me knee-deep in the mud.”
But this is enough, already. Stop it. Yes, Sholem Aleichem called attention to the role of mud in shtetl life. So Dee, you’ve made your point.
Time to end this tale. … Now!
And, Dee, you know what? Despite my original misgivings about your insufferable intrusions in my story – I’ve decided to keep them where they are, for they force me to acknowledge the hardship of the Jews in the shtetls. Considering that this culminated in the Shoah, I see them as appropriate for such a terrible tale that is often difficult even to fathom.
From mud in the shtetl to mud in the mass graves – mud has become for me both a reality and a metaphor for all the pain and sorrow of our people in Europe before the rebirth of Israel.
Albert Einstein was mentioned by Dee, and so I’ve added this, to give some levity to what is otherwise grim and depressing.
As mentioned before, when Vishniac was a new immigrant in New York he earned a living by photographing people. One day he traveled to Princeton, New Jersey, where Einstein lived. Vishniac falsely told the guard at the Institute where Einstein worked that they had known each other in Germany, and thus gained access to Einstein’s office. Einstein was sympathetic to a fellow Jew, a refugee too, and thus allowed Vishniac to take pictures of him while he was working in his office that day doing mainly mathematical calculations, either on paper at a desk or on several blackboards on the walls. Among the many famous portraits of Einstein is one by Vishniac, which you will find on the Wikipedia website for “Vishniac.” I must say, however, that I question the assertion there, that it was Albert’s favourite portrait of himself.
I also wish to point out that throughout the 1930s and into the 1940s, Einstein, using his celebrity status, worked tirelessly writing letters and such, to get Jews out of Nazi Europe – and was successful in many cases.
Since Fiddler on the Roof was mentioned above, here are a few comments on it, considering the theme of this story.
First, Fiddler was preceded by the Yiddish movie Tevya by Maurice Schwartz in 1939, a symbolic year, with the start of the Second World War. Although once thought to be lost, a print of the film was discovered in 1978, and it is now in the US National film Registry by the Library of Congress. In black & white, with English subtitles, Tevya is worth watching for historical reasons, but otherwise it also romanticizes the lives of the Russian Jews. Indeed, it ends, not with a pogrom, but a mere eviction of Tevya and his family from the village they were born into. Incidentally, there were also some earlier theatre productions based on the life of “Tevya the Dairyman.”
As for Fiddler – music by , by , and book by Jose – it was first a stage musical in 1964. The title comes from a painting by Marc Chagall (who made a harrowing escape from the Germans by being smuggled out of Nazi-occupied France in May 1941), and as such, the set and scenery of the stage productions mostly reflected the brightly coloured palette of his paintings. The 1971 film, in colour, was probably grittier and more realistic than most of the stage productions. Nonetheless, after watching it again, I must say that it lacks the necessary mud. There’s lots of dirt, well-packed dirt, and the occasional dust – but no mud. Not until the very end, when all the villagers are leaving Russia in the winter, with a layer of snow on the ground; and, at one point, a wagon gets temporarily stuck in a (muddy?) rut, but it’s immediately pushed out – a brief moment, a fraction of a second. That’s it.
Here’s a short, Annotated Bibliography.
- Sholom Aleichem, Favorite Tales of Sholom Aleichem, trans. by Julius & Frances Butwin (New York: Avenel Books, 1983). Note: most sources spell his first name as Sholem. This book contains 55 story stories. Of course, the quotes about mud are clearly Yiddish exaggerations – but, in having done so, they speak of the true misery of shtetl life.
- Wendy Lower, The Ravine: A Family, A Photograph, A Holocaust Massacre Revealed (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021). This is an extraordinary work of historical research. But it’s an extremely painful book to read, for it takes the reader through the details of a specific murder of a woman and a child in the Holocaust. Now, multiply that horror by millions. This book is in the Winnipeg Library system.
- Timothy Snyder, Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning (New York: Tim Duggan Books, 2015). This too is a painful-to-read chronicle of the “other Holocaust” in Eastern Europe, which at the time was the heartland of world Jewry. Multiple copies are in the Winnipeg Library system.
- Roman Vishniac, A Vanished World (New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1983). Out of print. Many of the pictures are mesmerizing. I treasure my copy.
- Mara Vishniac Kohn and Miriam Hartman Flacks (editors), Children of a Vanished World (Berkeley: Univ. of California, 1999). There is a copy of this book in the Winnipeg Library system. As said: it’s heartbreaking to look at these pictures of children – and to contemplate their fate.
- The archives of Vishniac’s estate were deposited in 2018 in the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art & Life in the Library of the University of California, at Berkeley. For the scholars – or future scholars – out there.
- Mark Zborowski & Elizabeth Herzog, Life is with People: The Culture of the Shtetl (New York: Schocken, 1952). 1995 reprint. This is the “landmark” book mentioned in the story. The quotation is from page 61.
Features
“Two Weeks in Toronto” is a sweet romantic novel, but with some major shortcomings
Review by BERNIE BELLAN As the former publisher of The Jewish Post & News, but still publisher of a popular website – jewishpostandnews.ca, I’ve long been inundated with requests to review books.
I tend to ignore almost all those requests – simply because I don’t have other reviewers available who are willing to review books – unlike years past when there were a few different individuals who would be willing to review books for the paper, so it falls on me to do all the reviewing.
Something else that’s happened more and more often in recent years is that authors become their own publicists and can be quite good at drawing attention to their books.
So it was that when I was contacted a month ago by a writer by the name of Amelia Doyle, who asked me whether I’d be interested in reading a book she’d written titled “Two Weeks in Toronto,” the name of that book was familiar to me as Amelia had contacted me last year to ask me whether I’d like to review her book back then.
I did take her up on her offer at that time – and began to read “Two Weeks in Toronto” but, if truth, be told, I lost interest in it. The book had some major flaws – and as romantic fiction I thought it lacked any real spark.
But, when Amelia contacted me again, this time her email noted that the book was a finalist in something called the Canadian Book Club Awards.
Really? I thought. Maybe I was too quick to put that book down – or to turn off my Kindle – as the case may be.
So, I began to read “Two Weeks in Toronto” all over again – with a promise to myself to finish it this time.
I should also add that of the many emails I’ve been receiving in recent years, many have been either from publicists for books or from the authors themselves, and many of the books I’ve been asked to review have been self-published.
It’s not all that difficult to publish a book nowadays and, in fact, many self-published books that I have read have been quite good.
In the case of “Two Weeks in Toronto,” after opening the book again many months after I had first taken a look at it though, I saw that it was published by something called “BRINKLEY Verlag.” I did some research on BRINKLEY Verlag and saw that it’s an Austrian publishing house, but with no information on its website whether it simply publishes books for a fee or whether it actually accepts manuscripts and publishes them without charging the author.
Also, on the title page of “Two Weeks in Toronto,” it says that the book was edited by someone by the name of Kelly McErlean.
Okay – the book had been published by some sort of publishing house and apparently, it had also been edited. I regarded both those things as pluses.
One more thing: I did do some research on Amelia Doyle and saw that she has authored at least a couple of other books: “A Dublin Love Story” and “The Rabbi’s Wife,” so she must have had at least some practice writing novels, I thought. By the way, if you Google Amelia Doyle and see what books she’s written, you can see they’re all described as “sweet romance.”
What does this have to do with my reviewing the book? you must be wondering.
Well, I’ve been in correspondence with Amelia Doyle and she seems such a nice person that I told myself I have to find something good to say about “Two Weeks in Toronto.”
But honestly, I tend to look at the novels my wife likes to read for guidance as to what women like when it comes to romance and many of the titles I see have a mystery element to them – or some rip roaring sex!
Here’s what AI says when you ask it what kind of romance novels women like to read: “Most women enjoy diverse romance novels, from steamy contemporary/spicy reads and funny rom-coms (like Emily Henry) to emotional historical sagas (like Outlander) or ‘romantasy,’ but popular choices often feature strong emotional connection, relatable characters, satisfying happily ever afters’ (HEA), and tropes like enemies-to-lovers or billionaire romance, with recent trends favoring diverse voices and escapism.”
So where does “Two Weeks in Toronto” fit into any of those descriptions, if any?
Well, it does have a romance at the centre of it, but the romance is so predictable that it hardly whets the appetite.
What it does have though, and which might make it of particular interest to Jewish readers, is a female Jewish protagonist by the name of Ciara Walsh. (Ciara, I had to look up, is an Irish name, and is pronounced Kee-ara. What a nice name!)
The person with whom you just know from the outset Ciara is going to fall in love is her dreamy Irish dentist, Ethan O’Leary, tall and blue-eyed – and strange as it may seem: unattached.
At a certain point we find out that Ciara is Jewish – when Ethan comments on the mezuzah on her door, but as to how Jewish she is – well, that was something I began to wonder about as the book went on.
Now, it’s important to note that the book is set right around Christmas – and Chanukah, and the juxtaposition of those two holidays enters into the plot time and time again. There seemed to be so little distinction between the atmosphere pervading both holidays – wintertime, gift giving, family get-togethers, that I wondered whether Amelia Doyle might not be Jewish, but was trying to attract a Jewish audience by injecting some Jewish notes into her book – so I asked her this question: “Are you Jewish in any way, e.g., have some Jewish family?”
Amelia answered: I’m halachically Jewish. “Both my parents come from observant Jewish families and I grew up in a Conservative home.
“Generally speaking, you can find anything from ultra-orthodox to atheist Jews in my family. As you can imagine, living in Europe is not easy as a Jewish person. (I should note that, after further researching Amelia, I discovered that she lives in Dublin.)
“The characters in ‘Two Weeks in Toronto’ were written on purpose in a matter that is more on the liberal side as many of my friends are Reform or in interfaith marriages. This is where the inspiration for this specific book came from.”
In the same email in which I asked Amelia whether she was indeed Jewish, I also noted that I thought the way she intermingled Christmas and Chanukah was deliberately intended to “resonate” with non-Jewish readers.
Amelia responded: “I’m Jewish and there are many ways of practicing Judaism. In this book I decided to write about a non-orthodox Jewish family.”
A “non-orthodox Jewish family?” There’s not much Jewish about them, other than the fact that Ciara’s father, Ian, decided to convert to Judaism when he was younger – for reasons that are totally unexplained. Ciara’s mother, Giuliana (which, apparently, is the Italian spelling for Juliana), is definitely not Jewish, although she doesn’t seem to have much religious orientation either way.
But, let’s not get lost in what is, in essence, a discussion totally irrelevant to this book.
My qualms with “Two Weeks in Toronto” have to do with the writing style – which could have used some good editing. I mentioned that in an email to the author when I was just getting into the book. I suggested that the dialogue could have been much improved had the characters used contractions when speaking, so that for instance, instead of a character saying “I am just stepping out” they could have said, “I’m just stepping out” – which sounds so much more authentic.
Another aspect of this book that drove me crazy is there no explanation for the behaviour of Ciara’s mother, Giuliana, or her sister, Gabriella. Cinderella’s stepmother comes across as kindly compared to Giuliana and, as for Gabriella, who is occasionally referred to as “Bridezilla” by others, well – to use the Cinderella comparison again, she is beyond detestable.
But why? What on earth could sweet, loving Ciara ever have done to provoke such unbridled hatred from her mother and sister? I kept waiting to read an answer – you know, like Ciara was so beautiful that her sister despised her or Giuliana was her stepmother – but no, it’s never explained.
And then there’s Ciara’s relationship with Ethan. Yes, it’s cute how they end up going to Toronto together – to attend Gabriella’s wedding, and they end up sleeping in the same bed together – but without having sex!
So, again, I had to ask Amelia why that was? Here’s what she answered: “In my opinion, most romance books these days are far too explicit. ‘Sweet Romances’ (also known as ‘Clean Romance’) are on the rise again at the moment and this is what my publisher asked me to write.
“Personally, I prefer to have the focus on the relationship and not any sexual relations.
“Not sure about how it is in Canada, but many publishers in Europe as well as the US started publishing ‘clean’ versions of steamier books, not to alienate readers who don’t want to read sexually explicit scenes.”
I’m shattered! “Clean romances” are “on the rise again?” (There’s almost a phallic pun in there, but we won’t go there.)
But hey, it’s almost Chanukah – and Christmas. “Two Weeks in Toronto” is set right around this time of year, so maybe this review is timely. As it’s referred to in the book, this is a book that might make a good read for “Chrismuakkah.”
“Two Weeks in Toronto”
By Amelia Doyle
Published by BRINKLY Vertag, 2024
179 pages
Available on Amazon
Features
Today’s “Anti-Zionist” Propaganda was Nurtured in the Soviet Union
By HENRY SREBRNIK For centuries, Jews have been portrayed, by both religious and secular movements, as obstacles to universal order. Christian theology turned Judaism into the emblem of stubborn particularity. Modern ideologies secularized the script, making Jews stand for capitalism, communism, cosmopolitanism, or cultural decay. In the twentieth century, this logic reached its most lethal form in the fantasy of human renewal through the erasure of Jews, culminating in the Holocaust.
The twenty-first-century iteration recycles the same template in overlapping ways. Islamist movements merge “Jew,” “Zionist,” and “Israeli” into a demonic category whose elimination is a sacred duty. Parts of the Western left have reduced Israel to the very symbol of colonial domination.
What North American Jews are experiencing today, as the ideology of anti-Zionism spreads in left-of-centre spaces, looks eerily familiar to anyone who came of age in the 1970s Soviet Union. Just like antisemites battle against a fantasy of “the Jews” that exists in their own heads, the new anti-Zionists battle a “Zionism” that is conjured up by their own fevered imaginations.
Following the June 1967 war, with Israel’s victory over its Arab neighbours, who were intent on destroying the small Jewish state, anti-Zionism became a central tenet of Soviet propaganda, where “Zionism” was usually equated with self-conscious expressions of Jewishness. It was then that the antisemitic notion of Israel as an heir to Nazism and Fascism was popularized in the Soviet media.
It depicted Israel as the outpost of colonial oppression, Jews as betrayers of socialist internationalism. Soviet propagandists distorted the history of Zionism to underscore its supposedly inherent evil nature, ripping its founders and theorists out of historical context and, absurdly, presenting Zionists as the Jewish people’s greatest enemy. These “rootless cosmopolitans” were accused of corrupting socialism from within. By redefining Jews as racists, Zionism as colonialism, the Soviets handed progressives a vocabulary of virtue through which to disguise an old hatred.
In political cartoons and Soviet propaganda art, swastikas were routinely intertwined with Stars of David, and the Israeli military portrayed as resembling Nazi — and specifically SS — troops. If there is a Soviet propaganda subtext that highlights its ideological and propagandistic roots, it would be “Fascism Under a Blue Star,” the 1971 book by Evgeny Evseev, who had served as an Arabic interpreter for both Soviet leaders Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev. By the late 1970s, he had became one of the principal brains of the ultranationalist antisemitic movement in the USSR, know as the “Russian Party.”
Evseev’s book carried a subtitle redolent of Marxist clichés: “Truth about contemporary Zionism: Its ideology, practice, and the organizational system of major Jewish bourgeoisie.” On the illustration printed next to the title page, there was a black spider with both a swastika and a Star of David on top of its body; the spider’s web was spread over the West, from the United States to Britain, France and Italy.
Perhaps the vilest of all these tracts was “Caution: Zionism! Essays on the Ideology, Organisation and Practice of Zionism,” a 1970 attack by Yuri Ivanov. (By the way, it was republished by a left-wing group, The November 8th Publishing House, in Toronto in 2024.) The book’s singular achievement was to fit classic antisemitic conspiracy theory into the only philosophical framework permitted in the USSR — the Marxist-Leninist one — and rewrite it as anti-Zionist critique.
“Ivanov managed to supply a strong theoretical foundation for openly criticizing Zionism with the help of Marx’s and Lenin’s works, which no one could argue against,” Vladimir Bolshakov, another prominent “Zionologist,” recalled in his memoirs. I remember coming across it in the late 1970s while writing my PhD dissertation on Jews and Communists, and was shocked by its vituperative language and tone, not to mention falsehoods, worthy of the worst Nazi propaganda.
All of this bore terrible political fruit. On November 10, 1975, the United Nations passed General Assembly Resolution 3379, equating Zionism with racism. It remains the foundation stone of antisemitic anti-Zionism. It cast Israel, the collective Jew, as committing today’s ultimate crime. Despite being mass-murdered by Nazi racists, Jews became racists. And despite enduring history’s largest genocide, Jews are now accused of “genocide.”
Communist propagandists enjoyed manipulating words to trigger “Pavlovian” responses, the Princeton Kremlinologist Robert Tucker observed; their “ultimate weapon of political control would be the dictionary.”
Much has been written of late about the deep Soviet roots of today’s virulent anti-Zionism in the West. Some thirty-five years after the fall of the Soviet empire, the Soviet corpse continues to emit its infectious gases and poisons people’s minds and imaginations. After 7 October, parts of the Western Left responded not with horror but with slogans lifted from Soviet propaganda: Israel as colonial, Zionism as apartheid, Jews as global oppressors.
Today’s anti-Zionism is not actually concerned with the relationship Jews have with Israel. It is a project centered on producing villains. In this, it follows its predecessors: antisemitism and anti-Judaism. Antisemites were never concerned with the authenticity of Jewish identity, practice, or behaviour; they sought to construct “the Jew” as a monster.
Anti-Zionism repeats this mechanism, simply substituting “the Zionist” for “the Jew,” while inheriting the same foundational hatred. Failing to recognize that anti-Zionism, whose Soviet and Nazi genealogy reveals that it has nothing to do with Jews and their right to self-determination, is fundamentally a project of constructing fiends.
Antisemitism functions not merely as a prejudice but as a moral language, a grammar that shapes how societies explain disorder and assign blame. It provides simplicity where reality is complex and coherence where the world feels incoherent. For such people, it becomes a battle against a uniquely devious and implacable foe – something that cannot be resolved by elections or arguments, but only by confrontation. The logic points beyond persuasion to elimination.
The only way to be anti-Zionist without being an antisemite is to reject the legitimacy of all nation-states equally. The loudest supporters of Palestinian statehood are not doing that. No one should mistake it, or be taken in by those espousing it, for what it is. We should call it, along with antisemitism and anti-Judaism, as “Jew-hatred.” It is nothing more – or less.
Henry Srebrnik is a professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island.
Features
“Kaplan’s Plot” – newly released novel set in Chicago is both historical fiction and psychological drama
Reviewed by BERNIE BELLAN I had been searching for a new book this summer that would be of particular interest to Jewish Post readers when I came across the title of a new book that had yet to be released, called “Kaplan’s Plot.” It had received quite a bit of buzz on a number of websites that spotlight books that have – at least in part – a Jewish theme, although it still had not been reviewed when I first read about it.
The plot of the book, as it was described in those initial previews, certainly appealed to me, as it was said to combine a story about a Jewish gangster in Chicago in the early part of the 20th century with a modern day story about a man whose life had come completely unravelled and who was forced to return to Chicago to live with his dying mother.
I’ve been a fan of Jewish gangster stories for years, especially ones written by our own Allan Levine – and I’d often published stories about real life Jewish gangsters – or Jewish gangster fighters – as the case may be, in the pages of The Jewish Post & News (also on jewishpostandnews.ca).
Last year, for instance, I wrote a review of a book called “The Incorruptibles,” about efforts by law-abiding Jews in New York City in the early part of the 20th century to fight corruption. You can read my review here: “The Incorruptibles.”
Also, in the past I’ve run stories about Jewish underworld figures who either lived in Winnipeg or had a strong Winnipeg connection. One of the most popular stories ever to appear on our website, for instance (and which is still being widely viewed), is one that was written by Bill Redekopp – a former writer for the Free Press, who had profiled a fascinating Winnipeg bootlegger by the name of Bill Wolchock in his book, “Crimes of the Century – Manitoba’s Most Notorious True Crimes.” You can read Redekopp’s story about Wolchock at “Bill Wolchock.”
Another story that garnered quite a bit of attention when it was first published was Martin Zeilig’s story about Winnipeg-born Al Smiley, which appeared in the March 29, 2017 issue of The Jewish Post & News. The most interesting tidibt in Martin’s story was that Smiley was was sitting beside the notorious Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel when Siegel was murdered in 1947. That story doesn’t appear as a stand-alone story on our website, but you can find it by downloading the entire March 29, 2017 issue by entering a search through our “Search archive” link for Al Smiley.
One more story that dealt with Manitoba Jewish gangsters (and which also referenced the Bill Wolchock story) was one I wrote in 2023 titled “A deep dive into the lives of some shadier members of our community.” In that story I wrote about a book that was about to be published titled “Jukebox Empire: The Mob and the Dark Side of the American Dream.” It was the story of Wolf Rabin (born William “Wolfe” Rabinovitch), written by his nephew, David Rabinovitch.
All this serves as a very long winded preamble to a review of “Kaplan’s Plot.” I was somewhat disappointed to learn that the characters in the book are all fictitious, since the mobsters are so vividly drawn – although there are very brief references to real-life mobsters, including Al Capone, Meyer Lansky and Charles “Lucky” Luciano, that make you wonder whether some of the other mobsters might also have been real people.
According to information available about the author, Jason Diamond, this is his very first novel – a very impressive debut. He certainly brings to life a very nasty Chicago in the early part of the 20th century.
What makes what Diamond has written an even more admirable achievement is that the plot works both as a riveting mystery and as a thoughtful examination of a mother and son relationship.
The story alternates between a story set in modern day Chicago (in 2023) and another story that begins in Odesa in Ukraine in 1909, but soon moves to Chicago shortly thereafter.
At first, we read about a character by the name of Elijah Mendes, who has just returned to Chicago from the Bay area, where a business venture in which he was involved has collapsed. Elijah’s mother, Eve, is dying from cancer, but she certainly retains enough strength to carry on with quite a few activities – enabled by her constant puffing on a vape pen. Eve, it turns out, has been a very accomplished poetess during her life and, although she and her late husband Peter were financially quite comfortable, she scoffs at what she regards as Elijah’s obsession with material pursuits.
Eve doesn’t pay much attention to mundane day to day matters, including opening the mail, but when Elijah discovers a series of letters from something called the Hebrew Benevolent Society, his curiosity is piqued and he sets out do discover what those letters are all about.
The chapters alternate between modern and older Chicago, as we are introduced to the Kaplan brothers – Yitzhak and Solomon or, as they come to be known in America – Itz and Sol. The brothers have narrowly escaped a pogrom in Odesa when their parents were able to secure passage for them on a boat destined for Hamburg. Eventually they find themselves on a ship sailing to America, where they make the acquaintance of a character by the name of Hershey.
Hershey tells the boys that he can help them find a place to live in Chicago, where he introduces them to Avi who, it turns out, is a major figure in the Jewish underworld there.
Diamond provides a rich description of what life was like in Chicago back in the day when the city was divided among different ethnic groups who held sway over their own respective territories and when it was dangerous to cross over into the wrong part of town.
As the story develops, we learn that Elijah is actually the grandson of Itz Kaplan, but knows nothing about his grandfather’s very shady past – beyond having been told that he was a “businessman.” When he goes to the building housing the Hebrew Benevolent Society, however, he finds out that there is an entirely new aspect to his family’s past – which leads to his wanting to probe deeply into his family’s history.
Elijah’s own demons – including past drug addiction, a failed marriage, and a deep insecurity about his own ability to succeed in business, come to the fore, but his mother’s refusal to discuss her family’s history haunts him even further.
As the book moves in parallel tracks between two time periods we find out more about Itz Kaplan – and just how malevolent a character he was. And, at the same time as Elijah learns more about Itz, he begins to better understand why his relationship with his mother had gone off the rails.
The mystery of what happened to Itz’s brother, Sol, about whom Elijah had not even known had existed, figures into both stories – the one set in early 20th century Chicago, and the one set in modern Chicago, as Elijah tries to get his mother to open up about her family.
Jason Diamond provides wonderful descriptions of some of the minutiae of Jewish life back in the day when keeping kosher was an essential element of Jewish life. Sol, for instance, is a butcher (something that his father was as well back in Odesa) and maintains a rigid observance of all Jewish laws. He is fastidious about adhering to the quite complex details of butchering meat according to the laws of kashrut, for instance.
Itz, in contrast, who has been deeply emotionally scarred by what he saw happen during the pogrom in Odesa, is totally indifferent to Jewish laws. At the same time though, the reader might develop a grudging admiration for just how cleverly Itz is able to navigate the jungle of the Chicago underworld. That’s why I began this review by referring to other Jewish crime figures – all of whom existed. While we might be repelled by their behaviour, we are often fascinated by the cleverness they exhibited in maneuvering through the almost constant danger that manifested their lives. And – it was knowing that they were living on a knife’s edge that often seemed to motivate them as they stared danger in the face.
Ultimately, Diamond brings it all home. The mystery behind Eve’s family is solved and there is some closure to the relationship between Elijah and Eve.
A truly absorbing story – although just released in September, “Kaplan’s Plot” has already garnered many positive reviews. One review on Goodreads, I note however, says that the reviewer is sick of “mob stories.” I suppose it’s quite evident that I’m a big fan of mob stories that have a Jewish element and, if you are a fan of that genre then “Kaplan’s Plot” is sure to capture your fancy. I’m not sure I’d recommend it as a Chanukah gift for the grandchildren, however – unless one of your grandchildren has aspirations of becoming a mobster.
“Kaplan’s Plot”
by Jason Diamond
Flatiron Books
320 pages
Published September, 2025