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The legacy of Isaac Babel, Russia’s Jewish Hemingway, is dissected in new Chicago play
CHICAGO (JTA) — All writers strive for a good story. How far they will go to find it depends on their ambition, their wherewithal and their sanity.
Isaac Babel, a Russian-Jewish writer who came from a relatively stable, privileged background in Odessa in the late 1800s, would go to war among Cossacks who murdered Jews, make friends with Soviet agents and then cuckold one of them. The reason why Babel constantly put himself in harm’s way may have been simple, according to another writer.
“I think he wanted something to write about,” said Rajiv Joseph, whose play at Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago, “Describe the Night,” centers on Babel. “He was a young man who had wanted to be a writer but had nothing to write about.”
“Describe the Night” blends three stories from different eras that engage with questions of who controls the truth. The first portrays Babel, the Soviet secret police head Nikolai Yezhov and Yezhov’s wife, Yevgenia, with whom Babel begins an affair. The second follows a young Soviet agent rising through the ranks just before the Berlin Wall falls, and the third dives into a conspiracy behind a 2010 plane crash near Smolensk, Russia.
Babel himself may not rise to the ranks of Tolstoy or Dostoevsky in terms of immediate name recognition in the United States, but the journalist, author and playwright is remembered as one of Russia’s preeminent 20th-century writers. His modernist and bloody tales in “Red Cavalry,” a collection of short stories inspired by his time on the frontlines of the Polish-Soviet War of 1919, vaulted him to the status of a Russian Hemingway. The pithy American war correspondent once expressed his admiration, perhaps even jealousy, of Babel’s writing, saying “Babel’s style is even more concise than mine.”
Like Hemingway, Babel went to war in search of a good story. Combat itself was not the only threat to him: as a Jew, he bore witness to the Cossack cavalry’s antisemitic atrocities. Babel tamped down his Jewish identity while covering the war, though he would feel a sense of isolation in both societies or as his grandson would later describe him “a Jew among the Cossacks, and a Cossack among the Jews.” In his own diary, Babel wrote “Talking to the Jews, I feel kin to them, they think I’m Russian and my soul is laid bare.”
Joseph, who is not Jewish and authored the Pulitzer-nominated play “Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo,” had read “Red Cavalry” years ago but was inspired to write “Describe the Night” after discovering the poetic journal Babel had kept during the war. The title of the play comes directly from the diary, which repeats the word several times in Babel’s own prompts to describe things ranging from kitchens to marketplaces to women to horses. Sometimes Babel successfully answers his own prompts by forcing himself to write, and other times he doesn’t, Joseph said.
Lead actor James Vincent Meredith is also not Jewish and admitted he had concerns about “the choice of casting a black man in the role of a Jewish man living in the world of Russia, the Ukraine and Paris.” He partly found his way to the character by watching the 2015 documentary “Finding Babel,” which follows Babel’s grandson across Russia and Ukraine as he searches for his famous ancestor’s remains.
“I can read Babel’s work (I have), I can travel to Israel (I have, decades ago), I can take Hebrew as an elective in college (I did, not very well), I can read Chaim Potok (I have). But these are at their best, however well intentioned, tourist pursuits for one who is not Jewish,” he said. “I will never come close to knowing the true soul of a Jewish person. Thankfully, Rajiv has created this character that by his design, anyone can inhabit.”
Yasen Peyankov and James Vincent Meredith in a scene from the play about Isaac Babel. (Michael Brosilow)
He added that the play isn’t meant to be historically accurate. “The character of Isaac, as well as others in the play, is meant to be an entry point into a world where the scalpel crafting the ‘truth’ is rarely placed in the hands of those who are adversely affected by it. As a black male and father of a black male in the U.S., I’m certainly cognizant of that world.”
Joseph feels that he and other artists share the instinct Babel had to leave his comfort zone. He wanted to be a writer, but growing up in suburban Cleveland gave him little inspiration. After college, he joined the Peace Corps and spent three years in West Africa.
“That was a real life-changing event for me that opened my world and opened my mind,” Joseph said. “Not nearly as traumatic as traveling with the cavalry through Poland in 1920, but the same impulse to break out of your norms.”
Yet Joseph believes Babel’s desires went beyond pushing boundaries and into a deep, pathological need to associate with danger.
“The thing I find really interesting about Babel, both through his writing and through his personal life, is this inexorable draw towards danger and filth,” Joseph said, adding that Babel would hang out in taverns with Soviet soldiers, members of the secret police and executioners like Yezhov. “He was already treading on such thin ice. So he had a recklessness, you could call it a death wish if you want.”
Meredith was also stunned by the writer’s intense flirtations with danger.
“Why get that close to the flame? That to me is one of the things that really appealed to me about this guy,” Meredith said. “I tend to play it safe, as safe as an actor can play it, but I see this guy who had these kinds of desires, he had this quest to make this amazing art as far as his stories and I just I’m just so attracted to that.”
Joseph said he saw some parallels between Babel’s story and the exodus of some of his artistic peers in Russia, who have fled to Europe. In his time, Babel was seen as subversive by nature, existing as a Jewish man in early Soviet Russia. His relished writing about prostitutes and mobsters, transforming underworld characters into urban legends. His 1935 political play “Maria” was canceled during rehearsals and by 1939, Soviet police arrested him and confiscated his writing. Throughout the 1940s, his works disappeared from circulation. Though some believed Babel had spent time throughout that decade in a prison camp, the government had executed him in 1940.
“In the 1930s and ‘40s, I think if you are a Jewish creative writer, you’re automatically subversive,” Joseph said. He noted one pivotal scene where Nikolai Yezhov labels Babel as such because his writing portrays Russia as gloomy rather than inspiring.
“If you’re telling the truth, you are subversive,” Joseph added. “So I think that pretty much any creative writer worth his or her weight would be considered subversive at that moment.”
“Describe the Night” runs until April 9 at the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago.
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The post The legacy of Isaac Babel, Russia’s Jewish Hemingway, is dissected in new Chicago play appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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French Court Cuts Sentence for Teen in Antisemitic Gang Rape of 12-Year-Old Jewish Girl
France, Paris, 20/06/2024. Gathering at place de la Bastille after the anti Semitic rape of a 12 year old girl in Courbevoie. Photography by Myriam Tirler / Hans Lucas.
More than a year after the brutal gang rape of a 12-year-old Jewish girl, a French court has dramatically reduced the sentence of one of the two teenagers convicted in the attack, citing his “need to prepare for future reintegration.”
On Tuesday, the Versailles Court of Appeal retried one of the convicted boys — the only one to challenge his sentence — behind closed doors, ultimately reducing his term from nine to seven years and imposing an educational measure, the French news outlet Le Parisien reported.
“The court took into account the entire case as provided for by law: the facts, their seriousness, but also the personality of the minor and the need to prepare for future reintegration,” the boy’s lawyer Melody Blanc said in a statement.
The original sentences, handed down in June, gave the two boys — who were 13 years old at the time of the incident — seven and nine years in prison, respectively, after they were convicted on charges of group rape, physical violence, and death threats aggravated by antisemitic hatred.
The third boy involved in the attack, the girl’s ex-boyfriend, was accused of threatening her and orchestrating the attack, also motivated by racist prejudice.
Because the girl’s ex-boyfriend was under 13 at the time of the attack, he did not face prison and was instead sentenced to five years in an educational facility.
The lawyers of the victim, Muriel Ouaknine-Melki and Oudy Bloch, praised “the courage of [their] client” for confronting her attackers and ensuring that two of them were imprisoned.
According to police reports from the time, the two French boys cornered the girl on June 15, 2024, inside an empty building in Courbevoie, a northwestern suburb of Paris, questioned her about her Jewish identity, and then physically assaulted and raped her.
The assailants who were Muslim also allegedly called the victim a “dirty Jew” and uttered other antisemitic remarks during the brutal gang-rape.
Under threat of death, she was forced to perform penetrative and oral sex on two of the boys, while her ex-boyfriend threatened to burn her cheek with a lighter and attempted to make her sit on her handbag, which he had set ablaze.
Local reports indicate that part of the assault was recorded, and at least one assailant allegedly demanded 200 euros from the girl to withhold the footage, which was eventually circulated.
The ex-boyfriend sent footage of the assault to a boy the girl had gone out with that afternoon, with the message “Look at your chick,” according to law enforcement. After receiving such a message, the boy informed the girl’s family, who found her an hour after the attack.
“Before letting her leave, they made her swear on Allah not to say anything and that she should not tell anyone, neither her parents nor the police,” the girl’s mother told Le Parisien at the time.
The three-day trial, held behind closed doors, took place in a regional juvenile court in Nanterre, a suburb west of Paris.
During the proceedings, the judge explained that the severity of the sentence came “in view of their concerning personality traits and the immense social disturbance.”
“There is no doubt that [the victim] would not have been assaulted or raped if she had not been Jewish,” the judge said at the time.
The brutal crime sparked outrage throughout France and among the Jewish community, unfolding against the backdrop of a disturbing surge in antisemitism that has gripped the country since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
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Miami Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa says he wants to play an NFL game in Jerusalem
(JTA) — The phrase “Next year in Jerusalem” is customarily spoken at the end of the Passover seder. But this past weekend its sentiment was conveyed at the end of a different kind of gathering: a low-scoring NFL game between the Miami Dolphins and Washington Commanders.
“Shoot, it’d be pretty cool to go play in Jerusalem,” Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa said postgame.
The game — which the Dolphins won 16-13 in overtime — was the NFL’s first in Spain, as part of a growing international series that’s seen contests played in England, Germany, Brazil, Ireland and Mexico.
Tagovailoa, a Christian, was asked where else he’d like to play after experiencing Madrid and previously Frankfurt, Germany. And his answer caught the eye of a high-ranking diplomat: Mike Huckabee, the United States Ambassador to Israel.
“Tua is right,” Huckabee wrote on X. “Bringing an NFL game to Israel is a great idea. Next year in Jerusalem…I like the sound of that.”
The suggestion comes amid an increasingly contested role for Israel as a host in global sporting events. EuroLeague basketball is supposed to return next month, and officials from the league are in Israel now to assess conditions before finalizing the plan.
Soccer, too, has been a fraught space for Israeli participation. The Union of European Football Associations had been set to vote on suspending Israel but paused the process after the ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza that began last month. Some want the organization to return to the deliberations, with Ireland’s soccer federation submitting a motion earlier this month to ban Israel from all UEFA competition for “organising clubs in occupied Palestinian territories without the consent of the Palestinian FA” and “the alleged failure of the IFA [Israel Football Association] to enforce an effective anti-racism policy.”
Tagovailoa’s comments on playing in Israel did not mark the first time speaking about the country during a postgame media availability. Following a home game on Oct. 15, 2023, Tagovailoa paused the press conference to talk about Hamas’ attack on Israel, which had taken place just over a week earlier.
“I didn’t really realize how bad things were in Israel,” Tagovailoa said. “And just wanted to bring to the attention for those who don’t necessarily understand things that are going on, that it really is bad.”
He added, “I don’t know what we’ve come to, but just my thoughts, my prayers are out with those people in Israel,” continuing on to note that there is “also the Ukraine and Russia war still going on as well.”
There has been no indication from the NFL about a potential game in Israel, though Robert Kraft — the American billionaire owner of the New England Patriots, who is Jewish and founded the Blue Square Alliance against Hate, formerly called the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism — sponsored the construction of the Kraft Family Sports Campus in Jerusalem, which includes an American football field. The adjacent park, Gan Sacher, is routinely home to informal football and flag football games.
Meanwhile, the capacity of Jerusalem’s largest stadium, Teddy Stadium, is just 31,000. Attendance at the NFL’s international games have ranged from upwards of 86,000 to, at their lowest, 47,000.
The post Miami Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa says he wants to play an NFL game in Jerusalem appeared first on The Forward.
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‘Pure Astonishment’ and other new Yiddish poems
דער פּאָעט באָריס קאַרלאָוו (פּעננאָמען פֿונעם ייִדיש־פּראָפֿעסאָר דובֿ־בער קערלער) ברענגט דאָ אַ קראַנץ נײַ־געשאַפֿענע לידער אויף פֿאַרשידענע טעמעס — די נאַטור, ארץ־ישׂראל, אַפֿילו „איי־אײַ“. לייענט און האָט הנאה! [רעד׳]
הוילער וווּנדער
ס׳איז אַוודאי שווער צו זאָגן
וועמען האָסטו מערער ליב:
צי דעם פֿרילינג ערבֿ טאָגן,
צי דעם אָסיען שאַרלעך טריב?
און אַפֿילו גרינעם זומער
האָסט אַוודאי גאָרניט פֿײַנט,
און מיט ווינטערדיקן קומער
גרייט ביסט אויכעט ווערן פֿרײַנד…
ס׳איז אוודאי שווער באַשליסן:
וועמען האָסטו מערער האָלט
צי דעם רעגן וואָס טוט גיסן
צי די זון מיט איר ריין גאָלד?
איינס איז קלאָר אַז אַלץ – באַזונדער,
צי אינאיינעם – הוילער וווּנדער!
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דין־וחשבון
אַרײַנגעקוקט האָב איך אין מײַן עזבֿון
ווי ס׳קוקט אין סוכּהלע אַמאָל אַרײַן אַ יוון
און ניט געווען בכּוח תּופֿס זײַן גענויער
ווי ס׳הייבט זיך אָן דאָרט הימל
און וווּ ס׳עקט זיך רויערד
אַ הון קוקט אין בני־אָדם מעשׂה־אינדיק
און אויך מײַן קוק איז לעכערלעך און זינדיק
אַקעגן מײַנע שורהלעכס שיריים
וואָס פּיקן קרישקעס ערד
ניט שפּירנדיק שמיים
שמיים — דאָרט איז וואַסער, זאָגט מען,
סאַמע מים־חיים…
צו אַלדי רוחות! הילכט דעם טאַטנס זאָג עד־היום
פֿון יענע וואַסערדיקע הייכן וואָס באַגרינדן
דעם שטילן עכאָדיקן שמייכל
בײַסיק לינדן.
*
למען היושר
ייִדיש, ייִדיש תּרדוף
און ווען טוסט עס דעריאָגן
קריגסטו באַלד אַדעראויף
פֿון טיף ייִדישע יאָגן
און זיי זאָגן אַזוי
ניט אין רו פֿון נירוואַנע
זאָלסט דערגרייכן צום בלוי
וואָס ער טוט דיך מהנה
צו אַנטדעקן אַ וועלט
מיט פֿאַרשידענע וועלטן
נאָר דורך יאָגן צעהעלט
צווישן בענטשן און שעלטן
צווישן ברכה און בראָך
מיט אַ הייסער נשמה
איבער ווידער און נאָך
יעדער טראַף – שם און נאָמען.
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סוף גאָטס פֿרײַטיק
ווען אומרו זיך צום סוף באַרויִקט
און ס׳ווערן אײַנגעשטילט די ברואים
נעם זינגען הלל קרועה־בלוע
פֿאַר דעם באַשעפֿערלס ישועה
פֿאַר דעם באַשעפֿערס גרויסע חסדים
און פֿאַר דעם שעפֿערס אַלטע בגדים
און ווען דער הלל זיך באַגרעניצט
מיט דעם באַשעפֿערס שטילן געניץ
מיט דעם באַשעפֿערלס אַ שמייכל
גראָד ווען דעם שעפֿער דאַרט דער שׂכל
פֿאַרגעס ניט אָפּבענטשן דעם גומל
באַג(ר)יסנדיק דעם גאַסט מיט בוימל
*
לידער מיט ארץ־ישראל
(Singing with Israel)
א.
ס׳איז אַוודאי זייער פּשוט
זאָגן — אַלץ איז שווער און קשה
אַז די וועלט ווערט באַלד פֿאַרברענט,
אַז מע הייבט שוין אויף די הענט,
אַז די האָפֿענונג שוין גוססט,
לעצטע כּוחות גייען אויסעט…
דאָך פֿונדעסטוועגן, מײַן חבֿר,
אַלע ווייסן דו ביסט בראַווער
פֿון די גרעסטע דרייסטסטע ריזן
אַלץ וואָס דו האָסט ניט באַוויזן
וועסט נאָך ניסימדיק באַווײַזן
ווײַל ביסט שטאַרקער נאָך פֿון אײַזן
און ביסט גיכער פֿון אי־מייל
גבֿורות־ישׂראל־מי־ימלל
ב.
די נשמה זינגט און ווייטיקט
נאָר איר ליד קלינגט אײַזן־שטאָל.
טיף געטראָפֿן, שווער באַליידיקט
זינגט זי דאָך מיט ארץ־ישׂראל –
ווידער פֿעלדער אירע גרינע
שטאַרק צעבלוטיקט נאָך אַמאָל…
נאָר די גרוילן באַלד אַנטרינען
ליכטיק ט׳ווערן באַרג און טאָל,
ווײַל דאָס ליד מיט האַרץ טוט שטימען,
דאָס געזאַנג – מיט ארץ־ישׂראל
*
וווּ לעבט אײַ־אײַ־אײַ?
כ׳האָב געפֿרעגט בײַם איי‐אײַ
וווּ עס לעבט אײַ‐אײַ‐אײַ
האָט ער גלײַך מיר געזאָגט
וווּ דער אײַ‐אײַ‐אײַ טאָגט
בלויז פֿאַרשוויגן פֿאַרדעכטיק
וווּ דער אײַ‐אײַ‐אײַ נעכטיקט
כ׳טו אַ שרײַ: דו, איי‐אײַ,
ביסט אַ שטיק שאַלאַפּײַ,
זאָג מיר גיך, כ׳מאָן מיט רעכט,
וווּ פֿאַרברענגט ער די נעכט?
ס׳טוט אָ זאָג דער איי‐אײַ:
אײַ‐אײַ‐אײַ פֿליט פֿאַרבײַ
איבער קלאַנג וואָס ווערט שטום
דאָרט וווּ ס׳דרעמלט די זון.
*
נײַע קלאַנגען
ס׳נעמען קלינגען העראַקליטיש
און היברידיש — נײַע קלאַנגען
און מע זאָגט: ס׳האָט מאַמע ייִדיש
יונגע הערצער שטאַרק געפֿאַנגען
און דו פֿרעגסט זיך: טאַקע ייִדיש?!
פֿרעגסט זיך אָן אַ שמץ באַנג און
ווערסט געפּלעפֿטערהייט פֿאַרחידושט
פֿון דעם קלעזמערישן טאַנגאָ –
כּלל ניט פֿאָטעריש, ניט מאַמיש,
ניט קיין היימיש לשון־קודש
אויך ניט חוצפּהדיק דינאַמיש
צו דער וועלט אַ פֿרעכער ״הודו״?!
מילא, זאָל דאָס אויך זײַן ייִדיש
צי מיט גראַמען, צי אָן גראַמען
בעת אין טײַך קלינגט העראַקליטיש:
אוי, אַ וויי איז צו דער מאַמען!
*
אַ לידל פֿונעם אַלטן גולם
כ’האָב אַרײַנגעקוקט אין סוואַרבע
און דורך תּיבות דאָרט דערזען
אַז דו וועסט צו מיר נאָך קומען,
ממש קומען ווען־ניט־ווען!
כ’האָב אַרויסגעכאַפּט אַ גמרא,
ברייט צעעפֿנט און וואָדען? –
וועסט צו מיר, שטייט דאָרט אַ סבֿרא,
ווידער קומען ווען־ניט־ווען!
כ’האָב גענומען הערן תּורה
פֿון דעם הייליקן בעל־שם
איז ער אויכעט מיך מעורר:
אַז אָט קומסטו ווען־ניט־ווען!
שטיי איך, שוין אַן אַלטער גולם,
שטאַרק צעטומלט און פֿאַרקלעמט:
זאָג, אויף דעם, צי יענעם עולם
וועסטו קומען ווען־ניט־ווען?
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אַצינדערט
אַצינדערט מעג מען זינגען שיר־השירים
אַזוי פֿיל מילדע לאַסקע רינט אין ווערטער
וואָס שטייען אויפֿעט שטײַף צו מילדקייט אירער
דער געטלעך פרײַער שכינה אויסגעקלערטער
פֿון מינדסטן פּגם און פֿלעקיקן חיסרון
אין ריינקייט אויסגעוואַשן, אויסגעבאָדן
ווען אַלץ וואָס מ׳מעג, וועלן די ווערטער טאָרן
מיט שבֿח צום איינציק לעבעדיקן אָדון
און ער, דער שבֿח, וועט שפּאַלטן שווערע הימלען
צום סאַמע האַרץ פֿון דופֿקדיקן לעבן
און וואַסערדיקער הייליקייטס געווימל
וועט צו דער ערד־און־באָדן פֿלײַסיק שטרעבן
געדענק און בענטש דאָס ליד פֿון אַלע לידער
און קוק אַוועק פֿון נישט וואָס אייביק נישטיקט
און ווען דײַן ווערטערגאַנג ווערט לויזער, מידער
און ס׳רינט אַוועק דער אַפּעטיט צום פֿרישטיק
דערמאָן זיך אין דעם חן פֿון גרויסן חסד
דערקוויק זיך מיט דערוואַכונג וואָס שטײַגט איבער
די אותיות צוויי פּיי נון טיף אויסגעטעסעט
אויף לוחות פֿון דײַן האַרץ ווי שאָטנס טריבע
און זינג און זאָג מיט האָפֿערדיקע קלאַנגען
צעוואַקלדיק דעם מיזמורס שטײַפֿע כּללים
מיט שטורעמדיקע דראַנגען און פאַֿרלאַנגען
צעשטערנדיק דער וועלטס הבֿל־הבֿלים
The post ‘Pure Astonishment’ and other new Yiddish poems appeared first on The Forward.