A Woman's Voice: Sarah Foner, Hebrew Author of the Haskalah.

A Woman's Voice: Sarah Foner, Hebrew Author of the Haskalah

translated by Morris Rosenthal

Dailey International Publishers

Wilbraham, MA 01095

ISBN 0966625129 $21.95 302 pp.

Six works of Sarah Foner are translated from Hebrew into English by Morris Rosenthal, her great grandson. Sarah Menkin Foner was the first woman writer in Hebrew before Hebrew became revived as the national language of Israel. Eschewing Yiddish, excluded her from the popular magazines, but established a place for her within literature as she used her thorough knowledge of rabbinic literature to strengthen her writing through allusions and quotations following the tradition of rabbinic literature. her short memoir, "A Girl Can't Be a Gaon," published in New York (1919), recounts how she persuaded her father to become educated in Hebrew so that she would not be left standing and reciting prayers from the siddur by rote:

"In this house lived Miriam, who earned her bread by helping women to bake and clean and to do all sorts of housework. I opened the door and found Miriam standing and praying. Her head was wrapped in a wide, multi-colored kerchief. The kerchief was tied on both sides of her head, and therefore her head looked as big as a bucket.

I stood to the side without disturbing her prayers and listened closely to every word coming out of her mouth. She was reciting the Shacharit3 prayer, and after the prayers she said in Yiddish, "May blessings and success fall on my little head (kepeleh), Amen, Selah." When I heard her last words I wanted to laugh out loud, but I was afraid that she would tell my father that I laughed, so I restrained myself. But as I walked home together with Miriam, strange thoughts and ideas began to trouble my heart. " (p74)

Her mother was learned in Hebrew and stuidied the weekly parashah with the commentaries of Rashi and ibn Ezra on Shabbat. Defiantly, Sarah demanded to learn Hebrew in a proper manner so that she would not be ashamed of taking her place in the schul, rather than sitting and gossiping in the ladies' galerie. Her father sent her to study Talmud where she was the lone female amongst the male students. Learning Torah or Talmud is not a passive activity, but that of argument and debate, sharpening the student's mind and his ability at repartee. Her mastery of argument is apparent through the interweaving of rabbinic literature into her text and the fluidity of the narrative. She uses techniques of dialogue skilfully to demonstrate argument and draw conclusions, exploiting the knowledge she gained in her studies..

Moreover, she portrays people vividly, bringing them to life in detail with their blemishes and assets. The local characters of Dvinsk ar as brightly colored as a painting from Marc Chagall, filled with restlessness and action. We meet Friedlander, the wealthy Gaonim who gives a wedding party to whom all the poor are invited; but we see also the impoverished who struggle through each day in the midst of squalor and injustice. nor does she whitewash the animosities within Judaism, the split between the Gaonim, the followers 0of the Vilna Gaon and the Hassids:

"In every house, in every study hall and in every store and street, nothing was heard besides, "Mitnaged and Hassid, Hassid and Mitnaged." At first the women made mistakes since they didn't know which butcher shop was Mitnaged and which was Hassidic, and so they mixed up the products. Then there were great problems such as when a man came home from work and sat down to eat, and while eating asked his wife where she got the meat. She told him Yitzchak Fagin's butcher shop, which was the Hassidic butcher shop. He cried out loudly, "Oy, Oy, You have fed me unclean meat!" Or if a woman bought meat from the butcher shop in the house of Leible Kermis, which was the butcher shop of the Mitnagdim, a Hassid would be leaping to his feet and crying out, "Oy, Oy, You have fed me traif meat!" (p17)

In a time of radical change, reform was not only within the Jewish communities, but imposed by outside forces as tolerance edicts demanded that Jews enter the public school systems and be admitted to gymnaziums. Previously, a young man could expect to spend his youth on rabbinic studies or learning Talmud and Torah, but suddenly he was yanked out of his microcosm of Judaism and swept into the macrocosm of the swirling sea of change without. The nineteenth century brought with it widespread industrializaiton as well as colonial wars. With the assimilation of Jews into mainstream society came also the problems of military conscription and national identity.

Foner uses the social issues of her times within her writing to create conflicts between characters and social values. In "The Children's Path," she uses the age-old formula of a farmer with four sons, each choosing a vocation. We know instinctively the stories of the man with three sons who sent them off to seek a fortune or win a princess. The eldest had a black horse and a purse of gold; the second, a chestnut and a purse of silver and the last a hobblehorse made from a broom. We know certain formulas from childhood, anticipating the outcome and cheering the underdog as he overcomes the obstacles put in his way. Foner, too, uses formulas, but she dismisses the sterotypes. Although the outcome may be predictable, the argument is not. Skilfully, she incorporates the use of dialogue from rabbinic literature to set up her four contrasting characters, selecting their professions carefully: rabbi, farmer, soldier and lazybones. The setting is in the period of the Second Temple. Although she manipulates the general details of Josephus to fit her needs, the story is not about history, but about personal goalss and the problems involved in ethics and personal obligations. The conflicts existed then as now: Hellenism versus Judaism; state versus the individual; personal belief versus political demands and the problem of loyalty. When does being loyal suddenly become being a traitor to yourself or your faith?

In the aftermath of World War II dissipating from public memory, Foner eminds us of the vibrant life that preceded the horror of the Shoah, recalling many now legendary names: Rabbi Israel Horowitz, the Lubavitcher Rebbe and the Vilna Gaon all take their places in her dramatic life. Through Foner's eyes we can glimpse the source of modern Judaism with its diversity as factions clash in the past. Her works are significant not only for their historical value or for their feminist and Zionist leanings, but because she can so aptly capture the internal struggles of a people escaping nearly two thousand years of domination of Christianity to discover their own identities as Jews in the modern world. The conflicts as as much internal as external. The bitterness of religious animosity between Christianity and Judaism is exposed in the poignant story of the German convert who studied with Rabbi Israel Horowitz. Being a Jew did not mean only being a second class citizen or serf, in many places in Europe it emant exclusion from professions and universities.Conversion to Judaism often meant making very painful decisions and relinquishing the past.

"My father was the palace administrator (Kammarharar) for King Wilhelm in Germany, but due to illness he was given leave and returned to his estate in Landsberg, not far from Berlin. His name is Erlich. My father is Lutheran and my mother is Catholic." (p56)

The story of the German convert tells so clearly the bitterness that exists today and the struggles of many, many people who were abandoned and orphaned as a result of the Nazi persecution. People survived, but they grew up without the benefit of their heritage, orphaned by history. Throughout Europe, young people search for their identities. In Eastern Europe, after so many years of official atheism, Jewish communities are reviving, but there are many more overgrown graveyards than rabbis to teach the younger generation. The conflicts are the same, but only placed in a different age.