Conversations
with Dr. Gail Staines

Let's Talk About It: Jewish Literature: Neighbors: The World Next Door
With Dr. Pat Gregory and Dr. Julia Lieberman

Gail:   This is Gail Staines, Assistant Provost for University Libraries at Saint Louis University, and I’m here today with Pat Gregory, Assistant University Librarian for Research and Assessment at the Pius XII Memorial Library, and Dr. Julia Lieberman, Associate Professor of Spanish Language and Literature, Sephardic Studies, and Israeli Culture at the University.  Pat and Julia, thanks for joining me today!  You were both recently awarded a grant from the American Library Association to host a book series on Jewish Literature.  The program is called “Let’s Talk About It: Jewish Literature.”  Can you tell me a little bit more about the grant and about the process involved?

Pat:   Yes.  The American Library Association and Nextbook, a Jewish cultural organization that supports reading and books, provide these grants for public and academic libraries to expand their audiences for Jewish literature nationwide, and to recruit new libraries to the “Let’s Talk About It” model.  And the success of this model comes from the simple pleasure of reading a book and discussing it with others.  These informal discussions are lifted to a more rewarding level by bringing in a scholar, in this case Dr. Julia Lieberman, to help connect the text, the concepts, critique, and scholarship.  So in these discussions, Julia will be providing a brief introduction, then there will be discussion among the participants, and then Julia will be wrapping up and summarizing all of the comments.

Gail:   So before people come to the discussion, they should really read the book and then there will be discussion about the text itself.

Pat:   Yes and the books are available for free at Pius Library.

Gail:  Wonderful!  As I understand it, the series has several topics or themes to choose from, such as monsters, love, graphic novels, and fathers and daughters.  The theme you both chose is “Neighbors: The World Next Door,” which is about the relationship between Jewish cultures and their neighboring cultures.  Why did you choose this particular topic?

Julia:   Well, in Jewish studies this is a very important theme, because even though we usually talk about the Jewish people as if we were referring to one group of people only, we are really talking about a variety of peoples.  That is to say, a French Jew for example, or French Jews, for example have developed their own collective identity quite different from Russian Jews.  At the same time, there are also parallels between the experiences of both groups.  So, the relationship between Jewish cultures and their neighboring cultures is a theme that is usually conducive to group discussion such as this one, and this is why I chose it.

Gail:   Very good.  I was reading a little bit about the grant and the series.  One of the requirements of the grant is that the discussion series has to benefit the community it serves and it has to be open to the general public.  In your opinion, how will the series contribute to the cultural life of Saint Louis University as well as the city of Saint Louis? 

Pat:      Well, Saint Louis University has always had a commitment to lifelong learning and the Jesuit mission supports the concept of collaborative partnerships with the broader, local community.  So these “Let’s Talk About It” programs have helped libraries across the country achieve greater visibility in their communities for the past 25 years.  And it attracts potential outreach partners as well, as in this case, providing this five session class for free that can bring together students, faculty, staff, and St. Louis community members.  And when all these people get together, there’s a great intellectual and enriching exchange of ideas.

Gail:   And there are, as I understand it, five books that will be discussed in the series, one book will be discussed at a time, and the first book, A Journey to the End of the Millennium by A.B. Yehoshua will be discussed on September 18th.  The other books that will be discussed are Red Cavalry by Isaac Babel, Neighbors by Jan T. Gross, The Assistant by Bernard Malamud, Mona in the Promised Land by Gish Jen.  Out of all of the books being discussed in this series, which is your favorite, Julia, and why?

Julia:   Well, instead of giving you just one answer, I’m going to briefly talk about three of the books, since we don’t have a lengthy period of time.  To me, The Assistant by Malamud, is probably the book that I consider the best written book of all the five.  I really enjoy the techniques that the author uses to get into the intimate thoughts of all the characters.  And he does that with a narrator, and when he gets into the thoughts of Frank Alpine, who is a young man (I’m not going to tell too much about the plot) who does quite a few questionable things.  He steals, yet he has his own ethical reasons or explanations for doing that, and he does things that socially are really not acceptable. But we get into his brain so to speak and we really kind of, I think, are able to understand why he does things.  So, of all the five, I would say that this is the best written book. 

However, I think that a book can give you pleasure for other reasons as well, and to me Red Cavalry is a book that has given me a lot of pleasure, perhaps because I don’t know so much about Russian culture, and this is a book about the Red Cavalry, which is made up of Cossacks, Russian Cossacks, going to invade Poland.  And among the Cossacks there is a Jew, who is the narrator and is really the author, Babel.  And I think that this is an incredible experience to see what the Red Cavalry does through the narrator, who is a Jew.  It is a very odd book, if you wish, the things are kind of strange, but it really gave me a lot of pleasure to be able to experience that through reading the Red Cavalry. 

However, if I were to be forced to select one book out of the five, and I’m happy that I don’t have to do that (laughter), but if I were to be forced I would probably select the first book that we are to be discussing, which is A Journey to the End of the Millennium.  This is a book that can be read and understood on many levels, and it’s a book about the encounter at the end of the first millennium, the year 999, so it’s the Middle Ages, the encounter between Sephardic Jews, that is Jews of Arab Lands, in this case Morocco, or the South of Spain, and Ashkenazi Jews who are the Jews from Europe, mainly from Prussia, Poland, Germany, and so on. But it is truly a kind of allegory of the end of the second millennium, which is when the book was written and published, at the end of the twentieth century.  I think the book was published in the year 2000.  And it really is talking about one of the many challenges that Israeli society has to deal with today, and it’s really the encounter between Ashkenazi Jews and Sephardic Jews, which is really, there are problems, the Sephardim, the Sephardic Jews, are a minority in Israel today, but in numbers they are perhaps even more than the Ashkenazi.  And the Ashkenazi are the really ones that founded the state of Israel, the Zionists.  So the encounter between, so to speak, the East and the West has not been very smooth, because it is quite a challenge.  And I think the book can be understood on many levels, and one level is that there is hope that they will understand, that the two groups will understand one another. 

I don’t know if any of you have read the book, but it is about a Sephardic Jew who has two wives and goes to Paris in the Middle Ages, in the year 999, with those two wives and obviously is rejected by the Ashkenazi Jews but mainly by a woman, his sister-in-law.  She is the one that really confronts him, and there’s nothing he can do about it, he has two wives at the moment, but very conveniently one of them dies at the end, so he doesn’t have to get rid of any of the wives, but he goes back to them to bury her, but also to make peace with them.  So I think the author is really giving a very strong message of tolerance, because there are many places in the novel where the two groups really have harmony, where they are conducting Jewish services and so on.  But I think he’s also making a very strong statement that the treatment of women, really, among the Sephardic Jews, or Jews of Arab lands, to have more than one wife and all of that, is not really a part of the modernity of today, and that it has to end.  So I think it has a very, very strong message to understand contemporary Israeli culture.  And that’s why it’s my favorite book. 

Gail:   It sounds like each book was selected very carefully.  From your descriptions, Julia, each sounds like it has a very rich, strong theme, and as you start to explore the themes, the sense of how we live and work together will emerge.  As I understand it, if anybody wants to participate in the program, they can attend one program or all of the programs, there’s a choice there.  All of the programs are here at Saint Louis University at the Pius XII Memorial Library.  Each session will have a free book.  As I understand it participants will receive an actual copy of the book at no cost, there will be refreshments, and free parking!  So, you can’t beat free!  If you would like more information on “Let’s Talk About It: Jewish Literature: Neighbors: The World Next Door,” please contact Pat Gregory at (314) 977-3107.  And, Dr. Patricia Gregory and Dr. Julia Lieberman, thank you for joining me today.