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“Rabbi��, a simple Jew asks in Fiddler on the Roof, “do you have a blessing for the tsar?�� The rabbi responds, “May G-D bless and keep the tsar…far away from us.�� As comical as this movie line seemed, life in tsarist Russia were dangerous times to be a Jew. Law abiding citizens feared successful Jewish businessmen, and Cossacks instigated pogroms on Jewish shtetls with hope of eradicating them. Most Jews, most likely my family included, were concentrated in the Pale of Settlement, which is located in present day Ukraine. Other than the Pale, Jews knew that life could be dangerous and best to get out of the country while they still could. My family immigrated to the United States between 1905 and 1910, avoiding the last dark days of the tsar and the equally dangerous days of revolution. Most likely, Bernard Malamud’s family left Russia during those dark days as well or he would not have been present to write a griping novel about a Jew who was scapegoated for the murder of a Russian boy. Malamud, one of a group of gifted Jewish writers in the mid 20th century, would win both the national book award and the Pulitzer Prize for The Fixer,a tale about a simple Jew who most likely wished that the tsar was as far away from him as possible.

Yakov Shepsovitch Bok was a simple Jew who lived in the pale of settlement with his wife Raisl and her father Shmuel. While it was not a beautiful life, it was simple within Bok’s means. He worked as a fixer, a handyman, and did not have much, but at the end of the week had enough kopeks to fund a shabbos meal for his family. One thing that Yakov desired was children, but after six and a half years Raisl remained childless. According to Jewish law, a man can divorce his wife after ten years if his wife has not produced any children. Yakov grew frustrated with his wife, so she left the shtetl and took up relations with a non Jew. An orphan, Yakov had nothing left in the shtetl even though this was all he knew. He made a decision to abandon life as a religious Jew and adopt the position of free thinker, which he formulated on the teachings of Spinoza. As a non religious Jew without peyos, a yarmulke, and tzitzis, perhaps he could find work in the city of Kiev, and, after earning some rubles, perhaps he could send for Raisl and Shmuel, and they could start a new life in the city or even in America. That was Yakov’s impetus for leaving the shtetl anyway. What he failed to grasp, however, was that life in the city would be worse for Jews than in the shtetl where for the most they were left to do as they pleased, the blessing from Fiddler on the Roof all the more true with each passing page.

The Kiev of the last days of Tsar Nicholas II was not a kind place for Jews. The only tsar who did not officially persecute the Jews was Tsar Alexander III, which is why many Russian Jews will name their children Alexander or Alexandra. Nicholas, on the other hand, blamed the Jews for all the ills in society and placed many Jewish laws on the books, staging pogroms in Jewish villages if he believed Jews to be causing too many problems. The only city where Jews were welcome was Odessa but even that was sketchy, which is why as many Jews as possible left Russia in the last days of Nicholas�� rule. In Kiev, Jews lived in the Podol, a ghetto, and Yakov found a room with one Aaron Latke. He had trouble finding work because most Jews could not afford to pay for his services, and goyim would never employ a Jew at a job that actually earned rubles. Desperate, Yakov began to wonder why he even came to Kiev in the first place; perhaps, life in the shtetl was not so baf after all. His luck began to change when he found a drunkard face down in the snow one evening and brought him home. His reward was forty rubles and employment in the man’s brickyard, along with housing. This man was an antisemite who would never employ a Jew, so Yakov reinvented himself as Yakov Ivanovitch Dugoloshev. As Dugoloshev, doors would open to Yakov that would not be available to him as Yakov Bok; however, even without his garment, Yakov still looked like a Jew and his name, as unique as it sounded, did not fool many, the goyim plotting of a way to do away with him.

Since the early days of Christianity, uninformed gentiles believed that Jews blood let Christian children for part of their Passover rituals. During cycles of heightened attacks on Jews, parents would keep their children inside homes during the days leading up to the Passover festival in case a Christian mob would target them as retribution. In the time around Passover, a Christian boy is founded stabbed to death in a cave outside of Kiev. Even if one or more Christians killed the boy, the easiest thing to do would be to blame a Jew, and the most convenient Jew to scapegoat was Yakov. Jews during the tsar’s rule were thrown in prison without a cause, but in Yakov’s case, he was accused of killing an innocent Russian boy. The last seventy five percent of the novel deals with Yakov’s confinement in prison and the conditions that deteriorated by the day. Officials responsible for his prison stay and indictment were antisemitic, supported the tsar, and believed the timeless tale of bloodletting children for Passover. None of these men were wont to hear Yakov’s side of the story, much less to let him go free. To these men, he is a Jew even if he used an assumed name and lived as a freethinker rather than a religious person. Any person who exhibited the minutest amount of sympathy toward Yakov throughout his ordeal was found dead. He was left with no allies and hoped that someone in Russia believed him before the indictment went through.

As most of the narrative occurs within the horrid prison conditions and included conversation and contemplation on Yakov’s part, I could only read the text in small doses. Throughout history, Jews have been scapegoats and left to fend for themselves and the whole premise left me frustrated with various emotions boiling through me. That I finished reading this novel about persecution against Jews on a day where Israel buried victims of terrorism was not lost on me. As much as things change, sadly they stay the same. The Dreyfus affair, Yakov Bok, Israeli hostages. It is why it took me a good twenty hours to formulate my thoughts to write here even though I was wowed as usual by Malamud and knew that he had written an award winning novel. Malamud wrote at a time where antisemitism still abounded in the United States. He brought to the attention the plight of Jews in antisemitic societies and perhaps lead people to think, but here in America, it is different, it is a society forged on religious freedoms. Judging by the climate today, America is sadly not different, just late to the ballgame. Yakov Bok had been based on Mendel Beilis, who had been charged on false charges for a similar crime and then miraculously acquitted by a Russian jury. Malamud told this tale and then some, which lead to him garnering awards and accolades for his work. I hope that we as a Jewish people do not need to experience a Yakov Bok again; yet, after yesterday’s world events, I have to keep my faith that that day never comes.

5 stars