‘Isaac’s Torah’ entertains on many levels
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Angel Wagenstein turns 100 on Oct. 17. The Bulgarian-Jewish screenwriter and novelist was born in Plovdiv in 1922, the same year that Italy became the first fascist state and Communist Soviet Union was established.
Like Sholem Aleichem’s Tevye, Wagenstein’s Isaac Blumenfeld character is the fictional narrator and protagonist of the novel, “Isaac’s Torah” (Handsel Books).
The novel opens during the World War I. Isaac is the 18-year-old son of a tailor in the small shtetl of Kolodetz, part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the time.
With the break-up of the empire, the town becomes part of the Polish Republic in Isaac’s second book; then part of the Soviet Union in the third book. The town becomes part of the Eastern Territories of the Third Reich in the fourth book, and the Federal Republic of Austria in the fifth book, “Isaac’s Torah.”
With each political change, opinions and social relationships change. Ultimately, the status of the Jewish population remains precarious. As Isaac relates in the novel, “Everything was the result of the political situation.”
According to Wagenstein, the central story of our time period has been political. In his novel, Wagenstein writes, “Everything was the result of the political situation, and I was never interested in politics, just the opposite – politics was interested in me … it was not I who directed the events but they who directed me.”
And like Aleichem’s Tevye, Wagenstein’s Isaac addresses readers and challenges them to laugh. For Isaac, laughter is an act of resistance – even defiance – in the service of survival.
The novel is full of Jewish jokes, amusing anecdotes and humorous elements in dire situations. Like any good storyteller, Isaac has a comical story for every occasion.
For example: Three Jews happened to be together in the same holding cell on their way off to the Siberian prison camps, each according to their crime.
“I’ve been sentenced to 15 years,” says one by way of introduction, “because I was for Moishe Liebermann.”
“I, too, got 15 years,” the second one says, “because I was against Moishe Liebermann.”
“The third one says, “They also gave me 15 years because I am Moishe Liebermann.”
In the early 1930s, Soviet political leader Joseph Stalin began a political campaign to cleanse the Communist Party of people who posed any threat to his control. Between 1936-’38, through the use of terror, assassinations and show trials, more than 7 million Soviet citizens were arrested, most of whom were innocent of any wrongdoing.
As the terror spread across society, people were coerced into denouncing friends, co-workers, and even family members, in an attempt to save themselves. Between 750,000 and 1 million citizens were executed. As many as 1.5 million others were sent to prison camps (gulags) in the northern regions of Russia.
What makes Wagenstein’s novel so powerful is that, as a Communist writer, he chose to reflect on reality instead of sticking to doctrine.
“To this day, I’m still full of regret that, at the time, I unknowingly let myself become a servant at a foreign master’s table as our Rabbi Ben-David used to say,” Wagenstein’s character Isaac confesses.
“Don’t you realize, you fool, that this one, who’s closest to you, whose innocence you’re ready to swear by, is for other people the unknown one and for them, in particular, the true harmful agent? Don’t you realize, you fool, that this is how the mechanism is wound up, to make you full of suspicion towards others, and of others towards you?
“I will never comprehend the hidden meaning, the secret and cherished purpose of this unreal, insane … passion for collective self-destruction … What in fact was the goal, the hidden meaning, or, if you like, the simple benefit of all this?
“You’d be wrong with the answer to my question if you were to rush to generalizations, or if you haven’t noticed, or you haven’t wished to notice, that right next to this world of fear, lawlessness and dark insecurity there existed another, parallel world … the foreign writers and journalists from the Metropol Hotel …”
Like one of those foreign writers, Wagenstein spent his early childhood with his family in Paris. He returned to Bulgaria as a high school student. He became an anti-Nazi partisan during World War II, was captured and sent to a labor camp. He escaped and rejoined the partisans. Captured a second time, tortured and sentenced to death, Wagenstein survived when the Red Army arrived in Bulgaria in 1944.
Wagenstein studied filmmaking in Moscow after the war and became a well-known screenwriter, the author of some 50 films. He didn’t begin writing literature until the 1990s. “Isaac’s Torah” originally was published in Bulgarian in 2000. The translation by Elizabeth Frank and Deliana Simeonova marks the first the novel has appeared in English.
Like the best storytellers, Wagenstein breathes so much life into his characters, particularly Isaac and Rabbi Ben-David, that they feel like real people one comes to know. Wagenstein uses digression, rambling, throwaway lines and comic relief to set up a dynamic interaction between reader and storyteller.
Wagenstein’s centennial is a good time to become acquainted with a Jewish author who is hardly known in the West.
Like Sholem Aleichem’s Tevye, Wagenstein’s Isaac Blumenfeld character is the fictional narrator and protagonist of the novel, “Isaac’s Torah” (Handsel Books).
The novel opens during the World War I. Isaac is the 18-year-old son of a tailor in the small shtetl of Kolodetz, part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the time.
With the break-up of the empire, the town becomes part of the Polish Republic in Isaac’s second book; then part of the Soviet Union in the third book. The town becomes part of the Eastern Territories of the Third Reich in the fourth book, and the Federal Republic of Austria in the fifth book, “Isaac’s Torah.”
With each political change, opinions and social relationships change. Ultimately, the status of the Jewish population remains precarious. As Isaac relates in the novel, “Everything was the result of the political situation.”
According to Wagenstein, the central story of our time period has been political. In his novel, Wagenstein writes, “Everything was the result of the political situation, and I was never interested in politics, just the opposite – politics was interested in me … it was not I who directed the events but they who directed me.”
And like Aleichem’s Tevye, Wagenstein’s Isaac addresses readers and challenges them to laugh. For Isaac, laughter is an act of resistance – even defiance – in the service of survival.
The novel is full of Jewish jokes, amusing anecdotes and humorous elements in dire situations. Like any good storyteller, Isaac has a comical story for every occasion.
For example: Three Jews happened to be together in the same holding cell on their way off to the Siberian prison camps, each according to their crime.
“I’ve been sentenced to 15 years,” says one by way of introduction, “because I was for Moishe Liebermann.”
“I, too, got 15 years,” the second one says, “because I was against Moishe Liebermann.”
“The third one says, “They also gave me 15 years because I am Moishe Liebermann.”
In the early 1930s, Soviet political leader Joseph Stalin began a political campaign to cleanse the Communist Party of people who posed any threat to his control. Between 1936-’38, through the use of terror, assassinations and show trials, more than 7 million Soviet citizens were arrested, most of whom were innocent of any wrongdoing.
As the terror spread across society, people were coerced into denouncing friends, co-workers, and even family members, in an attempt to save themselves. Between 750,000 and 1 million citizens were executed. As many as 1.5 million others were sent to prison camps (gulags) in the northern regions of Russia.
What makes Wagenstein’s novel so powerful is that, as a Communist writer, he chose to reflect on reality instead of sticking to doctrine.
“To this day, I’m still full of regret that, at the time, I unknowingly let myself become a servant at a foreign master’s table as our Rabbi Ben-David used to say,” Wagenstein’s character Isaac confesses.
“Don’t you realize, you fool, that this one, who’s closest to you, whose innocence you’re ready to swear by, is for other people the unknown one and for them, in particular, the true harmful agent? Don’t you realize, you fool, that this is how the mechanism is wound up, to make you full of suspicion towards others, and of others towards you?
“I will never comprehend the hidden meaning, the secret and cherished purpose of this unreal, insane … passion for collective self-destruction … What in fact was the goal, the hidden meaning, or, if you like, the simple benefit of all this?
“You’d be wrong with the answer to my question if you were to rush to generalizations, or if you haven’t noticed, or you haven’t wished to notice, that right next to this world of fear, lawlessness and dark insecurity there existed another, parallel world … the foreign writers and journalists from the Metropol Hotel …”
Like one of those foreign writers, Wagenstein spent his early childhood with his family in Paris. He returned to Bulgaria as a high school student. He became an anti-Nazi partisan during World War II, was captured and sent to a labor camp. He escaped and rejoined the partisans. Captured a second time, tortured and sentenced to death, Wagenstein survived when the Red Army arrived in Bulgaria in 1944.
Wagenstein studied filmmaking in Moscow after the war and became a well-known screenwriter, the author of some 50 films. He didn’t begin writing literature until the 1990s. “Isaac’s Torah” originally was published in Bulgarian in 2000. The translation by Elizabeth Frank and Deliana Simeonova marks the first the novel has appeared in English.
Like the best storytellers, Wagenstein breathes so much life into his characters, particularly Isaac and Rabbi Ben-David, that they feel like real people one comes to know. Wagenstein uses digression, rambling, throwaway lines and comic relief to set up a dynamic interaction between reader and storyteller.
Wagenstein’s centennial is a good time to become acquainted with a Jewish author who is hardly known in the West.
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