Last week, we learned of the death of one of the great writers of our time -- the novelist Philip Roth. Roth was an American icon -- a national treasure. His prose was dark, funny, lyrical, and human. And although his stories often featured everyday people going about their everyday lives, he nevertheless managed to explore the deepest of human themes.
But among all of Roth’s themes, perhaps none was as mysterious as the question of identity. Roth himself was Jewish. Virtually all of his novels feature Jewish characters and their Jewish neighbors living in Jewish cities and dealing with life’s Jewish dilemmas. And yet, despite the unmistakably Jewish content of his writing, throughout his long career, Roth continually rejected the claim that his books should be considered Jewish literature.
Literary critics find this rejection astounding. Roth’s stories are deeply, thickly Jewish. And yet, Roth himself insisted that they were not Jewish literature. In this way, Roth’s work is a perfect example of one of the core challenges that literary critics face -- the challenge of defining what exactly makes Jewish literature. What requirements must a book meet for it to be considered not just any old book, but a Jewish book? It is a question that the scholar Hana Wirth-Nesher has described as trying to “Defin[e] the Indefinable.”
Some critics claim that the essential defining feature of Jewish literature is that it is written by a Jewish author. But this claim quickly falls apart. Maurice Sendak was Jewish. Does that mean that his children’s book Where the Wild Things Are is, by definition, a Jewish book? Other critics claim that a book becomes a Jewish book if it contains some obviously Jewish theme -- say, for example, the theme of striving to live an ethical life. But this claim, too, quickly falls apart. To Kill a Mockingbird is clearly about ethical living -- but it is clearly not a Jewish book. Still other critics claim that a book becomes Jewish if it is written in a Jewish language. But this claim, too, quickly falls apart. Franz Kafka wrote in German; Dara Horn writes in English. Are their books not Jewish books? And still other critics claim that a piece of literature becomes Jewish if it deals with Jewish religion. But of course, this claim, too, quickly falls apart. Emma Lazarus’s sonnet that is engraved on the base of the Statue of Liberty -- “give me your tired, your poor” -- is entirely secular in content, but it may be one of the most Jewish poems ever written.
It is nearly impossible to define Jewish literature. We might have to resign ourselves to saying that when it comes to Jewish literature, we just know it when we see it.
So what exactly, we might wonder, did Philip Roth mean when he said that his books were not Jewish literature? To answer this question, let us turn our attention to a recurring character who appears in several of Roth’s books, and who might provide us some insight into Roth’s thinking. Let us turn our attention to the character of Nathan Zuckerman -- Philip Roth’s alter ego.
Nathan Zuckerman appears in many of Philip Roth’s stories -- but we first meet him in a trilogy of books called Zuckerman Bound. The trilogy tells the story of a writer named Nathan Zuckerman and his lifelong conflict with his father. Zuckerman’s father is a first-generation American Jew, the child of immigrant parents, whose life has been defined by the struggle to find acceptance in American society. He is a podiatrist by profession -- though, as he often reminds his son, he would have been a medical doctor, had quotas on Jewish enrollment not prevented him from entering medical school. He believes that Fiddler on the Roof is the most important piece of theatre ever to hit the American stage -- because it will, in his own words, “win more hearts to the Jewish cause” (Zuckerman Unbound, 116). He is a man of principle, whose one and only guiding question in life is: Will it be good for the Jews?
But young Zuckerman finds his father’s worldview narrow and parochial. He resents his father’s Jewish anxieties, his obsession about feeling accepted in America. Zuckerman is interested in a world beyond Fiddler on the Roof. He yearns for the world of art and literature -- of Henry James, French cinema, fine wines, and obscure philosophers. To Zuckerman, the world seems enormous -- if only he can escape from the cramped jail cell known as Newark.
Zuckerman does eventually escape the confines of his hometown and he becomes a writer. In his books, he describes his childhood in Jewish Newark -- and in so doing, he paints the community there in a rather unflattering light. He unleashes his pent-up frustrations with his father. He portrays his Jewish characters as he remembers them from his youth. They believe themselves to be morally superior to their Christian neighbors, when in fact, they are mired in the worst of Jewish stereotypes; they are petty, status-obsessed, and vulgar.
Zuckerman’s books make him an instant literary celebrity -- but the Jewish community is outraged by them. They call him a self-hating Jew. They urge him not to hang Jewish dirty laundry out to dry in full view of their non-Jewish neighbors. He has broken every one of his father’s taboos, and he and his father find themselves estranged. And although he is filled with regret, Zuckerman maintains his course -- claiming that even fiction has a responsibility to tell the truth. Zuckerman chooses loyalty to his art over loyalty to his family -- and accepts the painful [1] consequences.
What does Philip Roth’s alter ego teach us about Philip Roth himself? What can we learn from Nathan Zuckerman about Philip Roth’s claim that he was not a Jewish writer and his books were not Jewish books?
An easy response -- but, I would argue, a sloppy response -- might charge that Roth was a self-hating Jew, that he avoided the label of “Jewish writer” so as to distance himself from his Jewishness. I do not find this argument convincing. If we are to take his alter ego as any indication of Roth’s own true feelings, we must note Zuckerman’s feelings of regret -- his pain over his estrangement from his father. What’s more, if Roth truly wanted to distance himself from his Jewishness, he could have written about any other myriad number of subjects. He could have buried his Jewish identity somewhere it would have never been seen, rather than writing more than 30 books, virtually all of which treat Jewish themes.
I think the answer to our question lies elsewhere. Late in his life, Roth did an interview with The New Yorker, in which he was asked if he liked being referred to as a Jewish writer. His response was short, simple, and telling. “I prefer,” he said, “to be called an American writer.”
This response says so much. “I prefer to be called an American writer.” Roth did not reject his Jewishness; he simply preferred to be known by another part of his identity -- that is, to be known as an American. And in making that preference known, Roth captured something that is deeply true about America: he understood that to be American means to have multiple identities.
Philip Roth was a Jewish-American writer -- a hyphenated identity, both Jewish and American, fully, and at the same time. His books were all about living in America with a hyphenated identity, and struggling to know when to choose one identity over the other. In Roth’s stories about Nathan Zuckerman, the struggle of hyphenated identity was indeed a Jewish struggle. But it is also a struggle that we Jews share with every other minority group in this country. It is a core truth of American life.
So yes, in a very real sense, Philip Roth was a Jewish writer. But perhaps more importantly, he was a quintessentially American writer -- not just a literary giant, but also a national treasure.
------
[1] Literal pain -- both physical and emotional. In the trilogy’s third book, The Anatomy Lesson, Zuckerman is beset by an inexplicable physical pain in his neck and back. He wonders if it is a psychosomatic symptom of his rejection of his father and his Jewishness. The neck and back, after all, is where a yoke would lie -- and the obligation to Judaism is often described in the traditional sources (Mishnah Brachot 2:2) as “accepting the yoke of heaven.” Zuckerman’s emotional pain is also made clear in The Anatomy Lesson. In a moment of self-pity, Zuckerman reflects on his career: “A first-generation American father possessed by the Jewish demons, a second-generation American son possessed by their exorcism: that was his whole story” (p. 40).
[2] A final thought: in a twist of irony that only a literary genius could conjure up, the week in which Philip Roth died also brought with it another bit of news in the world of Jewish writers.
Michael Chabon (author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and The Yiddish Policemen’s Union) had been invited to give the commencement address at the graduation ceremonies on the Los Angeles campus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion -- the seminary of the Reform Movement. In his speech, Chabon made the case that Judaism is defined by the setting of boundaries. The Torah story begins, Chabon noted, with three cosmic acts of boundary-setting -- separating light from darkness, sea from sky, and ocean from dry land. We live our Jewish lives, Chabon continued, by observing the boundary between Shabbat and the rest of the week, the boundary between matzah and leavened bread, the boundary between kosher and not kosher, the boundary that is demarcated by an eiruv. In his remarks, Chabon challenged the graduates to push their boundaries, while continuing to maintaining their core commitments.
But on the internet and in the Jewish press, this central message was buried beneath what was otherwise only a passing segment of Chabon speech. In his remarks, Chabon was critical of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank (in which a boundary has been erected, in the form of the security barrier), as well as the Jewish community’s obsession over intermarriage (in which the boundaries of the Jewish people are at stake). These two remarks were, evidently for some, a boundary that Chabon should not have crossed -- a redline. For his remarks, Chabon was castigated on the internet -- with one website going so far as to call the speech anti-Semitic and to call Chabon a self-hating Jew.
And I thought to myself: if only Philip Roth were alive. I think he would be proud of Michael Chabon.
(Here is a response from the interim president of HUC-JIR and the dean of the LA campus.)
But among all of Roth’s themes, perhaps none was as mysterious as the question of identity. Roth himself was Jewish. Virtually all of his novels feature Jewish characters and their Jewish neighbors living in Jewish cities and dealing with life’s Jewish dilemmas. And yet, despite the unmistakably Jewish content of his writing, throughout his long career, Roth continually rejected the claim that his books should be considered Jewish literature.
Literary critics find this rejection astounding. Roth’s stories are deeply, thickly Jewish. And yet, Roth himself insisted that they were not Jewish literature. In this way, Roth’s work is a perfect example of one of the core challenges that literary critics face -- the challenge of defining what exactly makes Jewish literature. What requirements must a book meet for it to be considered not just any old book, but a Jewish book? It is a question that the scholar Hana Wirth-Nesher has described as trying to “Defin[e] the Indefinable.”
Some critics claim that the essential defining feature of Jewish literature is that it is written by a Jewish author. But this claim quickly falls apart. Maurice Sendak was Jewish. Does that mean that his children’s book Where the Wild Things Are is, by definition, a Jewish book? Other critics claim that a book becomes a Jewish book if it contains some obviously Jewish theme -- say, for example, the theme of striving to live an ethical life. But this claim, too, quickly falls apart. To Kill a Mockingbird is clearly about ethical living -- but it is clearly not a Jewish book. Still other critics claim that a book becomes Jewish if it is written in a Jewish language. But this claim, too, quickly falls apart. Franz Kafka wrote in German; Dara Horn writes in English. Are their books not Jewish books? And still other critics claim that a piece of literature becomes Jewish if it deals with Jewish religion. But of course, this claim, too, quickly falls apart. Emma Lazarus’s sonnet that is engraved on the base of the Statue of Liberty -- “give me your tired, your poor” -- is entirely secular in content, but it may be one of the most Jewish poems ever written.
It is nearly impossible to define Jewish literature. We might have to resign ourselves to saying that when it comes to Jewish literature, we just know it when we see it.
So what exactly, we might wonder, did Philip Roth mean when he said that his books were not Jewish literature? To answer this question, let us turn our attention to a recurring character who appears in several of Roth’s books, and who might provide us some insight into Roth’s thinking. Let us turn our attention to the character of Nathan Zuckerman -- Philip Roth’s alter ego.
Nathan Zuckerman appears in many of Philip Roth’s stories -- but we first meet him in a trilogy of books called Zuckerman Bound. The trilogy tells the story of a writer named Nathan Zuckerman and his lifelong conflict with his father. Zuckerman’s father is a first-generation American Jew, the child of immigrant parents, whose life has been defined by the struggle to find acceptance in American society. He is a podiatrist by profession -- though, as he often reminds his son, he would have been a medical doctor, had quotas on Jewish enrollment not prevented him from entering medical school. He believes that Fiddler on the Roof is the most important piece of theatre ever to hit the American stage -- because it will, in his own words, “win more hearts to the Jewish cause” (Zuckerman Unbound, 116). He is a man of principle, whose one and only guiding question in life is: Will it be good for the Jews?
But young Zuckerman finds his father’s worldview narrow and parochial. He resents his father’s Jewish anxieties, his obsession about feeling accepted in America. Zuckerman is interested in a world beyond Fiddler on the Roof. He yearns for the world of art and literature -- of Henry James, French cinema, fine wines, and obscure philosophers. To Zuckerman, the world seems enormous -- if only he can escape from the cramped jail cell known as Newark.
Zuckerman does eventually escape the confines of his hometown and he becomes a writer. In his books, he describes his childhood in Jewish Newark -- and in so doing, he paints the community there in a rather unflattering light. He unleashes his pent-up frustrations with his father. He portrays his Jewish characters as he remembers them from his youth. They believe themselves to be morally superior to their Christian neighbors, when in fact, they are mired in the worst of Jewish stereotypes; they are petty, status-obsessed, and vulgar.
Zuckerman’s books make him an instant literary celebrity -- but the Jewish community is outraged by them. They call him a self-hating Jew. They urge him not to hang Jewish dirty laundry out to dry in full view of their non-Jewish neighbors. He has broken every one of his father’s taboos, and he and his father find themselves estranged. And although he is filled with regret, Zuckerman maintains his course -- claiming that even fiction has a responsibility to tell the truth. Zuckerman chooses loyalty to his art over loyalty to his family -- and accepts the painful [1] consequences.
***
What does Philip Roth’s alter ego teach us about Philip Roth himself? What can we learn from Nathan Zuckerman about Philip Roth’s claim that he was not a Jewish writer and his books were not Jewish books?
An easy response -- but, I would argue, a sloppy response -- might charge that Roth was a self-hating Jew, that he avoided the label of “Jewish writer” so as to distance himself from his Jewishness. I do not find this argument convincing. If we are to take his alter ego as any indication of Roth’s own true feelings, we must note Zuckerman’s feelings of regret -- his pain over his estrangement from his father. What’s more, if Roth truly wanted to distance himself from his Jewishness, he could have written about any other myriad number of subjects. He could have buried his Jewish identity somewhere it would have never been seen, rather than writing more than 30 books, virtually all of which treat Jewish themes.
I think the answer to our question lies elsewhere. Late in his life, Roth did an interview with The New Yorker, in which he was asked if he liked being referred to as a Jewish writer. His response was short, simple, and telling. “I prefer,” he said, “to be called an American writer.”
This response says so much. “I prefer to be called an American writer.” Roth did not reject his Jewishness; he simply preferred to be known by another part of his identity -- that is, to be known as an American. And in making that preference known, Roth captured something that is deeply true about America: he understood that to be American means to have multiple identities.
Philip Roth was a Jewish-American writer -- a hyphenated identity, both Jewish and American, fully, and at the same time. His books were all about living in America with a hyphenated identity, and struggling to know when to choose one identity over the other. In Roth’s stories about Nathan Zuckerman, the struggle of hyphenated identity was indeed a Jewish struggle. But it is also a struggle that we Jews share with every other minority group in this country. It is a core truth of American life.
So yes, in a very real sense, Philip Roth was a Jewish writer. But perhaps more importantly, he was a quintessentially American writer -- not just a literary giant, but also a national treasure.
------
[1] Literal pain -- both physical and emotional. In the trilogy’s third book, The Anatomy Lesson, Zuckerman is beset by an inexplicable physical pain in his neck and back. He wonders if it is a psychosomatic symptom of his rejection of his father and his Jewishness. The neck and back, after all, is where a yoke would lie -- and the obligation to Judaism is often described in the traditional sources (Mishnah Brachot 2:2) as “accepting the yoke of heaven.” Zuckerman’s emotional pain is also made clear in The Anatomy Lesson. In a moment of self-pity, Zuckerman reflects on his career: “A first-generation American father possessed by the Jewish demons, a second-generation American son possessed by their exorcism: that was his whole story” (p. 40).
[2] A final thought: in a twist of irony that only a literary genius could conjure up, the week in which Philip Roth died also brought with it another bit of news in the world of Jewish writers.
Michael Chabon (author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and The Yiddish Policemen’s Union) had been invited to give the commencement address at the graduation ceremonies on the Los Angeles campus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion -- the seminary of the Reform Movement. In his speech, Chabon made the case that Judaism is defined by the setting of boundaries. The Torah story begins, Chabon noted, with three cosmic acts of boundary-setting -- separating light from darkness, sea from sky, and ocean from dry land. We live our Jewish lives, Chabon continued, by observing the boundary between Shabbat and the rest of the week, the boundary between matzah and leavened bread, the boundary between kosher and not kosher, the boundary that is demarcated by an eiruv. In his remarks, Chabon challenged the graduates to push their boundaries, while continuing to maintaining their core commitments.
But on the internet and in the Jewish press, this central message was buried beneath what was otherwise only a passing segment of Chabon speech. In his remarks, Chabon was critical of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank (in which a boundary has been erected, in the form of the security barrier), as well as the Jewish community’s obsession over intermarriage (in which the boundaries of the Jewish people are at stake). These two remarks were, evidently for some, a boundary that Chabon should not have crossed -- a redline. For his remarks, Chabon was castigated on the internet -- with one website going so far as to call the speech anti-Semitic and to call Chabon a self-hating Jew.
And I thought to myself: if only Philip Roth were alive. I think he would be proud of Michael Chabon.
(Here is a response from the interim president of HUC-JIR and the dean of the LA campus.)