JEW AS A SAINT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21396, 20 October 1934, Page 11 (Supplement)

JEW AS A SAINT

WORK OF CREATIVE GENIUS The English translation of " Three Cities," the trilogy by the noted Hebrew dramatist Sholem Asch, was one of the great books of 1933. Now conies another novel from the same gifted source, " Salvation," just as admirably translated into English and just as clearly revealing a. mind of creative genius and nobility. " Salvation " lias been described as a novel of a saint, and there is about it a liberal touch of that contemplative mysticism which one habitually associates with Jewish literature. It is a book in which the problem of goodness is expounded—the truly magnificent story of a simple man striving toward the God of his Hebrew forefathers and seeking not so much the knowledge as the love of the Lord of the universe. The story is set in Poland at the closo of the Napoleonic wars—a country straining under a triple foreign yoke, drained of its vitality by successive wars and harbouring a people much oppressed. Jechiel, the son of poor Jewish parents, is born in a little town on the banks of the Vistula. His father seeks God through the Law and the Holy books, leaving his wife to win the family's bread from the market place. Jechiel, even as a boy, seeks God through the poorest and meanest of his fellow creatures. The narrative covers the lifetime of this Jewish boy "who could not remain indifferent to misery." There is pictured, with a wonderfully clear insight into the adolescent mind, his feelings of mingled degradation and courage when he is forced to abandon his study of the Law to take ovcir his mother's work in the market place, while his father sits at the feet of a distant Rabbi. There is the delineation of a growth spiritual as well as physical until Jechiel, even as a young man, becomes the Rabbi of the poor, credited with miraculous powers. And behind it all is the drama of the struggle within his soul.

For all its mysticism and intense spirituality, the book is essentially a human document. Jechiel lives vibrantly throughout. Asch has a supreme gift of portraying the minds of his characters, and in so doing he seems to provide an insight into the traditions of Jewish life and thought. As a contrast, there is the dramatic conflict for a girl's soul —a girl brought down from Heaven by the Psalm-llabbi, who had to redeem his pledging of God's name with the lives of his own wife and child. These few short chapters show Asch as a master of drama, just as several passages dealing with an old Polish nobleman reveal a biting sense of humour. The old count lives for the gospel of liberty, equality and fraternity, but keeps whips and a ferocious bulldog for his own tenants. As in the case of " Three Cities,'' the translation by Willa and Edwin Muir is admirable. In their choice of language, they appear to have approached their task in the spirit in which this really ! remarkable book was written. " Salvation," by Sholem Aech. (Gollancz.)