YINZ/YIDZ

I've been really looking forward to seeing and writing about A Serious Man, the new Coen Brothers movie, that takes place in a Jewish community in Minnesota in 1967. It's taken forever to get from the coasts to little old Pittsburgh. Well, it finally arrives this weekend, and what do you know I'm going to be out of town.

So I thought I'd post some local reviews.

In the Post-Gazette, Barry Paris calls the movie the "strangest" of the Coen Brothers catalogue:

In the Coens' ironic worl [sic] view, the Chosen People were chosen — for what? For smoting. "Why me, Lord?" Job is the quintessential shlimaazel, and this is a modern rethinking of the Book of Job at a time where Hashem is even more incomprehensible than he was 5,000 years ago.

In the City Paper, Harry Kloman — who plays a spelling trick with the Coen Brothers' name, (think G-d) — says the movie is explicitly Jewish, but not necessarily implicitly Jewish:

A Serious Man is a fable, like O Brother, Where Art Thou?, and its tone is otherworldly, like Barton Fink. The C-ens have mocked many other American subcultures in the past, so now it's the Jews' turn. But their movie is equally akin to Todd Haynes' Far From Heaven, which did for '50s suburban anxieties what A Serious Man does for their '70s counterpart. The characters in this movie don't have to be Jewish. The fact that they are only adds an additional layer of angst and gives the C-ens more room to play with them.

Finally, I thought I post an excerpt from Ethan Coen's short story "The Old Country," included in his 1998 book "The Gates of Eden." It's the last time he took on the Jewish world of Minnesota in the 1960s:

"I never met Michael Simkin's parents, though I have a vivid false memory of his father standing on the open lot upon which their house is to be built. His hands are on his hips and a pith helmet shades his eyes; he is directing the operations of a backhoe as it digs a trench for the ball return. Though I remember it now, years later, it is something I could have imagined only then. In the beginning there was fear, a deep shadow that goes with the gaudy colors of early youth. It shades Michael's father's face as he stands unmoved while around him heavy machinery roars and the earth trembles; it makes a monster of Slim the Talmud Torah goy; it dwells in the narrow creaking staircase of our own little home. Some forget that darkness, and the silence, and the chaos inside. But despite what Scripture says, it will never be banished, for without it there would be no horror, no misery, and no childhood.”

I caught the screening of Refusnik last night at the Southside Works. It’s a fascinating documentary — full of pride and sadness and humor — that traces the three-decades effort to free Soviet Jews. Watching the movie, though, I was struck by the magnitude of the efforts — spanning 30 years and gathering support from across the political spectrum — and I wondered why this era of Jewish history isn't talked about more often.

It got me thinking about the history of 20th century world Jewry I got in religious school. It went like this: Holocaust, creation of Israel, Six-Day War, Munich Olympics, Yom Kippur War, Entebbe raid, first Gulf War. 

The effort to free Soviet Jews should be on that list for a number of reasons.

First, it is the epitome of the Jewish communal spirit, the idea that every Jewish life is valuable and that Jews must marshal grassroots resources to help any Jew in need. The film shows Jewish activists from the Bay Area, Long Island, Chicago, Seattle and Pittsburgh, but also from the Dakotas and from Nebraska.

Second, Jewish history in the 20th century falls between two extremes: victimhood and strength. The Holocaust and the Gulag are on one side, while the Six-Day War and the Entebbe raid are on the other. When Jews argue about Jewish history, we often question both extremes. We say that focusing on Jewish weakness is unproductive, or we note that Jewish strength forces Israel to contend with world opinion in new ways.

Because it is a story about community — both among Jews and between Jews and the world — the struggle of Soviet Jewry between 1953 and 1991 bridges the divide. It shows Jews in a position of strength in one part of the world using their resources to help Jews in a position of weakness in another part of the world. It also shows Jews working with non-Jews toward a common goal. Some of the most amazing moments in the movie are the black protestors holding “I am my brother's keeper” signs and singing “Let My People Go.”

Third, Jewish activists like to note that instances of anti-Semitism are important to monitor not simply because of the threat against the Jews. They’re also important because Jews tend to be the canary in the coalmine. Those who want to harm the Jews won’t stop causing harm once the Jews are gone. In the movie, the Jews become a symbol of all human rights violations in the Soviet Union. That’s probably why the movement gained traction in the 1980s; it fit into the broader narrative about battle between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.

The effort to free Soviet Jews is probably the only movement in the history of this country that started with grassroots student activists in the 1960s, and continued with Republican politicians in the late 1980s.

That unity inspires nostalgia today. The movie is a little bittersweet, because watching it gives the sense that the Jewish community doesn't have an issue right now that holds the world together, or even one that holds Jews together. Today, the world can't even decide if the Jews and Israel are underdogs or not.