Non­fic­tion

The Polypho­ny of Jew­ish Culture

Ben­jamin Harshav
  • Review
By – January 27, 2012

Tak­en as a whole, this col­lec­tion of essays opens a broad win­dow onto a shim­mer­ing sea of lit­er­ary and artis­tic pro­duc­tion that is Jew­ish cul­ture. It brings togeth­er pre­vi­ous­ly pub­lished arti­cles and intro­duc­tions by Ben­jamin Har­shav, a major fig­ure in Jew­ish lit­er­ary schol­ar­ship and crit­i­cism, on top­ics as diverse as Holo­caust poet­ry; Israel’s first Nobel Lau­re­ate in Lit­er­a­ture, S.Y. Agnon; and the rev­o­lu­tion in mod­ern Jew­ish culture. 

A shin­ing exam­ple of the depth and breadth of con­text with which Har­shav delights his read­ers is a chap­ter sub­ti­tled On Texts and Sub­texts in Chagall’s Paint­ings.” This essay is a tour-de-force, draw­ing upon Yid­dish lan­guge, Jew­ish reli­gious prac­tice, the pur­suit of Euro­pean cul­ture by assim­i­lat­ing East­ern Euro­pean Jews at the begin­ning of the last cen­tu­ry, and the field of art his­to­ry itself, in which Har­shav cor­rects sev­er­al mis­read­ings of Chagall’s work. It should be required read­ing for any­one who seeks to under­stand the artist’s milieu. 

Read indi­vid­u­al­ly, these pol­ished gems of schol­ar­ship offer the read­er a depth of under­stand­ing of the top­ic at hand which draws upon crit­i­cal method­ol­o­gy, as well as the breadth of Jew­ish expe­ri­ence. Har­shav calls asso­cia­tive talk­ing” a nation­al sport” in Yid­dish and Jew­ish cul­ture; The Polypho­ny of Jew­ish Cul­ture chal­lenges and delights sports­man and spec­ta­tor alike.

Joseph A. Kanof­sky holds a Ph.D. in lit­er­a­ture, and rab­binic ordi­na­tion. He is an edu­ca­tion­al con­sul­tant to the UJA-Fed­er­a­tion of Greater Toronto.

Discussion Questions