“Yiddish Civilisation: The Rise and Fall of a Forgotten Nation”, by Paul Kriwaczek

 

384 pages, Alfred A. Knopf, ISBN-13: 978-1400040872

Okay, bear with me for a moment: back in 2012 or so I was reading The Napoleonic Wars: The Rise and Fall of an Empire by Gregory Fremont-Barnes and Todd Fisher (reviewed on May 2^nd, 2014) and, well, grew increasingly bored with it. Not because it was badly written or poorly executed – it is, after all, an Osprey Book – but I realized that, as I was reading yet another book on the Napoleonic Wars and was familiar with all that I was reading, I was no longer being challenged, nor discovering anything new. I was just walking over well-trod ground. Which is when I decided to expand my horizons a tad and start buying books outside of my comfort zone about subjects I had, hitherto, little or no knowledge of.

Which is where Yiddish Civilisation: The Rise and Fall of a Forgotten Nation by Paul Kriwaczek comes in (don’t be like Spellcheck; that’s how he spells “Civilization”). I got this off of the Barnes & Noble (I know, you’ve heard that one before) used book department for a mere $3.50. What Kriwaczek tries to do in his 384 pages is record the entire history of the Jewish people, but especially their time in Europe. This is a tall order as you can well imagine, but I’m pleased to say that Kriwaczek pulls it off. I mean, this is a broad-strokes kinda book, with several thousand years condensed into a few pages, but he managed to write an interesting if, at times, jarring book focusing on a Civilization – er, Civilisation – that has been around for a long time, but always on the periphery of other, larger and more dominate cultures.

But while this book filled in many gaps in my knowledge of Jewish culture, the author has a bad habit of overstating…everything. According to Kriwaczek, the fall of Yiddish Civilisation came about in 1764 after the dissolution of the Council of the Four Lands by the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. While Jewish political influence was, no doubt, affected by this political development, Kriwaczek is on weaker ground in arguing that this was matched by a cultural dilution. By whom was this civilization forgotten? Certainly not by the Jews themselves. And also according to Kriwaczek, Jewish settlers have been behind every drive to settle and civilize Europe and the world since…well, forever. While an anti-Semite will declare that “Da JOOZ are behind everything!” with a scowl, Kriwaczek says essentially the same thing, only with a smile.

While Kriwaczek’s book is an admirable attempt to record the history of the Ashkenazi Jews, from their early origins to their near destruction by the Nazis and continued growth in the New World – and while he certainly brings many hidden gems of culture and learning to light – there is still much left to be desired. He wants there to be this thing called Yiddish Civilisation that is self-governing and internally consistent AND divorced from the Jewish religion while simultaneously providing a string of counterexamples to his thesis. Thus, I can honestly say that this contradictory book both enlightened and confused me: I know more about the Jewish people now than I did when I began reading it, but feel that I am still ignorant of so much. Pity.