Pssst...Come closer. I've got a secret to share. Ready? Sometimes, I dream in literature. Not surprised? Fine, I suppose it wouldn't be unexpected for a literature professional to dream about literature. And to be clear, I don't always dream about literature, but it does happen. Often, the dreams are about exciting young adult literature like battling the maze in The Maze Runner by James Dashner or getting thrown into the game world of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Other times, the dreams can be directly related to the books I'm teaching, like gripping the railing as the jury reads Tom Robinson's verdict in Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird or slogging through the Vietnam jungle of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried.
But lately, my dreams have been about Moshe the Beadle and Vladek Spiegelman. I guess this is a good time to plug the reading. If you have not read Elie Wiesel's Night, I would call it a must read. At about 110 pages, it remains one of the strongest Holocaust testimonies around. In Night, you will meet Moshe. The other character, Vladek, is from the Pulitzer Prize winning graphic novel MAUS by Art Spiegelman - less about the Holocaust and more about a father-son relationship and the post-traumatic effects of the Holocaust on survivors and their families. The former novella, I used to teach, and the latter I have taught the past ten years. Both are worthwhile, but Night is a must.
Without giving away too many spoilers as it happens early in Night, Moshe the Beadle - an impoverished, Kabbalistic, spiritual Jew - is deported from Sighet, Hungary with all other foreign Jews in 1942. After a few days, rumors circulate that the Jews are fine and settling into Galicia. Sometime later, Moshe reemerges in Sighet to warn the Jews of the Nazi crimes against Jews that he witnessed in Poland and to ask them to prepare. No one believes him, and even in the face of more stories of attacks on Jewish shops and synagogues as close as Budapest, the Jews in Sighet say, "Hitler won't be able to do [them] any harm." Ultimately, the Jews of Sighet are overcome by the Nazis in the Spring of 1944 because they did not heed the warnings of Moshe the "madman" (Wiesel 3-7).
So here I sit, over the past few weeks, reading report after report of worldwide anti-Semitic behavior towards Jews. It seems that Israel's defense of her citizens against Hamas terrorists has given license for the world to uncover a boiling undercurrent of antisemitism. Unfortunately, one might expect this type of behavior from countries such as Iran or France or Turkey, where antisemitism is the norm. But the violence accompanying the hurtful speech has come at a bit of a surprise - particularly in France. But antisemitism is also boiling over in other countries such as Belgium, Germany, New Zealand, and Canada. And recently, I was confronted with the hiring of an anti-Semite at my beloved alma mater - University of Illinois. And I wonder, when will Moshe the Beadle appear at my doorstep urging us Jews to flee our homes to the only true safety we know - Israel.
Okay, so maybe I am just a little paranoid (some of you are thinking, "a LITTLE?"). Of course, the media does sensationalize things. Logic dictates that though these events are seemingly increasing, and at times the world seems like it is revisiting Kristallnacht in Europe 1938, there is little for Jews to worry about, especially in the United States. Plus, as one friend told me, we are not in any danger because unlike in WWII, we have Israel. And even though a recent Anti-Defamation League survey found that 26% of those polled (approximately 4 billion adults) harbor deep anti-Semitic views, they won't be able to do us any harm. Right? RIGHT?
Yet, I still dream about Moshe the Beadle appearing at my doorstep - and my responses vary (yes, more than one time have I had this dream). Sometimes, we pack up the family and head to Israel. Sometimes, I ignore that "madman" Moshe. And other times, I think about Vladek Spiegelman.
*And since my wife just asked me, "Are you still writing that? Isn't it better to have 2 shorter posts than one long post?" - I will write about Vladek's entrance into my dreams at a later time.
Until then, if you see Moshe - - - Please let me know.
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