The Brothers Ashkenazi: A Novel

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A poor condition book can still make a good reading copy but is generally not collectible unless the item is very scarce. Altra similitudine: Simcha Meyer Ashkenazi è la fotocopia di Beppino Scacerni detto Coniglio Mannaro. Singer shows himself to be a prophet of what was to befall the next generation (this book was completed in 1935). It is the story of the evolution of a city --- Lodz --- from a farming community into the financial capital of Poland. Gradually, down with management, down with the company, turned into Down with the Jews, and while the companies were protected by the police, the Jewish areas were not, as the peasants reeked havor, stealing goods from Jewish homes, burning some, and wreacking vengeance.

J. Singer as an old fashioned and not that successful Yiddish novelist who helped his younger brother to sharpen up his own style and - perhaps - played a part in introducing him to the literary circles of first Warsaw and then New York. J. was the one who modernised the Yiddish literature by elevating it to a cosmopolitan status and by letting it get an international appeal. So, for exam­ple, in The Broth­ers Ashkanazi, Max­imil­lian Ashkanazi, né Simha Meir Ashkanazi, tries to shed his Hasidic ori­gins as he pro­pels him­self into bour­geois pre­em­i­nence.Although there is much inherent drama set up in the relationships of the various characters, the author never succeeds (nor perhaps did he intend to) in making the reader feel suspense or emotional involvement with the characters.

Adam Kirsch reviewed the novel for Tablet Magazine, situating the novel in its historical and cultural context in America. Some soiling on the endpapers, previous owner's name, else near fine in very good dustwrapper with tears around the edges. But through self-discipline, mental toughness, and hard work, Goggins transformed himself from a depressed, overweight young man with no future into a US Armed Forces icon and one of the world's top endurance athletes. He was born Yisroel Yehoyshue (Yeshue) Zinger the son of Pinchas Mendl Zinger, a rabbi and author of rabbinic commentaries, and Basheva Zylberman.

Written in Yiddish, it first appeared serially in the Jewish daily Forward between 1934 and 1935, after Singer had left Poland and moved to New York. Due fratelli gemelli, ma molto diversi, che non si sono mai amati e che, uno in particolare, costruisce la sua vita in continua lotta per primeggiare sull'altro. In this book history is vaguely presented; you will recognize the historical events if you already know them. The stage is set when their mother purposely names them in a manner that she knows will aggravate her unloving and absent Hasidic husband. In terms of the novel’s historicity, he argues that in the novel, “one feels how inevitable was what actually did happen: the breakdown of an industrial civilization supported by Ashkenazis and their Christian counterparts.