The alphabet of Judah Liva

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The Alphabet of Juda Liva is a novel by Benjamin Stein published by Ammann Verlag in 1995 . He takes up the legend of the Prague Rabbi Löw , who wreaked havoc in the form of a reincarnation in Prague at the end of the 20th century. The novel begins and ends in Berlin and mostly takes place in Prague, but short episodes of the family stories described, but also in Vienna, Dresden and Budapest. In March 2014, after a complete revision, the book was re-published under the title The Alphabet of Rabbi Löw .

Creation and publication

A note at the end of the acknowledgment that follows the text of the novel indicates the date of origin: "Berlin / Prague - 1991/92" (p. 321). When he took part in the competition for the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize in 1993, Benjamin Stein read the prologue of the novel (in the book, pp. 9–39). It was published in August 1995 by Ammann Verlag, Switzerland, followed by a paperback edition in 1998 by dtv .

construction

Hebrew alphabet in the Frank -Rühl font (five of the letters have a second form that is used at the end of the word: ץ / צ, ף / פ, ן / נ, ם / מ, ך / כ)

The novel consists of a prologue, three main chapters and an epilogue. The main chapters are divided into sub-chapters:

I. The three mothers or Of angels and other everyday things (10 subchapters)
II. The twelve simple ones or the rupture of the vessels (4 subchapters)
III. The seven doubles or the upper and lower cities (3 subchapters)

The mothers, doubles and singles mentioned in the titles refer to the letter categories according to the Sefer Jetzira (3 + 12 + 7 result in a total of 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet ). The parts of the book correspond subliminally with the meanings and possible effects of the respective letter category.

Each sub-chapter is preceded by a concise short summary, which is often only fully understandable after reading the respective chapter.

content

The plot is very complex, rich in characters and takes place on different levels of time and reality. Stein combines realistic storytelling with mystical-cabalistic-surrealist inserts and processes above all "the interpretation and combinations of letters of Sefer Yezirah and the Hekhaloth texts of early Judaism reconstructed from the Genizah fragments ".

In the prologue, which frames the novel together with the epilogue, the initially passive Berkowicz gets to know the neglected Jacoby in an Italian restaurant in Berlin-Kreuzberg , who offers himself and his wife Sheary as a storyteller. Jacoby is hired and from now on tells the story of Alex Rottenstein and the three Marková women (grandmother Lydia, mother Mirijam, daughter Eva) every Tuesday. His motto, which is also of interest from a poetological point of view: "What I tell happens, not the other way around."

The Markovás, female seraphs , are condemned to spend only one night with their daughter's father. Alex Rottenstein's grandfather Max gets pregnant with Lydia Marková, whose daughter Mirijam in turn spends a night with her childhood sweetheart Jaroslav Vonka, from which Eva Marková emerges. The punishment of fugitive fathers is to be burned alive.

After the Jewish studies student Alex Rottenstein, who is teaching German in Prague, meets his cousin Eva and leaves her pregnant during a brief affair, he too is cursed. He is summoned to Jiři Prochazka, who identifies himself as a reincarnated Rabbi Löw, and undertakes a journey through the revived golem in the form of the little boy Jan Prochazka, "a pretty wretch with a headband" (p. 43) Space and time. Rottenstein has to watch how he burns himself, the curse of the Marková women also comes true for him.

He arrives in the lower town, where he is guided through seven gates and addressed by the Eijnsoph with the name Shabbatai Zwi Beth, an allusion to the historical Shabbtai Zvi : "Because you come as an awakening." (P. 278) After this initiation he finds back to the upper town and is sent by Prochazka to Jerusalem, with which the stories told by Jacoby end.

Then Berkowicz takes over the storytelling again. After Jacoby's death in flames, tapes that he wrote down had passed on to him, and now he has to bring the story - the novel he is writing - to an end. Berkowicz himself now becomes part of the events: The golem in the form of the headband tot invites him to a meeting with Juda Löw ben Bezalel, who wants to give him back his time, the nine months that he spent writing the novel: “You told us so there is us. They shouldn't go away empty-handed ”(p. 297) The rabbi provides the end of the story. Berkowicz, however, has delusions and, like Jacoby, is admitted to psychiatry.

Reception and research

The novel received mostly positive, but also critical reviews. German studies devoted itself to the book very early on , for example Nicola Bock-Lindenbeck in her dissertation published in 1999 on the myth in contemporary German literature.

Jonathan Safran Foer's novel “Everything is enlightened” (2002, German 2003), which was published a few years after the “Juda Liva”, is in some ways strongly reminiscent of its predecessor, especially in the Jewish family history told over several generations. For Foer, however, this is located in an Eastern European shtetl from the late 18th century, unlike Stein in Czechoslovakia in the 20th century.

Reviews of the novel (1995/1996)

expenditure

  • Benjamin Stein: The Alphabet of Judah Liva. Novel. Zurich: Ammann 1995. ISBN 3-250-10272-5 .
  • Benjamin Stein: The Alphabet of Judah Liva. Novel. Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag 1998. ISBN 3-423-12431-8 .
  • Benjamin Stein: The Alphabet of Rabbi Löw. Novel. Berlin: Verbrecher Verlag 2014. ISBN 978-3-943167-79-5 .

Research literature

  • Nicola Bock-Lindenbeck: About the abuse of letters. Benjamin Stein's "The Alphabet of Judah Liva". In: Dies .: Last Worlds - New Myths. The myth in contemporary German literature. Cologne; Weimar; Vienna: Böhlau 1999. pp. 231–249.
  • Barbara Oberwalleney: Heterogeneous Writing. Positions in German-language Jewish literature (1986–1998). Munich: Iudicium 2001.
  • Leslie Morris; Karen Remmler: Introduction. In this. (Ed.): Contemporary Jewish Writing in Germany. An Anthology. Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press 2002. (cf. the author's statement )
  • Cathy S. Gelbin: The monster returns. Golem figures for authors of the Jewish post-war generation. In: Eva Kormann; Anke Gilleir, Angelika Schlimmer (ed.): Text machine body. Gender-oriented reading of the android. (= Amsterdam Contributions to Modern German Studies , Volume 59.) Amsterdam; New York: Rodopi 2006. pp. 145–159, here pp. 147–150.
  • Dorothee Gelhard: With her face turned forward. Narrated tradition in German-Jewish literature. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2008.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See the corresponding entry on handlungsreisen.de .
  2. ↑ All page numbers refer to the first edition from 1995.
  3. ↑ Nicola Bock-Lindenbeck: On the abuse of letters. Benjamin Stein's "The Alphabet of Judah Liva". (See research literature.) P. 231.