American Talmud: The Cultural Work of Jewish American Fiction (review)

After decades of critical argument about the place of Jewish American fiction in the larger canon of American literature, Ezra Cappell, a specialist in American and Jewish American literature, proposes a system of codification that situates this modern literature within an ancient tradition. Educated in the yeshiva and its methods, Cappell examines the staples of Jewish American writing through the lens of Talmudic interpretation. Just as the Talmud honors "radical rethinking, even about its foundational concepts" (2), so too does the Jewish American fiction under examination in this book celebrate "radical rethinking" through methods such as open-endedness and multiple perspectives that question the foundations of literary tradition. The deconstructive nature of both traditions is just one analogue that Cappell catalogues between the Talmud and Jewish American fiction. Both structural and thematic comparisons are used to support his position that twentieth-century and contemporary Jewish American fiction are simply more evidence that scriptural interpretation continues to be written by Jews over time. This time, the Talmud is used as a way to explain the forces at work as the Jews assimilate into yet another new land.

The goal of diasporic Jews is not necessarily to understand the world they find in the new land; the goal is to understand the homeland they carry in their minds as they confront new world issues. In consideration of American popular culture and mass media, it is clear that Jewish American writing has strongly influenced "not just the religious faith and practice of American Jews but . . . their Americanization as well" (20). While other writers could have been chosen (Philip Roth, Cynthia Ozick), and indeed, some writers would not suit the argument being proposed, the writers chosen for inclusion in this book all do contribute meaningfully to creating what the author calls an "American Talmud," and represent a diverse sample of Jewish American fiction writing, which has as its aim to "turn passivity into action and imagination," the selfsame goal of the "Torah-true Jew" (21).

Cappell's method links ancient hermeneutical tools with those of the contemporary literary critic. Drawing on traditional biblical and Talmudic analysis and contemporary post-structural theories of literature and culture, the main analytic method used is in many ways fundamental to both the ancient and the modern programs. Cappell calls it the derash, a literal "searching out" of hidden meanings, and he means it broadly; that is, his study looks for hidden meanings in individual texts while simultaneously bringing those texts to light for a wider and more appreciative audience for Jewish American fiction in general. Moreover, he furthers the Buberian dialectic of the I-thou encounter by presenting this fiction as such an encounter between immigrant Jews—the old world—and the new world—America. Even the Talmud itself is reconsidered here; no longer an ancient document only, it is seen as honoring and celebrating difference of opinion so fundamentally that it can be read as a "blueprint for modern and postmodern fictional play" (2).The aggadic commentary on the (Babylonian) Talmud, which consists of stories and midrashim about the laws codified within, has long been valued as interpretation of scripture. So too do the postmodern and contemporary writers of Jewish American literature privilege text and commentary as forces essential to consider with, and against, one another, making the act of interpretation—including Cappell's analysis—a whole much greater than its parts. Writing within the tradition that demands "each Jew must literally 'write' the Torah" (25), his act of interpretation is a symbolic version of inscribing a new Torah scroll.

Cappell is quick to point out what would likely be the major criticism of his project: that while the two literary modes (rabbinic thought and Jewish American literature) share certain characteristics, they differ in a crucial way: all rabbinic aggadah and storytelling must return to scripture as the dominant force, while Jewish American fiction writers seem to respond to every possible theme and use every possible...