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American Jewish Fiction in 1882), stories by Israel Zangwill (“The Lens Grinder”) and I. B. Singer (“The Spinoza of Market Street”), and Goce Smilevski’s Macedonian novel, Conversations with Spinoza (2002, translated in 2006). Those desiring a lively nonfictional approach to the iconoclastic thinker can seek out Rebecca Goldstein’s Betraying Spinoza (2006), while others interested in Jewish rebellion and heresy more broadly should consult Isaac Deutscher’s provocative essay, “The Non-Jewish Jew,” in a collection of the same name (1968). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92pHe, She, and It By Marge Piercy KNOPF, 1991. 429 PAGES. Jewish communities have endured for millennia despite extraordinary challenges. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, to find them persisting in the futures imagined by science fiction authors (especially considering that some of the giants in the field of sci-fi, like Isaac Asimov, were themselves Jewish). In Marge Piercy’s dystopic He, She, and It—also published under the title Body of Glass outside the United States—Israel and the rest of the Middle East have been obliterated by a nuclear holocaust, and by 2059 the planet’s governing bodies are corporations and roving gangs, not nations. Yet fragile Jewish communities manage to endure, like Tikva, a settlement somewhere on the Atlantic coast of what used to be the United States, not far, one suspects, from Piercy’s adopted home of Cape Cod. While the world around it crumbles, Tikva is Piercy’s utopia: Jewish, democratic, feminist, and individualistic, it offers a counterpoint to the corporate blandness imposed outside and survives by selling homegrown technologies and produce in exchange for its freedom. The novel’s plot centers on Shira, who was raised in the town but left for college and ended up at a corporation near what used to be Nebraska. She returns to live with her grandmother, Malka, after losing custody of her son and begins to participate in a secret and illegal project in one of Tikva’s labs: the socialization of a humanoid robot that has been programmed not only to kill and defend but also to crave human interaction. This creature is named Yod after the 10th letter of the Hebrew alphabet (his nine predecessors all malfunctioned in one way or another). Chapters describing Shira’s and Yod’s growing intimacy, as well as their attempts to defend the town and reclaim Shira’s child, alternate with chapters in which Malka tells a story of her own about the Golem of Prague and his creator, Rabbi Judah Loew, the Maharal. Piercy thus links her speculative version of the future to the mystical mysteries of the past. Drawing upon William Gibson and other cyberpunk writers, Piercy shares with them occasional flashes of prescience: the Net, one of the features of Piercy’s imagined world, is more or less the Internet that we have come to know. 128 At its best, by thoughtfully envisioning future possibilities and exaggerating current trends—like plastic surgery and movies—the novel forces us to acknowledge how far our own world is from perfection. It also encourages us to consider how differently people express their sense of Jewishness today than they did a century or two ago and to speculate about how Jewishness might be totally different, once again, in our grandchildren’s era. Further reading: Piercy’s vast oeuvre includes more than a dozen novels and as many collections of poetry, ranging wildly in setting and subject matter. She describes the challenges and triumphs of her life in Sleeping with Cats (2002). Readers desiring more Jewish-themed science fiction should begin with the anthologies Wandering Stars (1974) and More Wandering Stars (1981); a useful list of relevant titles can also be found at http://www.sfsite.com/~silverag/jewishsf.html. Pearl Abraham’s The Seventh Beggar (2005) connects science with Jewish mysticism like He, She, and It, although Abraham’s chosen sage is Nachman of Bratslav, rather than the Maharal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93pOperation Shylock: A Confession By Philip Roth SIMON AND SCHUSTER, 1993. 398 PAGES. Philip Roth’s rebellious spirit, extraordinary self-consciousness, and prodigious talents as a novelist position him perfectly to produce books that turn the concept of fiction on its ear. In The Ghostwriter (1979), The Counterlife (1986), The Facts (1988), and The Plot against America (2004), Roth does exactly that, calling into question the conventions of his own writing and joyfully subverting his readers’ unexamined expectations. Critics like to label such books metafiction (that is, fiction about fiction) or autofiction (fiction that plays with the conventions of...

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