The Spice Box: An Anthology of Jewish Canadian Writing ed. by Gerri Sinclair, Morris Wolfe (review)

HUMANITIES 447 Gerri Sinclair and Morris Wolfe, editors. The Spice Box: An Anthology of Jewish Canadian Writing Lester and Orpen Dennys. ix, 3'0. $16.95 The title of this anthology is somewhat misleading; it is an anthology not so much ofJewish-Canadian writing as, to quote the editors' introduction, ofthe 'best writing ... on the subject ofbeing Jewish in Canada.' There are exceptions: Solomon Ary's story 'The Pact' is set in Poland, and Helen Weinzweig's 'Hold That Tiger' does not in any sense allude to Jews or Judaism. Otherwise, each writer tries to convey his own particular sense of the Jewish experience in Canada. The Spice Box is a first, a welcome addition to books by and about Jewish writers in this country. Selecting from the wealth of material available to them must have been an ominous undertaking for the editors. In most cases they chose wisely, including translations of Yiddish works by, for example, Roehl Korn and J.r. Segal, familiar selections from established writers such as A.M. Klein, Irving Layton, Mordecai Richler, and Miriam Waddington; and introducing some notso well known, for instance, Jerry Newman, Abraham Boyarsky, Avrum Malus. In all, thirty-seven authors are represented; the writings include poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. Organization based on the depiction of shifting values in Jewish life rather than on chronology gives a finn structure to the book and is revealing. At the beginning we have Segal's joyous evocation of marriage in 'At My Wedding: a marked contrast with Ray Shankman's 'Wedding Poem: placed near the end, in which propriety supplants gaiety. Even though attitudes change, there are constants; the most pervasive are questions about the meaning of being Jewish and a sense of nostalgia for the past. Many of the older writers look back to a time and place that provided few material benefits or physical security; it is as though oppression and hardship offered a bond and a sense of community. If there is an overriding theme connecting these poems, stories, and essays, it is alienation, a state movingly evoked in Waddington's 'The Nineteen Thirties Are Over.' The younger writers are also searching, but they do not even know what it is they feel they have lost. Richler, in 'Their Canada and Mine: A Memoir: admits that Montreal's 'Main: although 'rich in delights ... can also be sordid: yet the tone remains nostalgic. One wonders why Richler is represented by two selections: the aforementioned and 'MortimerGriffin, Shalinskyand How They Settled the Jewish Question' from Cocksure. The latter is one of the most humorous pieces in this anthology and, for that matter, in Canadian literature. Unlike so much of Richler's work, in which he creates and perpetuates stereotypes, especially of Jewish women, here the satire on Jewish self-consciousness is hilarious. This might have sufficed as a sample of Richler's work, and instead of his 'Memoir' the editors might have included a few poems by Isadore Gordon Ascher, the first Jewish poet in Canada to write in English, and by Hyman Edelstein, a pioneer in Jewish-Canadian poetry at the beginning of this century. If the anthology is overweighted, it is in the direction of autobiography; there are countless selections in this mode, ranging from fictionalized to raw, confessional-style articles. Among the best are Abraham Boyarsky's 'A Birthday Party: depicting his childhood in a Displaced Persons' Camp in Germany before coming to Canada, and Mark Samer's astute and analytical 'Beyond the Chanuka Candles.' Like most other writers in this anthology, Sarner finds no answers in his search for a Jewish identity but he asks the right questions. The selections in The Spice Box are supplemented with briefbiographies of the contributors and publication information; these help to 'place' each particular work in time. The book seems to be intended for the general reader, though I suspect the largest audience will be Jewish. Many Jews will be delighted to renew acquaintance with familiar works and to meet new and stimulating authors. But it would be a pity if the book did not achieve wider popularity; for those not familiar with Jewish-Canadian writing The Spice Box provides an excellent introduction...