In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

5 Bilom in Bashevis’s Der knekht (The Slave) A khaye hot oykh a neshome (An animal also has a soul) Leonard Prager Walking about Jewish neighborhoods today, in almost any country in the West or anywhere in Israel, one sees many dogs of every breed and pedigree. This makes it difficult to realize that some of us in childhood heard parents and grandparents repeat the now wholly comic saying, oyb a yid hot a hunt, oder der yid iz nisht keyn yid oder der hunt iz nisht keyn hunt, ‘‘If a Jew has a dog, either the Jew is not a Jew or the dog is not a dog.’’ But to our Eastern European forebears, there was nothing funny about dogs.1 In  Yudl Mark published a list of thousands of Yiddish folk-similes in common oral use collected by young students in one corner of Lithuania in the mid- s and mid-s.2 Psakhye Frimer and Mendl Mark expanded this list,3 and the latter analyzed their objects of comparison and the folk attitudes they reflect, asking: vosere farglaykh-obyektn kumen tsum oftstn dem yidish-reyder oyfn tsung (bavustzinik tsi umbavustzinik) baym veln zikh oysdrikn pinktlekher, bildlekher oder vitsiker?4 What objects of comparison roll off the tongue of Yiddish-speakers—consciously or unconsciously—most often in their effort to be more exact, vivid, or witty? The most common objects of comparison, he found, were the dog, cat, and pig, and oyfn ershtn plats loyt der tsol farglaykhn kumt der hunt (arayngerekhnt keylev , tsoyg, un klavte), ‘‘and in first place in the number of similes comes the dog (including bitch).’’5 Mark went on to explain: der hunt iz do veyniker fun alts der ‘‘getrayer fraynd,’’ vos iz ibergegebn dem balebos un iz greyt im tsu dinen. er iz gikher der beyzer soyne, vos balangt tsu der goyisher velt, bafalt on a farvos, hot faynt di yidishe kapote un makht dos lebn nokh mer mizerabl.6  The dog here is least of all the ‘‘faithful friend’’ devoted to his master and ready to serve him; he is rather the evil enemy who belongs to the Gentile world. He attacks capriciously, hates the Jewish gaberdine, and increases misery. Mendl Mark’s simile studies are corroborated by proverb collections and common expressions. Ignats Bernshteyn’s classic study includes the categorical and implacable assertion a hunt blaybt a hunt, ‘‘a dog remains a dog,’’ and es iz nit do keyn guter hunt, ‘‘there is no such thing as a good dog.’’7 A very wicked person is called in Yiddish a keylev shebeklovim, literally ‘‘a dog of dogs.’’ The most compelling evidence of this hostileviewof ‘‘man’s best friend’’ among shtetl Jews during the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries is found in Yiddish literature. However, there it coexists with its negation. Nowhere is this negation more far-reaching than in Yitskhok Bashevis’s novel Der knekht (The Slave).8 A telling scene in the middle of the novel defines these contrasting attitudes: dem poretses hint vos zaynen kapabl tsu tseraysn a mentsh oyf shtiker un vos gershn hot far zey getsitert bizn letstn tog, hobn epes oyf a soydesdikn veg geshlosn sholem mit im, yankevn, gedreyt mit di ekn ven er hot zikh dernentert tsum toyer. ( ) The landowner’s dogs, that were capable of tearing a person to shreds and that terrified Gershon to his dying day, appeared in some way to have made a secret truce with Yankev—when he approached the gate they wagged their tails. Herewe have a vignette of the typical shtetl dog-versus-Jewantipathy, but countering this stereotype the dogs here are credited with a capacity to discriminate, and they somehow accept Yankev—he has lived with animals and ‘‘understands’’ them.Yankev’s empathy with the world of nature and in particular his relationship with the dog whom he curiously names Bilom (English: Balaam) parallel Bashevis ’s personal vegetarianism and horror at animal abuse, manifest throughout his works and often expressed in his public statements.9 Why did Bashevis choose to have the chief character of his novel call a dog by the biblical name Bilom, and what role does this creature play in a novel whose core is the love between a man and a woman from seemingly irreconcilable worlds? Der knekht proves to be a web of antinomies which are ultimately brought into a pattern of reconciliation. Bilom (Balaam) plays a significant role in...

Share