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Last update - 17:36 21/05/2008 Hebrew fiction Parable for a bygone language By Benny Mer Tags: Sholom Aleichem, Yiddish  Hacabaret hahistori shel professor fabricant (?Professor Fabricant?s Historical Cabaret?) by Yirmi Pinkus, Am Oved (Hebrew), 303 pages, NIS 88 "Herman blushed and turned his head away, and his gaze fell on the expression that Fruma?s face had assumed -- a masterful blend of pity and reproof.? Like Fruma?s face, Yirmi Pinkus? debut novel is a masterful blend of pity and reproof. Reproof is a skill at which Pinkus already excelled years ago -- for example, in his comic strip about Chava the Teacher, which appeared in the Tel Aviv weekly Ha'ir: He tormented her like a student tormenting a substitute teacher, and something of this has remained in the new novel, such as in the story of one midget whose bowels were troubling her, and who "let out a stray puff of gas, which immediately ignited and singed her buttocks.? Pinkus' grotesque circus also appears in the new novel, complete with dwarves and giants, bearded ladies and other freaks. But if the author learned the art of reproof from the grandfather of modern Hebrew literature, Mendele Moycher Sforim, there is no doubt who taught him pity: the latter's artistic "grandson,? Sholem Aleichem. "Professor Fabricant's Historical Cabaret? overflows with compassion for its characters, primarily for the aging actresses who are the novel's focus. These actresses wander from one theater to the next in Central Europe of the 1930s, putting on the same Yiddish plays that have constituted the repertoire for 50 years. Although each of them has her weaknesses, Pinkus is full of love for them all, and he follows them, sadly, until they are lost. Take, for example, the two Ginas. Gina Zweig (the big one) and Gina Danzig (the little one) have been close since childhood, when they were both orphaned and, like the other actresses, were added by Marcus Fabricant to his cabaret. The two Ginas are not known for their sharp wit, to say the least, and both have a passion for sweets, since they are, after all, aging little girls who never knew any other desires: "The sight of the doughy lattice woven over a shiny glaze of jam filled her with a nearly paralyzing lust.? Little Gina has another paralyzing lust -- for porcelain figurines, one of them being the "plump, bespectacled protome [bust] of Franz Schubert, whom she called ?Zosia' because he reminded her of the milkman from her childhood.? The two Ginas bring to mind the two Nechomes, the servant girls in Sholem Aleichem's "Tzvey Shalachmones?: "One dark, strapping, her eyebrows thick and her nose flat, and the other pale, sickly, her hair red and her nose pointed.? Both of the latter two yearn for sweets and gobble up their mistresses' Purim food baskets. Sholem Aleichem describes the clumsy maids and their rough language, but he feels deeply for them and stands by them till their bitter end. Pinkus makes his two Ginas in the image of the two Nechomes, from their childhood, when they shared a honey cake, to their old age, when they have grown fat and paunchy. But unlike the turtle faces he used to draw, the account and sketches here are not caricatures. After all, little Gina would part with all her porcelain dolls, "her darlings,? to buy medicine for big Gina. And the same is true of the other long-time cabaret actresses, who support each other through thick and thin. Of course, both Pinkus and Sholem Aleichem have characters who are pure darkness. The latter's "Tzum der Sude? ("To the Feast?) -- which recently appeared in the Hebrew collection "Sipurei za'am? ("Tales of Rage?), translated and compiled by Dan Miron -- features the rich aunt, "a woman with white pearls, black lips and false teeth.? Miron discusses Sholem Aleichem's short, pithy description at length, calling it "a vicious and particularly enjoyable comic invention.? Pinkus has his own black widows, such as Sofia Fabricant, who haunts the cabaret and tells her son: "We can no longer ignore reality. What I predicted a year and a half ago has come to pass: The actresses are getting older, the difficulties will multiply, and all of Uncle Marcus' inheritance with be lost. The anti-Semitic Romanians, they shut down the Jewish theater long ago, after all, so what are you waiting for?? Mrs. Fabricant is a beautiful, sensible woman, but there is no doubt whom the novel favors: the little people, the aging actresses, the cabaret manager with his head full of dreams, and Yiddish, a language slowly sinking into oblivion. Two loves The empathy for Yiddish joins Pinkus' abiding affection for Austro-Hungary and its culture. These two loves are embodied by Czernowitz, the German cultural locus that became part of Romania after World War I. "Many of the Czernowitz Jews used to mumble the words of the Austrian anthem when the Romanian anthem was played,? wrote Zvi Yavetz in his recent memoir "My Czernowitz?; he claims that his grandmother and her friends secretly wished for Otto von Hapsburg to regain the throne. On the other hand, at the Czernowitz Conference, exactly 100 years ago, Yiddish was declared to be the language of the Jewish people. The city was home to a vibrant Yiddish culture between the two world wars, and it gave rise to the work of poet Itzik Manger. The Central European way of life of Czernowitz included both German and Yiddish, and since the dialogue in the novel seems to be conducted in both languages, or in German scattered with Yiddish, it is only natural for Yiddish words to appear here and there. And they are not the obvious words that appear in other books to provide a "flavor? of gefilte fish. If the Austro-Hungarian passion is largely comic, the passion for Yiddish gives the novel its tragic dimension, since the language and its speakers will soon fall silent. Already in 1878, at a party marking the 10th birthday of the cabaret, one of the guests said, "People of our status cannot afford to speak Yiddish.? And still Prof. Fabricant spent decades running his theater company, which put on plays to educate the populace and gained a following from Iasi to Warsaw. It is not for nothing, then, that Pinkus learns from Sholem Aleichem how to write a "Jewish novel.? The latter, after all, tried to avoid the convoluted plot of the schund ("trash?) literature. In Pinkus, too, the world goes about its daily business, for the most part; like his Yiddish forebear, he too writes of small people with small accomplishments, because "little people should do little things.? In contrast to the aging actresses, those ambitious souls ?(like the cabaret's bookkeeper or the new actors?) who can sense what is coming leave the company and save their own skins. Sholem Aleichem is the book's horn of plenty, but Pinkus is in no way his epigone. He has a rich, precise Hebrew and a distinctive, original way with humor. People are often described metonymically, as food: herring, sauerkraut, pickle or hot pepper. One not-so-good actress is eulogized through an allusion to her unique ability to eat a fish's head. The world created in the novel is so harmonious and convincing that it is hard to believe that the cabaret is only a parable -- a parable for Yiddish, of course, a language whose historical task was finished, and which had reached the end of its road even before "Hitler took it away.? Personifying Yiddish as an aging actress is not new; it is almost a cliche by now. Avraham Heffner did it in his movie "The Last Love of Laura Adler? (1990), about an aging Yiddish actress. More recently, Dan Katzir's 2007 film "Yiddish Theater: A Love Story? was devoted to Zypora Spaisman, the last star of the Folksbiene Theater in New York. In Heffner's movie, the actress dies on the stage, and in Katzir's film the theater cannot continue after Spaisman's death. Pinkus' choice is understandable: The actresses in Prof. Fabricant's cabaret started out at the same time that modern Yiddish theater came into being, in the 1870s. By the 1930s, naturally, they were rather old. But the '30s were actually bustling years of revival for Yiddish and its culture. Pinkus alludes to Kafka, Chagall and Manger, who represent this avant-garde period. Having Yiddish represented by aged actresses may seem anachronistic, like the present's view of the past. And yet Pinkus manages to breathe new life into even this cliche: Nothing, his novel convinces us, is younger and more alive than an old Yiddish actress. Benny Mer is an editor at Haaretz and is co-editor of the journal Davka. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Fear of extinction The state of over 20 species of birds in Israel has worsened considerably. Taking advantage Jerusalem police probe possible gang rape of disabled woman.

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