Ruth Wisse on the miracle of modern Jewish history

• Published date: 27 September 2021
• Author: SARAH BEN-NUN
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

In 1952, the New York-based Yiddish monthly Yidisher Kemfer (The Jewish Militant) published the first prose work by then-noted Yiddish poet and Holocaust survivor Chaim Grade (pronounced Grahdeh) titled "My Quarrel" with Hersh Rasseyner.

It tells the short stoy of an ex-yeshiva bochur, Chaim Vilner, loosely representing the author himself, who has a three-part argument with a friend of his from yeshiva, Hersh Rasseyner, at three points in time: 1937, 1939, and 1948. Vilner has turned away from the halachically committed lifestyle and is instead a Yiddish poet, while his friend remained Orthodox.

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The story was immediately recognized as "quite stunning," Prof. Ruth Wisse, iconic Yiddish scholar and professor, told The Jerusalem Post ahead of the printing of her fresh translation of the story, including a storied introduction. Both were published online in Mosaic in December 2020 and will be printed by Koren's Toby Press.

On September 12 Wisse sat down with Jewish history professor Dr. Asael Abelman at Beit Avi Chai, the Jerusalem-based thought and cultural center, to discuss the story ahead of the printing.

"The old translation took certain liberties with the story" prompting a new one from Wisse.

"That's the power of literature," she said. "A story lies there inert – [mere] squiggles on a page. When it is studied and read it becomes this medium through which we can study and analyze these ideas."

The debate which Vilner and Rasseyner have is a "serious [and] intense [one]," Wisse explained. "Nevertheless, the way in which this story and debate work really hold things together.

"It is a very exciting story and very much about the questions that one had to ask after the Shoah: it brings the two sides of a major Jewish debate, particularly in Israel."

The two sides? "To put it into a sound bite: These boys were once in yeshiva together. One left to become a Yiddish poet, and then they met. It is a very harsh break between them. One of them remains halachically [committed] while the other, who speaks as the narrator and is based on Grade himself" chooses the secular path.

Poised after the greatest display of human cruelty – the Holocaust, "One asks: 'How can you go on believing in God and being a halachic Jew?'

" 'How in the world can you go on believing in man, in Western civilization?' is the retort."

" 'Quarrel,' " Wisse...