Guest Post: Erika Dreifus on Jewish Storytelling

file000845471725Last year when I spent the evening in my uncle’s living room the night before my grandmother’s funeral, he told stories about her, about my great-grandparents, about Mama and Papa Murdoch. I recorded tiny notes in my phone. These pieces of my history have become critical to my understanding of the world, and some of them were new to me; I didn’t want to forget at thing. Lisa Cron (Wired for Story) explains why:

Story evolved as a way to explore our own mind and the minds of others, as a sort of dress rehearsal for the future. As a result, story helps us survive not only in the life-and-death sense but also in a life-lived-well social sense.

Stories then are tied not only to history but also to the culture of family and beyond. Today I welcome Erika Dreifus to talk about storytelling–its significance and symbolism–within her culture.

On Jewish Storytelling

By Erika Dreifus

When Christi invited me to contribute a guest post on the topic of “Jewish storytelling,” I thought immediately of the perennial joke: “Two Jews; three opinions.” And that’s because the very phrase—“Jewish storytelling”—invites debate. As far as I have observed, writers (and readers) seem to be engaged in a lively, eternal discussion, unfolding in print and online, to clarify and define what makes a given story “Jewish.”

Some of my ruminations on this subject stem from my own writing, notably my short-story collection, Quiet Americans, which is inspired largely by the experiences of my paternal grandparents, German Jews who immigrated to the United States in the late FigTreeBooks_Logo1930s. But I’ve also considered the subject more broadly, particularly as I continue to read and write about other people’s “Jewish stories,” and, most recently, as I’ve joined the team of new company, Fig Tree Books LLC, that focuses on publishing “the best Jewish fiction of the American Jewish Experience.”

Helping me shape my thoughts throughout is a website that I discovered thanks to one of the innumerable Jewishly-focused newsletters I subscribe to. At The 5 Legged Table, educator Avraham Infeld’s teachings frame a discussion of the question: What is being Jewish all about? The underlying principles impress me as applicable to a related question: What is a Jewish book or story all about?

Briefly, the 5-Legged Table comprises the following elements:

  • Memory: “While history is about what happened in the past, memory is about how that past drives our present and our future.”
  • Family
  • Covenant: Grounded in the idea that, at Sinai, Jews committed “to recognize one God; to make the world a better place for all people; and to use certain rituals to define and shape Jewish time and space. So, for Jews who observe any or all of the mitzvot, and those who are committed to tikkun olam (repairing the world), and those who serve the Jewish community, or move to Israel, the covenant established at Mount Sinai is still a tie that binds.”
  • Hebrew
  • Israel

My hypothesis: To the extent that these are the “legs” on which a particular book stands, that book is a Jewish book; its story is a Jewish story.

Note that the work need not necessarily include all five legs. After all, tables normally stand on four. But I take pride in realizing that, to varying degrees, all five are woven into Quiet Americans:

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“Yet it was the freedom in the words that mattered.” ~ from “Lebensraum”

Memory: The book itself stems from the transmitted histories of my grandparents and their families, and how all of that accumulated history is remembered and continues to influence me.

Which leads to family: Family relationships are at the core of virtually every story in my book.

What about Covenant? Here, I think especially of one story in my collection, “Lebensraum,” and the role that Jewish ritual plays there. Moreover, in a small gesture of tikkun olam, I have been making quarterly donations—based on sales of Quiet Americans—to The Blue Card, a nonprofit organization that aids U.S.-based Holocaust survivors, ever since the book was first released.

Hebrew words—albeit transliterated—are sprinkled throughout Quiet Americans.

And Israel is very much on the minds of many of my Jewish-American characters, whether they are watching Golda Meir speak on television after the massacre of Israeli athletes at Munich in 1972, or anguishing over the Second Lebanon War (and international condemnation of Israel for it) nearly 35 years later.

So that’s my take. But others have their own views on Jewish stories and storytelling. If this question interests you, I recommend that you explore the views of a diverse array of writers in Moment magazine a couple of years ago. There’s more food for thought—much more, in fact— in those contributions.

ED1014bErika Dreifus lives in New York, where she writes prose and poetry and serves as Media Editor for Fig Tree Books. Visit Erika online at www.erikadreifus.com and follow her on Twitter (@ErikaDreifus), where she tweets on “matters bookish and/or Jewish.”

An Interview with Erika Dreifus, Author of Quiet Americans

“Always, there had been so much about him she hadn’t understood. Always, something about her heart had remained unyielding, beyond his comprehension. But that was the point. So much remained beyond his comprehension.”
~ from “For Services Rendered” in Quiet Americans

What is writing if not an exercise in understanding?
Whether we write fiction or non, we are on a journey to make sense of the incomprehensible, to follow the thread of a story until something is revealed, something of meaning to us or the reader or the character in question.

Erika Dreifus has written a collection of stories about characters searching for that meaning, searching to unravel a mixture of complexities in their histories or to reconcile an agony traced to their past. Nelly Freiburg in “Homecoming” grapples with the decision whether or not to return to places of her youth, knowing that everything, including herself, has been permanently altered by war. In “Mishpocha,” David Kaufmann pursues the mysteries behind his identity and uncovers the unexpected. All of the stories in Quiet Americans reveal a deeper understanding of what it means to be Jewish and an American and a survivor.

I’m honored to host Erika today as she answers questions about Quiet Americans and about writing. I am also offering a book giveaway, so, at the end of the interview, be sure to leave your name in the comments. The winning name will be drawn on Tuesday, May 29th.

Now, welcome Erika Dreifus!

CC: One of the short stories in your collection, “The Quiet American, or How to be a Good Guest,” touches not only on the internal conflicts a young Jewish woman faces when returning to Germany but on the larger issue we sometimes all face: speaking up or speaking out. I love this story and the powerful moment at the end. Did this story draw from your own personal experiences in any way?

Photo credit: Lisa Hancock

ED: First, Christi, I want to thank you for hosting me on your wonderful blog. And thank you so much for the kind words about this story. Yes, the story definitely drew from some of my personal experiences (and traits). For example, like the narrator, I did visit Stuttgart in the summer of 2004. I, too, have a terrible sense of direction. And I did, indeed, sign up for a bus tour of the city. But I invented many other elements of the story, and I borrowed (sounds better than “stole”!) one major piece of it, adapting a travel experience in Germany that a dear friend shared with me in a conversation not long after my trip.

This is part of what is so alluring to me about fiction-writing: the opportunity to combine fragments of personal experience, research, what we learn from others, and what we imagine, and create something new and whole in its own right. Sometimes, it’s difficult for me to remember which elements of a story I’ve created entirely and which do, indeed, have roots in my own lived experience. Which is why those stories begin and remain as fiction. I’m pretty meticulous about making sure that anything I label “nonfiction” is, in fact, not fictionalized.

CC: The Jewish Journal calls your book “…a deeply affecting collection of short stories that contemplate how the long shadow of the Holocaust falls across the lives of men and women who come alive in her work.” While the book focuses on the Jewish experience, the stories within appeal to those who appreciate stories of history and culture as well. What do you hope readers take away from Quiet Americans?

ED: What a great question. Well, I suppose I hope that that readers take away a good reading experience, in that they don’t regret having spent their valuable time with the book. I do also hope to capture aspects of history that will soon be *only* history, in that there will no longer be witnesses to share their experiences. And I hope that we all try to think larger, for lack of a better term, that we try to acknowledge nuance and the challenges of moral dilemma and complexity.

CC: On your website, you mention that partial proceeds from your book will go to an organization called The Blue Card. Can you tell us a little more about that organization and whom it serves?

ED: Thank you so much for asking. I think I’ll quote directly from the organization’s website:

“The Blue Card was founded in 1934 in Germany to help Jews fleeing Nazi oppression. The organization got its name from the original blue cards that were issued. Each time a donation was made, a stamp was put on the card to keep a record. Today, when many Jewish community funds support memorials for the Holocaust, education programs, and other causes, The Blue Card has only one mission; that mission, is to get much-needed funds either on an emergency basis or as an ongoing stipend to indigent needy Holocaust survivors. To date, The Blue Card has provided over 20 million dollars to thousands upon thousands of survivors and their families.”

My family has supported The Blue Card for years. And I have indeed explained more about my decision to share some of the profits with The Blue Card on my own site.

CC: Along with being a published author, you are also contributing editor for The Writer magazine and Fiction Writers Review, as well as editor and publisher for the newsletter, The Practicing Writer. What’s your strategy for balancing several writing projects?

ED: I wish I had a real strategy! I have to confess that I’ve begun setting more limits. For instance, I’ve recently had to decline some requests, even from The Writer and Fiction Writers Review, both of which I love.

The newsletter (and my blogs) I see as a way to provide some sustained literary service to the literary community, and that’s important to me. Sticking to a pretty structured publishing structure and schedule seems to help. I’m always so happy when someone lets me know that something from my blogs or newsletters helped them with their writing and/or publishing path. That makes it all worth the effort.

But, like everyone else, I’m always wishing for more time to write (not to mention for all of the reading and ruminating that good writing requires).

CC: What are you reading these days?

ED: One of the great joys of attending the Virginia Festival of the Book in March was the opportunity I had to meet and speak with Thomas Mallon–and to have him sign my copy of his new novel, Watergate. I’m reading Watergate right now. And on the side, I’m savoring the first issue of my new subscription to The Cincinnati Review and the latest issue of Ecotone.

Christi, thank you again for your enthusiasm for Quiet Americans. I am so grateful!

Erika Dreifus is the author of Quiet Americans: Stories, a collection inspired largely by the histories of her paternal grandparents, German Jews who immigrated to the U.S. in the late 1930s. Quiet Americans has been named a 2012 ALA Sophie Brody Medal Honor Title for outstanding Jewish literature; it was also cited as a Jewish Journal “Notable Book” and a Shelf Unbound “Top Small-Press Book” for 2011. Erika writes fiction, essays, poetry, and book reviews from her home base in New York City. Web: www.erikadreifus.com.

~

Thank you, Erika. And remember, readers, to leave your name in the comments for a chance to win a copy of Quiet Americans.

 

On Reading and Writing: Quotable Posts

underlining while reading

A host of posts worth bookmarking.

On Reading

It’s Short Story Month at Fiction Writers Review. Here’s a bit of what you can look forward to if you stop by their blog:

There’s more to watch for at FWR during May, like interviews and short story collection giveaways. I’ll be running my own interview and giveaway in a few weeks, when Erika Dreifus stops by the blog to discuss her book of stories, Quiet Americans.

Siobhan Fallon reflects on author readings and the book tour, the thrill and the hardship:

…[T]ouring can be as difficult as it is wonderful. Wonderful, because, c’mon, the ‘book tour’ is every author’s dream…to have your book taken seriously enough that your publisher is actually sending you out in the world to talk about your written words. . . . Also difficult because writers are usually a shy bunch of people…. It is scary as all hell to get up in front of strangers and try to charm them for a half hour.

To authors who brave the mic, I say Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You pave the way for those writers who follow in your footsteps. you enrich the experience of readers as you give voice to the printed word, and you inspire those in the audience to run home and put pen to paper.

On Writing

Cathy Day shares an “end of the semester” lecture online, addressing the ever-present question in students’ minds: Am I a Writer?

You don’t “become” a writer because of a particular degree or a particular kind of job…. Nobody—no degree-granting institution, no teacher, no editor, no association—grants you the status of writer. You don’t need anyone’s permission to be a writer. You have to give yourself permission. It’s an almost completely internal “switch” that you have to turn on and (this is harder) keep on. . . .

Convincing yourself each day to keep going, this means that you are a writer.

There’s so much more in this post worth reading and considering, like what we mean – exactly – when we say we “just want to be published”.

Lisa Romeo talks about the Aha moment in writing and suggests that we stop waiting for it:

In my experience – and I’m talking here in broad terms that include motherhood, writing, marriage, career, relationships – the aha moments come in two general forms. Either they hit me like all at once at an unexpected and always later time: in the shower hours after the marathon work session, while awaking the morning after an argument, during the long drive home from the much-anticipated event… . . . . Or else they creep along, small and quiet at first, and then build speed and grow in size and shape until one day I realize (with very little fanfare) that some new angle, method, mindset, approach, skill or proficiency has worked its way into my usual routine. . . .

Corner-turning, breakthroughs, aha moments have their own agenda, and it’s not yours. Relax. Stop waiting. Your job now is to take it all in, to read, to study, to try, to experiment, to think.

This post hits the mark for me; I am always looking for the burning bush to urge me on, instead of (simply) relying on my own sheer will to write.

What posts would you quote this week?