Chosen race
Harriet Waugh
Proofs of Affection Rosemary Friedman (Gollancz £7.95) Proofs of Affection Rosemary Friedman (Gollancz £7.95)
This book gives a rounded and rather endearing portrait of British Jewry. It differs from its American counterpart, with which most readers of the modern novel are very familiar, by not dealing with the angst of one member of a Jewish family as he painfully fails to assert his identity against the strength of his background. On the other hand, where it is aligned is in its vision of a closed society oblivious to the existence of the outside world except as an adjunct of Judaism. Russia exists because it imprisons Jews, the Arab world because it threatens Israel and Germany because it murdered Jews. This novel brings the Gentile into this closed world, describing the internal struc- ture of family life, its society and religion. It has come at a particularly appropriate moment when a great many people must be wondering why Jews are like they are. The sight of the Jewish nation moving like a small swarm of plunderous bees on to a par- ticularly delapidated bloom has probably caused anti-Zionist feeling at a good many dinner parties around the world although I suspect this modern spectre is a rather neurotic, navel-inspecting fellow, made uneasy by his feeling of outrage. Israel's single-minded bellicosity (not in evidence in the novel) could be said to arise from its appreciation of international hap- penings from this squint-eyed view. Even Rachel, the selfish, egotistical student daughter who is rebelling against the demands of the Jewish faith looks no fur- ther than to Zionism as an alternative.
The Sheltons (formerly Solomon), the family at the centre of the novel, are middle class. The head of the family, Sidney, is in wholesale Fancy Goods. He and his wife Kitty have a son, two daughters, two grand- daughters and numerous brothers and sisters, nephews and nieces. Sidney is a religious, thoroughly good family man; his wife Kitty a loving and absorbed housewife. Whole men, however, sometimes leave little leeway for their off-spring, and the dif- ficulties experienced by his children, Josh, Carol and Rachel, are in direct relation to Sidney's strength. These tensions are mostly played out against a background of religious festivals (or in a literal sense,
feasts) as the extended family foregather in the synagogue and round the table to celebrate the New Year, Passover, The Day of Atonement etc. The elaborate rituals of eating and praying bring about a curious synthesis of the temporal and spiritual worlds. Among some of the less genuinely religious relations this comes over as simple greed. The emphasis on food, bought in certain shops, prepared in certain ways, eaten with utensils that have undergone their own purification rituals emphasises the idea of hospitality and the gusty enjoy- ment of it. The magnificence of her larder is Kitty's offering and love. Given this em- phasis on food, it struck me, while reading the novel, that it is curious that there should be no Jewish dimension to anorexia ner- vosa.
Josh, the son, is a dentist. He knows that he has disappointed his father in failing to become a doctor and his mother by w?lking out on his engagement to a suitable Jewish girl. Worse still, he has fallen in love with a shiksa (a non-Jewish girl). He knows that when his father learns of his intended mar' riage, the family door will close to him. Meanwhile he carries out the synagogue and family rituals. If he were to stop doing so it would cause unacceptable hurt to his parents. Sidney knows that Josh does not have the same attachment to the faith as he does, and as the prospect of his death looms, his one fear is that Josh might fail to say kaddish for him after he dies. This gruelling ritual will entail Josh's going to the synagogue to say a prayer morning and evening for 13 months. Where he performs the minimum family offices with good grace, Rachel takes a stand and refuses to attend Yom Kippur. With religion and domestic life so inextricably entwined, she 11 has to face the chill of her father's love for her, doing so with the same guilty anger that she brings to everything else. The older sister, Carol, is married to a doctor, has two daughters and is so steeped in traditional ways that she cannot imagine an existence away from her parents. Her father comes first, her husband a bad second and in the wake of her unease she is frigid. In despera- tion her husband decides to move to the country. There is an excellent comic scene when Carol beards the country. She 'sat in the corner of the carriage, an olive-skinned girl in a white dress, a gold bangle on her arm, gold chains round her neck. The heels on her white shoes were four inches high and ended in a point no larger in diameter than a shirt button'. Needless to say, the countryside does not impress her.
The emphasis in Proofs of Affection on prayer, ritual, and family affections might give the impression of slow moving, rather heavy stuff. This is far from the case. Rosemary Friedman has a good eye for the absurd, and the lives and attitudes of Sidney's brothers, sisters and their children give her lively scope for fun. The family roil the gamut of intolerable behaviour in an en' tirely believable form, and the writer's lik- ing for them is attractive. This is at educative as well as enjoyable novel.
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