Page 25 - Jewish News_May-June-2020

JEWISH INTEREST May/June 2020 25

How a seemingly ordinary individual

can play an extraordinary role

Book review by Philip K. Jason, Special to The Jewish News

The Old Stories by David Selcer. Manchuria. power of the British rative’s questions that would
Biblio Publishing. 234 pages. He made his way to the United Mandate for Palestine, otherwise go unanswered.
Trade paperback $12.95. States via Canada (where the immi- which favored other A former Ohioan, David
gration process changed the name to political outcomes for Selcer now lives in Sarasota
t’s hard to separate the strands of Selcer), and a fortunate arranged mar- the remains of the for- with his wife, where he de-
memoir, history, biography and riage provided the opportunity to raise mer Ottoman Empire. cides employment cases for
Iimagination in David Selcer’s pro- a family and, with his wife, run a busi- This part of the federal agencies as a Federal
vocative, informative and deeply mov- ness. His children were often embar- story is told, long af- Agency Decision Writer. Al-
ing book. Perhaps the genre doesn’t rassed by his accent, his foreign ways ter Hyman’s death, ways a buckeye, the Buckeye
matter that much. It’s a feast of infor- and a certain coarseness of manner. by Bloom, who is Barrister (lead character in
mation and revelation, past and pres- No one expected that this man, questioned relent- Selcer’s four-part mystery se-
ent, satisfaction and regret. in his middle years, would become lessly by Hyman’s younger son, Lester. ries) is an avid Ohio State University
As the 19 a hero of sorts. Without explanation, Lester had been a resentful son grow- fan. His other book is the historical
th
century came to a soon after the close of WWII, Chaim ing up in the shadow of his older broth- novel Lincoln’s Hat and the Tea Move-
close in the town (now long known as Hyman), became er Ben, just like Chaim had grown up ment’s Anger.
of Kherson with- involved for about 18 months as a in the shadow of Shmuel. Lester never Philip K. Jason is Professor Emeritus
in the Ukrainian worker for the entities that would soon could please his father. He never re- of English from the United States Na-
province of Great- help bring forth the State of Israel. This ceived praise, encouragement or even val Academy. He reviews regularly for
er Russia, a young man, who never had a birth certificate, useful answers to his questions. His Florida Weekly, Washington Indepen-
boy – not at all a somehow, with his sophisticated and understanding of his father is modified dent Review of Books, Southern Lit-
scholar – toiled well-connected Ohio friend Herschel through hearing Bloom’s narrative of erary Review, other publications and
with his lessons Bloom, worked for the cooperat- courage and commitment. the Jewish Book Council. Please visit
Phil Jason at the Great Cho- ing Jewish organizations that would This brief stretch of time within the Phil’s website at www.philjason.word
ral Synagogue. He hated his studies, change the history of the Middle East. overall narrative includes a romantic press.com.
but enjoyed paging through the stories subplot in Hyman’s relationship with
of Sholem Aleichem, the great Jewish an attractive woman, Leila, he meets STAY
storyteller whose Yiddish tales offered on Kfar Giladi, a kibbutz that absorbed
humor and profundity. At nine, Chaim many newcomers to nascent Israel.
Zelitzer could not absorb the great David Selcer’s prose has an abun- CONNECTED
teachings of the Torah and the Tal- dance of descriptive power. He is able
mud. He had a practical turn of mind. to put his complexly drawn characters
At a young age, he was happy enough into vivid, realistic settings across the
to please his father and uncle by be- decades of his fable-like tale. The au-
coming a skilled metal worker. But thor is also able to set forth the histori-
he stumbled through his Bar Mitzvah cal issues and events with clarity and
preparation. precision. Moving as well is his han-
Chaim did honor the traditional dling of the various characters’ emo-
goal of the Tzadik – of becoming a tional ups and downs.
righteous man. David Selcer Is Lester, who is the novel’s prima-
His older brother, Shmuel, was on They were part of Aliya Bet, the ry first-person narrator, actually David
his way to becoming a famous cantor. secret organization that created a secret Selcer in disguise? It sometimes seems
Russia’s defeat in the Russo-Jap- Jewish fleet for the purpose of facili- that way. But no. David Selcer is the
anese War (1905) prompted the teen- tating Jewish immigration to Palestine, son of Lester and thus the inventor of .com/jfedsrq
age sailor (Chaim) to “go AWOL” to a crucial step toward undermining the the needed fictional answers to the nar-

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