Ancestral Tales: Reading the Buczacz Stories of S. Y. Agnon PDF
Preview Ancestral Tales: Reading the Buczacz Stories of S. Y. Agnon
a n c e s t r a l t a l e s STANFORD STUDIES IN JEWISH HISTORY AND CULTURE Edited by David Biale and Sarah Abrevaya Stein a n c e s t r a l t a l e s Reading the Buczacz Stories of S. Y. Agnon Alan Mintz stanford university press stanford, california Stanford University Press Stanford, California ©2017 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved. This book has been published with the assistance of a contribution from the Publication Fund of The Jewish Theological Seminary. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press. Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Mintz, Alan, author. Title: Ancestral tales : reading the Buczacz stories of S.Y. Agnon / Alan Mintz. Other titles: Stanford studies in Jewish history and culture. Description: Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, 2017. | Series: Stanford studies in Jewish history and culture | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016049624 (print) | LCCN 2016050555 (ebook) | ISBN 9781503601161 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781503601864 (e-book) Subjects: LCSH: Agnon, Shmuel Yosef, 1887-1970. City in its fullness. | Buchach (Ukraine)--In literature. | Jews in literature. Classification: LCC PJ5053.A4 C536 2017 (print) | LCC PJ5053.A4 (ebook) | DDC 892.43/5--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016049624 Cover photo: Buczacz, Ukraine, 2006. Wikimedia Commons Typeset by Bruce Lundquist in / Bembo To Avraham Holtz and Arnold Band Who ushered me into the world of the Master This page intentionally left blank Table of Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction: “I Am Building a City” 1 1. A Baedeker to Buczacz 33 2. Inventing a Narrator 71 3. Worship and Danger: A Cantorial Triptych 111 4. Rabbis and Scholars 157 5. Jews and Poles 211 6. Austrian Mandates 253 7. Disappeared 291 8. Moments of Redemption 337 Epilogue 393 Notes 397 Index 417 This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments I am deeply grateful to Jeffrey Saks, Michal Arbell, Ariel Hirschfeld, and Omer Bartov for their warm collegiality in all matters Agnon and for their reading chapters in manuscript and making important suggestions. I re- call with affection and loss my close collaboration with the late James S. Diamond. Emunah Yaron graciously talked with me about the editing of her father’s works. I am grateful for advice and feedback from Rachel Manekin, Avraham Holtz, Raymond Scheindlin, Menahem Schmelzer, Gershon Hundert, Marcin Wodzinski, Roman Katsman, and Hillel Weiss. Anne G. Hoffman, David Stern, and David Roskies have been unstint- ing sources of encouragement. The participants in the research group on “Galicia: Literary and Historical Approaches to a Jewish Place” at the Israel Institute of Advanced Studies provided stimulation and expertise in the lat- ter stages of this project; I am grateful to the Institute for enlightenment and hospitality. My thanks to Beit Agnon in Jerusalem for its sponsorship of a trip to Buczacz under the erudite leadership of David Assaf and Haim Be’er. A fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation underwrote an im- portant phase of the work. I am grateful to Alan Cooper, Provost of the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS), and to JTS as a whole for its encour- agement of scholarship and the acknowledgment of its importance. The staff members of the JTS Library were always genial and helpful. Finally, I owe an unending debt to my wife, Susanna Morgenthau, and my daughters, Amira and Avital, for their ready support and affection. ix
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