A Saintly Fool versus A Foolish Saint: Bontshe the Silent by Leib Peretz versus Gimpel the Fool by Isaac Bashevis Singer and other tales.
Guest Speaker: Bonita Posen
19:30 Monday 18 December
Live at Netanya AACI and on Zoom
A saint is a saint is a saint, or is it? Saintly acts can be interpreted as madness or heroism, or both and these two Yiddish writers give us a twist on both aspects. Both writers were deeply embedded in their Jewish communities and cast an ironic eye over them but Singer escaped Eastern Europe for the United States and wrote about the small, packed insular communities that he had grown up in from afar as well as writing about the often forlorn figures who had escaped from Europe to America with whom he engaged on a daily basis.
Peretz was more embedded in Europe , never leaving it and with a keen and unflinching view of Jewish communal shortcomings that centred on inter communal rivalries and the frequent failure of wealthy members of Jewish communities to exert their influence benevolentlyand justly.
Both these tales derive from the communities in Europe and both sharply satirise foolish, forsaken characters but one of these characters rises to the occasion and tosses off those who attempted to brand him merely a fool.
Members pre-paid and on Zoom NIS 40
Members at door NIS 50
Non-members NIS 60
