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Q: What inspired you to write Shlemazel?
A: I have always loved stories about shlemiels and shlemazels. I was reluctant at first to touch this one, though, because part of its humor turns on the double meaning and confusion of words. Because I learned this story in English and do not really speak Yiddish, I was concerned that I was missing something important in retelling a translation.
As I thought more about folktales, however, I began to speculate about how the storyteller infuses each tale with his or her own particular flavor. In the case of the stories I learned from my grandmother, for example, the values and beliefs of the optimistic, adventurous immigrant are prominent -- perhaps more prominent than in other versions of the same stories told in other places and under different conditions.
Q: Was Jewish folklore an integral part of your childhood?
A: Yes and no. I come from a fairly typical, assimilationist 20th century family. My grandparents came from Eastern Europe and were all safely ensconced in America by the 1920s. My parents were born here but spoke Yiddish in their homes. When I was born in the 1950s, they had just failed in their struggle to get past the INS anti-immigration regulations to save their extended families from the Holocaust. No one made it to America; no one was saved. The culture they had come from was utterly destroyed, and though Yiddishkeit and folklore were greatly respected, there was a real push to raise the grandchildren as all-American.
Jewish folklore took on an exotic, almost mysterious quality for me growing up, tied as it was to an aspect of my family's history that no one was willing to discuss. It served as a vital link for me between my life as an all-American blonde girl giggling through the Eisenhower years, and the dark, rich foreign roots that so shaped my deeper values and world view.
Q: How important is the trandition of storytelling in your family?
A: Vital. Both in the sense of importance and of being infused with life and vitality. This wasn't a formal, gather-around-and-I'll-tell-you-a-story-from-the-shtettel kind of a tradition. Stories were just a part of life, almost like gossip.
For the longest time as a child, I have memories of adults always trying to get me to eat more food and go to sleep. Stories became institutionalized as the best way to get me to do these things: Just eat this little poulkie while I tell you something interesting; just lie down here while I tell you about what happened to the shlemazel. Storytelling was the way we talked about the villages, people, and traditions we weren't overtly discussing.
And my father in particular read to me and provided me with literature from the folklore tradition, so that respect for Jewish folklore was also linked to the reverence for scholarship and for great writers that was important in my family.
Q: What do you hope readers will take away from this story?
A: There are layers upon layers of messages and values to be drawn from folktales. In Shlemazel, first, there is the tone of the story, a feeling I hope readers will get just from the language, the rhythm and the flow of it, combined with Jackie Cohen's beautiful colors and pictures. I want there to be a sense of bittersweet nostalgia and then intimacy with the world that the words and the illustrations convey.
Then, there is the story itself, which is, I think, terribly funny, with a very physical, slapstick quality to its action. For such a slight story, there are also huge issues, including friendship, fellowship, and love. I don't think the tale hits the reader over the head with a message about human connection, but I want the reader to feel the warmth of the close relationships between the characters.
And of course, there is the overarching message of hope and optimism, that a better life can be achieved, that a person can be transformed when he or she becomes involved in helping others, for whatever reason, and becomes linked to his or her community with work and good deeds. And that as we help others, we help ourselves. The notion that we can make our own luck is certainly embedded in this story, but it is the particular way that Shlemazel does so that reveals the values of the Jewish tradition from which the story flows. |
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