Fest des Jüdischen Buches

Last Sunday, I attended/worked at the 4th Annual Jewish Book Festival in Duisburg. I helped my colleague Tanya prepare for the fest a bit earlier in the week by translating “Über das Fest,” which states: “The “Jewish Book Festival” addresses the question, what Jewish literature actually is, what it can be, and what it should be. Writers, rabbis, scholars and journalists – all those whose medium is language – examine the numerous styles of Jewish literature together with and for an audience. The spectrum is wide and includes many diverse topics, as well as different languages, in which Jewish literature may be found.”

Publications in German, Russian, Hebrew and Turkish were presented this year at the festival. Jewish Turkish author Mario Levi arrived earlier in the weekend from Istanbul. A few of the community members and myself spent time with him on Saturday, going to the Wilhelm Lehmbruck Center of International Sculpture, which happened to be the location for an event about depression that day. I’m not really sure what was going on, but people were reading poetry and even the mayor spoke. In this photo, which Alex took, I think I’m talking about what I think of Alberto Giacometti’s sculptures of frail women stuck on wagons.

The next day, Mr. Levi read a passage from his book “Istanbul was a Fairy Tale.” I never heard Turkish before, it’s really beautiful. Then the woman who had translated his novel into German read the passage out of her translation. I went from understanding 0% to understanding 50%. The book is about 800 pages, but it’s on my ‘to read’ list. Although Mr. Levi is fluent in French, writing in Turkish is very personal to him, as the language is so closely tied to his life experience and culture. In an interview with Haaretz, an Israeli daily newspaper, Mr. Levi says:

“I will never be able to avoid nostalgia. Anyone who was born in Istanbul loves nostalgia. This is the city’s principal feeling. You can summarize it in a word that cannot be translated into any other language – huzun. Sadness with a touch of optimism and a bitter smile. This is the feeling that accompanies people who left Istanbul on voyages and never returned, who were forcibly brought to live here or were forcibly deported. The last 100 years, since the Ottoman Empire disintegrated, have been an era of unending deportation, of everybody to everywhere. All I want is to remain in my own home.”

Forum during the book festival

Afterwards I went to Admiel Kosman’s reading of his own poetry. He’s a professor at the Geiger College in Berlin right down the street from where I work. I went to a seminar he gave the Camp Szarvas Madrichim in February that was indirectly about Martin Buber. His poetry was amazing. He writes in Hebrew, English and German. Some of his English poetry he writes using Hebrew characters or he’ll write words incorrectly so that they sound like how an Israeli would say the word. For example: Jeruzalem instead of Jerusalem. He wrote his English poetry when he first got to Berlin years ago and didn’t speak any German. Writing poetry in English this way expressed feeling “immigrant.” Someone in the audience didn’t understand the concept, So Professor Kosman asked me to read a poem in English, then he read the same poem. It was really cool, how the sound of the words changed the meaning.

Journalists Alan Posener and Yves Kugelmann discuss how Jewish literature is defined today with moderator Michael Rubinstein

I was really impressed with the special guests – accomplished authors, journalists and scholars from all over Europe, all who came to share their work and knowledge of Jewish literature! Throughout my time in Germany, I have been continuously amazed with the wealth of Jewish culture and knowledge of the Jewish communities here, especially of those who immigrated to this country from the Former Soviet Union and Israel. The Jewish Book Festival is a great example of this trend: the guests and visitors were representative of this native and immigrant reality, bringing their diverse backgrounds and intellect to the discussion of Jewish issues through contemporary literature.

Click here to see more photos of the festival!