Kalooki Nights, by Howard Jacobson is a wonderful book, exploring Judaism in all of its facets.
A Jewish cartoonist, named Max Glickman, is the narrator of this story about childhood, identity, pain, assimilation, memories, about friendship, about what it means to be Jewish, and about growing up in a family whose father is an atheist, and about friendship.
Max Glickman’s childhood friend Manny Washinsky appears to be a religious fanatic (in Glickman’s eyes), along with Washinksy’s family (his brother Asher, and his mother and father). His parents rule the household with a strict hand, causing both of their sons to be a state of constant emotional distress. Above all else, they stress the fact that they must marry a Jewish girl. There is no exception to the rule, no leverage or straying from that. Asher becomes emotionally involved with a girl who is a Goy, not Jewish, and he is unable to contain his emotions. Whereas Manny is brooding and silent, with nervous tics, always in prayer, always feeling as if he is the protector, always mindful, always in remembrance of the Holocaust.
It is Washinsky who brings understanding of the Holocaust to Glickman. He spurs Glickman to draw a comic work entitled Five Thousand Years of Bitterness, depicting in comic/caricature form the events of the Holocaust.
Glickman’s mother is Jewish and a card game addict, specifically a card game called Kalooki, and only stops to play it on the High Holy Days. His father, a born Jew, is an aethist, yet is so intent on assimilation and avoidance, that he is more Jewish than he wants to admit, and his life revolves around his Jewish roots and ancestry (he speaks Yiddish, for one thing). Glickman’s father would not allow Max to have a Bar Mitzvah, and wanted nothing more than for him to marry a Gentile, a Goy.
Jacobson weaves his story within the Jewish world, the Holocaust, and within the world of the Goyim. He leaves us to ponder what is Jewishness, Judaism, and what is the difference and the sameness between the fine line of Jewish aethists (once you are born a Jew, even if you don’t want to practice Judaism, you are still considered a Jew), and practicing Orthodox Jewish fanatics. He defines the characters with pain and humor, poignancy, flaws, and humanness, the humanity that we all have within us, despite our backgrounds and religious beliefs. Bravo to Howard Jacobson’s Kalooki Nights!
I personally own and have read this book.Peace to you all…Jew Wishes
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