Constructed truths: Memory and imagination in the works of Tatiana Salem Levy and Jonathan Rosen

• In Event: Jewish Literatures in South America and North Africa

Abstract

According to the Museum of Jewish People at Beit Hatfutsot’s website, Brazil’s Jewish population is “the second largest Jewish community in Latin America.” Despite this large number, however, Brazilian literary studies have not given sufficient attention to works produced by and about Jews. Nelson H. Vieira’s 1996 book JEWISH VOICES IN BRAZILIAN LITERATURE and his 2010 anthology CONTEMPORARY JEWISH WRITING IN BRAZIL are important landmarks in developing this branch of Brazilian literary studies, especially regarding Brazil’s most famous Jewish authors, Clarice Lispector (1920-1977) and Moacyr Scliar (1937-2011). Aside from Vieira’s works, however, there are relatively few studies devoted to this underexplored area. Several Jewish writers have gained prominence more recently who are as yet understudied. This paper aims to help bring Brazilian Jewish literary studies up to date by analyzing a 2007 novel by Tatiana Salem Levy, a female author born into a family of Turkish Jews. I will compare her 2007 novel A CHAVE DE CASA (translated as THE HOUSE IN SMYRNA) with American writer Jonathan Rosen’s THE TALMUD AND THE INTERNET: A JOURNEY BETWEEN WORLDS, published in 2000.
In his book, Rosen poses this provocative question: “Do we only inherit our religious worlds, or do we create them, too?” (110). The relationship between inherited and created worlds and beliefs is central to Rosen’s text, in which he struggles to reconcile his own non-religious life with the Jewish heritage of his parents and grandparents. The subject and themes of this book are remarkably similar to those of Levy’s book A CHAVE DE CASA, in which the narrator tries to grapple with her Jewish heritage through a visit to Turkey, in search of her grandfather’s old house. Through a comparative reading of both texts, I analyze the way in which their authors struggle to reconcile their Jewish and European heritage with their current residence in countries and situations seemingly far removed from those of their ancestors. Both authors seek to come to terms with their heritage and succeed in doing so as they remember—and in some cases fabricate—memories, giving priority to personal, subjective truths over empirical, objective truths.

Author

• Jordan Jones, Brown University