Ilan Stavans' Challenge Word from: David

Ilan Stavans is a man of letters who has written or edited numerous texts including anthologies of Modern Sephardic Literature, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. An academic whose work is debated in Chicano Studies and 'Commentary' alike, perhaps his best known work is Spanglish: The Making of a New American Language. (Don't confuse it with a movie of the same name starring noted philologist Adam Sandler.) Stavans is also a Mexican of Ashkenazic descent, who feels most comfortable in New York City.

In a recent piece in the 'Forward, he claims 'The absence of well-rounded, ongoing multicultural faces in Jewish depictions of the American scene, and in depictions of the community itself, is indeed disconcerting.' This a question well worth discussing and I humbly offer some thoughts as to why this is the case.

-Works that are iconic on a national level, such as 'Seinfeld' are usually air-brushed free of specific ethnic indentity. Although most of the main actors in 'Seinfeld' were Jewish, technically George was Italian, Elaine had a Czech surname, and I never heard Jerry discuss his mother's Syrian Jewish roots. (Perhaps because S-Y's and Jay-dub's, as Ashkenazim are called in Brooklyn, rarely marry each other.)

-What about the hordes of Ashkenazim who came to New York City after World War II? There is endless material in the Haredi communities, among Russians, Israeli yordim, and Red State Jews who find their way to the Big Apple. The Brighton Beach of Neil Simon now belongs to Gary Shteingart, who did include several Non-Jews in 'The Russian Debutante's Handbook.' It is important to note that writers like I.B Singer may not have paid much attention to American gentiles, but they certainly paid ample attention to the strata of Polish society because they lived among them.

-Is there a parallel construction of New York, say an Irish, Hispanic, or African-American novel that can be cited as a contrast to 'Jewish exclusivity?' Most Jewish writers live and interact with a multicultural world, but retreat to write their books. As they say in hip-hop 'don't hate the playaz, hate the game' ahem, publishers.

-I will make overgeneralize and say that most media today tends to be personal. Have you seen any Jewish-American novels written lately that are not loosely autobiographical? There is less of a collective idenity. There are no stories about the elderly kosher butcher, the anonymous businessman sitting in the next seat at synagogue, let alone other cultural experiences.

-Maybe it's the yarmulke. There are limits, which I am always pushing, in terms what can be shared and experienced. In my four years in Washington Heights, I learned the difference between Juan Pablo Duarte and Rafael Trujillo, watched political parades and street fairs, ate a few tostones and yanquique, heard some bachata and reggaeton, read 'El Especialito' and poem by a local poetess. Yet how would I write a story and create a complex Dominican-American charachter? My experiences as an onlooker are all at the street level rather than the apartment, botanica, and school, and thus smacks of exoticism. After all, why write about someone else if it just becomes a caricature-a lost wax impression showing your perception rather than theirs?

-Perhaps the most important question is how writers outside New York deal these issues. Jessica Sacks of London, Daniella Ross of Los Angeles, are two of the many poets worth noting-check the old journals-or buy a copy.