By Paul Carrier
Fiction often offers up historical nuggets that we might otherwise know nothing about. Such is the case with Among the Living by Jonathan Rabb, which is set in Georgia following World War Two.
I had no idea, until I dove into the novel, that Savannah’s Jewish community is as old as the city itself, dating back to the 1730s in both cases.The size of the Jewish population has fluctuated over the years, but it has long been a vital part of the city’s fabric.
It’s against that backdrop that Yitzhak Goldah, a 31-year-old Czech Jew and Holocaust survivor who lost his immediate family during the war, arrives in Savannah in 1947 to start a new life by moving in with American relatives. Abe and Pearl Jesler are an older, childless couple who willingly take in Goldah, but as he asserts his independence over time and dreams of resuming his pre-war career as a journalist, tensions mount.
Pearl, who seems to view Goldah as an adopted son, had expected him to help Abe run his shoe store following a hoped-for expansion. Yet it soon becomes clear to everyone but the starry-eyed Pearl that the expansion is a pipe dream, especially because Abe’s shady import practices are costing him big money in under-the-table payments to corrupt port officials and a fixer from Atlanta.
The interplay among the characters is especially interesting because their relationships are complicated by racial and religious differences. As Calvin, an older black man, tells Goldah: “They tried to kill you, all a you, all at once. I seen that. But here they kill us one at a time and that’s a difference.”
The Jeslers employ an African-American cook and maid, Mary Royal, whose boyfriend, Raymond Taylor, works for Abe. Taylor is badly injured when thugs beat him up as a warning to Abe that he hasn’t been greasing the right palms to assure delivery of his imported goods.
Rabb explores multiple themes here, including Jim Crow racism; assimilation; trauma; and religious gulfs that separate people who ostensibly share the same faith. He also examines the natural detachment of victimized people — in this case, Holocaust survivors — who understand that even the most well-meaning acquaintances, friends and relatives who never experienced the horrors of the camps cannot truly understand those who have.
Goldah becomes romantically involved with beautiful war widow Eva De la Parra, whose family hails from the Reform branch of Judaism, unlike the Conservative Jeslers. Additional complications develop when Malke Posner, a troubled Holocaust survivor whom the Nazis deported from Prague with Goldah, arrives in Savannah claiming to have been Goldah’s fiancée before their separation during the war.
Rabb handles all of this with sensitivity and insight, offering readers a novel that probes the intricacies of the human heart without ever losing sight of the need to propel the plot forward. Among the Living is a powerful and highly personal tale that combines psychological depth and skilled storytelling.
The fact that Rabb, who teaches at the Savannah College of Art and Design, sets his novel in a well-established Jewish community in the Deep South gives it a strikingly intriguing feel, at least for readers unfamiliar with Judaism's roots and prominence in Savannah.
Rabb explains in an author’s note, for example, that although the city’s Conservative Jews supported the creation of the State of Israel during the run-up to its birth in 1948, the period during which the novel is set, Savannah's Reform and Orthodox Jews did not.
Among the Living is Rabb’s sixth novel. Earlier works include The Observer, The Book of Q, and three novels known collectively as The Berlin Trilogy: Rosa, Shadow and Light, and The Second Son.
I had no idea, until I dove into the novel, that Savannah’s Jewish community is as old as the city itself, dating back to the 1730s in both cases.The size of the Jewish population has fluctuated over the years, but it has long been a vital part of the city’s fabric.
It’s against that backdrop that Yitzhak Goldah, a 31-year-old Czech Jew and Holocaust survivor who lost his immediate family during the war, arrives in Savannah in 1947 to start a new life by moving in with American relatives. Abe and Pearl Jesler are an older, childless couple who willingly take in Goldah, but as he asserts his independence over time and dreams of resuming his pre-war career as a journalist, tensions mount.
Pearl, who seems to view Goldah as an adopted son, had expected him to help Abe run his shoe store following a hoped-for expansion. Yet it soon becomes clear to everyone but the starry-eyed Pearl that the expansion is a pipe dream, especially because Abe’s shady import practices are costing him big money in under-the-table payments to corrupt port officials and a fixer from Atlanta.
The interplay among the characters is especially interesting because their relationships are complicated by racial and religious differences. As Calvin, an older black man, tells Goldah: “They tried to kill you, all a you, all at once. I seen that. But here they kill us one at a time and that’s a difference.”
The Jeslers employ an African-American cook and maid, Mary Royal, whose boyfriend, Raymond Taylor, works for Abe. Taylor is badly injured when thugs beat him up as a warning to Abe that he hasn’t been greasing the right palms to assure delivery of his imported goods.
Rabb explores multiple themes here, including Jim Crow racism; assimilation; trauma; and religious gulfs that separate people who ostensibly share the same faith. He also examines the natural detachment of victimized people — in this case, Holocaust survivors — who understand that even the most well-meaning acquaintances, friends and relatives who never experienced the horrors of the camps cannot truly understand those who have.
Goldah becomes romantically involved with beautiful war widow Eva De la Parra, whose family hails from the Reform branch of Judaism, unlike the Conservative Jeslers. Additional complications develop when Malke Posner, a troubled Holocaust survivor whom the Nazis deported from Prague with Goldah, arrives in Savannah claiming to have been Goldah’s fiancée before their separation during the war.
Rabb handles all of this with sensitivity and insight, offering readers a novel that probes the intricacies of the human heart without ever losing sight of the need to propel the plot forward. Among the Living is a powerful and highly personal tale that combines psychological depth and skilled storytelling.
The fact that Rabb, who teaches at the Savannah College of Art and Design, sets his novel in a well-established Jewish community in the Deep South gives it a strikingly intriguing feel, at least for readers unfamiliar with Judaism's roots and prominence in Savannah.
Rabb explains in an author’s note, for example, that although the city’s Conservative Jews supported the creation of the State of Israel during the run-up to its birth in 1948, the period during which the novel is set, Savannah's Reform and Orthodox Jews did not.
Among the Living is Rabb’s sixth novel. Earlier works include The Observer, The Book of Q, and three novels known collectively as The Berlin Trilogy: Rosa, Shadow and Light, and The Second Son.
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