Review of The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobsen (winner of the Man Booker Prize)

Howard Jacobsen's novel is an exploration of 'Jewishness'. Three of its four central characters — two widowers and a single woman — are Jewish, and the fourth isn't, but wants to be. Really, he wants to be anything other than the person he is. He's an intelligent man but utterly indecisive and unable to commit to anything. He becomes increasingly irritating to the reader, as no doubt he's meant to — a bit like Kenneth Branagh's TV version of 'Wallander' (for those who followed it). He wants to be someone with a secure identity, snuggled up in a blanket of Jewishness. But he also wants to be part of a slightly exotic, exclusive, élite sort of community, with its hidden understandings and its own language. At one point, he is shocked to be accused of anti-semitism, but actually there's probably truth in the accusation : he wants 'Jewishness' for purely selfish reasons, because he's a deeply self-centred man.

He's the only Gentile that really features in the book at all apart from his estranged wives and their sons, and the (deceased) wife of his friend — who had converted to Judaism. I found this rather disturbing. Is the book a sort of parable, in which this man is supposed to represent the Gentile world? It would have been interesting, and more true to life, to have seen some non-Jewish (even Christian) characters who were secure in their religious identity, rather than confused and envious of the strong sense of identity shared (despite their differences) by the Jewish characters in the book. Such people do exist.

For me, Christians are, anyway, 'Jews by grace'; adopted children of their parent people, the Jews. It's true that Paul the apostle never convinced the Jewish leadership of his day of this, and that for two thousand years Christians have behaved as if their 'faith parents' were aliens, but the underlying sense in this book is that, indeed, Jews can never escape being a special, unique, rather alien group. But if Christians are 'Jews by grace', with a shared early history, then this is less true. It would have been good to see the idea reflected somewhere. As it is, Christian faith goes unnoticed in the book, which is a pity since Christian attitudes towards Judaism have changed radically in the last 50 years (although there are pockets where the old attitudes survive).

The arguments between the characters (which happen against a backdrop of grief, since two of the characters are recent widowers) all orbit round the question of what a Jew should make of the present Israeli state. This (Jacobsen wants us to know) is an enormously complex and emotive issue, not least for Jews, overshadowed as it inevitably is with the history of the Holocaust. At one key point, the character who is so angered and dismayed by what the Israeli government is doing to the Palestinians that he chairs an organisation called 'ASHamed Jews', rounds on a questioner at a public meeting saying "How dare you, a non-Jew, . . even think you can tell Jews what sort of country they may live in, when it is you, a European Gentile, who made a separate country for Jews necessary?"

This argument swirls round the book endlessly, until I was left with a sense that Jacobsen wanted me to back off from even thinking about it . . . as if he was saying "this is a complex and emotive issue, and Jews themselves have so many strong and contradictory feelings about it that there's nothing you could think that we haven't already thought." And there's just that little uneasy feeling that he thinks non-Jews have forfeited their right to have an opinion about it, anyway.

It was some time after reading it that I found myself reflecting that there is no character in the book that really expresses the dangerous fundamentalism that drives the Zionist settlers in the West Bank. There's a passing reference to a settler who, on being evicted by the Israeli government, has shot an Arab family on a bus in Israel. But the only character in the book who reflects on this believes that "thou shalt not kill is emblazoned on the hearts of Jews", so "he is not one of ours". The trouble is, he is. These people have a major influence on the current Israeli government, which is actually doing very little to discourage settlers. They cannot be dismissed so easily. I'm sure that it is indeed very complex — but actually, some things are simple, and much of what is being done to the Palestinians is not excused by saying 'it's complex'. It's simply wrong, and needs to stop — complexity is no excuse.

Plot-wise (for those who like a story), the book starts promisingly; but the plot gets less and less interesting, and eventually peters out. That's quite a fashionable thing for novels to do these days, but it wouldn't satisfy those who prefer Mills & Boon endings. However, I have to say that it is beautifully written and, at least in the first half, very funny.

Missing the Beauty

From the Washington Post, a story of what happened when one of the finest violinists in the world went busking on the Washington DC Metro. Making me wonder how much beauty I fail to see.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html?hpid=topnews

As an occasional busker myself, the one thing that didn't happen (which happens to me) is people coming to chat with you while you're playing, as if the playing requires no effort or concentration. As if you're playing a CD.

Paranoid religious leaders (contd)

Meanwhile in Amritsar diocese, in the northern Punjab, Muslim mobs burnt a Christian-run school to the ground and were narrowly prevented from burning down a (Christian-run) hospital as well. This followed a TV programme broadcast from Iran showing copies of the Qur'an being burnt in the USA (though as I understand it, so-called 'Pastor' Jones didn't actually do this).

The village school at Tangmarg catered to over 500 students – all of them Muslims – drawn from 150 villages.

"They were protesting against Qur'an desecration and in the process, they burnt two Qur'ans kept at the library and the headmaster's room – reducing the entire school building to ashes. In the name of protest, they destroyed the school that educated their children," lamented Bishop Samantaroy. "Look at the irony."

Religious leaders need to weigh their words very carefully before airing their paranoia.

Paranoid religious leaders

This week's Oxford Times reports Dr Taj Hargey of the 'Oxford Islamic Congregation' criticising Christian leaders for failing to publicly condemn the threat of another obscure 'religious leader' (Terry Jones of Florida) to burn copies of the Qur'an. "Where were the loud denunciations from any prominent British religious figure, including those in Oxford?", he is reported as saying. "The deafening silence . . sends a chilling message to Britain's Muslims."

Well, there's none so blind as those who will not see. The Archbishop of Canterbury's annual Eid message - his greeting to Muslim communities in Britain - reads, "In this country there are those who speak maliciously about religion in general and often against Islam in particular; demonstrations in many of our cities are intended to provoke; and in other parts of the world the threat to desecrate scriptures is deeply deplorable and to be strongly condemned by all people."

What Mr Hargey seems to be saying is that the onus is on Christian leaders to reassure him continually and personally, and that if they don't he is entitled to feel threatened. I would have thought that as a religious leader it would be his job to find out what other religious leaders are saying. This is a kind of defensive and inward-looking religious leadership the world could do without. Little better than Terry Jones, in fact.

Servant Leadership

Life's been so busy since being elected as a city councillor that I've hardly had time to post. A brief summary of some of the things I've been up to is on my other blog at www.greenwolff.blogspot.com

A theme that crops up continually is that of consultation. It's very clear that the 'ruling' party believes in making all the decisions behind closed doors then putting the proposals out - late in the day - for ratification. They call it 'consultation' but that has become a dirty word in the public's mind.

The belief, presumably, is that this is an efficient and effective way of decision making. Well, maybe it is in a conventional company, or an army, or maybe a university (the leader of the council is HR Director for Oxford Brookes University). Unfortunately a city council is not the same sort of beast. It is elected 'bottom-up' by its 'customers' to deliver whatever services the 'customers' say they want (plus, of course, fulfilling its statutory obligations).

For myself, I believe that a more effective way still can be to go to the widest possible public consultation at the earliest possible opportunity, once it is known what the issue that needs resolving is. There are ways of running such consultations that avoid the many pitfalls. As it is, I get the clear impression that consultation is seen as an irritation, especially if it leads to creative ideas 'we didn't think of'. I think they think the only consultation that counts is when people vote every two years.

The United Reformed Church has its 'shapers' - people who drive 'from the top' - but fundamentally it works by consensus. The Bible is the 'supreme authority for the faith and conduct of God's people' - BUT - no-one can force on you their interpretation of it. That is something that has to be worked out together. It's that balance between the Christ who is "Lord" but also "Servant", who wins the victory by giving away his life and power. Our current leaders no doubt wish to be public servants, but haven't quite cottoned on to what that really means.

"Unholier than thou"

Friends are getting married in a Registry Office, but have asked for a Christian service of blessing as part of the ceremony. The law forbids any religious input into a secular ceremony, so I'm having to devise a service that starts with the 'legal bits' done "godlessly" by the Registrar, who then leaves, and then continues with promises, exchange of rings, blessing etc. But we didn't want the legal promises to be completely sparse. So we suggested that the following was said :

"I XX take you XX to be my lawful wedded X (i.e. the legally required words)
to have and to hold
from this day forward
for better for worse
for richer for poorer
in sickness and in health
till death parts us"

No reference to God, and nothing religious in that, but the Registrar deems it unacceptable. The reason? It's a quotation from the Book of Common Prayer (which it sort of is, albeit with the line "in accordance with God's holy will" removed. Actually these lines are found in the wedding services of most Christian churches in the UK, I'd imagine.)

busk

. . . just off for the city centre where I'll be busking for Christian Aid all day. Owing to some unimaginative attempts by a city council officer to get more control over such things, the only covered public space in town (which isn't owned by the City Council anyway) has been decreed out of bounds, so I've had to go through the hoops getting charitable collection licence and (separate) busking licence, and have to keep moving from place to place every hour. Ugh.