Ancestral tales: reading the Buczacz stories of S.Y. Agnon

439 Pages·2017·3.138 MB·English

by  Mintz, Alan L

a n c e s t r a l t a l e s
STANFORD STUDIES IN JEWISH HISTORY AND CULTURE
Edited by David Biale and Sarah Abrevaya Stein
a n c e s t r a l t a l e s
Reading the Buczacz Stories of S. Y. Agnon
Alan Mintz
stanford university press
stanford, california
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
©2017 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved.
This book has been published with the assistance of a contribution from
the Publication Fund of The Jewish Theological Seminary.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic
or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval
system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press.
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Mintz, Alan, author.
Title: Ancestral tales : reading the Buczacz stories of S.Y. Agnon /
Alan Mintz.
Other titles: Stanford studies in Jewish history and culture.
Description: Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, 2017. |
Series: Stanford studies in Jewish history and culture | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016049624 (print) | LCCN 2016050555 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781503601161 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781503601864 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Agnon, Shmuel Yosef, 1887-1970. City in its fullness. |
Buchach (Ukraine)--In literature. | Jews in literature.
Classification: LCC PJ5053.A4 C536 2017 (print) | LCC PJ5053.A4 (ebook) |
DDC 892.43/5--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016049624
Cover photo: Buczacz, Ukraine, 2006. Wikimedia Commons
Typeset by Bruce Lundquist in / Bembo
To Avraham Holtz and Arnold Band
Who ushered me into the world of the Master
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: “I Am Building a City” 1
1. A Baedeker to Buczacz 33
2. Inventing a Narrator 71
3. Worship and Danger: A Cantorial Triptych 111
4. Rabbis and Scholars 157
5. Jews and Poles 211
6. Austrian Mandates 253
7. Disappeared 291
8. Moments of Redemption 337
Epilogue 393
Notes 397
Index 417
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Acknowledgments
I am deeply grateful to Jeffrey Saks, Michal Arbell, Ariel Hirschfeld, and
Omer Bartov for their warm collegiality in all matters Agnon and for their
reading chapters in manuscript and making important suggestions. I re-
call with affection and loss my close collaboration with the late James S.
Diamond. Emunah Yaron graciously talked with me about the editing
of her father’s works. I am grateful for advice and feedback from Rachel
Manekin, Avraham Holtz, Raymond Scheindlin, Menahem Schmelzer,
Gershon Hundert, Marcin Wodzinski, Roman Katsman, and Hillel Weiss.
Anne G. Hoffman, David Stern, and David Roskies have been unstint-
ing sources of encouragement. The participants in the research group on
“Galicia: Literary and Historical Approaches to a Jewish Place” at the Israel
Institute of Advanced Studies provided stimulation and expertise in the lat-
ter stages of this project; I am grateful to the Institute for enlightenment
and hospitality. My thanks to Beit Agnon in Jerusalem for its sponsorship
of a trip to Buczacz under the erudite leadership of David Assaf and Haim
Be’er. A fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation underwrote an im-
portant phase of the work. I am grateful to Alan Cooper, Provost of the
Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS), and to JTS as a whole for its encour-
agement of scholarship and the acknowledgment of its importance. The
staff members of the JTS Library were always genial and helpful. Finally, I
owe an unending debt to my wife, Susanna Morgenthau, and my daughters,
Amira and Avital, for their ready support and affection.
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