Jewish and American, Historical and Literary:

Abstract

I normally resist the impulse to play with orthography, but the strange word in the title of this essay, “(Un)ifying,” speaks to the disconcertingly entrenched barrier (an un-unifying, or dis-unifying) that I would argue too often, and at great expense, separates literary and historical analysis. At a conference I attended in March 2011, my panel was composed of two literature scholars and two historians. The theme had been carefully worked out and, in theory at least, the topic of each panelist's work was well suited to that being presented by the others. We all spoke about the contractual obligations involving women in the nineteenth century, and our work was based in textual analysis of fiction and historical records; collectively, our work revolved primarily around marriage and its dissolution. As if wanting to participate in the subject at hand, the panel (though not the panelists, who remain friendly) failed to cohere. I daresay that each presentation had its merits, but ultimately the uneasy union between literary and historical values fractured the panel beyond repair.The question I wish to raise here, beyond defining the differences, and points of intersection, between literary and historical values, is whether the two can meaningfully be brought into conversation with each other: what does it mean to read text historically or literarily? There is a long and well-established tension between the two genres, one that Aristotle, in the Poetics, quietly recognizes by ranking tragedy ahead of history. By his reasoning, history is less philosophical, relating, as it does, to real and past actions. Tragedy, in contrast, pictures the possible “according to the law of probability or necessity.” History, then, records the particular; tragedy the universal. In the centuries following, a gradual shift takes place among the reading (European and American) public until, by the 1800s, in large part fueled by the rise and success of the novel, history texts are deemed to constitute a healthier, more morally sound reading diet than just about any other genre. In 1880 the American author and librarian Frederick Beecher Perkins, in an essay entitled “What to Read,” a piece advising readers how to sift through the overwhelming number of newspapers, magazines, novels, and nonfiction texts available for consumption, concludes by urging readers to select carefully and to select history: History is the backbone [to reading], natural science excepted. Unless historically, upon the basis of the utmost possible historical knowledge, there can be no thorough acquaintance with theology, philosophy, political economy, social conditions and affairs—in short, with all human life and progress and activity on earth…. Let the general rule, therefore, be to have all your reading and all your thinking upon the best and fullest body of historical knowledge that you can acquire…. Historical methods are the only sound ones in most lines of reading. (29–30)In spite of the recommendations of Perkins and other like-minded experts, novels constituted the majority of what readers checked out of public libraries at the time: two-thirds of books borrowed were, much to the chagrin of many essayists, moralists, and perhaps historians, too, novels (Sweetser 7). And, reflecting the public's taste, novels were easily the publications that had the best sales and profit margins. By the late 1800s even those who decried against fiction realized, however reluctantly, the importance it played in shaping public tastes, behaviors, and the imagination (Sicherman 143).The question, however, concerning the intersections between literary and historical reading remains. How these two disciplines, and two genres, can be moderated successfully, where they can yield productive thinking, and where they may obstruct each other, often goes unaddressed—and this despite the fact that devotees of one or the other genre quite willfully and publicly jostle for greater recognition. Can historians and literature scholars meaningfully read texts that are typically designated as belonging to “the other” (or “another”) discipline? The operative word, I believe, is not other, with all its concomitant burdens of difference and outsider status, but, rather, read. The act of reading is, in its most basic sense, the underlying commonality between historical and literary analysis and, indeed, doesn't stop there; reading is a unifying act that establishes a familiar, even ordinary, sense of process and progression. With its emphasis on reading and textuality, Studies in American Jewish Literature seems to me precisely the sort of forum that not only would profit from recognizing the boundaries, and at times their absence, that separate historical from literary reading. It could also serve, in ways both innovative and traditional, as a means to bridge these two different modes of inquiry, just as it also serves as a setting that brings together two distinct identities, Jewish and American, two identities that themselves can be categorized as cultural, historical, literary—to name a few.By way of example, I would like to work through some of the historical and literary permutations of the letters of Rebbeca Gratz, an early Jewish American writer, and an active member of the Philadelphia community, both Jewish and public, and a figure both literarily and historically significant. Too little attention has been paid to her body of writing, the crown jewel of which are hundreds and hundreds of letters, written over the course of more than six decades, and directed to the many friends and family members who, over time, dispersed from the Philadelphia area to different cities and states nationally, as well as parts of Europe.With a nod toward the necessity and importance of historiography, let me briefly describe Gratz's background. Born in 1781 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Gratz's family relocated there from Philadelphia once the British occupied that city in 1771, in the years leading up to the American Revolution. The Gratz family returned to Philadelphia, where Rebecca Gratz's father worked as a merchant and helped supply American troops, in 1782. The family's contributions, both to public life and to the Jewish community, reveal not only what two distinct ideologies and cultures, Jewish and American, have in common, but also ways in which contributing to one community often translated into adhering to, and in a few interesting examples to abandoning, values presented by the other. When the Gratz family returned to Philadelphia, they led a building initiative in the Jewish community for a new and bigger synagogue, Kahal Kadosh Mikveh Israel, which became a cornerstone of Jewish communal life in Philadelphia and, once she became of age, it also became the beneficiary of Rebecca Gratz's attention and energy. At the same time, the strongly Federalist society in which Gratz was raised emphasized the centrality of a virtuous citizenry. For women, especially in the years leading up to and immediately following the American Revolution, this most often inspired their work in education, primarily within the home, where they were responsible for teaching basic academic subjects to their children as well as guiding them morally and ideologically in the right direction.Often, too, women extended their efforts philanthropically. Prior to the Revolution, the word philanthropy was not invoked widely; soon-to-be Americans preferred more practical and nuanced terms, and more religiously inflected language: charity; benevolence; compassion. They also resisted the idea of organized acts of generosity and, with it, donating en masse, preferring instead to select beneficiaries singly and personally (Wright 120). After the Revolution, however, the idea of philanthropy and philanthropic organizations, that is the institutionalization of giving, became widely supported and became more directly associated with women. In 1810, in a sermon delivered in New Haven, Timothy Dwight, a Congregationalist minister and educator, declared that the “wants and sufferings of families are incomparably better understood, and more perfectly comprehended, by women, than by men” (17). In the decades following the Revolution, women increasingly founded and funded charitable organizations, often targeting the relief and educational needs of poor women and children.Gratz, who never married, committed herself even as a teenager to the ideals of the Republic that were, simultaneously, regarded as mitzvoth, Jewish commandments and moral precepts. She began caring for her father after he suffered a stroke when she was nineteen years old and for the remainder of her life spent a great deal of time nursing numerous family members in various stages of illness and recovery. In addition to these responsibilities as caregiver, when Gratz was in her early forties, following the death of one of her sisters, she adopted her six nephews and nieces, raising them in her Philadelphia home. The many letters exchanged between Gratz and friends and family members often describe her despondency in finding herself, yet again, in the sickroom, although almost always these comments are tempered with notes of compassion and humor (Ashton 55).In 1801, at the age of twenty, Rebecca Gratz took her first steps toward a more public expression of what might be called both “Republican virtue” and “tzedakah,” the Hebrew term for charity, creating with a group of other women, many of whom were Jewish, the Female Association for the Relief of Women and Children in Reduced Circumstances. The goal of this group was to assist “gentlewomen” who were social equals to the founders of the group, women who were “honest and industrious suffering under sickness and misfortune (Ashton 62). In keeping with the Jewish tradition of anonymous giving, the Female Association never publicized the names of recipients for its funds. The second organization Gratz helped found, in 1815, was the Philadelphia Orphan Asylum. Largely guided by a Christian ethos and led by primarily Presbyterian women, Gratz remained on the board or working as a fund-raiser for this, as well as the Female Association, for over thirty years.Gradually Gratz's work became more focused on the Philadelphia Jewish community. In 1819, Gratz, with a number of other women from the congregation to which her father and uncle had contributed tirelessly, created a charitable society for needy Jewish women, the first of its kind nationwide, the Female Hebrew Benevolent Society. As with the Female Association, the directors of the Female Hebrew Benevolent Society wanted, among other more tangible goods (i.e., food, clothing, medicine, etc.), to give needy families the opportunity to educate their children, specifically with an eye towards Jewish rituals and practices. They also wanted to be sure to award help to those who were pious but needy, virtuous but suffering from compromised circumstances largely not of their own making. In this way both organizations sought to counter the belief that charitable foundations promoted laziness, malingering, or other forms of “immoral” behavior. After committing herself for a number of years to these projects, Gratz began working on perhaps her single most lasting contribution to American Jewish life, the creation of the first Hebrew Sunday school. As Gratz writes in her first report regarding the school, which opened in 1838, “It is not limited to any member or class of children; all who are hungry for the bread of life are welcome to the banquet; all who desire to read the Scriptures understandingly are invited to partake of instruction, given and received with reverence, and at no other charge than attention” (Richman 567). Because it was created to meet on Sunday, and not, as was more typical, on Saturday, the Hebrew Sunday school enabled the teaching of Jewish ritual, practice and liturgy that would be practiced and observed both during the week and on Shabbat.All of this by way of introduction, I want to return to the original question posed here, regarding the definition of literary and historical values and the possibility, as readers, of committing to both, at least in part. I want to quote in its entirety a letter that is resonant in literary and historical value. Gratz wrote this letter to her brother Benjamin, with whom she corresponded regularly and intimately. While undated, the letter is presumed to be written shortly after the beginning of the War of 1812; Benjamin Gratz signed up as a volunteer soldier early on in the war effort: My Dear BenYou can scarcely conceive our surprise and concern at hearing of your departure, or the impatience in which we hastened home, very little better in any respect for our journey. Sallys disease has assumed much the same character it bore last winter and the bustle & continual change of travelling from place to place, crowded steamboats and company increased it to a very distressing degree. I thank God we are at home again—tho hastened to it by alarm and danger. We found Jo here on a short visit but he return'd to camp this morning and we feel forlorn without you and him. I hope it will be in your power to come home for a short visit too—your military zeal is very fine but I hope your wishes will not prevail–an armistice would be more glorious to the country than all the laurels its heroes can gather. Adeline Myers is with us—John departed south this morning to join his Genera—they do not know where the family has gone but all the female and other useless inhabitants of Norfolk had retired some time. We sit and bewail you much more like women than patriots and turn pale at the thought of a battle. Let us know by Gratz if you are in want of anything more and tell him also when we may hope to see you. Shall we come down to you or will you be able to come to the city?My dear Brother, amid all the perils & chances of war, may you be shielded by the Omnipotent and return uninjured to yourSincerely Affectionate RG (Philipson 5–6) Friends and relatives are noted with a telling degree of familiarity: Sally is Benjamin and Rebecca's older sister, and perhaps the person to whom Rebecca was closest. Her many illnesses and strange behaviors demanded much of her sister's time and attention. Adeline Myers, who is accompanying the Gratz sisters home, is an intimate friend of Rebecca's; her brother John served as an aide-de-camp to General Richard Taylor in the War of 1812 (Pollard and Pollard). (The Myerses originated from Norfolk, Virginia, where their father, Moses Myers, was a well-known and highly regarded businessman, banker, and politician.) The concluding note, “Let us know by Gratz,” is a reference to Rebecca Gratz's nephew, Gratz Etting, the eldest son of her sister Frances. Much more revealing is the letter's turn of phrase, its style, and its literary method. All work to convey a sense of importance, an opinionated and forceful love from a sister to her newly enlisted brother. The letter is considerably shorter than many others that Gratz authored, its brevity reinforcing the “impatience,” “hast[e],” and “bustle” and the general note of urgency contained within. There is a compactness to the way Gratz writes here: “surprise and concern”; “bustle & continual change”; “alarm and danger”; “We sit and bewail”; “perils & chances”; “be shielded by the Omnipotent and return uninjured.” As a person who often records her responses to her reading, from newspapers to novels, Gratz, even with her seeming haste, effortlessly executes example after example of hendiadys, the figure of speech in which a single idea is expressed by two nouns instead of a noun and its qualifier. It is a method of emphasis, one that amplifies and adds force to an idea, emotion, or person. Gratz's regular use of it in the letter conveys her depth of feeling for her subject, namely the departures of Jo, John and her brother, all in preparation for impending military action; it also conveys the force of her own personality, both in connection to the people around her, close family and friends, but also to the events implicating them and herself. She writes firmly, with no lack of confidence, no hesitation, aware of her political views and cognizant of how they differ with those of her brother: “Your military zeal is very fine but I hope your wishes will not prevail—an armistice would be more glorious to the country than all the laurels its heroes can gather.” The veiled observation here is that American heroism, even if it defines patriotism, should come second to peace and security.A second aspect of the text that deserves and draws attention is Gratz's willingness, even in as charged a letter as this one clearly is, to invoke a complicated interplay of irony: “[Adeline and John Myers] do not know where the family has gone but all the female and other useless inhabitants of Norfolk had retired some time. We sit and bewail you much more like women than patriots.” Her gesture here toward herself and other women as both “useless” and distinct from “patriots” illuminates the difficulty attached to the limited involvement granted women in post-Revolutionary public life. On the one hand, unable to enlist themselves, women were largely deemed as not terribly useful in the war effort; on the other, Gratz's own conviction that “an armistice” would be the most “glorious” solution renders her useful both in thought—she advances a political view—and inference—in peacetime her activities are widely deemed useful. Gratz's language in the letter conveys a quite obvious attachment toward her brother. She twice repeats the phrase “My Dear Ben”/“My dear Brother,” the “my” serving as an older sister's gesture to embrace him with a protective arm and to guide him through a dangerous period. Less obvious, but permeating through her repeated references to patriotism and patriots, is the strength of her feeling toward her country. Ultimately, Gratz is restricted by cultural and historical norms and yet still manages to voice her opinions, her loyalties, and her fears: she writes a letter of personal and political devotion, one marked by her literary and literate sensibility and education, one inflected by her religious beliefs, her brief prayer at the letter's conclusion, that her brother “be shielded by the Omnipotent.”In addition to being an insightful and pointed writer, Rebecca Gratz is a reader whose abilities are both finely attuned and greatly aware, awake to the landscape around her, political, literary and domestic. In a letter dated May 10, 1820, to Maria Gratz, her brother Benjamin's wife, she records her response to Sir Walter Scott's latest novel, Ivanhoe, of which, it has been long rumored (and still remains just that, a rumor) that Gratz served as a model for the heroine: There is another novel just out by the Author of Ivanhoe, if it is as good, you shall see it—I am glad you admire Rebecca, for she is just such a representation of a good girl as I think human nature can reach—Ivanhoes insensibility to her, you must recollect, may be accounted to his previous attachment–his prejudice was a characteristic of the age he lived in—he fought for Rebecca, tho' he despised her race—the veil that is drawn over his feelings was necessary to the fable, and the beautiful sensibility of hers, so regulated, yet so intense might show the triumph of faith over human affection. I have dwelt on this character as we sometimes do on an exquisite painting until the canvass seems to breathe and we believe it is life— (Philipson 32)This idea of dwelling on text long enough, deeply enough, that the eye of the reader lends it a life all its own goes to the heart of both literary and historical values—because the simplest and most important commonality between them is regard for text, in its broadest conceptions. All acts of reading rely on the interaction between text and reader; through reading, the meaning of text, whatever its genre, “comes alive in the reader's imagination” (Iser 106, 119). Tension and fractures between literary scholars and historians will undoubtedly continue. But recognition of a basic commonality, the value of text, should serve to bring two distinct methods together and make a whole.