The Schlemiel and the Messianic in Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union and Nicole Krauss’s Forest Dark

Abstract

Abstract The Jewish diaspora of the United States views the historical sequence of Holocaust, known more accurately as the Shoah, and creation of the State of Israel as connected in an apocalyptic-redemptive narrative typology. The Nazi regime murdered six million Jews, including one and one-half million children, based on racial hatred and seven million others deemed undesirable. In 1949, four years after the defeat of the Nazi regime and liberation from the camps, the State of Israel was admitted into the United Nations as its 59th member. The belief in messianic redemption during times of great suffering has been a part of Jewish history for millennia. The first important surviving manuscripts expressing messianic beliefs are the Dead Sea Scrolls (300-100 BCE). The Book of Daniel (200 BCE) predicts the coming of a Son of Man. Jewish messianic beliefs suggest that the messiah is an earthly human being who will change earthly history. However, core Jewish writings through the centuries resist messianic movements and messianic dreams. This latter tradition of resistance shows up as a critique of the messianic typology of Holocaust-to-State of Israel in two works of contemporary authors, Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policeman’s Union (2007) and Nicole Krauss’s Forest Dark (2017). At the same time, Chabon and Krauss maintain a strong Jewish self-identity and recognize continuing hatred by white supremacists and other global anti-Semitic movements. The resulting novels use parody as a form of gentle critique, Chabon with a story of alternate history and Krauss with a braided strategy of parallel narratives.