The Curious Conflation of Hanukkah and the Holocaust in Jewish

Children's Literature
Jodi Eichler-Levine
Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, Volume
28, Number 2, Winter 2010, pp. 92-115 (Article)
Published by Purdue University Press
DOI: 10.1353/sho.0.0506
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92 Jodi Eichler-Levine
Shofar An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies
The Curious Conflation of Hanukkah
and the Holocaust in Jewish
Childrens Literature
Jodi Eichler-Levine
University of WisconsinOshkosh
In recent years, a large number of Jewish childrens books have twinned Ianuk-
kah stories with Iolocaust narratives. Vhat brings these two groups of narra-
tives together, and what meanings are provoked by their combination. In this
article, I examine several childrens selections, dating from 1990 to the present,
through the lenses of memory studies and Bakhtinian literary criticism, focusing
on three major themes: the interplay of trauma and nostalgia, the representa-
tion of intergenerational dialogue, and the use of literary artifacts to bridge time.
I argue that the literary condation of these two events results in an historical
dattening, eliding the substantial dierences between these two moments of
persecution: at the same time, I attend to the sometimes quite complicated and
evocative moments of memory provoked by this textual linking.
On a cold December night in 1993, a rock crashed sharply through a window
in Billings, Montana. e window sheltered the bedroom of a young Jewish
boy, Isaac Schnitzer, and the projectile rock comprised the latest incident in a
string of local racist and anti-Jewish acts that coincided with Ianukkah, the
Jewish festival of lights. In a story that eventually received national media
attention, the citizens of Billings rallied around Isaac and his family.
1
ey
placed |oru||:yo:-menorahs, the nine-branched candelabras that Jews light
on this holiday-in their windows throughout the holiday season. Some of
the menorahs were three-dimensional, while others were made of paper, often
1
Debbie Calant, Iate and Iow to Counter It, c Ncu Yor| l:mcs (April 14, 1996):
13NJ: Donna Ezor, Montana towns hght against hate inspires local author, Mc:roVcs:
]cu:s| Ncus (December 7, 1995): 54: Tom Lackey, Vhen Iatemongers Came for Minori-
ties, Town Said No, Los Argc|cs l:mcs (March 6, 1994): 4.
The Curious Conflation in Jewish Childrens Literature 93
Vol. 28, No. 2 2010

drawn by the children of the household. ese gestures formed a powerful
performance of interreligious solidarity. e story was so striking that it was
eventually retold in Janice Cohns picture book, c C|r:s:mos Mcroro|s: c
lour :|o: Ioug|: Ho:c.
2

In Cohns account, a remarkable condation occurs. Ianukkah and the
Iolocaust become cognate events. Iaters and bullies have been around for
as long as anyone can remember, Isaacs father tells him. Ie then narrates the
story of the Iolocaust for his son, telling him an apocryphal tale about the
king of Denmark and his brave actions in solidarity with Danish Jews during
Vorld Var II.
3
Later in the book, Isaac narrates e Ianukkah Story of the
ancient Maccabees military victory over the Syrian-Creeks, or Seleucids, for
his friends at school. Both tales are illustrated in sepia, dashback tones, in
contrast with the vivid hues of today found on the books other pages.
As long as anyone can remember. Iow long is that. Further, if the uni-
versal hater and bully really is eternal, ever-present, why select these two
particular events together. Vhy does c C|r:s:mos Mcroro|s speak of Ia-
nukkah and the Iolocaust in the same breath. Vhat kinds of meanings are
created in this telling.
Below, I analyze this condation of Ianukkah and the Iolocaust in se-
lected Jewish childrens literature published since 1980. On one level, this
combination is not remarkable. As Laura Levitt argues, the Iolocaust has
emerged as an overwhelming force in American Jewish lives and identities,
sometimes eliding tales of ordinary loss.
4
At the same time, with Levitt, I
contend that reading the Iolocaust alongside other stories of American Jew-
ish history-the experiences of those Jews who were ro: victims or survivors
of the Iolocaust-can open up new spaces of memory: indeed, this appears
to be what is already occurring within many of the books on the market.
5
is

2
Janice Cohn, c C|r:s:mos Mcroro|s: c lour o: Ioug|: Ho:c (Morton Crove,
Illinois: Albert Vhitman and Company, 1995).
3
is story is now widely understood to be apocryphal, although it may be consis-
tent in tone with the overall climate of Denmark during the Cerman occupation (Andrew
Buckser, Croup Identities and the Construction of the 1943 Rescue of the Danish Jews,
L:|ro|ogy, \ol. 37, No. 3 [Summer 1998]: 209-226: see especially 211-212).
4
Laura Levitt, Amcr:cor ]cu:s| Loss Aj:cr :|c Ho|ocous: (New York University Iress,
2007), p. 67. See also Timothy Cole, Sc||:rg :|c Ho|ocous:: Irom Ausc|u::z :o Sc|:r|cr, Hou
H:s:ory :s Boug|:, |oc|ogc, or So| (New York: Routledge, 2000).
5
Levitt writes: e Iolocaust tale is revealed in the process of engaging with a more
ordinary American story of loss: as Levitt demonstrates in her readings of her own familys
94 Jodi Eichler-Levine
Shofar An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies
condation-the telling of violent pasts, both Maccabean and European, along-
side the telling of family histories and American Jewish holidays-leads to a
unique ethical tension. e play of memory and time in Ianukkah literature
can result in the elision of historical dierences among diverse tales of persecu-
tion and in the domestication of violent narratives. Simultaneously, however,
the dexibility of memory and nostalgia allows for a fanciful time travel that is
narrated through intergenerational connections and representations of family
artifacts. In this particular condation, the narrative structure of the Ianukkah
story features a heavy dose of violence that can be intertextually linked to the
violence of the Iolocaust, ushering in the Iolocausts unfathomable recent
presence through the story of a smaller, more remote persecution.
Twin Imperatives: Remember the Maccabees, Remember the
Holocaust
e publication of Jewish childrens books in America dates back to the nine-
teenth century.
6
American Jews were strongly induenced both by the Irotes-
tant Sunday School movement and by the arrival of Jewish immigrants from
Cermany, where the hrst Jewish childrens bibles were produced. As Ienny
Schine Cold has shown, over the hrst few decades of the twentieth century,
childrens bible stories were one of the means by which Jews sought to adapt
to modernity while simultaneously passing on Jewish traditions.
7
e Jewish
Iublication Society ( JIS) began publishing tales of Jewish role models for
children in the 1890s: less than a hundred years later, JIS had over thirty-four
Jewish childrens books in print.
8
Jewish childrens books grew tremendously,
along with American youth culture on the whole, in the decades following
Vorld Var II: one particularly moment of note is the publication of Sydney
Taylors A||-oj-o-K:r Iom:|y, which featured a large Jewish family on the Low-
stories alongside Iolocaust-provoked art, the reverse is also true (Amcr:cor ]cu:s| Loss
Aj:cr :|c Ho|ocous:, p. 77).
6
For the purposes of this article, I am dehning the term Jewish childrens book quite
broadly. It can include books by Jews, books directed at Jews, books on Jewish topics, and
books published by either Jewish or non-Jewish publishing houses. I have focused on more
popular titles.
7
Ienny Schine Cold, Mo|:rg :|c B:o|c Mocrr: C|:|rcr`s B:o|cs or ]cu:s| Luco::or
:r lucr::c:|-Ccr:ury Amcr:co (Ithaca: Cornell University Iress, 2004), pp. 1-21.
8
Jonathan D. Sarna, ]|S: c Amcr:cor:zo::or oj ]cu:s| Cu|:urc, 1888-1988 (Ihila-
delphia: e Jewish Iublication Society, 1989), pp. 34, 86, 290. According to Sarna, it took
quite some time for JIS to adapt creatively to the concept of childrens literature.
The Curious Conflation in Jewish Childrens Literature 95
Vol. 28, No. 2 2010
er East Side, beginning in 1951.
9
Today, Jewish childrens books are a booming
business, produced by both Jewish and mainstream publishing houses, ranging
from Jewish Lights and Kar-Ben to Scholastic. A search on Amazon.com un-
der the categories childrens books/religions/judaism results in 1,204 items.
10

Jewish literary websites such as Jbooks.com feature prominent childrens book
sections.
11
It seems the American Jewish childrens book, from Taylors A||-oj-
o-K:r Iom:|y (still in print) to David Visniewskis acclaimed picture book
Go|cm, is here to stay.
12
Iow did Ianukkah and the Iolocaust become condated in this genre.
c C|r:s:mos Mcroro|s is not the only childrens book to bring these two per-
secutions together. e two events were actually hrst rhetorically connected
before the events of what would later be termed the Iolocaust had run their
course: however, their joint representation has become particularly prominent
in recent years.
13
I focus here on the period from the 1990s through the begin-
ning of the twenty-hrst century because this time span coincides with a tre-
mendous increase in American interest in the Iolocaust, sparked by a surge in
such media during the late 1970s and a near-saturation level of American rep-
9
June Cummins has written extensively on Taylor and on the A||-oj-o-K:r Iom:|y
books. See especially Leaning Left: Irogressive Iolitics in Sydney Taylors A||-oj-o-K:r
Iom:|y Series, C|:|rcr`s L::cro:urc Assoc:o::or Quor:cr|y, \ol. 30, No. 4 (Vinter 2005):
Sydney Taylor: A Centenary Celebration, c Horr Boo| Mogoz:rc, \ol. 81, No. 2 (Mar/
April 2005): 231-32: and Becoming An 'All-of-a-Kind American: Sydney Taylor and
Strategies of Assimilation, c L:or or :|c Ur:corr, \ol. 27, No. 3 (September 2003):
324-343.
10
Amazon.com, http://www.amazon.com/s/qid=1215115631/ref=sr_nr_n_6.ie=
UTF8&rs=3101&bbn=3120&rnid=3101&rh=n3A42Cn3A31012Cn3A3120
accessed 3 July 2008.
11
JBooks.com: Childrens Books, http://www.jbooks.com/children/index.htm, ac-
cessed 17 July 2008.
12
Academic studies of Jewish childrens books (for non-curricular purposes) have been
relatively limited: notably, Jonathan Krasner has written on the history of Jewish childrens
textbooks and on the beginnings of K`:or:or ( Jonathan Krasner, Representations of Self
and Other in American Jewish Iistory and Social Studies Schoolbooks: An Exploration of
the Changing Shape of American Jewish Identity, Doctoral dissertation, Brandeis Univer-
sity, Valtham, Massachusetts [2002]). See also Jonathan Krasner, A Recipe for American
Jewish Integration: e Adventures of Ktonton and Iillels Iappy Iolidays, c L:or
or :|c Ur:corr, \ol. 27 (2003): 344-361. For the most part, however, this has been an
under-examined subject.
13
Some stories connecting the two events date all the way back to the early years of the
tensions that preceded Vorld Var II: see, for example, a play with a reference to Naziland
96 Jodi Eichler-Levine
Shofar An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies
resentations in the 1990s, with the release of Stephen Spielbergs Sc|:r|cr`s
L:s:, the opening of the United States Iolocaust Memorial Museum, and a
popular Broadway revival of c D:ory oj Arrc Iror|.
14
It is thus not sur-
prising that childrens books from 1990 to the present redect a corresponding
rise in representations of the Iolocaust: what interests me is how frequently
that increase accompanies Ianukkah representations. Numerous Ianukkah
books published over the last twenty years collapse ancient Seleucid persecu-
tions of Judeans together with the Nazi hnal solution of twentieth-century
Europe: these range from picture books like David Adlers Orc Yc||ou Doo:|
to chapter books like Malka Ienns c Horu||o| G|os:s.
15

e pairing of Ianukkah and the Iolocaust comprises both a bizarre
juxtaposition or a logical redection of how Jewish identity is represented in
American culture. On the unsettling side, such books condate two tremen-
dously dierent historical traumas. In one corner, they feature a heavily sani-
tized description of the Maccabean wars of the 160s B.C.E., which were both
an uprising against Seleucid Creek occupation, with its corollary limitations
on Judean ritual practice, or an internal civil condict involving the control of
the Jerusalem Temple high priesthood and intra-Judean tensions over Iel-
lenization. In this episode, the Maccabean forces are ultimately victorious over
the Creeks, and their ensuing Iasmonean dynasty retains control of Judea
in Emily Solis-Cohen, Horu||o|: c Icos: oj L:g|:s (Ihiladelphia: e Jewish Iublication
Society, 1937). Although I recognize that the term Iolocaust, a post-war construction,
is subject to important genealogies and must be understood critically (the problematics
of representing the Nazi massacres as a sacrihce, etc.), I do use the term throughout this
article, as it is the terminology chosen most frequently in the childrens books that I study.
14
Cary Veissman, Ior:os:cs oj V::rcss:rg: |os:uor Lor:s :o Lxpcr:crcc :|c Ho|ocous:
(Ithaca, Cornell University Iress, 2004), pp. 1-28: and Iilene Flanzbaum, ed., c Amcr:-
cor:zo::or oj :|c Ho|ocous: (Baltimore: Johns Iopkins University Iress, 1999), pp. 1-14.
15
Some books that make the Ianukkah-Iolocaust connection, many of which I
explore below, include: David Adler, Orc Yc||ou Doo:|: A Horu||o| S:ory (New York:
Iarcourt Brace and Co., 1995): Eve Bunting, Orc Cor|c (New York: Iarpercollins,
2002): Karen Iesse, c S:orc Lomp: L:g|: S:or:cs oj Horu||o| roug| H:s:ory (New
York: Iyperion, 2003): Malka Ienn, c Horu||o| G|os:s (New York: Ioliday Iouse,
1995): Isaac Bashevis Singer, c |oucr oj L:g|:: L:g|: S:or:cs jor Horu||o| (New York:
Farrar, Strauss, and Ciroux, 1980): Jacques Shore, Mcroro| :r :|c N:g|: S|y: A M:roc|c oj
C|oru|o| ( Jerusalem: Cefen Iublishing Iouse, 2002): Marci Stillerman, N:rc Spoors: A
C|oru|o| S:ory (Brooklyn: Iachai, 1998). All of these books, with the exception of the
Singer volume, date to after 1990: the Singer book (like much of his work) has remained
quite popular during this time span.
The Curious Conflation in Jewish Childrens Literature 97
Vol. 28, No. 2 2010
until the coming of the Romans in the hrst century B.C.E.
16
In contrast, the
events of the Iolocaust, over two millennia later, entail the systematic perse-
cution and annihilation of six million Jews throughout Europe, from highly
assimilated Cerman and Dutch Jews to more isolated Jews in the s|:c:|s of
Russia and Ioland. ere is no victory in the historical Iolocaust, although,
as Timothy Cole and James Young have both argued, contemporary Iolocaust
narratives tend towards messages of heroism, redemption, and survival.
17
Nonetheless, these two narratives have been repeatedly brought togeth-
er in recent Jewish childrens media. is may be in part because Ianukkah
and the Iolocaust are each a nexus at which Jewish history is comparatively
prominent in American culture. Despite the fact that it is relatively low on the
Jewish festival totem pole, in America Ianukkah is publicly recognized, and
heavily marketed, because it coincides with the December consumer jugger-
naut of Christmas. Since Ianukkah is Christmas neighbor on the calendar,
discussions of Ianukkah in public schoolrooms are common: just as Isaac
in c C|r:s:mos Mcroro|s explains the practice of the menorah to his class-
mates, Jewish students around the country may be called upon to discuss the
other symbol-the menorah-that is present alongside the Christmas tree.
18

Vhat was once a comparatively minor holiday on the Jewish ritual calendar
has morphed into the primary holiday that most non-Jews associate with Ju-
daism. e Iolocaust has also received tremendous popular attention, from
school curricula concerned with the mantra of never again to the establish-
ment of the U.S. Iolocaust Memorial Museum in Vashington, D.C.
19
Cole
16
On the history of the Maccabean era, see Seth Schwartz, Impcr:o|:sm or ]cu:s| Soc:-
c:y, 200 B.C.L. :o 40 C.L. (Irinceton: Irinceton University Iress, 2001), and Ieter Schafer,
c H:s:ory oj :|c ]cus :r Ar::qu::y (Luxemburgh: Iarwood Academic Iublishers, 1995).
17
Timothy Cole, Sc||:rg :|c Ho|ocous:, p. 90: James E. Young, Vr:::rg or Rcur:::rg :|c
Ho|ocous:: Norro::vc or :|c Corscqucrcc oj Ir:crprc:o::or (Indianapolis: Indiana University
Iress, 1988).
18
American teachers have long used holidays as a major part of classroom practice,
particularly in the early childhood years. In recent years, there has been much more atten-
tion to holidays beyond Christmas and beyond Ianukkah, as greater diversity is recog-
nized in American classrooms: even in cases where many traditions are accepted and repre-
sented, teachers emphasize the use of holidays as a fruitful site of contact for intercultural
exchange among their students (Michal Elaine Myers, Iolidays in the Iublic School Kin-
dergarten: An Avenue for Emerging Religious and Spiritual Literacy, Lor|y C|:||oo Lu-
co::or (Vinter 2001/2002), http://hndarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3614/is_200101/
ai_n8941976/print, accessed 10 April 2006.
19
Edward Linenthal, |rcscrv:rg Mcmory: c S:rugg|c :o Crco:c Amcr:co`s Ho|ocous:
Muscum (New York: Columbia University Iress, 1995, 2001). See also Cole, Sc||:rg :|c
98 Jodi Eichler-Levine
Shofar An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies
refers to this trend as the myth of the Iolocaust, which is not meant to sug-
gest that the events of the Iolocaust did not happen, but, rather, that the ex-
plosion of Iolocaust representations and experiences, particularly since the
1970s, have resulted in the emergence of a virtual Iolocaust that consumers,
museum visitors, and other receivers take to heart as the real thing.
20
us,
ironically, American Jews have come to be understood through images of the
starkest deprivation and pain-namely, the suering of the Iolocaust-and
through images of the most vibrant joy and excess-specihcally, the celebra-
tion of Ianukkah. e Ianukkah-Iolocaust complex provides a way of rec-
onciling these two poles of American Jewish identity. is seems one likely
hypothesis for u|y these two disparate events are condated, but what does it
mcor to read these traumas together.
e most powerful trend in these works is their layered combination of
trauma and nostalgia.
21
By telling tales of deprivation and death alongside tales
of cozy winter celebration, Jewish childrens books overcome the speechless-
ness usually ascribed to trauma: trauma becomes tell-able in a domesticated
setting.
22
On the one hand, the joint narration of traumatic situations and
warm domestic memories softens the blow of suering, making it possible
for young readers to begin to comprehend a history that leaves most adults
lost in a blurry lack of meaning. At the same time, however, these narratives
may lead to an over-homogenization of trauma, wherein the horrors of the
Iolocaust become so understandable, so neatly packaged and redemptive,
that they cease being tales of horrihc, complex suering. In the terminology of
Ho|ocous:, pp. 118-119.
20
Cole, Sc||:rg :|c Ho|ocous:, p. 75.
21
Marianne Iirsch and Leo Spitzer, Ve Vould Not Iave Come Vithout You: Cen-
erations of Nostalgia, Amcr:cor Imogo, \ol. 59, No. 3 (2002): 253-276. e question of
trauma and nostalgia is a complex one. Iirsch and Spitzer note that trauma and nostal-
gia are both separated and intimately connected in the testimony of Iolocaust survivors,
including Iirschs own parents. Describing the elder Iirsches narratives on a trip back
to their native city, they write: It [the crossroads where they had avoided deportation in
1941] is less a location than a transitional space where the encounter between generations,
between past and present, between nostalgic and traumatic memory, can momentarily, ef-
fervescently, be staged (p. 276). Although nostalgia can be criticized (as I often do here)
for its romanticizing, rosy glosses, Iirsch and Spitzer argue that a past seen through nos-
talgia can also have a utopian aspect, inspiring us to improve what the present lacks (pp.
258-259).
22
For various theories of trauma and language, see Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub,
lcs::mory: Cr:scs oj V::rcss:rg :r L::cro:urc, |syc|ooro|ys:s, or H:s:ory (New York: Rout-
ledge, 1992).
The Curious Conflation in Jewish Childrens Literature 99
Vol. 28, No. 2 2010
Russian literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin, such violence becomes hnalizeable.
23

Or, as Marla Morris argues in her work on curriculum and the Iolocaust,
e text of the Iolocaust is always a stranger to us and must remain so if we
want to avoid the trap of arrogance and domestication.
24
If the violence of the
Iolocaust or of the Maccabean era is reduced to a formulaic, pan-historical
discourse, it is made overly familiar, almost comfortable. Ve impose a closure
upon its open-ended meaning, in essence, doing violence to the memory of
violence. e challenge is to hnd genres of memory-making that recognize
the horrors of persecution while leaving them urro|:zcoo|c: if we enshroud
the meaning of such violence, freezing it in the sepia-toned pages of childrens
books, we metaphorically double the hnalizing act of the material killings that
have already taken place.
e condation of Ianukkah and the Iolocaust in Jewish childrens lit-
erature raises other paradigms for understanding religion and childrens me-
dia. It demands analysis of the complexities of time and memory in a nar-
rative world where time slippage is the norm. Two particular literary tropes
are instrumental in the passing on of trauma-nostalgia: these are intergenera-
tional utterances and the presence of artifacts that transcend time and space.
By utterance, I mean, following Bakhtin, any speech act in which both the
speaker and the receiver are implicated, a speech system in which utterer and
listener are blended, breaking down binary views of language and conversa-
tion.
25
By artifact, I mean an artifact in the sense formulated by psychologist
Burton \ygotsky, namely, that humans mediate both their actions and their
23
In louor o ||:|osop|y oj :|c Ac: and |roo|cms oj Dos:ocvs|y`s |oc::cs, Bakhtin ad-
vances the idea of unhnalizeability, which, as Caryl Emerson notes, is the all-purpose
carrier of his conviction that the world is not only a messy place, it is also an open place
(Caryl Emerson and Cary Saul Morson, M:||o:| Bo||::r: Crco::or oj o |roso:cs [Stanford:
Stanford University Iress, 1990], p. 36). To hnalize the understanding of an act or experi-
ence is to lose ones answerability toward it, to elide its open-ended meaning and also to
limit ones empathy towards that object. To r:s| something, monologically, is to limit its
multivocal nature, and also the very ideas of freedom and creative potential more generally.
Acts, in Bakhtins thought (loosely put) are only whole in their full sense of experience and
being: they are bifurcated if there is too much separation between the world of culture and
the world of life (Mikhail Bakhtin, louor o ||:|osop|y oj :|c Ac:, trans. \adim Liapunov
[Austin: University of Texas, 1994], p. 2: M.M. Bakhtin, |roo|cms oj Dos:ocvs|y`s |oc::cs,
trans. Caryl Emerson [Austin: University of Texas Iress, 1984]). For a general introduc-
tion to Bakhtins works, see Emerson and Morson, Crco::or oj o |roso:cs.
24
Marla Morris, Curr:cu|um or :|c Ho|ocous:: Compc::rg S::cs oj Mcmory or Rcprc-
scr:o::or (Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001), p. 87.
25
Mikhail Bakhtin, Spccc| Gcrrcs or O:|cr Lo:c Lssoys, trans. \ern V. McCee (Aus-
tin: University of Texas Iress, 1986), pp. 65-69.
100 Jodi Eichler-Levine
Shofar An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies
understanding of the world through artifacts, repositories of meaning which
are passed down (and re-mediated) between generations.
26
Below, I consider
these three themes-trauma-nostalgia, intergenerational connections, and ar-
tifacts- through close-readings of selected childrens books.
Trauma and Nostalgia: Maccabees Unstuck in Time
e tales that Jews tell-particularly those that they tell to their children-
are a form of memory-making. ey are often presented to children based
on the prestige of what really happened, yet they are not hxed stories. As an
activity that takes place in the present, memory has tremendous ramihcations
for contemporary Jewish identities. In particular, Ianukkah books construct
identity through the interwoven writing of trauma and of nostalgia. Crucially,
this trauma-nostalgia tension takes place in a world that is, in Kurt \onneguts
words, unstuck in time.
27
e quote from c C|r:s:mos Mcroro|s with which I opened this article
provides a prime example of this temporal condensation: Iaters and bul-
lies have been around for as long as anyone can remember.
28
is statement
endows persecutors with a quality of timelessness: they are ever-present but
dattened and condated, creating a faceless mega-villain who lacks context and
scope. Stories that twin the Iolocaust with e First Ianukkah gloss over
the tremendous dierences between these two historical epochs, resulting in a
sort of generic persecution that knows no bounds. In one picture book, Karen
Iesses c S:orc Lomp, each night of Ianukkah corresponds with a dier-
ent era of persecution: Creeks become Romans become Crusaders become
Nazis.
29
e same tormenters appear again and again. ough the period
clothing changes, the message is one of continuous violence, violence that is
ripped out from its historical context and neutered, almost rendered |og:co|
by being placed into a narrative cycle of repeated persecution. Ironically, by
lamenting past Jewish suerings cr mossc, many Jewish childrens books blur
26
In \ygotsky, social behavior in relationship to the signs and tools of oojcc:s is a cru-
cial part of the development of memory and thought: the interfunctional relation between
word and action, and thus the tools of action, is crucial (Lev \ygotsky and Alexander
Luria, Tool and Symbol in Child Development, in Rene \an der \eer and Jaan \alsiner,
eds., c Vygo:s|y Rcocr [Oxford: Blackwell, 1994], p. 167).
27
Kurt \onnegut, S|oug|:cr|ousc I:vc (New York: Dell, 1966).
28
Cohn, c C|r:s:mos Mcroro|s, p. 17.
29
Karen Iesse and Brian Iinkney, c S:orc Lomp: L:g|: S:or:cs oj Horu||o| roug|
H:s:ory (New York: Iyperion, 2003).
The Curious Conflation in Jewish Childrens Literature 101
Vol. 28, No. 2 2010
the emotional edges of each unique episode, eliding the details that add vivid-
ness and terror to collective memories. is narrative technique is not unique
to childrens books. Coing back at least as far as midrashic literature in the late
antique period, Jewish storytelling has invoked, condated, and intentionally
confused dierent eras of persecution. As Yosef Iayim Yerushalmi notes, the
rabbis seem to play with Time as though with an accordion, expanding and
collapsing it at will.
30

At the same time, the dexibility of literary time travel leads to new ways
of remembering suering. In Or Co||cc::vc Mcmory, sociologist Maurice Ialb-
wachs observes that:
at faraway world where we remember that we suered nevertheless exercises
an incomprehensible attraction on the person who has survived it and who seems
to think he has left there the best part of himself, which he tries to recapture.
31
For Ialbwachs, collective memory, set within social frameworks, provides
psychological dexibility. Suering and nostalgia are intertwined. Trauma and
nostalgia are not mutually exclusive: rather, in many of these stories, they are
mutually reinforced. Despite their grim settings, these pasts, whether Judean
or European, are often cast in a warmhearted light. Ialbwachs sets nostalgia
for a lost past side by side with the memory of a painful past. us, utterances
about suering do not merely recount the po:r experienced by the victim: they
also evoke the p|cosurcs of the time just before suering, and even the pleasures
in the location, both temporal and spatial, of suering itself.
is is evident in many childrens Ianukkah books: in fact, the associa-
tion of the horrors of the Iolocaust with the joyful domesticity of the winter
festival of lights is a powerful dynamic in these stories. In memory, a concen-
tration camp can be transformed into a space of fellowship and even celebra-
tion. A stolen potato can be a source of joy in spite of danger: the terrors of
hiding out in the desolate remains of a ghetto can be infused with light and
with romance.
32
Domestic images, of course, are not :r|crcr:|y pleasant: in the
broader world of juvenile and young adult literature, plenty of broken homes,
incidences of abuse, and cases of poverty are confronted, from Cinderella on
30
Yosef Iayim Yerushalmi, Zo|or: ]cu:s| H:s:ory or ]cu:s| Mcmory (Seattle: Uni-
versity of Vashington Iress, 1982), p. 17.
31
Maurice Ialbwachs, Or Co||cc::vc Mcmory (Chicago: University of Chicago Iress,
1992), pp. 49-50.
32
Eve Bunting, Orc Cor|c: Isaac Bashevis Singer, c |oucr oj L:g|:: L:g|: S:or:cs jor
Horu||o|.
102 Jodi Eichler-Levine
Shofar An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies
down to c Ou:s:crs.
33
In the Ianukkah-Iolocaust tale, however, the home
space is almost always a refuge that is contrasted with the spaces of concentra-
tion camps, cattle cars, and attic rooms.
Just as dierent spaces are condated or juxtaposed in Ianukkah-Iolo-
caust hction, dierent times are, as well. Most of the books discussed here
include some method of time slippage, either via dashback, frame story, dash-
forward, time travel, or some combination of these forms. In the lushly illus-
trated Orc Yc||ou Doo:|, for example, a sad dower shop owner named Morris
recalls his childhood concentration camp experience around Ianukkah time,
as his own dower shop becomes the setting in which he tells some young friends
about the single daodil that inspired his hope when he was imprisoned.
34

Vhether the telling takes place in Israel, in a dower shop, or in a suburban
home, the mode of remembering-in-story retains similar mechanisms.
Malka Ienns young adult novel, c Horu||o| G|os:s, demonstrates
particularly complex forms of time bleeding.
35
e story is set at the time of
its writing during the 1990s, as its young protagonist, Susan, arrives for a win-
ter visit with her great aunt Elizabeth in England. Susan is half-Jewish but has
been non-practicing since her mother passed away: her great aunt, a paternal
relative, is not Jewish. roughout the book, Susan learns of the estates com-
plicated history during Vorld Var II, when her infant father was sheltered
from the blitz in London by staying there and, simultaneously, her aunt took
in a young Jewish girl just Susans age, a refugee from \ienna.
Time starts to shift, slowly at hrst, for Susan: near sunset on the hrst
night of Ianukkah she encounters a young boy in the stables who she is sure
was not there before: after a brief conversation, he seems to disappear. Susan
also learns about the past through photographs: her aunt shows her pictures
of her father as a baby, and of the Jewish girl who stayed with them, Ianni,
who closely resembles Susan. Despite the fact that she is not Jewish, Aunt
Elizabeth chooses to kindle Ianukkah candles in remembrance of her former
Jewish guest. Aunt Elizabeth also sets the scene through story, telling Susan
about life in the 1940s:
33
Domestic spaces have been particularly deconstructed in the genre of the young
adult problem novel, in which many characters experience domestic abuse, desertion, and
other traumas. e book usually credited with launching the widespread growth of this
genre is S. E. Iintons c Ou:s:crs (New York: Iun, 1967).
34
David Adler, Orc Yc||ou Doo:|: A Horu||o| S:ory (New York: \oyager Books,
1999).
35
Malka Ienn, c Horu||o| G|os:s (New York: Avon, 1997).
The Curious Conflation in Jewish Childrens Literature 103
Vol. 28, No. 2 2010
Iitler was preaching hate, telling lies about the Jews, rounding them up and
sending them to death camps, where they were murdered. She [Ianni] was one
of the lucky ones who escaped.
Susans eyes widened. She had learned about the Iolocaust in school, but
it hadnt seemed real to her until now.
36

Rco|::y, for Susan, comes through a more direct experience of Vorld Var
II-through her aunts story instead of a school lesson-but at this point, her
relationship to the past is still being mediated through a form of telling: it is
made more vivid, but not yet embodied.
37
Vhen twilight rolls around again, Susan wanders the manor. In an epi-
sode that echoes a similar discovery scene in c Sccrc: Gorcr, she comes
upon a small girl crying in another bedroom, saying a tearful prayer as she
lights a menorah-the same menorah Susan and her aunt had lit the night
before.
38
Iere, Susan steps directly into the past, coming face to face with her
Iolocaust-era doppelganger.
rough the rest of the novel, time slips between present and past, usu-
ally magically catalyzed by the lighting of the Ianukkah candles. Ultimately,
Susan intervenes in the events of the 1940s, reuniting Ianni with her lost
parents and, in a very Boc| :o :|c Iu:urc sort of moment, even getting a chance
to hold her own father as a baby. Ienn leaves the ecacy of Susans actions in
the past ambiguous-thus avoiding any number of classic time travel para-
doxes-but Susan herself is irrevocably changed by her experiences, whatever
they really were, and becomes reacquainted with her Jewish heritage. e
small, dickering dames of the Ianukkah candles slip Susan from present-day
December into the condagration of the Iolocaust, moving her from a modern
moment to the weightier past that Malkin most thoroughly explores.
In this text, the pain of being separated from a parent-Susan, her infant
father, and Ianni are all homesick, orphaned, or both-is combined with the
36
Ienn, c Horu||o| G|os:s, p. 29.
37
is mistrust of the reality of what one learns in school, with Americans taking the
hrst-person testimonies of relatives much more to heart than the discourses of teachers, is
demonstrative of many Americans attitudes towards history, as described in Roy Rosen-
zweig and David elens c |rcscrcc oj :|c |os: (New York: Columbia University Iress,
1998).
38
In c Sccrc: Gorcr, Mary Lennox, another orphaned girl in an echoing English
country home, discovers her hidden-away cousin, Colin, while wandering the hallways of
her uncles mansion: she becomes alerted to Colins presence because she hears him crying
(Frances Iodgson Burnett, c Sccrc: Gorcr [New York: IarperCollins 1962, originally
published 1911], pp. 128-143).
104 Jodi Eichler-Levine
Shofar An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies
palliative of warm Ianukkah celebrations. Further, time slippage empow-
ers Susan to intervene in past events, regaining a measure of control over the
chaotic, painful era of the Iolocaust. e progression of time shifts in c
Horu||o| G|os:s transforms the Iolocaust from a time of pain to a time
of celebration. e storys early mood is almost gothic: it is dark, with wind
blowing o of the moor and Elizabeth telling the story of poor Ianni, forever
separated from her parents by the events of the S|oo|. Once Susan has inter-
vened in the events of the 1940s, Ianukkah is transformed from a series of
lonely, tearful nights into a warm family celebration in the drawing room. In
this case, suering gives way to celebration through our heroines time-travel.
For Susan, the past is not guro::vc|y bathed in a rosy glow, the benehciary of
temporal distance and a longing for what never was: it is |::cro||y re-envisioned
and re-experienced as a time of joy.
From Generation to Generation
Intergenerational transmission of past suering is a particularly crucial means
of conveying the trauma-nostalgia complex of Ianukkah. rough childrens
books, which are often shared between generations in the practice of reading,
literary dialogues among characters are marked by especially frequent inter-
actions between grandparents and grandchildren, a representative move that
mirrors the settings in which many childrens books are read.
Bakhtins concept of the dialogical utterance is a helpful one to think
with when examining the stories-within-stories of Jewish childrens books.
Bakhtins work undoes the idea of a binary between an active writer/speaker/
author and a passive listener/reader: instead, the meaning of a text is creat-
ed in the interplay among all of its parties.
39
e utterance-any movement
of language-is the dexible unit by which this process occurs. us, according
to Bakhtin:
39
Bakhtins work has had a tremendous induence on literary criticism and cultural
criticism more generally since Julia Kristeva invoked him in her coinage of the term inter-
textuality in the late 1960s ( Julia Kristeva, Vord, Dialogue and Novel, in Toril Moi, ed.,
c Kr:s:cvo Rcocr [New York: Columbia University Iress, 1986]). As Caryl Emerson
notes, in the Bakhtin-craze that followed in the 1980s, dialogue and carnival were sud-
denly discovered to be cvcryu|crc: she notes that the held of Bakhtinian criticism (and
pedagogy) has since matured, and she suggests that future use of Bakhtin, both in the
classroom and in scholarship, must attend to Bakhtins full corpus of works (including his
earlier ones, which were translated into English last) (Caryl Emerson, e Next Iundred
Years of Mikhail Bakhtin [e \iew from the Classroom], R|c:or:c Rcv:cu, \ol. 19, No. 1
[Autumn 2000]: 12-27).
The Curious Conflation in Jewish Childrens Literature 105
Vol. 28, No. 2 2010
Sooner or later what is heard and actively understood will hnd its response in
the subsequent speech or behavior of the listener. . . . Moreover, any speaker is
himself a respondent to a greater or lesser degree. Ie is not, after all, the hrst
speaker, the one who disturbs the eternal silence of the universe. . . . Any utter-
ance is a link in a very complexly organized chain of other utterances.
40

In childrens books, the utterance works on multiple levels. Vithin the stories,
there are countless examples of grandparents telling stories to their grand-
children-uttering stories in a chain of other stories, particularly in the case
of folk wisdom. At the same time, the authors of childrens books write their
genre (an extension of utterance) with the participation of their audience,
namely, children and their families, clearly anticipated before them, and with
their own childhood memories and family tales lingering with them. Eventual-
ly, the books readers act upon them in unanticipated ways. eir very existence
has already induenced the utterance they receive: then they contribute their
own speech-acts to this chain of utterance, and the textual process continues.
Ianukkah-Iolocaust books also present a paradox that is common in
juvenile literature: they attempt to instill memory of an event children cannot
literally remember because it occurred before their birth. Children reading
Iolocaust books today are not just the hrst or second, but actually the third,
fourth, or even hfth generation born since the events of the S|oo|. In other
words, they face an exaggerated case of postmemory, which Marianne Iirsch
dehnes as a form of heteropathic memory in which the self and the other
are more closely connected through familial or group relation, for example,
through what it means to be Jewish, or Iolish.
41
e Iolocaust, and, for that
matter, the Ianukkah story, cou| |ovc happened to the readers of todays
childrens books, but :: |os ro: |oppcrc :o :|cm. Instead, they are taught to
remember it through the social frameworks of collective memory.
42
Iost-
memory relies upon intergenerational connections and communal memories
40
Bakhtin, Spccc| Gcrrcs or O:|cr Lo:c Lssoys, p. 69.
41
Marianne Iirsch, Irojected Memory: Iolocaust Ihotographs in Iersonal and
Iublic Fantasy, in Mieke Bal, Jonathan Crewe, and Leo Spitzer, eds., Ac:s oj Mcmory: Cu|-
:uro| Rcco|| :r :|c |rcscr: (Ianover: Dartmouth University Iress, 1999), p. 9.
42
According to Ialbwachs, all memory takes place within the boundaries of social
frameworks (Or Co||cc::vc Mcmory, pp. 52-53). As the held of memory studies has de-
veloped, many scholars have criticized Ialbwachs Durkheimian focus on the collective
over the individual, while remaining indebted to his work. For a summary of the held, see
Vulf Kansteiner, Finding Meaning in Memory: A Methodological Critique of Collective
Memory Studies, H:s:ory or cory, \ol. 41, No. 2 (May 2002): 179-197.
106 Jodi Eichler-Levine
Shofar An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies
in order to thrive, a phenomenon that is evident in the narrative worlds of
Ianukkah-Iolocaust childrens books.
A textual example of this idea occurs in the popular book Orc Cor|c, by
Eve Bunting. e story starts out typically, as a grandmother and a great-aunt
arrive to celebrate the holiday with their descendants. en, with the entire
family gathered around the table, the following exchange occurs after they
have enjoyed their Ianukkah supper:
Tell us now about the bad time, Mama, says the mother in the story.
Ier daughter, the narrator, continues:
Ve lean forward. Ve know this story by heart, but we want to hear it
again. To us, this story is Ianukkah.
e grandmother then tells of the Ianukkah she observed while living in a
concentration camp: that year, she smuggled a potato out from the kitchen
where she worked so that the women in her barracks could share it, and light
it as their one candle. lo us, :|:s s:ory :s Horu||o|. Ianukkah exists for the
storys children primarily in the narrative form of this memory, a memory that
is constituted in the between-ness of family. It is the utterance of a story-:|c
grormo:|cr`s :c||:rg-that ontologically :s Ianukkah for the children. Fur-
ther, not just ory story is Ianukkah: a story of the Ho|ocous: is Ianukkah.
e utterance enables the children in the story and, by implication, the chil-
dren reading the story to remember a dierent Ianukkah, observed at a con-
centration camp in which they have never dwelt.
In Jane Zalbens c Mog:c Mcroro|, on the other hand, the |oss of the
inter-generational utterance provides a rupture from which the book begins.
At the start of the tale, Stanley, the young protagonist, notes the change that
overcomes his grandfather each Ianukkah: Crandpa Abe, who always told
the best stories the rest of the year, became quiet and sad during Ianukkah.
43

Iere, language is lost at a moment when remembered trauma shuts it down.
is is the story we might expect of a trauma survivor: a story of silence.
Because Crandpa Abe is unable to speak with Stanley, the link between the
generations is severed. By the end of the book, however, through the interces-
sion of a magical genie of the menorah (yes, really), Stanley travels back in
time to meet his great uncle, and he and his grandfather are able to reconnect
through stories. Stanley even inherits the menorah that was once his great-
uncles. Crandpa Abe is hnally able to speak about this relative, the brother
43
Jane Breskin Zalben, c Mog:c Mcroro|: A Mocrr C|oru|o| lo|c (New York:
Simon and Schuster, 2001), p. 2.
The Curious Conflation in Jewish Childrens Literature 107
Vol. 28, No. 2 2010
he lost in Europe, by gesturing toward his menorah. e utterance returns by
means of memory and fantastical time-travel.
In some cases, authors make their sense of obligation to current genera-
tions explicit in the framing of their stories. In c K:s` Co:o|og oj Horu|-
|o|, part of the extremely popular ]cu:s| Co:o|og series, Ruth Minsky Sender
concludes her description of experiencing Ianukkah in a concentration camp,
where she and her fellow prisoners sang Ianukkah songs in dehance of their
guards, with the following statement:
Today, when I think back to that Ianukkah night, I see another great miracle
before me. I see the children who, according to Iitlers master plan, should never
have been born.
But here we are: myself, a survivor, who teaches the children to be proud of
their Jewishness, and the new generation who will learn, I hope, to draw strength
and courage from the Maccabees of long ago and the Maccabees of our own
time.
44
Iere, Sender displays the intergenerational linkage, indeed the intergen-
erational moro:c, that is so common in Iolocaust literature, as well as the
standard time-dattening that condates the Maccabees with any form of mod-
ern resistance heroes in the Ianukkah-Iolocaust genre. It is not enough
for the miracle of new Jewish children to be born: according to Sender, these
children must be inculcated with the remembrance of the Iolocaust and with
a reverence for their Jewishness. e past is thus inextricably bound up with
the formation of childrens identity: memories of the Iolocaust are mediated,
and tempered, through the projection of future children who will remember
the Iolocaust and who will defy Iitler through their very existence. It is tell-
ing that in the K:s` Co:o|og oj Horu||o|, a full three dierent stories in the
hrst section alone deal with the Ianukkah-Iolocaust complex.
Ultimately, the presence of multiple generations in Ianukkah-Iolocaust
stories speaks to the importance of reception for the Iolocaust tale. Stories of
trauma demand, in the words of Iirsch and Spitzer, listeners who conhrm for
survivors their past, its importance, its narrative and dramatic quality, the need
to pass it on.
45
A Iolocaust story told by a grandparent in a childrens book
is doubly witnessed: it is heard by the child within the story and it is read (or
heard) by the child in the world, the reader (as well as, perhaps, their parents,
siblings, friends, classmates, teachers). In Bakhtinian terms, the telling of the
44
Ruth Minsky Sender, Ianukkah in 1944, a True Story, in David A. Adler, c
K:s` Co:o|og oj Horu||o| (Ihiladelphia: the Jewish Iublication Society, 2004), p. 26.
45
Iirsch and Spitzer, Ve Vould Not Iave Come Vithout You, p. 273.
108 Jodi Eichler-Levine
Shofar An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies
Iolocaust requires answerability: like any utterance, it implies a listener, and
like any act, it is answerable to those around it, as they are answerable to it,
a move that relies upon empathy. In c ||:|osop|y oj :|c Ac:, Bakhtin writes,
Empathizing actualizes something that did not exist either in the object of
empathizing or in myself prior to the act of empathizing, and through this
actualized something Being-as-event is enriched.
46
Empathy is generative: in
the space between individuals, new meaning-indeed, in Bakhtins philoso-
phy, a new part of Bc:rg-is created. In the case of the grandparent-grandchild
relationship in Ianukkah-Iolocaust stories, memories of suering are thus
creative acts. Future generations, so prized by Sender and others, are both
|::cro||y generating the continuation of a people, and scmor::co||y generating
memories oj that people by receiving, and thus co-constituting, its memory.
Artifacts Across Time: The Portkeys of the Hanukkah-Holocaust
Genre
Jewish childrens books also transcend ideas of time and space through the
imagery of artifacts. A domestic object-a menorah, a doll, a potato, a dow-
er-can be used as a device that connects characters of dierent generations
and dierent nations.
47
Memorabilia, artifacts, souvenirs . . . all of these tangi-
ble reminders of past events are important both within and beyond historical
childrens books. Artifacts are portable, more dexible than spaces: by storing
memories, these artifacts allow us to live in the present while at the same time
literally 'cling to the past.
48
Like the portkeys of the Iarry Iotter universe,
they transport their bearers to a dierent memory space-sometimes quite
literally.
49
Material memory objects are particularly laced with nostalgia, with
images of hope or celebration.
Even when a family artifact does not survive materially, it survives in
memory. is is the case in Myron Levoys c Horu||o| oj Grco: Urc|c O::o,
which has been printed as a full volume of its own and as one of the stories in
46
M. M. Bakhtin, louors o ||:|osop|y oj :|c Ac:, p. 15. Much of Bakhtins theory on
empathy in ||:|osop|y oj :|c Ac: is strikingly similar to Martin Bubers theology of the I-
ou. Martin Buber, I or ou (second edition) (New York: Scribner, 1958).
47
is device is by no means unique to Jewish childrens books-it can be found in
countless other texts, e.g. in the form of Irousts famous madeleine. See also Cynthia Ozick,
c S|ou| (New York: \intage, 1990).
48
Eviatar Zerubavel, l:mc Mops: Co||cc::vc Mcmory or :|c Soc:o| S|opc oj :|c |os:
(Chicago: University of Chicago Iress, 2003), p. 43.
49
On memory places, see Iierre Nora, Between Memory and Iistory: Les Lieux de
Memoire, Rcprcscr:o::ors, \ol. 26 (1989).
The Curious Conflation in Jewish Childrens Literature 109
Vol. 28, No. 2 2010
c K:s` Co:o|og oj Horu||o|. c Horu||o| oj Grco:-Urc|c O::o contains
some of the most explicit discussions of memory in the Ianukkah-Iolocaust
books. e story details the relationship between a boy named Joshua and his
aging great-uncle Otto, who survived the Iolocaust and now lives with Joshua
and his parents. Iere, Uncle Otto, who, like the grandfather in c Mog:c Mc-
roro|, is saddened and remote at a time of celebration, tells his great-nephew
about the menorah he was forced to leave behind in Cermany, and contrasts it
with the familys contemporary candelabra:
Oh, yes, yes. A very nice Menorah. Modern. Streamlined. No decorations. No
curves or bends. But Im going to make a dierent kind of menorah. In my me-
norah, the stems for the candles will twist like dowers on a vine, like that me-
norah I told you about, the menorah of my childhood. Vhen we escaped from
Cermany, we couldnt take anything. Not our clothes, not our dishes, nothing.
Not even my fathers menorah. ank Cod I was able to come to your parents
here in America . . . Yes, Im going to try to make that menorah come back to life.
For your father and mother to give to you someday, and then for you to give to
your children someday. at will be my gift.
50
Vhen materiality is lost, Otto states, generational connections suer:
objects must be handed down. Uncle Otto overcomes silence through the in-
tervention of his own creativity and the crafting of the resurrected menorah:
in the process of its creation, he tells Joshua stories. Otto thus fulhlls Valter
Benjamins observations about the connections among storytelling, craft, and
community: according to Benjamin, the repetition of handiwork enables the
teller to speak freely and the listener to receive the memories that are conveyed:
e more self-forgetful the listener is, the more deeply is what he listens to im-
pressed upon his memory. Vhen the rhythm of work has seized him, he listens
to the tales in such a way that the gift of telling them comes to him all by itself.
51

rough the rhythm of creating a new-old menorah, Uncle Otto narrates his
story. e materiality of the artifact, and, in this specihc case, of creating a rcu
artifact, an echoing object, becomes vital for the practice of memory.
52
50
Myron Levoy, e Ianukkah of Creat-Uncle Otto in Adler, ed., A K:s` Co:o|og
oj Horu||o|, pp. 85-86.
51
Valter Benjamin, I||um:ro::ors (New York: Schocken, 1986), p. 91.
52
e use of objects to call up moments from the past is not unique to American
Jewish juvenile literature: Yael Zerubavel has also noted a trope in Israeli childrens books
where material items call back heroes from the ancient past, who mystically appear in the
present (Yael Zerubavel, Transhistorical Encounters in the Land of Israel: On Symbolic
Bridges, National Memory, and the Literary Imagination, ]cu:s| Soc:o| S:u:cs, \ol. 11. No.
3 [Summer 2005]: 115-140).
110 Jodi Eichler-Levine
Shofar An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies
Similarly, in Isaac Bashevis Singers short story e Iower of Light, a
candle and a dreidel both serve as artifacts linking time-spaces and, once again,
memory is preserved with an eye turned toward the future. e story is about
two teenagers, Daniel and Rebecca, who survive for a time while hiding in the
burned-out wreckage of the Varsaw Chetto. Inspired by the light of a single
Chanukah candle, they set out to escape Varsaw and join the partisans. e
candle is given the power of meaning at the storys turning point precisely oc-
cousc of its warm materiality: at glimmer of light, surrounded by so many
shadows, seemed to say without words: Evil has not yet taken complete do-
minion. A spark of hope is still left.
53
Ultimately, David and Rebecca do reach
the partisans, who are celebrating the eighth night of Ianukkah in the forest,
playing with a wooden dreidel on a tree stump. e partisans help them es-
cape to Israel, where they study, are married, and have a child, ultimately tell-
ing their story to the narrator one Ianukkah night eight years later.
e two temporally distant Ianukkahs are physically joined by the pres-
ence of the wooden dreidel that the partisans once spun in the forest, which
David and Rebecca still own. Rebecca ascribes both their successful escape
and the future meaning of that escape to the storys objects:
If it had not been for that little candle David brought to our hiding place, we
wouldnt be sitting here today. at glimmer of light awakened in us a hope
and strength we didnt know we possessed. Ve ll give the dreidel to Menahem
Eliezer [their son] when he is old enough to understand what we went through
and how miraculously we were saved.
54
Memory artifacts thus presume a future generation that will inherit the ob-
jects in question. Memory, once again, becomes a concern chiedy when there
are children who must learn how their very existence came to be and who
must preserve the vestige of their parents trials and celebrations in a tactile
form, even (perhaps especially) in the form of a plaything.
All of This Has Happened Before, All of This Will Happen Again:
Memory, Religion and Cycles of Violence
55
e condation of Ianukkah and the Iolocaust in Jewish childrens literature
encapsulates a much broader trend in the history of American, and, indeed,
world Jewry: the re-reading of Jewish history through the lens of Iolocaust
53
Singer, e Iower of Light, p. 57.
54
Singer, e Iower of Light, p. 60.
55
Vith apologies to Ronald D. Moore and the writers of Bo::|cs:or Go|oc::co.
The Curious Conflation in Jewish Childrens Literature 111
Vol. 28, No. 2 2010
narratives.
56
Read backwards onto earlier tropes of Jewish history, the Iolocaust
expands the shadow of persecution in Jewish memory until it becomes all-en-
compassing. As James Young notes in Vr:::rg or Rc-Vr:::rg :|c Ho|ocous::
Vhere the s|:c:| Jews during the Iolocaust may have initially perceived their
lot in terms of a ghastly-but relatively limited-pogrom, many of the survi-
vors-their understanding of Jewish persecution now enlarged to include the
enormity of the Iolocaust-tend to perceive new persecutions in terms of the
permanent pogrom they have known.
57
is permanent pogrom in the minds of actual survivors is similar to the
v:r:uo| pogrom that has become part of the fantasies of witnessing the Iolo-
caust in the minds of contemporary Americans.
58
e emergence of the Ia-
nukkah-Iolocaust complex in American childrens books must be read within
the broader context of Iolocaust commemoration in the United States. Over
the past thirty years, the development of the Iolocaust as a major facet of
American Jewish identity and as a phenomenon memorialized by Americans
of many religious traditions has occurred in a wide range of venues. e scale,
saturation level, and tone of some of these Iolocaust commemorations have
led some critics to level charges of the Americanization of the Iolocaust.
59

Vhen American children, both Jewish and non-Jewish, read about Jews,
chances are, they are reading about the Iolocaust. Tellingly, in my frequent
examinations of the bestseller lists of childrens books about Judaism on
Amazon.com, several Iolocaust books, including S:x M:||:or |opcr C|:ps and
Horo`s Su::cosc, tended to top the lists: in fact, on one day in June 2008, all
hve childrens top-sellers under Judaism were about the Iolocaust.
60
At one
56
Zerubavel, Rccovcrc Roo:s, p. 187: Levitt, Amcr:cor ]cu:s| Loss Aj:cr :|c Ho|ocous:,
pp. xiii, 204, et al. Levitt cautions that American Jewish encounters with Iolocaust narra-
tives are not static, nor are the narratives themselves (p. 204).
57
Young, Vr:::rg or Rc-Vr:::rg :|c Ho|ocous:, pp. 92-93.
58
Cary Veismann, Ior:os:cs oj V::rcss:rg: |os:uor Lor:s :o Lxpcr:crcc :|c Ho|ocous:
(Ithaca: Cornell University Iress, 2004).
59
Cole, Sc||:rg :|c Ho|ocous:, p. 14: Flanzbaum, ed., c Amcr:cor:zo::or oj :|c Ho|o-
cous:: Ieter Novick, c Ho|ocous: :r Amcr:cor L:jc (New York: Ioughton Miin, 1999).
60
Amazon.com, http://www.amazon.com/s/qid=1215616706/ref=sr_pg_1.ie=U
TF8&rs=3120&bbn=3120&rh=n3A42Cn3A31012Cn3A3120&page=1, ac-
cessed June 26, 2008. e top books on that day were: 1. Surv:vor: lruc S:or:cs oj C|:|rcr
:r :|c Ho|ocous:, by Allan Zullo: 2. c Ups:o:rs Room, by Johanna Reiss: 3. Iour |crjcc:
|coo|cs: A Ho|ocous: S:ory, by Lila Ierl and Marion Blumenthal Lazan: 4. Horo`s Su::cosc,
by Karen Levine: 5. S:x M:||:or |opcr C|:ps. e top-sellers in Jewish childrens books are
112 Jodi Eichler-Levine
Shofar An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies
point in 2007, the re-release of Jane Yolens c Dcv:|`s Ar::|mc::c, a time-travel
book that combines |ossovcr with the Iolocaust, was the number one best-
seller on Barnes and Nobles online store in the entire category of childrens
books on religion.
61
In some years, books with Iolocaust-related content
have dominated the Sydney Taylor awards for Jewish Childrens Literature.
62

Clearly, the Iolocaust is still captivating parents, librarians, publishers, and,
it seems, children.
As Cary Veissman argues, in a culture that is saturated with images
of the Iolocaust, but in which the last remaining survivors of the events of
Vorld Var II are aging, many Americans are eager for experiences that will
make the Iolocaust more real to them.
63
In Ianukkah-Iolocaust stories,
children imbibe twin imperatives-Remember the Maccabees: Remember
the Iolocaust: ey are asked to imagine themselves into these very dier-
ent tales of violence and, in some cases, resistance. e Iolocaust becomes
closer when it is narrated alongside a much more chronologically distant but
also more triumphant tale. Iolocaust tales enlist Ianukkah as a partner be-
cause they share a story of persecution, but the Ianukkah Story as it is told
to children has a happy ending: goodness prevails, and military might (but
not :oo much military might) overcomes the Seleucid Creeks. Dark winter
tales appeal to the specter of violent, empowered Maccabees restoring Jew-
ish national agency. After the Iolocaust and especially after 1967 and the
Six Day Var, the Jewish community has embraced what Rona Sheramy calls
the resister ideal-an emphasis on |cro:c Judaism-for its children.
64
Iairing
frequently Iolocaust-related, although the Sommy :|c Sp:cr series (one of Ktontons ma-
jor stars) and Kos|cr oy Dcs:gr: K:s :r :|c K::c|cr are also frequently high on the list.
61
Barnes and Nobles Booksellers, www.bn.com, accessed January 10, 2007: Jane Yolen,
c Dcv:|`s Ar::|mc::c (New York: Iun Classics, 2004). e book was originally pub-
lished in 1988. It has also been adapted into a feature hlm starring Kirsten Dunst, which
may have also fueled its recent popularity (c Dcv:|`s Ar::|mc::c, dir. Donna Deitch, 97
min., 2004, D\D [Showtime Entertainment]). For a nuanced reading of the hlm, see Liora
Cubkin, You S|o|| lc|| Your C|:|rcr: Ho|ocous: Mcmory :r Amcr:cor |ossovcr R::uo| (New
Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Iress, 2007), pp. 11-33.
62
Out of 149 books honored by the awards since 1968, 39 have been directly about
the Iolocaust, while numerous other books have dealt with persecution in Russia and
other regions. Association of Jewish Libraries, Sydney Taylor Book Award, http://www.
jewishlibraries.org/ajlweb/awards/st_books.htm, accessed 10 May 2007.
63
Veissman, Ior:os:cs oj V::rcss:rg, pp. 1-27.
64
Rona Sheramy, Resistance and Var: e Iolocaust in American Jewish Education,
1945-1960, Amcr:cor ]cu:s| H:s:ory, \ol. 91, No. 2 ( June 2003): 287-313.
The Curious Conflation in Jewish Childrens Literature 113
Vol. 28, No. 2 2010
Iolocaust narratives, which resist meaning, with the Ianukkah Story, which
in its childrens tellings tends towards a clear telos of redemption, tempers the
victimization of the Iolocaust and sets up a story of national heroics as :|c
chief narrative of Jewish peoplehood, even though the Iolocaust itself has led
to countless questions about agency and faith. As Liora Cubkin argues, mak-
ing use of Iayden Vhites work on history and narrative, stories about the
Iolocaust are often emplotted into the patterns of other stories, particularly
the tropes of stories like Ianukkah or like the Exodus narrative-plots that
can provide a redemptive denouement for an otherwise un-fathomable story.
65

e Ianukkah-Iolocaust condation is symbiotic: just as Ianukkahs hero-
ics substitute for the lack of agency entailed in some understandings of the
Iolocaust, the Iolocaust serves as a lens for re-reading instances of violence
throughout Jewish history.
In many Ianukkah-Iolocaust books, the Ianukkah story stands in as a
cipher for the Iolocaust: it provides a familiar, comforting narrative route to
bring readers into the dicult literary terrain of the S|oo|. It is not surprising
that Orc Cor|c, for instance, spends just a few pages in color, at a present-
day Ianukkah party, before working its way back into the sepia story: into
the past of the concentration camp. e grayscale images of young women
prisoners provide a patina of authenticity for readers, suggesting, as the texts
narrator does, that this is the real story of the season. e Iolocaust dash-
back-not Ianukkah-is, in Buntings work, the not-so-hidden occasion for
storytelling. In this way, the contrast of color/sepia stands in for the binary of
signiher/signihed, reversing the so-called realism of Technicolor: the story that
really :s Ianukkah for the children is the one narrated by their grandmother
in black-and-white. In Orc Cor|c, as in many other Ianukkah-Iolocaust
texts, the moment of Ianukkah celebration is a placeholder that stands in for
the deeper signihed of the Iolocaust.
Similarly, narrating the Iasmonean persecution in c C|r:s:mos Mcro-
ro|s prompts a detailed telling of more recent Iolocaust destruction: telling
about a menorah provides ways for Uncle Otto and Crandpa Abe to slip their
young relatives into a stream of Iolocaust memories. Like the winding, inter-
twined vines of Uncle Ottos menorah, the Ianukkah-Iolocaust condation
brings together myriad gnarled textual surfaces that brush up against one
another in complex intertextual moves.
66
In this way, any text is constructed
65
Cubkin, You S|o|| lc|| Your C|:|rcr, pp. 77-86.
66
e idea of textual surfaces comes from Julia Kristevas readings of Bakhtin
(Kristeva, Vord, Dialogue and Novel, p. 36).
114 Jodi Eichler-Levine
Shofar An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies
as a mosaic of quotations: any text is the absorption and transformation of
another.
67
Iivoting around a doubled set of speaker and addressee-author/
reader, older narrator (Crandpa Abe, Uncle Otto)/young addressee (grand-
son, great-nephew)-the story of Ianukkah absorbs the tropes of Iolocaust
commemoration and becomes overwhelmed by such imagery. In Ianukkah-
Iolocaust stories, Iolocaust narratives are not only quoted and transformed:
their tropes are enlarged and repeated to the point of textual saturation.
Repetition is not a new phenomenon in the telling of trauma: as Marita
Sturken argues, repetition is a means through which cultures process and
make sense of traumatic events. It is caught up in kitsch and the relentless
recoding of trauma into popular culture narratives, yet it is also evidence of
the ways that cultures reenact, sometimes compulsively, moments of traumatic
change.
68
e repetitive telling of violence mimics the repetition and pastiche
of the textual process itself. Trauma time repeats, reiterating past traumas.
Textual processes, too, as read by Bakhtin and Kristeva, entail ongoing rejoin-
ders: redundancy is at the core of Bakhtins chain of utterances.
69
Such rep-
etition-the ongoing echo-chamber of re-telling trauma-suggests a mantra
from the most recent television incarnation of Bo::|cs:or Go|oc::co: all of this
has happened before. All of this will happen again.
70
All of this-the Iolo-
caust, the Maccabees, the haters and bullies-has happened before, in his-
tory and in its mediations, particularly those directed at children. As Kathleen
Stewart writes, like a broken record, trauma time repeats what is not directly
encountered, known, remembered, or imagined.
71
is duplication is a re-
sponse to the ruptures of trauma, to the cultural indigestion it provokes, but
it leads to a problematic narrative dattening. If violence is presented as eternal,
on-going, inevitable, it may well be commemorated, but it escapes critique, in-
tervention, and ethical debate. It becomes emptied of contextual meaning: the
textures of history, the individual stories of violence and loss, elude us.
67
Kristeva, Vord, Dialogue and Novel, p. 37.
68
Marita Sturken, lour:s:s oj H:s:ory: Mcmory, K::sc|, or Corsumcr:sm jrom O||o-
|omo C::y :o Grour Zcro (Durham, NC: Duke University Iress, 2007), p. 29.
69
Bakhtin, Spccc| Gcrrcs or O:|cr Lo:c Lssoys, p. 69.
70
Bo::|cs:or Go|oc::co, Episode 1.10: Iand of Cod, written by David Veddle and
Bradley ompson. Original airdate March 11, 2005. Transcript available at http://www.
twiztv.com/scripts/battlestar/season1/galactica-110.htm. Accessed 21 July 2008.
71
Kathleen Stewart, Trauma Time: A Still Life, in Daniel Rosenberg and Susan
Iarding, eds., H:s:or:cs oj :|c Iu:urc (Durham, NC: Duke University Iress, 2005), p. 328.
The Curious Conflation in Jewish Childrens Literature 115
Vol. 28, No. 2 2010
Is there a way to break out of these cycles of pedagogic reverberation.
Laura Levitt points toward one possible route by calling for intimacy when
engaging with Iolocaust narratives: she suggests bringing together the ev-
eryday and the extraordinary in our encounters with the Iolocaust, however
dicult and messy this may be.
72
At their most evocative moments, these Ia-
nukkah-Iolocaust books o make this move: a potato, an everyday object, cor
be linked to the extraordinary trauma of the Iolocaust through the vehicle of
family tellings in Buntings Orc Cor|c. All of this has happened before, such
stories suggest, but not prcc:sc|y-at their strongest moments, Ianukkah-Io-
locaust stories achieve this level of nuance, but they still do so in tension with
other, troublesome glosses. ey often trap the past in grayscale, suggesting
a sort of stasis to historical stories. Child victims and survivors are heavily
represented, in keeping with canonical American tropes of focusing on these
victims over others.
73
Children as rccc:vcrs of these stories are also privileged,
eliding the experiences of adults without children and romanticizing the idea
that children represent a pure, unwritten future. Yet, in their rare moments of
deeper answerability, and in their more challenging passages where gaps, like
missing menorahs, are acknowledged, these tales invite us to engage with the
Iolocaust while still leaving its narratives-like the lives of its victims-un-
hnalized and unhnished.

is article has benehted from insights and suggestions provided in several
dierent settings. In particular, I thank the two anonymous reviewers for S|o-
jor, as well as respondents and listeners at the American Academy of Religions
Art, Literature and Religion Section and at Columbia Universitys Under
Construction: Iistory, Identities, and Narrative in the Study of Religion con-
ference. Any errors contained within are mine and mine alone.
72
Levitt, Amcr:cor ]cu:s| Loss Aj:cr :|c Ho|ocous:, p. xxvii.
73
Mark M. Anderson, e Child \ictim as Vitness to the Iolocaust: An American
Story., ]cu:s| Soc:o| S:u:cs: H:s:ory, Cu|:urc, Soc:c:y, \ol. 14, No. 1 (Fall 2007): 1-22.
Anderson argues that stories of children were some of the hrst Iolocaust narratives to be
embraced by the American public, in part because such hgures appeared more vulnerable
and provoked more empathy than adult Jewish victims.