Don Jacobo Lerner and Everything Else

I finished reading Isaac Goldemberg's "The Fragmented Life of Don Jacobo Lerner" this morning. It was published in 1976. I am not sure who Goldemberg is, or what he has done since. He wrote the book in Spanish; he is a native of Peru, where the book is set in the 1930s.

Lerner's life was fragmented, but so was the life of everyone who is both a character in the book and in the Jewish community of Peru. Lerner himself was born in Staraya Ushitza, somewhere under the control of the tsar. He emigrates to Peru, wanders quite a bit, ekes out a living in Lima and then in a village where he marries the daughter of a formerly rich father, has a son, and abandons his family. More wandering, and then after becoming a partner in a brothel in Lima (much to everyone's shame), he dies at 42, from what appears to be some form of cancer.

That does not tell you much about the book, about Lerner's only son (slightly demented), his brother and his wife, his best friend from home, his lover, his ex-fiancee, or anyone else. You have to read the book.

In a way, Lerner is Leopold Bloom, a stranger in a strange society, of it yet apart. But, while Bloom is the only Bloom in "Ulysses", everyone in this book is somewhat of a Bloom.

The style is unique - first person, third person, excerpts from books and newspapers, yearly news highlights.

Now to tie things together.

First, there is a dybbuk and an exorcism, reminding me of course of the current Hannah/Theater J production. The dybbuk is Lerner's old boyhood friend and then fellow Peruvian, Leon Mitrani. "The rabbi, who lived about four blocks away from the synagogue, received Jacobo with great warmth and offered Jacobo lodging in his house until the exorcism began to take effect. It would be a difficult task. While the maid prepared a room, he told Jacobo with excitement that it had been a long time since he had had a chance to deal with a dybbuk. The last time had been in Poland, in 1915, when he practiced an exorcism on a young girl who thought herself possessed by the spirit of a whore..........On the third night, Jacobo began to feel a change. Mitrani's spirit suddenly became imperious. Jacobo's condition worsened; for seven days and seven nights his body was racked by tremors; he saw strange images in front of his eyes......But although he was regaining his sanity, he was sunk into a deeper depression than ever, because all these images were of a reality that he did not want to confront."

Then, there is the Amazon River town of Leticia, now in Columbia, where I had traveled in the mid-1970s. I did not know that at one time Leticia was in Peru: "On the morning of September 1st, Alferez Diaz, carrying two pieces of light artillery, takes up a position on an island approximately 1500 yards from the town of Leticia, on the Amazon River....After firing a few rounds, the machine gun jams, and he gives orders for the fusiliers to advance...Afterward, the flag of Peru is flown from city hall......On June 19, the Commission from the League of Nations hands over the Amazon Territory to Columbian authorities." (I need to write about my trip)

And, finally, my cousin Al Jolson. "When it was announced that the film "The Singing Fool", with Al Jolson in the title role, would be shown in the city [Lima], many members mistook this movie for another, already exhibited in several South American countries, in which Al Jolson sings several Jewish songs....Though disappointed when they realized that Jolson would not sing any Jewish songs, they all enjoyed what turned out to be an intensely dramatic movie."

It all comes together.