Religion

Mazel Tov by JS Margot review – a memoir of mutual affection


Even to many Jews, the laws and mores of orthodox Judaism can seem forbidding and inscrutable. Exactly what is it that constitutes “work” on the Sabbath? If you can’t turn on a light, what about opening a fridge with one built in? What about setting off a motion sensor?

One of the reasons for these confusions is that Judaism is a combination of the archaic and pragmatic, a constantly evolving system that has contorted its ancient customs to the demands of the real world. Another is the tendency for religious Jews – adherents of a non-proselytising religion – to stick together. There are practical reasons why it might, for example, be difficult to eat lunch in a non-kosher home. And there are historical motives that go far beyond religion. As Mr Schneider, a survivor of the Holocaust, tells JS Margot in her tender and quizzical memoir, “The less people know about our way of life the better.”

Mazel Tov recounts the years that Margot – a Belgian atheist of Catholic background and probing disposition – spent tutoring the children of the Antwerp-based Schneider family. She first came to them in the late 1980s as a miniskirt-wearing student, wholly ignorant of their way of life; decades later she remains in contact with them all.

The multilingual Schneiders are modern orthodox. They distinguish themselves from the shtreimel wearing Haredim (or “ultra-Orthodox”) with whom, it seems, they feel “no religious or cultural bond” (“We are not like them”). Mr Schneider doesn’t have peyot (sidelocks) and his wife doesn’t wear a sheitl (wig). When Margot seals her new job by automatically extending her hand, Mr Schneider goes through with the forbidden ritual (unmarried men and women cannot touch) because “I respect you and your customs.”

He is rather less tolerant of her boyfriend – or the idea of him. It’s not just that Margot isn’t married (goys will be goys); it’s that this man, Nima, is an Iranian. No matter that he’s fled the fiercely anti-semitic Khomeini regime: Mr Schneider demands his full name and sets out to research him. Margot is discomfited. Nima is outraged.

Gradually, the sense of mutual wariness begins to soften. Margot befriends her pupils, especially the diffident but determined Elzira. Then there is Jakov: arrogant, argumentative, assured in his beliefs (“assimilation is death to us”), but not without imaginative curiosity. Margot challenges him on custom, faith, identity. She helps him with his essays, and the pair set up a thriving cottage industry, selling on her work to other pupils. “You’re worse than we are,” Jakov jokes, seizing ownership of that old trope.

Jewish Antwerp in the late 80s still stood in the shadow of the Holocaust. Two thirds of the city’s Jews had been deported, including Mr Schneider’s mother, who survived Auschwitz (her young son was stowed away with a family of farmers). Now Margot must reckon with her ignorance on the subject. On a school trip back from Bergen-Belsen, Jakov’s class engages in a tense discussion about assimilation. Their non-orthodox teacher suggests that, by keeping “tightly closed as a fort”, religious Jews might encourage mistrust, even antagonism. But what came first – the desire to keep separate or the need to?

As the kids turn into adults and move away – to Israel, to Brooklyn – the relationships take on a new, surprising timbre. Margot is no longer an employee but a friend and confidant. She and Nima are invited to Friday night dinner. The Schneiders help her out of a financial fix, counsel her opinion on Elzira’s marriage prospects. Later, Elzira rings her up, distraught. She has transgressed, instinctively grabbing her suitor’s arm to steady herself on a boat. Margot’s amused reaction is a welcome reality check.

Mazel Tov is told in short, often episodic chapters, with the detail and immediacy of a piece of fiction. The author’s relationship with Nima and the “otherness” he represents provide a useful foil to the central narrative, while her development into womanhood is sensitively evoked. The book has been well translated by Jade Hedley-Prôle, including plausible renderings of Yiddish–Hebraic intonation. In the end, Margot never really gets to the heart of what she nicely describes as “the millefeuille of Jewish culture”. But in failing, she reveals another key component of Jewish inscrutability: difference. Anyone who has spent any time living, for example, among Haredi Jews will begin to notice that what at first might seem sartorially identikit is riven with variation: the positioning of a sidelock, the angle of a hat, the length of a frockcoat. All denote different origins and sects, observances and interpretations. The Torah might be fixed but its exegesis is anything but. Only when Margot hangs out in the thriving Jewish community of New York does the realisation truly hit her: “Within each branch I encountered every conceivable gradation … For the first time in my life I was aware that a homogenous Jewish community didn’t exist.”

Of course, this goes for all religions and communities: it’s what might be called humanity’s infinite variety. In providing us with her empathetic outsider’s perspective, Margot helps us to be alert to it.

Mazel Tov by JS Margot, translated by Jade Hedley-Prôle, is published by Pushkin (RRP £12.99). To buy a copy go to guardianbookshop.com. Free UK p&p over £15.



READ NEWS SOURCE

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you accept our use of cookies.