by: itzik manger
published: 1939, poland. less than a month before the germans invaded.

my rarest book, and a modern jewish folk tale. this is the first edition of the english translation. it was put together after the war and is scattered through with illustrations from the original yiddish publication. manger went on to survive the war, but the artist (whose name i haven't been able to find, z''l) was murdered in a concentration camp.
















it tells the story of a young angel named shmuel-aba. he lives as an unborn soul in heaven, skipping angel-school and playing silly pranks with his best friend pisherl (literally: little pisser). but eventually, like all souls, he must be born. he is taken to the edge of heaven by the angel reb shimon ber, and one of my favorite pieces of jewish folklore is referenced.













the tldr is that in traditional folklore, an angel named lailah lives in the womb with an unborn child for 9 months. she teaches it everything a jew can possibly know. when the baby is ready to be born, she smacks the child above the lip, creating the cupids bow. at the same moment, the child forgets everything, and enters out into the world.

the issue with shmuel-aba is that reb shimon ber is DRUNK, and he misses when he goes to smack shmuel. thus, shmuel is born knowing how to read, write, speak and walk, not to mention being well-educated. his birth is so odd, it's one of the funniest parts of the book.













of course, his parents are shocked. they call in the local rabbi and two other important men, and shmuel spends a few days recounting his time in heaven before being born. this makes up essentially the whole book, and it's amazing.

figures like adam, eve, the patriarchs (abraham, issac, jacob) and the matriarchs (sarah, rivka, leah and rachel) just wander around. disputes like the (in)famous fued between litvaks (lithuanian jews) and galitzianers (polish and ukranian jews) are out in full force. and in one of my favorite moments, the angel of death argues with a literal star about whether or not a young woman deserves to die.

the angel of death

when shmuel goes on a walk in the middle of the chilly night, he hears the ferociousness of beating wings in the distance, and a cluster of little fires burning in the dark sky. suddenly, he sees "an angel with huge black wings, a thousand eyes that flickered threatening and red" illuminated in the moon's light. it is the angel of death, and he wields a mighty sword.

a star detaches itself from the sky and falls down to eden in order to have a word with him. there is a young woman on earth who the star has loved looking down upon for many years, a bride, and it is she who the angel must kill. they argue, and a famous song called chad gadya (written 1590) is referenced. in short, the song is a list song. a man buys a goat, a cat eats the goat, a dog eats the cat... eventually an ox gets involved. the butcher kills the ox and the angel of death kills the butcher, but then the "holy one, blessed be he" comes and slaughters the angel of death.



















THE FEAR OF DEATH, FOR HIMSELF. i got shivers the first time i read that.

when an angel who is a danger to herself goes missing, shmuel and pisherl seek to find her. they fly to the estate of king david, the most famed king of ancient israel and the jewish people. on the way, they pass over the most beautiful field, cut through with a glistening river. and yet, when they drop down to see better, they realize the fields are full of angel-peasants. this is where a touch of the socialist, labor bund flavoring typical of many european jewish works at that time manages to peek through.

it is said in jewish folklore that there are three creatures that the righteous will feast on when the messiah, a descendant of king david, arrives: the behemoth, the livathan and the ziz. in this book, manger adds one more: the messiah ox. when a total jerk of an angel decides to trick the ox and tell him that the messiah is coming (and therefore, he's totally gonna get eaten), the ox escapes. he runs from jewish heaven all the way to christian heaven. since shmuel and pisherl were supposed to be watching the ox, they are tasked with getting it back.

from the moment they enter christian heaven, they are called historic slurs, threatened with the breaking of their wings and given housing with st. nicholas, who pressures them to convert.













this isn't hyperbole in the least - christian nations historically oppressed, mocked and killed jews for more than a thousand years. let it be said that this book isn't all lighthearted fun. we shouldn't expect it to be either, considering when it was written.

the worst of it comes when they leave, having eventually bartered their way into retrieving the messiah ox. their escort to the border of the heavens is a russian angel named dimitri who, much like the cossacks did in the late 1800's and early 1900's, makes life unbearable for his jewish companions. below is a particularly painful page.

the book of paradise was supposed to be the first of a trilogy. but as the foreward says, the author was aware in 1939 that the book of the earth and the book of the world of errors may never be written. the foreward is disturbing. the germans hadn't yet invaded, but it seems to loom. in manger's own words: "at the edge of the abyss even laughter becomes desparate."

"driven from rumania, the country of [his] birth, robbed of [his] citizenship, and exiled from [his] beloved polish jewish community, wandering without passport or visa," he finds himself in a "grotesque pose." this foreword colors ones experience of the whole book. and that is perhaps why the very last page of this book, written on the eve of what would become the murder of six million of the authors own people, feels so incredibly empty. even so, i am blessed to own this book, and forever grateful to my grandmother and her keen eye for helping it find its way to me.