Doris Bass Memorial Library & Book Club
Doris Bass, a beloved member of Israel Congregation, was a dedicated lover of books and literature. After a long career beginning in the Brooklyn Public Library and progressing to publishing, Doris moved to Vermont in 1996. Her passion for life was contagious and her passing has left us with a large hole in our lives. We have dedicated our extensive library in her memory. Today we are fortunate to have devoted congregants stewarding the library Doris championed.
The Doris Bass Library is currently overwhelmed with books that need to be catalogued and shelved with more coming in all the time and only two part time volunteers to do the work to sort through the donations. We deeply appreciate the huge effort our volunteers, are doing to accomplish this task having found some truly beautiful and special books among the donations received. We want to be able to continue to welcome the donation of engaging and educational books, but we need your help:
- Please box books or tie book donations—pre-approved by the library volunteers—with twine before dropping them off in the office, not in the library.
- If you would like your name or the name of your family member on a book plate in the book, please give us the pertinent information.
- Please consider making a donation to the Merkado Library Fund to help us in our work of making this a more user-friendly place for our congregation.
Thank You!
Join the Doris Bass Book Club!
Start your day off right with a good book. . .
On the 3rd Wednesday of each month participate in a lively and engaging conversation about
wonderful books of Jewish interest.
The next meeting of the Doris Bass Book Club is on
Wednesday evening, May 20th at
7:00 pm.
Join the club as we meet via Zoom to discuss this month's title.
April/May Reading recommendation
and Book Club title:
The Zelmenyaners: A Family Saga
This is the first complete English-language translation of a classic of Yiddish literature, one of the great comic novels of the twentieth century.
The Zelmenyaners describes the travails of a Jewish family in Minsk that is torn asunder by the new Soviet reality. Four generations are depicted in riveting and often uproarious detail as they face the profound changes brought on by the demands of the Soviet regime and its collectivist, radical secularism. The resultant inter-generational showdowns–including disputes over the introduction of electricity, radio, and electric trolley–are rendered with humor, pathos, and a finely controlled satiric pen. Moyshe Kulbak, a contemporary of the Soviet Jewish writer Isaac Babel, picks up where Sholem Aleichem left off a generation before, exploring in this book the transformation of Jewish life.
In Praise of The Zelmenyaers
"Kulbak’s work is a masterpiece for reasons that have little to do with its context. His characters are funny and pathetic, his prose delicate and inventive. His novel ushers the reader not into Soviet Belorussia, but into a world entirely its own. Like a Zelmenyaner itself, it turns reality into dream." - Ezra Glinter, The Forward
"Kulbak never quite manages to dampen the novel's subversive spirit, which is reinforced delightfully in Hillel Halkin's impeccable translation." - Bryan Cheyette, The Times Literary Supplement
"The Zelmenyaners...is both thoroughly enjoyable to read and invaluable on many levels. The novel offers a rare view of Jewish life in the early Soviet period in Belarus, a place that briefly offered exciting opportunities for Yiddish culture." - Madeleine Cohen, In geveb
"Though it’s definitely comic satire (and laugh out loud funny), the tone of The Zelmenyaners is always more sweet than sour. Kulbak brings a poignancy to his observations of a family, and a place, for which he clearly feels much affection." - Rokhl Kafrissen, Jewish Book Council
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Moyshe Kulbak (1896-1937) was a leading Yiddish modernist poet, novelist, and dramatist. He is the author of Childe Harold of Dysna and The Messiah of the House of Ephraim, among other works. He was arrested and executed in 1937, during the wave of Stalinist repression that hit dozens of Yiddish and other writers and cultural activists throughout Soviet Belarus.
