[Chapters One and Two will follow shortly!]
Preface: Notes to
The Ibbur’s Tale
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Some of my early readers confused the ibbur with the more familiar dybbuk. The latter is perhaps best known from The Dybbuk, or Between Two Worlds, a drama by S. Ansky, who presented a possessive spirit toward which the audience might feel at least some sympathy. Nevertheless, the dybbuk is a malevolent being by definition. In the Ansky play, the pious Khonen was not necessarily “evil,” but he felt betrayed by Leah’s engagement to Menashe, took possession of “his” intended, and had to be exorcised by Rabbi Azriel (with the inevitable tragic consequences).
The ibbur, on the other hand, is an entirely benevolent spirit, often one left with a task or mission to complete or some mitzvah to perform. We again see “possession” of some sort, but it is often with the voluntary consent of the living person, although sometimes the latter is completely unaware of the possession.
With the exception of The Warsaw Anagrams, by Richard Zimler, I cannot identify any novels or novellas that involve such legendary entities. Thus, I felt the time was right to add another ibbur to the canon.
Some of my details of ibbur “possession” have no precedent. As I am (chronologically) far removed from legends of the shtetlach, I felt it was appropriate for me to suggest a few newer and more modern possibilities. Thus, Miriam (in this novella) bears strikingly little resemblance to Dr. Erik Cohen (the protagonist in the Zimler novel), and she may also be perceived as more accessible and “human.”
Miriam had willingly committed herself to work toward the solution of a family mystery her uncle (Isidore, or Ike) had left behind, but then she, too, died. Nevertheless, she felt a moral imperative to complete her mission, to which end she sought the assistance of the totally secularized and skeptical Benjamin Dinerstein, her former English professor.
Two of my beta-readers raised an objection at this point. They felt that such a selection, though presumably arbitrary, was nevertheless suggestive. Had the professor and his former student been romantically involved, and/or (worse still) was there in fact some implicit hint of possible spectrophilia? I certainly did not intend to lead readers astray, but it is sometimes difficult for an author to anticipate the inferences that people may draw. Thus, I turned to the Yiddish theater for precedent and eliminated this minor problem.
I allude specifically to God of Vengeance, the 1907 play by Sholem Asch. The drama involves the ill-fated attempt by a Jewish brothel owner to arrange a marriage between his daughter and the son of a rabbi. His efforts go for naught, as the daughter falls in love with one of the prostitutes working for her father. The play stirred immense controversy, and its 1923 Broadway production and was quickly shut down. In fact, the producer and cast were all subsequently convicted of “obscenity.”
Times have changed. Nevertheless, I had no desire to interpolate love scenes within the narrative, and with this simple contrivance (i.e., that the ibbur had been a lesbian) I hope to have deflected any possible misinterpretations.
* * *
This novel draws upon history as well as legend. The horrors of World War Two and the Holocaust include accounts of a number of Mischlinge—“mixed” Jews, including half-Jews, quarter-Jews, some with still less of the “taint”—of whom perhaps as many as 160,000 served the Nazi military machine, even while it destroyed the six million. Benjamin and the ibbur discuss this topic more extensively during the course of the narrative.
The ill-fated Hauptmann (later Major) Yosef Müller in the present work was a half-Jew but completely unaware of his ancestry. Such people did indeed serve in the Wehrmacht and/or SS.
* * *
I would be categorically remiss if I neglected to mention two autobiographical elements. The first relates to a family scandal; the other arose from historical records.
A Slow Train to Budapest is the title of an unfinished novel left behind by my late mother, Ann Abelson, whose surname I used for this project. I have thus far been able to salvage only the first two segments of the narrative, both of which are available in digital format. In the 1970s, we learned that my mother’s aunt had had an illegitimate child, and some of that story is loosely parodied in the present work. [The child was adopted by a Jewish family and almost surely did not survive the Holocaust.]
Some relatives on my maternal grandfather’s side of the family remained in Dolhinov, which is now in Belarus. We know that the Nazis sometimes herded Jews (and others) into wooden buildings: schools, synagogues, and various municipal structures. The victims were then locked inside, and the edifices were put to the torch. It is likely that most of the kinsmen living in Dolhinov when the Wehrmacht invaded suffered death in this fashion—a method used by Hauptmann Müller et al. in our narrative.
* * *
I had written one earlier tale involving an ibbur. The last case solved by the world’s most famous detective (cf. Sherlock Holmes and the Mysteries of the Chess World, Russell, 2022) required the assistance of a rabbi (a member of the Watson clan, of course!). With that story behind me, I felt ready to attempt a lengthier venture. I hope this novella will not disappoint my readers.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWQ3PUuDhtD
Lenny Abelson, 27 January 2023
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