Rochelle Wisoff-Field racks up outstanding reviews for Please Say Kaddish For Me!
By Sarah C P
This novel, set in the Czarist Russia of 1899, was a real eye-opener for me. Before I read it, I knew very little about the appalling treatment of Jews in the Country at that time. Labelled as “Christ Killers”, whole families were brutally murdered or lived in constant terror of thugs storming into theirs homes or workplaces to treat them to violence or finish them off.
Against this backcloth, the author paints a most vivid and detailed picture of daily Jewish life and the importance of family, bound in tradition, ritual observation, and obligation: the concept of extended family ingrained into them in a way that outsiders might misunderstand as exclusivity and use as an excuse for persecution.
The main character in the novel is Hannah, the daughter of a Rabbi. After her family is murdered and her village razed, she is adopted into another family. She’s feisty and sometimes pigheaded, often fighting against the traditional female role expected of her, which includes women not reading and instead tending to household chores, especially the preparation of meals. In this novel, there is so much about cooking and the rituals surrounding mealtimes! On the face of it, this might not sound interesting but the author describes it in such as to makes it fascinating.
Although the story is centered around Jews, it is very much about the human condition: the delicate balance between order and chaos; the push-me-pull-you between love and hatred, and the grey areas in between. Thus, it’s a story that’s worth reading, whatever your religious or non-religious background.
I have one little criticism, or rather suggestion to the author if she plans a second edition of the novel, and that is the construction of a family tree in diagram form at the beginning of the book. The names would all be familiar for a Russian Jew from 1899, but not so for the likes of modern English-speaking readers. I got in a terrible muddle about names and about who was related to who. But don’t let this put you off reading this most worthy and illuminating work, just have a pen to the ready, and jot down who is who on a scrap of paper to keep as your bookmark, then you won’t get lost.
Published by W&B Publishers
Represented by Loiacono Literary Agency