Joel
On Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 4:56 PM, Marv Gandall <marvgandall at videotron.ca>wrote:
> My wife read it. Also enjoyed it a lot. She also saw it as a vehicle for
> Michael Chabon to contrast the former vibrant progressive Yiddish-speaking
> culture of Eastern Europe with Israel's increasingly right-wing culture.
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Max Sawicky" <sawicky at verizon.net>
> To: "LBO-Talk" <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
> Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2009 10:24 AM
> Subject: [lbo-talk] The Yiddish Policeman's Union
>
>
>
> Anybody read this? I just finished. Hugely entertaining.
>> It's Borscht-belt comic dialog among European Jews who
>> are resettled to Alaska (the "frozen chosen"), which was an
>> actual proposal by Harold Ickes. In this alternate history,
>> there is no holocaust. It's a detective story. The
>> gangsters are Hassidem. A bit:
>>
>> "Meyer Landsman is the most decorated shammes
>> (detective -- mbs) in the District of Sitka, the man who
>> solved the murder of the beautiful Froma Lefkowitz
>> by her furrier husband, and caught Podolsky the
>> Hospital Killer. His testimony sent Hyman Tscharny
>> to federal prison for life, the first and last time that
>> criminal charges against a Verbover wiseguy have
>> ever been made to stick. He has the memory of a
>> convict, the balls of a fireman, and the eyesight of a
>> housebreaker. When there is crime to fight, Landsman
>> tears around Sitka like a man with a pant leg caught
>> on a rocket. It's like there's a film score playing behind
>> him, heavy on the castanets."
>> ___________________________________
>> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>>
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
-- joel schalit editor, Zeek author, Israel vs. Utopia skype: jschalit email: jschalit at gmail.com web: www.joelschalit.com