Books
Book Review: Pogrom
Ben Barkow reviews Steven J Zipperstein's portrait of a prototype pogrom with pieces missing
September 12, 2018 10:13
Ben Barkow reviews Steven J Zipperstein's portrait of a prototype pogrom with pieces missing
September 12, 2018 10:13This book is fascinating in parts, disappointing in others and ultimately a bit of a let-down.
Let’s begin with the sub-title: Kishinev and the Tilt of History. I didn’t know what the tilt of history was before I read the book, and I still don’t. Zipperstein explains that he is exploring “how history is made and remade, what is retained and elided, and why.” All perfectly sensible, but where does the tilting come in? Though, admittedly, it is a poetic and resonant phrase.
And this is somewhat characteristic of the text: in parts, it has a distinctly literary feel. There are passages of beautiful writing — which, in a way, sit uncomfortably with the ghastly subject matter — but Zipperstein is not consistent: at moments, his language can be plodding. For example, describing the pogrom in a part of Kishinev where Jews and Gentiles lived side-by-side, often in the same buildings, Zipperstein writes that the Gentiles were “unattacked”.
There is an interesting account of how the pogrom (though not in itself so unusual among pogroms of that epoch) became the symbol of Jewish suffering in the decades before the Holocaust. News and views of it raced around the world.
