Summary of The Brothers Ashkenazi
The Brothers Ashkenazi is largely set within the Jewish community of the Polish city of Łódź. Spanning several decades, from the industrialisation of the city in the nineteenth century through the Łódź insurrection of 1905 and the upheavals surrounding the First World War, the book follows the lives of twin brothers Max and Jacob Ashkenazi. Raised in a Hasidic Jewish family, the brothers develop very different personalities. Max distances himself from his religious background and becomes a wealthy industrialist. Ruthlessly ambitious, he does not hesitate to sacrifice personal relationships in pursuit of success. Jacob, by contrast, is more sociable and less driven by business or social status. Their personal rivalry unfolds against a period of profound economic and political change that transforms both Łódź and the lives of its inhabitants.
Reasons to read The Brothers Ashkenazi
The Brothers Ashkenazi is one of the major works of twentieth-century Yiddish literature. Israel Joshua Singer was the elder brother of Isaac Bashevis Singer, who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978 (see The Magician of Lublin, The Golem and A Day of Pleasure). Published in English in 1936, The Brothers Ashkenazi became a bestseller in the United States. The novel presents a sweeping historical and social portrait of Jewish life in Poland in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when Łódź was under Russian rule. It depicts the city’s transformation from a small town into one of the greatest textile-manufacturing centres in the Russian Empire, and explores themes of family conflict, industrialisation, capitalism, assimilation, and antisemitism.
Setting: Łódź (Poland)
Original title: די ברידער אַשכּנזי – Di brider Ashkenazi
Year of publication: 1936
Nr of pages: 520
