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ABSTRACT
The work of Moacyr Scliar and that of Samuel Rawet have at least one aspect in common. Scliar, born in Porto Alegre and the son of immigrants, and Rawet, born in Poland but no less “carioca,” dedicated to their cities – hometown or host – a prominent role, giving them, in their writings, almost the position of characters. Scliar's A guerra no Bom Fim and O exército de um homem só, and Rawet's “Reinvenção de Lázaro” and “Madrugada seca,” are eloquent examples of this protagonism. Other authors of Jewish ehtnic origin, immigrants or children of immigrants, such as Ronaldo Wrobel in Traduzindo Hannah and Eliezer Levin in Bom Retiro, followed this path. This article seeks to deepen the analysis of the relationship of the chosen authors with their cities of residence, trying to follow the geographical displacements of Jews who immigrated, notably from Eastern Europe, and their concentration in specific neighbourhoods.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 The situation of Jews in the Russian Empire had been precarious since the end of the eighteenth century, when about a million Jews were transferred from the control of Poland to that of Russia as a result of the partitions of Poland imposed by Russia, Prussia and Austria, and passed to live confined in the so-called Settlement Region, or Pale. This condition continued throughout the nineteenth century, with ups and downs, until, on 13 March 1881, the prevailing social ferment resulted in a terrorist attack that killed Tsar Alexander II. Given the prevailing anti-Jewish climate, the bombing was blamed on Jews, triggering a series of pogroms, the first of which was on 27 April 1881, just 45 days after the bombing. Other acts of violence followed in Kiev (May 8 and 9) and Odessa (May 15 and 16), quickly spreading to about 160 localities by the summer of 1882. This was followed by the emigration of hundreds of thousands of Jews, who headed mainly for the United States.
2 The episodes of 1881–1882 were followed by about twenty years in which the threat of pogroms only hovered over the Jewish population; finally, on 19 April 1903, Easter Sunday and the last day of the feast of Pessah, violence erupted again, this time in Kishinev, in Bessarabia, surpassing in savagery the previous movements; pogroms shook Kishinev again in 1905, spreading to some fifty localities. This time, the acts of violence were fuelled by Russia's military failure against Japan, which was blamed on Jewish defeatism. The Kishinev pogroms also motivated massive Jewish emigration, which in part went to Brazil, under the encouragement of the colonies established by the ICA. According to Lesser (O Brasil, 316), between 1901 and 1914, 8750 Jews immigrated to Brazil. Scliar (Caminhos, 19) reports that to Philippson – the first colony established by the ICA – 38 families, about three hundred people, came from Bessarabia.
3 At the end of the eighteenth century, Poland was shaken by three military conflicts that each time confronted it with Russia, Prussia and Austria, in each of which it ceded pieces of its territory to the victorious powers, the so-called “partitions,” until finally losing its political existence. This situation lasted until 1919, when the victors of the First World War re-unified Poland and granted it the status of independent state, at the same time imposing the adoption of a constitution that guaranteed the right of minorities. The general attitude of the Polish state, however, continued to be predominantly anti-Jewish: episodes of pogroms occurred, Jews were prevented from exercising certain professions and began to face precarious economic conditions, which motivated the emigration of a considerable number of Jews; In Yiddish, the events above are all referred to as khurbn, meaning ruin, destruction, catastrophe, devastation, Holocaust.
4 Lesser (O Brasil, 318) shows that between 1925 and 1935, of a total Jewish immigration to Brazil of 32,521 people, 14,609, or almost 45%, came from Poland. The family of Samuel Rawet was part of this population.
5 But not only. As Scliar himself reports in Pathways of Hope, in 1881, touched by the pogroms that took place in Russia as a result of the attack on Tsar Alexander II, Baron Hirsch, a great Jewish philanthropist, founded an entity, the Jewish Colonization Association – known by the acronym ICA – with the aim of acquiring land on which to settle Jews in bad economic situation. The Association created agricultural colonies and attracted immigrants from Russia to Canada, Argentina and Brazil. In Brazil, specifically, the ICA established colonies in the northwest of the state of Rio Grande do Sul from 1904 onwards, the same year in which, as we will see later, the Scliar family arrived in Brazil; many of the new settlers ended up accepting their inability to work the land and moved to Porto Alegre, Santa Maria and other cities in Rio Grande do Sul, to dedicate themselves to commerce. This is probably the trajectory of Porto Alegre-born Moacyr's parents.
6 Moacyr's parents, José and Sara Scliar, came from Bessarabia, then part of the Russian Empire, in 1904, shortly after the Kishinev pogrom.
7 Scliar, A Guerra, 25.
8 In a brief period when Mayer was a successful entrepreneur in the real estate business, this mantra was adapted to “We are now starting the construction of a new series of buildings – the ‘Kings of Israel’.” (Scliar, O exército, 112).
9 Scliar, O exército, 9.
10 Jews who sold merchandise to poor, peripheral people and were paid in weekly or monthly installments were nicknamed “installment Jews.”
11 Klidzio, Itinerário, 76–7.
12 Rawet, Contos e novelas reunidos, 141.
13 See Klidzio, Itinerário, 120–3.
14 Note that Yehuda Bitterman, in Yiddish, means “bitter Jew.”
15 Ibid., 305–6.
16 Ibid., 306.
17 Ibid., 307.
18 Ibid., 307.
19 Ibid., 308.
20 Ibid., 313.
21 Ibid., 313.
22 Ibid., 315.
23 Klidzio, Itinerário, 113.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Saul Kirschbaum
Saul Kirschbaum is an independent researcher. PhD in Letters, Hebrew Language, Jewish Literature and Culture Program at FFLCH/USP and post-doctorate at Unicamp.