Poetry

While the poems in this collection are inspired by the story of Fievel Mousekewitz, the cartoon mouse of the author’s childhood, they are gut-wrenching in their examination of the American dream. Fievel’s family history—and the author’s—is one of a Jewish family immigrating from the Old World to the New and eventually being pulled across the “When migrant boys looked west in leather hats, their slang pierced with Polish accents.” Even though “tomorrow is made of rocks and time; is the draft that sweeps sleepily through the fallen branches,” it is also where immigrants “watch their dreams decompose on plywood” as they search “for whatever it is that makes men free.”

Using the story of Fievel, Burt plays masterfully with the ambivalence of hope and cynicism, as if he had traversed the ocean and the continent westwards himself: "I am the hope that has not been forgotten, because I declare myself welcome here, as if there is nothing in history I will not make mine."

This collection of books featuring Jewish main characters is decidedly non-comprehensive. As we come across books that are described as having Jewish main characters, we add them to this database. The creators of the Jewish Genre Reading Challenge have not read all (or even most) of the books in this database. We have gathered information from many sources and not all may be accurate. Inclusion of a book in our database does not imply endorsement or approval. There is always the possibility that antisemitism may be present in a book, either written into a character's experience or through malicious or ignorant caricature or stereotypical portrayal of Jewish characters and culture. Please take care of yourselves as you read.

 

PLEASE let us know if you encounter a book in this database that does not have a Jewish main character, if you have corrections or additions for a book's genre categories, or if you have any other concerns about the inclusion of a particular book in this database.