A slanted, shingled roof, covered in moss. A solitary menorah on the window sill, guardian of the home. From within come the wise, gruff voices of the old and the impassioned, idealistic calls of the young — winding tightly around one another like the waxy strands of a havdalah candle.
So the scene is set for a family saga set against the backdrop of a changing world in Chaim Grade’s Sons and Daughters.
This book, originally serialized in Yiddish-language newspapers in the 1960s and 1970s — now translated for the first time by Rose Waldman— introduces us to a distressed Rabbi Sholem Shachne Katzenellenbogen: his five children have all strayed from a pious path and bring him very little nachas. They’ve also left home, traveling as far as Switzerland and Palestine to follow what Sholem Shachne believes are foolish dreams. The children filter in and out of the Katzenellenbogen household throughout the book, briefly visiting their traditional parents in between other pursuits that take them farther and farther from the world in which they were raised. The rabbi and his wife, Henna’le, must contend with the rapid shift in their family unit as their children embrace the modern world — a world beyond the beis din and the Shabbos dinner table.
Over the course of the novel, we meet a distinctive cast of characters, ranging from a depressed genius rabbi, to his troubled son — torn between Nietzsche and Communism; from Henna’le’s staunchly pious father and manipulative siblings, to her eldest son’s secret goyishe family. Every character matters in Sons and Daughters; each is given their own moment to grapple with a society rife with poverty, war, isolation, and loss of faith. Through them, we see evidence of the Katzenellenbogen family’s widening world; these interconnected stories weave a complicated tapestry of arguments and friendships and unspoken confessions.
As readers, we know what is to come for families like the Katzenellenbogens. The boycott of Jewish businesses, the pogroms that threaten daily life — these signs point to the backshadow that colors every Jewish story set in the 1930s. In the book’s Introduction, Adam Kirsch writes that the younger Katzenellenbogens believe that “their forefathers’ way of life is no longer viable. In the highly nationalistic climate of interwar Poland, the Jews’ traditional survival strategies — avoiding politics, accepting blows without retaliation — have stopped working.” It feels strange and almost wrong to watch parents argue with their children about whether or not they put on tefillin every day when mass violence and death loom ahead, but this is the reality at all moments in time.
Grade, who fled to the Soviet Union during the war, only to return to a decimated Vilna and his family murdered, incorporates his beliefs into his work. Kirsch notes that the Holocaust brought Jewish tradition back into Grade’s life after it had been absent for many years; he was no longer as cynical of the lifestyle after it had been virtually erased. We see evidence of this most clearly in at the end of the novel, where a Yiddish poet (seemingly a stand-in for a younger Grade) impresses upon the Katzenellenbogen family that their way of life cannot only be upheld through study and prayer — it also flourishes through finding Jewishness in the world around them, through writing and politics and looking forward.
Another element of this book worth exploring is the story of its translation into English, which raises questions about the ethics and intricacies of translation. Much of the plot of Sons and Daughters had to be pieced together from correspondences and notes left behind by Grade, the ending inferred without any certainty that it follows what Grade intended. So why translate it at all? With the dwindling of a widespread Yiddish language and culture since World War II, efforts have been made to preserve it in any manner possible. Grade and his contemporaries captured a society that now only exists in stories like this one, stories that engaged with the same questions about Jewish life that we wrestle with today: How can one balance tradition with a changing world? What are our duties to our elders and ancestors, and what are our duties to ourselves? Translation emphasizes the ties that bind us — across language, movements, and generations.
Isadora Kianovsky (she/her) is the Membership & Engagement Associate at Jewish Book Council. She graduated from Smith College in 2023 with a B.A. in Jewish Studies and a minor in History. Prior to working at JBC, she focused on Gender and Sexuality Studies through a Jewish lens with internships at the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute and the Jewish Women’s Archive. Isadora has also studied abroad a few times, traveling to Spain, Israel, Poland, and Lithuania to study Jewish history, literature, and a bit of Yiddish language.
