Fic­tion

The Last Dekrepitzer

Howard Langer
By
Marc Katz
– December 2, 2024

Howard Langer’s inven­tive nov­el, The Last Dekrepitzer, imag­ines what would hap­pen if the last remain­ing sur­vivor of a Hasidic sect found his way to the pre – Civ­il Rights Amer­i­can South and took on a new iden­ti­ty as a blues musi­cian named Sam Light­up. In doing so, the nov­el explores sub­jects like race, the lega­cy of the Holo­caust, music, and God. 

Although the sto­ry jumps around in time, Sam’s sto­ry begins when he is in the shtetl, learn­ing how to lead his com­mu­ni­ty as the rebbe-in-wait­ing. His par­tic­u­lar sect is known for hav­ing lead­ers who are famous for their pecu­liar style of fid­dle play­ing, and Sam, called Shumel Meir at the time, is get­ting ready to become that leader. Yet the Holo­caust is loom­ing, and Sam gets con­script­ed into the Russ­ian army as a fid­dle play­er. When he final­ly finds his way out, his world has been destroyed and he has to start over. 

That new begin­ning takes place in Mis­sis­sip­pi. As some­one who has been treat­ed as an out­cast, Sam is drawn to the African Amer­i­cans in his com­mu­ni­ty. He befriends Black preach­ers and falls in love with a Black woman named Lula. Even­tu­al­ly, he makes his way to New York City, where his unique fid­dle play­ing finds an audience.

Through­out the nov­el, Langer is able to employ humor while also dis­play­ing the tragedies hap­pen­ing around Sam. Because of his his­to­ry, Sam func­tions as a kind of bro­ken prophet. He strug­gles with big ques­tions, espe­cial­ly with the place of prayer and God after all he has seen. His answer, how­ev­er, is not to aban­don reli­gion whole-cloth. Judaism still mat­ters to Sam, but the way he approach­es it is dif­fer­ent than most. Through his music, Sam is able to find spir­i­tu­al mean­ing. More than any­thing, the book explores the role that music can play in bring­ing peo­ple clos­er to one anoth­er and the non-believ­er clos­er to the Divine. 

Langer is a tal­ent­ed builder of worlds who shines the most when cre­at­ing set­ting and mood. Through his prose, one gets a real sense of what it might have been like to live in a shtetl, the Jim Crow South, and twen­ti­eth-cen­tu­ry Harlem. Langer’s char­ac­ters are also vivid. Because Sam is so open, accept­ing, and vir­tu­ous, the read­er is able to see the world in the same way. Sam is not with­out his strug­gles, but his read of the world is pure. 

The Last Dekrepitzer is a nov­el that will sur­prise read­ers with its depth and intro­duce them to one of the more unique char­ac­ters to appear on the con­tem­po­rary Jew­ish lit­er­ary scene. 

Rab­bi Marc Katz is the Rab­bi at Tem­ple Ner Tamid in Bloom­field, NJ. He is author of the book The Heart of Lone­li­ness: How Jew­ish Wis­dom Can Help You Cope and Find Com­fort (Turn­er Pub­lish­ing), which was cho­sen as a final­ist for the Nation­al Jew­ish Book Award.

More from Marc Katz
love & relationships
race & ethnicity
mar­riage
immi­gra­tion
music

Discussion Questions

Ques­tions cour­tesy of Howard Langer

  1. Why are we told of Shmuel Meir’s pres­ence in the sub­way sta­tion in the 1960s, essen­tial­ly the end of the sto­ry, in the beginning?
  2. Is this a Jew­ish nov­el or are its themes uni­ver­sal? If Shmuel Meir was say a Chris­t­ian sur­vivor of the Armen­ian geno­cide or a Jehovah’s Wit­ness sur­vivor of the Nazi con­cen­tra­tion camps would he face the same issues as he does as a Jew­ish survivor?
  3. Many of the crit­ics who have com­ment­ed on the book com­ment on how the ​“unbe­liev­able” sto­ry of Shmuel Meir seems per­fect­ly believ­able with­in the book. How is this believ­abil­i­ty achieved in the novel?
  4. There are sev­er­al rab­bis in the book, among them, Shmuel Meir, his grand­fa­ther, Elchonon Wasser­man, the Bobover, and Abra­ham Hirsch. How do these rab­bis con­trast with each oth­er in their roles as rab­bi, in their rela­tion­ship to God and in their rela­tion­ship to their communities?
  5. There are a num­ber of nov­els over the years that involve Black and Jew­ish rela­tions — such as James McBride’s The Heav­en and Earth Gro­cery Store and Oreo by Fran Ross — but the Last Dekrepitzer seems to be of a very dif­fer­ent genre. Do you agree? If so, why?
  6. What the­mat­ic pur­pose is served by Shmuel Meir’s speak­ing Black English?
  7. Is this a Holo­caust novel?
  8. While begin­ning in the first chap­ter the book appears to tell its sto­ry chrono­log­i­cal­ly, Shmuel Meir’s sto­ry is actu­al­ly told very dif­fer­ent­ly. How is it told and why?
  9. The book involves the music of many dif­fer­ent peo­ple, Shmuel Meir, The Brown Sug­ar Ram­blers, Jer­ry Lee Lewis, Nos­son Son­neblick, Bob Gib­son and, of course, The Rev­erend Gary Davis. What does the music of each of these peo­ple tell us? How do the var­i­ous person’s music con­trast with each other?
  10. The book con­tains fic­tion­al­ized char­ac­ter­i­za­tions of real per­sons such as Rab­bi Elchonon Wasser­man, Jer­ry Lee Lewis, the Bobover Rebbe, and The Rev­erend Gary Davis as well as fic­tion­al char­ac­ters such as Willie Carr, Isa­iah Burch­wood and Schiff — does the book gain any­thing from the use of these real per­sons? Would the book have been the same had the fic­tion­al­iza­tions of real per­sons been giv­en fic­tion­al names?
  11. How does Lula and her rela­tion­ship with Shmuel Meir con­tribute to the themes of the book?
  12. In 1964 Edward Lewis Wallant’s 1961 nov­el, The Pawn­bro­ker, was released as a major movie star­ring Rod Steiger. It was the first Amer­i­can film to depict scenes in a con­cen­tra­tion camp. The pro­tag­o­nist, a camp sur­vivor, oper­ates a pawn shop on 125 th Street in Harlem in the late 1950s and his clien­tele are almost entire­ly Black. The book thus takes place at the same peri­od as The Last Dekrepitzer with­in a few blocks of where Shmuel Meir. plays on the streets with Gary Davis and explores themes of Jews and Blacks. How do the two books reflect the changes over the six­ty years sep­a­rat­ing them in rela­tion to the Holo­caust and their themes?

The Last Dekrepitzer, a superb debut nov­el, relates the improb­a­ble jour­ney of Shmuel Meir Licht­bencher. Shmuel Meir is the sole sur­vivor of a small Hasidic enclave destroyed by the Nazis. His sect has been led by rebbes who fid­dle — their piety and prayers are expressed in nigu­nim, Hasidic melodies that often lack lyrics. Shmuel Meir is being groomed to lead the group, but, in what turns out to be good for­tune, he is tak­en from his shtetl to be trained at a Moscow Con­ser­va­to­ry. He joins the fight against Ger­many, even­tu­al­ly deserts the Red Army, and makes his way to Italy. There he is adopt­ed by Black Amer­i­can GIs, who, moved by his sto­ry and music, take him back to Mis­sis­sip­pi at the War’s end.

Like count­less oth­er immi­grants, Shmuel adopts a new iden­ti­ty. In Mis­sis­sip­pi, he rais­es chick­ens and plays in a blues band. Renamed Sam Light­up, he mar­ries the sis­ter of one of his sav­iors. Their mar­riage vio­lates Mis­sis­sip­pi law, and they are forced to flee. 

Shmuel and his con­vert­ed wife make their way to New York, where they seek a fresh start. ​“Who are you, Sam?” his friend and some­time study part­ner asks. Sam-Shmuel’s quest to answer takes him on a trek where he wres­tles with his past, with America’s racial taboos, and per­haps, like Jacob, with God him­self. Howard Langer’s deeply mov­ing nov­el is told in clear and unadorned prose. This book will repay reread­ings with new plea­sures and insights.

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