“Boom and Chains — A Yiddish Novel Set in Israel/Palestine”
By Hanan Ayalti (author) and Adi Mahalel (translator)
I used to shrink in my chair when my dad started arguing with one of my relatives over politics. Their voices grew louder and louder until someone shouted, “No religion or politics at the table!” The novel “Boom and Chains” takes the reader into a swamp of political controversy between the Israeli settlers and Palestinians of the 1920s and 30s. With muddy, bare feet, the kibbutz community steps into the Kahara swamp to drain the water and prepare the land for planting.
“Boom and Chains” (“Bum un keytn”) was written in Yiddish in 1936 by Hanan Ayalti (1910 – 1992). Adi Mahalel translated it into English and wrote a 50-page introduction that added context. The introduction followed Hanan Ayalti’s journey as a writer while history unfolded in Palestine. He said that “Boom and Chains” was the first Yiddish novel to prominently depict kibbutz life.
Mordechai Halamish, a Yiddish story editor, said the author was “One of the most important storytellers in Yiddish literature.” I learned that choosing to write in Yiddish rather than Hebrew was a political statement. In a letter to Israeli Yiddish and Hebrew scholar Dov Sadam, the author wrote, “Hebrew is the language of one class among the Jewish People, the elite class.” Writing in Yiddish offered him the freedom to express his political views. He said, “Writing in Hebrew, you can only write in a Zionist vein.”
The story begins with our protagonist, Zalman, arriving by ship in Tel Aviv. He traveled fourth class with the other “halutzim,” who were the early pioneers who came to work the land. The halutzim were filled with enthusiasm. They were ready to start a new utopian society focused on the collective and the land. At the time, there was a sexual revolution in the Soviet Union, where they questioned traditional institutions like marriage. The kibbutz society followed their lead. Men and women lived together in very close quarters, most of the time barely wearing clothes due to the heat and harsh working conditions. In the introduction, it said, “They slept pressed like herring twenty people on a twelve square meter floor.”
Zalman was ready to be part of the new society. The first step was giving up his personal possessions. The author wrote, “He handed over his things, which now belonged to the entire commune, and felt light and good. ‘I don’t have anything private now; it all belongs to the kibbutz!’” This was the early ideal. Everything would be shared, and it would all be about working the land and planting together. Nights were filled with hora dancing and the singing of Etz Chaim Hi. The author wrote, “Eighty barefoot young men and women are building a new life here.”
Then came the diseases, like malaria and dysentery. There were bed bugs and lice. Some were hit with depression. Through it all, they kept plowing and planting, but as the book progressed, the early idealism faded.
The author introduces a Palestinian character, “Abu Khalil.” He is an Arab peasant whose crops are drying up. He discovers that the water to his field was diverted by a kibbutz irrigation canal. Later, he dies of starvation, which becomes a symbol throughout the story. The author described how more and more Arab landowners were selling their land to Israeli organizations. The peasants were the ones suffering. In many ways, his book was less about Jews vs. Palestinians and more about the working class vs. the owners. He used language from Karl Marx, such as “proletariat vs. the bourgeoisie.”
In the story, the Arab peasants were left in poverty. They couldn’t support themselves after their land was sold. On the other side, Israeli settlers struggled to find enough work and started a policy of only hiring Jewish labor. Zalman objected. His heart was with the working class, whether they were Israeli or Arab. He recruited his fellow kibbutzniks, Hanke, Dora and Motke, and started an underground network to help smuggle supplies.
It’s striking to me how the characters get disillusioned as their ideal society strays from its roots. The author wrote, “A few older colonists objected: ‘What are you doing?’ You are ruining our whole idea! Now it’s not even an agricultural village but the same small shtetl like in Poland: little shops, tradesmen, a few artisans, soda vendors — and now even the plantation owners have arrived — indeed, all we are missing is Jewish landowners!”
The British imperialists, as the author calls them, are also part of the story. The book begins with a tense scene where the British detain Zalman’s ship. Later, Motke said to Zalman, “We are just small pawns in the hands of the British: They want to build their strategic base here, so they need to have a force that will always resist the local liberation movement.” He continued, “Zionism is a seductive dream on one hand, and a base for imperialism on the other. England will only let in a few Jewish men here in order for them to combat and defeat the local uprisings. You see it happening here: Now the fellahin (Arab peasants) are going to believe that we are their enemies and will constantly fight with us!”
The novel spans about ten years. As events unfold, familiar characters reappear on the canvas. We see how their lives have been affected by the changes happening around them. One character that I found interesting was Hanke. She was one of the original women at the kibbutz. The author shares her thoughts by showing entries from her personal journal. It was a powerful technique to read her unfiltered words.
The author uses a romantic writing style, painting sensual images. He drew upon his real-life experiences living on Kibbutz Binyamina with around 100 other kibbutz members. He describes women at the kibbutz wearing only nightgowns, dancing the hora in their bare feet. One Yiddish critic wrote, “Ayalti writes about everything that is connected with eroticism and love in the simplest and most natural way.”
Ayalti repeats imagery of workers in bare feet throughout the book. I recently watched a movie about Apple visionary Steve Jobs. For much of the movie, Jobs walks barefoot. Ayalti sees the kibbutz movement as a revolution. Apple started its own revolution against corporate giant IBM. Going barefoot made me think of rebelling against societal norms, creativity and connecting to the land.
Reading “Boom and Chains” as an American Jew sometimes made me want to shrink in my chair, like when my dad argued politics at the dinner table. Even the title “Boom and Chains” was controversial, which I didn’t realize until I read the introduction. It explained that “The Land of Israel is booming, while Palestine is in chains.” I thought I might be in for an uncomfortable read. But I was able to put that aside and see it as a time capsule. The author even admitted that his views evolved after writing the novel, and he didn’t consider himself as radical as he was in his early days. The book gave me my first real look into the early kibbutz life and the idealism of its people.
On my first visit to Israel, I remember riding the tour bus and seeing all of the tall crops along the roadside. They were everywhere. Then I realized that much of the land was originally very dry and barren. I thought of the work it took to bring water and cultivate the land. The next time I visit Israel and see the crops, I will think of Zalman, Hanke, Dora and Motke working out in the fields all day and dancing the hora all night, singing Etz Chaim Hi.
