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Before All the World
A mesmerizing, inventive story of three souls in 1930s Philadelphia seizing new life while haunted by the old.
"ikh gleyb nit az di gantze velt iz kheyshekh."
"I do not believe that all the world is darkness."
In the swirl of Philadelphia at the end of Prohibition, Leyb meets Charles. They are at a former speakeasy called Cricket's, a bar that welcomes, as Charles says in his secondhand Yiddish, feygeles. Leyb is startled; fourteen years in amerike has taught him that his native tongue is not known beyond his people. And yet here is suave Charles, fingers stained with ink, an easy manner with the barkeep, a Black man from the Seventh Ward, a fellow traveler of Red Emma's, speaking Jewish to a young man he will come to call Lion.
Lion is haunted by memories of life before, in Zatelsk, where everyone in his village, everyone except the ten non-Jews, a young poet named Gittl, and Leyb himself, was taken to the forest and killed.
And then, miraculously, Gittl is in Philadelphia, too, thanks to a poem she wrote and the intervention of a shadowy character known only as the Baroness of Philadelphia. And surrounding Gittl are malokhim, the spirits of her siblings.
Flowing and churning and seething with a glorious surge of language, carried along by questions of survival and hope and the possibility of a better world, Moriel Rothman-Zecher's Before All the World lays bare the impossibility of escaping trauma, the necessity of believing in a better way ahead, and the power that comes from our responsibility to the future. It asks, in the voices of its angels, the most essential question: What do you intend to do before all the world?
"ikh gleyb nit az di gantze velt iz kheyshekh."
"I do not believe that all the world is darkness."
In the swirl of Philadelphia at the end of Prohibition, Leyb meets Charles. They are at a former speakeasy called Cricket's, a bar that welcomes, as Charles says in his secondhand Yiddish, feygeles. Leyb is startled; fourteen years in amerike has taught him that his native tongue is not known beyond his people. And yet here is suave Charles, fingers stained with ink, an easy manner with the barkeep, a Black man from the Seventh Ward, a fellow traveler of Red Emma's, speaking Jewish to a young man he will come to call Lion.
Lion is haunted by memories of life before, in Zatelsk, where everyone in his village, everyone except the ten non-Jews, a young poet named Gittl, and Leyb himself, was taken to the forest and killed.
And then, miraculously, Gittl is in Philadelphia, too, thanks to a poem she wrote and the intervention of a shadowy character known only as the Baroness of Philadelphia. And surrounding Gittl are malokhim, the spirits of her siblings.
Flowing and churning and seething with a glorious surge of language, carried along by questions of survival and hope and the possibility of a better world, Moriel Rothman-Zecher's Before All the World lays bare the impossibility of escaping trauma, the necessity of believing in a better way ahead, and the power that comes from our responsibility to the future. It asks, in the voices of its angels, the most essential question: What do you intend to do before all the world?
336 pages, Hardcover
Published October 11, 2022
31 people are currently reading
4103 people want to read
About the author
Moriel Rothman-Zecher
5 books135 followersMoriel Rothman-Zecher is the author of the novels Before All the World (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022), which was named an NPR Best Book of 2022, and Sadness Is a White Bird (Atria Books, 2018), which was a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the National Jewish Book Award, the winner of the Ohioana Book Award, and longlisted for the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize. He is the recipient of the National Book Foundation '5 Under 35' honor, two MacDowell Fellowships for Literature, and a Wallis Annenberg Helix Fellowship for Yiddish Cultural Studies. Moriel's work has been published in The American Poetry Review, Barrelhouse, Colorado Review, The Common, The New York Times, The Paris Review's Daily, Runner's World, ZYZZYVA, and elsewhere. He lives in Philadelphia, and teaches creative writing at Swarthmore College.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 66 reviews
October 31, 2022
Real Rating: 4.5* of five, rounded up for chutzpah
The Publisher Says: A mesmerizing, inventive story of three souls in 1930s Philadelphia seizing new life while haunted by the old.
"ikh gleyb nit az di gantze velt iz kheyshekh."
"I do not believe that all the world is darkness."
In the swirl of Philadelphia at the end of Prohibition, Leyb meets Charles. They are at a former speakeasy called Cricket’s, a bar that welcomes, as Charles says in his secondhand Yiddish, feygeles. Leyb is startled; fourteen years in amerike has taught him that his native tongue is not known beyond his people. And yet here is suave Charles—fingers stained with ink, an easy manner with the barkeep—a Black man from the Seventh Ward, a fellow traveler of Red Emma’s, speaking Jewish to a young man he will come to call Lion.
Lion is haunted by memories of life before, in Zatelsk, where everyone in his village, everyone except the ten non-Jews, a young poet named Gittl, and Leyb himself, was taken to the forest and killed.
Then, miraculously, Gittl is in Philadelphia, too, thanks to a poem she wrote and the intervention of a shadowy character known only as the Baroness of Philadelphia. And surrounding Gittl are malokhim, the spirits of her siblings.
Flowing and churning and seething with a glorious surge of language, carried along by questions of survival and hope and the possibility of a better world, Moriel Rothman-Zecher’s Before All the World lays bare the impossibility of escaping trauma, the necessity of believing in a better way ahead, and the power that comes from our responsibility to the future. It asks, in the voices of its angels, the most essential question: What do you intend to do before all the world?
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: I fear what I am about to say will doom a very fine read in too many of y'all's eyes: This isn't a standard-English-only novel. The characters sometimes speak Yiddish, sometimes speak as though mentally translating Yiddish into English on the fly, and all of it at the author's preferred energetic pace. The best I can say about those whose reading doesn't often stretch to variants of English is, there are very helpful footnotes.
Oh well. I had to say it despite the fact that most of y'all just clicked over to I Can Has Cheezburger? for a chuckle or two.
If you're still here, let me assure you that there's a lot to love about this story. Leyb/Lion, a gay Jew, is really and truly alive for me; his on-again, off-again love for the surprising Charles, a Black labor-organizing socialist-sympathizing Yiddish-speaking multihyphenate whose precarious identities are beautifully balanced. Their love story, to my gay eye vanishingly light on sex, is only one of the story's love stories. Gittl, a poet/seer of angels, is Leyb/Lion's nowsister who was presumed killed in a Red Army pogrom he avoided by being thrown out of Zatelsk for his faggoty ways. She shows up in Philadelphia, mirabile dictu, and is fêted by the middle-class Jewish community led by a soi-disant Baroness there as a harbinger of socialist paradise...despite almost dying at the hands of the "socialist" Soviets. This lionization ends when Gittl and Charles, um, well.
How this dissonant collection of adherents and believers and practitioners harmonizes their modes of being, their inner identities, and their actions is as one would expect: inconsistently and imperfectly and, all too often, inconsiderately. Every adult has learned to accept that others love in their own ways, or has been carted off to a safe place with lots of lovely pills to manage the aftermath of refusing the lesson. Leyb/Lion and Charles with their utterly amazing intersections of identity are, to no one's surprise, among the most wounded. Charles's belief in the socialist revolution survives the movement's apathy towards acknowledging the hideous harm caused by slavery, and its continuing horrors and cruelties. Leyb/Lion's gayness, well...Jews weren't mad for it then, though I understand there are more accepting branches of Judaism in modern times, and have no reluctance about letting him know he's less than, lower down in their esteem because of it. Gittl's a woman. What else needs be said, that fully explains the horrors she has and will endure before, during, and likely after amerike, philadelphiye, the doctor who slurmed out (of) his amerikanische, toothjutting mouth the horrible, cruel orders to sedate her...are all in Life's past. It is this dissonance, however, that shaved a half-star off my rating. I wasn't as convinced as I thought the author expected me to be that these people would enact the steps they danced to. I was close to believing it for Gittl and less so for Leyb/Lion; Charles, the man made of and for Love, perhaps least of all. It wasn't an existential, "what are you even talking about?" level of dissonance but a quietly uneasy mental drumbeat of "...really...?" throughout the read.
“What will you do before all the world?”
That is the heart of the novel; that is the wisdom the reader is offered by the read. It's not clear to me that the characters *answer* this question. It is clear to me that they live in its words, that they think inside the whorls of that question mark and fall onto the finality of the period at its base.
The Publisher Says: A mesmerizing, inventive story of three souls in 1930s Philadelphia seizing new life while haunted by the old.
"ikh gleyb nit az di gantze velt iz kheyshekh."
"I do not believe that all the world is darkness."
In the swirl of Philadelphia at the end of Prohibition, Leyb meets Charles. They are at a former speakeasy called Cricket’s, a bar that welcomes, as Charles says in his secondhand Yiddish, feygeles. Leyb is startled; fourteen years in amerike has taught him that his native tongue is not known beyond his people. And yet here is suave Charles—fingers stained with ink, an easy manner with the barkeep—a Black man from the Seventh Ward, a fellow traveler of Red Emma’s, speaking Jewish to a young man he will come to call Lion.
Lion is haunted by memories of life before, in Zatelsk, where everyone in his village, everyone except the ten non-Jews, a young poet named Gittl, and Leyb himself, was taken to the forest and killed.
Then, miraculously, Gittl is in Philadelphia, too, thanks to a poem she wrote and the intervention of a shadowy character known only as the Baroness of Philadelphia. And surrounding Gittl are malokhim, the spirits of her siblings.
Flowing and churning and seething with a glorious surge of language, carried along by questions of survival and hope and the possibility of a better world, Moriel Rothman-Zecher’s Before All the World lays bare the impossibility of escaping trauma, the necessity of believing in a better way ahead, and the power that comes from our responsibility to the future. It asks, in the voices of its angels, the most essential question: What do you intend to do before all the world?
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: I fear what I am about to say will doom a very fine read in too many of y'all's eyes: This isn't a standard-English-only novel. The characters sometimes speak Yiddish, sometimes speak as though mentally translating Yiddish into English on the fly, and all of it at the author's preferred energetic pace. The best I can say about those whose reading doesn't often stretch to variants of English is, there are very helpful footnotes.
Oh well. I had to say it despite the fact that most of y'all just clicked over to I Can Has Cheezburger? for a chuckle or two.
If you're still here, let me assure you that there's a lot to love about this story. Leyb/Lion, a gay Jew, is really and truly alive for me; his on-again, off-again love for the surprising Charles, a Black labor-organizing socialist-sympathizing Yiddish-speaking multihyphenate whose precarious identities are beautifully balanced. Their love story, to my gay eye vanishingly light on sex, is only one of the story's love stories. Gittl, a poet/seer of angels, is Leyb/Lion's nowsister who was presumed killed in a Red Army pogrom he avoided by being thrown out of Zatelsk for his faggoty ways. She shows up in Philadelphia, mirabile dictu, and is fêted by the middle-class Jewish community led by a soi-disant Baroness there as a harbinger of socialist paradise...despite almost dying at the hands of the "socialist" Soviets. This lionization ends when Gittl and Charles, um, well.
How this dissonant collection of adherents and believers and practitioners harmonizes their modes of being, their inner identities, and their actions is as one would expect: inconsistently and imperfectly and, all too often, inconsiderately. Every adult has learned to accept that others love in their own ways, or has been carted off to a safe place with lots of lovely pills to manage the aftermath of refusing the lesson. Leyb/Lion and Charles with their utterly amazing intersections of identity are, to no one's surprise, among the most wounded. Charles's belief in the socialist revolution survives the movement's apathy towards acknowledging the hideous harm caused by slavery, and its continuing horrors and cruelties. Leyb/Lion's gayness, well...Jews weren't mad for it then, though I understand there are more accepting branches of Judaism in modern times, and have no reluctance about letting him know he's less than, lower down in their esteem because of it. Gittl's a woman. What else needs be said, that fully explains the horrors she has and will endure before, during, and likely after amerike, philadelphiye, the doctor who slurmed out (of) his amerikanische, toothjutting mouth the horrible, cruel orders to sedate her...are all in Life's past. It is this dissonance, however, that shaved a half-star off my rating. I wasn't as convinced as I thought the author expected me to be that these people would enact the steps they danced to. I was close to believing it for Gittl and less so for Leyb/Lion; Charles, the man made of and for Love, perhaps least of all. It wasn't an existential, "what are you even talking about?" level of dissonance but a quietly uneasy mental drumbeat of "...really...?" throughout the read.
“What will you do before all the world?”
That is the heart of the novel; that is the wisdom the reader is offered by the read. It's not clear to me that the characters *answer* this question. It is clear to me that they live in its words, that they think inside the whorls of that question mark and fall onto the finality of the period at its base.
December 28, 2022
What can I say? I probably only understood 2/3 of Before All the World, but that was enough to make for a riveting reading experience. And I'm more than willing to reread to improve my understanding.
Why the troubles? This absolutely brilliant book is written in
• English
• English compound words that are direct translations from Yiddish
• Yiddish
The Yiddish sections were challenging because I don't speak Yiddish beyond the twenty or so words that have made it into the wider lexicon. The English compound words used as translations of Yiddish are like endless puzzles the reader has to work through. Instead of "earlier," we get "in the before moment." When a character appears suddenly, it's "as if throughwallwalking." A "receding" hairline is "backfallish." The beauty of this is that
• it slows the reader down in a good way
• it makes the reader really picture the actions and objects being described
• it creates a rhythm that simply wouldn't exist without the "Yiddishisms."
Before All the World is set in the 1930s and tells the story of three people. Leyb and Gittl are the sole survivors of a pogrom that decimated their village in Russia. At the time, Gittl was reaching adolescence; Leyb was an infant. Both Leyb and Gittl immigrate to the U.S., winding up in Philadelphia (which is transliterated as philadelphiya). Our third character, Charles, is a communist, Yiddish-speaking Black man (yes, there's a back story). Leyb and Charles meet in a semi-secret gay bar. Gittl, who becomes a poet, is sponsored for travel to the U.S. by "the Baroness," a wealthy Philadelphia Jew who likes the idea of having a poet at hand to perform on social occasions. She reconnects with Leyb and meets Charles. She also carries the voices of her murdered siblings with her, so she is never alone.
Given who they are, all three are marginalized in multiple ways, and the novel wrestles with issues of capitalism, antisemitism, racism, and nationalism—but never in a way that feels forced. These are simply the parameters defining the characters' lives.
This novel is genuinely profound in what it asks of its readers and what it offers in exchange. Before All the World is a book to travel through slowly, letting yourself soak in its languages and identities.
I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley; the opinions are my own.
Why the troubles? This absolutely brilliant book is written in
• English
• English compound words that are direct translations from Yiddish
• Yiddish
The Yiddish sections were challenging because I don't speak Yiddish beyond the twenty or so words that have made it into the wider lexicon. The English compound words used as translations of Yiddish are like endless puzzles the reader has to work through. Instead of "earlier," we get "in the before moment." When a character appears suddenly, it's "as if throughwallwalking." A "receding" hairline is "backfallish." The beauty of this is that
• it slows the reader down in a good way
• it makes the reader really picture the actions and objects being described
• it creates a rhythm that simply wouldn't exist without the "Yiddishisms."
Before All the World is set in the 1930s and tells the story of three people. Leyb and Gittl are the sole survivors of a pogrom that decimated their village in Russia. At the time, Gittl was reaching adolescence; Leyb was an infant. Both Leyb and Gittl immigrate to the U.S., winding up in Philadelphia (which is transliterated as philadelphiya). Our third character, Charles, is a communist, Yiddish-speaking Black man (yes, there's a back story). Leyb and Charles meet in a semi-secret gay bar. Gittl, who becomes a poet, is sponsored for travel to the U.S. by "the Baroness," a wealthy Philadelphia Jew who likes the idea of having a poet at hand to perform on social occasions. She reconnects with Leyb and meets Charles. She also carries the voices of her murdered siblings with her, so she is never alone.
Given who they are, all three are marginalized in multiple ways, and the novel wrestles with issues of capitalism, antisemitism, racism, and nationalism—but never in a way that feels forced. These are simply the parameters defining the characters' lives.
This novel is genuinely profound in what it asks of its readers and what it offers in exchange. Before All the World is a book to travel through slowly, letting yourself soak in its languages and identities.
I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley; the opinions are my own.
October 12, 2022
Written in English and Yiddish with some wonderful and hilarious trans-literations thrown in, this experimental novel is simply devastating. Like his previous work, this book explores the relationship of three people thrown together by proximity and chance to further delve into a distinct time and place. This book charts two Jews, escaped from the pogroms of Eastern Europe and into America to see what building a life might look like. On the other side of this story comes Charles, a black man in 1930s Philadelphia who is dealing with the complexities of pre-civil rights America while also working with the early communist movement. These friends and occasional lovers strive to build a better world, for themselves , for those they lost, and for those still to come.
I do intend to go back and redo this one because the language is such a treat, and my reading of this happened in the week post-birth of baby #3. A bit brain-addled at the moment.
I do intend to go back and redo this one because the language is such a treat, and my reading of this happened in the week post-birth of baby #3. A bit brain-addled at the moment.
November 8, 2022
I need about 17 more stars. I need a megaphone. I need a ladder to the highest rooftop and a sound system to blare from and an underground group of graffiti artists to help me paint the world with the praises I have for this book. There are few perfect books in the world, and few that try to be (thank goodness), but those that do not try and yet achieve a perfection all their own are few. This is one of them. Read this book. Read it, feel it, savor it in your mouth or on your ears and let its tongues speak to and seep into you. It is a marvel. It is a beauty. It is a masterpiece of light and dark and awful truths and awfuler hope.
July 19, 2022
There were things I liked about the idea of this book, though overall I was rather bored.
What I liked - the Yiddish voice, accomplished both through actual Yiddish and English written in the syntax of a Yiddish speaker. I grew up with grandparents speaking isolated words of Yiddish, though my great-grandparents would've spoken more. I love how he drew on all my knowledge, and I loved the insider feeling. There can be something empowering about a minority group writing something that isn't for an outside audience, about assuming we have the right to just speak in our own voice the way our people speak. In this case he is preserving or reviving a form of speech that is almost lost, and I liked that.
I liked the portrayal of trauma, the way Gittl's siblings are always with her, sometimes haunting her and other times making her stronger, the way Leyb's adult trauma makes him recall and draw strength from his past trauma. I liked the connections between different types of oppression.
What I didn't like - There was no plot! A lot of major things happen: a pogrom, Leyb being kicked out of his home for being gay, Gittl coming to America. Yet somehow no story. Also, while the author was trying to links different oppression, there wasn't any overt discussion of what made these similar or different, they were sort of just all the same.
What I liked - the Yiddish voice, accomplished both through actual Yiddish and English written in the syntax of a Yiddish speaker. I grew up with grandparents speaking isolated words of Yiddish, though my great-grandparents would've spoken more. I love how he drew on all my knowledge, and I loved the insider feeling. There can be something empowering about a minority group writing something that isn't for an outside audience, about assuming we have the right to just speak in our own voice the way our people speak. In this case he is preserving or reviving a form of speech that is almost lost, and I liked that.
I liked the portrayal of trauma, the way Gittl's siblings are always with her, sometimes haunting her and other times making her stronger, the way Leyb's adult trauma makes him recall and draw strength from his past trauma. I liked the connections between different types of oppression.
What I didn't like - There was no plot! A lot of major things happen: a pogrom, Leyb being kicked out of his home for being gay, Gittl coming to America. Yet somehow no story. Also, while the author was trying to links different oppression, there wasn't any overt discussion of what made these similar or different, they were sort of just all the same.
December 9, 2022
Blown away! 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
October 8, 2022
This is a study in translation.
November 9, 2022
When I heard Moriel Rothman-Zecher speak at an author event last month, and give a reading from his book, I knew I’d rather listen to it than read it. Especially after he confirmed that he narrated the audiobook himself! Granted, I probably missed out on some footnote action in this fake translation. But I was happier to listen to some Yiddish and Yinglish cadence.
Anywho, this book largely takes place in the 1930s, some fourteen years after the fictional shtetl called Zatelsk falls prey to a pogrom. Only two out of roughly 250 people survive, both youths, Leyb and Gittl. Gittl, the elder, pilfers the pockets of the dead to send Leyb to the U.S., and the book opens when she follows him as an adult.
Gittl finds Leyb living with a Black man, Charles, whom he met at what is basically a gay bar. So there’s lots of “identity politics” in this book, but Rothman-Zecher handles it all with a deft hand. His experimental, poetic language assures that readers won’t be hit over the head with THE MESSAGE!, but that there would be something more authentic about these characters.
The flip side of this sort of writing means it might be less accessible to some readers. I don’t necessarily see this book as becoming very popular, and I myself sometimes chafed against the lack of traditional narrative structure. I’m too used to it!
This is a book that goes backwards and forwards in time. Gittl and Leyb are haunted in different ways by the pogrom. Charles, meanwhile, is dealing with the tenuous reality of being Black in the United States. Sometimes this comes down to recognizable, hate-filled racism, and sometimes it’s more layered. Like the way the predominately Jewish populace of his socialist group use him, and more broadly American racism, to make points about the class struggle and the superiority of the USSR.
The final layer of this book is that Charles, some years later and now living in Moscow, is translating Gittl’s Yiddish into English with asides (asides meaning both untranslated words and his own interjections about the story, particularly where he himself factors in as a character.) It can be a bit confusing, as Rothman-Zecher shared with his audience: one GoodReads review called this a “bad translation!” When in truth, Charles isn’t real and Rothman-Zecher is kind of going his own way. He creates new Yinglish syntax and leans heavily on different dialects of “Jewish” based on provenance. Lots of the Jewish, aka Yiddish nods come from Belarus and Lithuania, which hit me in the feels because those are the two countries of the former Russian Empire I know my own family to have immigrated from.
As a highly literary novel, there’s no flashy plotline to propel readers to the end. Although enough happens in the present that I’ll try to avoid spoilers! Suffice it to say that this book is largely about trauma, found family, past memories and belonging. It’s about looking at the pain of the world and asking if there’s legitimacy to hope for the best. And also, as the title suggests, who you will be to those around you.
This is an instance where I wish GoodReads had a half star rating system! Such as it is, I think I’ll give this book a low four. I likely prefer Rothman-Zecher’s first book, SADNESS IS A WHITE BIRD, which is a more straightforward narrative (I feel lazy admitting that!) Though the ending for this one definitely worked better for me. That’s something!
Anywho, this book largely takes place in the 1930s, some fourteen years after the fictional shtetl called Zatelsk falls prey to a pogrom. Only two out of roughly 250 people survive, both youths, Leyb and Gittl. Gittl, the elder, pilfers the pockets of the dead to send Leyb to the U.S., and the book opens when she follows him as an adult.
Gittl finds Leyb living with a Black man, Charles, whom he met at what is basically a gay bar. So there’s lots of “identity politics” in this book, but Rothman-Zecher handles it all with a deft hand. His experimental, poetic language assures that readers won’t be hit over the head with THE MESSAGE!, but that there would be something more authentic about these characters.
The flip side of this sort of writing means it might be less accessible to some readers. I don’t necessarily see this book as becoming very popular, and I myself sometimes chafed against the lack of traditional narrative structure. I’m too used to it!
This is a book that goes backwards and forwards in time. Gittl and Leyb are haunted in different ways by the pogrom. Charles, meanwhile, is dealing with the tenuous reality of being Black in the United States. Sometimes this comes down to recognizable, hate-filled racism, and sometimes it’s more layered. Like the way the predominately Jewish populace of his socialist group use him, and more broadly American racism, to make points about the class struggle and the superiority of the USSR.
The final layer of this book is that Charles, some years later and now living in Moscow, is translating Gittl’s Yiddish into English with asides (asides meaning both untranslated words and his own interjections about the story, particularly where he himself factors in as a character.) It can be a bit confusing, as Rothman-Zecher shared with his audience: one GoodReads review called this a “bad translation!” When in truth, Charles isn’t real and Rothman-Zecher is kind of going his own way. He creates new Yinglish syntax and leans heavily on different dialects of “Jewish” based on provenance. Lots of the Jewish, aka Yiddish nods come from Belarus and Lithuania, which hit me in the feels because those are the two countries of the former Russian Empire I know my own family to have immigrated from.
As a highly literary novel, there’s no flashy plotline to propel readers to the end. Although enough happens in the present that I’ll try to avoid spoilers! Suffice it to say that this book is largely about trauma, found family, past memories and belonging. It’s about looking at the pain of the world and asking if there’s legitimacy to hope for the best. And also, as the title suggests, who you will be to those around you.
This is an instance where I wish GoodReads had a half star rating system! Such as it is, I think I’ll give this book a low four. I likely prefer Rothman-Zecher’s first book, SADNESS IS A WHITE BIRD, which is a more straightforward narrative (I feel lazy admitting that!) Though the ending for this one definitely worked better for me. That’s something!
February 15, 2024
I rounded up from 3.5 stars.
This is a challenging novel. Very inventive in its use of language. It purports to be a translation--it isn't, but this is a narrative device that, I think, serves the book well. The resulting topsy-turvey syntax and vocabulary makes for a very layered book exploring oppression, trauma, outsider/insider status, power dynamics, and exploitation. That probably sounds dry as dust, but it isn't; it's just that the tale is so complex and at times surprising that I don't just know how to sum it up.
The invented syntax was a little challenging at first. The supposed origin language is Yiddish, and the English in the novel mimics some of the word order and word compounds of that language. I don't have Yiddish, but I do have German, and that helped. I think, though, if you just sort of close your mental eyes and coast through the language of the first 45-50 pages, you will get the hang of the novel's speech. I had to read some of those early pages several times, and at first I spent a lot of time trying to look up untranslated words, with indifferent success, because they are similar to, yet different from, entries I found in online Yiddish dictionaries. Once I just decided to switch to the audio version (read by the author) and immerse myself in the reading without worrying about all the meaning, it worked.
This is a challenging novel. Very inventive in its use of language. It purports to be a translation--it isn't, but this is a narrative device that, I think, serves the book well. The resulting topsy-turvey syntax and vocabulary makes for a very layered book exploring oppression, trauma, outsider/insider status, power dynamics, and exploitation. That probably sounds dry as dust, but it isn't; it's just that the tale is so complex and at times surprising that I don't just know how to sum it up.
The invented syntax was a little challenging at first. The supposed origin language is Yiddish, and the English in the novel mimics some of the word order and word compounds of that language. I don't have Yiddish, but I do have German, and that helped. I think, though, if you just sort of close your mental eyes and coast through the language of the first 45-50 pages, you will get the hang of the novel's speech. I had to read some of those early pages several times, and at first I spent a lot of time trying to look up untranslated words, with indifferent success, because they are similar to, yet different from, entries I found in online Yiddish dictionaries. Once I just decided to switch to the audio version (read by the author) and immerse myself in the reading without worrying about all the meaning, it worked.
December 10, 2022
The best books are ones that you’re racing to finish but never want to end. I’ve never read a book like this that plays between language and sound that weaves intimacy between strangers in such a delicate manner. I found myself walking with Gittl, joining Leyb, Charles and Gittl for eggs and trying to peer over Charles shoulder as he writes. I love many things about this book but the one that I’m sitting with just having finished it is the hope for healing. The phoenix like rising of birth out of the ashes of tragedy. I wish I had Yiddish language skills but the book is beautiful nonetheless. When I reread it, which I will, I think I’ll listen to it.
May 6, 2024
I picked this up because Moriel Rothman-Zecher’s first novel, “Sadness is a White Bird,” is an all time favorite of mine. This one did not disappoint. Written in poetic verse and interwoven with Yiddish, this novel was so unlike anything I’ve ever read, and yet still packed such a punch. It was difficult to put down and held so much depth, tragedy, history— will be thinking about this one for a while.
August 25, 2025
for the most part, really enjoyed the linguistics and the literary references and the cultural/historical asides. i do agree with some of the reviews — it was almost too clever, hard to understand at times, and anticlimactic. i don’t know if i believe the lack of conflict romantically given the situation, it was too neat and too easy and not quite believable. but apt as a tribute and mostly compelling story-wise. i’d rate it closer to 3.5
October 18, 2022
A breathtakingly creative and original take on the Yiddish Immigrant story. So many moments will leave you heartbroken and yet hopeful. The narrative device allows for stories to nest inside stories, and everything to feel both fantastical and truthful. Is it "a story in truth, or a truthful story?" Spring for the audiobook as well, read beautifully by the author.
December 27, 2022
suffering!
April 22, 2023
A book that feeds. Stunning page by page, just a little anticlimactic.
April 17, 2023
This second novel by Rothman-Zecher transports you through words, images, and emotions to different lands in different times. It truly felt like a journey or adventure, one where you don't always know where you are going but you want to keep going down the rabbit hole til you find out. It is truly poetic and brilliant in its play with words and languages. For anyone is ready to be moved to tears, to laugh and to ponder, this is an incredible work to dive into.
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November 12, 2022I listened to this as an audiobook and think it might be easier to get into that way, as it’s intentionally very colloquial.
People might initially find it a bit hard to get into because of that, especially if unfamiliar with the Ashkenazi experience in Eastern Europe, but it just kept getting better.
It’s a thoughtful and beautiful story about the humanity of the three protagonists and the various intersectional prejudices they face and endeavor to overcome, from the massacre that takes out the remainder of the first two’s village (probably a pogrom, maybe the work of a Nazi death squad) to the struggles of all three as their lives come together in post WWII Philadelphia. An awesome listen. Highly recommend.
People might initially find it a bit hard to get into because of that, especially if unfamiliar with the Ashkenazi experience in Eastern Europe, but it just kept getting better.
It’s a thoughtful and beautiful story about the humanity of the three protagonists and the various intersectional prejudices they face and endeavor to overcome, from the massacre that takes out the remainder of the first two’s village (probably a pogrom, maybe the work of a Nazi death squad) to the struggles of all three as their lives come together in post WWII Philadelphia. An awesome listen. Highly recommend.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 25, 2023
This book felt like it was important, and I understood not enough of it. There are sections in yiddish or lightly anglicized Yiddish that I think I was able to figure out enough of on context, but it still left me guessing if I was correct.
This book covers heavy themes but it is relatively light on plot, which made it a chore to work through and bordered on drudgery. The ending left me scratching my head as to what actually happened, and I don't think I really cared enough about any of the characters to figure it out.
This book covers heavy themes but it is relatively light on plot, which made it a chore to work through and bordered on drudgery. The ending left me scratching my head as to what actually happened, and I don't think I really cared enough about any of the characters to figure it out.
February 17, 2023
This book was very different than something I would usually read, but the concept was interesting and I decided to give it a go.
It's the 1930s in Philadelphia and we have a cast of three main characters: Charles, Leyb, and Gittl - the latter two being Jewish immigrants fleeing a massacre that they survived. The whole story was written by Gittl and translated later by Charles. Though be prepared for lots of Yiddish that isn't translated. I felt it was a nice touch to feel more immersed in an immigrant's story and you're able to understand what's going on anyway if you read slowly enough.
I also thought the brief gay storyline was an interesting addition, after having read Milk Fed by Melissa Broder late in 2022. I'm all for the combination of queer and Jewish representation together.
Overall, this book was incredibly unique. A snapshot into the lives of these three people intertwined into a literary work of fiction. Give it a try if you're looking for something different and slow paced.
It's the 1930s in Philadelphia and we have a cast of three main characters: Charles, Leyb, and Gittl - the latter two being Jewish immigrants fleeing a massacre that they survived. The whole story was written by Gittl and translated later by Charles. Though be prepared for lots of Yiddish that isn't translated. I felt it was a nice touch to feel more immersed in an immigrant's story and you're able to understand what's going on anyway if you read slowly enough.
I also thought the brief gay storyline was an interesting addition, after having read Milk Fed by Melissa Broder late in 2022. I'm all for the combination of queer and Jewish representation together.
Overall, this book was incredibly unique. A snapshot into the lives of these three people intertwined into a literary work of fiction. Give it a try if you're looking for something different and slow paced.
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July 25, 2022Two survivors of a Red Army pogrom search for purpose and connection in Rothman-Zecher’s latest novel. It’s a story that brings readers face-to-face with unfathomable childhood trauma while pondering complex themes of racial and religious persecution, intersecting subordinate identities, and the socialist movement in pre-World War II America.
Read the rest of my review at Out in Print.
Read the rest of my review at Out in Print.
December 1, 2022
The translation and dialect made the story very difficult to read.
December 7, 2022
DNF at 75% but loved the inclusion of Yiddish. This book is definitely written for a very specific audience and sparks a revival / memory of this almost lost language.
November 15, 2025
I read this one for my rabbi’s summer book group and holy fuck man. Holy fuck. It’s so good.
Everything in this book has a purpose, even when it’s just going on about reanimated gefilte fish (literally my favorite paragraph). The funny parts are hilarious and the serious parts hit you like a brick (lookin at you “A List”).
It reads really authentically to a second language speaker (probably because the author spent six years learning Yiddish to write it) and every character has a unique and distinctive voice, even characters you don’t expect to. The whole thing reads a little like a dream sequence, but in doing so it really captures the emotions evoked by the events. The characters have experienced horrible shit—of course they’re not quite right in the head.
I’ll end off on some notes I took while reading:
"The sun was sparsing through the lonely overkitchen window, only the window was not lonely, it was friends with all the walls"
“My husband, Morris, may all his teeth fall out but one and in that one may he always have a toothache”
My man Charles' response to racism is to "daintily dream of docilely setting the entire renovated building aflame" amen my good man amen
"And so you after the three had togetherclinked their drinks to hope for good lives and for peace, et cetera, and had eacheaten their eggs, what were it must be said not terrible, (Finer words of egg-praise have never been uttered, Comradess)”
Bomb book, highly recommend, especially if you’re Jewish, queer, or just a bit of an outsider looking to escape the woods.
Everything in this book has a purpose, even when it’s just going on about reanimated gefilte fish (literally my favorite paragraph). The funny parts are hilarious and the serious parts hit you like a brick (lookin at you “A List”).
It reads really authentically to a second language speaker (probably because the author spent six years learning Yiddish to write it) and every character has a unique and distinctive voice, even characters you don’t expect to. The whole thing reads a little like a dream sequence, but in doing so it really captures the emotions evoked by the events. The characters have experienced horrible shit—of course they’re not quite right in the head.
I’ll end off on some notes I took while reading:
"The sun was sparsing through the lonely overkitchen window, only the window was not lonely, it was friends with all the walls"
“My husband, Morris, may all his teeth fall out but one and in that one may he always have a toothache”
My man Charles' response to racism is to "daintily dream of docilely setting the entire renovated building aflame" amen my good man amen
"And so you after the three had togetherclinked their drinks to hope for good lives and for peace, et cetera, and had eacheaten their eggs, what were it must be said not terrible, (Finer words of egg-praise have never been uttered, Comradess)”
Bomb book, highly recommend, especially if you’re Jewish, queer, or just a bit of an outsider looking to escape the woods.
November 19, 2022
I listened to this story as an audiobook and I think that might be the best way to take it in, especially if you are unfamiliar with Yiddish. I know some basic Yiddish, but much of the Yiddish words in the story I needed to figure out by their context.
This is a brilliant, but challenging book. The story is non-linear and shifts in time and place, and as I mentioned above, there are lots of Yiddish words interspersed throughout the book. But it is truly a magical story with characters that breathe with life, and heartbreaking passages that detail what is beyond comprehension. Maybe I should not be rooting for characters in books, but I rooted for Leyb, Gittl and Charles to find peace, contentment, a place in the world for themselves. Identity, whether religious, racial or political is a big theme here. There is some graphic sexuality which does not offend me, but that I cared less about. And the constant refrain of how do you live before all the world is an eternally timely question.
I doubt that I understood, or even took in a large amount of what was portrayed here. But the emotions it raised for me were genuine and sometimes too much to contemplate. I am glad that I read this book and again, hearing the author glide effortlessly through all the Yiddish in this story was an aide to me, and perhaps for others as well.
This is a brilliant, but challenging book. The story is non-linear and shifts in time and place, and as I mentioned above, there are lots of Yiddish words interspersed throughout the book. But it is truly a magical story with characters that breathe with life, and heartbreaking passages that detail what is beyond comprehension. Maybe I should not be rooting for characters in books, but I rooted for Leyb, Gittl and Charles to find peace, contentment, a place in the world for themselves. Identity, whether religious, racial or political is a big theme here. There is some graphic sexuality which does not offend me, but that I cared less about. And the constant refrain of how do you live before all the world is an eternally timely question.
I doubt that I understood, or even took in a large amount of what was portrayed here. But the emotions it raised for me were genuine and sometimes too much to contemplate. I am glad that I read this book and again, hearing the author glide effortlessly through all the Yiddish in this story was an aide to me, and perhaps for others as well.
December 27, 2022
In a former speakeasy called Cricket’s, Leyb meets a black man named Charles who knows how to speak Yiddish. Leyb, who will become known as Lion, is shocked, as he didn’t know any non-Jews could speak the language. He and Gittl were the only two Jews to survive the slaughter of their village. By coincidence, Gittl is also now in Philadelphia, due to a poem she wrote and someone known only as the Baroness of Philadelphia. The two, separately, reflect on the events that led them here and how they will go forward with their lives.
I wonder if I would have liked this book better if I had a physical copy or an ebook rather than the audiobook, especially with the Yiddish in the book. The book seems to be beloved by most readers, but I spent most of my time not sure what was going on. It didn’t seem that there was much of a plot. I think being able to go back and reread parts as necessary would have helped, especially during the parts that seemed especially stream-of-consciousness. If you are intrigued by the book blurb, I would suggest checking out a physical copy of this book unless you are familiar with Yiddish.
Many thanks to NetGalley for providing me an audio ARC of this book.
I wonder if I would have liked this book better if I had a physical copy or an ebook rather than the audiobook, especially with the Yiddish in the book. The book seems to be beloved by most readers, but I spent most of my time not sure what was going on. It didn’t seem that there was much of a plot. I think being able to go back and reread parts as necessary would have helped, especially during the parts that seemed especially stream-of-consciousness. If you are intrigued by the book blurb, I would suggest checking out a physical copy of this book unless you are familiar with Yiddish.
Many thanks to NetGalley for providing me an audio ARC of this book.
December 9, 2022
This spectacularly inventive and deeply moving novel is the story of Leyb and Gittl, the sole survivors of a pogrom in their village of Zatelsk, who separately emigrate to America. Leyb, effectively still a teenager, is along in Philadelphia until he meets Charles, a Black man some years his senior, in a gay bar called Cricket's. Charles, a writer and translator who creates speeches for Communist party speakers, takes Leyb under his wing, and there is an understanding between them born out of their different, yet shared, sufferings.
Moriel Rothman-Zecher, a poet as well as novelist, moves backwards and forward in time to tell the story of these three characters. There is plenty of poetry in the language, a swirling mix of English, "jewish" (Yiddish) and various combinations thereof, as well as made-up words that help to bring the inner lives of his characters to life. As much as anything else, this novel is about stories--"meysahs"--that its characters carry with them, as a way of holding on to hope, to never forgetting those who were lost, and the lives they left behind, as they make new meysahs in their new home.
An absolute must read!
Moriel Rothman-Zecher, a poet as well as novelist, moves backwards and forward in time to tell the story of these three characters. There is plenty of poetry in the language, a swirling mix of English, "jewish" (Yiddish) and various combinations thereof, as well as made-up words that help to bring the inner lives of his characters to life. As much as anything else, this novel is about stories--"meysahs"--that its characters carry with them, as a way of holding on to hope, to never forgetting those who were lost, and the lives they left behind, as they make new meysahs in their new home.
An absolute must read!
July 9, 2024
For a book of 300+ pages there's A LOT going on in Before All the World. In my opinion, a little much to be exact. It's the story of two teens that grow into adults over the span of many years set between the first and second World Wars. The two main characters are the male Leyb and the female Gittl who, seperately, find their way from their village of Zatelsk to the city of Philadelphia. One is haunted by their past, the other by what they are. Will they be able to survive their past, and now present, lives?
The book is full of many themes: LGBT love story, PTSD, communism, inter-racial love story, inter-racial children, Prohibition, the list goes on. It does all go together for the most part, but only a few of those reach a conclusion. One is left wondering, "What about....." by the story's conclusion. Don't get me wrong, the ending is very good and emotional without coming across as trite in the least. But some themes could of be left out, while other parts could have been better developed. Perhaps I am being a little too harsh here, but for me, it was a decent read that could have been really good. Maybe even great.
The book is full of many themes: LGBT love story, PTSD, communism, inter-racial love story, inter-racial children, Prohibition, the list goes on. It does all go together for the most part, but only a few of those reach a conclusion. One is left wondering, "What about....." by the story's conclusion. Don't get me wrong, the ending is very good and emotional without coming across as trite in the least. But some themes could of be left out, while other parts could have been better developed. Perhaps I am being a little too harsh here, but for me, it was a decent read that could have been really good. Maybe even great.
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April 22, 2023This is a one of a kind novel, a Faulkneresque look at the 1930s Jewish American immigrant experience written in Yinglish through the lens of contemporary American identity and sexual politics. I grew up speaking Yinglish, a mix of English and Yiddish with a bunch of Polish in the mix, so linguistically this novel was a nostalgic read for me. For someone who isn’t a native Yiddish speaker to write a novel like this requires careful scholarship. I don’t know how a reader who doesn’t know Yiddish could get through this novel, but then again careful readers can and do get through Finnegan’s Wake. It’s trite to say that this book is a mood, but it is. Like in Faulkner, the world imagined isn’t about physical and cultural verisimilitude but is instead a vehicle to explore real human emotions and desires. Before All the World is high end literary fiction heavily steeped in Jewish immigrant culture. I have no idea how it got published in today’s literary market but I’m glad it’s out there.
April 9, 2024
I had access to this book because I have some German and some Yiddish. Also, I was able to get access to this book because I know some European, Jewish, and American history.
I enjoyed the humor, dark and otherwise.
I half-way enjoyed the... well, what would you call it?.. portions of dream or nightmare or hallucination or poetry. (Ordinarily, I do not go for magical realism, but since this was more like magic without awkwardly forcing realism into it, I could take it.)
The book had heart in it, but reluctantly: I had to ignore the virtuosity in order to get to the emotional life in the book.
The people who would more benefit from reading this work - folks who don't know enough about these periods and these places and these cultures - will not have access to it.
I've read Mori's other book. Will I read more? Probably, but I'll have to take a deep breath first.
I enjoyed the humor, dark and otherwise.
I half-way enjoyed the... well, what would you call it?.. portions of dream or nightmare or hallucination or poetry. (Ordinarily, I do not go for magical realism, but since this was more like magic without awkwardly forcing realism into it, I could take it.)
The book had heart in it, but reluctantly: I had to ignore the virtuosity in order to get to the emotional life in the book.
The people who would more benefit from reading this work - folks who don't know enough about these periods and these places and these cultures - will not have access to it.
I've read Mori's other book. Will I read more? Probably, but I'll have to take a deep breath first.
July 10, 2023
A story of three folks from two different countries, intertwined by shared struggles of oppression, trying to find their respective footings in places making it clear that they do not want them. Haunted by the dead, Gittl and Leyb form their relationships with the Jewish Black activist Charles Roses.
I'm not sure that I understood all of what happened, but the journey was compelling nonetheless; Rothman-Zecher's playful marriage of Yiddish and English was a delight to read, especially the combinationwords that are often used in the former.
This book took me a LONG time to get through despite being relatively short, and I think it was because the story wasn't exactly a page turner. I'm glad to have finished it though, as one of the scenes toward the end was of the most haunting and strange I've ever read.
I'm not sure that I understood all of what happened, but the journey was compelling nonetheless; Rothman-Zecher's playful marriage of Yiddish and English was a delight to read, especially the combinationwords that are often used in the former.
This book took me a LONG time to get through despite being relatively short, and I think it was because the story wasn't exactly a page turner. I'm glad to have finished it though, as one of the scenes toward the end was of the most haunting and strange I've ever read.
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