asher lev
My Name is Asher Lev is the story of a young boy whose gift for drawing leads him on a course that sets him apart from family and friends. The book belongs to the classic literary genre of the Bildungsroman, or novel of education, in which a young person, through struggle with his environment, learns about the ways of the world and gains an identity. In this novel, the Hasidic community of Crown Heights in Brooklyn forms the backdrop for Asher Lev's journey into manhood. For young people living in California in the nineties, that world is as exotic and distant as the eastern European shtetl, and shares some features with it. The strenuousness of the Orthodoxy, the close-knit family structure, the life of the yeshiva, and the ubiquitous presence and influence of the Rebbe will need to be explained to students. The text assumes knowledge of the origins of Hasidism and the fate of Hasidic communities during World War II and in the Soviet Union, and these are discussed in the student guide. Asher's father's work for the Rebbe on behalf of Soviet Jewry will require some historical background, which is only hinted at in the text. Discussion of the Doctors' Plot and the Night of the Murdered Poets can be useful lesso
Asher's Brooklyn Crucifixion paintings are even more problematic than the paintings of nudes: * In adopting the crucifixion to express the anguish of his home life, Asher uses an image which is disturbing to many Jews who associate it with Christian antisemitism. This image has painful connotations for Asher's father, who feels that "the crucifixion had been in a way responsible for his own father's murder on a night before Easter decades ago" (p. 366). In relating how Asher has alienated his family and community, you might focus on the following dimensions of his activity: Examining the Themes in a Jewish Context * Asher's absorption in his art turns him away from the service to the Rebbe and Russian Jews that the other members of his family have accepted as their responsibility. The book centers on the growing separation between Asher and his family and community as he devotes himself to his painting. In discussing the book with students, it is important that the nature of this conflict be understood.
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Approximate Word count = 1217
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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