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September 26, 2003
One moment can change a life
Two local authors centre their novels around engaging family histories.
CYNTHIA RAMSAY SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN
Two different authors. Two very different styles and stories. The
same result: Each book is a fascinating read.
Karen X. Tulchinsky's latest novel, The Five Books of Moses Lapinsky,
is about a fictional Jewish-Canadian boxer – Sonny Lapinsky
– and his family,
and how their lives were forever changed by the Christie Pits riot
in Toronto in 1933. Maurits Van der Veen's Uriel's Legacy
traces the Alanzo da Costa family history from 17th-century Holland
through the Second World War to Vancouver in 1990. Both stories
will engage readers, as the respective families are unique, yet
face many universal challenges, such as discrimination, self-doubt
and, basically, surviving.
Both Moses and Uriel's Legacy begin in the present
day, or close to it, with a member of this generation looking back
at his family history. Moses Lapinsky, a history professor living
in Vancouver, wants to write a biography of his father, Sonny, to
counter an unauthorized version that, according to Moses, is "complete,
unadulterated trash, 323 pages of half-truths and speculation...."
In Uriel, an old tin box that Mark Van der Heide comes across
as he and his wife, Susan, are moving into their new False Creek
apartment inspires him to head to the archives in Amsterdam, where
his research gives him "a better understanding of this family,
its history, its values, trials and triumphs."
Moses is probably Tulchinsky's best work yet. It is based
on copious amounts of research on a wide range of topics, including
boxing; the riot in Christie Pits, which was ins-tigated by a group
of young Nazi supporters at a softball game yelling "Heil Hitler"
and waving a sheet adorned with a swas-tika (about 15,000 people
were involved, hundreds injured); and Canadian troops in the Second
World War. She has managed to absorb all of this information and
to reinvent it as a work of fiction that is entertaining. This could
not have been an easy task and Tulchinsky can be forgiven for some
repetition in the storyline, as she must introduce readers to certain
events before eventually laying them out in greater detail when
they occur chronologically.
Uriel's Legacy is a less polished work than Moses,
with a self-published look and feel to it, but Van der Veen's story
is incredible. His concise writing style allows him to cover some
300 years of family history, beginning with Uriel, the son of Alanzo
da Costa. Uriel was born in Portugal to parents who had been forced
to convert to Christianity. Unable to find satisfaction with the
Catholic Church, he converted to "The Law of Moses."
Unfortunately, Uriel experiences horrible persecution as a Jew,
and not from Christians, but from fellow Jews: "The modern
rabbis could not bear my differing with them in the slightest degree
and insisted that I follow unswer- vingly their prescribed regulations
or else suffer exclusion from the synagogue and the full sentence
of excommunication."
Uriel is eventually excommunicated but his Judaism does not die.
The next generations, in varying degrees, follow its observances
or honor its traditions, whether living in Holland, Shanghai or
Vancouver. Even after surviving the horrors of a concentration camp
during the Second World War, Mark's cousin, Jan, had his faith renewed
when he found out that the Nazis had lost the war: "To be alive
at that moment was pure rapture," he tells Mark. "A bright
light seemed to enter my soul and I knew it was God."
Both Moses and Uriel end with a reunion of family
members who had either been estranged or had not seen each other
in a long time. They end with a message of hope: Despite all that
happens in our lives, we can persevere and triumph. We gain strength
from our family, those who have suffered, celebrated and survived
before us, with us and who will continue to do so after we are gone.
For more information about The Five Books of Moses Lapinsky,
visit www.raincoast.com.
For information on Uriel's Legacy, visit www.trafford.com
or e-mail [email protected].
Both authors will also be part of the annual Cherie Smith Book Fair
at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver this November.
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