Meer over Menneke’s boekje

Door mijn stukjes over het boekje met witzen van Paul Horowitz, dat bij toeval zijn weg vond naar De Mokumse Geniza, kwam ik al snel in contact met twee kleindochters van de auteur: Myriam Mater en Hannah Yakin. Beiden hebben nog levendige herinneringen aan hun grootvader, wat uiteraard betekent dat zij ‘op leeftijd’ zijn. Dat weerhoudt hen er geenszins van om actief te blijven op het terrein van ’tikoen olam’.

Myriam, in Nederland woonachtig, zet zich in om door het vertellen van haar persoonlijke verhaal bij jonge mensen het bewustzijn van oorlog en Sjoa levend te houden en Hannah, die al sinds 1956 in Israël woont, schrijft wekelijks een stuk van haar Never Ending Story, dat zij vergezeld doet gaan van een eigen aquarel. Zij hoopt daarmee een “(minimale) invloed te kunnen uitoefenen in de richting van verdraagzaamheid en een wat bescheidenere omgang met onze aardbol.” Er bestaan inmiddels 282 afleveringen en het aantal lezers loopt ook in de honderdtallen.

Aan het eind van dit stukje hoort u daar nog meer over, maar eerst laat ik Hannah Yakin zelf aan het woord. Aflevering 223 gaat over grootvader Paul Horowitz en zijn boekje:

Back in Jerusalem I found a message from Elia: Hi Grandma, I am sending you a picture of a book called ‘Laughter Mixed with Tears’ which I found in Dr. Michael Heymann’s library. Do you recognize it?

Yes, I replied. My grandfather wrote it.

My mother, who was born in Antwerp, taught us to call her father Menneke, which is an endearing way to say ‘Little man’ in Flemish. My grandparents spoke Russian and French. Menneke also knew Yiddish. His ancestors were sages and rabbis who quoted entire pages of the Talmud by heart. Menneke’s father, Joël, was also a sage, but he refused to function as a rabbi because he didn’t consider himself worthy of advising other Jews.

Menneke himself did not strictly keep all the religious laws. On the other hand, he was an ardent Zionist who taught himself the ‘Modern’ Hebrew of Eliezer Ben Yehuda. He believed that the Yiddish language was doomed to disappear in the near future and since he also believed that a Jew worth of his name must write a book, he decided to save the Yiddish joke, so unique for its mixture of laughter and tears. He painstakingly translated hundreds of jokes from Yiddish into what in the 1920s was considered contemporary Hebrew and, being an active Zionist, sent the result to Palestine to have his book printed in Jerusalem, a feat he was especially proud of, even though it must have cost him a fortune.

Hitler was already threatening to wipe the Jews off the face of the earth when Menneke’s books arrived in Amsterdam. I remember seeing piles of them in my grandmother’s basement at Harmoniehof 35, Amsterdam. Already then I thought: What’s the point of a book that no one reads?

In 1956 I made Aliyah. I soon learned to speak Hebrew, but by no means could understand the forced Hebrew in my grandfather’s book. Nevertheless I asked my aunt to send me a few dozen copies. Maybe someone in Israel would be interested?

It was only after the Six Day War, when Boaz was in kindergarten and the toddlers were urged to send gifts to our soldiers at every opportunity, that I inserted a copy of ‘Laughter Mixed with Tears’ in each package.

Occasionally Boaz received a ’thank you’ letter, but I don’t want to imagine how many soldiers must have thrown their gift in the nearest trash can.

And now: Surprise! Eighty-seven years after the publication of ‘Laughter Mixed with Tears’, my grandson discovered Menneke’s book in the respected library of the late historian Michael Heymann, probably the only person who realized the emotional and historical value of a collection of Jewish jokes, printed in Palestine between the two world wars in a language no one speaks, because the author – as Menneke himself asked us to engrave on his tombstone – “loved his miserable and persecuted people and his deserted country with all his heart and all his soul”.

Bent u nieuwsgierig geworden naar de Never Ending Story van Hannah Yakin, laat dan even een berichtje achter in de reacties hieronder. Dan geef ik uw contactgegevens door aan Hannah, zodat zij kan zorgen dat u “op de lijst kan komen te staan van ‘privé ontvangers via mail’ of ‘vriendschap’ kan aanvragen via Facebook waarop ik wekelijks een verhaal plus aquarel plaats onder mijn gewone eigen naam Hannah Yakin.”