The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Sitka is a remote Alaskan island where the author imagines that a community of Yiddish-speaking Jews from Eastern Europe has settled. Relations with the native population have proved difficult enough to prompt the United States government to relocate most of the Jews to other countries. In a situation suspended in uncertainty, Landsman—a skeptical, disillusioned Jew, a solitary alcoholic police detective abandoned by his wife—becomes embroiled in the murder of the son of a powerful Jewish sect leader. Despite the obstacles raised by the police authorities themselves, Landsman doggedly pursues the killers, only to discover an international conspiracy to blow up the Grand Mosque of Jerusalem. > Times have always been strange to be a Jew, just as they have always been for a chicken . This sentence encapsulates the book, whose fundamental motif is the isolation of Jewish society, increasingly locked into eschatological visions: the search for the promised land, the awaiting of the Messiah, the allure of magical and esoteric symbols. Yet in reality, money and power also reign supreme. The novel’s opening is promising, as the author effectively captures the figure of the protagonist and the cold, harsh Alaskan setting, while successfully generating the suspense typical of a detective story. The plot’s emphasis on chess—the victim was a great champion—introduces a stimulating element, raising expectations tied precisely to the tactical patterns of the discipline. Then the book devolves into a hodgepodge, crowded with the most predictable narrative tropes of high-octane pulp fiction: an overabundance of characters, increasingly convoluted family dynamics, terrorist groups, secret services, and ultimately an improbable international plot. The book’s other motifs are the Yiddish language and the historically pursued ideal of a promised land—not necessarily in Palestine—where Yiddish could be used as an official language. Yet are the “yids” capable of coexisting with others? To this question Chabon offers a negative answer: there is no happy ending to the diaspora. The novel’s brilliance, but also the sheer difficulty of reading it, lies in its language. The author upends English by imposing an idiom of his own, particularly in his diction. Suffice it to consider, for example, that Chabon uses “shalom” for a gun; but “shalom” in Yiddish means peace (in English, *peace*), whereas slang uses “piece” for a gun. It is a clever play on meanings, demanding considerable linguistic knowledge and close attention from the reader. Why not read it? It is an overblown potboiler, prolix, where the author’s intellectualism overwhelmingly prevails, alongside his existential angst regarding the Jewish people to whom he belongs.