The Slave (Yiddish: דער קנעכט, romanized: Der Knecht) is a novel by Isaac Bashevis Singer originally written in Yiddish that tells the story of Jacob, a scholar sold into slavery in the aftermath of the Khmelnytsky massacres, who falls in love with a gentile woman. Through the eyes of Jacob, the book recounts the history of Jewish settlement in Poland at the end of the 17th century. While most of the book's protagonists are Jews, the book is also a criticism of Orthodox Jewish society.[1] The English version was translated by the author and Cecil Hemley.[2]
Plot summary
Jacob, the hero of the book, is a resident of Josefov, a Jewish town in Poland. After the Khmelnytsky massacres, in which his wife and three children were murdered by Cossacks, Jacob is sold as a slave to gentile peasants in the southern Polish mountains. During his years of slavery, he strives to maintain his Judaism by observing as many Jewish rituals as possible and by maintaining high ethical standards for himself.
While in captivity, Jacob falls in love with his master's daughter, Wanda. While Jewish law and custom forbids Jews from even touching a woman a man is not married to and also forbids Jews from cohabiting with gentiles, Jacob's love for Wanda is too powerful to overcome and they have sex. Later, Jews from Josefov come to ransom him by paying off Wanda's father and he returns to Josefov. While in Josefov, Jacob dreams of Wanda. In his dream, Wanda is pregnant and asks Jacob why he abandoned her and left the child in her womb to be raised by gentiles. Jacob decides to return to the gentile village, take Wanda as his wife, and help her convert to Judaism. Jacob and Wanda reach another town, Pilitz, where Jacob begins to make his living as a teacher. In Pilitz, Wanda becomes known as 'Sarah' and Jacob instructs her to be pretend that she is deaf and mute so as not to reveal her gentile origins. Sarah thirsts for knowledge about Judaism and at night, Jacob teaches her Jewish beliefs and practices. She suffers in silence as the women of the town gossip about her right in front of her, as they believe she is deaf and cannot hear them. Her secret is finally discovered when she screams loudly at the women gossiping around her during the birth of her and Jacob's son. Frustrated at the predictions of her death openly discussed around her, Sarah has enough, demanding to be able to die in peace and pointing out the hypocrisy the townsfolk. Sarah dies after the difficult birth, and is given a "donkey's burial" outside of the Jewish cemetery. Jacob is taken away by two dragoons to be executed for converting a Christian to Judaism, but he escapes.
Jacob names his baby son Benjamin (he likens himself to the biblical Jacob whose wife, Rachel, died giving birth to biblical Benjamin); he travels to the Land of Israel with the infant, and Benjamin grows up to become a lecturer in a yeshiva in Jerusalem.
20 years later, Jacob returns to Pilitz and discovers that the town had grown and that, with it, the cemetery had grown so much that the place where Sarah was buried is now within the bounds of the cemetery. The place where Sarah was buried is not prominently marked and is unknown to the Jews of Pilitz. Jacob is old and weak and dies during his visit to Pilitz. By coincidence (or perhaps, by way of a miracle), as a grave is being dug for him, the bones of Sarah are found. The townspeople decide to bury them together, side by side with a commemorative headstone.
Stage version
The book was adapted by Yevgeny Arye and Yelena Laskina of into a play by Gesher Theater. Michael Jeffrey Shapiro, composer, has written a two-act opera based on the novel.
Themes
The book was published in 1962, a time in Jewish history in which the magnitude of the Holocaust was beginning to surface. The book's setting during the aftermath of the Khmelnytsky massacres could be seen as a historical parallel to what many American Jews were thinking and feeling during the early 1960s.[3]
The book contains criticism of the hypocrisy inherent in a narrow-minded interpretation of Judaism. The Jews of Pilitz in The Slave make a point of keeping commandments between man and God, but many treat Sarah and Jacob in ways that does not square well with Jewish ideals. The character of Gershon is especially cruel and often gets his way simply by bullying others, yet he keeps a strictly kosher home.
Also prominent in the story is the theme of vegetarianism. Singer himself was a passionate vegetarian and Jacob's attitude towards animals during his captivity and his explanation at the end of the novel of his vegetarian philosophy could be seen as Singer writing autobiographically.[1]
Critical reception
Writing in The New York Times, Orville Prescott called the novel a "Jewish Pilgrim's Progress", in which the hero keeps his faith despite all setbacks. Prescott appreciated the pacy, eventful plot but criticised the way the characters were portrayed as symbols rather than human beings.[4]
Rafael Broch[5] notes how the purity of the rural scene and of the hero's faith contrast with the vulgarity of the 'lewd peasants and prejudiced landowners'. Broch calls this a Romeo and Juliet tale in 'circumstances even less permissive'.
For Ted Hughes[6] the book is 'burningly radiant, intensely beautiful'.
In a 1971 interview, Bob Dylan said of The Slave: “It must have stayed in my head for months afterward.”[7]
References
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Open Library31 customer reviews
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From Australia
MICHAL KROTOFIL
2.0 out of 5 stars Very poor print
Reviewed in Australia on 16 January 2021
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Very poor print
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From other countries
aldor
5.0 out of 5 stars ALSO AN EXCELLENT NOVEL AND A FASCINATING READ
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 June 2015
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ALSO AN EXCELLENT NOVEL AND A FASCINATING READ : BUT WHAT ELSE WOULD ONE EXPECT FROM ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER !
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Angelo Salignac
5.0 out of 5 stars Excelente leithra!
Reviewed in Brazil on 17 September 2024
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Livro espetacular: o prazer da leitura não impede um ganho inesperado - conhecimento e sabedoria. Uma lição para a vida e para o conhecimento religioso.
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one customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing book
Reviewed in Japan on 12 October 2022
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What a great storyteller I. B. Singer is…
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Cheryl Rosenberg
5.0 out of 5 stars Gotta read it.
Reviewed in the United States on 4 December 2020
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My bookclub selection, Singer's THE SLAVE was a wonderful tale asking timeless questions - about religious compromise, moral ambiguity, relationships with "the Other," evaluating goodness, kinds of slavery, and responses to antisemitism. Plus,ca whole lot more,call delivered with incredible literary force, language, and plot. I thoroughly enjoyed it, even if it's neatly tied up with a bow at the end. If you're not used to reading about how Poles, etc., really treated Jews, you'll be shocked. Highly recommend it.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 May 2017
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Exciting read! Couldn't put it down! Romantic! Thrilling! Religious!
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Erez Davidi
5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful
Reviewed in the United States on 11 November 2013
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As a result of the Chmielnicki massacres in 1648, thousands of Jews lost their lives, among them was the family of the Jacob, who was taken as a slave later to be sold to Polish peasants. Up there, in the mountains, he is treated by everyone as subhuman, except by one Polish peasant - Wanda. Naturally, they fall in love.
After fellow Jews from his hometown pay the ransom and free Jacob, he tries to live a normal life in his hometown, yet he cannot forgot Wanda. So he decides to go to Poland and bring Wanda back with him. Since it was illegal at the time and punishable by death to convert a Christian to Judaism, he decides to pass her as a mute until she masters the Yiddish language, so her Polish accent won’t reveal her.
Although thought to be a Jew, Wanda is mistreated by the community. Wanda, as a non-Jew living among Jews, is able to examine the Jewish community through a different set of eyes. Assumed to be mute, people feel free to talk in her presence. Fairly quickly, as Wanda herself is taught about Judaism by Jacob, she notices the hypocrisy, the decay and the lack of religious discipline within her community.
Before Wanda dies in childbirth, she reveals the secret of her Christian birth. This leads to Jacob running away in fear of his life, leaving his son to be taken care of by people in the community. To cut a story short, Jacob returns to take his son to Israel.
This is a very powerful story about a relationship between two people from different cultures and religions at a time when there was no tolerance for the other. It also a deep examination of the good and bad of religion.
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D Webster
4.0 out of 5 stars A Meditation on Free Will
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 19 April 2009
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A very powerful book - so well crafted I cared very deeply for Jacob and Wanda and felt anxious about each step they made towards freedom. So it was a real relief when Jacob escaped with the holy man, though devastating when Wanda revealed her tongue in childbirth and what happened subsequently. I loved the ultimate serendipity of Jacob being laid to rest near Sarah even though they'd forgotten where they'd buried her. This book was like a meditation on free will, and it helped me understand some of the deeper tenets of Judaism, though I was glad that Jacob struggled with his religious aspirations, and tried to balance them with his instinctual and emotional life, even though it was often to devasting effect. As well as a wonderful love story, this book is also a sometimes shocking eye opener to the conditions of life for Polish peasants in the 17th Century, Cossack brutality and pogroms. It made me feel glad for democracy and modernism both of which I sometimes despair of.
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R. Jankowski
4.0 out of 5 stars It's Polish - So of course it's good
Reviewed in the United States on 21 May 2006
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Much like his predecessor Henryk Sienkiewicz, Warsaw-born Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991) likewise won the Noble Prize in Literature. 'The Slave' is the first of his writings I have had the pleasure of reading and much like the other reviews reflect, I found it immensly enjoyable. I have read a great deal of Slavic fiction and I found this piece reminding me of other great works, in particular, Eliza Orzeszkowa's 'Meir Ezofowicz'. Similarly, it has the same romance and adventure you would find in Sienkiewicz's epic Triology and it's historically related. Sienkiewicz's 'Z Ogniem i Mieczem' (With Fire and Sword) is historically set around the 17th century Cossack uprising in the Polish Commonwealth.
In 'The Slave', the protaganist Jacob is a Jew that has found himself quite literally a slave to a Polish family as a consequent of the anti-Semitic rage that the Cossack uprising brought about. Jacob not only finds himself fortunate to be alive, but is in love with his master Jan Bzik's daughter, the beautiful Wanda. The romance develops throughout the story, along with Jacob the Jew's inner struggle to give into his feelings for Wanda the Gentile.
If you are a fan of slavic literature in general, you certainly won't be disappointed by this story.
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Diane Grosman
5.0 out of 5 stars I loved this book
Reviewed in the United States on 25 October 2024
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It spoke to me, the tragic story of forbidden love and what the spirit will endure for love.
The suffering of the Jews by their own as well as all around them.
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Big Gee
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 July 2014
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A great read
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Betsy K
5.0 out of 5 stars Exceptionally beautiful prose on the subject of love and human failing to accept one another
Reviewed in the United States on 17 April 2021
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I read the Slave post college and at the urging of a brother, reread it at 76. Singer is a writer and thinker, bar none. He takes us into the past where Jews and peasants can't seem to accept and love one another, but it is such a timely and thoughtful book, especially in today's atmosphere. Will we ever succeed in accepting our fellow human beings with their different religions, ethnicities, and race? We are all exposed in The Slave. Don't miss this incredible (and short) novel!
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Ladyhawk
1.0 out of 5 stars this got good reviews at my bookclub but I though it was ...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 November 2015
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this got good reviews at my bookclub but I though it was dreadful. I get that it is allegorical which is why the characters are not developed at all, but this left me not caring about any of them. The way of writing felt inaccessible and was overly complex.
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Teresa Holmgren
5.0 out of 5 stars The Slave is historical fiction at its best!
Reviewed in the United States on 25 February 2014
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If anyone likes to get submersed in a book, this is one that will do it for you. The village and the people come alive while reading this. Descriptive and historically informative...great human plot. I have read this book several times over the years and love it more every time I read it. A CLASSIC!!!
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Miriam
5.0 out of 5 stars This is a wonderful little known book by Singer but I think it ...
Reviewed in the United States on 11 September 2016
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This is a wonderful little known book by Singer but I think it his best. This is the third copy I've bought because when I loaned it out, the people think it is as wonderful as I do and never gave it back. Love in the midst of bigotry, ignorance and war that lasts the test to time is wonderful!
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KKS.
5.0 out of 5 stars A great books
Reviewed in the United States on 7 June 2021
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Singer is one of the best story tellers - in the same league as Garcia
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RB
4.0 out of 5 stars Intense tale of passion, soul searching, and the pains of exile.
Reviewed in the United States on 23 September 2013
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Singer's novel is true work of art. It is one of those tales that reaches into the heart of the reader and has you experience all the love, the rage, the pain the characters go through.
Highly recommend.
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Thomas Schumacher
5.0 out of 5 stars engaging book!
Reviewed in the United States on 30 October 2019
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A sad yet beautiful story of life, love, loss, and rediscovery.
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isaac
5.0 out of 5 stars Wow .. amazing story
Reviewed in the United States on 27 September 2020
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Great ..just great story!!!
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L. R. Jackson
5.0 out of 5 stars Gripping story of love, hate, and the eternal search for happiness
Reviewed in the United States on 15 January 2007
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I could not put this story down. The writing is vivid and engrossing in this compelling story set during an almost barbaric time in Polish history.
The Jewish, Christian, pagan undertones shape the story. The quest for love and happiness send the reader through many years of trials.
Highly recommended.
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