Utter Chaos

Sammy Gronemann (1875–1952) was a lawyer, Zionist, and writer in Germany. He coedited a satirical Zionist magazine and served as a translator in Europe during World War I. He was the son of rabbi and an observant Jew, though he attacked many aspects of the ultra-Orthodox movement. He emigrated to Palestine in 1936. His play, The King and the Cobbler, was a smash hit in Tel Aviv in 1943. Penny Milbouer is translator of Michael Wieck's A Childhood under Hitler and Stalin: Memoires of a "Certified" Jew and Maria Roselli's The Asbestos Lie: The Past and Present of an Industrial Catastrophe.

• Foreword Joachim SchlörTranslator's Introduction1. Goethe in Borytshev2. A Literary Enterprise3. A Pious Fund4. Pastoral Care5. Paradise Apples6. The Sounds of Easter7. The Trumpet Sounds8. The Minyan Man9. The First Born10. Resistance11. Pogrom12. The Grand Festival WeekGlossary and CommentsIndex

First published in 1920 and set 17 years earlier, Gronemann's newly translated novel blends satiric humor and an eerie sense of foreboding in relating the efforts of European Jews to assimilate at a wildly contentious and confusing time. . .A free-wheeling Jewish comic novel before its time, this artfully contained commentary on Jewish life in Europe in the early 1900s makes a welcome reappearance.(Kirkus Reviews)