My friend, Rena Krasno, died two weeks ago; she would have turned 86 in December.

There were many things I knew about Rena.  She was born in Shanghai to parents who had come there from Russia about the time my grandmother came to the US and for the same reason–to escape pogroms.  Her family, like most of the Russian community, lived in Shanghai’s French Concession, and she and her sister attended the French School, where she began to learn the seven languages she eventually spoke.  Their father was a writer, magazine editor, and active Zionist; the mother owned a children’s shop.  The family left China and went to Israel in 1949.  There Rena met and married Hannan, whose business led them to temporary homes in Korea, the Philippines, and Japan before retirement to the San Francisco Bay Area, where their daughters and their families had settled.

What I didn’t realize until Rena died was that the writing career that produced two memoirs, children’s books, a diary translation, and numerous articles and book reviews only began twenty years ago.  Which would have made Rena about 65 when she started publishing.  There’s hope for me!!!!

Rena’s first book on life in Shanghai, Strangers Always: A Jewish Family in Wartime Shanghai, introduced me to this unique chapter in both Jewish and Chinese history.  As many of you know, this interest I’m now putting to work as chair of an exhibit called “Jews in Modern China,” which will run from February 24-May 16, 2010 at the Presidio Officers’ Club Exhibition Hall here in San Francisco. (This program is part of the Shanghai Celebration. For more information on this year-long San Francisco Bay Area-wide collaboration and its associated exhibitions, films, performances, lectures, and other events, please visit www.shanghaicelebration.com, a site still under construction. The cornerstone of the Celebration is the Asian Art Museum’s presentation of Shanghai, a major exhibition examining the visual culture of one of China’s most cosmopolitan cities, scheduled for February 12-September 5, 2010.)  We’re planning a “Remembering Rena” event during the exhibit.

But I digress.

After reading Rena’s book, I wrote her a fan letter.  She called and invited me to lunch. Imagine!  A total stranger!  But that was Rena; I’ve learned that I was hardly the first such guest, or the last.  The menu reflected her life: Japanese noodle soup, a savory Russian cheese pastry, and Israeli salad!

At some point Rena, knowing that I wrote, gave me a beautiful book, The Jewish Writer, a photographic essay collection by Jill Krementz.  In it are many of the usual “old guard” suspects–Arthur Miller, Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, Isaac Bashevis Singer–and a few of the younger stars, such as Allegra Goodman and Jonathan Rosen.  And then there are a few that don’t immediately come to mind: James McBride (remember The Color of Water?  The mother was Jewish.) and one Tillie Olsen (née Lerner), whom I must confess I’d not heard of before.  One of her short stories is called “I Stand Here Ironing.”  Certainly not something I’d ever write, unless I get into the fantasy genre!

I took the book off the shelves after Rena’s funeral, remembering when she gave it to me, and began to ponder whether the Jewish writer is just a writer who’s Jewish or a writer on Jewish subjects? Does being Jewish influence writing, even if the subject matter is not overtly Jewish?  Of course.  Just as the milieu, culture, heritage, and experiences of any writer influences his or her work.

But what’s a Jewish book?

A friend who got my web site launch email sent it on to someone else (and copied me on the chain) prefacing her message with “this is a Jewish book.”  Is Secrets of the Afikomen a Jewish book?  I have to say that bothered me a bit.  Not that I’m skittish about my identity or about writing on subject matter related to the Jewish experience.  Another friend, after reading the first chapter of a long-gone draft, told me that she thought I should change the looted art work in my book to a painting, rather than a Seder plate.  Both of these friends are Jewish.  What was their point?  Is this a book with a limited market because of its title or subject matter?

It’s true that the focal point is a treasured Jewish ritual item, but so what?  It’s also a great story about a woman of a certain age (ahem!), the intricacies of life and relationships in unique circumstances, and an important niche in Holocaust history that surfaces in the news even sixty-plus years later.  And, remember, there’s a nice romance thrown in.

I have to think that Exodus, The Red Tent, all of Daniel Silva’s books, Goodbye Columbus, Marjorie Morningstar, The Chosen…I could go on and on… Have these books only been read by Jews?  And let’s not get started on Dan Brown’s best-sellers.  I dare say there are plenty of Jews who’ve read those “Christian” books.

What do you think?  What’s the market for Secrets of the Afkomen?  Feel free to post a comment on this blog.

I don’t have my friend Rena to ask anymore.  Certainly she would have had an opinion.

Tags: Jewish book, Jewish Writer, Rena Krasno, Secrets of the Afikomen, Shanghai Jews

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