'W'/iere, 'Writer& 1\1-atter

dKn dKfterward

David G. Roskies

THIS COMMUNITY OF WRJTERS that we've welcomed you

into-is it virtual or real? By rehearsing how this anthology
came into being, we might arrive at an answer.
I grew up in a worl d where writers-poets, playwrights,
novelists, and literary critics-mattere d . For one thing, our
home was a salon for Yiddish writers. Soon after escaping to
Canada, in the Fall of I 940, my mother began to organize
soirees to raise money for the publication of new books by any
one of our own poets, prose writers, and Judaic scholars. She
also hosted some of the great Yiddish writers who came to
town, whether from New York or Tel Aviv. It was by invitation
only, with an elegant spread of Mrs. Gaon's apple strudel and
chocolate nut cake and catered party sandwiches. My chosen
spot was beneath the piano, where I vowed that someday I

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was open at other times as well, for other kinds of learning,
reading, hearing, talking, singing, and debating.
Ten years ago, a program like Scribblers on the Roof could
not have been organized. But today there is a hunger for mean­
ing, for intimacy, for celebration, for crossing boundaries. Out
of that hunger comes a remarkable flowering of Jewish writing,
here, in Canada, in Israel, in Latin America, in France, and in
Germany. For the first time in over a century there is even a
Russian-Jewish literary diaspora, some of whose writers have
already adopted English as their primary language.
To read through this anthology, then, is to conjure up a
dynamic New World place where writers matter-except that
there is never a threat of rain.

,.,1.90 * DAVID G, ROSKIES