Jews at Viet Nam letters (i)

from the janitor at the Viet Nam Literature Project

1 third of those reading these Viet Nam letters also receive the postings of the Vietnamese Studies Group listserv. That third received the following letter from me last Friday.

I apologize for the repetition. Please consider that 2 thirds of you will be seeing this for the first time.

Hi all,

This week I draw your attention to a Viet Nam letter about the first and second sentence of the novel Coi Dem by Nguyen Ngoc Ngan.

<https://vietnamlit.substack.com/p/coi-em-ii>

In light of current events I would like to point out that minute and playful examination of a story is the method of study of the Hebrew scriptures, what has made us Jews.

I am a Jew by birth and study. My uncle Jim who was neither helped found both African Studies and Brandeis, the Jewish university where my parents met. I spent my 20s as sidekick to the Jewish literary critics Harold Bloom and Kali Tal.

I joined the Jewish science of anthropology in the Americanist tradition of Franz Boas after Max Weber told him there was no future for a Jew in Europe. Our unifying concern across archaeology, biology, ethnography, and linguistics is anti-race science.

I am also many other things, French, a redneck, a WASP elite, so I often have heard anti-Semitic remarks among Vietnamese and foreign friends of the country. Nothing hateful, just ignorant.

It was for that reason that I began in Ha Noi to introduce myself as a Jew. Viet Nam letters has covered from the first and will continue to emphasize Jews in Viet Nam, applying my Jewish thought.

This week I also recommend to you Mark Ashwill’s report on my good friend and frequent collaborator the poet Linh Dinh, who has caught anti-Semitism.

Mark gets closer to the ugliness than I can stand to. He engages Linh on his web career, while I am concerned rather with the shelf of books Linh has contributed to Vietnamese literature.

I think that the magazine Counter Punch in general falls into the lacuna that Keith Taylor described in Michigan Review, of Americanists who think they know all about Viet Nam because the VC told them so.

But Mark knows what he is talking about, giving an invaluable report on an author who has served many here.

<https://www.counterpunch.org/.../a-vietnamese-american.../>

Shalom,

Daniel

Viet Nam letters respects the property of others under paragraph 107 of United States Code Title 17. If we asked for permission it wouldn’t be criticism. We explain our fair use at length in the letter of September 12, 2022.

The colophon of these Viet Nam letters, directly above, shows the janitor speaking with poet David A. Willson on a Veterans Day.