V from a Jewish perspective?

[Brian D. McCary]

Paul Murphy notes:   "TRP's focus on the Judaism of Schoenmaker and 
Esther is surely deliberate and troubling in this chapter; the Biblical 
Esther, heroine of Purim, loses her 'semitic' nose to a German-spouting 
doctor, star of redemption evanescing irretrievably."

	I did first reading assingment while flying to Israel with my 
new (Jewish) wife, and boy, was I amazed at the hebrew thread which runs
through the book, something I had never really noted in previous readings.
Not only Esther, but Rachel.  Plus, the preists attempts to bring 
christianity to the rats echo more brutal efforts on the parts of various
christians to bring christianity to the Jews.  Benny, a schlemiel, gets
his name from the tribe of Benjamin, beloved son of Jacob, who gets falsely
accused of stealing from Joseph in the Egypt story, and whose tribe is
almost wiped out during the 40 year wandering through the desert, when all
the men get killed for commiting some infraction which I have long forgotten.
Even the Brazillian salad chef (Da Cono?  I don't have the book with me
now)  wants to go fight in the war of independance.  Benny acts as some
angel of death, haning his newly won condoms (symbols of life denied?) on
cabin doors, noting that not one had a mezzuzah to fake him out.  I could
go on, but it's probably unnecessary at this point.

	I don't know what I make of all this yet, but as Paul notes, it's 
obviously quite deliberate.  Could be that TRP is, in his own way, commenting
on the relationship between the Jews and English colonial policy, and V
could, in part, have something to do with the losses in the Holocost (at 
the risk of reopening that particular thread)

	In light of the above, the opening paragraph, as mentioned in
question 1, brings to mind the image of the wandering Jew, searching for
a homeland, something promised, taken, forgotten, and revered, all at once.

Brian McCary