Discussion+Questions+Week+9


 * Max Brod, Reubeni, Prince of the Jews**
 * Part I**

__glossary__
 * 3 with the good as with the evil instinct:** rabbinic literature describes human beings as having both a good and an evil impulse.
 * 3 Mishna:** 2nd century rabbinic text, forms the core of the Talmud
 * 3 Raschi and the Tossaforth school:** refers to 11th-13th century commentaries on the Talmud, accompanying the Talmud in most printed editions
 * 4 Mesusa:** small box containing passages of scripture, affixed to the door of Jewish households
 * 11 Reuchlin:** 16th-century Christian humanist who took an interest in rabbinic and Jewish mystical literature
 * 11 Joseph von Joshua Hakohen:** 16th-century Jewish historian
 * 26 Sch’ma:** central Jewish prayer, affirming God’s unity
 * 29 yellow cap . . . yellow Jews’ tab:** Jews were required by the Christian rulers to wear distinctive clothes and badges identifying them as Jews. This law, originating under Muslim rule centuries earlier, was reintroduced in the 20th century by the Nazis, as was the confinement of Jews to ghettos, a decade after Brod wrote his novel.
 * 37 Lilith:** demonic female figure in medieval Jewish folklore
 * 37 Rejath Keri:** nocturnal emission
 * 45 Esau:** this biblical character was often used to represent Christendom in medieval Jewish texts
 * 114 Speyer and Worms:** according to medieval chronicles, during the Crusades some Jews in these towns killed their own children rather than let Christian mobs carry them off to be forcibly baptized.
 * 118 Asher Lämmlein:** Jewish messiah figure, active in Germany and Italy around 1500 before his disappearance.
 * 124 Gemarah:** commentary on the Mishna that makes up the Talmud
 * 145 “The beauty of Japhet shall dwell in the tents of Shem”:** biblical verse sometimes used to indicate the intermixing of non-Jewish (Japhet) and Jewish (Shem) elements

__Discussion Questions__
 * 1) Read the YIVO online encyclopedia article on Prague. Describe the conditions of Jewish life in 16th-century Prague. How does Brod describe the Jewish community and its strategies for coping with these conditions?
 * 2) What are the characteristics of David’s father Simson? Describe David’s relationship with his father. How does Simson respond to the question of the evil instinct?
 * 3) What attracts David to Hirschl, “the hungry schoolmaster”? Why does he later believe that Herschl has nothing to offer regarding the challenges facing the Jewish people?
 * 4) How does David diagnose the situation and nature of the Jewish people in Part I? Compare Brod’s portrayal of the Jews of Prague with Wassermann’s portrayal of the Jews of Zirndorf.
 * 5) What does Monica bring to the novel? What role does she play in David’s questions about Jewish existence?
 * 6) How does eroticism play a role in Part I? What does it have to do with David’s diagnosis of the Jews?
 * 7) Discuss the significance of chapter 19?
 * 8) What sorts of meanings are brought up in connection with David Lemel’s name?
 * 9) What does David learn about the gatekeeper Gerson in Part I? What kind of model of redemption does Gerson present? Why does David reject this model?
 * 10) How does David’s question on page 3, what it means to serve God “with the good as with the evil instinct,” take various forms in Part I? Does he find a satisfactory answer to the question?
 * 11) Where in Brod’s novel do you find connections with—confirmations and contradictions of—Wisse’s meditation on Jews and power?
 * 12) In what ways do you think Brod is commenting not upon the 16th century but upon the 20th?


 * Part II**

__glossary__
 * 312 Joseph Karo . . . //Schulchan Aruch://** Karo was a 16th-century legalist and mystic. Since its appearance, his //Shulhan Arukh// became the most authoritative guide to Jewish law among orthodox Jews.
 * 340 Molcho’s praying cloak and the flag with the verses were brought from Regensburg to Prague.**

__Discussion Questions__
 * 1) What is the significance of flags in the novel?
 * 2) Discuss Mantino’s speeches on pages 181-182, and on 320-322.
 * 3) What is Reubeni’s mission to the pope? What does he hope to accomplish? What is his own attitude towards messianism?
 * 4) Discuss the encounter with Machiavelli in chapter 12. What does this episode tell us about Reubeni’s concept of evil, about their respective political and moral views, about the role of sexuality in the novel? Why do you think that it is here that Brod makes Reubeni’s identity explicit for the first time?
 * 5) What was Reubeni’s experience among the Jews of Chabor? How does this affect our understanding of his mission and his identity?
 * 6) How would you characterize Diogo Pires / Molcho? How is he presented in the novel? How is he a foil to Reubeni?
 * 7) Discuss the interactions on pages 269-272.
 * 8) Compare the role of eroticism in Part II with Part I. When and in connection with whom does eroticism come up in Part II? What is its relationship to Reubeni’s mission?
 * 9) How might the novel reflect Brod’s experience working with and helping the Jewish refugees from eastern Europe in the years during and after World War One?
 * 10) What does Reubeni make of his mission and his relationship with Molcho in the final pages (333 to the end)? What was the result of serving God with the evil instinct?
 * 11) Discuss the final paragraph.