I’m a big fan of Michael Chabon, so I was excited to see another of his novels appear at the bookshop. Expecting another Kavalier and Clay might have been too much, but I was still very happy with his latest effort.
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union imagines an alternate history where the state of Isreal didn’t get off the ground, and instead a settlement was created in Sitka, Alaska as a temporary home for Jews escaping persecution before and during World War II. Apparently, the US government briefly considered this as a possibility at one point. Chabon first explored his imagined outcome of the scenario in an essay and here has expanded it into the backdrop for a hard-boiled detective story. He meticulously presents the customs and politics of the District of Sitka as the story unfolds: its many groups and subgroups, its language (Yiddish), its relationship to the rest of Alaska, and its impending end (the book takes place just before the District reverts to ordinary American territory, displacing the people of Sitka all over again).
At first it seems as though Chabon’s big ‘what if’ will amount to not much more than the novelty of imagining a really cold version of Isreal, given the somewhat standard nature of the detective caper. But as the novel goes on the questions get bigger. Had Isreal not formed, what would become of the dream of the Messiah and the Promised Land? Would moving the state of Israel change anything? The further I read the higher my expectations became for the book’s resolution. Even though it did not deliver in the way I had hoped, it was still an excellent read. And I learned some very handy Yiddish-isms.
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