Dr. Qiao Guo Qiang brought together two distant cultures — American and Eastern European Judaism — in his lecture, “The Jewish Identity Bifurcated in the Connection and Disconnection: A Talk on Saul Bellow’s ‘The Bellarosa Connection’ on Oct. 1. 

Prof. Sylvia Barak Fishman (NEJS) invited Qiang, a professor of English literature and language at Shanghai International Studies University, to the University and urged the students in her Sociology of American Jewish Identity class to attend the lecture. Fishman’s students had read “Eli the Fanatic” by American Jewish author Phillip Roth, and she felt that Dr. Qiang’s lecture would help illustrate how the sociology of the American Jewish community is portrayed in different literary works of the 20th century. 

Qiang began the lecture by praising Bellow, a 20th century American Jewish writer, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature (three times) and the National Medal of Arts. He regarded Bellow as “one of the first authors to put forth a major output after the long political silence about the Jewish Holocaust and to relieve the tension.” 

“This novella is the first time that Bellow explicitly expresses his views about the Holocaust,” Qiang noted in his lecture.

The Bellarosa Connection, Bellow’s novella published in 1989, is written from the perspective of an anonymous narrator who relates his memories of A Jewish couple — Harry and Sorella Fonstein. The narrator’s father had introduced him to the couple in the hope that they would teach him about true suffering.

The narrator describes how, as a teenager, Harry Fonstein had fled from the Nazis and was subsequently imprisoned in an Italian jail. Harry had escaped prison through an organized mission contrived by Hollywood impresario Billy Rose. Upon immigrating to the U.S., Harry married Sorella, an American woman, and accumulated a fortune of wealth. A wealthy businessman, married to the love of his life and the father of a prodigy son, Harry had a nearly perfect life, hindered only by the fact that he never had the opportunity to thank Rose. The remainder of the book deals with Harry’s ceaseless attempts to formally meet with and thank Rose, as well as his wife’s attempts to intervene on his behalf.

In his lecture, Qiang identified numerous instances of miscommunication between Harry and his wife. He attributed this miscommunication to their contrasting worldviews —Harry being a Holocaust survivor and Sorella being a native-born American Jew. Qiang also pointed out Harry’s overall difficulty in adapting to the American lifestyle. 

“The novel deals directly with the relationship and interaction between the Holocaust survivor and the American Jew,” stated Qiang when commenting on the novella. 

When the floor was opened up for questions, Fishman asked Qiang how he initially became interested in American Jewish literature. “I once read a history written by Abba Eban, the former minister of Israel’s ministry of education and a book written by Spinoza: ‘The Ethic,’” Qiang responded. “I liked these two books, so I started my research on Jewish culture, Jewish religion and Jewish literature.”

“I like the Jewish people,” he added. “I simply admire and highly respect their history and their culture. The Chinese people share a lot [with the Jews]: the values in their culture, their unity and their love of family. Like the Jews, the Chinese people pay a lot of attention to family life, a lot of attention to the education of their children and a lot of attention to the friendship between people, loyalty and faithfulness.