Tag Archives: The Yiddish Policemen’s Union

What if Israel had been born and then died, all in the same year of 1948? What if the Jews who survived the Holocaust moved instead to a sliver of Alaska, where they lived for sixty years until their temporary domain reverted to the rest of the state, dooming them to wander again? Eqypt, Spain, Germany hadn’t worked out. Now their Alaska home was being razed around their ears. This is the premise of Michael Chabon’s novel "The Yiddish Policemen’s Union," a noir detective story about a double homicide–a Super Cub bush pilot who might have been a lesbian, and a mystical rabbi’s son who might have been the Messiah. Funny and sad, peppered with Yiddish slang, it’s also a love story about a homicide detective and his boss, who happens to be his ex-wife. Fortunately there’s a happy ending, but I’ll leave you to find it on your own. It’s a worthy excursion.