Six million Jews.
How can anyone really contemplate, let alone visualize, such a staggering number? Especially when it’s a number of murdered people?
Can the sheer enormity of the Holocaust ever be truly felt?
Probably not, most would agree. The human mind is capable of processing only so much information; is strong enough to sustain only so much existential grief.
But thanks to a “book” that recently came off the press — and which will soon be available and discussed in Denver –—these things can be done at least symbolically.
To call And Every Single One Was Someone a “book” is correct only in a technical sense. While it is made of paper and bound in a handsome cover depicting a tallis, the text of this unprecedented tome contains only one word, repeated in 40 columns on 120 lines on each of 1,250 pages.
That word is “Jew.”
And it is repeated, from the first page of this book to the last, six million times.
One doesn’t read And Every Single One Was Someone so much as feel it or, more accurately, experience it.
It is a large book, and heavy, although its type is very small and its pages are thin.
There is no narrative, no plot, no texts or subtexts.
But it would not be correct to say that there is no theme or no characters.
The theme is genocide and the characters — six million of them — are its victims.
Many of those who have their first glimpse of the seemingly infinite repeated words do a double take.They ask, is this some kind of joke? Is it some sort of anti-Semitism, to repeat the word “Jew” so baldly, so many times?
Then it sinks in — the stark and inescapable fact that each and every one of those tiny printed words represents a human individual whose life was taken during the Holocaust, a virtual universe of humanity snuffed out of existence by hate.
So it was for Stuart Raynor, director of Denver’s Robert E. Loup Jewish Community Center, who first saw — and experienced — this book of six million words recently in New York.
“Every year,” he told the Intermountain Jewish News last week, “a number of people from the Mizel Arts & Culture Center at the JCC go to New York where we listen to and hear authors who have written books.”
By attending the National Book Expo, a gathering of many of the nation’s biggest publishers of all types, Raynor gains information about which Jewish-themed books and authors to feature in the annual Jewish Book Festival in Denver, part of the JAAMM Festival which is to begin later this month.
Raynor recalls that he was walking through a labyrinth of publishers’ booths at the book expo, scouting for prospects.
“And I happened to walk by one of the few Jewish publishers, Geffen, and talked to them about their books and as I was leaving the booth, out of the corner of my eye, I caught this book that looked like a tallis. I picked it up and was taken by it.”
The weighty volume, Raynor was told, was intended to retail for $60 per copy. Geffen Publishers intended to print six million copies.
The man credited with the “concept” of the book, he was also told, is Rabbi Phil Chernofsky, educational director of the Orthodox Union’s Israel Center in Jerusalem and editor of the Torah Tidbits parsha pamphlet.
Chernofsky has said that as a teacher of mathematics and Jewish studies, he “wanted a different, a meaningful way for his students to relate to the Holocaust.”
It didn’t take Raynor very long to figure that out.
“At first I was a little bit shocked that they chose to use the word ‘Jew,’” he says. “Sometimes, if you say ‘Jew’ in a certain way, it can be taken negatively.
“Then, as I looked through it, I realized that it was ‘Jew’ six million times. Being — what is it now — 70 years removed from the Shoah, we hear about six million all the time and I’m not sure that it has real meaning anymore, other than that we use it as a number.
“It kind of shocked me. And I think for the first time, I got my head around the fact that this is just one word six million times. You can hold in your hands and see how many words it took to make six million. You can feel what six million is.
“If you translate that into lives, it’s just unbelievable. The capacity and the enormous size of the Shoah — what six million is — is just hard to understand. This book gave me a better sense of what that is.”
The Geffen rep told Raynor that the publisher was looking for Jewish agencies in communities throughout the country to distribute the book.
On behalf of the JCC, Raynor took him up on his offer then and there.
The JCC has reserved 1,000 copies of And Every Single One Was Someone and purchased 50 copies outright. If those sell, future orders can reach the figure of 1,000.
Attendees at the Book Festival can purchase one of those 50 copies, or order it. They can also order a costly special edition of the book, bound with a real tallis.
At the Holocaust-themed Fred Marcus Memorial Lecture in the Elaine Wolf Theater (Sunday, Oct. 27, 4 p.m.) the book will be discussed during the lecture’s introduction. It may also be discussed during other events and lectures during the Book Festival, Raynor says.
All proceeds raised from the sale of the book will be used for Holocaust educational programs at the JCC and MACC, he adds.
Who does he think will be likely to buy the book?
“Over the course of the last couple of months, I’ve shown it to 10 or 15 people and to my surprise, everybody had the same sort of response that I had,” Raynor says. “Every one of them said that they wanted at least one copy of the book.
“I can only tell you what people have said to me, which was they want it because it reminds them. Or, just like me, they got their hand around it and could feel the weight of six million. Some have said they want it for their children and grandchildren.
“I’ve had people really break down and cry. It’s that powerful. They’re not sure what it is and they think it’s something different but when they open it up, it punches you in the nose.
“I don’t know exactly, but I guess anybody who feels it important, who wants to keep it as a reminder somewhere in their home, would buy it. My expectation is that they will sell out and we will order the rest. I hope so, because I think it’s important.”
One of the things Raynor finds important and meaningful about the book — and one of the reasons why he thinks it will still pack an emotional punch 50 years from now —is the way it presents the Jewish victims of the Holocaust in two ways.
One is collectively, as a heavy and ponderous book. The other is individually, with each tiny printed word ‘Jew’ representing a human being who once lived.
“It’s very powerful. You look at every line and every one was a person. Every one was a father, a mother, an aunt, an uncle, a child, whatever they were. They all had lives and that’s it — they’re gone.”
Copyright © 2013 by the Intermountain Jewish News
