On Venus, Have We Got a Rabbi! is a 1974 science fiction novelette by William Tenn. At an Interstellar Neo-Zionist Congress convened on Venus, weird-looking aliens claim that they are Jews. This legal quagmire was ingeniously resolved by the Great Rabbi of Venus. The story satirizes the question "Who is a Jew?". [1] [2] It was first published in the anthology Wandering Stars: An Anthology of Jewish Fantasy and Science Fiction edited by Jack Dann. [3]
- "The word goy does not apply to aliens. Up to recently." [4]
The frame story is Milchik the TV repairman, the firsthand immediate witness of the events, tells a "Mr. Important Journalist" in a very eloquent and embellished way how this all happened.
A sample of Milchik's "Jewish talk". |
|---|
|
About half of the story is a lively explanation of why the Great Rabbi Smallman of Venus is so great and how Venus' administration loves the Jewish people, who Neozionists are, and why their congress was convened on Venus, and what a huge crowd of Jews from all over the galaxy had arrived. Milchik muses: "I look around and I remember the promise made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—“I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven” [6] —and I think to myself, “A promise is a promise, but even a promise can go too far. The stars by themselves are more than enough, but when each star has maybe 10, 20 planets…”" All Jewish living quarters are densely occupied, and one morning Milchick finds in his bathtub "three creatures, each as long as my arm and as thick as my head. They look like three brown pillows, all wrinkled and twisted, with some big gray spots on this side and on that side, and out of each gray spot is growing a short gray tentacle." His son explains him that they are the Bulbas, [7] delegates from the fourth planet of Rigel.
And their accreditation has become a stumbling block of the opening session. The committee said their credentials are in order but for one small thing: they cannot be Jews. - But why? - Of all thises and that's, for starters the Jews have to be human. - Bulbas kindly ask for providing a quotation to this. - deputy chairman takes over the awkward situation: "But this is really simple: No one can be a Jew who is not the child of a Jewish mother." - But the Bulbas readily present their birth certificates to confirm that all of them have Jewish mothers... Someone calls to a vote, but there are as many opinions as delegates.
They've been accepted as delegates, and who are we to pass upon them as Jews? I'll accept them as Jews in the religious sense, someone else stands up to point out, but not in the biological sense. What kind of biological sense, he's asked by a delegate from across the hall; you don't mean biology, you mean race, you racist. All right, all right, cries out a little man who’s sitting in front of him, but would you want your sister to marry one?
A High Rabbinical Court was convened and rabbi Smallman became its member after some manipulations. Bulbas tell their history before the court. Originally they were a small Orthodox community from Paramus, New Jersey looking for a quiet place, which they thought they had found on Rigel IV, where the Bulbas were at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. With the help of the industrious newcomers it brought big progress, but it was followed by big wars, big depressions, big dictatorships. And there was only one answer for the question who was guilty of all of this... And there was the first pogrom on Rigel IV... and then more... But Jews tried to strive for their living and to accommodate, and by the time an enlightened government took power, all Jews looked like plain Bulbas. "And they look like the weakest, poorest Bulbas of all, Bulbas of the very lowest class." And bulbas learned at the congress that this was happening everywhere. "After all, hadn’t there been blonde Jews in Germany, redheaded Jews in Russia, black Jews—the Falashas—in Ethiopia, tall Mountain Jews in the Caucasus who had been as fine horsemen and marksmen as their neighbors? "
Bulbas were told that the change they described is against the experimental facts of biology. The Bulbas, who presented their complete genealogical charts, retorted: "Who are you going to believe, the experimental facts of biology—or your fellow Jews?"
And this turned out to be an important question: "Ruth was a Moabite, and from her came eventually King David. And how about Ezra and the problem of the Jewish men who took Canaanite wives? And where do you fit the Samaritans in all this? Jewish women, you’ll remember, were not allowed to marry Samaritans. And what does Maimonides have to say on the subject?"
It was suggested that their problem may be resolved simply by conversion to Judaism. But others insisted that the procedure of conversion of people who already are Jews would be a mockery.
Eventually rabbi Smallman brought everybody to a common point of view. "To bring a bunch of Jews—and learned Jews!—to a single decision, that, my friend, is an achievement that can stand"...
The story was written in about seven years after the author's last published story (not counting reprints in collections). [8]
In 2016 the Tablet Magazine reprinted the story with the preface which described the origin of the story. William Tenn decided to retire from writing and devote himself to professorship under his original name of Philip Klass. However, in 1973 he met with his fans at a sci-fi convention and addressing the question why he quit, he answered there is not much market for what he wanted to write and mentioned this particular title thinking it to be an example of a non-starter. But it turned out that one of the fans was planning a collection of Jewish science fiction, so William Tenn wrote what he described as " a small monument to Sholem Aleichem", "The result: a magisterial meditation on Jewish identity, history, persecution, and pathologies that is both deeply thoughtful and utterly hilarious." [4]
In 1978 it was translated in German as Wir haben einen Rabbi auf der Venus and in 1998 in Russian as Таки у нас на Венере есть рабби!.
William Tenn delivered the reading of the story on WNYC's Spinning on Air with David Garland, November 22, 2002. [9] The reading was accompanied by an interview. [10]
Phil M. Cohen writes: "This hilarious story, which rings with Yiddish-inspired inflections and Sholom Aleichem's sardonic humor and style, is a romp through Jewish history, angst, and the perpetual foibles of the Jewish people as they argue over what comprises their identity. No matter when or where Jews may find themselves — even on Venus, with tentacles or without — they will always be a contentious people, rooted in sacred text, and looking over their shoulders at the past and straight ahead into the future with a sense of humor." [11]
Bud Webster pinpoints the conflict as follows: Bulbas are not just aliens (after all, there were blue Jews from Aldebaran), they are not simply different, they are inhuman aliens. He writes that the solution is both properly Talmudic, and properly science-fictional: the Bulbas have sufficient human-ness, to transcend their non-humanity. [8]
Nick Gevers wrote that the story shows "that even the oldest assumptions are perhaps more timeless than we think, and will make the future in their own, in this case distinctly rabbinical, image." [12]
Walter Russell Mead, on an occasion of its republishing by Tablet, describes the story as "wry, funny, sharply observed and deeply human, it’s a story that deserves a permanent place in the annals of science fiction, American literature and Jewish fiction. A Hanukkah present to the world from Tablet." [13]
Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich, better known under his pen name Sholem Aleichem, was a Yiddish author and playwright who lived in the Russian Empire and in the United States. The 1964 musical Fiddler on the Roof, based on Aleichem's stories about Tevye the Dairyman, was the first commercially successful English-language stage production about Jewish life in Eastern Europe.
The tradition of humor in Judaism dates back to the compilation of the Torah and the Midrash in the ancient Middle East, but the most famous form of Jewish humor consists of the more recent stream of verbal and frequently anecdotal humor of Ashkenazi Jews which took root in the United States during the last one hundred years, it even took root in secular Jewish culture. In its early form, European Jewish humor was developed in the Jewish community of the Holy Roman Empire, with theological satire becoming a traditional way to clandestinely express opposition to Christianization.
Jonathan Henry Sacks, Baron Sacks was an English Orthodox rabbi, philosopher, theologian, and author. Sacks served as the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth from 1991 to 2013. As the spiritual head of the United Synagogue, the largest synagogue body in the United Kingdom, he was the Chief Rabbi of those Orthodox synagogues but was not recognized as the religious authority for the Haredi Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations or for the progressive movements such as Masorti, Reform, and Liberal Judaism. As Chief Rabbi, he formally carried the title of Av Beit Din (head) of the London Beth Din. At the time of his death, he was the Emeritus Chief Rabbi.
William Tenn was the pseudonym of Philip Klass, a British-born American science fiction author, notable for many stories with satirical elements.
Astrology has been a topic of debate among Jews for over 2000 years. While not a Jewish practice or teaching as such, astrology made its way into Jewish thought, as can be seen in the many references to it in the Talmud. Astrological statements became accepted and worthy of debate and discussion by Torah scholars. Opinions varied: some rabbis rejected the validity of astrology; others accepted its validity but forbid practicing it; still others thought its practice to be meaningful and permitted. In modern times, as science has rejected the validity of astrology, many Jewish thinkers have similarly rejected it; though some continue to defend the pro-astrology views that were common among pre-modern Jews.
Israel Isidor Elyashev was a Jewish neurologist and the first Yiddish literary critic. He introduced the world to the works of the great contemporary Yiddish classical writers: Sholem Rabinovich, better known as Sholem Aleichem, Mendele Mocher Sefarim, Isaac Leib Peretz and Nachum Sokolov; along with modern Hebrew writers including Chaim Nachman Bialik, and Sholem Asch, among several others.
"Venus and the Seven Sexes" is a science fiction story by American writer William Tenn. It was first published in the anthology The Girl with the Hungry Eyes, and Other Stories in 1949, and then in 1953 in the anthology Science-Fiction Carnival by Fredric Brown and Mack Reynolds.
The Council of Christians and Jews (CCJ) is a voluntary organisation in the United Kingdom. It is composed of Christians and Jews working together to counter anti-semitism and other forms of intolerance in Britain. Their patron was Queen Elizabeth II.
Of Men and Monsters is a science fiction novel by American writer William Tenn, published in June 1968 as a paperback by Ballantine Books. The book is an expansion of his story "The Men in the Walls", originally published in Galaxy Science Fiction in October 1963. Of Men and Monsters is Tenn’s only full-length novel, as the majority of his other stories are novellas.
"That Hell-Bound Train" is a fantasy short story by American writer Robert Bloch. It was originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in September 1958.
Noahidism or Noachidism is a monotheistic Jewish religious movement aimed at non-Jews, based upon the Seven Laws of Noah and their traditional interpretations within Orthodox Judaism.
Immodest Proposals is a collection of 33 science fiction stories by British-American writer William Tenn, the first of two volumes presenting Tenn's complete body of science fiction writings. It features an introduction by Connie Willis. Tenn provides afterwords to each story, describing how they came to be written.
Zwi Migdal was a criminal organisation founded by Jews in Poland in the 19th century, based mainly in Argentina.
Jewish mythology is the body of myths associated with Judaism. Elements of Jewish mythology have had a profound influence on Christian mythology and on Islamic mythology, as well as on Abrahamic culture in general. Christian mythology directly inherited many of the narratives from the Jewish people, sharing in common the narratives from the Old Testament. Islamic mythology also shares many of the same stories; for instance, a creation-account spaced out over six periods, the legend of Abraham, the stories of Moses and the Israelites, and many more.
Wandering Stars is an anthology of Jewish fantasy and science fiction, edited by American writer Jack Dann, originally published by Harper & Row in 1974. It represented, according to the book cover, "the first time in science fiction that the Jew - and the richness of his themes and particular points of view -- will appear without a mask." In his introduction, "Why Me?", Isaac Asimov discussed how many Jewish science fiction writers prior to that time had used gentile pen names in order to get published: "Many of the Jewish pulp writers, however, used pen names as a matter of sound business. A story entitled "War Gods of the Oyster-Men of Deneb" did not carry conviction if it was written by someone named Chaim Itzkowitz." He then goes on to discuss the pen names of various Jewish writers included in this book. Wandering Stars is therefore of historical significance as the first science fiction anthology where Jewish writers openly identified themselves as such.
Jewish religious clothing is apparel worn by Jews in connection with the practice of the Jewish religion. Jewish religious clothing has changed over time while maintaining the influences of biblical commandments and Jewish religious law regarding clothing and modesty (tzniut). Contemporary styles in the wider culture also have a bearing on Jewish religious clothing, although this extent is limited.
"The Liberation of Earth" is a science fiction short story by American author William Tenn, written in 1950, first published in 1953, and reprinted several times in various anthologies, including 1955 collection Of all Possible Worlds and 1967 anthology The Starlit Corridor. The story, which Tenn described as having been inspired by the Korean War, describes Earth becoming a battleground between two powerful alien races who repeatedly "liberate" it from each other.
Tablet is an online magazine focused on Jewish news and culture. The magazine was founded in 2009 and is supported by the Nextbook foundation. Its editor-in-chief is Alana Newhouse. The magazine is described as leaning towards a conservative standpoint.
The Best Science Fiction of the Year #4 is an anthology of science fiction short stories edited by Terry Carr, the fourth volume in a series of sixteen. It was first published in paperback by Ballantine Books in July 1975, and reissued in October 1976. The first British edition was published in hardcover by Gollancz in September 1975.
Milchik, michig or milkhik is an Ashkenazi Jewish dairy-based category of food.