Between the Menorah and the Fever Tree

by Eldred Chimowitz

A bildungsroman set in Southern Africa, 'Between the Menorah and the Fever Tree' depicts the Jewish-African experience tracing the story of its protagonist 'Chungle' from boyhood in 1950s Rhodesia to youth in 1960s South Africa during the Apartheid era, and finally to America. Alternately uproarious and touching Chimowitz's first novel sets a story of family, friendship and identity against a backdrop of political and cultural upheaval. '...a story told with understated beauty and uncompromising honesty...'- Allen Peacock, editor of the Pulitzer Prize winning book A Good Scent from A Strange Mountain '...poignant, witty, evocative-a sepia image out of the African colonies brought to life. It transported me back to a time of innocence shot through with shards of anger and fear...' -Mark J. Kaplan, Emmy Award winning documentary filmmaker

246 pages, Paperback

First published July 10, 2010

About the author

Eldred Chimowitz is a professor Chemical Engineering at the University of Rochester in New York. He was born in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and educated in South Africa.

Reviews

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eldred Chimowitz is Emeritus Professor of Chemical Engineering at my alma mater the University of Rochester. I had initially thought this book was a memoir, but it's actually a novel that draws from his experiences as the son of Russian Jewish immigrants in Rhodesia (now called Zimbabwe). While neighboring South Africa got most of the international attention for its apartheid system, Rhodesia was similar, and indeed the descriptions of a plantation culture of white gentry and Black laborers is also eerily reminiscent of the American South. Naturally, the common denominator in all three countries is British settler-colonialism.

This landscape unfamiliar to most overseas readers is easily the strongest part of Between the Menorah and the Fever Tree. Chimowitz and his narrator "Chungle" came of age in the late 1960s, an era of international youth rebellion that coincided with both massive decolonization in Africa and Asia and the Civil Rights movement in the United States, two struggles closely linked on the global scale. In Rhodesia this was also the beginning of their Black natives' War of Independence, in which Chungle's relatives are eventually caught up. An interrogation of what it means to be Jewish while taking advantage of British white supremacy and oppression in Africa I think would have been a lot more interesting than the fairly standard bildungsroman Chimowitz was aiming for. Most of the book outside Chungle's turbulent college years is fairly dry, especially the first chapter, which made the story hard to get into.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

Slow and meandering. The internal monologue of the main character was often very judgey and so so anxious that it wasn't a joy to read. Pieces set around Cape Town were more fun to read and reminisce.

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was very slow-moving so I had difficulty staying engaged.