Apple, Sam. (2005). Schlepping through the Alps: my search for Austria's Jewish past with its last wandering shepherd. New York : Ballantine Books.
A twenty-something Brooklynite sees an Austrian Yiddish-singing shepherd atr a gig somewhere in New York and decides to go visit him in his home turf (the Brooklynite decides to visit the Austrian, that is). The book began with promise: how very unusual it all is well described by the shepherd's bloodline: his father was Jewish, his mother an Austrian communist, herself not Jewish. As a youngster Hans was a rebel; he joined a kind of utopian group, grew disillusioned, but learned about sheep herding, and wound up answering an ad for a shepherd. Along the way he learned Yiddish songs. When the story took place, 2001 or so, Hans has 625 sheep.
Sam explores his Jewishness and hypochondria in great detail, making for poignant and interesting discussions that at times veer into the inane and humorous. The book's first half is fascinating, but as it moves toward its conclusion the book weakens. Sam's obsession in finding anti-Semites gets wearisome. Yet, look at the link above on a story about Slovakian self-identity.
Martin Simecka, a leading intellectual, expressed concern that national myth-makers were glossing over uncomfortable truths. In particular, he said he feared that some nationalists were seeking to let off the hook the Nazi-backed Slovak puppet state of 1939-1945, which abetted the deportation of 50,000 Jews and which a small minority of Slovaks view as a time of vaunted independence. The education minister, a member of the Slovak National Party, has been promoting a new history text book that some critics complain glorifies the past.
So Sam's obsession is not far-fetched.
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