Essay Questions

Why is the title plural and not singular?

Of course, what is really being asked with this question is why is this novel about Ben-Zion Netanyahu and his family spending time with the Blum family when it is only Ben-Zion whose visit to America is really essential? The novel could just as easily have been written without the presence of the rest of the Netanyahus, but it would have carry an entire different tone. Ben-Zion is not an especially sympathetic character and the story without his family would have more sharply delineated his negative qualities. By including the rest of the family and showing how the father reacts to his children, readers are subtly manipulated into a position where it is much less easy to quickly dismiss him as a lunatic.

What is “What Is Fairness?”

“What Is Fairness?” is the title and subject of an Ivy League—probably Vassar—essay prospective students must submit before they can be acceptance. Judy Blum, the rebellious teenage daughter of the narrator/protagonist has been hard at work on the essay for months with the very serious assistance of her college professor father. Ruben Blum is the sort of fastidious person who not only refers to himself as “an historian” but makes sure others recognize his grammatical domination by pointing out that he doesn’t say “a historian.” His response to helping Judy with the essay can thus be effectively said to center on two things: the capitalization of “Is” and that question tackles the more ambiguous theoretical sphere of “fairness” rather than asking “what is fair?” This theoretical inquiry will come to dominate conversation several times throughout the narrative.

How is Judy’s favorite unnamed game show an example of the ambiguous mixture of fiction and history permeating throughout the novel?

The novel is primarily set at the end of the 1950’s and features actual historical figures like Ben-Zion Netanyahu and his eventually famous son, Benjamin. Much of the meat of the story about Ben-Zion’s radical socio-political views are historically accurate; the part at the end involving the future Prime Minster of Israeli standing as a lookout while his older brother has sex with the protagonist’s daughter is not. It is a curious mixture of historical accuracy, near-truths, and complete fiction. At one point, daughter Judy is bed-bound with illness and the narrator can hear his daughter gleefully shouting out correct answers to an unidentified game show which reverses the usual direction of such entertainment: contestants are given the answer and must provide the question. The addition of information about categories on the show like “Explorers and Exploring” and “Inventors and Inventions” clearly indicate the show is Jeopardy! Except that the most popular TV game show in history would not until the mid-1960’s.