Love saves Jakov. Because he spends the night with the Christian Maria, the young Jewish cloth merchant escapes the pogrom in 1285. When he visits the burnt down Munich synagogue the next day, he sees: “In some of the wooden beams, the embers are still blazing. The ruins are deserted and silent. No soul lingers in this place and I walk slowly into the burned synagogue. A terrible stench is in the rooms and I see charred corpses everywhere. The Torah ark is destroyed by fire and the charred parchment of the Torah scroll lies on the floor. I think of my family and I’m panicking.”
The fears are confirmed: Jakov’s entire family was murdered and his life is also threatened. To save himself, he flees the city. Spontaneously he sets off with Maria in the direction of South Tyrol. At the city gate they meet a monk who takes them on his ox cart. It is the first of many groundbreaking encounters on this journey, which will fundamentally change her life, but which also tells how little will fundamentally change as long as society accepts that certain people are marginalized.
“A road story in the Middle Ages” promises Marian Offman’s second novel “Jakov der Municher” (after “Mandelbaum”) in the subtitle. The City of Munich Commissioner for Interreligious Dialogue lives up to this promise. And as unusual as it may seem at first to take readers in 2023 on the leisurely way of progress in the 13th century – the risk pays off: a lot happens on the 300 pages. Every encounter between Jakov and Maria is tense, their fate always remains uncertain.
Offman embellishes little. Described soberly, he lets his story unfold its multi-layered effect. A worthwhile trip, for which there will be a reading with Offman and former mayor Christian Ude (SPD) on June 28th in the Jewish Museum.
reading from Marian OffmanWednesday, June 28, 7 p.m., Jewish Museum, St.-Jakobs-Platz, free admission, registration under phone 089 / 2332-9402, juedisches-museum-muenchen.de