Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University

Defender of the Faith

(1959)

Philip Roth

(March 19, 1933 – )

Notes

• "List of Abbreviations," US Army Center of Military History
• "Abbreviations and Acronyms of WWII and Service Records, " WWII Forum (2010)

• GI (Merriam-Webster)
  1: provided by an official U.S. military supply department <GI shoes>
  2: of, relating to, or characteristic of U.S. military personnel
  3: conforming to military regulations or customs <a GI haircut>
• "GI," FUBAR: Soldier Slang of World War II (2007)
  1)  Government Issue. The term became synonymous with the Army. It can mean the soldier himself, or any government or military property, or can be tagged to just about anything relating to the Army or the soldier's life. It was not until late 1943 that GI came into general use for identifying soldiers.
  2)  Gastrointestinal illness—diarrhea, dysentery. See "shits."
  3)  Galvanized Iron, with particular reference to the "GI can," a galvanized iron trash can that was used for a wide variety of purposes (trash, laundry, cleaning weapons, cooling beverages).
  4)  "To GI" means to clean up.
• William H. Young and Nancy K Young, World War II and the Postwar Years in America: A Historical and Cultural Encyclopedia, vol. 1: A–I (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2010)
  "G.I." (with periods) originally meant government issue and could be found stamped on many military supplies. Soldiers, with their dark humor, considered themselves a type of government issue, and the initials spread and entered everyday speech. As is always the case with slang, the meanings for GI expanded and the periods disappeared, as more and more troops swelled the armed forces. If a soldier complained of stomach discomfort, it meant he had the "GIs," or a gastrointestinal illness. To "GI a place" meant cleaning up a site, probably under supervision. A "GI haircut" meant short on the sides and back of the head.

• "GI party," FUBAR:Soldier Slang of World War II (2007)
  Traditional way to spend a Friday night—barracks clean-up to get ready for the Saturday-morning inspection

• Rabbi Moshe Waldocks, "What’s the difference between a temple, synagogue, and a shul?," Jewish Boston (2012)
• synagogue (Merriam-Webster)
  1: a Jewish congregation
  2: the house of worship and communal center of a Jewish congregation

"Seder Menu," Rome, Italy, 1945 (Courtesy of the American Jewish Historical Society at the Center for Jewish History)	seder /ˈseɪdɚ/ (Merriam-Webster) a Jewish home or community service including a ceremonial dinner held on the first or first and second evenings of the Passover in commemoration of the exodus from Egypt The Seder (Jewish Virtual Library) On the first night of Passover (first two nights outside of Israel), Jews are commanded to have a special family meal filled with ritual to remind us of the significance of the holiday. This meal is called the Seder, which is a Hebrew root word meaning “order.” It is the same root from which we derive the word “siddur” (prayer book). "The Seder Service in a Nutshell," Chabad "Passover," Britannica Encyclopedia of World Religions (2006) Hebrew Pesah, or Pesach, in JUDAISM, “the festival of our freedom.” Passover commemorates God’s deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt in the events described at EXODUS 1–15. Celebrated from the 15th day of Nisan, the first full moon after the vernal equinox, generally in April, the festival lasts for eight days in the diaspora, seven in the Land of Israel, with the first and final days holy days; during that time all leaven is forbidden, and in place of bread, the faithful eat MATZAH, unleavened bread. Passover is marked in Judaism by a home banquet, or SEDER, that follows an order of song and story. With unleavened bread and sanctified wine, the holy people, ISRAEL, celebrate the liberation of slaves from Pharaoh’s bondage. Families see both the ancients and themselves as liberated—so states the Passover HAGGADAH, or Narrative: “We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt and the Lord our God brought us forth from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. And if the Holy One, blessed be he, had not brought our fathers forth from Egypt, then we and our descendants would still be slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt. And so, even if all of us were full of wisdom, understanding, sages and well informed in the TORAH, we should still be obligated to repeat again the story of the Exodus from Egypt; and whoever treats as an important matter the story of the Exodus from Egypt is praiseworthy.” Not only so, but every generation celebrates God’s deliverance of Israel, encompassing the living: “This is the promise which has stood by our forefathers and stands by us. For neither once, nor twice, nor three times was our destruction planned; in every generation they rise against us, and in every generation God delivers us from their hands into freedom, out of anguish into joy, out of mourning into festivity, out of darkness into light, out of bondage into redemption.” Dan Gilgoff, "Explain It to Me: Passover," CNN (2011; video clip, 3:20 min.) Marjorie Ingall, "Seders in Uniform: How American Troops Celebrated Passover During WWII," Tablet (2015)
	Avraham Goldhar, "Crash Course on Passover" (2011; 6:50 min.)
	Rabbi Maccabi, "Model Passover Seder" (2015; 44:11 min.)

Review Sheet

Characters

Nathan Marx – "'Your new first sergeant is Sergeant Nathan Marx here He is a veteran of the European theater'" (162)

Sheldon Grossbart – "The trainee, who had been staring at me [Marx] whenever he thought I wouldn't notice, finally took a step in my direction" (162); "his green-speckled eyes, long and narrow, flashed like fish in the sun. He walked over to me and sat on the edge of my desk" (163)

Larry Fishbein – "tall boy [...] He had a cadaverous face that collapsed inward from his cheekbone to his jaw, and when he smiled [...] revealed a mouthful of bad teeth" (169)

Michael Halpern, Mickey – "Only Halpern responded to the chant by praying" (171)

Captain Paul Barrett – "my [Marx's] C.O. in Camp Crowder [...] he was short, gruff, and fiery, and—indoors or out—he wore his polished helmet liner pulled down to his little eyes" (162); "I'd fight side by side with a nigger if the fella proved to me he was a man. I pride myself [...] that I've got an open mind" (166); "I admire you [Marx] because of the ribbons on your chest. I judge a man by what he shows me on the field of battle" (166)
Corporal Robert LaHill – "the C.Q." (167)

Places 

United States 

    Camp Crowder, Missouri – "In May of 1945, only a few weeks after the fighting had ended in Europe, I was rotated back to the States, where I spent the remainder of the war with a training company at Camp Crowder, Missouri" (161)

Time 

1945 

    May – "In May of 1945, only a few weeks after the fighting had ended in Europe, I was rotated back to the States" (161)

Vocabulary

Sample Student Responses to Philip Roth's "Defender of the Faith"

Response 1:

Reference

 

Links

Philip Roth, "Writing about Jews," Commentary (1963) Jewish Surnames Bennett Muraskin, "Jewish Surnames Explained," Slate (2014) Bennett Muraskin, "Follow Up: Jewish Surnames Explained," Slate (2014) Aaron Demsky, "The Memi De-Shalit Database of Jewish Family Names at Beit Hatfutsot: An Introduction," Museum of the Jewish People

 

Media		"Philip Roth," The Book Review Show (2011; 14:37 min.)
		Philip Roth, Arena (1993; 58:33 min.)
		"A Rare Look at Author Philip Roth," Sunday Morning, CBS News (2010; 7:30 min.)
		Jeffrey Brown, Philip Roth Interview, PBS Newshour (2004; 9:11 min.)
		Philip Roth Unleashed, dir. Sarah Aspinall, BBC One (2014) Part 1 (1 hr. 2:34 min.) Part 2 (1 hr. 3:44 min.)

 

Philip Roth

Interview Mervyn Rothstein, "The Unbounded Spirit of Philip Roth," The New York Times (1985) Hermione Lee, "Philip Roth," The Art of Fiction No. 84, The Paris Review (1984) Biography "Philip Roth Biography," The Philip Roth Society (2013)

 

Reference

Roth, Philip. "Defender of the Faith." Goodbye, Columbus and Five Short Stories. Modern Library, 1995, pp. 161–200.

Further Reading

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Last updated March 28, 2018