"Our Town": Mr. Stern and Buczacz in In Mr. Lublin's Store

Abstract:In 1912, Agnon left Jaffa for Germany. He first lived in Berlin and then moved to Leipzig in 1917, where he remained for various short periods in 1917 and 1918. Throughout the years he lived in Germany, he did not write about his life in Germany or World War I. His literary preoccupation was, rather, the life and culture of Eastern European Jewry. Only in the 1950s did he turn his attention to Germany, to write what is considered to be his valediction to prewar German Jewish life. Two major novels, ʿAd henah (To This Day) and Beḥanuto shel Mar Lublin (In Mr. Lublin's Store), first published in 1952 and 1975, respectively, resulted from his stay in Germany from 1912 to 1924. This article will examine the section of In Mr. Lublin's Store Agnon called "The Last Chapter," which was first published in 1964. It recalls the World War I with its corollary, the destruction and displacement of Jewish communities throughout Eastern Europe which, in the novel, results in a visit to the narrator in Leipzig from his old friend Mr. Stern. The author discusses the figure of Mr. Stern and their shared home town, unnamed but clearly Buczacz, which are central to this chapter, as well as the narrator's dilemma within his confrontation with modernity.