A Wedding in Brownsville (Isaac Bashevis Singer)

The Senciminers were the people who had come from Sencimin, Dr Margolin’s old hometown. Many of them had survived the war and later came to America, and they belonged to the bride’s family and the groom’s family at the wedding.

Dr Margolin did not want Gretl to accompany him because he knew she was right to refuse: the wedding would be too tiring and unpleasant for him. It would be in Brownsville, he would get home very late, he had to be at the hospital early the next morning, and he was also on a strict fat-free diet. Besides, he disliked the noisy, distorted style of such American Jewish celebrations and felt ashamed when he had to apologise for them.

The Hippocratic oath is the promise taken by doctors to act honourably and to do no harm in their medical work. In the story, Dr Margolin had never broken it.

The merry banter at the wedding invariably leads to talk of death and the Holocaust—who died, who was shot, who was burned, who survived, and how the family and community were destroyed.

The woman was Raizel, the daughter of Melekh the watchmaker, Dr Margolin’s first love whom he had believed to be dead.

Dr Margolin’s confused state of mind was caused by several things together: the wedding atmosphere, the continuous talk of death and destruction, his emotional shock on seeing a woman who looked like Raizel, the strain of old memories, and his own uncertainty after the traffic accident he had seen on the way. He also began to suspect that he might himself have been the accident victim, which deepened his bewilderment.

Dr Margolin’s past was marked by brilliant promise, intellectual brilliance, and loss. As a child and youth he was celebrated as a prodigy, but he later felt he had wasted his talents by changing fields and wandering from place to place. He also suffered personal tragedy: his great love Raizel married someone else and was later killed by the Nazis, and his family and town of Sencimin were destroyed in the Holocaust. This past shapes his present life by making him restless, nostalgic, guilt-ridden, and fearful of death. Although successful outwardly, he inwardly feels like a failure and cannot escape memories of the past.

Dr Margolin’s attitude towards his profession was one of seriousness, honesty, and duty. He was a good doctor who never broke the Hippocratic oath, treated his patients honourably, avoided cant, and refused dubious careerist associations. He took pride in doing his work properly.

He felt that the American Jewish community’s life had become a distortion of Jewish tradition. He disliked the Anglicised Yiddish, Yiddishised English, noisy music, unruly dances, and the way Jewish laws and customs were mixed up and made shallow. Even though he belonged to it, he saw it as a mess and often felt ashamed of it.

Dr Margolin was liked for his helpfulness, generosity, and social warmth. He treated rabbis, refugees, and Jewish writers without charge, gave medicines and hospital beds, and once took an active part in community life. People also admired his appearance, his manners, and his intelligence, and he could be charming and sociable.