Title: Aviva vs. The Dybbuk
By Mari Lowe
Levine Querido, 171 pages
Aviva Jacobs lives with her mother in an apartment above the women’s mikvah in the fictional community of Beacon. When we first meet her, she is 9 years old and hiding in a wooded area not far from home. No one knows where she is – except the dybbuk, the mischievous spirit that inhabits the mikvah.
Aviva is angry at her mother and trying to provoke a response from the woman who has become a ghost of herself since the tragic death of Aviva’s father a few years before. Aviva is waiting to see if her mother will come looking for her. Instead, afternoon turns to evening, and Aviva is found by family friends who have gone out to search for her. Aviva regrets creating a panic, and especially for worrying her mother, who only further retreats into sadness and loss. Her mother, the mikvah attendant, almost never leaves their apartment except to assist the women who use the mikvah downstairs, or to maintain the grounds around the building.
The story continues two years later, when Aviva is 11. She feels ostracized at school and over-protective of her mother. But she doesn’t have time to dwell on her feelings because she is preoccupied with an important job. Her time at home is consumed with monitoring the actions of the dybbuk. When no one is looking, the dybbuk gets into mischief, such as smearing soap on the floors, or unwrapping candies from a woman’s purse and scattering them in a preparation room. Aviva is constantly putting things back in place and making sure the dybbuk never does any serious damage.
In her class, Aviva is the only girl without a father, and that becomes particularly poignant in her sixth-grade year, when the school traditionally hosts a father-daughter “Bas Mitzvah Bash” at a local arcade. This year, the school announces the event will instead be a mother-daughter gathering. Many of the girls are resentful of the change, and Aviva feels that her classmates blame her for what feels like an unwanted accommodation. Aviva doesn’t want anyone’s pity.
Things only get worse when Aviva and her arch-rival both face discipline after playing an aggressive game of machanayim that injures a classmate. Aviva and Kayla, her rival, are banned from machanayim and assigned by the principal to plan activities for the Bas Mitzvah Bash, which means spending hours together over several weeks. They are stunned by what feels like a miserable punishment. At the same time, the community is grappling with antisemitic events and vandalism, which come to a climax late in the book.
Author Mari Lowe has created a vivid and subtle story with Aviva vs. the Dybbuk. There are layers of mystery around the dybbuk and his mischief, as well as unanswered questions about the accident that led to Aviva’s father’s tragic death. As the story progresses, these questions are gradually addressed, as Aviva and her mother find ways to reconnect to friends, neighbors and each other.
Readers see that Aviva is isolated on many levels – as a child whose father has died, as part of a household of limited means, and as a daughter whose mother is consumed with grief and likely struggling with depression. These are sensitive topics that are realistically handled in the book. At the same time, Aviva is proud, independent, bright and imaginative, making her a fun and memorable character for readers.
This book is written for general audiences, but its depictions of Orthodox Jewish life are natural and unforced. Readers are immersed in Aviva’s world, which includes being the daughter of the mikvah lady. Orthodox readers will see themselves in this book and easily relate to the characters and events, especially its keen descriptions of the atmosphere of a Jewish day school. The book is both an entertaining read and a window into the hidden pain that is often overlooked in otherwise supportive communities, and accomplishes all this without being patronizing or pedantic. It’s wonderful for Orthodox readers to have access to a novel of this caliber, and for secular readers to learn about our communities through this imaginative story.
