History Literature / TheYiddishPolicemensUnion

Teaming up with his long-time partner Berko Shemets, a Tlingit Native American and convert to Judaism, Meyer tries to elucidate the case before the deadline of Reversion, when the entire district will cease to exist and he'll likely be out of a job. The investigation takes him into the reclusive world of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect, where word had it that the murder victim might have been the Messiah of prophecy...

* BuryYourGays:
** [[spoiler:Mendel Shpilman]]
** [[AmbiguouslyGay Possibly also]] [[spoiler: Naomi Landsman.]]

* ChekhovsGun: [[spoiler:the Tunnels, the Red Heifer.]]

* TheChessmaster: Itzik Zimbalist and Hertz Shemetz (literally and figuratively).

* CowboyCop: Landsman.

* TheDon: Reb Shpilman, the patriarch of the Verbover crime syndicate/religious sect.
* DisappearedDad: Meyer Landsman's dad.

* GentleGiant: Berko.

* HeroesWantRedHeads: Bina Gelbfish.

* KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade: [[spoiler: Naomi Landsman]].
* KnightInSourArmor: Landsman.
* KnowledgeBroker: Landsman meets one to get some info.

* MakeItLookLikeAnAccident: [[spoiler: Naomi Landsman's plane crash]]

* OminousFog: Alaska in November.

* RunawayBride: [[spoiler:Mendel Shpilman is a male example.]]

* SmartPeoplePlayChess: a DiscussedTrope.

* ThoseTwoBadGuys: Flingler and Dr. Roboy
* TitleDrop

** Germany was nuked in 1946 and Israel was destroyed after only 6 months during the first round of the Arab-Israeli War.

** The Soviet Union appears to have collapsed at some point during the 1970s.

* ForWantOfANail: The early death of Anthony Dimond, the Alaska Territory delegate to congress and the one who blocked the Slattery Report in [=OTL=], is what allowed the establishment of the Sitka refuge in the first place.

* HeroesWantRedHeads: Bina Gelbfish

* MundaneWish: [[spoiler:Rather than kill Landsmen and his friends because YouKnowTooMuch, Cashdollar offers to buy their silence instead. All Landsman wants is his gun and badge back. When he's duly reinstated as a detective he says: "I should have asked for a million dollars. They'd have given it to me!"]]

* OddCouple: Meyer and Berko. One is an [[DeadpanSnarker eternally sarcastic]] alcoholic wreck whose marriage fell apart, and the other is a pious family man and a devoted husband. In spite of their obvious differences in personality, they get along surprisingly well, and they have each other's backs through thick and thin.
* OminousFog: Alaska in November

** Another character refers to a cartoon "about the wolf who's always chasing the blue rooster"; the character is presumably misidentifying the exact species of Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner.

* SmartPeoplePlayChess: a DiscussedTrope

* YiddishAsASecondLanguage: Although the characters are all supposed to be speaking Yiddish, there are a number of Yiddish and Hebrew words that are used as slang that appear untranslated, such as "sholem" for "gun." Ironically, the text sometimes states that Sitka residents use "American" (i.e. English language) curse words.

* NWordPrivileges: Since almost everyone in Sitka is Jewish, the slur "yid" has become commonplace. Willie Dick, though a gentile, is also granted privileges due to growing up with Berko.

* EvilPlan: [[spoiler:The plot to destroy the Dome of the Rock.]]

%%* BrokenMasquerade

* EnterStageWindow: Landsman and his ex-wife Bina end up recreating their childhood courting via this trope; however they're not as young as they used to be.

* HalfBreedDiscrimination: Berko has a Tlingit-Indian mother and Jewish father, and the fact that he identifies more with his Jewish heritage does not help things given the longstanding antipathy between Jews and the native inhabitants.

%%* EnterStageWindow

%%* FilmNoir

%%* GladToBeAliveSex

* TranslationConvention: Most characters are actually speaking Yiddish, which is translated into English. For this reason, certain word choices sound odd, such as referring to perfect strangers as "darling" and "sweetness." [[note]]Translated from the common Yiddish word "bubeleh"[[/note]] Slang Yiddish words, however, are presented unstranslated. When a character swears, it's usually noted as spoken in "American."

* WellDoneSonGuy: Played for drama with Berko Shemets [[spoiler:after he discovers his father Hertz was behind the bombing that incited the riot that caused his mother's death. He rips off the tallit he's wearing under his clothes and forces it over his father's head. Moments later [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone Hertz tries to shoot himself]], so his son rushes him to the hospital despite loudly proclaiming that he doesn't care if his father dies..]]

* WellDoneSonGuy: Played for drama with Berko Shemets [[spoiler:after he discovers his father Hertz was behind the bombing that incited the riot that caused his mother's death. He rips off the tallit he's wearing under his clothes and forces it over his father's head. Moments later [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone Hertz tries to shoot himself]], so his son rushes him to the hospital.]]

* WellDoneSonGuy: Played for drama with Berko Shemets, after he discovers his father Hertz incited the riot that caused his mother's accidental death.

* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: A non-lethal version with Hertz Shemets. [[spoiler:After working for forty years with the FBI to sabotage every Zionist organisation, he fails to foresee his own organisation backstabbing him under orders of the US President, who wants the Jews to go back to Israel for religious reasons. Dennis Brennan's career also goes nowhere after having exposed Shemets with his ReassignedToAntarctica (or Alaska in this case).]]

* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: A non-lethal version with Hertz Shemets. [[spoiler:After working with the CIA to sabotage every Zionist organisation, he fails to foresee his own backstabbing from the CIA (under orders of the US President, who wants the Jews to go back to Israel for religious reasons). Dennis Brennan's career also goes nowhere after having exposed Shemets.]]

* NeverSuicide: [[spoiler:Inverted. It never occurs to anyone that Mendel's death was (assisted) suicide until the very end.]]

%%* TitleDrop

* JustBeforeTheEnd: Not in the apocalyptic sense typical for the setting (being a non-lethal and highly localized variant), but in an emotional sense for (almost) every Jewish character. The upcoming Reversion means the end of the Jewish district and most (if not almost all) residents will not be able to stay in the US once the territory is under their control, but neither do they have any emigration alternatives. Thus, many Jews don't know what exactly they are supposed to do and what will happen in a few months at all, and the book portrays the resulting feeling of all-pervasive uncertainty, emotional collapse and resignation very effectively. The most striking examples of this come up within the police force (it may be that these are merely the cases we see a lot of, seeing as the novel centers on a policeman and nearly all his close contacts are on the force): in the opening scene of the book, the coroner/forensics expert called in to look at the crime scene tells Landsman that he's leaving for permanent residence in Canada the ''very next day'', barely and haphazardly completing his report at the end of this last shift, while the chief of Sitka police simply disappears ''without'' announcing it, leading to his replacement ([[spoiler:Landsman's ex-wife]], of all things) outright instructing the detectives to drop most open cases. No one besides Landsman actually cares about solving the mystery of [[spoiler: Shpilman's]] murder, with most policemen believing it makes absolutely no difference. Given that only a minuscule fraction of Jews will receive US citizenship, and of those few lucky ones on the force, only ''one'' character is mentioned to have some chance of transitioning to the Alaskan Police after reversion, the feeling is understandable: after all, the police itself, the citizens they are supposed to protect ''and'' the criminals they are supposed to fight will all be made essentially homeless and irrelevant in a few months from the timeline of the book.

* JustBeforeTheEnd: Not in the apocalyptic sense typical for the setting (being a non-lethal and highly localized variant), but in an emotional sense for (almost) every Jewish character. The upcoming Reversion means the end of the Jewish district and most (if not almost all) residents will not be able to stay in the US once the territory is under their control, but neither do they have any emigration alternatives. Thus, many Jews don't know what exactly they are supposed to do and what will happen in a few months at all, and the book portrays the resulting feeling of all-pervasive uncertainty, emotional collapse and resignation very effectively. Within the police force, reports are left incomplete, cases are dropped, and no one besides Landsman actually cares about solving the mystery of Shpilman's murder.

* TheWarOnTerror: Although an AlternateHistory, it's very strongly a post-9/11 commentary.

* BadAssGrandpa: Alter Litvak, a broken down old man with a long history of wetwork. He's still got enough spunk to [[spoiler:help orchestrate an attempt to retake Israel and bring about the Messianic Age.]]

* ForWantofANail: The early death of Anthony Dimond, the Alaska Territory delegate to congress and the one who blocked the Slattery Report in [=OTL=], is what allowed the establishment of the Sitka refuge in the first place.

* GodwinsLawOfTimeTravel: A rare [[InvertedTrope inversion]]. In this world's alternate timeline, Hitler got his a ss kicked even ''harder'' that he did in our world. Among other changes, Germany was nuked in 1946 and the Holocaust killed only a third as many Jews as it did in RealLife. The book explores how these events (coupled with the collapse of Israel) complicate the lives of surviving Jews.

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* KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade: [[spoiler: Naomi Landsman]]

* AmbiguouslyGay: Naomi Landsman is often described and discussed in terms that suggest she is a butch lesbian, but her sexuality is never confirmed one way or another.

* AllJewsAreAshkenazi: Sitka society is almost entirely based on Ashkenazi culture, to the point that Yiddish is the common language. This is because other Jewish cultures such as the Separdim, Mizrahim, Habashim, etc. remained in their home countries after Israel was crushed. Having won the war, the countries had no need to expel the remaining Jews.

Creator/TheCoenBrothers are currently working on a [[TheFilmOfTheBook film adaptation]] of the novel.