War and the Ruby Tree. The Motif of the Unborn Generations in Jewish Women’s Story-Telling

Abstract

The Ruby Tree is a long story-cycle from the Marks-Khymberg family oral story-telling tradition, currently practiced publicly by Shanaleah Khymberg (Shonaleigh Cumbers). Like other stories in the extensive family repertoire, The Ruby Tree was learned orally by Shonaleigh in childhood from her grandmother, Edith Marks, who practiced as a community story-teller or drut’syla in the pre-war Netherlands. She then carried the family repertoire in her memory, through the Holocaust to post-war relocation in Britain. The imagery of The Ruby Tree resonates with the often traumatic history of the story’s transmission from its pre-war past to the modern international story-telling circuit. This chapter discusses the significance of the story-cycle within the dramatically changing contexts that the Marks-Khymberg family tradition has undergone.