In the novel, The Fixer, the author, Bernard Malamud, .
presents to us a poor Jewish handyman living in Russia .
during the early 1900's, before the Russian .
revolution had begun. Destroyed by his wife's .
disavowal, Yakov Shepsovitch Bok leaves his shtetl in .
search of opportunities for a better life. After a .
few months of desperate searching, Yakov sneaks out of .
the ghetto to look for work among the goyim. As he .
searches the streets, he stumbles upon a man who lay .
drunk on the floor. Yakov immediately recognizes a pin .
on the man's coat as belonging to the anti-Semite .
organization called the Black Hundreds. Putting his .
doubts behind him, Yakov decides to help the fat .
Russian. Not aware of Yakov's origins, the Russian .
offers him a job as a reward. The job, however, .
requires him to live in a district prohibited to Jews. .
Out of desperation, Yakov agrees. Only a few months .
later, honest, hard-working Yakov, is caught. .
Authorities had found out he is a Jew. Less than a .
week before that, however, an awful murder had been .
committed and they accuse Yakov of being the murderer, .
when in fact the true killer is the young boy's own .
mother. Yakov is charged with murder for religious .
purposes. They believe the Jewish community needed .
the blood to bake into the matzos for Passover as a .
symbol of the remembrance of the crucifixion of .
Christ. .
Yakov Bok is Jewish man in his early thirties. He .
describes himself as " a fixer by trade, it's a poorer .
trade than most, and formerly for a short time I was a .
soldier in the Imperial Army. In fact, to tell you .
the truth, I"m not a religious man, I"m a .
freethinker." He believes he has had such bad luck, .
that it is useless to pray to G"d, and therefore he is .
more of an atheist, or a freethinker, than he is a .
Jew. He states he is a Jew only "by birth and .
nationality," though nobody understands what is meant .
by that. To the Russians he is legally a mere Jew. At .
one point Yakov says to himself "I"m Yakov Fixer.
The Fix We see millions of ads on an everyday basis. If they are not on the television, they are in magazines or newspapers. All these ads are trying to get us to purchase something or believe something. All these commercials and ads try to tell the public something. They all have different me...
Fixing Flaws What are character flaws? If asked to expound on this question, most people would say that flaws are blemishes in your personality or something you have to work at overcoming. This is partially true, but not all character flaws are that harmless and d...
The Shaw Shank Redemption The Shaw Shank Redemption is a movie about time, patience and loyalty. It is about how two men serving life sentences in prison become friends and find a way to fight off despair. The film itself reflects the slow passage of the decades. "When they put you in that cel...
The current debate over juvenile crime is being dominated by two voices: officials proposing quick-fix solutions, and a media more intent on reporting violent crimes than successful prevention efforts. ... Many government officials go for the quick-fix solutions. ... Quick fixes such, as the plan by the government, sends us a step back as a society in a more barbaric kind of way. ...
Should We Fix Acid Rain? Acid rain or acid precipitation is the rain, snow, fog hail which has pH levels below 5.6, the average acidity of rain. The pH scale is used to measure the level of acidity by measuring the hydrogen ion concentration, were pH 1 is the strongest acid and pH 14 is the stro...
A survey conducted for the national Sleep Foundation asked more than 1,000 men and women about their sleeping habits. About 52% of the women have difficulty sleeping and 45% of the men have troubles sleeping. (Jet, 1996) What causes insomnia and how can I fix it. Stress, depression, shift work, ...
Fixing Blame for World War I As with all international conflicts, there can be no easy answer to questions of blame or guilt. Historians continue to debate the causes of World War I nearly a century after the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand; the event that most agree was the spark wh...
The Fixer Bernard Malamund Generally books are used as an opportunity for escapism, to spend a few hours away from reality. ... The Fixer retells a Jewish man's story in Russia during a peak of anti-Semitism in the early 1900s. Yakov Bok's wife has left him after four years and he is struggling to live working as a fixer. ... The Fixer is based on a true story. ... The Fixer contains actions and behaviours that are hidden from society and continuously denied. ...
Legumes have nitrogen-fixing bacteria in their root nodules. These nitrogen-fixing bacteria take nitrogen and convert it to a usable form for the legume. For other plants, nitrogen-fixing bacteria in the soil take nitrogen (N2) and convert it to ammonium (NH4+) through a process called ammonification. ... The organisms that fix the nitrogen are only fulfilling their own metabolic requirements, but they also leave excess ammonia that becomes available for other organisms. ... In aquatic ecosystems some cyanobacteria fix nitrogen. ...
