Tag: Israel

Seeking and Finding ‘In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist’

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  • Unknown-17In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist by Ruhama King Feuerman (The New York Review of Books, 2013)
  • In 40 words or less: A rebbe’s courtyard in Jerusalem and a shard of pottery discarded on the Temple Mount are catalysts for life changing experiences for three lonely people.
  • Genre: Fiction
  • Locale: Jerusalem
  • Time: 1994
  • Read this book for a well-crafted story bringing in the many different peoples that make up Jerusalem.

There is a timelessness to Ruhama King Feuerman’s novel despite its contemporary setting. The courtyard of the title, on Nineveh Street in Jerusalem, is a place where seekers of all sorts congregate. A wise and ailing rebbe and his wife offer guidance and soup to an array of regular and occasional visitors. Isaac, a former haberdasher from the Lower East Side, arrives in the courtyard while looking for a new direction in his life. As luck would have it (and out of the goodness of their hearts), Isaac becomes the assistant to the rebbe, ferrying messages, keeping order and conversing with the visitors.

Among the visitors is Tamar, a young American who has moved to Israel and become more religious. She is effervescent in personality and dress and is in search of her bashert, the person who’s destined to share her life. She asks the rebbe’s guidance in finding him.

On the Temple Mount, Mustafa toils daily as a janitor, sweeping, washing, and hauling trash to maintain the holiness of the site. Mustafa has been an outcast from birth, his head awkwardly twisted almost over his shoulder. Rejected by his family who are concerned about the negative influence his condition may have on the marriage prospects of his siblings, he lives narrow existence of work, dinner and sleep with little human contact.

In the course of clearing out buckets of debris from questionable digging on the Temple Mount, Mustafa finds a shard of pottery that appears to have some value. Mustafa sees Isaac as someone who can explain what he has found. Looking for answers endangers Isaac and Mustafa but they are resolute in what becomes a quest for both. As with almost everything in Jerusalem, religious and political controversies, control of holy sites and distrust among groups become obstacles in their path.

Over the course of the novel, these three lonely, family-less people find connections with each other. The story has ample twists and turns, but it is the blossoming of the people and their friendships that gives it lasting strength. This is a slim book, tightly written and very well-suited for discussion among book groups.

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An award winning story of Soviet-era politics meeting contemporary mores

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  • betrayThe Betrayers by David Bezmozgis (Little, Brown and Company, 2014)
  • In 40 words or less: A disgraced Israeli politician on vacation sees the man who betrayed him to the KGB forty years earlier. One is a prisoner of his past, the other has no sense of his future. Each is changed by the meeting.
  • Genre: Fiction
  • Locale: Crimea, Israel, Moscow
  • Time: 2012 and 1972
  • Read this if you enjoy novels where difficult moral choices are front and center. Bezmozgis provides incisive historical context and characters consistent with the issues presented. It is rare that an author can pull it all together so succinctly .

David Bezmozgis has spent more than ten years opening the door on the lives of refuseniks that left the former Soviet Union (FSU) in a trickle in the early 1970s becoming a tidal wave in the 1990s. His latest, The Betrayers, tells of a senior Israeli politician, Baruch Kotler, a poster child of the dissident movement, who travels to Crimea with his young lover as pictures of their indiscretion hit the press. Kohler left Israel in disgrace after taking a position against the government, speaking out against dismantling settlements in the territories. The exposure of the affair came about after he refused to change his position.

The plot centers on an unfortunate coincidence. Upon arrival in Yalta there is a mixup at the hotel and Baruch and Leora are forced to find accommodations in a private home. Their host is the wife of Baruch’s roommate from 40 years earlier. He betrayed Baruch to the KGB, resulting in 13 years of imprisonment. When Baruch recognizes Volodya (Chaim) through the window, he has a choice – leave without disclosing his identity or confront the man he considered a friend and colleague.

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From start to finish, the story covers less than a weekend. Using a mix of memory to bring in details of the past and technology to connect to the conflicts of the present, The Betrayers is tightly written and clearly drawn.

The title is plural for a reason. Each of the principals makes explicit choices with major repercussions for themselves and their families. By focusing on the encounter between Baruch and Chaim, the ripples of these decisions are clearly seen.

In this and his prior works, David Bezmozgis has been frank about the motivations that sent Jews (and non-Jews) from the FSU and the reasons some regretted this choice. Each book has shown the challenges in acclimating to a completely different way of life and the difficulties that the older generation, in particular, has had in finding a place in the new world.

As Bezmozgis was completing The Betrayers, the Russia/Ukraine conflict erupted. While this provides an odd current events twist for the reader, the setting was key to the story and Bezmozgis had undertaken extensive research so no changes were made.

For those in the DC area, David Bezmozgis will be on a panel on October 19 at the Folger Shakespeare Library as part of the DCJCC Literary Festival. The Betrayers won the National Jewish Book Award and was a Scotiabank Giller Prize finalist in the same year.

 

 

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Grab a copy of Jessamyn Hope’s debut novel

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  • Unknown-9Safekeeping by Jessamyn Hope (Fig Tree Books, 2015)
  • In 40 words or less: An array of seekers volunteer at a kibbutz in the throes of change. The kibbutz’s elder holds tight to 50 year-old secrets as the community she created crumbles. A young, troubled New Yorker arrives desperate for redemption.
  • Genre: Fiction
  • Locale: Primarily Israel
  • Time: 1994
  • Read this if you enjoy complex characters dealing with the life choices they have made. The plot lines are enhanced by the detailed descriptions of kibbutz life which were under great upheaval at that time.  Fig Tree Books is a new press and this is a beautifully put together paperback. It would be a great discussion title.

A confession. I was given advance access to this wonderful book in April. Life happened and I didn’t finish before my electronic copy disappeared. The story so grabbed me that this was the book I bought when I reached Quail Ridge Books & Music in Raleigh, NC. An excellent decision.

Adam is a mess. Drug addicted and bereft after the death of the grandfather who raised him, he assaults a jeweler and escapes New York for Israel, his goal to fulfill his grandfather’s lifelong wish and deliver an antique brooch. With this inauspicious start, he is not the ideal volunteer for Kibbutz Sadot Hadar. He hopes to quickly locate Dagmar, his grandfather’s true love, and get on with his life.

Times are tough in the kibbutz.  Young people are moving away, the original Socialist Zionist principles are falling by the wayside. Without volunteers and workers from the neighboring Arab villages, the kibbutz’s survival is in jeopardy. Ziva, the last remaining founder, is insistent that the original path is the only true path for Sadot Hadar. And she will devote every last breath to have that as her legacy.images-2

Volunteers have come to Sadot Hadar from the unlikeliest of places. Ulya, a survivor of Chernobyl, sees the kibbutz as a way station on her path to New York.   Claudette arrives from Quebec, her OCD and Catholic faith complicating her acclimation to the kibbutz. She is on a personal pilgrimage with an unknown destination. Subject to assignment by Eyal, the kibbutz secretary, they all remain on the periphery of the controversy about the future of the kibbutz. Ofir, a talented teenage musician on the kibbutz and their only peer contact, was badly injured in a terrorist bus attack.

Adam’s quest propels the story. His dealings with both the bureaucracies trying to locate Dagmar and the rules of the kibbutz test his commitment. Throughout the book he is challenged to heal physically and emotionally, and that can’t happen alone. Only through the actions of others is a richer portrait of life on the kibbutz and Adam’s challenges seen. From a historical standpoint, Jessamyn Hope captures the kibbutz movement at the crossroads. The changes that Ziva works to stave off were occurring across Israel and marked a dramatic shift in the country’s social and economic history.

Grounded in 1994 but with clearly delineated departures to the past, Jessamyn Hope weaves a novel filled with life’s successes and missteps. For each of the characters family, or the absence thereof, helps set his/her path. Each is broken and sees Sadot Hadar as a step on the road to redemption. This is a wonderfully crafted debut novel and I look forward to reading more from Jessamyn Hope in the future.

 

 

 

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The Seven Good Years – Keret’s wisdom packs a punch

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  • The Seven Good Years by Etgar Keret (Riverhead Books, 2015)
  • In 40 words or less: Keret captures life’s small moments and Unknown-11profound truths in the period from the birth of his son through his father’s death. An extraordinary writer, his brilliance is seen in his brevity.
  • Genre: Memoir
  • Locale: Israel and travels
  • Time: Current
  • Book Group Potential: Each short piece (4 or 5 pages) focuses on a specific aspect of life. There is truly something for everyone.

From the moment I started the first page of Keret’s wonderful book I tried to ration my reading to make it last longer.  Each of the seven years between the birth of his son, Lev, and the death of his father has its own section, providing natural breaks to savor. The book is a compilation of essays, most originally appearing in a variety of well-respected publications. Some poignant, others laugh-out-loud funny, taken together they bring to mind Joni Mitchell’s song The Circle Game.

As those who have become parents know, there is a cosmic shift in one’s world view as soon as your child is born. One’s sense of responsibility grows, the dangers in the world may seem more profound and there is often a much greater respect for the intelligence and sacrifice of one’s own parents. In this regard, Etgar Keret is like most of the rest of us but has the knack for conveying these messages through the quirky details of daily life.

Beyond his reputation as a writer of absurd, wry and ironic short stories and screenplays, Keret is a voice of modern life in Israel. There is a flavor in many vignettes that is uniquely Israeli, with a fatalistic humor born of decades of conflict. Reading about a conversation among parents of toddlers regarding the compulsory military service of their children fifteen years away would seem ridiculous were there not such a sense of foreboding, since every Israeli family has been touched by the wars and attacks. On the flip side, the reporting of the ongoing exchanges with the telemarketer from the satellite TV company has a small town feel unlike any spam calls I’ve received this century.
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Throughout the book we meet other members of Keret’s immediately family. His wife, an acclaimed artist in her own right, is seen as his partner and the mother of his child. Maintaining a relationship with his ultra-orthodox sister mirrors the complexity of the religious and secular conflicts in Israeli daily life. His childhood friends and the people on the street fill out the picture of life he paints.

Bit by bit, Keret shares his admiration for the way his father has chosen to live his life. Born in Poland, Keret’s father was forced into hiding in a hole for over a year during WWII. He shares his father’s audacity in Italy prior to heading to Palestine. Despite the trauma he suffered, he is described as a man who cultivated an attitude of gratitude for all things in his life. The final sections of the book follow family shifts as his father is diagnosed with cancer and makes choices on how to spend his remaining time.

Whether at home or speaking or writing while abroad, Keret’s love for and impatience with Israel are clear.  Nowhere is it more poignant than when he walks along the Mediterranean in Italy and realizes both share the same sea but very different feelings of security. And he is more than a dutiful son when he visits the area of Poland his family called home before it was taken away by the Nazis.

Buy The Seven Good Years as a gift for yourself. It is a book to keep on your nightstand for a brief refresher course in what it means to be human.

 

 

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Book Review: Assaf Gavron paints a big picture from The Hilltop

The single tree bent by the wind on an arid field is the perfect cover for Assaf Gavron’s 2013 novel, published here in 2014 with Steven Cohen’s English Screen Shot 2015-03-05 at 12.29.34 PMtranslation. On the face of it, brothers Gabi and Roni Kupper are the  main characters. On every page Israel’s land, politics, and people – Jewish and Palestinian, settlers and kibbutzniks, religious and secular – share equal billing.

After several years with little contact, Roni arrives at Gabi’s dilapidated trailer in a tiny West Bank settlement having escaped his fast track New York life wearing a Hugo Boss suit, with empty pockets and no plan. Roni barely recognizes his brother, Gabi, who has crafted a new life as a religious ascetic and changed his name. A follower of the teachings of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, Gabi organizes his life around daily prayers and learning, and turning a small shed on the edge of the settlement into a home. Seemingly gone are the traumas that shaped his life as a child and young adult.

Mixing flashbacks and the present day, Gavron presents two different worlds: daily life in Ma’aleh Hermesh C and the difficult childhood that helped bring Gabi and Roni there.   Continue reading Book Review: Assaf Gavron paints a big picture from The Hilltop

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