The Country I will Show You

 

From the impressive amout of books on Jewish topics I have on my TBR, this last read Das Land das ich dir Zeigen will - in my own translation, The Country I Will Show You - by German author and photographer Sara Klatt, was meditative and slow paced, filled with memories and thoughts about the land (of Israel).

Populated with very diverse characters, many Yekke and their grandchildren in Israel and Germany, the book doesn´t promise too much, but shares fragments of Jewish life, from the post-Shoah Germany to the bubbling techno clubs of Israel. 

There is a lot of connection between characters, although many of them cannot be imagined as there are not too many individual details shared that may help the reader to have a better visual representation of the characters. The fragmentation of the story reiterates the Jewish histories themselves, particularly in the 20th century. 

Compared to books by other German authors, this may not be the best book to date, but has a gentle tone and a way of telling the story that shows love for the land and its many stories.

Rating: 3 stars

Jews of Iran

 

There are many ways in which the life of Jewish communities are influenced or just co-exist in the realm of the societies they operate. The daily life, adjustment of food preferences, intellectual references can intersect, interact and communicate  at different extent and during specific timelines. 

With a history dating back to the Babylonian exile, the Jewish communities of Iran in present times are relatively less known from the anthropological and generally scientific point of view, for obvious reasons. Although not necessarily against the regime, books about Jews in Iran are almost impossible to publish within the country, which contributes to the lack of factual information and therefore the open gates for manipulation by the regime propaganda.

Hence, the precarity of information goes two ways: within and outside the country.

Jews of Iran. A Photographic Chronicle, with a foreword by Lior B. Sternfeld and words by Parvaneh Vahidmanesh is a selection of the photos taken by Hassan Sarbakhshian while travelling among the Jewish communities of Iran for two years at the beginning of the 2000s. Shortly after, Sarbakhshian fled the country. Vahidmanesh as well left Iran after writing the book, being accused of having published a tool of propaganda for Israel, a crime punishable by death by the mullah regime. This shows if one needed any more explanations the perils of affirming the Jewish identity in Iran outside the official propagandistic narrative.

´The photos reveal one of the most beautiful and complicated untold stories of our time. It shows that behind those giantstate and regional confrontations, there are people who live in the figurative and literal middle´, said Lior Sternfeld in the foreword.

Visually at least, based on the photos, there are so many local elements to be taken into consideration when talking about Iranian Jews now, but unfortunatelly there accompanying text describes without any critical/analytical take on the information presented. 

Maybe the right time will come - sooner than later - when such analysis will be possible, accompanying a wider and truthful documentation of the life of Jews in Iran. Until then, the photos included in this book can be considered an interesting and unique ground for a further discussion.

Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Books featuring Jewish life in Germany

I´ve recently read two books in German featuring Jewish authors and public figures that may show the diversity as well as the particularities of being Jewish in Germany.

München-based author Dana von Suffrin collected 16 stories by Jewish authors who are sharing either their experiences or a literary work inspired by their identity. Among them, Eva Manasse, Maxim Biller, Zelda Biller, Adriana Altaras, Linda Rachel Sabiers or Lena Gorelik. Given the literary representation it largely set the ground for a discussion about Jewish literature in German language, that could be a source of both debate and dissent, but interesting nevertheless.

The other collection, edited by Andrea von Treuenfeld, is essentially aimed at offering a voice to young Jews in Germany, sharing their experience, their encounter with antisemitism and the diversity of their life and identity experiences.

This was by far my favorite book, because it shows the future of Jewish life as well as the topics of actuality that may be generated of the different relationships to identity. The authors do come from different ways of life: were born in Germany or in Israel, or they have Israeli parents or are patrilinear Jews or are second generation of ´contingent´ Jews, discovered religion later in life or are keeping the traditions no matter of their halachic background. 

This book is equally interesting for researchers and historians aimed at understanding the Jewish identity in Germany in the 21st century as it offers many new directions of study and analysis.

Hostage by Eli Sharabi translated into English by Eylon Levy

A couple of weeks back was chatting with an American-Jewish writer who just returned from Israel and on her storytelling voice she was rhetorically asking how the cruelties of 7/10 were possible? What monsters can do what the Hamas terrorists did to women, children, other humans?

Hostage by former hostage Eli Sharabi, translated into English by Eylon Levy is a testimony that can be only compared with the similar Shoah testimonies. It shows a permanence of the evil, generated this time from individuals growing up in a fanatic cultish ignorance or cultivating the same ignorance for the sake of illicit political and economic power. 

For 491 days, Sharabi, who is of Moroccan-Yemeni origin and an Arabic speaker, was kept barefoot, moved from one tunnel to another, humiliated, starved and ´offered´ to convert to Islam - as it happened to other captives as well. He was submitted to psychological terror, being lied they were abandoned and that Israel will be soon destroyed. 

Those fanatics for whom Titanic is a great newly released movie, clapped their hands for Iran, and predicted a massive Islamic take-over of the ´West´. They nicknamed Sharabi Abbas, as in Mahmoud Abbas or by his nom de guerre, Abu Mazen, whom they despised. 

Sharabi and his other fellow hostages nicknamed their guardians as well, based on their physical features or behavior. It was their distraction in between the verbal and physical aggression they suffered, and their deteriorating health situation. Food, as in the Shoah memoirs, plays an important role in the survival strategies. But bravely, the solidarity won in the front of the efforts of their captors to create dissent in the group, due to the food rations. Every Friday evening they recited the Shabbes songs, and the next day the Havdala songs. They prayed in the morning. Another example of strength and survival.

Sharabi found out the day of his liberation that his brother, Yossi, also took captive from kibbutz Be´eri was killed. His beloved wife and daughters were killed on 7/10 and although he imagined this scenario, he was informed about only upon his return to Israel. 

It is so much tension in this book and you feel overwhelmed by the weight of the dramatic realities of the last two years. I think we should not try finding an answer about the human nature and how was it possible, but to find the best ways to never allowed such a cruelty to be committed. It is like the post-WWII history is written over and over again. 

I´ve had access to the book in the audiobook format, extraordinarily read by actor and coach Geoffrey Cantor. 

Book Review: Hunting in America by Tehila Hakimi translated by Joanna Chen

The unnamed woman character of author and poet Tehila Hakimi´s debut novel Hunting in America, translated into English by Joanna Chen (here is an interesting dialogue between the author, the translator and the Jewish Book Council about the book) got promoted to the American branch of the Israeli company. A three-year contract as product manager, and the promise of a new life.

She moves, learns from the mistakes of addressing her colleagues in a very direct frontal way, not getting used with the tasteless food, and got invited by her direct supervisor to hunting. Weekend after weekend, this will be her intermezzo that makes the difference between work and non-work. And as she advances into the experience of the hunting her life takes a dark edge. Her job is unsafe, she is getting involved with David, her supervisor and hunting partner. 

First and foremost, except hunting - Hakimi brought the topic as a common bridge between Israel and USA - there is nothing else happening to the character´s life. (and here there are again similarities between the two cultures). The daily work instills importance and relevance to the day, consumes the energy. What else is left ? Therefore, the confusing experience of the hunting, where deers may acquire human features. Can you imagine the exhaustion of being took out of the safety of the office and the project management tasks? Work is an alienation (and the protagonist is fully alienated from herself during her intensive working episodes, manifesting her eating disorder) but not-work is a hallucination.

The timeline of the story is mixed, with the episodes leading to her American chapter being mixed with the accounts of the present time. The counting - ´on my first hunting in America...´ - split the story into different benchmarks. It is like an effort to make sense of a lonely life, who does not exist outside the work framework.

This is a short novel, that I´ve listen in few hours as audiobooks, read by Sharone Halevy - her use of the right Israeli accent at the right time in the story added more authenticity to the audio-reading.  

I´ve found the angle of the book very interesting, but sometimes a book built around a thesis may have shortcomings in terms of other elements, such as character development etc. But it is a concise explanation of the idea and would definitely love to read more by Hakimi, especially her poetry, hopefully in original.

Rating: 4 stars

Writing About 7/10

It is very difficult to write about ongoing traumatic events. The trauma of 7/10 is unfolding, although today more than two days ago there are more chances to see a closing - although not an end of it. 

Recently I attended at the International Festival of Literature Berlin a discussion about writing after 7th of October, with Ayelet Gundar-Goshen, Julia F. Tzaisler and Yaniv Iczkovits. Gundar-Goshen, who is a clinical psychologist by profession, and was asked to offer assistance to those affected by the events, outlined that right now, the trauma the Israeli society is experiencing is still ongoing since two years. Healing requires at least a closing of the current state of affairs, meaning the return of the hostages and end of the ostilities.

Therefore, it is hard to read and think about the future of Israel when the past is in the making. The hope, that toxic hope that poisons sometimes our senses, requires a balance that only books can offer. Hence, an overview of three books I´ve read in the last years related to the 7/10, in German and English.

I classified the three books in a past-present-future timeline, although this does not reflect exclusively the sequence. But, we humans we need structure and categories to organise the world, even in the midst of the most terrible catastrophies. 

The Past: Israel.7. Oktober by Lee Yaron, translated into German by Maria Zettner, Sigrid Schmidt, Cornelia Stoll

This book by award-winner journalist Lee Yaron is my favorite approach on the current events so far. In 10 ´human stories´ she brings to the life of the written word personal histories of victims of the massacre. It is an enormous but worth every word of it, of oral history. It keeps the memory while outlining the diversity of destinies and the precious lives that were lost.

Rating: 5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

The Present: Fenster ohne Aussicht by Dror Mishani translated by Markus Lemke

When 7th of October happened, crime author and literature professor Dror Mishani was in Toulouse. His diary of the time covering those first moments following the massacre until 10th of March 2024 were collected in a Tel Aviv diary translated into German as Windows without View (the translation belongs to me). Exactly as a windowless window, the words - his, his students´ - are hardly finding their way. For a while, he is not writing crime novels, he cannot do it right now, but took notes of the reflection of his memories and thoughts, with snipets of information, about this new society. Literature makes not sense, and his refuge are old prophets´ and the Ilyad. 

Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

The Future: Fire by Ron Leshem, translated into German by Ulrike Harnish and Martin Lemke

Ron Leshem, the author of Fire - in the German translation, Feuer. Israel und der 7. Oktober - overviews Israel´ strategic mistakes, including regarding Sinwar, from the perspective of a future that must be focused on healing the trauma. It is a personal and society trauma, as Leshem had family members who lived in the kibbutzim and eventually got kidnapped. His insider knowledge combined with his analytic skills - he was a former intelligence officer gives a realistic chances of a difficult future yet not impossible to fathom. 

Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Adama by Lavie Tidhar

´They´re good boys, but bad things happen in war´.

 

The Hebrew word ´adama´ - earth, do include the word ´dam´ - blood.

Lavie Tidhar´s noir story of Israel, is subversively embracing a different, less romanticized narrative of the country. An inter-generational story that does not act according to the usual back and forth towards the memory lane, with gangster kibbutznik women following revenge until death do us apart. I laughed and had second thoughts and even checked some references that were obviously fictional, intentionally confusing the reader.

In Adama the kibbutzim and their inhabitants are everything we wished they are, and what some of them really were: fierce, boiling revenge, breaking up every single rule, breathing freedom. Tidhar moves with a joyous irony through fragments of Israeli history, with fine irony and historical references made in full honesty.

Ruth, the matriarch of kibbutz Trashim - ´rocky ground´, not ´trash´, but who knows - a fictional location placed in the North of Israel, is the perfect new Jew. A Holocaust survivor from Hungary, hard as stone, fierce. She hates Zohar Argov. Unstoppable even when touched by early setting of dementia. But some things simply cannot be forgotten. 

I always despised the Romantic view on kibbutzim. Pioneers, hard working, patriots. They were all of it and a bit more. Tidhar, a prolific science fiction writer and pulp fiction consumer, instilled life in the usual stereotypical kibbutznik. And how I love the gangster touch of it. After all, history is made by people, people like Ruth and the boys hidding weapons between the freshly harvested vegetables. 

The book is the second installment from the Maror Trilogy, and it was only my personal choice to start with the second one. I will continue with the reviews of the other two books at a later time.

Rating: 5 stars