Life ´In the Neighborhood of True´

Life ´In the neighborhood of true´ is a double-faced game of incertitudes and fears. In exchange for a temporary acceptance, one can agree to give up or hide his or her identity, but this game cannot played for ever. Or if you do on long term, it may damage irremediably your soul. Sometimes though, there are external factors that may put an end to this precarious double game. 

Based on the true story of the 1958 Atlanta synagogue bombing, In the Neighborbood of True by Susan Kaplan Carlton is the story about a young teenage Jewish girl, Ruth, moving from NYC to his mother town of Atlanta following the sudden death of her father. Converted to journalism, Ruth´s mother belonged to the white elites, with his father the owner of a local newspaper and her mother, Fontaine, a respected socialite with social anti-semitic views on Jews (´Jews are well accepted at the banks or the law offices, or the hospital or what not. But after dinner? After five o´clock, people like to socialize with their kind´). 

Ruth starts her new life in a private - Christian - school, where she is hiding her Jewishness, and is getting busy making new friends among the popular girls. She is easily accepted, given her pedigree. Her bibliography is intense, as she is trying to follow the social requirements for young ladies. She is also falling in love with Davis, an attractive and popular young man, from whom she is hiding her Jewish origin. Meanwhile, she keeps going to the synagogue on Saturday and become acquainted with Max, a young local activist. 

At the same time though she is observing her environment, with active KuKluxKlan attacks and the segregation. Somehow, Ruth´s secret is out in the air, but not yet completely but it will be only a matter of time until everyone will find out. At this age, when the self-esteem is still a work in process, it happens to prefer not being open about your identity, especially when it involves social and political risks. Once upon a time, I´ve been myself for one year in a very high-end high school where half of the students were Jewish bearing Jewish names, at least the given names, but still they prefer to keep their identity hidden, some of them by fear that the other half of the students will turn against them. 

But there are moments when one cannot stay silent and hiding who you really are it is more than cowardice. The attack against the synagogue in Atlanta, whose rabbi was against the segregation, woke Ruth up. There were no victims, but the view of the destroyed place of worship raised questions about her own choices, including her boyfriend. Whose brother, she will discover, was directly involved in the terrorist attack.

In the real story. in October 1958, KuKluxKlan bombed the Hebrew Benevolent Congregation, as a message against the political engagement of Rabbi Jacob Rotschild, who was an advocate of integration, civil rights and the end of the segregation. After several trials, no one was ever convincted.

As a story, In the Neighborhood of True is slow paced and raises interesting questions about identity and being true to oneself, especially for young/teenage readers. The ´white American´ part of Ruth´s life comes with many details and insights, while her Jewish identity is rarely explained. Indeed, she is going to the synagogue and cheers the memory of her Jewish father, but all the Jewish characters in the book do not have an outstanding genuine Jewish connection. I´ve personally found a bit curious that one of the perpetrators of the synagogue bombing is called Oren, which is a Jewish/Israeli name. 

Despite its shortcomings, this is a book that I will recommend for reading and a lengthy discussion for Jewish families and young adults living in predominant non-Jewish areas. It makes you think twice what to stand for and what it is important to keep being who you are, no matter the risks.

Rating: 3 stars 

Book Review: The Drive by Yair Assulin

The Drive by Yair Assulin is NOT a book against the compulsory military service in Israel. Is NOT a book written from a leftist perspective - although the author is a regular contributor to the Haaretz, the fanion of the left in Israel. The Drive is instead a book about chronical depression and masculinity misunderstood.

An unnamed young man is driving with his father to the WHO (Mental Health Office) at Tal Hashomer in Ramat Gan. He is a non-combat unit after being discovered that he has asthma. His family, especially his father, although is fully supporting him, cannot understand what is happening to him and keep outlining the risks of leaving the army altogether. The further integration into civil life in Israel depends at a great extent of the evaluations one got durin the military service. Being officially stamped as mentally unfit means not only a stigma for life, but also a very limited chance of professional achievement and for finding a partner as well (especially in the religious circles, as the narrator of the story is religious too).

But he cannot ignore for ever what is happening to him. ´(...) I knew that someone looking from the outside could not even begin to comprehend the suffocation that filled me each time I took the train to the base, the insurmontable pain I felt when I walked through those gates, the fear of something I cannot describe or define, the horribly cramped sensation that was unrelated to anything, certaninly not to a particular place or space´.

As the story evolves, so it is the story of the chronical depression, through the eyes from his family and people he is in touch with at the military base. ´I looked at Dad. He saw my look and put his hand on mine. I told him I was sorry, and he said that was nothing to sorry about, that he knew I was telling the truth, but all he was saying, again, was that he could not understand what was so bad for me than, and that he throught or feared I wasn´t telling him everything, because if I was then he simply could not understand what it was so bad´. 

He is banging his head against the wall, he is crying, he is about to jump in the front of a car. His interest in politics and the surrounded reality is disappearing. There is no more ´us´, it is only him and his pain and anguist. He feels trapped inside himself. Meanwhile, he is surrounded by arrogant and self-important people, keen to humiliate the others. He is turning madder and madder from a day to another, but it is not enough for the other people to notice the pain. ´(...) that betrayal of words, the capacity of people to say things without really meaning them, or to say things or take them back, or even to say them and deny they´d ever said them - that betrayel drives me mad´. ´My soul was genuinely threatening to explore at any moment. I really wanted to die. Every morning I wanted to die when I woke up and saw that miserable gray room with its four bunk beds, and the other soldiers getting dressed and polishing their boots, and I realized that another horribly normal day was about to begin´.

The emotional pain and restlesness are described in the smallest details and it is written depression all over the pages. The torments of the mind and of the heart are heartbreaking.

The army system in itself, with sometimes false gratifications doesn´t satisfy him, it deepens his pains and alienation. ´I repeated that the army was suffocating me. I said that all around the world, this was the age when a person shone by flourishing and I felt as if I were dying in the army. Why did we Israelis have to do that? I said I was dying, that I couldn´t breathe in that place´. They say in Israel that army is the school of life, that it makes you grow up fast and mature faster, For many, the friendships made in the Army lasts a lifetime. Everyone knows from an early age how their life will be after finishing high-school: the psychometric tests, the medical evaluations, the army service. This is the duty as it is the miluim, the reserve duty. Those few who actually skipped for different reasons the army service do not share it. But unless one has rich parents to set up a company for them, applying for work without the army service is a recipe for long time unemployment. The very religious who are not going to the army by principle do not deal with such issues, as they are supposed to spend time learning Torah in the kollel anyway. 

It is a complex issue, but this is not the aim of the book. Depression is a lifelong companion and its fights are by far harder than the ones fought in the army. The Drive is a testimony of the terrible true of this disease, no matter where and what context.

At first, I was a bit disappointed how abruptly the book ends. But, after all, the book it is called The Drive and it ends when the drive is over and the military psychiatrist put him on extended leave. 

I´ve read the book, that was awardede Sapir in the English translation by the excellent Jessica Cohen, the artisan of all the good Hebrew books translations.

Rating: 4 stars

The Story of Queen Vashti still waits to be told

You know that feeling when everyone is elated about something - in this case a book - and all the reviews in the publications that matter are enthusiastic and you are the only one who seems to not get the point. Not that your opinion will change the world, but still, you feel frustrated that it seems you´ve read something wrong or you misunderstood the book and you have no idea what you are talking about or what you are talked about.

Those are the kind of feelings during and after reading The Book of V. by Anna Solomon. I wanted from the bottom of my heart to find time to read this book, as it seemed to make a great point: making justice to Queen Vashti, the first wife of King Ahasverus in the book of Esther who was banished from the court after refusing to show herself naked in the front of the guests of the banquet, as per request of her husband. The midrashic sources - the Biblical exegesis - do have a variety of interpretations about Vashti. In any context, it is Queen Esther who is a winner, the hero and the savior. 

The Book of V. - V from Vashti - tells the stories of three women, at three different periods of time. Vee, the rich wife of a rising senator in the 1970s- which happens to be Jewish - who refused to show herself naked to a party, as per the request of her husband. Lily, from Brooklyn, a writer in waiting, Jewish, who is preparing for the festival of Purim - when the Book of Esther is read. And Queen Esther herself.

The stories of the two women intertwin, while the story of the Queen Esther serves as a background screen for their narratives. But I think the stakes were too high for the two women. Lily´s bland, the usual Lululemon confused NYC woman. Her mother, Ruth, who is dying during the story, a convert to Judaism, seems by far more interesting and with a good literary potential, but she is killed by the author way too fast. 

There is a very big risk took by an author when it plans to re-write such a complex story like the one displayed in the Book of Esther. You are either come with some outstanding new story, or not. A stay-at-home mom from Brooklyn is in any way out of this league. Trying to make everything sound cool and hip involves a high risk of failure. I suppose the story of Vashti still waits to be told. At least for me.

But justice to be done when it´s due: the writing is good and it compensates when the story is less good. 

I had access to the audio variant of the book.

Rating: 2.5 stars

Memories from the Baghdad that Once Was

How I wish I can see Baghdad through the eyes of the Jews that were forced to left. All the Iraqi Jews I´ve had the chance to meet that were born there kept nostalgia for this place in their hearts and minds.

The Dove Flyer by Eli Amir - himself born in Baghdad, nowadays living in the Gilo neighbourhood of Jerusalem - is a multi-layered story documenting the last years of the world oldest Jewish community between the terrible Farhood and the forced expulsion in 1950. There are wellknown documented facts unfortunatelly rarely mentioned in the big media. 

Told by Kabi who is a young teenager going himself through his coming of age story it features perfectly the diversity of voices within the community: the communist, the rabbi, the pro- and anti-Zionist etc. All of them are living though in a state of fear and ambiguity, not sure about what will happen next or if it is worth waiting to see. Moving to Israel - which may not be the country of milk and honey from the holy books - is for some an existential choice: Where else to go, but after all, why stay in the middle of an hostile world. But for most of them, their homeland will remain Iraq and if /when they are forced to leave, they will rarely accuse the entire society. Indeed, some of them were bad and indoctrinated, but the rest of the people, their neighbours, were those good people they helped during Shabbat or they break bread with during the rest of the week.

Besides the historical facts which serve as a context for the story, The Dove Flyer has interesting lively characters with a life of their own and a story to tell. There are love stories and bold characters keen to risk their lives for love, no matter what religion is involved. 

Amir´s novels, included in the school curricula in Israel, are both testimonies of the Iraqi Jews odissey and historical stories about a minority that suffered a lot both in diaspora and in the country. The Dove Flyer was turned also into a movie, Farewell to Baghdad.
Hopefully, I will write more in the next days and weeks about stories of Jews from Iraq, my modest contribution to all the good people from Iraq I had the chance to meet in the last years.

The World That We Knew...

´But life now depended upon luck, not reason´.

The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman is a gentle story about the intricacies of good and evil taking place during the terrible years of the WWII in France and Germany. It is also a story about strong resilient women and everlasting love that is stronger than the cruelty of death and goes far beyond it. 

Lea Kohn, guarded by Ava the Golem, and Ettie and Marta, rabbi´s daughters, are leaving the Nazi Berlin to France. Giving up a God that has forsaken her, inspired by Queen Esther, Ettie will join the Jewish Resistance to revenge the death of her sister. ´Vengeance was just beneath her skin, a shadow self, her true self, the one who had been holding her sister´s hand, the one who ran into the woods, who wanted to learn everytrhing she could be taught, starting now´. Ava, created by Ettie at the plea of Lea´s mother, was not made to have emotions, but she is developing slowly her own identity. I am not personally an expert on this topic, but I haven´t heard until now about a woman Golem. Ava´s character is evolving from  a clay-made creature assigned to exclusively serve his/her master to a curious being embracing life and dancing with her friend, the heron (a bird I´m almost sure I´ve encounter in a previous novel by Alice Hoffman I´ve read many years ago, but I cannot remember which one exactly), when no one is looking. 

When tragedies, both at the personal and historical level, unfold, staying alive is the most important achievement. There is no time for drama or overthinking. Running away at the right moment is life-saving. This is how the characters in this book survive, until the end of the war or just until the next incident. The Angel of Death is out in the fields and one must be faster than him. This quality of the characters, most of them young teens that are dramatically threw up from the childhood nest to the horrific realities of the fighting to stay alive when their parents are taken to death, is what makes the book a genuine realistic read. What would you do when you are given the chance to stay alive? Run for your life without never looking back.

Reading about encounters with death are emotionally exhausting, but Alice Hoffman is telling the story with such a beautiful voice, that one can come to accept life as it is, with humans the ways they are. A story which is first and foremost a Jewish story about terrible times that we are still trying to reckon with. 

Rating: 5 stars

Success Recipe for a Foreseeable Disaster?

As three elections and a corruption trial, plus a pandemic that put many hard working Israelis on survival mode was not enough, the announced intention of Benjamin Netanyahu to annex all settlements in Jordan Valley from 1st of July announces a terrible storm in the region. Is it just an apocalyptic - for the taste of the dear Rapture lovers among the Christian Evangelist Trump voters - fake journalistic lead? After all, following the annexation of Golan Heights over one year ago, nothing significantly bad happened, besides naming a settlement after the Twitter-lover American president...

When one is trying to understand the Middle East, the best is to give up using comparisons. Every single historical moment has its own specificities with a low rate of reproduction in the near future. I know it´s confusing but there is no way to change the situation.

Some intelligent people dare to compare though the risks presented by the annexation of Jordan Valley with the 1982 disaster of Lebanon. Gd forbid, it can be even worse, as the forces at work nowadays in the region are stronger and with a high level of security risk.

In the case of Golan Heights as for the settlements in the Jordan Valley, the Israeli authority is operating on the ground for a long time. However, Israel does not have a peace treaty with Syria therefore there is no risk of kindling the fire of a regional conflict following the legal annexation. 

On the other side, Israel do have a treaty with the Kingdom of Jordan and any unilateral annexation will not only affect the bilateral relations between the two countries, but it will seriously shake the stability in the Kingdom as well. King Abdullah of Jordan, on whose territory at least 1.5 million Palestinians are living, is trying hard to keep the Kingdom free of terrorist inferrences, including those fuelled generously by Iran. When the partner Israel, with whom it collaborates regularly for the sake of regional security, is betraying, the King will need to loose those ties in order to answer internal pressure and the risks of radicalisation of local Islamist movements. In a recent - not accidental - interview with the German weekly Der Spiegel the King - whose efforts are supported morally and financially by Berlin - warned that the expected annexation will bring more ´chaos and extremism in the region´. Germany, who starting with the 1st of July will lead both the EU Presidency and the UN Security Council, already dispatched its top diplomat to Jerusalem in order to warn Bibi that EU will not tolerate such an unilateral move. Most likely, Israel will pay the price by not receiving for a while important European monies for research projects.

As for the American establishment, there are more and more voices against the project, including Jared Kushner, for pure political calculations - reading 30 books or so about the Middle East was not enough. A success of the Democratic candidate

Besides Bibi himself - which probably is doing the move for just another short-term calculation - it is hard to estimate who actually really supports this annexation. The representatives of the settlers themselves are not happy with the outcome as they consider that the Trump plan is creating dangerous security risks, because it operates through areas with a high concentration of Palestinian population. Many of those Palestinians are regularly working together with Jewish settlers but a de jure annexation will discourage some local initiatives. 

The Palestinians threated to cut the security collaboration with Israelis and although on the ground the dialogue will not be expected to be cut completely, the very practical Mahmoud Abbas/Abu Mazen himself will be under pressure from Hamas to take a more radical stance. Exactly what the sponsors of Hamas (guess who) are waiting for.

This, in a time when Israel enjoyed a relatively terror-free period of time.

Oh, there may be some winners though. The terror fuelled by Daesh on one side, and Iranian mullahs, on the other side, can use the opportunity to take a harder stance against Israel. Bibi seems to use the warning of the ´Iranian threat´ when it suits his small political plans instead of considering a larger vision going beyond the current permanent tensions. Some people deserve each other, unfortunatelly...

On short term, maybe Saudi Arabia will win the short-term regional game by getting from Jordan the guardianship of the Temple Mount, but will it really be worth the price? For the region, not for Bibi himself...

There is still a long time until the 1st of July and Bibi, as usual, can change his mind, for pure political calculations only, unfortunatelly. There is no clear, step-by-step plan, not sure what will happen with the Palestinians living there and how the security will be guaranteed, including in relationship with the foreseeable tensions on all fronts - with Jordan, Hamas etc. The last talk was that the annexation will in fact cover Gush Etzion, Ariel and Ma´ale Adumim. Until the end of the month he can change the discourse hundred of times without doing anything. Hopefully. Otherwise in this crazy year, July will be the next month to remember, for all the wrong reasons.

Book Review: Welcome to Heavenly Heights by Risa Miller

´If the entire planet was a face, the settlements were the brow and Jerusalem was the eye. Or, if the entire planet was an eye, the settlements were the lid and Jerusalem was the pupil´.

Set in the ´wild, wild West Bank´, Welcome to Heavenly Heights by Risa Miller doesn´t innovate too much in terms of choice of setting and narrative: a group of English-speaking (Anglos), mostly non-sabras (not born in Israel) settlers living the Zionist dream. The dream may have different meanings as everyone´s dream is different: it can be cheap accommodation, the excitement of living among likeminded religious people, the deep belief that Jewish history is made. After a while, some of them might decide to return to their other country of milk-and-honey, America, because either they are having enough of ordering their favorite foods from their former homes or it is becoming too life threatening, or bureaucracy won them over. They are successful, religious practicant Jews - converts or from non-religious families too - that want to offer their children a meaningful life in Eretz, The Country.

I had this book on my Jewish reading radar for a long time for two reasons: it is written by a religious woman, the first recipient that won a PEN award, and it covers a topic that it is not properly addressed from the literary point of view. The books I´ve read until now about everyday life in the settlements were interesting, ironic, challenging intellectually and from the point of view of the recent Jewish history, still do not reflect properly the life that I had the chance to know myself. From this point of view, it seems that I still have to wait until either that novel is written. Maybe there are already quality books in Hebrew published already so need to do some intensive search in this direction.

As for the writing qualities, Welcome to the Heavenly Heights (the name of the settlement in West Bank) has noticeable qualities. The slow paced personal stories - set to take place following the cycle of the Jewish holidays - with Purim the best represented - of the small group of settlers are flowing beautifully, but unfortunatelly do not go beyond the simple creative writing setting. The entire book is like a monologue on multiple voices that connects because it is part of the novel setting, but without a literary strength or a strong narrative voice. Each and every piece of the puzzle is beautiful, but once put all together, the overall picture is bland.

Conclusion: Still looking for that beautiful settler novel...

Rating: 2.5 stars