'Ben Salomo Means the Son of Peace'

'Du, Jude' is a depreciative word in German. I've heard it exchanged more between teenagers of different backgrounds in different parts of Berlin, including the high-end Western side neighbourhoods.

I am referring to a reality of the 2000s, the time when I started my German experiences, and also had enough language knowledge to grasp different nuances and jargon.

In his autobiographical book - in German - the Israeli-born rapper Ben Salomo - Jonathan Kalmanovich - witnesses his experience as he landed in Schöneberg's Berlin in the 1980s, as a small child. The dream of the perfect multicultural understanding was shattered once he entered the teenage years, as his football companions coming from different backgrounds started to ask THE QUESTION: 'Where are you coming from?'. The friendships suddenly turned into a fight - yes, that real physical fight - for survival. 

And the story goes on. He created the popular Rap am Mittwoch/Rap on Wednesday events where various hip-hop artists had the chance to play. Himself, he built up a musical brand focused on spreading understanding and peace - Ben Salomo means in Hebrew the 'son of peace' - and his songs are sharing stories about what does it mean to live in Germany, to be Jewish and how to take on religious belief - very light, bitte.

The hip-hop landscape in Germany is not race neutral and anti-semitism is often rampant and sometimes also rewarded. The popularity such rappers enjoy explain maybe why Jewish children are often beaten and bullied in German state school - and in private ones as well, as recently happened in the famous JFK. The fact that this situation is taking place for decades and only gets more visibility because of social media, doesn't change the fact that proper education and pro-active measures failed to be taken.

Who known, maybe rap can change something...

Women and Hanukka

There are a lot of discussions lately regarding if the women are allowed or not to light the Hanukka candles. Some apparently ruled out of nowhere that the role of the women is just to be an extension of their husbands therefore, they have to be part of the event only. 

True is that usually in the Askenazi households there is the minhag (tradition) to do not light the candles, although ironically there is a Hanukiah for each member of the family (not the case by the Oriental Jews).

However, more than a minhag, it is not. According to Gemara (Shabbat 23a), women have the obligation to light the candles, according to the principle of af hein hayn b'oto ha-neis (they were also part of the miracle). They can light for the others as well as to fill the role of lighting it on behalf of the man. Lightning the candles per se is not a personal obligation, but it derives from the general obligation that each household should have a candle lit (ner ish u'berto). When there is no man in the house, a woman can do it. By extension, a woman has the same right as a man to light the candles, although traditionally - the various reform movements do have a completely different take on it - they are excepted from time-bound obligations (like, for instance, praying with a minyan - the minimum 10-men quorum requested for the prayers).

Chag HaBanot

There is another tradition associated with Hanukka which has the women in their center. The Jewish communities from the North African area - Algeria, Libya, Tunisia - do celebrate on the 1st of Tevet chag habanot - the festival of women. It fell on the 7th night of Hanukka and it involves dance, a feast as well as ceremonies aimed at passing down inheritances. If you had some disagreement with another woman, this is the right moment to make peace between each other.

This festival takes place on the first day of the new month - Rosh Chodesh - which customary represent an opportunity for women to gather and celebrate. As it also involves Hanukka celebration, it has a double meaning.

Chag HaBanot - which given its 'feminine' significance is reshuffled recently within the reform communities - started to be celebrated since the Middle Ages and it is held in the honour of Judith/Yehudit, which is also celebrated on the occasion of Hanukka. 

Judith, the daughter of Yohanan, the high priest, seduced the very cruel Assyrian general Holofornes who sieged the city of Betul  - situated nowadays between Jerusalem and Hebron. She served him cheese and red wine and when he fell asleep, she severed his head which was displayed on the walls, discouraging the Assyrian armies who disangaged and the ciy was saved.

On Chag HaBanot one serves cheese, special round cakes - eventually baked by men, crescent-shaped cookies and date-coconut balls.

The current trends/fashions aiming at excluding women from the public Orthodox space are becoming heretic. You don't have to declare yourself modern or emancipated in order to survive, you just have to turn to the complexity of the Jewish law and read them using the knowledge not the limited outlook of a fanatic heart. 

Book Review: Becoming Eve by Abby Chava Stein

What are the successful literary ingredients of a successfull newly emerging OTD - off the derech, leaving the fold - literature (especially memoir)? Add some details about how insular and inadequate according to the standards of the 21st century those Hasidic Jews are living, include a spicy detail about arranged marriages (which happen in other traditional non-Jewish communities as well), don't forget to mention some hard-core information about the lack of sexual education and the family purity laws. If you have some references to the Kabbalah, so popular for all the wrong reasons, you can call it a recie for success.

The non-religious Jewish and non-Jewish audiences will easily roll their eyes while enjoying to have once again a confirmation of their deep doubts about 'very' religious Jews. 

On the OTD literature shelf, Becoming Eve. My Journey from Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi to Transgender Woman by the very active Abby Chava Stein is unique because it deals with the first transgender ex-Hassid featured in a book. 'A beautiful, traumatic, loving, angry, obedient, rebellious journey'. 

However, exactly this transition part is last featured in the book, covering around 40 from the 300 pages. The rest is covering in the small details the daily school and yeshiva program, the intensive 'sexual education' program received before marriage and other exotic details about Hasidic families, for instance the dispute regarding the colour of tights her mother was expected to wear in order to respect the modesty standards in her father's family. 

The fact that will lead to the decision of finally coming out as a woman is confirmed many times during the story, with reference to memories as early as of 3 years old. Through hypnosis, maybe it is possible to have such recollections from such an age.

Personally, I was waiting for this memoir for months, but probably I had too many expectations. 

Descending from the line of Besht, the founder of Hasidism, Abby Chava Stein belongs to the Hasidic royalty, whose representatives 'have to be role models, (...) have to be careful with everything (...)'. From her early school years, Abbi Chava Stein challenged the learning system and the chore of faith itself. So bad that probably a lot from her story got lost due to various commercial reasons probably. I hope there will be a continuation of some kind of this memoir.

As for now, my favorite OTD memoir is Leah Vincent's for the dramatic introspection and insights about what it really means the deep loneliness of leaving your community and starting a completely new life. Some outsiders will clap their hands extatically and praise the move, but how it really is only the person doing it really knows. 

A New Research Path in Studies about Hasidism

After reading several (meaning good dozen) of books about Hasidism, one may realize after a short while that the content is becoming repetitive. There are inevitably information about the history of the movement, outlines of the founders and famous dynasties (Satmer and Chabad especially, as they are by far the most successful; too much Chabad though in my humble opinion). Some unique information revealed in well-kept archives of various groups is what differentiates one book from the other. 

Historical Atlas of Hasidism has a completely different type of perspective. It has maps focused on various dynamics and trends, from the structure of the courts to the circulation of petitions and migrations and resettlements after WWII. 

'Hasidism has been conditioned by the spatial characteristics of the movement, not only in its social organization, but also in its spiritual life, type of religious leadership, or cultural articulation. And it is possible to capture this dimension of Hasidism with maps'. Such an approach is a welcomed changed of shift which may help seize trends and mentality patterns, as well as aspects of the material culture that previous studies neglected or were unable to understand.

Rightly, the author mentions among the limitations of the research in this field:  the predominance of intellectual history which neglects economic, social, cultural or political histories; an inadequate use of sources of non-Hasidic origin (particularly if not in Hebrew or Yiddish); a chronological focus on the early stages of the movement; esentialist and ahistorical approaches when it comes to what is and what is not Hasidism.

The focus on geography and classifications in general may lead to uncovering very interesting aspects on Hasidic life in Central and Eastern Europe but also allows regional identifications of trends and mentalities. 

Compared to the richness of information contained in the maps, the texts are not necessarily outstanding and repeat basic information about the various movements and dynasties found elsewhere. In one particular case when mentioning the 'Romanian features' - not detailed - of dynasties like Nadvorna or Vizhnitz - both named for localities that actually do not belong necessarily to the Romanian-administrative space, the author omits completely to offer well-deserved explanations of any kind.

Personally, this book helped me a lot in my future researches on Hasidism and hopefully will be able to go more into depth research.

The Most Efficient Way to Fight Anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism has a long history that will never end. It only change faces and manifestations, but the profile of the actors stays mostly the same, both on the right and the left.

I was looking to read How to Fight Anti-Semitism not waiting to discover anything new, but curious about exactly what the title say. After all, some compare it to infamous 1930s, but the tools we have at our disposal are different. Also, there is something else that was not before, called the state of Israel, where the Jews can be protected when there is no safe haven left.

And what a lesson of fight this book is! Without being apologetic, without forgetting the difficulties the Israeli democracy is going through, without leaving behind any single aspect of religious Jewish life and identity.

This book resonates completely or partially with the experience of many Jews in Europe and America: keeping your identity hidden, even change your name for being left alone in your anonymity, hiding your religious identity signs (kippa, Magen David, tzitzit) for avoiding being aggressed, keeping quiet about what one thinks about Israel by fear of not being labelled 'Zionist'. From the right to the left, strong identities, which set apart from the majority are considered dangerous and treated accordingly. But how was it in the time of Queen Esther, the assimilated Jew at the Persian court who saved the murder of fellow Jews from Haman who couldn't stand them staying apart?

When you know who you are, you know what you are fighting for. This is how anti-Semitism is fought, with the mild yet sharp weapon of knowledge and education. Educate your critical thinking and be able to express your concerns in a reliable, coherent way. It is about time that more and more people give up the mentalitiy of the woman being raped accused for being her fault because dressed immodestly.

The 'how to' part takes only one chapter from the book - which I had in audio format, narrated by the author, but to be honest, even without this otherwise important chapter it's obvious how exactly one can fight anti-Semitism. I've seen reviews mentioning that the book fails to mention how to do that fight. Wrong. If at least once, or twice, or many times you've been victim of anti-Semitism you can easily figure out what it is all about. The story is already there. A story that concerns both Jews and non-Jews, Christians and Muslims. They always start with the Jews, but rarely ended with them.

A Jewish Mystery with a Talmudic Touch

Rabbi Small is one rabbi of a kind, working for over a year in the 'temple' in Massachusetts, for a couple of hundreds of Jewish families.When he was in the middle of the discussions about the renewal of his contract, an attractive young blonde babysitter was found dead on the synagogue's lover lane and her bag in the rabbi's car.

The first from the 12 series built around Rabbi Small, Friday the Rabbi Slept Late by Harry Kemelman was published in 1964 and received the Edgar Award for Best First Novel one year later. 

For me, this was my first encounter with the rabbi and it was a pleasant lecture. It is a classical mystery novel, with hints spread long before the crime was committed, with a simple narrative and relatively easy going characters - both the bad and the good ones. The solution to the crime is highly unexpected, with couple of fake possible culprits dismissed during the search, but makes logically sense.

Additionally, there is the talmudic touch of the story, which makes it into a Jewish mystery. The Rabbi, a learned man deeply immersed into his learning and disregarding the need of building up alliances among the synagogue board members, uses his bright mind and talmudic knowledge to judge and find the murder. Compared to other religious chiefs - like the Catholic and Protestant priests - through judgment can a rabbi help the larger society in the middle of which he is living (not by blessing yachts for instance). But there are some ugly faces to the co-existence - which by the way are still surviving in the 21st century America: once the rabbi was counted among the suspects, there is a group of 'idiots of the village' - we'll call them 'alt-right' nowadays - calling him and his wife throwing up nauseous anti-Semitic attacks and even painting a red swastika on their door. The ways in which the Jews are seen by the majority is a matter of concern for the board of the 'temple' which makes sense anywhere in the diaspora.

I enjoyed this mystery and would love to read all the books from the series. Rabbi Small is a very relatable person to deal with.

'The Netanyahu Years'

Although so far, my favorite book about Bibi Netanyahu in terms of comprehensive view on the political character is Anshel Pfeffer's, The Netanyahu Years by Ben Caspit, also a journalist, offers a psychological description of the - still - Israeli prime-minister. And what you see at the end is not a nice view of him, not at all.

Used to live 'well at low cost' from his NYC years, Netanyahu - described by the former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin as 'an American soap opera hero', 'this emigrant (that) wants to be prime minister of Israel (allusion of the years Bibi spent with his family in the States) - is a man with a big, big love for power. And for Sara too.

'(...) friends, feelings, and commitments are all foreign to Netanyahu when he is focused on an objective'. As for now, his objective is to stay in power, even with the risk of keeping a country captive to his political projections, as it happens right now. Successfully entering the history as the longest prime-minister, the only way he got the revenge to Ben Gurion who marginalized his father and to the 'princes' of the Israeli politics who ridiculized his ambitions, he built up his own world. Where he and Sara - the first time in the seven decade old state of Israel when a prime minister wife become so involved in the everyday political life (not that they were not worth it) - are ruling a country, and even dare to face the American politicians and presidents. An attitude that not only damages Likud but on the medium and long term affects at a great extent the future of the Jewish state and its position into the world arena.

Although I've found that the book delves too much into psychology and even psychiatry, The Netanyahu Years is an useful reading, among other recent books about the Israeli prime minister.    

Five Hasidic Dynasties in America and the Search for Leadership

In non-elective structures where the criteria for leadership rely on non-rational qualities, the quest for a leader requests very complex choices. Typical for the European Askenazi Jews, lineage and ancestral merit are important in the choice of Hasidic leaders. What you do when there are conflicting personalities and the criteria of the 'zar hodesh' (literally, 'holy seed') does not stand some minimal chances of spiritual survival? When unhappy brothers rebel against each other for getting the power they assume they equally deserve? 

Who Will Lead Us? by Samiel C. Heilman covers the story of five Hasidic dynasties - some famous as Satmar, Bobov and Chabad, some less like Kopyczynitz - from the perspective of the approach to leadership. Leadership means charisma - according to the classical description of Max Weber - but also the capacity to manage properties, succeed to increase the number of followers, fundraise, even maintain a certain relatioship with the non-Jewish authorities. Following the 'theology of genealogical sanctity' metioned by Heilman: 'One succeeded not only to the position of rebbe but also to family leadership, and often inherited family property and control over precious objects like manuscripts or Judaica freighted with the iconic power of leadership'.

Who Will Lead Us? was built on an impressive amount of information. Inside information, historical information, any kind of information. You are took witness of the highs and lows of one of the most powerful Hasidic courts, with their conflicts, alliances for power and deceits. Some information are unique even for people familiar with some of these dynasties. 

However, I had more than once the feeling of getting mostly sherayim (the morsels of food distributed to Hasidim from the rebbe's tisch/table). Academic research often involves gathering tons of information out of which you use only a small percentage for your main work. The rest you maybe will use on another occasion, maybe not. I had more than once the feeling while reading this book that there is way too much anectodic, that even the selection of the dynasties is not necessarily relevant but all those data was just there and had to be used. 

What I was expecting from such a book was maybe a serious academic analysis of this typical case of leadership, which is the religious leadership, specifically the Haredi one. Overwhelmed by too much information, this is what the book missed to provide.

Rav Pinto, Kushner, Trump&co.

If you think that something was missing from the 'bordel' which is the White House right now, think twice. Maybe you are wrong. There are all there, enjoying the show. Among them, representatives of the 'miracle rabbis' Pinto family.

Coming from a famous and revered family of Moroccan Jews, among which the Abuhazeira branch represented by the 'saint' Baba Sali, the Pintos are an interesting spiritual mix. Yoshiyahu Pinto who spent a year in an Israeli prison for bribery is a follower of the Satmer branch of Askenazi Hasidism. (He is not the only Sephardi Moroccan attracted to the European brand of Judaism, as the current ministry of Interior and Shas leader, Arye Deri whose parents were traditionally religious also studied in Askenazi yeshivot). Yoshiyahu's uncle, Rav David Pinto wears a kapota and a hat close to the Chabad style.

Both Jared Kushner, whose family is Modern Orthodox, and Ivanka Trump praise the Pinto family advice, either on personal and religious matters. (Actually, to keep things right, Hillary went for a blessing and an advice to them too). The Kushners are regular donors to various educational and charitable institutions belonging to the Pinto family, both in America and Israel and Ivanka is said to have kept a close relationship with the Pintos during her conversion to Judaism through the Chabad. Rav Yeshayahu Pinto apparently even mediated a dispute between Charles Kushner, Jared's father, and his brother Murray (the relationships in Kushner family, including between close brothers are extremely wild, to describe them in a very polite way, more about it in a well-documented book by Vicky Ward Kushner Inc.: Greed. Ambition.Corrution. The extraordinary story of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump) 

Some say that in the hard moments of the Trump electoral campaign, Jared Kushner received advice and inspiration from the Pinto rabbis, for example to replace Corry Lewandowski with Kellyann Conway. From the Pinto family headquarters in Ashdod, Israel, every Shabbat candles are lit and blessings are made for president Trump. 

While recently in Morocco with Jason Greenblatt, Kushner went to the graves of the holy Pinto rabbis. In NYC, he and Ivanka are often visiting the grave of the Schneerson rabbi, also considered a 'miracle rabbi' for some of his Askenazi followers.

Sometimes though, even the holiest miracle rabbis can't do anything during debacle times.

Traces of Jewish Life in Coppenbrügge, Niedersachsen

There are not too many stories about the Jewish life in Coppenbrügge, a small village situated near Hannover and Hameln, in Niedersachsen, Germany. The community was always small, with around 50 Jews living here at the beginning of the 19th century. 

The presence of Jews here is first mentioned in 1630. For the holidays and the Shabbat, the services were offered as far as Hameln, made famous by Brothers Grimm Pied Pipper of Hamelin.

The few Jewish families living here were active in small businesses, such as the Levy family, which owned a textile factory. Oskar Levy was member in the local hunting and war veterans associations, from whom he was dismissed shortly after the Nazi come to power. 

But the Nazi were not having enough humiliating and killing innocent people, they had their feud with the dead Jews too, as they destroyed the local cemetery where 60 people were laid to rest. The cemetery was open since 1787, for the Jews living in the communities of Coppenbrügge, Brünninghausen and Hohnsen.

After the war, the plot that used to be a cemetery was purchased by a private person and was returned back to the Jewish community only in 1988. There are no information about Jews living now an open Jewish life in Coppenbrügge. The area of the former cemetery is marked with a fence, with a modest memorial for the Jews murdered.

An informative billboard has an outline of the circumstances that lead to the destruction of the Jewish life in Coppenbrügge, mentioning the name of the former Jewish residents murdered: Erich Levy, Lieschen Levy, Oskar Levy, Ruth Levy, Ernst Rothstein, Bertha Spiegel. May their memory be a blessing and the name of their murderers for ever erased!

In the Memory of the Brave Women from Rosenstrasse

Tucked between Alexanderplatz and Hackescher Markt in Berlin, surrounded by modern communist blocks of houses, there is Rosenstrasse, a small square nowadays part of the oldest steets of Berlin. 

On Heidereutergasse it used to be Berlin's oldest and first synagogue, built in 1714 and destroyed during WWII. Since 1905, at Rosenstrasse 2-4 were also administrative buildings of the Jewish community. 

However, this street is remembered for a more dramatic story, outlined by a complex of statues called the 'Block of Women'.

Between February and March 1943, in this neighbourhood took place the biggest spontaneous protests in the Third Reich. The protesters were the women - wives, relatives, mothers - of around 2,000 Jews - mostly men - that were detained here at the end of February 1943 by the Gestapo. Until then, the Jews parteners in mixed marriages were tolerated by the Nazi regime and therefore saved from deportations and murder. 

For around a week, around 600 women protested daily for being allowed to get in touch and the liberation of their loved ones. The peaceful protests were not followed by arrests and most of the detainees were freed - except some that were already sent to concentration camps. There is a movie released in 2003 dedicated to the protests, an outstanding example of civil courage, directed by Margarethe von Trotta.

The impressive block of statues - comprising six elements - is the work of the late GDR artist Ingeborg Hunziger herself with a complex Jewish history. Carved in reddish sandstone, the complex is aimed to outline on one side the tremendous solidarity of the women that were ready to risk everything. The participants to the protests were probably afraid of the consequences but being united keep their going and helped to succeed despite all odds.

The violently broken blocks also mean the deep destruction brought to the Jewish life and culture by the Shoah. On a bench, a couple of meters away from the complex, there is a man sitting spread on a bench. During the War, the Jews were not allowed to sit on benches. 

I've personally find the sculpture sending a very powerful message, with a story in images which is pertaining and leaving strong impressions and memories. Probably one of the most pertinent I've seen in Germany.

Every time I am thinking about those protests and their outcome, I can't stop thinking in terms of 'what if...'. Obstinacy and love, and the acknowledgement of the injustice saved the life of 2,000 people condemned to death. What if...?

Book Review: David Assaf - Untold Tales of the Hasidim

'(...) academics, may they bite the dust'. This harsh statement - especially if you are an academic and this matters for you - is included in the rabbinic ban issued by Rabbi Yisrael Eliyahu Weintraub agaist the works on zoology and science of Rabbi Nosson/Nathan Slifkin. This depreciation of anything that has to do with academic research and knowledge in general is not new and unfortunatelly applies even to the most 'progressive' - for the naives ears and eyes - Hasidic groups as the Chabad which constantly discourge their followers to follow an academic career.

The extensive research of a couple of Hasidic characters done by David Assaf in Untold Tales of the Hasidim is an interesting evaluation in this respect. The tales in question refer to a couple of representatives of various Hasidic dynasties - Ruzhin, Chabad, Satmar among others - with unique life stories that sometimes leaded them against their group and even against their Jewish upbringing. They are the OTD - Off the Derek, term used for the ex-Hasidic men and women that left the fold - of the old times, without the advantage of nowadays widespread online media and the support of organisations like Footsteps helping them have a normal life as part of the general society they are living in.

But even then, complex mechanisms of internal and external censorship operated apparently successfully enough to obliterate from the collective memories those individuals that did not conform to the set of values assumed by the respective religious group. Memory is used not in order to find the truth but to reshape the collective identity. 'The mechanisms shaping and preserving historical memory among groups with a religious, ideological, political or educational agenda (including Hasidim) do not always take an interest in history as it was but rather in a form that can be called history as it should have been. Memory is a prime educational tool, and any unauthorized interpretation can shake the foundations of an ideological world in need of nurture and protection from its enemies'. 

The tales re-told by Assaf, a specialist in Hasidic dynasties and histories in general, recollect a diverse range of situations and personalities: from the conversion to Christianism to Moshe, the son of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Lyady (Chabad), to the curious 'defenestration' of the Seer of Lublin, or the fierce opposition to the Bratslav Hasidim or the curious personality - for his Hasidic background - of Rabbi Menahem Nahum Friedman of Itscan the last scion of the Shtefaneshti dynasty. 

Each story is told from different angles, finely outlining the historical evaluation and interpretation at different moments. 

The book is precious not only for the complex methodology and the fine attentio to detail, but also for taking out of Hasidic historical forgetfulness - for very clear ideological reasons - extraordinary histories. Most of those characters were, in fact, sending a message of a crisis following the dramatic meeting between modernity and tradition. Many of the contemporary untold tales of the Hasidim are in the making. 

Gur vs. Gur

Shortly before the end of the High Holidays, a rumour that was in the air for a couple of months already was confirmed: the Gur/Ger hasidic sect, the largest in Israel and probably the only big one that remain united during its 160 years of existence, is splitting.

The Simcha Torah prayers this Monday, in Jerusalem, were held separately by the adepts of the current Gur Rebbe, the Admor Rav Yaakov Aryeh Alter and those of his cousin Rav Shaul Alter. Rav Shaul Alter succeeded to gather on his side around 250 families, that joined him in prayers in a shul in the North of Jerusalem. Gur is considered to count around 11,000 families, with followers outside Israel mostly in the USA (Brooklyn), London and Canada. 

The fifth rebbe, Yisrael Alter died childless, being succeeded by his brother, Rav Pinchas Menachem  Alter. The current Admor, the 8th rebbe, was born in 1939 and is ruling the dynasty since 1996. 

The conflict betwee the two is boiling for a considerable amount of time. Some might say that in fact it started as early as 10 years ago, when the Admor decided to introduce a new way of learning that in the end leaded to the closure of the Sfas Emes yeshiva whose head was Rav Shaul Alter, a position he took over from his father. The partial confirmation of the big split that was supposed to follow took place early this year, after Rav Shaul was not invited to the wedding of the Admor's grandson in Jerusalem. 

The split is official now, and the communication on behalf of the current Gur leadership outlined diplomatically that everything was done in order to avoid the situation, but to no avail. Now, that the holidays are over, those who followed Rav Shaul Alter are expected to be expelled from the main institutions of the sect, and among others, their children from the yeshiva and the other institutional organisations. The first step towards recognition of the new group will be the state approval for the creation of new institutions, such as schools, yeshivot, but most probably this will last. Gur remains a very powerful force among the Hasidic/ultra-orthodox political entities in Israel, particularly Agudas Israel party. 

Rav Shaul Alter is expected to visit soon the USA in order to get more support, both in terms of new followers and financially. There might be many more members of the Gur keen to join the dissenters, but they will rather wait the next steps and the settlement of the institutional and financial resources in order to avoid risking their status and the incumbent benefits. 

The Gur is considered alongside Toldot Aharon, one of the closest Hasidic sects, with its own bizarre rules regulating the relationships between (married) men and women, and a strict control of the rebbe over the hasid's personal life. Inside testimonies are rare, and when it happens they have a deeply dramatic turn, as it was the case of Esty Weinstein, a former Gur who committed suicide in 2016 following the forced separation from her children, leaving behind a memoir about her struggles within the sect. 

The everyday life of a Gur couple is regulated by takanot - Ordinances on Holiness  - which recommend, among others, very limited sexual relationship (preferably only once a month, after leil tevilah - immersion of the woman in the mikve at the end of the period), minimal contact during the intercourse or requirement to the man to remain partially dressed when having intimate relationship with his wife. Such stringencies create a relatively problematic issue for matchmaking representatives of the Gur hasidim outside the sect. I remember how a couple of years ago, a friend of mine was about to marry a Gur, until she found out about the takanot and run as far as possible from the match.

What exactly the new group will bring, including in this very personal and intimate respect, remains to be known. The time and the next moves on both sides will show in the next weeks and months. 

We're Still Here

The members of the Jewish families that survived the Shoah do have many secrets to share and to be revealed. Some were hidden for ever in the overwhelming sadness of the survivors that left behind with the murdered loved ones a part of their emotions, hearts and understanding.

Tracing back those secrets, recreating the histories that really made history is becoming harder and harder as the number of those who survived is constantly decreasing. 

Esther Safran Foer is one of those 'gatekeepers of the past'. In I Want to Know We're Still Here she is recreating her family history, through travel, intensive research in the archives, oral testimonies and, when necessary, detective work too. The journey tracing her family history back in the Ukraininan shtetl of Trochenbrod was earlier started by one of her famous sons, Jonathan that ended up writing a work of fiction - Everything is Illuminated - turned later into a movie. But Esther Safran Foer has a list of names, pictures and the desire to discover more about the family her father had during the war. His first wife and daughter were murdered and Esther is intensively researching - through interviews and research done in USA, Israel and Ukraine - those particular destinies. 

We say that someone really dies when there is no one to remember him or her. When there is no one to be given his or her name. This is why in the Askenazi - European Jewish - tradition, we give to a child the name of a dead relative. Thus, the name and the spirit of the deceased stays alive. But what happened when there is no trace of your name left?

Esther Safran Foer succeeds in her treasure hunt discovering her lost relatives. Their names are kept alive through her grandchildren. We're still here.

This relevant post-Holocaust memoir is important for the state-of the art of the genealogical researches and research of personal Jewish narratives. It reveals the ways in which the information from human sources and archives can be used, as well as the new connections made possible by DNA tests and use of online databases. It offers an example of how to proceed to post-Holocaust research, navigating through a sea of information in the absence of direct human sources. 

I personally loved the simple realistic style. It allows the memories to take shape in a photographic way. More than once, one can easily see the short movie of specific events or contexts. 

I Want to Know We're Still Here has a unique voice. Similarly with the memories from different corners of the world Esther Safran Foer collects in ziplock bags - earth, stones etc - it is a fragment of life. Life that once was before it become history. But as long as we're still here, it is a history whose memory will not be forgotten. 

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

Personal Histories in Comic Strips

There is no other graphic way to express the tragi-comic historical drama than through strongly visual appealing images. Bring it the broken bodies with blood and enormous hearts taken out of the body, multi-dimensional realities and psychotic thoughts.

The Realist, by Asaf Hanuka - which I've read in the German translation - is an autobiographical comic book about an illustrator living in Tel Aviv. Although some of of the interpretations might be considered as breathing a dramatic pessimism, it is not a wrong-placed feeling. It makes sense to be like this when you feel that life and its masters are faster than you. But I don't think that one should read this book with a sad twist. That's the realism, the title refers to that is the best way to describe this life: you are sinking into debts for reaching a minimum life standards, you work a lot and still unable to make your family happy, you feel under threat of various military attacks, you dream - realistically - that the protests for the unbearable costs of the living are the beginning of a better life (it was just a dream). Besides the personal story, there are other information intertwinned in the story, such as stories of Iraqi Jews coming to Israel or even about some long forgotten bands from the 70s.

I've followed the multi-awarded Asaf Hanuka for too long to remember when and how I actually discovered his works. His illustrations were published in Forbes, Politico and Wall Street Journal, among many others, and he was a contributor to Waltz with Bashir. His twin brother Tomer, is also an illustrator. 

It is fascinating how he succeeds to create through colours and multi-dimensional illustrations fantastic emotional stories. The images are not only alive, but able to transmit feelings - raw, some of them - and strong impressions. There is a strength of the images that leads you into the story without asking. You are becoming part of the story told. For me, it is the perfect way to make comic strips reliable mediums for story telling, regardless what kind of stories do you want to tell. 

Film Review: Menashe

'For me, cinema is about opening worlds and understanding them', said in one interview the film director of Menashe, Joshua Z. Weinstein, a movie that gathered appreciations at big world film festivals, from Berlin to Sundance.. Without being Hasidic himself, Weinstein touched upon in this movie an issue not enough discussed: how it is to be a single dad in a Jewish Orthodox community.

Menashe is a widower, with a 8-year old son, fighting to make it from a day to another,while working as a cashier in a kosher supermarket. A good simple soul that does not want to fully conform in a community where the decisions are taken by others and where is a high pressure to obey to rules, from the way you dress to the way you pray and the number of children you have at home.

Considered unable to take care of his son, he had to surrender custody to his wealthier in-laws, until he is finding a new wife. His dates - arranged by the matchmaker - are a nightmare and it reminds him of his own marriage that was far from being happy. Menashe was married by his father at 22 (relatively late according to the religious communities), with a woman with whom he did not share too many happy moments. In communities where the social pressure is so big, happiness is not a choice: a man should provide continously to a permanently expanding family. As the duty of the woman is to have as many children as G-d allows, the duty of the man is to be successful both in this professional endeavours and in Torah learning.

The movie, spoken in Yiddish, is easy to watch, focused on Menashe's story - played by Menashe Lustig that apparently went through a similar experience. More than the play of the actors - not impressive in my opinion, the story is what captivates, with a warm empathic touch. Indeed, the situation of single/widowed/divorced women in the strictly religious communities is often portrayed, but what is going on with a man in a similar situation is less known. 

Indeed, Joshua Z. Weinstein succeeded to open and create understanding for untold, hidden stories.

'When We Were Arabs', a different approach to Jewish identity

'Arabeness is a personal identity, it is my politics, my inheritance, how I was raised, my relationship and bond to others who share in that legacy, the soil from which I emerge. Judaism is my faith and my understanding of metaphysical things. (...) I am Arab first and last. Judaism is an adjective that modifies my Arabness'.

After all, identity is a matter of personal choice and in the 21st century we are provided with a richness of conceptual frameworks and ideas to create our very specific identity. It is a matter a choice and of taste, after all.

In When We Were Arabs. A Jewish Family's Forgotten History, Massoud Hayoun wrote a memoir about his grandparents story and experiences as Jews living in Tunisia and Egypt. Interesting narratives that completes the landscape of Jewish identities in the Middle East. Which is not that easy as it might be and far from being black-and-white. However, focus to built his 'Arabeness', Hayoun is ignoring some important details while in some cases takes for granted anti-Semitic propaganda from the yellow Arab media. 

He is unhapppy with the 'de-Arabization' of the young Jews from Northern Africa, that followed the directions of the various French Zionist organisations from the end of the 19th century. Those organisations preached - through the French language - a Westernization of those cultures, that affected not only their dressing style but also the state system. Further on the Jews were used to 'colonize' the Muslim world. The critics against 'Westernization' are common at the beginning of the 20th century all over the Far and the Middle Eastern. The 'third-world'/'tiers-monde', to follow the French Marxists discourse has to do with those critics as well. But it is worth to evaluate negativelly those influences. Was it exclusively a one sided approach? What about the fact that thanks to this 'Westernization', the education for girls was made possible? Those details are not discussed at all by Hayoun. 

Hayoun is also excessively using the metaphor of the 'peaceful Arab-Jewish co-existence' in those areas. The truth is that sometimes it worked, sometimes not. Perfect peace was not and when the situation is not evaluated on a case-by-case basis it does not bring any value to an eventual understanding the Arab-Jewish relations in the Arab world. What Hayoun mentions more than once is that many problems appear following the creation of the Jewish state and sometimes even 'Zionist' themselves created such skirmishes in order to speed up the migration to Israel. Nothing, for instance, about the alliances between Nazi Germany and some states and religious leaders in the area. Or, about how the anti-Semitism originated in those areas - yes, it is an example of 'Westernization' that Hayoun aparently missed when preparing his research.  

Plus, there is the clear bias that I've seen repeated ad nauseam about the anti-Mizrahim attitude of the founders of the state of Israel. Indeed, someone coming from a Polish shtetl,for instance, might have had difficulties in understanding the mentality of let's say, a Jew from Yemen, and the other way round. But there were and are so many nuances and special stories that deserve more than being omitted in the sea of injustice and frustration. 

This clear bias affects at a great extent the quality of the memoir, which has a couple of interesting information about the specific Jewish communities in Egypt and Tunisia. Unfortunatelly the 'ideological' parts are unfortunatelly the only coherent ones, as the story of his grandparents is lost among irrelevant details about half-baked cultural theories. And this is exactly why I was interested in reading this book, for revealing the richness of particular communities and the stories of its people.  

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

Ludovic Bruckstein: The Maggid of the Carpathian Jews

Ludovic (Joseph Leib) Bruckstein is quasy unknown in the Romanian literary realm and the Jewish literature in Eastern Europe in general. Born in Munkacs (Munkacevo) and growing up in Sziget (Sighet), in the Northern part of Transylvania (Hungary/Romania), in 1972 he left Romania for Israel. While in Romania, he wrote plays and short stories, and taught at the University, but it looks like his name was completely erased from any literary mention. His writings he published in Israel until his death in 1988 caught the attention of the local literary critics and were mentioned in Viata Noastra/Our Life, one of the main publications in Romanian in Israel. Again, he remains largely unknown in his country of origin.

Istros Books brought Bruckstein into the wider, English-speaking literary world, publishing two of his novellas, The Trap and The Rag Doll. Personally, I didn't know what to expect from this book. I've only vaguely heard about him but couldn't place his work in any context, either regional/local or Jewish in general. 

The novellas are insightful, with a strength of the storytelling that keeps you captivated during the reading while occupying your mind with many general human questions after you've finish. 

The Trap takes place in the context of the humiliations Jews had to deal with daily in his native Sighet. 'How easily a man accustoms himself to everything! Even to his own humiliation' says Ernst, the main character of the story. The friendly town he returned to from his architecture studies in Vienna 'had become a prison with invisible walls, and he had to escape from those walls'. He will survive the war, for ending up deported by the Russians following a completely absurd occurence. But besides the story in itself, written in the cadence of the old Hassidic stories told by the itinerant storyteller or the maggid there is something else that struck me: the fact that most situations and characters are in fact hiding behind the friendly welcoming appearance a darker side. From the beautiful walls of the Palace of Culture to the German polite/distant attitude of the art student from Berlin turned into SS cruel executant or the apparent friendliness of the peasants from the mountains, Ernst is the witness of the historical revelation of the beautiful appearances, of the human lows and weaknesses. It is the experience that people that went through the horrors of the Shoah - as Bruckstein himself - had to live with thereafter. 

The Rag Doll approaches a different topic, but nothwistanding a common occurence in the life of Jews in this part of the world: mixed marriages, when the Jewish member shall give up/hide his/her identity. The lovestory between Theo and Hanna survived the harassment against the Jews during the war but failed when Theo met a much younger colleague at work. Hanna gave up her Friday evening candle lightning as a 'protection' for her daughters. But once in a while, she cannot stand still when she hears the usual anti-Semitic references or longing for her family home and the life with her parents, murdered during Shoah that disowned her anyway after marrying a non-Jew. The precise location of the story is not mentioned but the name of the characters sound Romanian with some Slavic/German sounding ones, typical for the multicultural border areas. 

Those two novellas by Bruckstein are important for the local Jewish history but also for the literary Jewish history in Romania. Hopefully, once the English translation is done, someone will have the idea to translate his works into Romanian as well. 

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

Understanding Israeli Reform and Conservative Movement

The biggest advantage of getting in touch with other communities and ways of thinking that it challenges your familiar ways of perceiving your home reality. Upon return, one might want to change the home reality or at least to find the islands of comfort that he or she encountered abroad.

The Reform and Conservative Judaism - which, according to a poll by the Israeli Democracy Institute do enjoy the support of 7% of the Israeli population - are gradually entering the religious scenery, where the main actors are the Orthodox and Haredi representatives. The orientation of secular, kibbutz-born Israeli towards those movements are part of a larger return to religiosity, but in a way which turns it back definitely to the 'all-or-nothing' mainstream. 

The Israeli Reformation, a publication by Haaretz offers a good introduction into those relatively new religious trends, through article written mostly by regular journalists at the publication, among which Anshel Pfeffer.

Although the Reform and Conservative Movements are active in Israel for decades, in the last years, there is an increase of its presence, in places like Modi'in, Beer Sheva, or the newly privatized kibbutzim. In comparison to the US-breed movement, it has a predominant Zionist orientation, and does not receive any state support - as in the case of the 'official' Judaism represented by the Rabbinat. There are synagogues whose conversion programs are certified by the Ministry of Interior but still because of the Rabbinat, it does not allow the new converts to marry in Israel - which means that they can do a civil marriage in places like Czech Republic or Cyprus. Partnerships were created with non-religious schools and many Israeli with a secular background, prefer to attend the religious service by them, instead of the other gender-separated alternatives. It speaks English and Hebrew, but also the Spanish of Latin American countries, such as Argentina, whose recently emigrated to Israel Jews are largely secular.

The booklet it is a good overview of the main trends and includes those movements into Israel's bigger religious picture. It does not approach directly the frequent conflicts such as the issue of the Women of the Wall (WOW) and other administrative and political problems. But the reader can have a good start for a further investigation into the main actors and the current religious debates.

Book Review:The Saturday Wife by Naomi Ragen

'She needed someone to fall in love with, someone who would destroy the channels through which her life flowed, allowing her to irrevocably change direction'. 

I never had such a bad feeling about a book character. Delilah, the woman main character of The Saturday Wife by Naomi Ragen, an author I've read previously, is a kitsch Jewish Emma Bovary. An enchanteress, with no sense of worth and direction, keen to jump on the wealth ladder but unable to because of her social status and, I dare to say, intelligence, she is despicable. No values, no evil per se either, an opportunist with fake expectations and not a pinch of self-awareness. A victim of an environment of overzealousness and permanent suspicion of human nature that she cannot escape. A vulgare creature hungry to achieve a little bit of normality while acquiring some top brand clothes and bags.

Although going through the yeshiva schools, she couldn't care less about the modesty values but unable to make the big step of leaving the stringencies of her Orthodox community.

The story in itself makes sense: a girl from a modest religious background, without a status, trying to fulfill the dream of a good Jewish wife marrying up a rabbi - which given her yichus - lineage which determines at a great extent the chances of finding a good match - did great. But she wants more, she wants the big mansions with swimming pool and expensive jewellery when all she got was a very modest apartment in Bronx, within walking distance from the shul - synagogue - where her husband with a modest intelligent despite his illustrious background - was supposed to take over from his respected grandfather. Being a rabbi's wife - a rebbetzin - means lots of social and moral obligations that she can hadly fulfill. She is pushing her poor husband, Chaim, to take the position at Ohel Aaron Congregation in Swallow Lake, where no serious learned man would go. But the drama continues as she wants more and is never happy. Her major project, besides befriending the convert American wife of a Jewish Russian con magnate from the fictional Turdistan - which in English urban dictionary means toilet or latrine - is to donate luxury bags to victims of terror attacks in Israel (can it get any more idiotic?).

On one hand, there are a lot of truths to be told about the stringencies of the Orthodox Jewish life, the limited place of the women and the huge expectations done, about the absurd fences around the Torah - including in terms of head covering and women modesty in general - built by rabbis in the last decade, and the striving for excess among successful Jewish families - with safari-themed bar/bat mitzvas and other excessive investments which are rightly 'the opposite of everything Judaism valued and cherished and taught'. Those considerations are slipping into the story, with a mix of references of various kinds - both Jewish and non-Jewish - but the author's voice sounds too doctored and although available are disturbing the narrative. Why not introducing those issues as part of the story itself?

On the other hand, the characters themselves and the story are coping with way too many loopholes. There are characters coming and going into the story, as consistent as thin as piece of paper. There are a lot of incoherencies of the behaviors of the characters as well. Delilah is living in an Orthodox community and barely covering her hair? She is a mother living in an Orthodox community and can she so easily just escape being part of various motherhood circles which are so common and hard to escape? Her in-laws are completely absent which given their status is hardly realistic. For both Chaim and Delilah, their family connections seem to loose that you might think both of them are in fact recently returned to religion not born religious. After having a boyfriend - something inconceivable in the religious world, but necessarily impossible - and even having intimate relationships with him she is repeting while praying during the screening of a Star War episode in a public movie theater? And all the secular references - including Delilah's penchant for Broadway musicals - are so easily taken, no regrets, no second thoughts as she grew up listening to Britney Spears instead of Shabbes niggunim all her life. And so on and so on. Last but not least, my purchased Kindle edition has embarassing mispells.

To be honest, I've expected more coherence from a well-aclaimed author. Her truths are good for a non-fiction book or an article about women in Orthodox Judaism - I agree with from many points of view. I met women behaving like Delilah at a certain extent and now I can understand them better, but the character she ends up with is too much and doesn't make sense both humanly and from the literary point of view.

Overall, was disappointed about The Saturday Wife and I can hardly give more than a 2.5 rating. However, would explore more of Ragen's books soon as her ideas are too interesting to not follow up, by giving another try to her works.

About the Tremendous Work of the Joint in Romania

If not the Joint - short for the Joint Distribution Committee - the fate of the impoverished Jewish communities in Romania would have been much worse. Zvi Feine, JDC country director for Romania for 20 years, including during the terrible communist years, is sharing unique memories and testimonies about those times and the hard work of dealing with the bureaucratic restrictions and supervision of the communist regime on one side, and the local agenda of the representatives of the Jewish communities on the other side. Partnership, Challenges, and Transitions. Jewish Communal Service in Romania and Poland published by Gefen Publishing House has not only a historical value, but the experiences shared in over 600 pages are important as a guidance for any individual and organisation active in the field of Jewish communal work. 

For a shorter amount of time - six years - Zvi Feine also took over the direction of JDC Poland and the experiences in mirror of the two countries are very diverse as we are dealing with different historical contexts and a completely different profile of the Jewish community.

JDC is the world's leaing Jewish humanitarian assistance organisation whose mission is to 'relieve hunger and hardship, rescue Jews in danger, create lasting connections to Jewish life, and provide restoration and long-term develomnet support for victims of natural and man-made disasters'. Anti-Semitism was not specificially within the range of topics of JDC, therefore no wonder that this issue is barely addressed in the book. 

The Joint's budget for the Romanian Jewish communits was the largest in Eastern Europe for the period between the late 1960s and early 1990s and the organisation continue to be active to these days. Romania had a relatively unique position within the Eastern block during the Cold War, as the only communist country that had maintained uninterrupted relations with Israel since 1949 (but also had a Palestinian 'embassy' while Ceaucescu was a good friend - mouth-to-mouth kisses kind of - to Arafat). 

The fate of the Romanian Jewish community during communism is complex and hopefully one day there will be a honest historical investigation of it. Navigating the tensions and the dangers while guaranteeing the continuity of a community reduced at a great extent to its elderly was a complicated task. Some compromises were on the table but their impact and need thereof were hard to figure out on the spot. The late Rabbi Moses Rosen, for instance, helped the Socialist Romania to achieve the onst favored nation status from the US in 1967 in exchange for Ceaucescu's consent to legitimmize Jewish educational activities for the children in the local community. Corruption and bribery were often the easiest way to make your things done and besides the 'classical' packs of cigarettes Kent - the symbol of overall corruption in the communist and democractic Romania as well, local communists also had a taste for matza or kosher wine that they expected as an 'Easter present'.

But on the ground, in the local communities, the Joint had a tremendous work ahead: offering the proper medical and basic welfare assistance to the elderly or people living in abject poverty. It was one of the greatest mitzvot to help those people in need, regardless of their religious situation or affiliation. 

Zvi Fein's book makes it a great collection of memories that will help, one day, to write the history of the Jewish community in Romania during communism and to better understand their survival, against all odds.

Rating: 4 stars

Explaining Israeli Judaism

Explaining to Jews from Diaspora as well as to non-Jewish audience, what does it mean to be Israeli and particularly the Israeli interpretation on Judaism is not easy. Sometimes is not easy to understand either. Part of the discussions are often getting stuck on particulars which endangeres the outline of the bigger picture.

#IsraeliJudaism. Portrait of a Cultural Revolution by Shmuel Rosner and Camil Fuchs is one of the best books about this new cultural phenomenon: being Israeli. Shmuel Rosner is senior fellow at the Jerusalem-based Jewish People Policy Institute and Camil Fuchs is a Tel Aviv University professor of statistics and pollster whose opinions are often read in the Israeli media - especially those days in the electoral context. 

With a focus on the big picture and the main cultural trends, based on various opinion polls made among both Jews living in Israel and diaspora, it explains at a great extent the dramatic differences that are often reclaimed and hardly accommodated between Israeli and other Jews. Such a cultural conflict takes place not only from afar, but manifests tragically when Jews born in diaspora are trying to make a living in Israel. 

Defined by the authors as 'a start-up enterprise in the service of the Jewish people' Israel evolved as a 'one big field experiment for Jewish culture'. The identity is not settled and has its specific dynamism whose specificities and cultural markers are clearly outlined by the authors. It follows the chore identity values of the predominant groups within Israel: Haredi, national-religious and secular. From a group to another, those values are in conflict and each and every one of the group appears to rather prefer to set clear borders instead of interacting with each other. Personally, I might think that members of the national religious group, inspired by the writings of Rav Kook who outlined a certain openness towards all the Jews are by far the most open to other influences and interactions with secular and Haredi publics. However, as the latest elections demonstrate, the national religious block is going through a serious crisis therefore too much focus on specificities will hijack the main focus of the research anyway.

As Prof. Yeshayahu Leibowitz, quoted in the book mentioned, the Jewish religious law was not written for a Jewish state. What happened in the last 70 years was a permanent adaptation of traditions - as diverse as those brought up by the Jews from Ethiopia, Romania or China - to the challenges of modernity while maintaining a permanent religious background checking and in some cases pressure too. Public transportation is not working on Shabbat and there are no civil marriages in Israel, but there are restaurants open in Tel Aviv on Shabbat and many secular persons would do the bar mitzva of their sons although that's the only way they will go in a synagogue in years. When you are living in Israel, you feel Jewish. In Diaspora you struggle to keep your identity, including under the permanent anti-Semitic pressures. There are sometimes two different realities that are often coming in conflict.

This book helps a lot to understand the root of the conflict while accepting that identity is not given, but a dynamic process. Being 'Jewsraeli' might have a completely meaning in a decade time. Electoral cycles and old and new elites might outline a direction or another. The elections about to hapen tomorrow might contribute to such a change too.

Rating: 5 stars

Asking the Right Question

In the last online issue of the Tablet, there is a very challenging article by one of my favorite contemporary American Jewish authors, Dara Horn, about a topic which unfortunatelly will never get old and obsolete: the reactions to outside anti-Semitic pressures. 

We have the story of Purim versus the story of Hanukkah, both narratives successful, but as Viktor Frankl said in Man's Search for Meaning: 'Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way'. Which also means that some people might decide to be on the wrong side of history. Everything is about making choices, assuming it, no matter what. 

An episode of this long story is Yevsektsiya, an institution created in the Soviet Union, designed by Jews from very learned educated (including religiously) families that helped the local authorities to destroy Jewish life - schools, Hebrew-speaking institutions, religious centers. In Horn's words they were looking to make the other Jews 'cool' - I so don't like the term, but it suits ironically the context and the circumstances -, in the long tradition of court Jews. In the end, they ended up in Siberia, a dirty prison cell, a bullet in their head, in the best case scenario completely isolated.

I've heard and meet all my life such people in Eastern Europe. People that willingly accepted to be 'cool' part of an establishment that from the very beginning hated them. Deeply. They were never accepted but used and abused. People that turned against their own people, wrote extensive reports for the 'intelligence' services against their people, sometimes their relatives too. Nothing new under the son, as under the Greek Empire, there were many notable Jewish families that encouraged the same behavior and openly repudiated their religion - including by practicing foreskin restoration for the sake of the Hellenic 'beauty standards'.

Most of them ended up like the Yevsektsiya members, dead - both spiritually and physically. Those who survived the communist times and caught some fresh democratic air, were just a shame for themselves and their community. No one really wanted to deal with them and they didn't look keen to ask for forgiveness either. In many respects they failed, as the communities and synagogues they tried to destroy were still there, against all odds.

Purim and Hanukkah are two sides of the story that I both loved and which offered to those people two noble alternatives. Either be like Queen Esther - be part of the establishment but save your own people - or like the Maccabees - fight openly against the oppression. I've meet many Queens Esther but always secretly envied the Maccabees. Smart is to know when the spirit of the times requires you to be Queen Esther and when the Maccabees.

But although I listen or read stories of assimilation and integration, observed people blindly involved in their activities and their dismise - or disparition, Dara Horn raises a very important question: Did those people find actually the integrity they 'so desperately wanted'? 

This question it's the key and as usual, a question is completely enlightening the whole context. It completely changes the perspectiv and challenges the mindset. Personally, I know that the Queen Esthers were driven exactly by those integrity values. The rest, it remains to be found, if ever.

The 'Spies of No Country'

There is so much discussion in the late decade in Israel about the need to insert the fate and story of Jews from the Arab lands into the national narrative. It is a topic which creates polemics, unusual approaches and passion, a lot of it. Although right now, the situation is naturally improving, with a higher rate of inter-marriage between European and 'Mizrahim', as well  as a co-existence in the larger, religious realm - especially in the 'settlements' the academic and factual research is still half-way. There are so many stories and histories that need to be told and recollected. It is a long and delicate process that will probably require a serious reconsideration of the original state narrative. The only condition is to be considered on an academic, less emotional and more realistic perspective. Discrimination - it was an probably persists. Alienation - it was there too, especially for the first generation relocating to Israel. Frustration and misunderstanding where as well. However, besides various political and social stereotypes, the things moved in a direction that doesn't necessarily correspond to the initial plan of the founders of Zionism.

Matti Friedman, in his latest book Spies of No Country. Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel expressed very clearly this new reality: 'Israel in this century makes sense only through a Middle Eastern lens, which is one reason that Westerners find it harder and harder to figure out. Trying to navigate today's Israel with stories about Ben Gurion and pioneers will work only slightly better than trying to navigate today's Manhattan with stories about Thomas Jefferson and pilgrims. New stories are needed to better explain this plan'.

The book - based on intensive documentation, interviews and new declassified files at Israel's military archives - is mostly about the fate of 4 different Jews from Arab lands that in their early 20s become spies for Israel. They were the 'mista'aravim' - the ones who become like Arabs, initially part of a section created by the Palmach. 

One might expect secret encounters, special transmission tools and a lot of adventures. In fact, they were the most 'atypical' spies you've heard about: most of the time, they were selling school supplies from a kiosk in Lebanon. Some even visited the family members left in the towns they were sent. Their work is taking place in a time when neighbouring Arab armies invaded the then 'Palestine'  - an aspect willingly obliterated from the contemporary discussions about the pre-1948 Israel. At the same time, they were also keeping an eye on the Germans that at the end of the war found refuge in those countries -  especially Syria and Egypt were safe heaven for many members of the Nazi scientific  establishment. 

Why the stories of those four 'mista'aravim' are important? Matti Friedman doesn't want to demonstrate anything, to support or reject any theory. He offers information about facts and situations that may help a better understanding of Israel and the complex political and social layers of life in the Middle East. I've seen lately a lot of 'theories' trying to demonstrate how the state of Israel was created because of the Shoah. But after WWII was over, Jews from the Arab lands were forced to leave their homes in Bagdad, Tehran, Beirut, Aleppo and Damascus following violent pogroms against them. They used to share bread together, but the situation changed and the new state had a 1% growth of the population every 10 days following this exodus (according to Friedman). The longing for Zion was not an 'invention' of the Shoah survivors, it was an everyday life reality of the holy prayers of Jews from all over the world.

Jews from the Islamic world brought to Israel a completely different approach to religion - especially compared to the fierce atheists of the kibbutzim - but also a perspective on co-existence which deserves further development.

The Spies of No Country has opened the door to a serious fact-based academic-driven discussion at the end of which one might figure out a completely different reality and a more complex history of Israel and the Middle East in general.

Book Review: The Hands of the Pianist, by Yali Sobol

Israel, after (just) another war. Hagit and Yoav, two people without any political involvement - either right or left. Hagit is video cutting at a TV news office. Yoav a piano player with an average audience.

The war is over, but the ambiance of mistrust and the pressure on freedoms is becoming heavier. Journalists are under permanent observation, mostly through surveillance cameras installed in their offices. People active in the cultural field are regularly requested for reporting to the police. The piano player himself is not allowed to leave the country, due to unspecified reasons.

People - or rather some of them - are coping relatively well with the new - but not completely different - circumstances. The usual 'protectsia' operates well and a daughter of a police officer can successfully apply for a role in a play directed by a director recently interogated by her father. Or a journalist whose father is a top official in the Ministry of Defense is left unscattered physically and professionally by a little storm aimed at the son of a high personality in the establishment accused of murdering a young girl.

Because of this journalist, Hagit and Yoav's lives will be upsided down for ever. They represent the perfect scapegoats of anti-democratic measures. Without a clear political support, without political opinions, focused on their work only without uttering any opinions, they are becoming victims against their will. Hagit accepts to take an USB stick from her journalist colleague and she is not even curious to check the content.

The psychological depth of the characters is very well built, catching perfectly the weaknesses and the average answers to political pressures. Far from having an obvious agenda, the characters are left to talk by themselves which makes the narrative flow clean and clear, in a very natural way.

Using physical coercition and psychological pressure, the authorities are able to make them 'confess' imaginary crimes, bringing other people into the story as well, as innocent as them. But this is how mostly authoritarian regimes survive: they turn innocents, apolitical beings into informers even though the information provided might be false. Under pressure, and with the clear reward in sight (which means freedom) as long as names are dropped, most of us will willingly betray a friend or a relative. It always happened and will always happens. If we want to keep being human we need to get rid of such methods. To leave such an environment or united, to fight it.

Yoav and Hagit, can be any one of us.

(I've read the German translation of the Hebrew version)

Rating: 4 stars