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

Thou Shall Innovate: A Story of Hope and Resilience

Thou Shall Innovate by Avi Jorisch is ´a tale about Israelis who have chosen hope and healing over death and destruction. In a part of the world that has more than its share of darknes, these stories are rays of light´. 

Much have been said and written about the ´Start-up Nation´ and it is well deserved. Based on a culture that, as Jorisch mentions too ´encourages its citizens to challenge authority, ask the next question and defy the obvious´, Israel is more than any other nation on the forefront of innovation. Add to this the permanent existential military challenges and the need to permanently adapt to enemies that often act and react in a atypical way thus the need to permanently invest in creative defense solutions, like the famous Iron Drome. 

What I personally love when I am reading such books it is the simple way in which it demonstrates the sheer stupidity of boycott movements such as BDS. Dear idiots, you can boycott everything that comes from Israel, please do it and you will see how fast you can get with your life. They don´t even deserve being countered. There are much more positive stories to be told though about how the smart inventions of this small nation in the Middle East contributed to the wellbeing of the humanity, including the anti-semites. 

Take, for instance, the emergency bandate, a steril pad applied on a wound to stop the flow of blood, which can provide up to 30 pounds of pressure to stop even traumatic head injuries, which is produced in a factory owned by a Bedouin in N. Israel. Or the medicine such as Rebif who can slow down the effects of MS. The robots developed by an Israeli company are using AI for complicated spine interventions. Israel is the marijuana research capital of the world too, producing medicine that is prescribed, among others, for glaucoma, depression or PTSD. The innovations that Israel developed in the field of agriculture is for years shared with African countries, among others. The grain cocoon, a PVC-made storing recipient for storing grains lifted millions of people out of poverty. Also Made in Israel.

The Centre for International Cooperation (MASHAV) is providing for a long time training for qualified personnel around the developing world in fields like agricultulre, community development, medicine, entrepreneurship and public administration.

The international Israeli disaster relief interventions saved lives - no matter what religion - in Kosovo, Rwanda or Haiti. Thousands of Syrians were treated in Israeli hospitals in the last years by dedicated doctors whose mission is to save lives, no matter the Gd those people pray. 

Propagandists whose minds are busy to attack ignore the fact that on the ground, the collaboration between Jews and Palestinians in the field of innovation and entrepreneurship is the missed story from the media reports. There are so many joint projects developed in the last years between likeminded people that give a hope that at least the new generation will approach the peace process and the collaboration on a completely different level. As long as they are left alone by the terrorist organisations operating in the Territories, generously gifted with foreign money from regimes that need to hate Israel to justify their existence.

Thou Shall Innovate features Alpha Omega, founded by Reem and Imad Younis, a Christian Palestinian couple from Nazareth, working together with Israeli scientists to develop medical devices that can help patients of Parkinson disease to better manage the symptoms of this chronical disease. Both they graduated from Technion University, the world renowed technology institute, and created their company in 1993, by selling their Volkswagen and cashing four gold coins received for their wedding.

I come at terms for a long time with the fact that I should not pay any interest to low level display of hate and narrow mindness regarding Israel. All the frustrated people that are naively or with a propagandistic purpose pour their hate and ignorance of social media are just not worth my time and interest. Instead, I am looking for positive stories that elevate the mundane, show how easy is to share humanity and help to fix this broken words. The stories gathered in Thou Shall Innovate spoke my mind and I am glad to further share the news that, indeed, there are many more positive stories to be told than you may find into the everyday chronical sickness of hatemongers. Maybe some bright Israeli mind will create a special device to fix this too one day.

Rating: 5 stars