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

Jewish Book Review: The Sisters Weiss by Naomi Ragen

If the Saturday Wife was largely a disappointment, The Sisters Weiss by Naomi Ragen brought back the pleasure of reading from this author.

The novel takes place in the 'Ultra-Orthdox' part of Brooklyn, starting in the 1950s, where the two sisters Pearl and Rose are growing up in a modest religious family. Their life options are clear and relatively limited: they are going to school and learn some basics until they reach the age when the search for a shidduch (match) starts. Once there is one, the path of motherhood and childbearing/rearing while the man is studying Torah is what a wooman is offered. This system means stability, continuity and it's the traditinal way.

However, after Rose is exposed to the library of a French colleague, her life changed. A photography book considered 'dangerous' will seal her destiny. She is send to stay with her grandmother and enrolled in a very conservative Bais Ruchel Satmer school, where even the religious learning offered to girls is superficial and extremely limited in terms of knowledge.

But Rose keeps going her dangerous way and enrolls for a photograhy class. Matched to a mediocre yet with good-yichus (family background) she is running away the day of her wedding leaving behind an ashamed family and starting her way that will make her a famous photograher.

Four decade later, Pearl's daugher, Rivka, will do the same and her first contacts in the outside world will be her cousin, Hannah, Rose's secular daughter. The story repeats itself, but only the context is the same, as there is no guarantee for happy endings. Rivka will feel fully the dramatic consequence of his radical decision, which also means being cut from a warm community of traditions and celebrations. Even the strong Rose felt the alienation and the childhood family memories of being together with people sharing the same values will be always cherished. 

The Sisters Weiss is a realistic depiction of what really does it mean to leave the Hasidic community, and a traditional way of life in general. The strong ties cannot be cut automatically, on both sides and the heartbreak is not only on the side of those who left, but those who remain do also have their share of sadness. Another aspect the novel features very well is the hardship of adapting to the non-traditional way of life. Rivka's mistake in considering a sexual encounter a relationship comes from the culture she belongs to, where women and girls do not have 'boyfriends': all their life they are prepared to be ready to fulfill their role as wives, spending the rest of their life with a husband. Those women are simply not prepared to understand the accidental and short-term relationships in the secular world.

Another layer of the narrative features women stories. Each of the women that appear in The Sisters Weiss do have a story to tell, which made it into the bigger Jewish women story. From women to surrender to their husbands to rebelious women who are searching for an authentic soul mates. 

There is no happy ending and it is one of the many things I've liked about this book. The author found the best tone and non-emotional approach which suits such stories whose emotion resides in the strength of the characters.

For me, it was by far one of the best OTD (off the derech) reading in a long time, overcoming many of the relatively memoirs on this topic I've read in the long time.

Unforgettable Short Stories by Ayelet Tsabari

Ayelet Tsabari's short stories, published under The Best Place on Earth were a literary revelation for me. My aim was to purchase her recently published memoir, The Art of Leaving, but got a bit lost into the recommendations of my Amazon algorithm and challenged by the descriptions of some of the stories. Convinced, I purchased the short stories first and since then - yesterday afternoon - couldn't put them down.

I am not a great reader - and not a writer either - of short stories. I am in love with big, long stories and I rarely get the literary enthusiasm for couple of pages only stories. Especially when it comes to accounts defined by a specific identity and geographic realm, I prefer those boundaries to be journalistically clear, simple in order to allow in the good filling of the story. 

Ayelet Tsabari succeeded to achieve it in a very entincing, I dare to say even addictive way. The stories do have a clear geographical reference - Israel - and a frame - Jewish life, mostly of Jews of Mizrahi (Oriental) origin, specifically Yemeni. Within this matrix, memories are created, unique stories are told and existential crisis or questions are occurring. At the end, frequently the reader is left out, as it seems that once you are reading the next one, in the previous one there is still a life going on, you are not privy to. Thus, expectations and inner discussions are created. 

There is always a tension - mostly between the new and old, the traditional lifestyle versus the modernity liberation, the silent revolt against the Askenazi establishment - around which each of the stories are created, but those tensions are gently, fuel the story and nicely make the balance. 

After becoming familiar with Tsabari's writing, I am very curious to read more about the sources of her writing, her own life story and therefore can't wait to start reading her memoir. 

Rating: 4 stars

Underskin, by Orit Arfa: It is more than the milky challenge

After The Settler, a book which I greatly enjoyed for the inquisitive challenges and painful dilemma raised after the Gush Katif episode, Orit Arfa is back with an equally interesting literary investigation. A Berlin-Tel Aviv love story between Nilly, the 'settler' girl with a Shoah survivor grandmother and Sebastian, the handsome German.

The two of them met accidentaly on a beach but feel 'some twisted way' of being connected 'by our tragic history'. The past, but also the weight of the present and the political views and mishaps are shadowing the relationship and at a certain extent it makes the communication almost impossible, and this is not because the mother tongues are different. However, there are ways to put on hold the non-stop historical buzz: over the food and by developing the physical relationship. Or through music. After all, does it matter to be 'politically aligned with a romantic partner'?

What really matters at the end of the story - at least for now - is that every generation is writting its own story, although the past is always and will always be there. I really loved that this book is creating, for the first time, a framework for discussion about what might really mean a relationship in the everyday life between an Israeli and a German, especially for Jews of European descent. And if the young people themselves are carefree and careless, their parents and relatives are not. For me, it is one of the most noticeable contribution to the discussion about the 'Israeli exodus' to Berlin written in the English language - although, a community of Israeli living in Berlin and in Germany in general exists since the late 1970s in fact, but as far as I know, without a significant literary presence. 

The book also has a noticeable erotic component, and it is labelled accordingly, but I would rather consider that this aspect is just part of the story, but not the story itself. 

A book recommended to anyone looking for some fresh, bold voices and point of views about the human German-Israeli story.

Rating: 4 stars

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

Looking the everyday evil into the eye

Jordana, granddaughter of Shoah survivors, decides to embark on a one-week trip to Germany, to the city of Lüneburg, to be part of the first week of the legal proceedings against the so-called 'accountant of Auschwitz', Oskar Gröning. 

After taking part to the March of the Living and being involved in various projects related to the Shoah, the idea of taking part at the trial of someone who was close to the Nazi killing machine sounds as a natural outcome. Being able to look into the eye of a war criminal, who for so many decades after the end of WWII was able to live a normal life after being part of the murder of at least 300,000 people was a big opportunity to get a better understanding of events hard to understand. Ambitious and decided to overcome all the obstacles, Jordana will make it to Lüneburg, and this book is the account of her experiences not only of the trial, but also of her encounters with Germans and Germany.

During 4 years and a half of operation, 1,300,000 people were deported to Auschwitz and only 200,000 survived. 6,000 members of the SS served as guards, but only 43 of them were brought to trial, and only 9 received life sentences, it is mentioned in the Introduction. An extremely limited number, given the tragedy inflicted to millions of people, and more than one generation of survivors' relatives.

Gröning's job - at the time of the trial 94 years old - was to record the goods and money stolen from people brought into the camp. After a while, he realized what was happening there and he witnessed himself the murder of an innocent child. The innocent portrait of someone who was just part of the machine, without possibility of decision-making, or because there is no other option, shows in fact the 'banality of evil'. There was the bureaucratic account that the people couldn't challenge the system and they were just pieces into the system. Gröning describes in his deposition the situation of food and drinks supplies when he arrives at the camp while people were there starving and living in conditions hardly described as human. 

The system as such couldn't work without the compliance of so many people. On the other hand, it creates the urge to keep fighting for truth, justice and restoring the chance in humanity. Although Gröningen only received 4 years and spent most of his life enjoying freedom, the lesson of his trial is that if there is a will, anyone guilty of crimes can be taken accountable. However, the reality that so many of them died peacefully in their beds without ever being questioned about their involvement in terrible crimes is hard to be at peace with. 

Jordana's inquisitive spirit is contagious and she can be taken as a good example for many youngsters. She wants to understand with her own eyes and the emotional stages she is going through are more than expectable. One of the signs of growing-up is acknowledging nuances and her own experiences and the observation of other people's reactions at the trial - including of forgiving something only G-d can - is part of this process. Meeting people like Thomas Walter, the German lawyer who challenged and extended the area of war crimes prosecution, is an example that individuals can make a difference.

This book can be easily used in schools for history lessons, but its readership extends to anyone curious in Shoah stories and testimonies.

Rating: 4 stars

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