The Right State

Brill's optical museum

2011-08-27T17:04:00.019+03:00

What do Napoleon Bonaparte, Benjamin Franklin and Eliezer Ben-Yehuda have in common? Their glasses are part of a unique optical accessories collection held by the Israeli optician David Brill.

In Brill's collection, exhibited at his optic store in Givatayim, one can find a selection of rare eyeglass frames from the 15th century to the 20th century; a selection of old cameras including a Box system camera – among the first cameras ever produced; theatre binoculars of the Renaissance; an old Nelson telescope; and an old microscope from the beginning of the scientific microscopes era.

photos: Hans Engelsman

These rare items, picked by David Brill for decades in Israel and abroad, also include spectacles which were used by the father of modern Hebrew, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, spectacles and telescopes which were used by Napoleon Bonaparte in the 18th century, and bifocal lenses which were produced by Benjamin Franklin.

The canary bird from Aspö

2011-07-31T16:03:00.008+03:00

Last week a very dear friend of Israel passed away in Sweden.

Ralph Haglund, another friend of Israel in Sweden,

wrote a necrology for her, whose English translation is brought below

Karin Rebel, from Aspö in Blekinge, southeastern Sweden, her decease occurred very suddenly and unexpectedly on the 16th of July 2011, at an age approaching 80, and I experienced the chock wave from the news a few hours later.

I met Karin maybe a decade ago in Stockholm at a pro-Israeli meeting and we were soon in deep conversation, as we were both engaged in the discussions about promoting information about Israel. After that we only met once, on her little island in the archipelago, where I saw the small romantic yellow cottage situated as a perfect work place for an author.

We have brought upon us the duty to inform about Israel as this information is very limited in Swedish media except as reflections in joking mirrors. Known spokesmen for Israel have compared Israel's role as the canary bird for the West, with the canaries of mines, warning for poison gases. With today's attacks on the land and people of Israel for no discernible reasons, the canary of Israel gives very strong Danger signals. Karin has written and given information to high and low, the radio program Call P1 was more and more often contacting her in Israel-related questions. She was also monitoring the local media where some local anti-democracy spokesmen got free rein.

We discussed many of the hard facts and showed how the local media had no knowledge at all about international laws and negotiation results, or alternatively did not care.

Karin loved to make long distance exploratory travels, everything from art tours to museums in Mexico to safaris in Africa. During her marriage she also lived an international life in a few different countries and got much linguistic knowledge and experience.

One of our latest subjects of discussion was her memories from her childhood on the island of Aspö, how people lived far from shops, on their own farming and fishing. I have often speculated over such things as my mother was also born in a small cottage far into the forest of central Sweden - a life not possible to grasp for us with no experience of it, only stories.

The knowledgeable voice and sharp pen of Karin will be remembered by the emptiness, missed by family and friends and many of the pro-Israeli information groups of Sweden.

The funeral has occurred with the nearest of the family members.

Ralph Haglund, Lund

The Galilee Subbotniks

2011-06-30T19:44:00.010+03:00

Dubrovin farm in Yesud Hama'ala (photo: Yehudit Garinkol)

The Galilee converts are the families of Russians who converted to Judaism from 18th century on. Among them there were peasants and landowners, commoners and nobles such as Alexander Volnitzin and Prince Valentine Potocki. According to one opinion, the converted Abraham Ben-Avraham Kurakin's father is mentioned in War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy as Anatoly Kuragin or Prince Kurakin.

The first reports on the Subbotnik movement, the converted Russians, appear in an official document from 1770, about 400 Subbotniks in the province of Saratov. In 1823 the Russian Interior Ministry counted about 20 thousand Subbotniks in various areas of the empire, and at its peak, in 1912, the movement numbered about 100 thousand members.

Excluding the period from 1912 to 1905, the Subbotnik movement was illegal. In 1825 the "Holy Synod" of Russia enacted a law dealing with "ways of stopping the spread of Jewish sect called Subbotniks". All "heresy distributors" being rejected for military service, were exiled to Siberia, where they founded "Subbotnik villages" while maintaining their uniqueness. Children under the age of seven were taken from them and given to "governmental education houses". Jews who lived in areas where Subbotniks were reported to live were expelled from their villages as well and were not allowed back.

Dr. Yuval Dror, a descendant of Kurakin family, who deals with the study of the Subbotnik movement, writes about the destiny of converted Evdokimov family: "The family father was arrested and was jailed for two years and the rest of the movement members were harassed as well. More than a thousand families were dispossessed from their homes, deported and exiled to the Caucasus ... At their new residence they suffered as well... there were attempts to reconvert their many children to Christianity by force. They were forced to carry stones to the village Pravoslav church and were chased at the rural community meetings".

Despite persecutions the Subbotnik movement expanded and during the 19th its leaders got into close contacts with the rabbinical Judaism. In the beginning of the 20th century, emissaries of the Zionist movement appeared in its villages. Some of the Subbotniks sold their possessions, immigrated to Eretz-Israel and joined the pioneers of the Third Aliyah. The Subbotnik movement also sent delegates to the all-Russia Zionist Congress in 1917.

Since they were farmers and outstanding peasants, when they moved to Eretz-Israel they contributed a great deal to the development of agriculture in the Galilee. Yoav Dubrovin imported from Russia plows and modern agricultural equipment, introduced at his farm elaborated crop rotation and applied new methods of cattle raising.

The enormous power and body structure of Dubrovin family members triggered the Galileans to call them by the nickname "Moskobians" or "Goliathians". "Fever is not a disease", the old Dubrovin used to encourage his family in times they had fallen ill. During the Malaria period the family horses were galloping without guidance, right to the doctor in Yesud HaMa'ala. "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away", Dubrovin said after the Shiv'a following the death of his 22 years old son Abraham. In the fall of 1918 the second son, aged 37, was depeated. "Do not cry for the dead, one should not doubt the actions of God. During all those years passed, I have never heard from you a thought to leave the country", he encouraged his sons after the death of his son in law. When he was about 100 years old, sick and lying on his bed, he got the last blow, from which he never got up: "My Hero", the old man lamented his youngest son Ephraim, "How did you fall, Froyke, how the mighty have fallen!"

Over the years the Galilee Subbotniks were thoroughly assimilated between the Israelis and nowadays one can get to know their origin only by their surnames. Amog the Israelis who could credit themselves for a "Subbotnik" origin one can mention Ephraim Avidan - Yoav Dubrovin's grandson - who served as commander of Northern Region in Border Police; Abraham Avigdorov - Abraham Kurakin's great grandson - who earned the medal of valor in the War of Independence, Menachem Kurakin - Abraham's grandson – who was among the twenty-three missing commandos at Operation Boatswain.

Behind each donation lies a life story

2011-06-04T21:30:00.000+03:00

Every year there are strange donations and estates being transferred to Israel, finding their way to the administrator general in the Israel ministry of justice. For example, one American farmer donated a pair of stallions, a European donor set up a fund to bestow awards to soldiers serving at the IDF as dog trainers, another person's donation for the country was a rare violin, provided to be played by new immigrants only, and there was even a person who donated money provided it will be used to establish the Third Temple.

Some 50 years ago the Israeli government imposed the Administrator General to handle the estates and donations donated to the state. According to estimates, each year the state is endowed by individuals worldwide amounts and items whose total value is about 200 million Shekel.

For example, a Jew of Russian origin died childless in his poor Paris apartment. After the Paris municipality workers cleared the pile of junk that filled the apartment, they found a small box. When they opened it, they found a handwritten will, in which he wrote: "I bequeath my property to the State of Israel". It turned out that the amount the man had in his bank account was a quarter million Shkalim.

However, in London one day a non-Jewish man, in a wheelchair, appeared at the entrance of the Israeli Embassy. He took out of his pocket a bank check and wrote in it the amount of 2.1 million dollars. He handed the check to the surprised consul, and asked to spend the money to rehabilitate the disabled in Israel. The donor asked to maintain his anonymity and the only thing he was willing to say is, that being a child he had been adopted by a Jewish family.

Following the sheep

2011-05-22T14:34:00.001+03:00

photo: Revital Kagan Ben-adar

When the jouvenille Moshe Kagan, a native of the Polish city Kremenets, wanted to immigrate to Eretz-Israel, though painting was his great love - Hashomer Hatzair activists encouraged him to acquire a profession before he arrives in Israel. So, when a relative of him came to Kremenets from another city, Moshe learned from him his profession - a dental technician.

In 1948, while a soldier in the Polish army led by Władysław Anders, Moshe came with his division to the devastated Warsaw and burning Berlin, and discovered that his parents and sister had been murdered by the Nazis. He made Aliyah to Israel, and settled in kibbutz Shamir, where he worked as a shepherd for ten years. He would go out to pasture with fabrics, papers, pencils and brushes, and paint the landscapes, and of course - lots of sheep.

Following the sheep he found in the area ancient pottery, tools, coins and flintsones - which he passed to the Israel Antiquities Authority - where they learned that those archeological findings testified of some twenty pre-historical settlements in the area. The archaeological hobby became "half a profession" when Moshe helped the American team digging in Tel-Anafa located beneath kibbutz Shamir. He also set up a small archaeological museum in the kibbutz, and became an expert of dolmens.

Today, the 89-year-old Kagan collects stamps, coins, antiques and drawings. He handles his garden, and of course - paints.

Two stories out of thousands

2011-05-09T12:44:00.001+03:00

Children of the Holocaust Memorial in Ramat-Hasharon (photo: Avishay Ticher)

On Holocaust remembrance day this year, Ma'ariv newspaper published a special supplement dedicated to stories of some Holocaust survivors living among us in Israel. Every such story, folded in a concise double page spread with a photo of the survivor as a child and of photo of him or her nowadays, could have feed a whole book or an entire movie full of drama and tension. And who knows how many such stories have not been told even in a newspaper?

Such, for example, is the story of choreographer Ruth Pardes, a pioneer of dance therapy, born in the ghetto of the Polish town Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski, February 1940. Following her husband's advice, her mother left the town with her baby Ruth, still too young to understanding the horrors around her, and moved to the capital Warsaw, hoping to find a safer place. The mother pretended to be a Christian woman, and during the air raids ran with her baby to the city shelters.

In 1942, when Ruth was two years old, her mother learned that her husband was still alive, in the ghetto of Sambir. She took her daughter and went there. After she wrote a letter to a relative, asking him to send clothes for her and for her daughter, a Polish man named Alojzy Plewa who served in the German army, arrived to the ghetto, carrying a suitcase with clothes sent by the relative. Ruth's mother dared to ask him if he would come the next night to take with him the two-year-old girl. Plewa agreed and the next night came near the wire fence to receive the girl transferred to him over the fence.

First Alojzy took Ruth to his home, but when it raised the suspicion of Poles who knew he was not married, he gave her to his parents in a pro-Nazi village near Gdansk. His parents were devout Christians, and since Plewa told them that Ruth was his illegal daughter, they called her Antoska and nicknamed her Saint Mary's daughter.

In 1945, after the war was over, Ruth's mother – whose own story of survival is too long to be told here – came to collect her five-year-old daughter from Plewa's parents. They traveled to Warsaw, where the mother arranged a counterfeit pass for herself and for her daughter, previously owned by a woman who perished in the Holocaust. Then, the mother found another child to join them – since according to the dead woman's pass she had two children – and they all boarded a ship en route to Eretz-Israel.

In 1978, after Ruth's mother applied for Yad Vashem to recognize Alojzy Plewa as a Righteous Among the Nations, he came to Israel and Ruth first met the man who had saved her life and the lives of other children. Plewa said that after Ruth left the his parent's village she became a Christian saint there: After the war, when the Soviet army arrived to Polish villages which collaborated with the Nazis – the soldiers used to burn, pillage, rape women and sometimes even murder. But when they arrived that village, some villagers ran to them, asking for mercy due to the rescue of a Polish girl – Antoska. The Soviet soldiers acceded to the request and went away. Following this occurrence, the villagers erected a large cross on a hill near the village and called it St. Antoska Hill.

Another story in the mentioned above supplement is the survival of the Israeli demographer Sergio Della-Pergola. Sergio was born in Trieste, the grandson of Rabbi Raphael Della-Pergola of Florence. In September 1943, when he was one year old, Sergio's parents were forced to flee Trieste that was already occupied by the Germans, and went to Florence, hoping to find help from relatives and friends.

When all their documents specified "belongs to the Jewish race", they stayed for a few days in a small pension, and then had to leave to a mental hospital directed by a friend of Sergio's father. When one day the place was surrounded by German soldiers, Sergio's father turned to the guard at the gate in German, and firmly, as if he were a senior, told him: "I'm going now to find a taxi. When I get back – open the gate and let the taxi come in!". The guard saluted, Sergio's father returned with a taxi and took his wife and child back to the small pension.

From there they moved for six weeks to the apartment of a kind lady, while she left for a while to stay in a convent and teach religion. In one of his secret "sorties" outside, to buy bread and milk under the watchful eyes of the Germans, Sergio's father made a contact with the Italian underground aiding the Allies, and supplied them information he learned from listening to conversations between German soldiers hanging around, confident that no one might understand their language. After providing valuable information, the underground helped him move with his family to neutral Switzerland, with other Jewish refugees, soldiers deserting from the Italian army, and British and American pilots escaping from captivity.

The instructions given to them by the underground were as follows: During the drive to the border the train would be so-called bombarded from air, to make the German soldiers ran away from it. The escapees will have to jump out of the coaches, look for an immediate hide and after a few minutes return to continue the journey to Milan.

In the small village of Canova, near the border of Switzerland, Della-Pergola family went down with the other escapees and according to a command they began to run to the boats dock, where they met an unknown person who ordered them to run toward the nearest mountain. Near the mountain another unknown person informed them that at night they would cross the border to Switzerland by skilled smugglers. The head of baby Sergio was covered with a sack. It was 24 December, Christmas Eve. Snow around and sharp cold. On the other side Swiss policemen were waiting for them to lead them to the police station. Sergio's mother was told that she and her baby could stay but the men would return to Italy. When the woman began screaming, the restrained Swiss men were alarmed and phoned their superiors in the capital Bern. Then they said: "Since it's Christmas day, we decided to let all of you enter our country".

After the holiday the woman and her baby were sent to a rural boarding school, and the men – to a refugee camp where they had to work draining swamps. Those nights, on the wooden bed at the Swiss work camp, Sergio's father, Massimo Della-Pergola, formulated the idea of Toto Calcio – the legal football betting, and invented its form and its check method: 1, 2 ,X – which is used until today.

After the Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, the Swiss took the refugees to another village, more comfortable, where Sergio's father became a local sports reporter. When the family returned to Italy he became the editorial secretary of Gazzetta Dello Sport, while establishing the first toto betting company - Sisal.

These are, as noted, only two out of hundreds, thousands and perhaps tens of thousands stories of Holocaust survivors.

Where did the question words go?

2011-04-28T15:45:00.003+03:00

The poem KEN LATZIPOR (A Nest For the Bird) performed by Noga

Children literature, like any literature, is a mirror that clearly reflects social and cultural transformations. Looking at Israeli children literature one can see a substantial reduction of issues: While Bialik's Poems and Songs for Children contains poems about nature – such as A Nest for the Bird (KEN LATZIPOR), game songs, lullabies – such as Lay Down, My Toddler, character songs, experience songs and poems of Jewish tradition and folklore – such as For Shabbat, in the children songs of Yehonatan Gefen, Hagit Benziman and Yehuda Atlas it is difficult to find "sun", "wind" and "trees" and if one finds such objects they are all subjected to the condition of child, the hero of the song.

If the old songs can be defined as describing "how the world looks to the child", the songs these days can be defined as describing how the child, showing off his personality and wishing to sketch his self-portrait, appears in the world. Hence the change in the status of objects such as "games", "toys" or "aunts" and "uncles". In post-modern children songs they all serve the same goal – exposing fundamental features and typical situations of the child's consciousness.

The language and the style of songs for children have changed as well. While in Bialik's songs there are Aramaic phrases and flowery phrases like "hush lest thou awake" (HAS PEN TA'IR), in songs today the language has been lowered as if it strives to a complete identification with the natural language of children: simple and often incorrect.

In current children literature personification and animation – meaning, ascribing human attributes and skills to figures of still objects, plants and animals – are very rare. The question words "what", "who" and "where", which Bialik, Shaul Tchernichovsky and Ya'akov Fichman frequently used for dramatization – disappeared, replaced by the abundant "why" word – either as a rhetorical question in the framework of a "personal confession" by the child speaker or in order to expose the parents' weaknesses.

In classic children songs there is an emphasis on pathos and drama and on the child's confusion in front of the world. In post-modern songs the child is presented as smart, knowledgeable, confident and as one who allows himself or herself to criticize the elderly. The topics of post-modern songs are daily life, not top of world affairs, and such matters are "natural" to be commented by a child's opinion.

In The Fleece Festival (HAG HAGEZ) by Anda Pinkerfeld-Amir's from the 30's, we read: "In Tel-Yoseph everyone is glad" – so the emphasis is on the whole, the collective. Children poems nowadays emphasize individualism and difference.

In Miriam Yalan-Shteklis' Michael and Alone (LEVADI) from the late 50s' - there is no God and nature. There are only dolls and bears, lifeless and without a response. Alienation. The poetess has already lost faith in God, but still there is a searching for other people to conduct life together.

Later, the inner spiritual mantel content of Man is going lost and he is willingly enslaved to the sensory stimuli. There is no real conversation. Everyone listens to himself or herself or trying to enforce his or her opinion. So are, for example, the songs by Ayin Hillel (Hillel Omer) about a talk between two girls, in which each of them relates only to herself at that moment, without communication, and the song expressing the certainty of each part of clothing hanging on the clothesline to dry that just for him the sun is shining.

An extreme example of this shift in children literature is the song Lights Out (KIBUY OROT) by Moshe Oren:

Some people sleep
with butt to the wall,
some sleep with face,
and some can not decide
and constantly change phase.

Seeing the glasses through rose-coloured glasses

2011-04-16T19:27:00.003+03:00

Young children who need glasses are sometimes ashamed to wear them in their kindergarten. The kindergarten teacher Limor Shlomi has a method to overcome this embarrassment: Glasses Party.

At the Glasses Party conducted by Limor all the kindergarten children participate in activities of movement and creation, and thus strengthen the confidence of the bespectacled child.

For example, to let the children see how well the celebrating child sees with his or her glasses, Limor puts them all in a circle around the child: They throw him or her a ball, he or she catches it and throws it to them again and again. If the child is sporty, Limor gives the other kids more than one ball to throw at him, so he or she should respond and return the balls quickly.

Other activity in the Glasses Party is creating "glasses" by all the children from small metal rings and pipe cleaners: They wrap around each ring a pipe cleaner and connect the two rings by a small piece of pipe cleaner. Then - all the kids wear their "glasses".

The Glasses Party guest of honor is an optician, who conducts a vision test for all the children, and usually find among them some new candidates for a future Glasses Party...

Not every line suggests a hint

2011-04-09T21:07:00.041+03:00

The Israeli government has lately issued bills bearing the images of four poets. One of the four is Nathan Alterman

Night by night (Layla layla) by Nathan Alterman and Mordechay Ze'ira

Nathan Alterman, Israel national poet – who was a playwright, journalist and translator as well - is mostly known for his weekly poetic column The Seventh Column in the daily newspaper Davar, which was published from 1943 till 1965. Before publishing this column Alterman was the paper's translator of Reuters news, a job which made him revive into Hebrew the speeches of Winston Churchill.

The Seventh Column was an outcome of a period in which a certain Jewish audience in Israel reached a maximal solidarity with the nationwide. Alterman was a prayer leader, who frequently utters his mission in the first person plural, as if feeling that his work should not be esoteric, spread out from life.

photo: Kfar Saba Municipal Museum

After giving the name Shalom to the first Israeli luxury ship, he refused to partake in its maiden voyage. Although being an integral part of the Israeli elite, he acted toward its favors as a "vegetarian" and did not take even a tiny bit of a cherry on top of a whipped cream in an embassy cocktail.

But his refusal to take gifts and to exploit bypass roads of the bureaucratic labyrinth ceased when it the matter involved his beloved daughter, Tirza, the vulnerable soul to whom he wrote the poem Safeguard your soul. When it came to his daughter, he sent urgent messages to the military authorities and to those responsible for casting, making them acknowledge the daughter's desperate fragility.

Alterman's fondness for the working people was for him as a conscience relief, since his spiritual occupation might have endangered one of arrogance and detachment. When he went home drunk, at dawn, and saw a worker going to his work, he would call his companions: "Go in order, a man is going to work". "Everyone needs a shoeshine boy", he once said, "but only few need poems".

Ars Poetica engaged him a great deal:

Not every line suggests a hint,
the city is a city.
the street – a street,
the light is light,
the dark is clear as the sun.

Just like Sigmund Freud who once said to his psychiatrists audience, looking curiously at his cigar as if it was a significant phallic hint: "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar".

Rest is Come to the Weary, by Nathan Alterman and Daniel Sambursky

Alterman did not help much to his interpreters, the maximum attention he gave them was a bit of derision: "If I had known your interpretations before I wrote my poems", he said, "it could be helpful. If you do not understand it does not matter, as long as you feel".

Although being a Tel-Avivian in his soul, no one remembered him visiting the beach or sitting exposed to sunlight. Someone said about him: "So humbling as it reaches arrogance". His daughter, Tirza Atar, once said: "That was closure, terribly loneliness in the heart, unconditional by a thing".

He did not allow his beloved daughter Tirza to publish her poems until she was 18, and when she finally did so, many of them were influenced by him, many were devoted to him and many aspired to him. Some would say that if her father would stay alive near by and continue to beg her "Safeguard your soul, Safeguard your life" – Tirza might not have taken leave of life.

A Ballad for a Woman (Balada Le'isha) by Tirza Atar and Moshe Wilensky

Jurka Chapters

2011-04-02T18:23:00.002+03:00

"Zviya shook her 600 kilograms very cheerfully for the unexpected freedom, while we asked to know why and what for" (fields of kibbutz Dan, 1949; photo: Upper Galilee Documentation Center)

In the second half of the 20th century the anthropological research and the historical study went through a parallel shift: When the unknown and exotic tribes like the Samoan one among which Margaret Mead had done her career became lesser and lesser, anthropologists began to investigate "sub-cultures" in their nearby Western societies, such as the Israeli kibbutz or of the Israeli ultra-orthodox Jewish groups; While historians abandoned their preoccupation with great events like wars, conquests and migration waves, and started to examine daily lives: How the slaves in ancient Rome had eaten, how the monks in medieval Spain had slept, and how babies had been treated in Germany of the 18th century.

The book Jurka Chapters gives us a glimpse of daily life of the low-middle class Jewry in Budapest at the eve of Second World War: "At the table one sits on high stool. Chairs with arms are considered luxury. Dishes and cutlery are washed in a bowl called Weidling, by a simple rug and a laundry soap. In the kitchen one makes laundry as well, in large wooden laundry tubs, and one hangs the laundry to dry on wires stretched high up in the kitchen... In the kitchen one also does homework, or has non-significant conversations with daily guests. The apartment's most important institution: a tap of running water - is reigning on all".

The author, Jurka Klein, who adopted in Israel the Hebrew name Moshe Eytam, is one of hundreds and perhaps thousands of anonymous Holocaust survivors who published and still publish their memories, most modestly, usually in formats of austerity. Some of these books not only provide fascinating pieces of information about the daily war of survival practiced by Jews whose dear ones and friends disappear around, but also an unusual philosophical perspective and even literary intensity. Such is Jurka Chapters - although not a real literary work, it has the spark that could have make it so under the hand of a talented editor and under the auspice of a well established publishing house.

An example of the way famous national events hide behind small and personal occurrences in such books, is one of Eytam's experiences after immigrating to Israel in the framework of Youth Aliyah and settling in kibbutz Dan: "On one early morning milking there came into the dairy barn the kibbutz's security man. He asked frantically to free one cow and expel her from the barn, to let her romp outside… Zviya (The cow's name, which means in Hebrew... a female deer) shook her 600 kilograms very cheerfully for the unexpected freedom, while we asked to know why and what for. It turned out that the Syrians caught in their territory an Israeli intelligence squad... Our government is trying to return the squad through the United Nations, claiming that they have chased after escaped cows. The attempt was unsuccessful. Uri Ilan of kibbutz Giv'at-Shmuel, who was among the trapped, was tortured to death. He was returned without a soul in his nose, just a note hidden between his toes: "I haven't betrayed"!

Shani's golden touch

2011-03-24T22:44:00.014+02:00

Shani Blumenfeld - fashion illustration made in a computer collage technique

Shani Blumenfeld - costume

design for a play taking place

in New-York in the 60s
(photo: Sasha Flit)

Like Midas' golden touch, that whatever his hands touched turned to gold – one can say that the hands of Shani Blumenfeld (23), a third year student of fashion design at Shenkar College of Engineering And Design, whatever they touch becomes a design: As a young girl, rhymed verse she wrote and read in family events and presentations she created and screened to the guests - were the focus of attention and enthusiasm.

While being a student at Pelech high school in Kiryat-Ekron, she created the documentary Foreign Labour (a Hebrew title which has double meaning: in modern Hebrew - a job being done by a foreigner, in biblical Hebrew – a faith other than the Jewish faith, especially idolatry), which won the prize for the best documentary inthe 2006 Jerusalem Film Festival. The same year she won the prize for the best director in Docaviv Festival (the international documentary film festival).

Shani Blumenfeld - garment
inspired by the Zulu, including
the special bead technique
used by the South African tribe
(photo: Sasha Flit)

The film documents the daily life of Maria, a Christian Romanian woman that like many foreign workers in Israel makes a living by hard physical labor and sends most of her income to her overseas family. Maria makes a living from aiding an old man who lives in the religious community Beit-Gamliel.

Shani's film shows Maria's religious conflicts – as a religious Christian who takes care, among other things, of the religious needs of the old Jew, Maria's yearnings for her home and family, and especially – Maria's enormous dedication to the person she takes care of, beyond differences in age, culture and religion.

With these golden hands Shani (whose Hebrew name means "scarlet") is engaged nowadays in fashion design, and after completing her studies she would like to acquire professional experience where she can "utilize her capabilities to the fullest and express herself". She hopes to get to a fashion house which she appreciates and feels close to its design style. Later on, she might like to open her own studio.

"Flea buster" is free

2011-03-19T19:24:00.013+02:00

Dror children group of Kibbutz Ein-Hahoresh in the forties (photo: Ein-Hahoresh Arcive). Some half of the children bear Biblical names such as Samuel (SHMUEL) and Judith (YEHUDIT) while the rest bear new Israeli names such as Amira

Who hasn't wondered at some time what the origin of his name is? Who did not happen to wonder about a strange name of another person? The Hebrew book The Origin of Names (MOZA HASHEMOT), by the deceased Avraham Stahl, presents a compilation of historical facts related to the development of Jewish first and last names, seasoned by amusing anecdotes related to the relations between humans and their names.

It turns out that not many years ago most people shared a very small variety of names. Roman men, for example, shared less than a hundred names - among them Gaius, Titus and Marcus. Even an analysis of the Israel telephone directory from 1971-1979, shows that 15 percent of the Jewish men were named after Jacob and his sons: Joseph, Reuben, Simeon, Judah, Dan, Gad, Benjamin etc. The use of a few first names in traditional societies, Stahl explains, reflects the community dominance versus the individual, so there is no interest in emphasizing people's uniqueness.

In 1992 Stahl made a comparison between the names of children in the secular Jerusalem residential district Gilo and the names of the children in the religious community Beit-El. He found that half of the secular boys, but only one religious boy, had new Hebrew names, that is - names that were created from the late 19th century to the present, and the rest of the names were from the Jewish scriptures, mostly from the Bible.

In his book Stahl explains that many of the family names held by Israelis of Ashkenazi descent are related to a law published in 1787 by Emperor Joseph II, ordering all Jews to carry a permanent family name in German. One could have chosen the name from a special list of names, unless his family had already have a name, and in that occasion a payment for the new name should have payed. The most expensive names were those derived from names of flowers or precious metals, such as Rosenthal (rose valley) or Goldstein (gold stone). Names of less privileged materials were sold cheaply: Holz (wood), Stein (stone) or Stahl (steel) - as the author's family name.

And one who could not meet even the low rate, received from the emperor's officials a name for free - a ridiculous and sneered name, such as Ochsenschwanz (ox tail) or Wanzenknacker (flea buster).

And here, Itzik, a recipe for mimicking a pea

2011-03-12T18:13:00.010+02:00

The humor of the comic pair Avi Grainik and Idan Alterman, best known for their show YELADIM SORGIM, i.e. Knitting Children (rhymed in Hebrew with YELADIM CHORGIM, i.e. Step Children, hinting to the drama film God's Step Children) reflects the range of causing-to-laugh skills of the two: from sophisticated physical humor, through clever mimicry, to sharp linguistic wit.

Instead of mimicking personalities and celebrities, Avi Grainik mimics vegetables: a cucumber, a pickled cucumber, then a banana, and then a squashed banana. Actually there are several levels of humor at the same time here: a simple physical humor of impersonating, a humor caused by the mere "selection" of the mimicked objects, and a parody of the subject of mimicry - the efforts invested by entertainers to study thoroughly the mimicked object and the willingness of an audience "to be entertained" by someone trying so hard to look like someone else in order to make his audience laugh.

It's not incidental that much of their skits are based on the motto: "I am Hezi and this is my brother Itzik" ("Hezy" is the Israeli nickname for Ezekiel and "Itzik" - for Isaac) – when the two enter the stage as a pair of brothers, not too bright, not very polished, as if they are just two ordinary people invited by someone to do some skits "for the guys".

This pose, of a couple having "some idea" about what things should be done in order to be considered entertainers – is, in my opinion, Knitting Children greatest contribution to the Israeli entertainment scene: the very authentic design of the causing-to-laugh craft concept, the transition from "just two ordinary people" to "a pair of entertainers".

Adjusting Sights

2011-03-06T01:58:00.065+02:00

Field training of Israeli tanks in the Golan Heights, 2009
(photo: Rose Schneiderman)

The Israeli film Adjusting Sights - based on the book with the same title by rabbi Haim Sabato - describes the battles of Yom Kippur War (Day of Atonemet War) in the Golan Heights from the perspective of a religious gunner who had lost his best friend in the war. In Hebrew, the term adjusting sights (TEUM KAVANOT) has double meaning: the material action of coordinating the tank cannon intentions – which is a modern meaning, and the spiritual notion of intent in prayer - which is the traditional meaning.

Although it is an understatement and non-frenzy film, with subdued and quiet acting and soft like a coo background music - Adjusting Sights sweep its viewers precisely because it doesn't fall into the abyss of depression on the one hand and doesn't rise up to the heights of ecstasy on the other hand. Just as Maimonides, who is constantly quoted by the protagonist, recommended: One should choose the golden mean - not to be rolled down to depression on the one hand and not to be carried away to euphoria on the other hand.

photo: www.tobypress.com

In the transition from book to film, the director Eyal Halfon well used the opportunity to express subtle differences between secular and religious Israelis by different body language and diction - beyond the differences in the content of their associations, which literature can express no less delicately than cinema. When the documentation officer and his assistant arrive to the camp to investigate and interview the soldiers, each soldier has his own manner to sit down, start speaking and spell his guts, but when the religious soldier opens his words with the verse "My Lord, open my lips that my mouth may declare your glory" (Psalms, 51, 17) and in the background the assistant's typewriter is ticking – the army tent is filled with the special religious respect to the written word.

It is accepted that written literature has more emotional and intellectual potency than cinema – due to the deeper penetration of the verbal tool to the characters' souls and minds and due to the force the written medium put upon the reader to stimulate his imagination in completing visual details and take an active role in the artistic experience. Still, there is also and advantage of the movie over the book: In this movie, all along, we share with the characters the gap between the vitality of memory - the re-experienced experience while being reconstructed in the mind – and the dryness of things being documented, typewritten in a typewriter, and by the documentation officer are well dated and adapted to the military documentation rules. In the book, made of merely written words, these two layers unite in one but in the film they run a constant dialogue between them.

The cinematic clothing of Adjusting Sights is of special importance with regard to the view of life of young secular Israelis, since it might dim a bit the image of the young religious warrior whom they usually encounter. Things written by a young participant of one of the book discussion groups in the Hebrew internet might testify for that:

"Last week I found the book Adjusting Sights by Haim Sabato at the Hebrew Book Week fair… It seemed to me appropriate to read it on Yom Kippur…. Yom Kippur has not yet come but I have already read the whole book... The uniqueness of the book is the biography of its author as a yeshiva student, so the text is full of quotations from the Prayer Book and from the Talmud, and the daily atmosphere being depicted is therefore religious. Perhaps a radical heretic person would be revolted by the book, but I prefer to look at this aspect of the book from the human perspective rather than from the religious one. The author, for example, tells about his strictness and piety in putting on tefillin, every day of his life. During the war, when leaving a damaged tank, his small bag of tefillin was left there. Towards evening time his battalion team is returning to the tank, and our protagonist finds his tefillin and quickly put them on before sunset. To me, more than it is a religious act it is an act of holding tightly on the blessed routine in the chaos of war, the author's own way to maintain sanity".

Reality series as Jotham's and Orwell's parables

2011-02-28T21:55:00.013+02:00

It seems that the high popularity of two reality series on Israeli television: Big Brother - which follows 24 hours a day the "residents" selected to spend 100 days together in a complete isolation from the external world and Beauty and the Geek - which brings together a group of high IQ male nerds and a group of high ICQ female beauties and after dividing then into male-female couples,measures their task performance, is reflected in the abundant reference to them in online forums and talkbacks in the Hebrew net.

However, recently I found in two Hebrew online forums two different references, by two surfers apparently with no connection between each other, which indicate a sound associative relationship between those who refuse to be carried away by the popularity of these series. The first reference was as following:

"Most people refer to Big Brother participants as normal people, all of whom are well aware of the fact that the reality in which they operate is not humane and not healthy, because everyone has already read 1984 by George Orwell - and made wise. In my opinion, that reality is more similar to the plot of Animal Farm by George Orwell than to the plot of 1984: as the pigs take over the farm, led by the fat dictator Napoleon, so in Big Brother - the 'pigger' one is, the more screen time and chance to win he or she gets".

The second reference was as following:

"A few times I have been already offered to participate in the Beauty and the Geek, and I refused. Those who have forgotten, that what is said in the Bible parable of Jotham (Judges 9, 8-15):

The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them; and they said unto the olive tree, Reign thou over us.

But the olive tree said unto them, Should I leave my fatness, wherewith by me they honor God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?

And the trees said to the fig tree, Come thou, and reign over us.

But the fig tree said unto them, Should I forsake my sweetness, and my good fruit, and go to be promoted over the trees?

Then said the trees unto the vine, Come thou, and reign over us.

And the vine said unto them, Should I leave my wine, which cheered God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?

Then said all the trees unto the bramble, Come thou, and reign over us.

And the bramble said unto the trees, If in truth ye anoint me king over you, then come and put your trust in my shadow: and if not, let fire come out of the bramble, and devour the cedars of Lebanon.

"So, As a productive person, I would love to take a public office and if I would be offered to be prime minister - I would consider it positively, but I will not participate in a TV series like Beauty and the Geek in order to be a famous person just for being famous".

Indeed, the story of the governing dynamics in the Animal Farm of Orwell resembles the panel discussion about power among the trees of Jotham's Parable: actually the least productive and fruitful person, wants the power more than everyone else.

And the two parables together reminds of a Jewish anecdote about a rabbi who refused the insistent pleading of his followers to take on the role of community leader. The rabbi explained that he prefers to learn and teach rather than be engaged in leadership. He accepted his followers plead only when they "threatened" him as following: "If this role would not be taken by someone who does not want to take it – it will be rapidly taken by someone who is eager to take it…"

A prisoner's request, my cartoonist's request

2011-02-24T01:19:00.012+02:00

A couple of weeks ago the supreme court of Israel rejected a prisoner's request to put a computer and a television set in his cell, in order to conduct his defense by using a CD containing legal information and a videotape containing the prosecution evidence against him.

The supreme court ruled that a criminal trial is being conducted mostly by arguments, and that a prisoner wishing to submit any written documents might do so by using his own handwriting or the services of a public defender.

When asking a cartoonist friend of mine to illustrate this case, he was ready to start immediately but when asking him what credit I should attach to the cartoon, he replied: "Which credit? What credit?" - with the common Israeli intonation of rejecting the whole idea just pronounced.

So, from now on, in order to respect his wishful anonymity, his credit on his cartoons in this blog will be which credit what credit.

Well, guys, what's new in our world?

2011-02-20T12:11:00.032+02:00

The story of man falling asleep for many years is found in folk stories of various nations. Among Greek legends, for example, one can find the story of Epimenides, being once sent by his father to find a stray lamb. On his way Epimenides got into a cave, to relax a bit at noon, but he fell asleep and slept for no less than 57 years.

When he woke up, he continued his search for the lamb, thinking that he slept only an hour. After searching in vain, he returned to his father's estate, to be astonished finding out that someone else got a hold of it and that everything there had been completely changed. When he returned to his father house in the city, he found there strangers as well, asking him who he was. Eventually he recognized among them his younger brother, who was then a very old man, from which he learned about the long sleep he had been going through.

The Jewish legend about the long sleep of Honi HaM'agel (in Hebrew - "Honi the Circle-Drawer") has one version in the Jerusalem Talmud and another one in the Babylonian Talmud. According to the Jerusalem Talmud, Honi, who lived at the time of the first Temple's destruction, once went to the field and when it began raining, found a shelter in a cave. After dozing off there, he fell asleep which endured 70 years. At this period the Temple was destroyed and built again.

After 70 years, when Honi woke up, he got out of the cave and saw a completely different world: places once being vineyards and olive orchards were now seeded fields.

He asked the people around: what's new in the world?
They told him: Well, don't you know?
He said: No.
They said: Who are you?
He said: Honi.
They said: We heard that a man bearing this name - once entering the Temple courtyard the courtyard had been filled with light.

So Honi entered the Temple courtyard, and it shone full of light.
He said to himself: "When God will return the captives of Zion, we will be like dreamers".

Comparing the Greek legend to the Jewish legend reveals many similarities between the two, but while the Greek legend doesn't explain why the protagonist slept for specifically 57 years – the Jewish legend supplies a "realistic explanation" for the period spent on sleeping: Honi fell asleep for 70 years, in order to hinder such a tzaddik (in Hebrew - "righteous person") from witnessing the destruction of the Temple, and he woke up only after the Temple had been rebuilt.

Which reminds me of the film "Goodbye Lenin", about the huge efforts of a young man, son of an East Germany devoted communist, to conceal from his mother - who fell into a coma in October 1989 - the "unbearable" historical events that took place in the meantime: the fall of the Berlin Wall, the reunification of Germany, and the making of the previous East Germany a capitalist society.

So, when she awakens out of her coma, and in order to prevent her excitement facing the extreme changes - excitement that could undermine the health status, the son makes the mother's environment an East German "nature reserve", exactly as she had in the "good old days".

According to the Babylonian Talmud, the verse "A song of ascents, when God will return the captives of Zion we will be like dreamers" - made Honi upset, and he wondered if there was anyone who could have spent 70 years in sleeping and dreaming. One day, while walking along the way, he met a man planting a carob tree.

He said to the man: That tree, within how many years will it give fruit?
The man answered: Up to 70 years.
Honi said: Are you sure you will live 70 years?
The man replied: I found a world in which there was a carob tree, since my ancestors planted it for me, so I plant a carob tree - for my children.

Honi sat, ate, and a sleep came over him. When he was asleep, a rock bump hid him and so he slept for 70 years. When he got up he saw a man gathering carobs from the tree once being planted.Honi asked the man: Did you plant the tree?
The man replied: I am the grandson of the man who planted the tree.

Then Honi realized that he had been sleeping for 70 years, and looking around he saw that his donkeys had been fruitful and multiplied to many donkey herds. When he went to his home and asked the people if the son of Honi HaM'agel was there, they said: his son is gone, his grandson is here. When he told them that he was Honi the Circle-Drawer, that could solve any question of study, they didn't believe him and didn't honor him. With grief, his mind "went weak" and he died. And so our sages said: "o havruta o mituta" (in "Aramaic" Hebrew - "either a friend or death").

Thus, while the Jerusalem Talmud version of the legend emphasizes the sustainability of man - the Babylonian Talmud version of the legend emphasizes the inability of a person belonging to certain generation to fit to a different generation.

The painting on the wall

2011-02-16T18:07:00.016+02:00

Fifth century BC painters Zeuxis of Heraclea and Parrhasius of Ephesus became familiar with each other when they both settled in Athens. Their activity was recorded 400 years later by Elder Pliny in his book Naturalis Historia. According to Pliny, they held a competition which one of them was a greater artist, that is - who painted pictures that look more realistic.

When Zeuxis revealed Parrhasius a painting of grapes, they looked so inviting and tempting that birds flew down from the sky to peck at them. And when Parrhasius asked Zeuxis to watch his painting and Zeuxis asked Parrhasius to divert the curtain over the painting, he found that the curtain itself was Parrhasius' drawing.

Zeuxis had to admit his loss in competition, and said: "I managed to deceive the eyes of birds, but Parrhasius managed to deceive the eyes of Zeuxis".

Nowadays big hyper-realistic wall paintings adorn buildings in many cities worldwide. Unlike spontaneous graffiti made at the dead of night, professional wall painters get an advanced approval of the municipalities to paint the walls of specific buildings in the city. So is Rami meiri, one of the first Israeli wall painters, that Tel-Aviv is one of the major stages for his art (he also painted in Germany, Beijing, Fort-Lauderdale Florida, and Buenos-Aires).

Most of his paintings are made by using Trompe-l'œil technique, designed to blur the boundaries between reality and illusion, and one of the most famous among them is The Scream, painted on the wall of Max Fine school at the intersection of Begin Road and Hashalom Road.

In an interview Meiri told about the inspiration for this painting:

"This painting is influenced by the first carnival I saw, in northern Brazil. It's kind of crazy sense, people get there into ecstasy, and I saw there one I liked. In the baby bottle there was alcohol, and the man ran and went wild. At the same time, the painting is not merely that. All good art is made of tension and relaxation. So here he increased the tension, was kind of a frightening figure, and suddenly you see that he has a bottle in the hand".

Is it only me that this painting reminds her of The Scream by Edvard Munch?

The evolution of impersonating

2011-02-12T19:20:00.077+02:00

Isaac blessing Jacob by Gustave Doré (photo: www.creationism.org)/images

Jacob received the birthright blessing by his near-sighted Father Isaac, when pretending to be his hairy brother Esau, by wearing young goats leather on his hands. Hansel, Gretel's brother, pretended to be "non eatable" when handing a thin bone instead of his own fingers to the near-sighted witch. And nowadays, under the auspices of an Israeli Cellular firm, anyone can pose a very busy person

Impersonating – the ancient version:

When Isaac was old and his eyes were dim so that he could not see, he called Esau his older son and said to him, "My son"; and he answered, "Here I am." He said, "Behold, I am old; I do not know the day of my death. Now then, take your weapons, your quiver and your bow, and go out to the field and hunt game for me, and prepare for me delicious food, such as I love, and bring it to me so that I may eat, that my soul may bless you before I die."

Now Rebekah was listening when Isaac spoke to his son Esau. So when Esau went to the field to hunt for game and bring it, Rebekah said to her son Jacob, "I heard your father speak to your brother Esau, 'Bring me game and prepare for me delicious food, that I may eat it and bless you before the LORD before I die.' Now therefore, my son, obey my voice as I command you. Go to the flock and bring me two good young goats, so that I may prepare from them delicious food for your father, such as he loves. And you shall bring it to your father to eat, so that he may bless you before he dies."

But Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, "Behold, my brother Esau is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man. Perhaps my father will feel me, and I shall seem to be mocking him and bring a curse upon myself and not a blessing." His mother said to him, "Let your curse be on me, my son; only obey my voice, and go, bring them to me".

So he went and took them and brought them to his mother, and his mother prepared delicious food, such as his father loved. Then Rebekah took the best garments of Esau her older son, which were with her in the house, and put them on Jacob her younger son. And the skins of the young goats she put on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck. And she put the delicious food and the bread, which she had prepared, into the hand of her son Jacob.

So he went in to his father and said, "My father." And he said, "Here I am. Who are you, my son?" Jacob said to his father, "I am Esau your firstborn. I have done as you told me; now sit up and eat of my game, that your soul may bless me".

But Isaac said to his son, "How is it that you have found it so quickly, my son?" He answered, "Because the LORD your God granted me success." Then Isaac said to Jacob, "Please come near, that I may feel you, my son, to know whether you are really my son Esau or not." So Jacob went near to Isaac his father, who felt him and said, "The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau." And he did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau’s hands. So he blessed him. He said, "Are you really my son Esau?" He answered, "I am." Then he said, "Bring it near to me, that I may eat of my son’s game and bless you." So he brought it near to him, and he ate; and he brought him wine, and he drank.

Then his father Isaac said to him, "Come near and kiss me, my son." So he came near and kissed him. And Isaac smelled the smell of his garments and blessed him and said,

"See, the smell of my son

is as the smell of a field that the LORD has blessed!
May God give you of the dew of heaven
and of the fatness of the earth
and plenty of grain and wine.
Let peoples serve you,
and nations bow down to you.
Be lord over your brothers,
and may your mother’s sons bow down to you.
Cursed be everyone who curses you,
and blessed be everyone who blesses you!"

(Genesis, 27, 1-29)

Impersonating – the medieval version:

The old woman had only pretended to be so kind; she was in reality a wicked witch, who lay in wait for children, and had only built the little house of bread in order to entice them there. When a child fell into her power, she killed it, cooked and ate it, and that was a feast day with her. Witches have red eyes, and cannot see far, but they have a keen scent like the beasts, and are aware when human beings draw near. When Hansel and Gretel came into her neighborhood, she laughed with malice, and said mockingly: "I have them, they shall not escape me again!"

Early in the morning before the children were awake, she was already up, and when she saw both of them sleeping and looking so pretty, with their plump and rosy cheeks, she muttered to herself: "That will be a dainty mouthfull".

Then she seized Hansel with her shriveled hand, carried him into a little stable, and locked him in behind a grated door. Scream as he might, it would not help him. Then she went to Gretel, shook her till she awoke, and cried: "Get up, lazy thing, fetch some water, and cook something good for your brother, he is in the stable outside, and is to be made fat. When he is fat, I will eat him." Gretel began to weep bitterly, but it was all in vain, for she was forced to do what the wicked witch commanded.

And now the best food was cooked for poor Hansel, but Gretel got nothing but crab-shells. Every morning the woman crept to the little stable, and cried: "Hansel, stretch out your finger that I may feel if you will soon be fat." Hansel, however, stretched out a little bone to her, and the old woman, who had dim eyes, could not see it, and thought it was Hansel's finger, and was astonished that there was no way of fattening him.

("Hansel & Gretel" by the Grimm brothers)

Impersonating - the post-modern version:

"A new service by Cellcom allows its customers to add background sounds to their phone call, such as a football game, a kindergarten, a restaurant or a beach. One can start and stop the background sound anytime during the phone call, by pressing an asterisk".

(An Israeli newspaper)

Do Scottish children still prefer Hebrew?or: Hungarian children, skip the last paragraph!

2011-02-10T18:30:00.103+02:00

HaMoshava HaGermanit is the Hebrew name of the Jerusalem neighbourhood "The German colony": The definite article HA is attached to both the noun and its adjective (photo: Steven C. Bennett)

A Medieval story of King James IV reminds me
of the debate concerning the relative simplicity
of the American English compared to the Israeli Hebrew

A legend tells that James IV of Scotland (1488-1513) wanted to know what the first language ever was. To find it, he ordered to isolate two newborns in one wing of his palace, and prevent them from any contact with talking people. A nanny was provided to take care of all their needs and treated them devotedly, but never talked to them not even one word. After a while, so the king told, the two children began to talk very good Hebrew ("Spak very guid Ebrew").

Since Hebrew was revived as a spoken language there's a never ending debate if the Hebrew language is indeed more "complicated", "abstract" and "arbitrary" than most western languages, especially the American English.

Some arguments held by the opponents of the mentioned above notion are as following:

* Pronouncing the consonants in English is more difficult due to "hard" consonant sequences - like "str" in the word "street", while Hebrew keeps more harmonious a balance between vowels and consonants.

* the English accentuation system is more complicated: While the Israeli child learns to link certain recurring forms of words with oxytone or paroxytone accentuation (stressing the last syllable of the word or the one-before-last syllable), the English child learns to understand that almost every word has its own rule of accentuation.

* The relations between the singular form and plural form and between the male form and the female form in English are an "arbitrary and illogical tangle" - e.g. "man" versus "men" or "fish" vs. "fish" – from which the Israeli child is completely exempted.

* The American child must deal with a non-simple system of grammatical rejection: He should choose between a series of organs such as "am", "are", "is" or "do" – to create phrases like "I am not" or "I do not know". Whereas the Israeli child should use only LO (no) or AL (don't).

* The American child's life is more complicated than that of the Israeli child in the aspect of the definite article as well: While the Israeli child learns that a known thing is defined by the short prefix HA (the), his American counterpart should learn a whole series of definite articles: "a", "some", "the" etc.

* The methodicalness and repetition of the "root system" in Hebrew enhances and accelerates the learning process – comparatively to the suffixes and prefixes system in English - by generating simple and logical links between the phenomena: The Israeli child quickly learns to understand the relation between LE'ECHOL (to eat), OCHEL (food) and LE'HA'ACHIL (to feed), while his American counterpart might realize vaguely the connection between "to eat", "food" and "to feed". The Hebrew root system is not only a factor of methodicalness and efficient organization, but also an "economical" factor: While the Hebrew speaker has at his BAYIT (home) AVIRA BEYTIT ("a homely atmosphere"), near the YAM (ocean) MUZE'ON YAMI ("an oceanic museum") and a NESHER (eagle) with AF NISHRI ("eagled nose") - the American speaker is forced to memorize: "home-domestic", "sea-marine", "eagle-acquiline", and such thousands of "illogical" combinations of nouns and their adjectives.

פלפל - Is it PILPEL (pepper) or FALAFEL?

So are the main arguments of the Israelis finding no special difficulty in Israeli Hebrew comparatively to American English. However, there is still an intuitive feeling that American English is more simple than Hebrew, at least for those learning the two languages as foreign languages. It seems that some of the arguments raised above "for" the simplicity of Hebrew, actually lean on its formal structures rather than its practical use.

So, let's face the contradictory arguments:

* The issue of consonants: Is the Israeli child, compared to the American child, really exempted from pronunciation complications? So what about the need to learn to pronounce foreign and rare consonants that are unnatural to old Hebrew, such as the English J in the word "jeans", the French J in the word "jacket" and the English W in the word "walkman"? And these are only individual cases of the general difficulty in the way Hebrew assimilates foreign words. While the American child gradually enriches his vocabulary under the auspice of the American English capacity to absorb, convert and assimilate foreign words, the Israeli child is doomed to confront words such as ELEMENTARY (elementary), OTENTI (authentic) or SIMPATI (sympathetic) which are not only heard "foreign" to him but also remain outside the grammatical "options game": It is impossible to say in Hebrew OTENTIYUTO (his authenticity) as naturally as saying TIV'IYUTO (his neutrality) or HU HISTAMPET ALAY (he made me sympathize him) as simple as it is to say HU HITCHABEV ALAY (he made me like him).

* The issue of accentuation: Again, albeit in this aspect Hebrew is more systematic than English and has fixed word structures with fixed accentuations: either paroxytone or oxytone - due to the massive penetration of foreign words, the contemporary Israeli child can no longer enjoy this "theoretical" systematic structure. After he had got used to the fact that there is a paroxytone BOKER (cowboy) and an oxytone BOKER (morning), as there is a paroxytone ROSHEM ("sketch") and an oxytone ROSHEM ("impression"), lately he has to learn words such as TELEPHONE, PELEPHONE (mobile phone), BEYGALE (pretzel), HAMBURGER (hamburger) or MICROGAL (microwave), pronounced as proparoxyton, which is completely alien to the old Hebrew, and many other words without any logic in their methodicalness, such as: KARAOKE, DISKETTE (floppy), FORUM. Add to it the Hebrew slang which is so "non-Hebrew" and lack any regularity of accentuation: AHBAL (stupid), CHANTARISH (non serious), AWANTA (trying to impress), MASCHARA (dishonest deal), and compare it to the American slang which sounds as an integral part of the American language sound.

* The issue of the singular form vs. the plural form and the male form vs. the female form: The Israeli child is not fully exempted of this complication. He has to learn pairs of nouns like: ISH-ANASHIM (person-people), ISHA-NASHIM (woman-women), PRI-PEROT (a fruit-fruit), CHELO-CHELLI (cello-cellos), MEDYUM-MEDYA (medium-media), and pairs of nouns like: CHAMOR-ATON (donkey-she ass), ARYE-LEVIAH (lion-lioness), TAYISH-EZ (male goat-female goat), GAMAL-NEAKA (male camel-female camel), EVED-SHIFCHA (male slave-female slave); and many many more irregular pairs of nouns lacking the formula: male plural = male singular + IM, female plural = female singular + OT.

* The issue of the negating system: Indeed, the auxiliary verbs in English complicate the negation system in this language, but isn't it much harder to learn the following collection: E EFSHAR (not possible), AL TELECH (don't go), ASUR LE'ASHEN (no smoking), EYN MAKOM (no vacancy), BILTI KARI (non readable), AF ECHAD (no one), SHUM DAVAR (nothing) – than the following collection: not possible, don't go, no smoking, no vacancy, non readable, no one, nothing?

* The issue of definition by article: Does the Israeli child have to learn merely the fact that a thing is defined by the definite article Ha (the) as a prefix? So, what about the difference between BEYT KNESET HAGADOL (Great Synagogue) and BEYT HAKNESET HAGADOL (The great synagogue)? Or between SHITAT CHAMESH HASHMINIYOT (the five eights method) and SHITAT HACHAMESH SHMINIYOT (the method of five eighths)? And where in the following sentence the HA (the) is a definite article, when it is a question article, and when - a direction article: HATEDA (do you know) HA'IM HAYELED HASHOVAV (wehether the naughty child) HAPORETZ HACHUZA (bursting out) HU HAYELED HARISHON HAYOTZE HABAYTA (is the first child going home)?

* The issue of the root system effectiveness comparatively to the prefixes and suffixes system: It's true that the methodicalness and repetition of the root system makes it easier for the child to learn the principle, but since this methodicalness is theoretical and not always practical – because many verbs in Modern Hebrew are not applied in any possible conjugation – a child who learns the principle often fails by "inventing" a word which is not used. After he learned to say LE'ECHOL (to eat) - OCHEL (food) - LE'HA'ACHIL (to feed) and LILBOSH (to wear) - LEVUSH (clothing) – LEHALBISH (to dress up), everyone around woud laugh when he says LISHTOT (to drink) – SHTIYA (a drink) – LEHASHTOT (to give a drink) – because the last word is not used in modern Hebrew, or when he says LIGROV (to wear socks) – LEHAGRIV (to wear socks to someone). Is there any Israeli child who haven't failed by saying ANI HIGADETI RISHON (I was the first one to say) VE'ATA MAGID ET ZE ACHARAY )and you say it after I did)? Now, we all know that there is a word MAGID (say) and it appears many time in Jewish old scriptures, but in modern Hebrew everybody say OMER (say) and not MAGID, although we all use that verb in the future tense: TAGID, NAGID, YAGIDU etc.

* The issue of adjectives derived from the "root system": Indeed, there is AVIRA BEYTIT ("a homely atmosphere"), MUZE'ON YAMI ("an oceanic museum") and AF NISHRI ("eagled nose"), but there isn't the ease with which the American English can make almost every word an adjective by using the word "like"): A house-like tent, a sea-like lake, an eagle-like dove. Nor is the ease with which an English speaker adds a little suffix and makes an adjective out of a noun, as the following: housy, tenty, laky.

* And above all these issues rises up the one of the non-dotted Hebrew spelling, with no letters to mark the vowels. Is there a question that reading signs of consonants without signs of vowels is more difficult than reading combined signs of consonants and vowels? Is it controversial that the Hebrew reader has to decide, according to the context, if it is PILPEL (pepper) or FALAFEL or if it is DUGMA (example) or DOGMA more frequently than he has to decide between strawberry and banan ice cream?

Even the so-called "lack of arbitrariness" of the Hebrew spelling, is a virtue that our language might have had in its Semitic pronunciation phase. But for an Israeli child of our time the following question is a real question: Why one writes TAPUCHA (apple) and pronounce it TAPUACH? Or writes MELAACHA (craft) and pronounce it MLACHA? Or write YEFEHFIYA and pronounce it YEFEYFIYA?

And after all, although there isn't an objective measure of difficulty levels or beauty levels of language, there's a popular inter-subjective opinion about this matter, as reflected in the following joke: When God distributed the languages to the nations, the Hungarians were the last to arrive. So, God said to them: it's too late, there aren't anymore languages to distribute. The Hungarians asked: So how shall we talk? And God said: The way you did till now.

Time, place and identity

2011-02-02T23:13:00.057+02:00

A panoramic view of Temple Mount in Jerusalem (photo: Ami Aviel)

In this post I wish to share with my readers an essay by the prominent Israeli philosopher and composer, Dr. Daniel Shalit, as adapted from a talk given at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Faculty of Social Sciences, the Swiss Center for Conflict Research, Management and Resolution marking two years to the disengagement from Gaza Strip, and as translated from Hebrew by Yaakov Macales

Rousseau and the Jews

In the year 1762, Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote in his book “Emile, or On Education”: “It seems to me we will never come to understand what the Jews are saying until they have a free state, schools and universities in which they will be able to speak freely and discuss matters without danger. Only then will we be able to know what they have to say".

Here we are standing today, in a free Jewish state, in the Hebrew University. If Rousseau were to come to the University today, would it be any clearer to him "what the Jews are saying"? Well, this is quite doubtful; the Jews themselves have undergone deep crises and no longer are certain about what they have to say, and moreover: about who they are.

***

In the Middle Ages, the picture was simple: one was either Jewish or Christian or Moslem. Passing from one religion to another entailed conversion, metamorphosis, a complete change of identity. Only with the advent of European humanism, enlightenment and rationalism, did it become possible to be a Jew plus something else, apparently broader: a pure human being, a citizen, Ein Mensch. Jews used this new opening and penetrated the fabric of French, German or English societies as citizens or Menschen. Many discarded their Jewish identity altogether and became just "Menschen" of the local (German, French or English) variety. In fact they became so good at being whatever they chose, that they almost started teaching the Germans themselves how to be better and truer Germans; which the Germans didn’t particularly appreciate. The wave of European nationalism that followed, and later, Antisemitism (the word was invented at that time) and of course, Nazism - pushed the Jews back to their original Jewish identity, or should we say in this case: to their Jewish fate.

Meanwhile Zionism proposed an alternative: not ignoring Jewish identity, but on the contrary, asserting and stressing it. Still, this was a new, revolutionary kind of Jewish identity, molded along then-accepted lines: secular, national, modern. No more wandering Jews, practicing their old religion and praying daily for divine redemption, but an active, political people, re-entering history, taking responsibility, gathering together from all corners of the world into their historical land as a normal people.

This revolutionary alternative met with severe objections from the traditional religious communities, but eventually it seemed to have won: the state of Israel was founded, fought for and defended along this vision. The state of Israel was meant to be the final seal to the normalization of the Jewish people: A normal state, a normal people, normal politics.

***

Where do we stand today? Israel is anything but normal. It is the only state in the world threatened with total extinction. Unlike normal countries, it is supersensitive to moral charges, which are fired at it at an astounding rate. It tries desperately to act according to the most saintly international moral standards, only to find that it is still accused of being the world Goliath, a monstrous Nazi, criminal state.

Could it be, then, that the modern, secular, so-normal state finds itself in a corner traditionally reserved for Jews since the time of the biblical prophet Isaiah - the corner kept for the "rejected and despised, acquainted with grief and sorrow, despised and unesteemed" – but this time on a global scale? Could it be that the very thrust to normalcy was an impossibility? Could it be that the name of Israel, with all its historical and religious import, could not be used to designate a new, normal state?

And just where is that blessed normalcy to be found, anyway? Isn’t the family of nations today just as insane, just as abnormal as always, perhaps even more so, but just as tormented and desperate - perhaps desperate to find what it is that Israel taught the nations to seek: redemption, salvation, liberation? Could it be that Israel can actually be the answer to the problem of Man?

***

Meanwhile, it is not only Israel that became uncertain as to its identity; Man himself lost the sense and meaning of his existence.

Out of the glorious science that man developed, he emerges as a speck of dust in a barren infinite space; from the biological point of view – he is nothing but a meaningless carbohydrate complex; according to post-modern criticism, "Man" is an illusion, a "text" or "narrative" of the 19th century white male.

This is the post-modern "Zeitgeist". One century ago, Zionism drew its support from then-current ideas of nationality, modernity and progress. But the same Western channels carry today doubt, uncertainty, and in fact - nihilism. The kind of identity these channels have to offer is in fact a non-identity, as the post-modern situation erodes all identities, the very identity of Man included.

This is why Jean-Jacques Rousseau would stay quite uncertain as to what it is that the Jews have to say. In the Hebrew University, as well as in the Israeli government, press and even art - all of them so normal, western, post-modern – Jewish identity leads only a shadowy life, a repressed existence somewhere back in the subconscious.

May be Rousseau should hurry back to his 18th century France, for if he stayed any longer in the Hebrew post-modern University he would become uncertain even as to who he himself is.

But before doing that, being already in the Middle East, perhaps he should pay a visit to some settlements in Judea/Samaria. Maybe they are Israel's suppressed Jewish conscience. Maybe he would come to understand there something about Jewish identity, and perhaps about human identity too.

What the settlements say

The Israeli settlements in the "the West Bank" are perhaps the least understood spots upon this earth. To people influenced by the mass-media, they are associated with severe injustice (to Palestinians), with ruthless oppression (by Israel), with unchecked greed for land (by settlers) and are somehow close to racism, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, hatred, and other such things from which decent people should keep their distance.

Rarely ever does one hear anything in defense of these places or the people inhabiting them. Who are they? Why have they gone there? What do they have to say in their defense?

***

The areas where the settlers settled are referred to in the Wikipedia as "Palestinian Territories", in all languages except Hebrew. In the Hebrew Wikipedia, however, they are called "Judea and Samaria". This tells almost the whole story. The Arabs feel that a foreign body has invaded their territories, where they have been living for generations. However, the foreign invader himself denies his being foreign; he says he has only returned to his four-thousand-years-old homeland. To him, the "Palestinians" are the newcomers to the area, and in fact, invaders or infiltrators from their native Arabia. To him, the "Palestinian territories" are the heart of the Land of Israel; they include places like Bethlehem, Beth-El, Jericho, Shekhem, the City of David in Jerusalem; they were the route of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, they were the site of two Jewish kingdoms and two temples for a thousand years; and later, throughout the two-thousand-years forced Jewish exile, they were the subject of constant yearning and prayers - to return to Zion.

In short: these hills were and still are the backbone of Jewish identity. Without them, Tel-Aviv is devoid of all meaning or justification, and Israel is really just a colonizing power. With them, Israel is not colonization, but homecoming.

***

Three objections may be raised against this argument:

1. Are you coming to deny the rights of people who live there here and now - in the name of mere history, in the name of things that happened thousands of years ago?

2. Who says, that over such a long period, your own identity has remained the same? Have you not undergone considerable change over these millennia?

3. Why insist on territories at all? have we not suffered enough from that animal "territorial imperative"? Have we not outgrown attachment to miserable stretches of ground?

These three objections gained power in our post-modern era. They question the validity of history; the reality of identity and the uniqueness of place.

Therefore it is worthwhile to take a closer look into our own time.

Post-modernity and identity

Post-modernity is not just a fashion and not only a passing fad; first and foremost, it is the current state of our civilization: science, technology, economics and society; it is also the “Spirit of the Time” (Zeitgeist), which dominates the intellectual world as well as art, literature and popular culture.

This central Zeitgeist dismantles all traditional structures such as nation and family, authority and hierarchy, all traditional values (goodness, truth and beauty) and orientation in general (center vs. periphery, importance vs. unimportance; seriousness vs. triviality, depth vs. shallowness).

Post-modernism thus has a corrosive effect not only on Jewish-Israeli outlook, but on Western civilization itself. If it is possible somehow to reconstruct the world of human values, it will be to the benefit of Man at large.

Time, place

Time and place are interconnected. Intuitively, we perceive time as "What it takes to travel a particular distance".

Now, in the global village, both time and space have all but disappeared. In cyberspace virtually no space/time is involved, geographical distances are irrelevant; connections are instantaneous.

What is happening in the technological realm is supported by post-modern thinking. Traditionally, place and time were not only abstract dimensions but had an actual structure: place used to have a center vs. periphery; surface vs. depth and height. These physical dimensions had their mental correlations: center meant importance, periphery meant irrelevance, unimportance. Surface meant superficiality; depth and height meant significance and import. Now, post-modernism rejects both physical and spiritual distinctions.

And there is some truth in this. Indeed, who can deny, that nowadays the universe is conceived as infinite; that in such a universe - center, height, depth etc. are only relative to the observer. Our mega-cities have the same non-structure: old towns had their ancient center with church, market and townhall – marking the center of mass as well – and around it, in ever-widening circles – suburbs, periphery, while post-modern mega-cities are a conglomerate of suburbs with no center, or at best multi-centered. Another example is the Web, with no editing or regulatory center. Post-modernism takes these examples to be good parables to the non-structure of reality and of consciousness: there is no central view or truth: there are only points of view.

This sounds to be heralding a new era of openness and tolerance (and indeed it is a step forward from narrow-mindedness and ego- or ethno-centrism). But this total openness means that there is no truth at all, nothing is important or trivial, high or low, deep or shallow. Everything is important and trivial, deep and shallow, and nothing really matters.

So maybe a new way should be found to reestablish our relation to truth, value and meaning. May be the parables of physical space, of megacities and of the web are inadequate to describe the dimensions – vital, mental, spiritual - within which man acts, of which he is a microcosm.

In the meantime, until such new ways are found, Western culture, the dominating culture of our era, acts without guidelines, without structure.

***

So much for the de-construction of space and its conceptual parallels.

Time, too, loses its structure both in practice and in thought. In post-modern thinking, and contrary to former notions of progress, history does not go anywhere. also there is no historical "truth". History is only a kaleidoscope of narratives.

Identity

From this follows the erosion of local identities. In any case, MacDonalds is the same everywhere; also, production and selling techniques are standardized. Local cultures are wiped out and at most offered as attractions in the Global Mall (exotic foods, ethnic music, authentic bistros, village inns). Malls are the same, manpower is the same, and all individuals dissolve into an indifferentiated mass.

Again, theory confirms practice: when space and time lose their value, identity which used to define itself by time and history, is eroded also.

Here too, the loss of identities presents itself as an advancement, almost as a redemption: no more differences, no more boundaries: borderlines dissolve, and all cultures, all races, all genders come close to each other and embrace, "Sympathy and Understanding, Harmony and Trust Abounding" ("The Age of Aquarius" from "Hair").

But this is a sweet illusion. Love occurs only between complementary opposites. Washed-out non-identities are not capable of fertility but of degenerating into an inert mass.

***

And as said before, it is not just personal or cultural identities that have been degraded. The very identity of Man, his self-conception, has been erased. In fact, Man is being denied.

The denial of Man

The entire Western culture was built by and for the self-determining, autonomous subject. The free, autonomous man or woman is still the pivot and cornerstone of democracy. Now while these values are still highly lauded, in actual fact they are depreciated and devalued. Man is being denied, both in practice and in theory.

As employee, he is helplessly drawn into a global business machinery that he cannot grasp, and which erodes his humanity. As customer, he is tempted and coerced into consuming what he does not need, while the machinery of persuasion will use all means, over or under the navel, to trick him into it; in fact he and his needs are being re-shaped and re-engineered. As political subject he is treated by professional public relations men with utter contempt, as a particle of a mob, crowd or faceless mass, to be manipulated, coerced and tricked.

At the top of the pyramid we find the leaders – Entrepreneurs, Political leaders, media and art celebrities. These reap the full glory of leadership and decision-making. But in fact they too are pushed by the incomprehensible circumstances, slaves to the demands of career, competition and image. They never had the time or peace of mind to find their inner truth; busy with amassing renown, money, or power, they are devoid of humanity just as the least among the crowd.

So much for the denial of Man in practice; now to theory.

From the scientific point of view, man does not deserve much dignity: not only his home Planet Earth, but the whole solar system hovers somewhere in an insignificant tail of the Milky Way, which in itself is just one of billions of galaxies making their way from an insignificant bang to an insignificant thermic death. On this insignificant planet, man is just some chance chemical compound, which somehow survived but is currently heading for suicide. Good riddance; insects and microorganisms will survive it, and won't miss it much.

From the post-modern point of view, "Man" with capital M, or the Subject, in philosophical jargon, is nothing but an "invented entity”, a "narrative" of western culture, a "text" to be deconstructed and debunked. Anyway, it never served anything but the hubris of this curious species and its unjustifiable aim to dominate all animate and inanimate existence.

So much for the Denial of Man, the stripping man of all dignity and identity, both in practice and in theory.

***

Somehow, in spite of everything, Identity survives as need, deep inside man, gnawing away at him.

The post-modern condition recognizes this need and caters to it in its special way. It supplies illusory, hollow, outward-oriented identities: a winner, a celebrity, a success; "smaller" people are offered smaller roles: a label consumer, a fan club member.

***

Another way of identifying is through hate: We don't know any more who we are, but we know whom we hate. I hate, therefore I am. (this is the grim reality contrary to the dreams of Universal Love).

Identity through hatred is not a new invention: hatred always helped to boost identities and mobilize masses. But nowadays as natural identities are dwindling, the role of hatred increases. Orwell's "Two Minutes Hate" in his novel "1984" epitomized the role of hatred in dictatorships. But today it seems that not only in dictatorships, but in democracies as well – free, tolerant, open and otherwise amiable people may need some demon to define themselves against. This time hatred is not invoked deliberately by some external tyrant: it is rather a need coming from the inside, from the individual or collective unconscious, projecting deep inner fears and guilt onto an external individual or group, making it "the totally other". Since it is not forced from the outside but demanded by the inside, it is much more difficult to diagnose and cure. People practicing demonization will not readily admit it, because this has been their way of self-cleansing. Because by pointing it out to them, the caricature they have been drawing of "the totally other" may be mirrored and projected back upon themselves. They may feel that they themselves are being demonized, and vehemently reject the allegation. (Therefore we will not press the point, but merely lightly suggest that such deep processes may at the root of the international demonization of Israel and "the settlements").

***

The denial of the value of man, the erosion of values, and parallel increase in hatred and demonization create in the West a toxic culture. Its past achievements cannot be denied: the creativity of autonomous man in science, technology, social and political thought, and the arts. But somehow these achievements themselves turn back upon Western man to poison his life.

Islam and the West

Islam strongly reacts to this toxicity of Western culture, to the loss of traditional values, to the decomposition of traditional family and the traditional system of authority.

The remedy it offers is religious discipline - a total submission to Allah. In the west Islam diagnoses too much freedom. Islamic thinkers (Maududi, Sayyid Qutb) see the centrality of Man in the west as the source of all evil; they call western culture "the New Jahilia"' meaning the new paganism.

Still, the only remedy Islam knows for the situation is - war: surrender – or destruction.

In fact we witness a clash of two opposed civilizations based on two opposed principals: the autonomy of man, unreserved, absolute, and total - as against the absolute, total submission of man to Allah. Total openness, tolerance, containing – against absolute divine Truth and power.

Both principles are derived from Judaism, where, in spite of the creative tension that exists between them, they ultimately come to coexist in peace and fertility. Each culture took one side of Judaism, without acknowledging its original unifying and creative power. When they face crisis now, they have no more access to the living fountain that would enable renewal, but are both bound to return to some kind of conservatism - the outer shells of their one-time religious enthusiasm.

What Man needs now is not going back but a step forward; a new fount and foundation.

What on earth has all this to do with Settlements?

First, there is no specific "settler/settlement" message. "Settlers" are not a separate tribe. Each of them has many relatives and supporters all over Israel. Settlements are simply a concise expression of Jewish identity, true to its history and to its defining sites. (And Arab media know this: they call all Israeli cities "settlements": for them, all Israel is just one big illegal settlement).

***

Jewish identity is not easy to maintain.

It is not a fact: it is a choice. It needs to be opted for, rediscovered and re-won under every new historical circumstance;

It may be lost for a while, missed, refused, minimized, suppressed or hid; It is always put to a test.

But in every generation there is central nucleus or group which upholds it to its maximum fullness possible at that time.

Today I believe it is the settlements who hold it at its fullest: the Tora life as well as modern life, attachment to ideals as well as physical realization, Tradition and renewal.

***

What the settlements highlight today is the general Jewish message for our time:

There is hope for Man. It is possible to mediate between human freedom and autonomy on one hand, and service to God on the other.

Judaism does not reject human autonomy, dignity, freedom and creativity. All these are Man's potential, parts of the Image of God. In fact it was Judaism, through Christianity, that laid the foundations of Humanism in the West (it is true that classical Greece, the other pillar of the west, did indeed establish the centrality of Man, but not his value or hope: Man there is essentially a tragic creature); And later it was the Jews that developed these qualities and used them to catalyze liberalism everywhere.

On the other hand, Judaism testifies for Man's standing before God; this standing is not just obedience, submission and service, but comprises the full spectrum of love and awe, fascination and dread, intimacy and distance.

***

The paradox of Judaism – the paradox of Man - branched into two clashing civilizations. How will both man's autonomy and submission be reconciled?

Abstract formulae will not take us far. The freedom-submission balance has to be lived, fought and suffered for. This takes some specific living society, for a long time in history, centering around some specific geographical scene.

In Israel's authentic tradition, the society where the drama of Man was and is enacted, is the people of Israel, the history is the history of Israel, the place is the Land of Israel.

Time, history, identity – epilogue

The settlements say:

History is not just a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. History has importance and meaning. It is a process of trial and judgment. Nothing is lost. You can't just "narrate" it as you like: you may err, lie or seek the truth of history.

Place is not just territory, an abstract location. Place breathes life. Sites are pregnant with meaning and with spiritual potential. Place, the most material substance, tests and brings out our innermost life. Man is responsible for places: he responds to their potential. He invests them with care and creativity, culture and sanctity – or degrades them by irresponsibility and evil.

Identity is not just a sum of outer signs or differences. It is an inner unifying power. It is a guiding insight. Through its apparent limits the Infinite may be perceived.

***

Again, the identity of Israel is not easy to achieve. It involves a synthesis of humanism and religion, novelty and tradition, technology and ecology, individuality and community, nationality and universality. For this work to be done, we need the proper laboratory, which is the Land of Israel - and time. If we are given time and credit, undisturbed by constant threats of war, destruction and extermination, although we can not guarantee anything, but at least we may resume our work which is only for the good of the family of man.

The house at 22 Bialik street

2011-01-29T18:30:00.046+02:00

What is a cigarette? "On one side - fire, on the other side - a fool, and in the middle - dry grass". This is one of the many Hebrew linguistic jokes and neologisms coined by the national poet Hayim Nahman Bialik (which is also rhymed in Hebrew).

Bialik's poetry for children is known to every child in Israel, and is a remnant of a time when poems for children were mainly nature songs, game songs, lullabies, songs of experience and songs of Jewish tradition and manner.

Today, the nature's place has been taken by the child's consciousness and mind, and while old songs describe how the world looks to the child, contemporary songs describe how the child is portrayed in his own eyes, as he displays his personality for a show.

Bialik – a poet, essayist, novelist, translator and editor – was born in 1873 in the Russian Empire (now Ukraine) and lived in Odessa. In 1921, following the personal intervention of Russian writer Maxim Gorky and a special order of Lenin, he was given permission to leave the Soviet Union. He relocated to Berlin, where he published books in Hebrew, and among other things established a publishing house of Hebrew children's books with the painter and children's writer Tom Zeidman Freud, Sigmund Freud's niece.

In 1924 Bialik moved to Eretz-Israel. The house built for him in Tel-Aviv by architect Yosef Minor, was built in an eclectic style - the style prevalent in the 20th in Tel-Aviv: The rear balcony's arches are styled as the arches of the Doge's Palace in Venice, the living room is styled like a European synagogue and the eastern scent is provided by the dome and the front wooden balcony.

Bialik initially opposed construction of a balcony at the front of the building, but the architect insisted on building it, claiming that "a house without a front balcony is like a face without a nose".

Around the house a garden was planted, containing plants characteristic of different regions in Eretz-Israel, including Four Species (palm, myrtle, willow and etrog – a kind of citron tree) and Seven Species (wheat, barley, grapevine, fig, pomegranate, olive and date), and soon the house was the center of the literary and cultural life in Tel-Aviv.

After Bialik's death in 1934, his widow Mania kept living in the unique house, and in 1937 she donated it to the municipality of Tel-Aviv.

Today Bialik House serves as a museum and a meeting place for cultural and literary events. It displays paintings and sculptures of the poet made by Israeli artists, as well as a large clock hourly playing the Israeli anthem - Hatikva, original manuscripts of the works of Bialik, and a large collection of letters written by children to the poet.

On the entrance floor there are ceramic tiles made in Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem, describing the twelve spies Bible story, the twelve tribes of Israel and the Ark of the Covenant.

When the child Hayim Nahman imagined to himself the distant Eretz-Israel, as hearing the stories of his parents about the promised land, he might imagined scenes like those on the ceramic tiles inside the house, but he surely did not imagine that this would be the external look of his "eclectic" Tel-Aviv home.

A pro(b)logue

2011-01-29T17:05:00.038+02:00

In this blog I wish to tell about Israel – the state, the society, the culture, the unique people, the special concepts, the extraordinary characteristics.

I am not a professional historian nor an accredited anthropologist, but living on the spot for the several decades since being born makes me a natural reporter.

Another aim of this blog is to to publicize my unique offer: A tailored Tel-Aviv tour, upgraded by my expertise as a Hebrew teacher and by my speciality in Israeli culture.

So, let's start telling about Israel
(before traveling in Tel-Aviv),

Sarit