Wednesday, Octobers, 1990 — THE BULLETIN — 5
Stunning memoir views panorama of Israel's 'Voices'
By ARNOLD AGES
For many years now Tulane university's Joseph Cohen, a specialist in American and British poetry, has been raising the level of disclosure in the Jewish press (in this newspaper and the 5/. Louis Jewish Light, among others) with his incisive and intelligent reviews of books of Jewish interest.
Now he has chosen to focus more intensely on the writers of so many of the books he has reviewed by creating an original and refreshing new critical genre, in a book that he has been able to write because of his unique position as former head of the Jewish studies program at New Orlean's Tulane university.
During his tenure of office Cohen had the opportunity of hosting outstanding Jewish writers and thinkers'~\^en they came to deliver public lectures. He profited from their presence by interviewing them in depth about their Jewish roots, their literary tastes and their Zionist convictions. The result is a stunning memoir which provides a panoraniic view of literature that is largely unknown outside of the specialist but which has much to say to the world.
VOICES OF ISRAEL
By Joseph Cohen
State University of New York Press. 231 Pages US.$29.95
Cohen's book, however, is no mere journalistic exercise. The questions he prepared show both a vast knowledge of literature in general as well as a sensitivity towards Israel, the Hebrew language and the travail of the Jewish people. This is all the more significant because Cohen confesses in his introduction that he is ho Hebrew scholar and cannot, in fact, read Hebrew.
The only error I found in his Hebrew, however, was one incorrect translation of the word avinu (our father).
This failing has not prevented Cohen from producing a highly informative discussion of the works of five contemporary Israeli writers: Yehuda Amichai, A.B. Yehoshua, T. Carmi, Aharon Appelfeld-andAmos^Oz.—All-have-W-OJks__now available in English.
Cohen's approach is magisterial. He introduces the major themes of each writer by offering a synopsis of their works and then proceeds to offer a critical evaluation. Then follows, in each case, ah interview designed to elicit opinions on a broad range of topics. Naturally the questions in each interview are different, for obvious reasons.
Iii the ititroduction, Cohen suggests that except for Carmi, the writers analyzed all exhibit a literary manifestation of Einstein's relativity and Heisenberg's indeterminacy theory. This is a refreshing way to say that modern science has disrupted the harmony thought to have been found in the universe and that
the impossibility of measuring things^in any absolute way has infiltrated literature by infecting it with a corporate uncertainty.
Of the interviews in Cohen's book for personal reasons, I found the ones with Amichai and Appelfeld especially intriguing. Yehuda Amichai was my teacher of Hebrew prose style in Israel during the 1958-1959 academic year. As for Appelfeld, 1 have had the pleasure of hearing him lecture at New York City's 92 St. Y.
AIJ of the interviews, however, contain nuggets of information and insights that are impressive. Cohen's efforts to draw parallels — between Durrell and Amichai, Faulkner and A.B. Yehoshua — are fascinating. Differing views of the importance of the Kabbalah are also exhibited. Amichai sees little significance in it. Camii finds Kabbalah the source for metaphor. Amichai says of metaphor that it is the greatest human invention, "greater than the wheel or the computer."
Cohen's memoir succeeds because he manages to obtain from his interlocutors important statements not only about their own works but also about Israeli literature.
Thus Amichai explains that poetry is much in fashion in Israel because there is an unbroken tradition of poetry from the Bible while there is no such prose tradition.
T. Carmi observes that poetry is popular in Israel because the media feature it prominently.
Amoz Oz asserts that modern Hebrew is now in its "Elizabethan" stage, "bubbling and simmering."
A.B. Yehoshua declares that Hebrew writers were like Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Checkov in that they expressed not only personal feelings but also national experiences.
One of the interesting things which emerges from Cohen's album of portraits of Israelii writers is the consensus among four of the interviewees that a fifth, Aharon Appelfeld, is perhaps the most important among them.
JWB reviewer Arnold Ages, professor at University of Waterloo, reviews boolc by JIVB reviewer Joseph Cohen, professor at Tulane university. ;
Cohen's exegesis of Appelfeld's Badenheim '39 sustains that jiiew because it has only been through his "aesthetic distancing"
that Appelfeld has1been~ableTolieal^ithivhat has previously been only a **victim's" literature, the literature of the Holocaust. Appelfeld's reconstruction of German Jewry and its fawning attitudes towards German culture before the war is a novelistic tour de force precisely because he avoids describing what happened after 1939. In this way he conveys even more effectively the trauma aiid shock which assailed that community when the Nazis began their annihilation campaign.
Joseph Cohen notes in his introduction that he conducted interviews with several other writers and personalities. It is to be hoped that these interviews will be the subject matter of a forthcoming book.
Succot has traditions
By PHYLLIS GLAZER
The holiday spirit prevails this month with Syccot, Hoshanah Rabbah, Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah.
Israel Sun
OVER 90,000 ETROG fruits were exported to Jewish communities around the world for the Succot festival which begins at sundown on Wednesday, Oct. 3. At the Etrog export centre the Agriculture worker (abo4e) checked the fruit, too.
It's autumn now in Israel; the worst of the summer heat has passed, and the evenings are cool and pleasant. Succot, the autumn "Feast of the Ingathering," honors the first fruits of the harvest, and recalls the succot, the little booths that served our ancestors throughout their deserl^anderings.
On porches and in yards around the country, Succot (singular: succa) dot the landscape, adding eight days of color to city life. Fortuitously, the holiday also coincides with the seasonal trimming of the trees by various municipalities; consequently, palm., and other branches~are left inpiles on the streets, available for the taking. Th^se will form the roof and often part of the decor of the booth.
The Jews of Tunis make their succa primarily from palm and myrtle leaves, with a low arch designed to make those who enter bow in obeisance and respect. Moroccan Jews add a chair or stool by one wall, in honor of Elijah the prophet.
Ashkenazi Jews tend to make the walls of their succot from fabric, with a palm-leaved roof in order to see the star-lit sky. Succot-builders of every ethnic background make sure to add an especially colorful touch with strings of seasonal fruits, including pomegranates, fresh dates, figs and apples.
"Arid you shall take on the first day the fruit of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the L-rd seven days" iLeviiicus 2Si40). Theie are interpreted to refer to the lulav (palm frond) and etrog<citron) which areiraken by the devout to the synagogue and kept in the succa throughout the holiday.
Traditional foods for the holiday vary according to ethnic derivation. Tunisian Jews^repare machmar stuffed eggplant in* tomato and onion sauceTanJTTsrm of couscous. Ashkenazi Jews__tend to mark the harvest and thanksgiving days^'ith an abundance of fruit and vegetable dishes.
The seventh day of Succot — Hoshanah Rabbah — is celebrated with a special service in which a procession marches seven times around the synagogue. The Lulav is beaten, the falling leaves symbolizing the arrival of rains and the hope of renewed life. A traditional dish for this holiday is "kreplach", pockets of dough stuffed with meat.
On the eighth day of Succot, Shemini Atzeret, prayers for rain and remembrance of the dead are included in the service.
Then falls Simchat Torah, the rejoicing of the Torah, when the last words are read — and the first words begun again in the never-ending cycle of Judaism. w/.ps
COHEN
AMICHAI
U.S; media bias makes Syria into its darling
By BERTRAM KORN, JR.
Syria's killing of pro-Iraqi demonstrators gets kid-gloves treatment by the American media. Syria's token contribution to the defense of Saudi Arabia makes headlines. Syria's involvement in the international drug trade is ignored. Is it alia coincidence? Or is there a discernible pattern of pro-Syrian bias in the U.S. media coverage of the Middle East?
When Syrian troops gunned down dozens of pro-Iraqi demonstrators on Aug. 26 and 27, the New York 7ime5 headlined its story, "Protests in Syria Reported Halted." The lead for the story, in the Timej'"News Summary" index, read "Syrian Army is said to put down pro-Iraq demonstrators." If the Israeli Army-had killed dozens of pro-Iraq demonstrators, would the Times use phrases like "halted" and "put down" — or would it have chosen "crushed," or perhaps "slaughtered" . . .?
The Times report noted that in 1982, Syrian dictator Hafez Assad "ordered his troops to bombard the city of Hama to quell an uprising by the Muslim Brotherhood." Yet the ri>w^^did not mention the fact that the Syrian authorities massacred between twenty and thirty thousand people in the course of levelling the city. The Philadelphia Inquirer conceded that Syrians tanks "ringed Hama and pounded it, razing, much of the ancient city and killing thousands." But the/n^wirer'^ description did not reveal that many of the victims were innocent civilians; and by using the vague term "thousands," it left the impression that the toll could have been just two or three thousand.
Bertram Kom, Jr. It executive director of the Philadelphia off Ice of CAMERA, the Committee for Accuracy in IMIddle East Reporting In America.
Some newspapers — inchidingihQ Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and the Christian Science Monitor — simply ignored the entire story about Syria's killing of the pro-Iraqi protesters.
Meanwhile, a potentially explosive story about Syrian involvement in the international drug trade has been buried by the U.S. media. Despite increased public interest in the drug trade — as a result ofvPresident Bush's "Just Say No" campaign — American newsmen have turned a blind eye to Syria's role in promoting precisely what the President is trying to stamp out.
Earlier this year, Uzi Berger, chief of the Israeli Police Criminal Investigations department, disclosed that "direct involvement by top Syrian leaders, including President Hafez Assad, has escalated the trade in hard drugs in Lebanon and made it the cocaine capital of the Middle East." In a briefing for narcotics agents from ten other countries, Berger provided details about the Syrian drug activity. Yet the story was ignored by America's
SYRIA — Page II