WRITERS SHULAMITH HAREVEN VOICE OF THE LEVANT

MORIS FARHI

hulamith Hareven is one of Israel's most ligious differences". It nurtures the sort of per­ distinguished writers. A member of the son "who knows five languages and their lit­ SAcademy of the Hebrew Language, her erature to perfection" and distrusts powers and work encompasses novels, poetry, essays and cultures "that speak one language only". Al­ children's books. She is yet to be published in ways applying "the third eye and the sixth Great Britain; fortunately, three of her novels, sense", it is the humanism that "was created superbly translated by Hillel Halkin, have ap­ gradually, over a long, long period of time". peared in the United States. They are City of Consequently, it knows that "not everything Many Days (Doubleday, 1977), The Miracle has a solution" and is wise enough to exercise Hater (North Point Press, 1988) and Prophet "great patience". (North Point Press, 1990). Today, this mellow brand of humanism Shulamith Hareven is also a prominent ac­ barely survives in the· Levant-or anywhere tivist in Israel's peace movement. Having else. Today, intolerance, fanaticism, political ex­ served in the Haganah and, later, in the Israeli pediency and disregard for life have a strangle­ Defence Forces, she has first-hand knowledge hold even on liberal systems. The silent of conflict-"the total failure of common majority has multiplied; it continues to betray sense", as she defines it. She has also covered basic human rights by condoning with lunatic several of Israel's wars as a frontline corre­ complacency everything that will keep it fat spondent and, latterly, has been a close ob­ and contented. Shulamith Hareven rightly server of the Intifada. identifies these evils as mutations of Mani­ Like all true artists, she has the best insight chaean dualism and, therefore, non-indigenous into her own psyche. In an essay which she de­ to the Levant. She further identifies the most livered at the Barbican in London last year, and virulent of these evils, the kitsch totalitarianism which is due to appear in Poetry Nation Re­ and genocide which induces the schizophrenic view, she declares: "I am a Levantine." pursuit of "institutionalized sentimentality and The definition conjures the safety of a institutionalized brutality" as the outcome of a strong, protective arm, the hope of a compas­ Christianity cynically misused by Europe. Now, sionate bosom. Levantinism is, indeed, the per­ in those countries of the Levant where the soul fect perspective for fathoming the spirit which has been dazzled by western materialism, Le­ has forged Hareven into prominence both in vantinism is a mark of backwardness: in some Israeli literature and in the peace movement. Arab countries, it is virtually treason; in Israel, Hareven is the first to acknowledge that Le­ it is the sanity-"the common sense"-which vantinism has some deplorable aspects, that at is continuously spurned by the blinkered follow­ its worst it can manifest "the moral principles ers of unenlightened leaders and religious fana­ of an alleycat". But, in true Levan tine spirit, tics. she has the capacity to accommodate transgres­ All of which make Hareven's declaration a MORIS FARHI is a mem­ sions: after all, to be human is to be imperfect. bold one. For what she is stating, unequivo­ ber of the Editorial The virtues of Levantinism, on the other hand, cally, is that, above and beyond the universal Board of THE JEWISH are legion and outweigh all its shadows. values which every artist seeks to reach in QUARTERLY. His latest novel is Journey For Hareven, Levantinism is "the colour­ his/her work, she has also undertaken to up­ Through the Wilderness. blind pluralism that sees no racial, ethnic or re- hold the values of a whole region of which her

26 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY

own country, Israel, is but only a part. Loosely, the plot revolves around Sara Consequendy, she is a constant target for whose father, Don Isaac, runs away with a obloquy. For the undertaking to serve Levan­ paramour (and is found, two decades later, in tinism's wisdom-distilled over several millenia an Egyptian asylum). Sara grows up in the from the region's profusion of cultures-im­ company of her mother, Gracia, grandfather poses the condition that she must challenge and grandmother Amarillo, sister Ofra, and the any behaviour or policy, including her own liberal, if not liberated, Aunt Victoria: a normal people's, that falls short of sanctifying life. In family, if the unique and intense relationships an age when mankind is poised to destroy the that govern families can qualify as normal. A whole of creation, there cannot be a saner atti­ British Captain, Tony Crowther, starts his tude. Army service in Palestine by befriending the Yet another characteristic which she at­ Amarillos with orders to pick up what intel­ tributes to Levantinism is "that quality which ligence he can on any subversive activity from knows that there is no great art, no serious lit­ the Amarillos' milieu of Jews and Arabs; but erature, without a hidden theology". This the growing conflict between the two peoples quality dominates her work. By "theology" she and his role in the Army plague his conscience. does not mean a code of religious behaviour Just before World War II, he successfully ap­ but, quite simply, the natural presence of God: plies for a discharge, returns to Jerusalem as a God the Supreme Creator whose miraculous civilian. Matti, Sara's boyfriend in her teens compositions we witness everywhere and at and, briefly, her lover in later years, becomes a every moment, and with whom we can deal di­ leading figure-and bomb-maker-in a Jewish recdy, without the need for any mediation, as underground group. Elias, Sara's husband, a we used to when we trusted our spirituality. lawyer sympathetic to the Arabs' aspirations, The presence of this Creator is felt-some­ nevertheless devotes himself to defending times even glimpsed in the reader's inner eye­ members of the Haganah and thus emerges as in all three of Hareven 's novels that have someone who will have a key role in the cre­ appeared in English. These works contain a ation of the Jewish state. An immigrant from classical density; or, perhaps I should say, the Germany, Dr Barzel, builds up a hospital classical qualities that permeate them give them where Sara is eventually employed and where, a density that is as durable as antiquity. in later years, victims of the disturbances-of which he himself becomes a victim-will find ensity should not be confused with ob­ some succour. Taleb, the son of the Amarillos' scurity. There can be no work of art Arab friends, Subhi and Faiza, joins the Palesti­ D without density. Invariably, this density nian nationalist movement. Dr Barzel's mother, is almost palpable, almost tactile; it contains a Elizabeth, sensing the impending Holocaust, weight which is as satisfYing to our imagination emigrates from Germany, but rather than as­ as ancient stone is to our hands. similate to her new country, tries to impose her Density of this calibre can only be achieved "superior" Germanic ways on all and sundry. through purity of insight, through the ability World War II intensifies the three-cornered to explore the individual mind and its extraor­ conflict between Jews, Arabs and the British. dinary habitat, the mass unconscious. Density The end of the War augurs further conflict; but of this calibre rediscovers for us our favourite what sort of peace, if any? myths, whisks us to mystic flights and invests A novel that uses a large canvas and covers a harsh reality with meanings that soften it in lengthy period must have a remarkable-a dia­ order to make it bearable, even acceptable. chronic-structure to accommodate all the And density of this calibre can only be com­ themes and nuances; it must billow and municated with a language that flows clear and tighten, drift and anchor all at the same time. unhindered, reflecting the wisdom, poetry and City of Many Days achieves this condition with resonance of life. Since all these components remarkable panache. can be blighted by an insensitive hand, great Most of the characters--except for Matti tribute must be paid to Hillel Balkin's transla­ and Elias who do get involved in the inde­ tion. pendence movement-are tangential to the City of Many Days is set in Jerusalem and main events of the times, yet serve as litmuses has, as its protagonist, Sara Amarillo, born to a of history. Much as they seek to lead quiet, well-to-do Ladino-speaking Sephardi family. peaceful lives, they cannot escape the tremors The narrative, spanning the early 1920s to of the events that are reshaping the region. 1945, the end of World War II, provides a The story unfolds in short vignettes, each bear­ panorama of the British Mandate years. The ing impressionistic strokes. Thus, as the charac­ labours that led to the birth of the Jewish ters interpret or misinterpret events, are acute state are highlighted with exotic echoes of or shortsighted about the future, we sense the preceding Ottoman period when the idea rather than witness the changes. The subdety of a homeland for the Jews started gaining of the narrative is further enhanced by "the ground. city of many days" itself, Jerusalem.

28 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY Shulamith Hareven's Jerusalem exudes a tians to bear children, either hid their sons or breath that is as alive as Durrell's Alexandria, sent them floating down the Nile to childless Kazantzak.is's Crete and Joyce's Dublin. It women bathing by its banks. starts as "a small city: as small as a man's Whilst giving birth, Eshkhar's mother is ob­ palm"; it loses innocence progressively served by Baita, a five-year-old girl. The through the possessive demands of Jews and mother hands the baby to Baita, telling her to Arabs and the iniquities of Ottoman and take it home. The women in Baita's household British rule; with strife comes some wisdom, prove willing to look after Eshkhar, but Baita but also much sadness and uncertainty. refuses to part with him. Needless to say, like all great cities, it is al­ When Moses takes the Hebrews out of ways hauntingly beautiful. Egypt, Baita's household joins the multitude. Eshkhar remains in Baita's charge. his i~ how Crowther, the English Captain Mter some years in the wilderness, a mar­ sees It: riage is arranged for Baita. Eshkhar seeks to T reverse this decision; he goes to the elders and Jerusalem was a veiled lady on a still, torrid day, asks to have Baita for his wife. The elders mock feminine, forlorn, softly dreaming, self-absorbed, his temerity. Eshkhar goes to appeal to Moses sucking time sweetly like an old sugar candy, her and confronts Joshua, appointed to protect the sons gathered under the many folds of her robe, great man from the crowds that "would kill picking rockrose and herbs. Other days she was a man, fierce, dry, and ancient, smelling of thyme him with affection". Joshua declares: "We and wild goat, his head covered with a sack work miracles. Justice is not our concern", and against the wind, bare feet viny-veined, brusque­ sends Eshkhar away. voice and ornery, sniffmg the slippery scent of Mter Baita's marriage, Eshkhar leaves the sin in abandoned alleys, the odour of prophecy Hebrew camp. But he stays on the periphery in public squares . . . Each solemn girl in a and starts his own flock. courtyard was more girl than anywhere else, each He witnesses the drought and the way baby wrapped in a shawl the only baby on earth, Moses strikes water out of the rock. But he each single person the leaven of life. The city also sees that for some the water has come too tensed its muscles under your feet. Put your hand on a wall and you felt the stone pulse. The late; they have perished. very light percolated through it with each breath A year or two later, Baita seeks him out. At of the desert heat. first he wants nothing to do with her, then they become lovers. But fear of discovery and For Sara it is: "A city you long for the more the prescribed punishment of lapidation, par­ you are in it; in which you are most yourself ticularly fear of Moses who "had ways of find­ and most miss yourself; in which whatever you ing out everything in the whole world, on fmd you will want again from afar. A duplici­ earth, in heaven, even in the stones", renders tous city in which everything is its own looking Baita ill and she dies. glass . . ." Eshkhar goes back to his mountain. He can And for Taleb, of the Palestinian nationalist see the Ancestral Lands ahead; yet to his movement, this is how Jerusalem looks: amazement, the Hebrews choose to languish in A city on the desert's edge, its populace holding the wilderness. on with bare nails, high-strung, quarrelsome, haggling, wrangling, cupidinous . . . On cer­ ne day Yonat, a mute girl, goes wild tain .warm nights when a dry sirocco wind that and incites the camp to melt their has assembled its forces on the Plain of Jordan, 0 gold. Eshkhar goes to investigate. The that has marshalled them again on the Mount of molten gold is now shaped like an ox, people Qarantal, that has gathered reinforcements in the talk of miracles. Eshkhar leaves in disgust. He badlands of Judea, bursts through the streets of decides to live in solitude for ever. the city like the foothills of an invisible invader, Provoked into action by the incident of the the desert overruns Jerusalem again. You can hear the city groan then in the stillness as though golden calf, Moses resumes the journey to­ hurt. And then silence once more. The broken wards the Ancestral Lands. tablets of the Law. Until morning. Eshkhar wanders alone, roaming to and from the Ancestral Lands, thinking, at times, The Miracle Hater, written at least a decade that "he was God himself''. after City of Many Days, and Prophet, first pub­ One night, he discovers a young Hebrew lished in 1989, are novels of an altogether dif­ woman, Dina. She is with child, conceived out ferent timbre. Both have a strong philosophical of wedlock and, therefore, in danger of punish­ core and serve as parables for our times. ment: if he testifies that she is his wife, the Though they are short and sparse, they never­ people might allow her to live. Eshkhar cares theless provide a large canvas. for her. Dina goes back to her people. She re­ The Miracle Hater is a novel about the Exo­ turns with her child. Soon she conceives Eshk­ dus. The title refers to Eshkhar, born at the har's child. time when Hebrews, forbidden by the Egyp- The multitude reaches the Ancestral Lands.

WINTER 1991/2 29 As they begin to cross, Dina asks if Eshkhar bean: it is now being ruled by the albino will join them. He agrees. The people enter demagogue. He reaches the ruins of Ai and the Promised Land, a land that Eshkhar has dreams that he has been cursed by his dead often visited in his solitude. daughter. He proceeds to the river Jordan. Prophet also takes place in Biblical times. Set An old man now, he cultivates his patch. He in the period when the Hebrews have entered meets a tongueless boy, Gosha. As he becomes the Ancestral Lands and are threatening its attached to him, he regains his prophetic gifts: city-states, it could well be a sequel to The "the small, harmless prognostications of old Miracle Hater. Dealing with settled com­ men . . . when it would rain on the moun­ munities as opposed to people wandering in tains across the river ... which date palm the wilderness, this is a powerful novel where would bear the first fruit, and what he would even the words appear to spread roots. find when he opened his traps . . . " Though there are many conceptual differen­ n Prophet, rumours of an approaching ces between The Miracle Hater and Prophet, enemy send the hilltop city of Gibeon into thematically they complement each other. Ipanic. The city's ruler and elders ask their In terms of parable, each provides an intense prophet, Hivai, "to tell them what to do so study of solitude, both that of an individual that they might live". But Hivai cannot and that of a people, at a time of turbulence prophesy: augury has its own rules and and change. It is impossible, therefore, not to comes in its own time. Days go by. The draw parallels between the ancient Hebrews enemy does not come. But that only in­ toiling to establish a land and a God, and the creases the citizens' fears. Still Hivai cannot Israel of today, struggling to find the condi­ see into the future. tions that would guarantee her a future in the One day, desperate to regain his gifts of di­ Ancestral Lands. vination, he disembowels a slave child and Many questions are posed. studies the intestines. He sees the walls of an­ Is justice on the side of the strong, as Eshk­ other city, Ai. He believes the vision predicts har believes when he fails to prevent Baita's that Ai alone will survive the enemy's attacks. marriage to another man? And is there no time That night, secretly, he sends Sahali, his for justice during the making of miracles? Can daughter whom he has made his lover, to Ai. we accept this premiss for an Israel which, Some days later, a band of people straggle whilst making miracles constantly, strives des­ with news of Ai's destruction and claim to be perately to stay strong, sometimes brutally, at the only survivors. Roused by an albino dema­ the expense of justice? gogue, the Gibeonites refuse to believe them. Are these years of statehood Israel's years in Hivai, however, knows that Ai has fallen, that the wilderness? Is the present materialism a his vision had revealed the weakness of Ai's new cult of the golden calf? Does Israel's dis­ walls, not their strength. trust of dialogue with its enemies suggest an The unrest prompts a few elders, among arrogance like that of Moses who chose to ex­ them Hivai, to seek out the Hebrews and to tract water from the rock by smiting it instead offer an alliance between the Gibeonite gods of talking to it as God had commanded? If so, and that of the Hebrews. will our generation, like that of Moses, be The Hebrews accept the offer. The elders prevented from entering the true Ancestral set out to return to Gibeon with the good Lands, that of Israel in peace? Does peace lie, news. Hivai, bereft without his daughter, as Hivai discovers, in cultivating our land and chooses to stay with the Hebrews in order to loving our neighbours? study their ways. And many other questions . . . He attaches himself to Ahilud, the leader, Are there any answers? and humbly carries out all that is asked of him. Difficult to say. As Hareven's Levantinism The Hebrews begin to build <~ settlement. confrrms: "not everything has a solution.)) Hivai, still trying to understand the Hebrews' But one answer is sure to lead to disaster: ways, finds their customs strange. Marit, Ahi­ the proscription against change. Both novels lud's wife, distrusts his curiosity. impress the fact that people who fight change One day Hivai asks Ahilud to be shown the by embracing power and giving it divine or oc­ Hebrew God. When Ahilud tells him that the cult dimensions, squander the inner strengths Hebrew God has no form or body or shape, requisite for their survival. Hivai thinks he is being mocked. Every night There is another answer, that of humanism, he searches the camp to find the God. of Levantinism, that might-given the One night he is caught rummaging; Marit chance-lead to true salvation: peace: the urges Ahilud to send Hivai away. Since, after ability to adapt, like Eshkhar and Hivai, and in seven years with the Hebrews, Hivai himself so doing rediscover that single constant which thinks it is -time to go, he and Ahilud part as is always available to us: the beauty of diver­ friends. sity-a beauty that deserves celebration, not Hivai heads westward. He hears news of Gi- destruction.

30 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY