"If Only..." A Book Review: "Letters to Talia" by Dov Indig

Considering the continued uncertainty in Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's coalition quest/negotiations, I see this as a good time to post my review of the English translation of the Israeli bestseller,  מכתבים לטליה Michtavim liTalya, Letters to Talia, by Dov Indig, HaYa"D.

I remember hearing about the book when it was first published in its original Hebrew, but as usual I let news of Hebrew books fly over my consciousness, since I don't expect to read them.  It's not that I don't read Hebrew at all.  My Hebrew is for labels, ads, my pay slip, letters and notices on the Shiloh email list, our weekly newsletter and the very occasional newspaper or magazine article.

I received Letters to Talia from Gefen Publishing House to review.  I don't remember if they mailed it to me or it was one of the books I picked up from them at the Jerusalem International Book Fair.  But it really doesn't matter how I got it, because it's a great book and I must tell you why.

First of all the translation by Yehuda Burdman is fantastic.  I have no idea how easily the original Hebrew read, but it was a true pleasure reading it in English.  I even carried the book around with me to take advantage of a few minutes' reading time here and there.  I don't normally do that.  My bags are always too full and my time too short for such a luxury.  But this book followed me around for the few days it took to complete reading it.

Now, what's it about?

Dear Dov,You must really be surprised to be receiving a letter from a girl you don’t know... Dov Indig was killed on October 7, 1973, in a holding action on the Golan Heights in Israel during the Yom Kippur War. Letters to Talia, published in his memory by family and friends, contains excerpts from an extensive correspondence Dov maintained with Talia, a girl from an irreligious kibbutz in northern Israel, in 1972 and ’73, the last two years of his life. At the time, Talia was a highschool student, and Dov was a student in the Hesder yeshiva Kerem B’Yavneh, which combines Torah study with military service. It was Talia’s father who suggested that
Talia correspond with Dov, and an intense dialogue developed between them on questions of Judaism and Zionism, values and education. Their correspondence continued right up to Dov’s death in the Yom Kippur War.  (Gefen)

While readying the book my mind was full of "if's."  The main "if" obviously is:

If only Dov Indig hadn't been killed in the 1973 Yom Kippur War...

Indig's analysis and predictions as to what would happen if Israel withdrew from our Land liberated in the 1967 Six Days War or what he expected would happen to the kibbutz movement, especially the secular ones, are so on target, that it's frightening.  We, Israel and the Jewish People, lost a great and brilliant talent.  There is no other way to describe him.  Yes, you must read the book to fully comprehend what a terrible loss it was to all of us as a People and Nation that he isn't with us today.

So many of the very best were killed in that terrible war in 1973.  My friends and I still mourn our Betar New York friends who were killed.  We get together every year at Mount Herzl to honor them.  From my perspective, having made aliyah with my husband in 1970, I can easily identify with Indig's friends who felt it vitally necessary to publish this correspondence.

I apologize for the fuzziness of the scan, but it is still worth trying to read this excerpt to get an idea of how perfectly Indig predicted the future:

Yes, everything Indig said about the secular kibbutz movement has happened.  That makes me even more curious about Talia, not her real name.  All that is revealed in the postscript is that after her National Service and subsequent army service, she returned to her kibbutz where she still lives.  In her letters, we discover that her best friend actually became religious, Talia is too attracted by the idea.  She's infatuated with Judaism and Dov.  In her last letter, which Dov most probably never read, she tells Dov that she will fast and go to a synagogue on Yom Kippur to pray for his safety.  It's too easy to imagine her disappointment even anger with G-d when she discovers that her prayers didn't protect Dov from death. 

Personally, I feel that Talia's decision to keep her identity a secret and not add a postscript to the book is the saddest thing of all.  We have no idea if Dov had a true positive influence on her.  It seems that she has rejected everything he stood for.  I hope I'm wrong.

I hope this has gotten you curious and highly recommend that you read the book.  It should be required reading by Jews of all ages, here in Israel and abroad.  It is perfect for book clubs and youth groups.

Lots of PM Wannabes in Bibi's New Government

If we can believe the media on this, Israel's sitting Likud Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has beat the clock and managed to negotiate coalition deals with enough political party leaders to form a government. 

In a rare case of disagreement with Dry Bones, I don't quite see this motley crew as not trusting Netanyahu. I see two different things:

• The party leaders who have signed with, or have promised to sign with Bibi all want to replace him as Prime Minister.
• It's not that they don't trust Bibi, he doesn't really trust them.

Dry Bones

This is going to be a make it or break it experience for political rookie Yair Lapid.  The high school drop-out will be following quite a few academic heavy-weights as Finance Minister.  Among his predecessors are Netanyahu,  masters degree in Business Administration from M.I.T, and Yuval Steinitz, who holds a doctorate in Philosophy from Tel Aviv University.  I wonder who's going to be running Lapid's crash course in economics.

Tsippi Livni, Yair Lapid, Naftali Bennett and Shaul Mofaz are the party leaders who've signed up (according to media leaks) with Bibi along with Avigdor Lieberman.  They all consider themselves national leaders  and potential Prime Ministers.

Mofaz and Livni have been rapidly losing support, while Lapid and Bennett have captured the imagination of the public.  No doubt that Netanyahu will have a very challenging time trying to keep them all in line and functioning as a government.

Good luck Israel!

"Two State Solution," Dream or Nightmare

A "mantra" is supposed to be more like meaningless sounds to repeat as we tune out. 

1. Hinduism A sacred verbal formula repeated in prayer, meditation, or incantation, such as an invocation of a god, a magic spell, or a syllable or portion of scripture containing mystical potentialities.

2. A commonly repeated word or phrase

I sometimes refer to the phrase "two state solution" as a nightmare mostly because too many politicians, diplomats, academics and of course the media keep touting it as a "solution to the conflict between the Jews and the Arabs" without truly thinking about what it means and how it would affect the lives of Israelis and the security of the State of Israel.

The State of Israel and the Arabs aren't two toddlers fighting over some blocks which can be harmlessly shared.

There are many Arab states, large and affluent, stable, unstable and most do not practice western-style values and democracy. 

UNESCO identifies 21 Arab states, while Wikipedia lists 23 Arab states. In addition the Arab League is a regional organization of these states that was formed in 1945. It currently has 22 members.

The touted "moderate" Arabs promoted by the west i.e. the United States, Europe and international organizations, such as the United Nations aren't moderate by international standards.  The so called Palestinians don't even get along with each other, and it's dangerously unrealistic to think that they are capable of governing a state.

eretzyisroel.org 

We keep hearing these fantasies which claim that there's a safe and just way to divide up Judea and Samaria between Jews and Arabs, which is preposterous.  I grew up in the 1960's, and I remember what went on in divided Germany, especially Berlin.  These things just don't work.  And please remember that the raison d'être of the so called Palestinians is the destruction of the State of Israel.

The PA promises its people that in the future, the State of Israel will be completely erased and replaced by a State of Palestine. A Fatah member of Palestinian parliament, Najat Abu Bakr, told PA TV that the PA supports and adopts the “stages plan.” To the world, the PA claims that the Palestinians seek the West Bank and Gaza Strip, when in fact the goal is all of Israel: “It doesn’t mean that we don’t want the 1948 borders, but in our current political program we say we want a state on the 1967 borders.” [PA TV (Fatah), Aug. 25, 2008]

Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki reiterated this position on Al-Jazeera TV:

“It is impossible to realize the inspiring idea or the great goal in one stroke… Israel will come to an end… If I say that I want to remove it from existence, this will be great, great, [but] it is hard. This is not a [stated] policy. You can't say it to the world. You can say it to yourself.” [Al-Jazeera TV, Sept. 23, 2011]

This is very worrying, especially since Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has bought into the lie and has appointed extreme Leftist Tsippi Livni to negotiaste with the Arabs.

Already the Israeli Supreme Court and the Defense Ministry take "Arab rights" as more important than Jewish security.

The Head of Central Command in the IDF, Maj. Gen. Nitzan Alon, gave orders at week's end to dismantle the fences protecting two Jewish communities, following the High Court's ruling in the matter.
The High Court found that the fences that surround and protect the communities of Ofra and Adam, in the Binyamin region, need to be dismantled because they prevent access to some Arabs' agricultural plots. The fences were allegedly built without the necessary approvals.

This is a dangerous policy.  And that's why I would have had preferred new elections and no coalition here in Israel.

Everyone's Asking: Do We Finally Have a Government Coaliton?

Headlines are "hinting" that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has finally gotten some sort of agreement with the Bobbsey Twins aka Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett.  Those two rookie MKs have been holding a very nice dowry of over thirty Knesset Members which Netanyahu desperately needs if he's going to be able to have a workable coalition.

70-strong Israeli coalition nearing completion
Lapid to be finance minister, Bennett to be minister of trade, foreign portfolio to be held for Liberman; ultra-Orthodox parties going into opposition

photo credit: Miriam Alster/Flash90

Nothing is for sure yet, but the press has been saying that Lapid is willing to take the Finance Ministry.

Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid is warming up to the idea of becoming Finance Minister, party sources said on Saturday, a week before Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s deadline to form a government.
Lapid and Netanyahu met on Friday, for talks their spokeswomen called “positive, with much progress made,” and on Saturday, in a meeting that was still ongoing.

I can't imagine a tougher challenge for him.  It's so much easier to complain from the outside.  He campaigned on a social/financial platform.  It takes money to give the people what he claimed to want to give them/us.  Let's see if it's really possible, once he sees the real numbers.

"It all looks different from inside the government" is what many Right wing politicians have insisted when answering complaints about the contrast of their campaign promises and government policies.  I'm curious to see how Lapid will handle the "hot potato."

If Lapid and Bennett have really come to an agreement with Bibi, I guess they'll tie up the loose ends by the time Peres returns and United States President Barack Hussein Obama comes for his visit.

But in the meantime, we'll just wait for the details...

The News From Latma and More

I'm sure that I'm not the only one addicted to Latma's newscasts.  They are the best policial parody on the internet.  Too bad they aren't on the regular Israeli TV stations...






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Passover aka Pesach Wars and Battles

Please don't get me wrong.  I haven't mixed up Pesach with Chanukah or even Purim.  The "wars and battles" I'm referring to are in a very different sphere, or spheres. 

• One aspect is the emotional and physical violence many of us find ourselves in when attempting to clean, prepare for the Passover Holiday.
• Another war or battle is the competition many well-meaning Jews participate in as they search for and adopt stringencies which had never been accepted by a majority of poskim, experts in Jewish Law.

I must admit that I have been a victim and following that even the abuser in the battle to prepare my home for Passover.  Cleaning isn't my greatest homemaking talent.  So once it comes to this time of year, between Purim and Passover my stress levels rise, and as a young mother I was completely incapable of making Passover preparation fun.

To this day I'm incredulous when friends tell me that the clean as a form of relaxation, that they feel joy when scrubbing.



I don't even think it would help if I had the cheerful "whistle while you work" blasting throughout the house.  Getting the house ready for Pesach makes me feel more like the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland.



I do appreciate that some rabbis make some efforts to "calm things down" and claim that the kitchen is all that needs to be done, and it can be done in a short period of time.  Rav Aviner is known for his "quick cleaning" headlines, but if you read his site, it shows practical, useful and Halachik tips.

The OU has published an article with a similar message.  There is lots more common sense being heard in some circles, which is good. 

We don't have to go to war against dirt, and we don't have to destroy expensive electrical appliances by taking them apart.

The second battle field is the one of the chumra, the extra strictness.  Frequently those chumrot  only make the holiday a living Hell for the family.  So, if those customs aren't part of your family history, then why invite trouble into the house?

And considering that we're very close to Pesach and Shabbat is in a few short hours, let this post suffice for now.

"Burnt Out" By The Long Coalition Squabbling and Anarchy

Last night, a bit before I turned off the computer, I posted the following on facebook:

Maybe I'm crazy, or it's a bit of political "burnout," but I must admit that I really don't care which parties are in Bibi's government coalition. He's just going to do what he wants, and G-d will stir as He wills it. I did my bit to vote for the party with the candidates I wanted to see in the Knesset, but they didn't get in. My blog posts didn't help, certainly not enough.

As much as I enjoy a good political campaign, pre-election period, this long, leak-filled, innuendo flooded, media sabotaged coalition ultra-marathon has become worse than a bore.  When the "negotiations" are double-guessed by the media, we've passed the point of absurdity.  It's hard to distinguish between fact, fiction, guess-work and wishful thinking.

Arlene Kushner, as usual, has a much more intelligent way of explaining what's going on and why we should be worried.

Nothing concrete to report yet on the coalition, as, again, there are mostly rumors. Based on what I'm reading, however, I confess to a great unease that Lapid sees himself as a reformer upon whom formation of the coalition depends -- and who thus can, with his demands for entry into that coalition, instantaneously restructure much of Israeli society. Whether he's right or wrong on specific issues, I fear a heavy-handed audacity that is only going to tear the society apart.

picture credit

Bibi's "roast beef" has been cooking much too long.  Even if he had been making chulent, it would be overcooked already.

And too much of what should be the coalition negotiations are being ki'ilu, sort of conducted "in public" by the media.  We keep hearing politicians, possible cabinet members being interviewed interrogated, and asked which ministerial posts they demand or which would they refuse.  Instead of politely and firmly brushing off these questions with a "that's between me, my party leader and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu," they actually answer the questions and with much too much detail.  Obviously they've never taken my media when you're being interviewed course.  One of the first rules is not to answer theoretical questions.  I'd put the "which ministry do you want question" in that category.  Too much public talking will only make things worse for everyone.

Yesh Atid's Yair Lapid keeps his facebook followers updated.  No, I'm not one of his friends.

Lapid is reportedly demanding the Foreign Ministry, but Netanyahu has reserved the post for faction Number 2 Avigdor Liberman, who stepped down from the post late last year to fight fraud and breach of trust charges. On Wednesday, the attorney general said it was legal for Netanyahu to hold the ministry for an indicted MK.

On Wednesday Likud sources told Army Radio that Lapid was “obsessing” about becoming foreign minister, “which isn’t going to happen,” that Likud

Lapid, who is also demanding a smaller Cabinet and that the ultra-Orthodox be drafted into national service, said on Facebook that the talk about ministerial posts was beside the point.

Photograph: John Lund/Getty
Images/Blend Images

Most people I speak to have great faith that somehow Bibi will do his usual hat trick and pull a nice fluffy rabbit out of his hat before United States President Barack Hussein Obama arrives to "inspect" him and the State of Israel.

deflated

Besides the fact that the suspense is over, like a balloon which no longer has air, I really don't think it makes all that much of a difference which parties are in a coalition and who holds which ministerial portfolios.  Too many times we've elected Right wing, pro-Land of Israel governments which ended up being davka the ones that gave our Arab enemies portions of the Land of Israel, most notably Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon.

It doesn't really matter who's elected and who is Minister of whatever.  Sorry for the cynicism, but that's what is going through my mind right now.

Time to Pray

I'm not the only one very worried about the situation here in Israel.  We wonder what G-d has in mind for us.  We still don't seem to have a government coalition here in Israel.  Nobody really knows what's happening besides the leaks coming from the media and ambitious disgruntled politicians.  And United States President Barack Hussein Obama is planning to visit soon and expecting gifts and gestures....

 

Month of surprise and reversal, Adar, is almost over.  Next week, on Tuesday the miracle month, Nissan will begin.  As I do every Rosh Chodesh, first day of the Jewish Month, I plan on praying at Tel Shiloh, Shiloh HaKeduma, the site where Biblical Chana prayed, where our holy Mishkan, Tabernacle rested for 369 years.

 

Women's Prayers at Tel Shiloh
Rosh Chodesh Nissan
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
1 Nissan 5773 8:30am
Tour of Tel & Dvar Torah, Short Torah Lesson

Please come and invite family, friends and neighbors

תפילת נשים
ראש חודש ניסן בתל שילה
יום ג' 12-3 א' ניסן תשע"ג 8:30
יהיה דבר תורה קצר וסיור בתל
נא לבוא, לפרסם ולהזמין חברות, משפחה ושכנות

And don't forget that the Tel Shiloh, aka Shiloh HaKedumah is open for visitors six days a week. For information call 02-994-4019.

 

Yes, the Shiloh where I live, the genuine, original Shiloh is the same Shiloh from the Bible.  It's one of the cities that Joshua did not have to conquer after the Jewish People entered the Holy Land after the Exodus from Egypt.  Either the people fled in fear, after haring the stories of how G-d assisted him and the Jewish People defeating others, or they decided to welcome him and accept Jewish rule.  When we liberated the Land in 1967 after the Six Days War, there was no signs of modern life.  Nobody had lived in Shiloh for hundred if not thousands of years.  The only people who had been hear had been European archaeologists in the early twentieth century.

 



Pesach aka Passover - Much More Than Matzah

עבדים היינו לפרעה במצרים

Avodim hayinu liParoh baMitzrayim

We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt

As has been for thousands of years, the Jewish People can be found all over the world.  Our Biblical time in Egypt wasn't the first and certainly not the last time when a majority of the Jewish People have found themselves exiled from the Holy Land, promised to us by G-d in the days of Avraham Avinu, Our Forefather Abraham.

So why do most people look at and stress the beginning and end of the line above

The important issue isn't that we were slaves in Egypt.  How can a Jew in New York, Paris, London, Rio, Tokyo or Kiev think that the important thing we're celebrating on Passover is that we're no longer slaves in Egypt? 

The crucial issue here is that we were slaves to Pharaoh.  And slavery is a lot deeper than building the pyramids with primitive tools.  The Jewish People were totally dependent on the Egyptian services, food, etc which had been provided to the slaves.  That was the basis of the complaints during the post-Exoduus period, which can be read in במדבר Bamidar aka Numbers.  I've been studying that book in a Matan course with Atara Snowbell for  almost two years.

Post-American Civil War, we like to think that slaves are abused by their owners, but that isn't the real case.  Slaves are property of businessmen and others, and the owners aren't stupid. If they were to abuse their slaves, they'd destroy their investments.

Except for the worsening of work conditions as depicted in the Biblical stories in early Exodus, the Jewish slaves in Egypt were kept well-fed and well cared for.  It would have had been foolish for the Egyptians to have treated them differently.

Davka, those good conditions, the easily accessible food etc, that made the Jewish People more and more dependent and loyal to their Egyptian rulers.  They were slaves loyal to their owners and even more so to Pharaoh.

I decided to write on this topic after reading the Tablet discussion on the Israel lobby in the United States.  Not for the first time, I'm terribly disturbed by the loyalty and trust the Jewish People have to foreign rulers, and that includes the United States and whoever is President at the time.

As Jews, wherever we are, our chief loyalty must be to G-d and His Torah.

The message of any lobbying must be that a strong secure Israel is the only defense against world terrorism and world destruction.  There should be no sentiment, only the fact that international terrorism is strengthened every time Arabs are encouraged to establish a state in the Land of Israel on Land that is held by the State of Israel.

It's a fiction, an oxymoron to claim that there should be a "two state solution," that Israel can be safe and secure with a sic Palestinian state.

Jew Against Jew, I Don't Like This

Chazal, our sages say that the Holy Temple was destroyed because of baselass hatred, Jew against Jew.  All the recent polticial infighting, espcially since the recent Israeli Knesset Elections, just make me fear G-d's wrath.  What punishment does G-d have in store for us, G-d forbid?

Even Jews who claim to be Torah observers, following G-d's commandments are dividing rather than uniting us.

Shas: It's Over, We're Headed for Opposition
Sephardic hareidi party vows to fight from the Opposition, keep funds from going to "hilltop youth."

And the NRP aka Bayit Yehudi's new leader, Naftali Bennett, has not learned the most important skill needed to be an effective politician, getting along and reaching agreements.  His pact with Leftist leader, who's also a rookie MK, Yair Lapid, is not good for the country.  People voted for Bennett's NRP so that he would influence from within the government, and he's just pushing Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu further Left.

One of Lapid's demands is that he won't sit in the government with chareidim, so when you add all this together, you have a big problem. 

And in the meantime, the modern Amaleks in Iran are making progress on their nuclear weapons.  And is the "free world" sic ready for this?  No way.  The United States President Barack Hussein Obama is fiddling on his roof talking the negotiations talk, and Israel is still threatening. But after years of these threats, nobody takes them seriously, especially not the Iranians.

The more Israelis fight among themselves the more we're inviting Amalek to attack.

Bad news, and I don't see a good solution to theis.

I also recommend reading Arlene Kushner's   Deplorable, which expresses my feelings, too.

Now I'm referring not to the state of the world, but to the state of Israeli politics. I am so often proud of who we are. But now? I would gladly grab hold of certain political shoulders and shake until the heads that sit on those respective shoulders rattled. Where? I want to ask. Where is your devotion to the state and the greater good during these difficult times?

Book Review: "The Search Committee," Not Quite "a novel"

Cross-posted on me-ander

When I was at the recent Jerusalem International Book Fair, I was offered books to review by a couple of publishing houses.  UrimPublications.com told me to just take a few from their stand, which I did.  One of them is The Search Committee- a novel, by Marc Angel.  When I took it, I didn't check the copyright date or I would have had discovered that the book is far from recent.  It was published in  2008.

I'll start with the good...
The book is easy and quick reading, and the main topic is thought-provoking.

Now, why have I titled this "Not Quite a novel?"  Honestly, I don't see it as a novel.  Here's the definition of a novel from dictionary.com:

1.

a fictitious prose narrative of considerable length and complexity, portraying characters and usually presenting a sequential organization of action and scenes.

The book does not have any real scenes, actions, character development etc. And there is certainly no "complexity."

Simply put, Marc Angel,  "Rabbi Emeritus of Congregation Shearith Israel of New York City and founder of the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals. He is the author and editor of over two dozen books, and this is his first work of fiction," has tried to humanize two extreme trends/ideologies in American Jewish Orthodoxy aka Torah Judaism.  I wouldn't be surprised if he hasn't published a lot about the same exact issue as non-fiction.

In Angel's opinion there's a danger to Orthodox Jewry if the "old style" of yeshiva teaching and life style continues.  I found it most disturbing that the time setting of the book actually takes place a generation, over twenty years before its publication, 1986 versus 2008.

Angel pits two very different rabbis as vying for the position of Rosh Yeshiva of an old world style yeshiva which had been established by a rabbi who had fled Europe in the 1930's.  The two candidates are that rabbi's grandson who, no surprise, wants to preserve the yeshiva exactly as it has been, and a rabbi, a ba'al teshuva (one who became Torah observant as an adult) who is much more innovative and whose wife doesn't even cover her hair.

The book is organized in a series of "chapters, " each of which is the speech by a different character, who never is asked a single question, to the search committee.

The basic structure of the book is like a youth group activity.  The group is required to humanize two opposing opinions and debate them in an informal and participatory setting.   I wonder if Rabbi Angel had developed these characters for some rabbi training or teaching endeavor over the years.

It's very clear that Angel identifies most with the BT innovative rabbi, since that rabbi and wife are much more human and developed as characters than the grandson and his wife.  I think he made a very big halachik (Jewish Law) mistake by having the innovative rabbi's wife as going without haircovering.  I would have liked to be in his favor, but that turned me against the character.  Davka, in the 1980's and even a decade earlier, married women's haircovering began to come back and it is now a fun and creative fashion and halachik statement.  Certainly in Israel, and more recently in other Orthodox/Torah Jewish communities throughout the world, many married women have embraced this mitzvah/halacha as a favorite for fashion and self-expression.

I don't want this review to be a "spoiler," so I won't give you the ending, but I will say that I would have had preferred a "surprise ending."

Well, with all of my complaints about the book, I must admit that Angel succeeds in the aim to make me think (and blog) about the issue.  The topic could be the seed for a very good novel, but I guess Rabbi Angel, like myself, isn't really a fiction writer.  Maybe someone can or has taken the basic premise and make/make a very good and suspenseful novel from it.