The National Library and Me

Tags

books, libraries, library, reading, writing

On a tour of the new building of Israel’s National Library a few weeks ago I learned that it is mandatory for at least one copy of every new book published to be deposited in the Library. The printed form regarding the depositing of the book or books bears the following text (originally in Hebrew, English translation by me) with space left for the titles of the book or books and the name of the author:

‘We are happy to confirm that the collections of the National Library have received the publications listed below:

‘The publications received by the Library are recorded in the catalogue of the National Library and the consolidated catalogue of libraries in Israel, and their copies are preserved for future generations. We thank you for submitting the copies and for your contribution to building the collection and preserving our culture. We hope that in the future you will also provide us with copies of your new publications when they appear.

‘You will soon receive confirmation by email confirming receipt of the copies.

‘With gratitude and respect,’

The Absorption and Ordering Team of the National Library.’

It all seemed to be designed to impress upon the provider of the books, in this case the author, i.e., myself, the weighty significance of having one’s books included in the Library’s collection and catalogue. So I decided to do my best to comply with this demand, which of course I should have done at the time my books were published, but omitted to do so, whether out of ignorance, indolence or sloppiness.

My first task was to locate and collect a copy of each of my books. In my basement stands the metal filing cabinet that was a fixture of the home in which I grew up in London and held various documents belonging to my late father. At some point, after it had been emptied of its contents, I loaded my books into its capacious drawers, so it wasn’t with too much difficulty that I extracted one copy of each book.

Much to my surprise, I found that I had written a total of eight books. Starting in 2014, with my first novel, ‘The Balancing Game,’ I had embarked on a writing blitz, producing a book a year till 2021. There was no room on the form I had been given by the Library for all my books, so I prepared a printed list. I loaded the books into one of the small carry-on cases I take when travelling abroad, and waited for a morning when both Yigal and I would be free to go to the Library. The physical task of reaching the library with the little case was too much for me to contemplate alone and unaided.

The morning when both Yigal and I were free came last week. We drove to the Library and even managed to find a place nearby to park our car. On entering the Library we and our suitcase were searched, but eventually we were able to take the lift to the floor where one submits one’s books. We were not alone, as the desk was manned by three librarians, and all of them were busy. Eventually our turn came. We unloaded our books onto the counter. They looked lovely there, the covers all being based on my own watercolour paintings. Unfazed, the librarian handed me an empty form and told me to start filling it out. I began to embark on the task, expecting to have to make an effort to get my books into the annals of posterity. However, when the librarian saw my printed list with all the relevant details he relented and told us that we could leave.

So at some point in the not-too-distant future, I hope, all my books can be found on the shelves and in the catalogue of Israel’s National Library. The list is appended herewith, and I think I am justified in feeling a sense of pride.

LIST OF BOOKS BY DOROTHEA SHEFER-VANSON

Dorothea Shefer-Vanson

Tel: 054-4745682

dorotheashefer@gmail.com

website: shefer-vanson.com

blog: https://fromdorothea.wordpress.com

P.o.B. 736

75 Kalanit St.

Mevasseret Zion 9070674

1. THE BALANCING GAME; A CHILD BETWEEN TWO WORLDS, A SOCIETY APPROACHING WAR

Published by SPBRA; 2014

2.TIME OUT OF JOINT; THE FATE OF A FAMILY

published on Amazon; 2014

3.LEVI KOENIG; A CONTEMPORARY KING LEAR

published on Amazon; 2015

4. CHASING DREAMS AND FLIES; A TRAGICOMEDY OF LIFE IN FRANCE

published on Amazon; 2016

5. ALL QUIET ON THE MIDWESTERN PLAINS

published on Amazon; 2018

6. A RUFFLED CALM

published on Amazon; 2019

7. FRIENDS, NEIGHBOURS, TRAITORS

published on Amazon; 2020

8. ROOTLESS IN ZION

published on Amazon; 2021

;

The Way We Live

Tags

gaza, Israel, middle-east, Palestine, politics

When I asked the person in charge of the trip to Eilat organized by the association of pensioners of my former place of work whether there would be some security or at least someone with a weapon on the bus he expressed surprise and answered in the negative, insisting that the roads were safe. Still, we went, having decided that we needed a change from our routine, and hoping for the best. In the event our journeys to and from Eilat were uneventful, although a missile fired by the Houthis did get through Israel’s defences while we were there. One evening we heard a muffled ‘boom’ as we were sitting in our hotel room. Luckily no damage was caused, but the consequences could have been dire. How and why our defences neither caught the missile nor set off any alarm in the town is a mystery. But there have been worse failures of Israel’s defences in the last few months.

Since the assault on Israel by Hamas terrorists on 7^th October we in Israel have learned to live with a sense of vulnerability. Our confidence in the ability of our intelligence and surveillance systems has been severely shaken, and it seems unrealistic to rely on the current government for any practical resolution to our situation. Awareness of the plight of the hostages still in Hamas’ grip is another constant in our daily lives, and until that issue is resolved there can be no peace or confidence in our lives.

It is about ten years since I last visited Eilat, Israel’s answer to Bournemouth but with a better climate. In that time the town in the far south of the country has been cleaned up and beautified, with plentiful greenery in the form of trees and bushes as well as many colourful flower-beds and a constant attention to improving the facilities. The beaches are clean and welcoming, the hotels aesthetic and friendly with varying degrees of luxury, and the artistically-paved promenade seems to be undergoing an incessant process of improvement. In addition to its various attractions such as outings on boats, snorkeling and swimming with dolphins there is now an indoor skating rink and trips to interesting sites such as the impressive archaeological site of Timna as well as the ornithological observatory where many different kinds of migrating birds spend time on their way to and from Africa and northern Europe.

And so we try to stay optimistic and carry on as before as much as possible, but with the constant nagging awareness that the situation is probably going to go from bad to worse before there can be any improvement. The results of an opinion poll carried out by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion and Research among Arab residents of Gaza and the West Bank (can the situation be that bad if it’s possible to conduct a statistically reliable opinion poll there?) show that support for Hamas and denial of the atrocities it committed is stronger than ever. The explanation for this provided by Dr. Halil Shkaki, the Director of the Center, is satisfaction that this has brought the Palestinian issue back into the international limelight. The question remains, however, to what extent this will help the Palestinian cause, as the idea of a Palestinian state alongside Israel is now regarded as an existential threat by many Israelis who once saw it as a viable option. After all, Gaza ruled by Hamas was in essence potentially the longed-for Palestinian state.

After the events of the night of 13^th April, the Night of the Long Missiles, when Iran fired hundreds of missiles of various kinds at Israel and their successful interception by Israel’s air defenses, something of Israel’s previous spirit of confidence has been restored. But no one in Israel is deluding themselves about what lies ahead, and whatever it is, the consequences may well be grim. That is the uncertain reality with which we have learned to live.

Wer alles Weiss hat keine ahnung (A Clever Person Doesn’t Know Anything)

Tags

book-review, book-reviews, books

I summoned up all my courage and determination and decided to read this German book by Horst Evers, which had been recommended by my German teacher. The book consists of little anecdotes about the everyday life of the author, including mishaps, misunderstandings and misjudgments. To my un-Germanic eye, the pieces in the book read something like the blog posts that I myself write each week, but are written in a more humorous and personal tone. As far as I can tell, given my limited knowledge of German, the items are written in a way that aspires to being witty, or even ironic, poking fun at the author himself. Some of the pieces mention his immediate family (wife/partner, daughter) and the little incidents that srise from these relationships, while others describe his struggles with German officialdom and the effort to master the ‘benefits’ of contemporary technology.

Several pieces recount the author’s experiences in various occupations under the rubric, ‘My Life in Thirteen Occupations,’ at most of which he admits to failing. Thus, the first one was Assistant Agricultural Machinery Mechanic (naturally, I had to resort to Google Translate to help me decipher this and several other occupations). Since the author is a writer with a decidedly arts – as opposed to science – bent, it comes as no surprise to the reader to read of his dismal failure in this sphere, as was also the case, albeit for different reasons, in his brief career as a cook ,also known as ‘The Right Hand of God’. Almost all the pieces are written in a self-deprecating tone, so that the reader starts to feel almost guilty at finding them amusing.

One particularly entertaining piece describes a vacation rental where ‘Here Guests do the Cooking,’ and another, entitled ‘Cold Feet,’ gives a comical account of the roundabout way he discovered where he had left his winter shoes the previous year. One of the thirteen occupations in which he found himself was as a copywriter for an advertising agency, and as the book progresses he seems to find himself in increasingly appropriate occupations, ending up finally as a reader of manuscripts for a publisher, though not omitting to mention his stints as a Rock Star, Chicken Slaughterer and Express Delivery Person along the way. Learning about all these occupations certainly did a lot to expand my German vocabulary.

The last few pieces in the book describe how the author and his family endured the isolation of the Covid lockdown period, as well as the unexpected way in which he arrived at the title of the book – after a conversation with his daughter who remembered something he had told her that one of his teachers had once said, and which – of course – he couldn’t remember at all.

A Hidden Gem

Tags

classical, classical-music, mendelssohn, music, piano

The series of chamber concerts with explanations organised by the Music Academy in Jerusalem is one of the hidden gems of the city’s music scene. The series, which is now in its twenty-fourth season, consists of a selection of music based on a theme, a composer, or a group of composers, and is performed primarily by teachers (and sometimes students too) of the Academy. We have been attending these monthly concerts for the last twenty years, and have almost always enjoyed them immensely. Unfortunately, attendance at the concerts is diminishing over time as the die-hard kernel of devotees is gradually being reduced (by natural causes).

When we first started attending the concerts they were held in the imposing Wise Auditorium on the Hebrew University’s Givat Ram campus. The musician who initiated, lectured and played at many of the concerts was Professor Assaf Zohar, who now teaches at the Buchman-Mehta School of Music in Tel Aviv. For a few years after that the concerts were held in the Music Academy itself but in recent years the venue has been the comfortable Rebecca Crown auditorium, which is part of the Jerusalem Theatre complex also known as the Jerusalem Center for the Performing Arts.

Some of the recent performances have focused on the subject of family ties. Thus, when we heard piano pieces composed by Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn it was not always easy to distinguish which piece had been written by whom, and the same applied to works by Robert and Clara Schumann. This was quite an eye-opener for me, and only goes to show that sexism has prevailed in music just as it has in society as a whole.

In recent years Dr. Ron Regev, the head of the Academy’s piano department, has taken over at the head of the concerts, injecting his own personal touch of brilliance to the programme. Apart from being a virtuoso pianist, Dr. Regev is also an engaging, knowledgeable and inspiring speaker, and to hear him talk about the music he and his colleagues are about to play is always enjoyable and uplifting.

The title of the current series of concerts, ‘Language and Style,’ provides ample scope for including a varied selection of music in each programme. The concert we attended last week was entitled ‘The Romantic Flute,’ and included pieces by French composer Cecile Chaminade, Bohuslav Martinu and Felix Mendelssohn for combinations of flute, cello and piano, allowing Dr. Regev and his colleagues to display the full gamut of their talents. The final piece of music they played was Mendelssohn’s beautiful trio for violin, cello and piano, opus 49, with the flute (admirably played by Professor Yossi Arnheim) substituting for the violin.

In his introductory remarks Dr. Regev said that this trio had been the subject of his doctoral dissertation, and that it was particularly close to his heart. He described how Mendelssohn had struggled when composing it, changing and amending it several times, until eventually settling reluctantly for the current version (which is exquisite). The programme notes distributed before the concert state that this dissertation gained the Richard Franz Prize for outstanding doctoral dissertation awarded by the Juilliard Conservatory in its centenary year, and also constituted the basis of the lecture and concert given by Dr. Regev at the Library of Congress in Washington.

It goes without saying that the performance of the Mendelssohn trio by Ron Regev, Yossi Arnheim and cellist Shmuel Magen gave every beautiful and brilliant note of this captivating piece of music its right and proper place, providing the audience with a musical experience of unparalleled excellence. Although the auditorium was not full, the audience gave the musicians well-deserved lengthy and enthusiastic applause.

To the Finland Station; a Study in the Writing and Acting of History

Tags

history, karl-marx, marx, marxism, philosophy

The journey to the Finland Station in the title of this study by Edmund Wilson is described only at the end of this book, and refers to the train in which exiled socialists Lenin and Trotsky together with other socialists travelled from Sweden to Saint Petersburg in Russia, thus triggering the Russian Revolution of October 1918. But there were predecessors to their Marxist form of socialism, and it is these that Edmund Wilson describes in the first half of his book.

Although the French Revolution of 1789 set off the process of social reform in Europe, Edmund Wilson starts his analysis of the progression towards socialism in 1824, when a young French professor of philosophy, Jules Michelet, came across the writings of the sixteenth century native of Milan, Giovannni Vico, who claimed that the development of human society was an organic man-made process. Wilson traces the way ideas about society have developed, giving rise over time to the emergence of socialist principles .

In the eighttenth and nineteenth centuries thinkers about the nature of society, such as Lassalle, Saint Simon, Fourier and Anatole France in France, Robert Owen in England and America and Bernard Shaw and Beatrice and Sydney Webb in England, wrote and acted to advance the principles of a more equitable distribution of resources throughout society. Thus, Robert Owen set up a society based on his idea of utopian socialism (‘New Harmony’ in Indiana, USA), while the Webbs gathered statistics and sought to promote legislation aimed at providing equal educational opportunities to all segments of society.

The second half of this book deals with the personal lives, thinking, writing and activities first of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and then of Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin) and Lev Davydovich Bronstein (Trotsky). Wilson describes the youth, background and personal  life of each and every one of these four main protagonists in the evolution of socialism, bringing them to life and enabling the reader to see how the world they experienced, the books they read and the life they led caused them to develop their ideas about society and the distribution of resources.

Thus, through the correspondence between Karl Marx, living in impoverished exile in London, and Friedrich Engels, his friend and collaborator living in Manchester, we gain a better understanding of the nature of their relationship and work. We are able to see the frequent pleas of Marx, a family man, for financial aid. from Engels. The two had met in Germany and Engels had been sent to Manchester by his father to work in his textile company. This constituted the basis of their collaboration in writing ‘Capital,’ the ‘Communist Manifest’ and other seminal works outlining their theories about class conflict, society and the distribution of resources. Engels was able to supply Marx with a large part of the statistical data on the basis of which Marx developed his ideas about the economic basis of society and wealth. Both Marx and Engels were unable to remain in Germany because of their political agitation against the government. After spending some time in various European cities, Marx moved to London, where he remained from 1850 to his death in 1883 at the age of 64. Engels outlived him by several years, in which he managed to complete the writing and publication of their seminal work ‘Capital.’

In describing the life and ideas of Lenin and Trotsky, Wilson shows us their human side and family origins. Both of them had fallen foul of the Russians authorities by virtue of their opposition to the autocratic Tsarist regime and had been imprisoned or sent to Siberia at various times. At a time (the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries) when the revolutionary movement was gaining strength in Russia despite being oppressed and attacked by the regime, they managed to gain a growing following among both the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, enlisting the support of the working class and large parts of the army, which was dissatisfied with its lack-lustre involvement in the First World War. The dissatisfaction of the growing industrial working class also served as a source of support for the Bolshevik movement.

It is worth noting that both Marx and Trotsky came from assimilated Jewish families, and received a secular education. Nonetheless, it is possible that the ideas they absorbed in their early upbringing may have set them off on the path that led toward social reform, and – eventually — revolution. The later development of what was called socialism in Russia took a course toward an extremism and even despotism that was far removed from the original idea of alleviating the poverty of the toiling masses and eliminating discrepancies of wealth and prosperity. Nonetheless, the central idea of the more equitable distribution of resources has taken hold even in non-socialist countries, with greater equality in the availability of health, education, housing to most sections of the population.

Sunday Morning, 6 a.m.

Tags

hope, Israel

(My translation of a poem by Giora Fisher)

When I bent down to pick Israel up from the mud

The driver of the bread delivery truck said

“Look at that beautiful rainbow in the sky.”

That brief poem has haunted me ever since I came across it in the literary section of the Hebrew newspaper I read. Those lines sum up in the most expressive way what has happened – and is still happening – to us here in Israel.

We have just endured a catastrophic episode in our long Jewish history, in which catastrophes have tended to materialize from time to time. But nothing on the scale of what happened on October the seventh has ever happened here in Israel before. The incursion into our country of thousands of armed marauders bent on murder, destruction, pillage and rape has left many of us traumatized. After all, Israel was established in order to prevent that sort of thing happening to our people ever again. As a sovereign, internationally-recognised national entity we are able to raise an army to defend our borders, and take whatever measures are required to achieve our security, provided we remain within the bounds of international law.

Even as we remain shaken by the events of a few months ago we try to continue to keep hope in our hearts, to stay positive, permit ourselves to take pleasure in the good things of life. Despite the death and destruction wreaked in our southern communities Israel is still a vibrant country with a resilient population that has rallied to the banner of defiance in the face of tragedy. We won’t allow ourselves to be trampled into the mud. We continue to demand the destruction of those who seek to inflict harm on us, taking measures that are considered ‘disproportionate’ in some quarters and have undoubtedly had unfortunate results for the civilian population of Gaza. But it can be legitimately argued that the final objective of attaining security on Israel’s borders is a cause worth fighting for. For the 180,000 Israelis evacuated from their homes on the borders that is a worthy cause, as it is for the families of the 140 hostages still held in captivity in Gaza. For them – and all residents of Israel — there can be no greater objective than attaining their release.

But we must also remember to turn our attention to that ‘rainbow in the sky.’ For those of us who are still living in our homes, are not in immediate range of the rockets, don’t have relatives who are hostages, are not directly affected by the security situation, life continues much as before, with its customary ups and downs. We have enough food to eat, a roof over our head, hot water for a shower, a kettle to provide us with a cup of coffee or tea at the appropriate time and the knowledge that our loved ones are within reach, whether by phone, car or even a brief walk.

We must allow ourselves to continue enjoying the good things of life – the warmth of the afternoon sun, the sight of the sea, the beauty of nature in our gardens, balconies or nearby open space. For me, it is the ability to hear classical music on the radio, attend a concert, cook a meal for my family or enjoy a piece of chocolate – without having to feel guilty or ashamed. Life goes on, and as a nation that has endured many tragedies, culminating in the Holocaust that is still fresh in many people’s memory, we know that that is true. I take the example of my parents’ generation as my lodestar. They have endured. My parents fled Nazi Germany as young adults and were lucky to be able to move to England as refugees. Both of them lost their parents and other relatives and friends in the Shoah, but my sisters and I grew up in a home that was full of laughter and was not overshadowed by painful memories. We must make an effort, just as my parents did, not to let the past dominate the present. We must focus our attention on the beautiful rainbow and not on the mud at our feet.

שש בבוקר – גיורא פישר

כשהתכופפתי להרים מהבוץ את ישראל

היום ליד הצרכניה במושב,

אמר לי הנהג שפרק את הלחם:

“תראה איזו קשת יפה בשמים.”

Walter Benjamin’s ‘Little History of Photography’

Tags

art, blog, exhibition, photography

The exhibition now being shown at the Israel Museum brings together works by the photographers mentioned in Walter Benjamin’s seminal essay about photography which was published in three parts in a German literary journal in 1931. The exhibition echoes the title given by Benjamin to his study of photography, which was still in its early stages, constituting a synthesis between art and technology that inspired a new approach to the world of ideas.

The curator of the exhibition, Gilad Reich, notes that the Israel Museum has in its collections images produced by all the photographers mentioned in Benjamin’s study, this being a rare and singular feature not shared by many museums in the world. Benjamin was one of the first art and culture critics to view photography as a way of relating to the world through images captured by means of a technology that was relatively new, imparting to the image a meaning that was new and possibly even revolutionary. Benjamin coined the concept of ‘aura’ as defining the image and its effect on the viewer.

As we move through the exhibition and view the images on display we find ourselves moving through the history of the photographic medium. It developed initially when Louis Daguerre invented a complex process for reproducing images in 1839, while later technological advances enabled images to be more easily reproduced. Thus, in Victorian England the concept of the ‘photographic visiting card’ bearing a picture of the individual was adopted by Queen Victoria and became widely popular. Photographic studios became the focus of the desire to commemorate the individual or family as an image that was more readily available to a wide segment of the population.

Benjamin, however, was critical of such commercial photographic studios, noting with derision their paraphernalia and ‘props’ intended to enhance the impact of the image or portrait. In the exhibition an enlarged photo of young Franz Kafka illustrates this concept, with the serious young boy holding a stick and a large black hat, surrounded by heavy, dark furniture emphasizing the gravity of the situation.

The technology of photography was still clumsy and demanding when Benjamin was writing about it, with the need for metal plates, chemical processes for developing the image in a dark room, and cumbersome camera equipment. With the passage of time, the emergence of the box camera, special photographic paper, and – more recently – the mobile phone have helped to make the process of photography easy and accessible to all.

Thus, while Benjamin’s concept of ‘aura’ may have lost something of its significance, in its place has come immediacy and the ability to capture the fleeting, ephemeral image which might have interested and intrigued him just as much, had he not died tragically in 1940 while seeking to escape the Nazis on the border between France and Spain.

Errata; an Examined Life: A Life in Ideas

Tags

book-reviews, books, steiner, thoughts

The name of George Steiner arouses reverence in the minds of anyone conscious of the role played by language in the world of culture, literature and ideas. Steiner’s seminal books, ‘After Babel’ and ‘Language and Silence,’ occupy pride of place on my bookshelf and that of anyone concerned with translation and the history of ideas. So it was with bated breath that I embarked on reading one of Steiner’s last books, a kind of summing-up of his life and work. A telling sign – the only image on the rather plain cover of the book is a small Star of David, the symbol of the Jew.

The book starts out as if it were a memoire, describing the tedium of childhood holidays spent in the verdant Austrian countryside where the constant downpour kept the young George inside the house. Relief came in the form of a book of heraldry bought by an uncle, which fascinated the child and led him to an instinctive awareness of individuation rather than theory.

Born in 1929, George Steiner’s early childhood was spent in Paris in a family where French, German and English were all spoken. Faced with the threat of invasion by Nazi Germany, his father, a successful economist who taught his son Greek and Latin, took the family to the USA, where George was enrolled in the French Lycée in Manhattan. While there, alongside the children of diplomats and other Jewish emigrés, he was iintroduced to the work of Shakespeare and the English and American poets, while acknowledging the supremacy of modern French literature. His polyglot upbringing led him to an awareness of language and literature as cultural agents (and his cognizance of the work of the translator as ‘honest treason’).

Steiner, who died in 2020 and has been described as a ‘polyglot and polymath,’ gives an entertaining account of his time in the late 1940s at the University of Chicago, sharing a room with an ex-paratrooper who stunned the young George with his physical prowess and arranged for his sexual initiation (by a kindly prostitute), requiring solely some tutoring in academic subjects in return. It was not long before young George found himself tutoring groups of students, and thus found his calling as a teacher, enabling others to understand texts that they found impenetrable.

Devoting an entire chapter to the State of Israel, Steiner describes the attendance of prominent international figures at the funeral of assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and then ruminates on the ‘anomaly of Jewish survival’ as so many great ancient civilisations have disappeared. Defining modern Israel as an ‘indispensable miracle,’ he tries to explain Jewish survival as a combination of ethical values, adherence to traditional practices, and strong family bonds. Steiner notes that Jews continue to persist despite millennia of persecution and pogroms which culminated in the Shoah, and that Jews in Israel still adhere to their ancient language, produce exceptional scholars and scientists and are no longer ‘unwelcome guests’ in other countries.

Music has played an important part in Steiner’s life, providing both solace and an area of study. He asserts that talking about music sets the boundaries of language, and he regards it as a meta-language, affecting human consciousness (as exemplified in the writings of Proust, Mann, Joyce, for example) and, evidently speaking from experience, regarding it as something without which life on earth would probably be unbearable for many. Steiner also extolls the virtues of growing up in a bi-lingual or multi-lingual environment, as he did, and castigates those who insist that monolingualism is better for a child, serving to open additional ‘windows on the world.’ Contemporary culture is based on translation, he claims, citing the instances of the Bible and Roman Law. He does not regard machine translation as a threat to the human translator except in the case of routine and technical texts.

Steiner regards the twentieth century as ‘the most bestial in recorded history’ even though death and destruction have always been prevalent throughout human existence. The greatest scientific advances have been made in that century, with the widespread improvement in social conditions, medicine and communications. He mentions teachers who have made an impression on him from his schooldays to his time at various universities throughout the world, and also credits certain students with having stimulated his thinking on various subjects. He writes with affection about places he has visited, bookshops he has frequented and with regret about mistakes he has made (due to pressure of time or deadlines). He is sorry that he did not continue to draw or paint, did not learn Hebrew and did not try LSD.

Altogether, reading this book is an exciting and stimulating journey into the mind and life of one of the leading thinkers of our time, and almost as soon as I had finished reading it I resolved to read it once again, as there are so many profound and interesting insights into the world of ideas that it is impossible to absorb everything at the first reading.

Israel’s New National Library

Tags

books, featured, library, news

When I was a graduate student at the Hebrew University’s Givat Ram campus many years ago, before the Six Day War and the University’s return to its original campus on Mount Scopus, the National Library building served as a haven and focal point where one could sit and study in an atmosphere of silence and detachment from the world outside. The fact that it was located on the university campus meant that it was easily accessible for all students. The changing exhibits provided additional interest, and the enormous, colourful stained-glass windows by Mordechai Ardon helped to create the library’s unique atmosphere. Those windows remain in their place as they could not be safely moved to the new building.

The new National Library building is no longer part of the Hebrew University’s Givat Ram campus, being situated about half a kilometre away from it, opposite the Knesset, in close proximity to government buildings, the Israel Museum and other museums It constitutes an integral part of the concept formulated by Israel’s founding fathers of physically uniting Israel[‘s spiritual and practical heritage with its governing body in the entire hill area overlooking Jerusalem known as Givat Ram. The building itself provides an impressive yet welcoming space for anyone seeking to use its facilities, whether to study, view any of its exhibits, engage in research activity or meet with other scholars.

Several art works adorn the library’s walls and spaces, both inside and outside the building, serviing to underline the Jewish people’s connections with the Bible and other writings, as well as echoing aspects of the Land of Israel. The library also contains collections of books, manuscripts and other documents bequeathed or donated by Jewish and Israeli intellectuals, as well as unique collections such as Albert Einstein’s letters, Isaac Newton’s contemplation of the Bible, and the unique Gershom Shocken Collecetion of Kabbalah and Hasidism. When I visited the Library a few weeks ago the first thing that caught my eye was a huge, colourful wall containing hundreds of portraits and dedicated to the memory of all those killed by Hamas in the 7^th October massacre and the soldiers who have fallen in the current war in Gaza.

The new building has been designed with the intention of fulfilling the needs of readers and users while meeting green construction principles and maintaining energy sustainability. The stone block of the building is topped by a concave roof  with a large circular skylight enabling natural light to enter the central reading room without inflicting undue damage on the books inside. Crevices in the external walls serve as windows, also allowing light to enter in a way that is neither obtrusive nor harmful to the books inside.

Originally founded in 1892, the Library now holds over five million books, periodicals, special collections, rare manusctiprs, personal and institutional archives, newspapers, maps and photographs as well as the National Music Archives comprising records, compact discs, audio recordings and digital files. Through its collections the National Library represents Israeli society in all its diversity.

Verdi’s Requiem Revisited

Tags

choir, classical-music, mozart, music, Requiem

A performance of Verdi’s Requiem is not your run-of-the-mill concert, as it requires a large orchestra and choir, as well as special instruments and an unusual disposition of their location and performance. Thus, for example, the timpani have a prominent role to play in emphasizing the drama of the music and the words, the effect of the trumpets is amplified by having them placed on either side of the balcony above the orchestra in the Tuba Mirum (Trumpets shall sound) segment, not to mention the enormous, heart-stopping impact of the massed choir and orchestra singing ‘Dies Irae,’ (Judgement Day).

The requiem mass is essentially a prayer for the dead sung in Latin, as is customary in the Christian religion, even though many of the words and sentiments draw on the traditional Jewish liturgy. This is the case in the passage ‘Liber Scriptus Proferetur,’ (The Book is Open) which is a clear reference to the book supposedly kept by the deity in the Yom Kippur service, where the fate of each individual for the coming year is decided. The same can be said of the Sanctus (Holy) segment, which echoes the ‘Kadosh, Kadosh,’ in the Jewish Sabbath liturgy, extolling the sanctity of God. In fact, the Hebrew prayer for the dead starts by proclaiming the sanctity of God and is known as ‘Kadish.’

At the performance we attended last week at the Tel Aviv Opera, conducted by Dan Oettinger, the choir and orchestra filled the stage usually devoted to the singers involved in the operatic performance when the orchestra and the conductor are tucked away out of sight in the orchestra pit. However, as is customary when an opera is being sung, usually in Italian, the translation into Hebrew and English appears in surtitles above the stage, enabling the audience to follow the plot. Of course, there’s no plot in a requiem, but it helps to be able to know the meaning of what is being sung.

My late father was very fond of Verdi’s Requiem, and the LP records of a stellar performance of the work were a treasured item in our home in London. My father liked to listen to music and work at his desk on Sunday mornings (as orthodox Jews, we did not work or employ electrical appliances on Saturday, the Sabbath), and it was often my task to remain besides the gramophone and turn or change the records so that Dad (and we) could enjoy the music.

At one stage I came across a small book on my parents’ bookshelf entitled ‘Requiem in Theresienstadt,’ by Josef Bor. It described the enormous effort made by musicians and inmates at the concentration camp, led by Rafael Schaechter, to prepare and perform Verdi’s Requiem despite the unbearable conditions under which they were forced to live. Using a smuggled score, they performed the Requiem sixteen times, including one performance before senior SS officials and an International Red Cross delegation. The conductor Rafael Schaechter reportedly told the choir “We will sing to the Nazis what we cannot say to them.” My paternal grandmother was incarcerated in Theresienstadt and perished there, so my family has a special connection to the performance of the Requiem there. Today an association known as ‘Defiant Requiem,’ dedicated to the memory and reproduction of that performance, continues to commemorate the event.

At the performance in Tel Aviv last week the audience sat in rapt silence as the orchestra played and the choir and soloists sang, bringing the majesty and drama of Verdi’s music to life. In Israel of today, with war being waged in the Gaza Strip and skirmishes raging in the north of the country, the performance of the requiem has special significance. In the plaza of the nearby Tel Aviv Museum families of the hostages held in Gaza were demonstrating in order to convince the government to do more to get them released.

In a very moving moment as the Requiem ends, the soprano lowers her voice and pleads with God in what is almost a whisper to save her from eternal death in hell, with the words ‘Libera Me’ (Release me). But in an action that sent shivers down the spine of everyone in the audience that night, the translation above her head read: ‘Release them,’ in an obvious reference to the current situation in Israel.