The Status of Women in Israel

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Brandeis Series, Center for Women's Justice, Netty Gross-Horowitz, rabbinical courts, Susan Weiss

 

   The subject is a tricky one, because on the one hand Israel aspires to be a modern, democratic society, and in the public sphere women are treated as equals, on the whole. On the other hand, though, its laws regarding marriage and divorce are subject to the restrictions, regulations, and constraints imposed on it by its ancient, patriarchal religion of Judaism.

 The reasons for this are complex, but essentially Jewish religious law regarding marriage and divorce was adopted when the State of Israel was established as part of the price the ‘founding fathers’ paid in order to bring the religious parties into the coalition government, and in that it could be considered to have been a success. Back then, however, the religious parties were very different in their mien and outlook from the ultra-orthodox version that has come to be included in recent coalition governments.

 Thus, the laws set out in the Bible regarding the role of women in marriage are upheld to this day. If her husband dies without having had any children (sons, that is), his brothers must either marry her or release her. Yes, still in modern-day Israel! There is no such thing as civil marriage in Israel. Members of each religious group – Jews, Moslems, Christians – may marry only according to their religion. That was the arrangement during the more than four hundred years of Ottoman rule throughout the Middle East, and is still in effect.

 If a Jewish woman wishes to get divorced she can do so only if her husband agrees to grant her one. This harks back to the time when the wife was regarded as the property of her husband, and this approach continues to cast its long shadow over the situation of women in Israel today. It has given rise to many injustices towards women over the centuries, and it is not unknown for a man to deny his wife a divorce unless she gives him some material benefit, or grants him custody of their children, or whatever whim takes his fancy. The rabbinical courts which judge these cases consist entirely of men, so that the tendency is often in their favour. Divorce can’t be pleasant at the best of times, but I don’t envy any woman in Israel who wants to obtain a divorce. The process involved is a long-drawn-out, demeaning, and painful Via Dolorosa, and often ends in failure.

 Earlier this week I was fortunate enough to hear a talk by Susan Weiss entitled ‘How a Good Jewish Girl Became a Radical Feminist.’ Susan is an American-born attorney now living in Israel. When she immigrated to Israel some thirty years ago, she was an orthodox Jewish woman with a husband and three small children. Unable to work in her profession, she volunteered for various women’s organizations, where she encountered the problem of women denied a divorce by their husband (‘Agunot’). Using her legal training, Susan was able to help in some of these cases, and simultaneously found herself moving gradually away from her strict adherence to orthodox Judaism. Fortunately, her husband has been very understanding about this process.

 There are many other archaic aspects of Jewish law that restrict women’s rights, but they are too numerous and too arcane to mention here, to the extent that a person born into the modern world will find it difficult to believe that in Israel they are still the law, and are enforced by the agencies of the State.

 In 2004 Susan founded the Center for Women’s Justice in Israel, an organization devoted to protecting the rights of women in Israel to equality, dignity, and justice in Jewish Law. The organization has achieved a great deal in upholding women’s rights in the rabbinical courts, and has even instituted proceedings in the civil court for damages against recalcitrant husbands. These cases have been upheld by the courts, resulting in positive outcomes and setting an important legal precedent in Israel.

 Written together with journalist Netty Gross-Horowitz, Susan’s book, ‘Marriage and Divorce in the Jewish State: Israel’s Civil War,’ has been published by the Brandeis Series on Gender, Culture, Religion, and Law. The volume describes cases dealt with by the CWJ in which women were refused a divorce by their husband or upon whom various restrictions were imposed by the rabbinical court. Incidentally, even a woman who has been married abroad in a civil ceremony abroad (which is recognized in Israel) must seek a divorce in the rabbinical court.

 However, the ultimate solution to the situation, according to Susan, must be the separation of religion and state in Israel, bringing the country into line with the tenets of a modern democracy, enabling couples to wed according to their own inclinations, and releasing the stranglehold of the rabbinical courts on legal procedures in Israel.

 Roll on the day!

 

Scrabblers and Scrabblish

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Jerusalem Scrabble Club

“Have you played Scrabble before?”

“Oh yes, I’ve played it at home with my children and grandchildren.”

“Well, it’s a bit different here.”

Thus was I greeted when I entered the portals of the Jerusalem Scrabble Club one fine evening, after having been told about the club, which meets once a week. Little did I know that I was in for a surprise (and not a particularly pleasant one, either).

For most of my working life I have dealt in words, whether as an editor, translator, proofreader, or even publisher. I pride myself on my command of the English language. Pride goeth before a fall, they say, and in my case that was certainly the case.

There was very little to remind me of the happy times spent with the family around the kitchen table as we tested our wits and vocabulary. In an austere, book-lined room (this was a public library, after all) some fifty English-speakers – some of them from out of town – gathered, paid their dues (as did I) and sat down at one of the tables available. I was told to sit wherever I liked, but was immediately shooed away from the seat I chose and told that that place was reserved for the group’s ‘doyenne.’

I realised that things were going to get grim when people started pulling out their own Scrabble boards, bags of letters, and – oh, horror! – clocks like the ones used for timing chess competitions.

At this stage the organisers announced the pairs. Everyone there belonged to one of three categories or levels of expertise, and since I was an unknown quantity I was put in the lowest. In my capacity of novice, I was handed a card containing a list of about 100 two-letter words that are accepted in the Scrabble world and was told that after a few weeks I would no longer be allowed to have it. What was the meaning of ‘words’ such as AA, AO, QI and others no one seemed to know or care. All that mattered was that they appear in the bible of Scrabble players, the Scrabble Players Dictionary, a fat tome containing lists of words – but without definitions – supposedly culled from five reputable dictionaries in the English-speaking world.

In addition, each player was handed a score sheet on which we were expected to note the score for each turn, adding the numbers up as we went along. So, not only does one have to be good at words in order to play competitive Scrabble, you also have to be good at mental arithmetic.

And so the fun began. I was told that each player has 25 cumulative minutes to complete each of the three games he or she plays per evening, with three different partners. My first partner (the pairs were decided by computer program) was a very fast player, and kept reminding me that I had to start my clock ticking when I put my letters down on the board. Of course, even I know that it’s a good idea to get on to a double-word or triple-letter square if you can, but I found myself constantly getting left behind.

During the game my first partner gallantly refrained from challenging my use of the word ‘nous’ but looked it up in his ‘bible’ afterwards and was surprised to see that it exists. The other word I used (which I can’t remember now) was not, but he didn’t make a fuss about it. What I hadn’t realized, however, was that at the end of the game the winner adds to his/her score the sum of their opponent’s letters. Of course, I still had my X and Z and other high-value letters when the game ended, so that my final score was far, far behind that of my opponent.

Then, without further ado (or even a cup of coffee) on to the next partner, again selected by computer. This person was somewhat less charitable. When I queried a word (‘getters,’ I believe it was) she said: “Are you challenging me?” I’ve heard of ‘go-getters,’ but not of ‘getters,’ so I said that I was. She promptly opened her ‘bible’ and pointed to the word. “That means you forfeit your turn,” she triumphed, and continued to play without further ado.

After that I chickened out and refrained from challenging ‘bace,’ but got quite upset when I was told that IQ is not acceptable, even though QI is (I looked it up at home in my Concise Oxford Dictionary, where of course it is not to be found). And so my opponent proceeded to trounce me thoroughly, albeit with a sweet smile.

My final partner was somewhat less intense, and told me that we could dispense with the clock. Even so, I came off somewhat the worse for wear.

And so, my feathers seriously ruffled, my ego definitely deflated, I dragged myself home. The other players waved me a cheery goodbye and said they hoped I’d come back again next week.

Maybe. But only after I learn to read, write and speak Scrabblish.

A Memorable Event

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Beethoven, Heichal Hatarbut, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Itzhak Perlman, Mahler, Noam Sheriff, Ron Huldai, Tel Aviv, Zubin Mehta

Going to gala concerts isn’t really our thing, but when the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra announced that in honor of its return to the refurbished Heichal Hatarbut (Palace of Culture), its home in Tel Aviv, it would be performing Mahler’s fifth symphony, along with Beethoven’s violin concerto (with Itzhak Perlman as soloist) and a piece by Israeli composer, Noam Sheriff, Yigal and I couldn’t resist the temptation. As it happens, we are both inordinately fond of Mahler, and we’re not averse to Beethoven, either.

The main object of the three-year renovation of the building, both the interior and the exterior, was to improve the acoustics. As Tel-Aviv Mayor, Ron Huldai said in his opening address: “One day Maestro Mehta came to my office and said: ‘The Accoustica is Balagan, the Heichal needs Shiputz,’” (the acoustics are lousy, the hall needs renovation).

The tickets were pricey, even though we took the cheapest, and the evening threatened to be a long one, as the concert was held on Saturday night and only started at 9 p.m. We were also warned by email to come as early as possible, as the concert was scheduled to be broadcast live on Israel radio as well as on the Mezzo television channel. We anyway generally try to get to concerts in Tel Aviv early, as otherwise we have trouble parking.

Everything worked according to plan, and in fact we were at the hall before the doors were opened, so that we couldn’t even pick our tickets up from the booking office. Never mind, that gave us time to stroll along the wide Ben Yehuda Boulevard and even get a bite to eat at one of the restaurants there.

Making our leisurely way back to Heichal Hatarbut we encountered a veritable happening taking place on the enormous plaza in front of the building. In the balmy Mediterranean air, large numbers of children – not teenagers – some on bicycles, some on roller-blades, two-wheelers, or other forms of wheeled transport, were whizzing about, some watched over by parents, others seemingly alone and unsupervised. One young man of perhaps eight or nine came crashing down as he passed us, but got up with a smile and continued on his speedy way.

Eventually we made it to the interior of the building, and immediately found ourselves in a very different world. Men in suits, some even with ties, one or two even sporting a bow-tie, were gathering, greeting one another, sipping coffee or tea at tables, and generally enjoying the ambience of the place. They were accompanied – and even outnumbered – by women who were all dressed in their Tel Aviv best. Some were wearing elegant evening gowns, with jewellery to match, others in stylish suits or dresses – with many versions of the ‘little black dress’ on display. This was obviously ‘the scene’ for the culturati of Tel Aviv, and I felt a little bit awkward in my ‘little black trousers’ and Marks and Spencer’s jacket. Luckily for me, none of the other ladies present had stooped to M&S wear. There were plenty of familiar faces to be spotted — politicians, economists, industrialists, TV presenters, whose names I could recall only the next day.

And the music? It was divine. Perlman fiddled away for dear life, and gained a standing ovation. When he returned to the stage to take yet another bow he was astride his motorized buggy, and sped along the proscenium at top speed with Maestro Mehta running behind him, raising cheers and laughter from the adoring audience.

 Actually, those two associates in music-making had managed to raise a laugh even before they began playing the Beethoven, as Mehta carried Perlman’s violin (a Stradivarius, I believe) onto the stage, walking behind him, because of Perlman’s disability (he had polio as a child). Once Perlman was seated, ready to play, he looked up at Mehta, Mehta looked down at him, and there was an expectant hush. Then Perlman made a gesture, as if saying ‘Nu, already,’ Mehta handed him the instrument and the music began.

And of course, Mahler’s fifth symphony thrilled us from its first golden trumpet tones to its final chord, with all the rich sounds produced by the orchestra in between, and especially the moving Adagietto, in which strings and harp combine in the touching love-song that Mahler wrote for his wife, Alma.

The concert ended and we wended our way home along Highway 1 towards Jerusalem, the music still ringing in our ears, our minds still in a state of bliss. As I fell into bed I was still hearing the music in my head.

A Joint Palestinian-Israeli Play

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Bonna Haberman, Jerusalem YMCA, Ytheater

 

I was sitting on the patio of Jerusalem’s YMCA building enjoying a cup of coffee and a croissant one morning, waiting for my French class to begin, when someone with a friendly smile (who I later learned was the author-director of the play, Bonna Haberman) approached me and thrust a brochure into my hand. This was an advertisement for a play to be given that evening featuring Israeli and Palestinian actors. The play, written mainly by its participants, represented the culmination of two years of work on the project, and supposedly tackled the issue of Palestinian-Israeli relations in a new way.

It seemed a worthy cause, and since we were not busy that evening my husband and I decided to attend. When we got to the YMCA we found a handful of people, all of them Israelis as far as we could make out, waiting outside the hall for the doors to open, which they did eventually somewhat belatedly, to the complaints of some of the people who had been standing there for quite a long time.

 The YMCA auditorium has room for an audience of around 600, so it was not difficult for the 30 or so people who had turned up to find good seats. The stage was already adorned with assorted plastic bottles, old newspapers and other debris, confirming what we could learn from our programme (in Hebrew, English and Arabic), namely, that the play was set on a garbage dump. Two actors, a man and a woman, on separate sides of the stage, were busy forming little figures from the debris or wrapping bottles in plastic film, both concentrating in silence on what they were doing. The sound of traffic, garbage-collections, and helicopters could be heard. At one stage the couple began to speak to one another, he in Arabic, she in Hebrew, and they seemed to understand one another. So far, so very metaphorical.

A woman dressed in outrageously fashionable clothes then appeared on stage, her stance, actions and speech all serving as a caricature of the nasty Israeli. After launching into an animated monologue (in Hebrew) about the real-estate potential of the site, she offers money to the man, which he apparently accepts. She disappears, and the two characters begin to quarrel, the woman speaking Hebrew, the man Arabic; In addition, at one point a grandmotherly figure appears and adds her contribution (in Arabic speech and song) to the dialogue. The Hebrew-speaking girl then gets into the trash-can that dominates the stage and proceeds to offer paper sandwiches and rats-tail soup to the others, hence the play’s title ‘Take-Away.’

 

Anyone like myself who doesn’t understand both languages lost out on a large part of the dialogue, but at one point it was clear that the man and woman undress and make love offstage (behind a back-lit screen), then come back and quarrel some more. Finally, the two begin to fight physically. This was actually the best part of the play in theatrical terms, as it involved some beautiful balletic and athletic movements, without the intrusive sound-effects that constituted the backdrop to the first scene. At the end, however, the stage is left in a sorry state, with both sides dead or injured and garbage strewn all over the place.

At this point a young man with a guitar came along and sang a sad song in Hebrew and Arabic about the futility of a situation in which people are in conflict with one another instead of cooperating. The play was a production of a project known as the ytheater, in which both Palestinian and Israeli actors participate, and which is supported by various august bodies in Israel.

We found the whole event very noble and worthy, but as we filed out we also felt that it was somewhat naïve and over-simplified. True, it’s important to try and get the message across, but it’s a pity that there were so few Palestinians in the audience.

A Precious Gift

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Abu Ghosh music festival, E.N.T. doctor, hearing

 

It’s something that happens to me about once a year or so. The specialist says it’s nothing to do with cleaning my ears or not, it’s just that some people’s ears have a tendency to produce more wax than others. I even seem to remember my late father suffering from a similar problem in his advanced old age. But when it happens it’s pretty horrible.

We were staying in Zikhron Ya’akov, looking after our three grandsons there while our daughter and son-in-law were abroad for a week, taking a well-earned holiday. Towards the end of our stay I noticed that I was not hearing out of one of my ears. How did I know? Because suddenly all sound seemed to be coming from my right-hand side, even though the source of the sound may have been somewhere to my left.

That’s alright, I thought. At least I’ve still got my other ear. But past experience has taught me that if one ear goes, the other one is sure to follow suit. And in due course, after a day or two, it did.

Suddenly I had to keep asking my grandsons to repeat what they had said. As everyone knows, teenage boys mumble and have an aversion to opening their mouths when they speak, but this was ridiculous. It was only when I saw one of them mouthing the word ‘breakfast’ at me that I realized something was seriously wrong.

Soon everyone around me knew that I could hardly hear anything. People complained about my having the radio or TV blaring when I could barely distinguish what anyone was saying.

The worst thing was that when we got back home we had tickets to take our two granddaughters to a concert. This one was in the framework of the Abu Ghosh choral music festival that is held on various occasions during the year at the picturesque village near our home.

We went to the concert, but the choir was barely audible to me. And when the conductor turned round to make an announcement about a change in the programme I did not catch a single word.

After the concert was over and we returned our two young ladies to their home I decided that I could not go on like that. I had made an appointment to see an Ear-Nose-Throat specialist the following week, but I could not bear the thought of carrying on for several days. So Yigal made some phonecalls (I being unable to communicate with anyone by phone), and we decided to try and have my ears attended to the following morning.

At 8 a.m. the next day we presented ourselves at the E.N.T. clinic in town where Yigal, acting as my interpreter, said that this was a case of First Aid. Be advised, those are the code words that will make any medical provider deal with you immediately.

And so it was. The nurse sent us to the doctor. The doctor did his stuff. It wasn’t pleasant, but it did the trick. Suddenly I could hear again. There were birds singing in the trees, I could hear what people were saying to me, and I didn’t have to have the radio turned up to full volume any more. What bliss!

Such a little thing, hearing, but so vital for the quality of life, for communicating with our fellow-beings and especially for someone like me who needs to hear music at all times.

And above all, I kept thinking, poor, poor Beethoven. What he must have suffered!

Ho, Jerusalem!

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', ' 'Life of Brian, ' Bach's 'St. Matthew Passion, Church of St. Peter in Gallicanto, Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Handel's 'Messiah, Via Dolorosa, Western Wall

 Although I was not in Jerusalem for Jerusalem Day this year, having been called away to fulfill grandparental duties, it was very much in my thoughts. I still have a very clear memory of those six days in June, just 46 years ago, when I was only dimly able to perceive the historic events that were happening all around me. This was partly because my knowledge of Hebrew at the time was minimal, and also because I was cut off from the wider world due to the bombardment of Jerusalem by enemy forces and the battle that was being waged for control of the city.

Of course, in the first few years of my stay in Jerusalem, between 1964 and 1967, the Old City was inaccessible to Israelis. I remember being taken by kind cousins to climb onto high points in west Jerusalem, such as the YMCA tower, to peer out towards the crowded buildings beyond no-man’s land which seemed to hover in the still afternoon air like a fata morgana, so near and yet so unattainable.

During those six days of fighting in 1967 the information coming over the radio waves was intermittent and incomplete, and what little Hebrew I knew caused me to confuse terms such as ‘Sha’ar Shekhem’ (Hebrew for one of the gates around the Old City of Jerusalem) and ‘Sha’ar Em Sheikh’ (the southernmost point of the Sinai Peninsula). Later on my error was pointed out to me, and the geographical realities began to impinge on my consciousness.

Soon after the ‘liberation’ of the Old City, as it was then termed, I walked along dusty paths to the Western Wall, before the area in front of it had been paved, and was mightily unimpressed by it despite its historic significance. Since then I have visited the Old City on various occasions, taken tourists to its colourful markets, attended the swearing-in ceremonies marking the start of my children’s and grandchildren’s military service, and even occasionally searched there for suitable gifts to take on trips abroad.

But to my shame, I knew very little about Christian Jerusalem. After all, Jerusalem as a city and as a concept figures very prominently in that religion which, when all is said and done, has a pretty extensive following worldwide. I’m not sure whether this was because I have never had occasion to accompany non-Jewish guests to their holy sites, or because I recoiled from venturing into unknown territory, but in recent years I had begun to feel that this was a lacuna in my education. Having grown up in an ostensibly Christian country, and attended a grammar school where we diligently read ‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’ and Lamb’s essay on ‘The Delights of Crackling,’ and similar high-minded texts, and where the Christian ethos still pervades much of its culture, I was not a complete stranger to the tenets of that religion.

It seems to me, though, that one can learn more or less all one needs to know about Christianity from listening to Handel’s ‘Messiah’ and Bach’s ‘Saint Matthew Passion.’ For really serious students I recommend watching the Monty Python film, ‘The Life of Brian,’ which is based on thorough research.

All the same, it was with alacrity that I jumped at the opportunity kindly offered by the Israel Museum to its volunteers to participate in a ‘mini-course’ on Christianity in Jerusalem. This consisted of an introductory lecture and three extensive tours of churches and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem on three successive weeks. And so at last I have visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, first built by Constantine in the fourth century C.E. and since then embellished and rebuilt by various hands, leading to a current tense status quo between various Christian sects. I have walked along the Via Dolorosa, learned about the Italian architect, Berlucci, who designed many of the churches that were built in the nineteenth century, when the European powers vied for hegemony over holy sites in the city, and have trudged up the steep hill on which the church of Saint Peter in Gallicanto stands, commemorating Peter’s denial of Christ three times before cock-crow, in fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy.

Walking through the narrow streets of the Old City one is constantly obliged to manoeuvre one’s way through groups of pilgrims from all four corners of the earth who have come to pay homage at the sites which they regard as sacred. It is a sobering experience to hear their myriad different languages, observe the vast variations in dress and custom, and note the reverence in which they hold the city which was sacred to the Jews long before the Christian religion came into being. It is also exhilarating to observe the harmony which seems to prevail between the various groups, as well as between the Jews, Arabs, and other faiths which rub elbows along those narrow streets. Let’s hope that this is not just another fata morgana.

A Sad Story

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Israel Museum, locker, purse. identity card, security cameras, shoulder bag

Like many women, I have always carried a handbag, or rather, shoulderbag with me. Over the years many bags have come and gone, but they have always tended to be large, capacious, and filled to the brim with all manner of items. I call it my life-support system, and would be completely lost without it.

When my children were small it contained baby and child essentials (rusks, pacifiers, baby toys, etc.), but these are now no longer to be found in my possession. Instead my bag contains the things I need to take me through the various stations of my day (the allusion to the stations of the cross is not coincidental).

By now, I have brought the art of changing bags from the dark one I carry in the winter to match my winter shoes or boots to the light-coloured one I use in the summer to a very high level of sophistication and efficiency.

Admittedly, the bag has become very heavy over the years. It contains my purse, in which I keep my cash (notes and coins), credit cards, driving licence, Sick Fund card, and a great many other plastic cards which accord me membership of the loyalty clubs of most of the shops in my local mall. But that’s far from everything that’s to be found in my bag.

If I ever have to wait anywhere I must have reading matter on me. So I always have a book or even two in my bag. In Israel everyone is required by law to carry an identity card, with one’s name, address and photograph, and this was of course in my bag. In addition, I have printed lists of phone numbers and addresses (dating back to pre-mobile phone days). Furthermore, no bag of mine would be complete without some little health-food snack, basic make-up essentials, tissues, pens, notepads, my diary, my keys, first aid items and all kinds of other little objects that ‘are sure come in useful.’ No wonder my husband complains when I ask him to hold it for a moment.

So you can imagine how devastated I was earlier this week, when I came to collect my bag from the locker at the Israel Museum where I had placed it while I did my stint of volunteering at the Information desk, to find that the locker had been broken into and my bag was gone.

My first reaction was to go to the nearest security guard, of which the Museum has many, and seek his help. The guard sent me to another young man, and after a while I found myself looking at footage from one of the many security cameras placed throughout the Museum. Sadly, however, while there is a security camera just outside the locker room, there is none inside it, so that it was very difficult to detect just who had invaded my locker and when.

The next step was to cancel all my credit cards, and poor Yigal spent over an hour on the phone to the various banks to achieve this, sacrificing his tennis game in the process. My youngest son, Eitan, who had swung by the Museum to give me a lift home on his way back from work, stayed with me throughout the footage viewing event, but this turned out to be inconclusive. In the evening he took me to the local police-station to lodge a complaint, while Yigal stayed home to supervise the changing of the lock on our front door. Without the support of my family I would have been totally lost.

The next day Yigal and I rose early to embark on the via dolorosa of the various offices and ministries in an attempt to establish my identity and reinstate me in the ranks of persons entitled to drive a vehicle. All things considered, the process went relatively smoothly and quickly, clerks were cooperative and pleasant, and I even got to ride Jerusalem’s famed Light Railway. For achieving this my sainted husband can take full and complete credit, and now I’m even more in his debt than I was before (and I certainly was).

Sadly neither the bag, which was brand new, nor any of its contents have been found to date. The incident has made me rethink my entire bag philosophy, and it will be a long time before I venture out into the world again with a capacious bag stuffed with sundry objects. I will also avoid those flimsy lockers at the Israel Museum like the plague!

                                                                    Dorothea Shefer-Vanson

Herod the Great

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Caesarea, Ehud Netzer, Emperor Augustus, Herodium, Idumenaeam ancient Rome, Israel Museum, Jericho, John Williams, Massada, Second Temple

The exhibition currently on show at the Israel Museum reveals just a tiny fraction of the grandeur and ambition of King Herod, the Idumaean who once ruled Judea, with some help from his Roman patrons, and was known mainly for his grandiose building projects throughout the region, most notably the Second Temple in Jerusalem, and his murderous cruelty to all and sundry, including his own family. He could be said to have suffered from a diabolical combination of an edifice complex and paranoia. But that was pretty much par for the course at the time, those were murderous times, and as is well known by now, only the paranoid survive.

The Israel Museum has chosen to concentrate on Herod’s final years, paying special attention to the arrangements associated with the journey taken by the funeral cortege from his palace in Jericho to the tomb he had constructed to serve as his final resting place on the Judean hillside known as Herodium. The Israeli archaeologist, Ehud Netzer, who spent almost twenty years excavating the site, despite the criticism and scepticism of his colleagues, was triumphant when he finally found the remains of the structure that appeared to be the actual tomb, a towering monument to Herod’s desire to commemorate himself in stone. By a terrible irony of fate, however, Netzer fell to his death at the site soon after making his memorable discovery. That tomb has now been partially reconstructed in the Museum’s exhibition gallery.

The exhibition includes many items of archaeological interest taken from Herod’s various palaces, which have been found at Massada, Jericho, Caesarea and elsewhere, illustrating the sophistication and lavishness of the way of life of the ruling class more than two thousand years ago. The influence of Rome apparently dominated their lifestyle, with their eating and drinking habits being indicated by the objects excavated at the site, as well as their taste in interior decoration. The heavy stones which were brought to the museum made it necessary to reinforce the floor of the exhibition gallery.

Huge photographs of the backdrop provided by the barren Judean hills confront visitors to the exhibition as they enter the exhibition, and the well-lit display cases give one a clear idea of the kind of vessels in which food and wine were stored and from which they were eaten and drunk.

By coincidence, I had just been reading John Williams’ thoroughly-researched book ‘Augustus,’ which gives a vivid picture of the life and times of ancient Rome, especially of the Emperor Octavius, later known as Augustus, who ruled in Rome at roughly the same time as Herod did in Judea. And Herod does in fact appear in the book from time to time as a client of Rome. It gave me a particular sense of satisfaction to see how the history of the Jewish people and the archaeology of the region tie in so neatly with the story of the Roman Empire. It is also instructive to note that the Romans are no longer with us, while the Jewish people still endures.

The Dead Sea Experience

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Dead Sea Scrolls, Ein Boqeq, Jericho, Judean Hills, mesas and buttes, Qumran

 

Only one and a half hours’ drive away from my home just outside Jerusalem lies the Dead Sea, the lowest place on earth, whose water is so salty that the human body can float quite easily on its surface. It rains very rarely and the temperature there never falls below 20 degrees; thus in summer it gets excessively hot, but for the rest of the year it is very pleasant.

That is the place to which Yigal and I betake ourselves for a weekend very occasionally, about once a year, when we feel that we need to rest and recover from our hectic retirement. Our vacation begins once we leave the urban sprawl of Jerusalem behind and start the descent to the Jordan Valley, Jericho, and the expanse of salty water with occasional fresh-water oases below.

After we turn right and gain the road that winds along the shore, with the sea and the distant mountains on the Jordanian side on our left and the buttes and mesas of the barren Judean Hills, with the mysterious caves that once held the mysterious Qumran Scrolls, on our right, it feels as if we are in a different country. The scrubby vegetation that borders the sea gradually dwindles away, until there is nothing but rock and sand to be seen on either side of the road.

At last the oasis and promontory of Ein Boqeq, with its twenty or so hotels, comes into view, and we know that we are nearing our destination. The sleepy guard raises the barrier to let our car through, and all of a sudden we’re in the artificial semi-paradise that has been created along the shore, with its palm trees and geraniums, shops and restaurants, and the towering hotels which await guests from near and far.

Once we get to our hotel we are welcomed with delicious biscuits and flavoured water in the lobby, then taken to our room with its view of the sea and the mountains in the distance. The sense of peace begins to envelop us as soon as we enter, and that feeling of pampered well-being remained with us throughout our stay.

Of course, we weren’t the only guests in the hotel, and there was a veritable Babel of languages to be heard in the dining room, though Russian seemed to predominate. Many of the members of staff are also Russian-speakers, which doubtless make life a good deal easier for the tourists from those parts, many of whom seem to have no knowledge of any other language.

We bathed in the sea, where the hotel has a private beach, as well as in the hotel’s own salt-water and fresh-water swimming pools. We indulged in massages and aromatherapy, and I even ventured to try a cosmetic treatment, all of which added to our feeling of relaxation. In our defence, I must add that we both spent time in the hotel gym in an attempt to work off at least some of the extra calories resulting from the fact that we succumbed to the temptation to try too many of the chef’s excellent dishes.

There were no menus to plan or meals to cook and clear away. Our only chore was to turn up in the dining room for meals twice a day. I even managed to paint a couple of pictures (see above), finish the book I was reading and watch a film on television – something that I don’t often have the time and patience for in the usual run of things.

Our weekend break was over, and as we returned to Jerusalem the weather turned cold and windy and it began to rain. Ah well, all good things must come to an end.

Three Women

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Catherine Kidwell, creative writing, garage sale, Lincoln Nebraska

 Almost thirty years ago, together with my family, I spent a year in Lincoln, Nebraska. The Experimental Physics Department there was considered one of the best in the world, and we went there for Yigal’s post-doctoral work.

It was a very interesting year. We were living with real American people, in a real American suburb, and getting a taste of real American life. I’m not sure how real it was, actually, because the Mid-West, where Nebraska is situated, is typical of neither the east coast nor the west coast. It is typical only of itself, which is Middle America.

Apart from the catastrophic climate (baking hot summer, freezing winter, with temperatures down to minus forty or more with the wind-chill, and the roads covered thigh-high in snow and ice for months on end) our family enjoyed the experience. Our neighbours and colleagues were friendly, the small local Jewish community was warm and welcoming, and our children were well-treated at their various schools.

The only problem was: what was I to do with myself while we were there? I had worked as a free-lance translator in Israel, but there wasn’t much call for translating work in Lincoln. Don’t forget, this was 1984, when computers and the internet hadn’t taken over our lives as they do now.

Since I intended to correspond with friends and relations in Israel, I decided that I needed to acquire a typewriter. We duly attended a garage sale in a nearby house and managed to buy one for a song. Just a few days later I passed a much larger one that had been set out on the sidewalk for anyone to take, and lugged that one home, too. They both served me very well during the year.

Reading the local paper one day, I came across a notice for a creative writing class in the local community college. For years I had longed to engage in creative writing of one kind or another but when you are translating to tight deadlines as well as bringing up three healthy children it’s difficult to fit creativity into your schedule.

I enrolled in the class, run by a very kind lady, Catherine Kidwell, who had actually had a novel published. Her book, a love story, made for light reading but was certainly a good example of its genre. Our group of aspiring writers would meet once a week, produce an exercise or listen as the students read out their work, and then discuss what we had heard. Ms. Kidwell had a ‘set book’ which set out guidelines for writing fiction, it had a title something like ‘Story and Structure,’ and was very helpful in clarifying our ideas. It certainly helped Ms. Kidwell to teach her class.

When the course ended I decided to implement what I had learned, and set out to write my first novel. They say you should write about what you know, so I decided to write about life in Israel, or more precisely in Jerusalem, and to describe the lives of people I knew, or more precisely, three women friends of mine, their identities heavily disguised, of course.

I brought the 354 typewritten pages plus two carbon copies back to Israel with me, and they have been gathering dust on my shelves ever since. However, at the beginning of this year, when trying to clear some space in my study, I came across the yellowing pages once more, and decided that it was time I got rid of some of my old junk. But before doing so, I said, I’ll just type the text I wrote then into my computer.

And that is what I’ve been doing in my spare time since then. It is extremely tedious, on the one hand, but intriguing on the other. I pity anyone who does copy-typing for a living, but to come across my neophyte attempts at breathing life into semi-fictional characters, and reliving events as they occurred then, is quite an eye-opener.

I don’t know if the novel will ever see the light of day. After all, I have grown as a writer since those days, and now have several other finished novels in my computer waiting to be edited and prepared for publication. The work of typing up the yellowing pages is only two-thirds finished, but one day I will get to the end, I hope, and then I’ll have to decide what to do with it.