Out of the Shoebox, an Autobiographical Mystery Historical Novel

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Chortkow, Ukraine

 

Yaron Reshef begins his book, which has been expertly translated by Nina and Shira Davis, with a declaration regarding the sequence of chance and serendipitous events that led him to engage on an unexpected quest to discover aspects of his own and his family’s past. Although he had shown some interest in his family’s history, the fact that his father had died when he was seven years old had inevitably limited his access to information. What eventually set him off on a two-year-long paper-trail was a phone-call that came out of the blue in July 2011 from an attorney representing the Company for the Location and Restitution of Holocaust Victims’ Assets seeking Yaron, the son and legal heir of Shlomo Zvi Finkelman. It transpires that, together with an associate, one Mordechai Liebman, Yaron’s father had bought a plot of land in the Haifa area in 1935 and that in order to benefit from this property all Yaron had to do was to prove that he was indeed the son of Shlomo Zvi Finkelman and that neither Mordechai Liebman nor his heirs were alive.

It turned out that this was no simple request. Yaron’s father had moved from Poland to Israel, then Mandatory Palestine, on a student visa in 1934, though he had never actually attended any academic institution, having already qualified as an architect in Vienna. Furthermore, he had changed his name by Hebraicising it, and had not been registered as possessing an identity card until a later date.

In Israel, as elsewhere, the authorities require legal proof of identity, whether in the form of an identity card or proof of residence, or both. This was not easy to obtain, and Yaron invested a great deal of time and energy tracking down documents attesting to his father’s residence in pre-State Israel by means of the Haifa Technion, the Israel Lands Authority, the Tel-Aviv City Archives and the Zionist Archives in Jerusalem. He was also required to find proof of a connection between his father and Mordechai Liebman, and in this, too, he was eventually successful, though his task was far from easy. Amazingly, he claims that wherever he turned the officials with whom he came into contact were invariably courteous and helpful!

To cut a long story short (the book has over 260 pages) the necessary documents were eventually found, the relationship between father and son was established, the address where his father had first lived verified, and compensation received. But that was not the end of the story. Having uncovered all kinds of previously unknown connections with his father’s past, Yaron felt impelled to visit the town of Chortkow in the Ukraine from which both of his parents had originally hailed, and escaped at the eleventh hour, having returned there from pre-State Israel for a family visit. It so happens that my own father-in-law also came from there, and reading the account of the theft of property and wholesale massacre of almost all the members of Chortkow’s once-prosperous Jewish community, first by the Soviets and subsequently by the Nazis and the local residents, was almost unbearably painful for me.

Yaron describes in considerable detail his visit to Chortkow and the surrounding area. Like his father, he is an architect, and thus provides a telling visual account (with photographs) of the remaining structures in the region. There are many emotional moments, and the reader is swept along with Yaron on his roller-coaster of conflicting emotions and heart-wrenching experiences. The English translation by reads well on the whole, though I’m not convinced that ‘lot’ is the best term for the Hebrew word ‘migrash.’ I think ‘plot of land’ and ‘plot’ or ‘parcel’ would have been a better choice.

I wrote to Yaron, telling him of my connection with the story and the depression that beset me every time I read another chapter, but he replied saying that for him it had been an uplifting experience, bringing him into contact with the family he had never known and clarifying aspects of his past. As someone who has written about her own family’s history, I can sympathise with that emotion despite the bitter taste that is left by reading about yet another place and time when evil prevailed over good.

 

The Joys of a Garden

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Bosmat, Chrysanthemum, Godetia. Cyclamen, Pansy, Petuia, Snapdragon, Winka

 

 

 

Land is scarce in Jerusalem, so I can consider myself very fortunate to have a small plot of land attached to my house. It is divided into terraced sections because of the lay of the land, which is actually the side of a hill. Thus the back of my house is protected by the hillside that abuts it and we have no windows on that side, providing the building with excellent insulation. Luckily the front of the house gets a lot of light, offsetting the fact that two sides have no windows at all.

Most of the garden is devoted to grass and the shrubs that grow along the fence and screen us from the outside world, but one small part of the garden is devoted to flowers. By a long process of trial and error I think I have found more or less the right combinations to plant at the various seasons, thereby providing a constant show of colour that catches the eye as one enters the driveway and ascends the twelve stone steps that lead up to the level on which the house is built.

When we bought our house, some twenty-five years ago, when it was just a hole in the ground and a plan on paper, we pondered at length which of the four buildings in the row to choose. Others had the same interior layout but slightly larger gardens and it was tempting to go for one of them. But then it struck us that because of the downward slope of the road on which they were situated, the other houses had many more steps to climb in order to reach the front door. Similar houses in a parallel but more desirable road had an equal number of steps that one would have to descend in order to reach one’s front door, but the thought of climbing twenty or more stairs just to leave the house was not very enticing. Besides, those houses were more expensive.

So we went for the first house in the row, the one with the least number of stairs to go up from the road, thinking at the time of our elderly parents and not imagining that one day we ourselves would benefit from our foresight.

But apart from the convenience of access to the house, the garden has played a major role in our off-duty activities. The grass requires attention every now and again, and our automatic watering system doesn’t do a terribly good job of reaching all parts of it, but it is nonetheless pleasant to look out of the house and see a patch of green. The weeds that seem to enjoy harassing us tend to come and go with the seasons of the year, and provided we keep cutting the grass at reasonable intervals they are more or less manageable. That is the main task of the man of the house.

But it is the part with the flowers that is my pride and joy. This year, possibly because of the slow-release fertilizer that I sprinkled on that area a few months ago, it has flourished as never before. Earlier in the year, in the cold winter months, the cyclamens put up a lovely show, and in spring it was most notably the snapdragons and pansies that brought joy to my heart, with their amazing array of colour.

I wanted to plant some godetias, those bright pink, white and purple plants that have been imported from South America and have become almost native in these parts, but once again I missed the planting season. So I have decided to keep a gardening diary to remind myself what to plant when, and when to prune and cut other plants. I know that the late Walter Frankel used to have a regular gardening column in the Jerusalem Post, and even published books about gardening in Jerusalem, but I’ve found that my particular garden has its own quirks and foibles, and doesn’t keep to the rules (probably much like me).

And so, under ‘January’ I’ve written ‘buy and plant godetias, pansies, snapdragons’ and under ‘May’ I’ve written ‘buy and plant petunias, bosmat and winkas,’ and hope that in the intervening months the slow-release fertilizer will do its work. When we come back from our summer holiday it will be time to start on the chrysanthemums, and hopefully they’ll continue to provide colour until it’s time to start with the cyclamens again.

There are few pleasures in life greater than the joy of seeing the flowers that I bought in their infancy from the nursery grow and flourish and fill the garden with a rainbow of colour.

 

 

The Jerusalem Syndrome

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Crusaders, Jerusalem Day, Jesualdo, Muslims, Renaissance, Six-Day War

 

Psychologists and psychiatrists have defined the outburst of mystical ectasy and identification with our ancient city as a known phenomenon that sometimes even requires hospitalization or sedation of the person affected. It has a distant echo in the sense of awe that occasionally envelops visitors to Florence, but no other place on earth arouses so much and such intense emotional, religious and historic attachment as Jerusalem.

Throughout recorded history Jerusalem has been the subject of longing and reverence, first by the exiled Hebrews, then by the defeated Crusaders, and eventually by the entire Christian world. The Muslims also claim a stake in what they claim is their third holiest site. Jewish prayers repeatedly cite the sanctity of Jerusalem, the requiem mass of the Catholic faith mentions Jerusalem, the prayers of the Protestant religion refer to Jerusalem, musicians from Jesualdo to contemporary composers have written music extolling its beauty and bewailing its loss, and even the painters of the Renaissance tried to depict it (but actually painted Tuscan landscapes).

I have lived in or just outside Jerusalem for the best part of my life, namely, the last fifty years, and have seen it grow from a dusty backwater to a vibrant metropolis, incorporating religions, nationalities and ethnicities in a glorious and colourful mix. There is no denying that it has a magical beauty, whether because of its location amidst the Jerusalem hills, its limestone buildings that glow in the setting sun or its benign climate – not as hot and humid as Tel-Aviv in summer though somewhat colder in winter. But even in winter Jerusalem has a haunting beauty of its own, and the crisp days of cool sun are a true delight.

I still have a vivid memory of how, during the Six Day War of 1967, I heard shells falling and exploding around me, automatic fire not far from my home and planes roaring overhead. For a few days we did not know how it would all end, but luckily for me and mine, it ended well, when the barriers between the two halves of Jerusalem came tumbling down and the free flow of people and goods in both directions was the surprising outcome. The euphoria of those weeks and months exploded in the excitement of discovering a whole new world of sights, sounds, flavours and humanity on our very doorstep.

In recent years, however, Jerusalem Day, the day that commemorates that event has been hijacked by certain elements. It has become a festival in its own right, with prayers and ceremonies that leave much of the Jewish population unmoved and even hostile. Thus, the restrained pleasure in being able to stroll from one part of the city to the other that was once in evidence is no more, or at least not on that day. For the segment of the population that marks the unification of the city with prayers and ceremonies this also means doing everything in its power to show everyone who’s the boss now, to proclaim Israel’s predominance over every stone and piece of rubble where Palestinians live and to brandish flags and rub their noses into the new state of affairs.

How did it happen that what was once a place where it was a pleasure to live, where different cultures and civilizations, both old and new, could live side by side, tolerating one another’s religion and beliefs, respecting one another’s traditions, has become a place of enmity and hostility, with security a paramount consideration requiring almost unending resources and manpower? Would matters have been otherwise had the Jewish population of Jerusalem displayed greater consideration for the feelings of the other side? That is one of the great imponderables of our time. What is certain, however, is that demonstrating our sovereignty in a vociferous and provocative way hasn’t helped to foster cooperation and coexistence.

Throughout the ages innumerable victims have been slain in the battles to obtain control of Jerusalem, and that, perhaps, is what lies behind the current need to proclaim that it is now in Israeli hands. But perhaps that is what the Jerusalem Syndrome is all about. What is certain is that there can never be peace and harmony as long as one side aspires to grind the other one into the dust.

Skullduggery and Thuggery in the Vatican

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Shifra Hochberg

 

‘The Lost Catacomb’ by Shifra Hochberg, Enigma Press, USA, 2014

 Machinations, mischief and skullduggery in the Vatican, both in modern times and in the past, constitute the main theme of this interesting first novel by Shifra Hochberg.

 By now it is common knowledge that the leaders of the Catholic church were somehow involved in helping Nazis escape from Europe after their defeat in WWII, but why and exactly how this was done remains something of a mystery. In this book Shifra Hochberg attempts to give an explanation for this.

There is ample documentation of the policy of discrimination against the Jewish communities of Italy by the Fascist regime, and their eventual arrest and deportation to concentration camps by the Nazis and their henchmen.

Similarly, there are some who believe that the treasures of the ancient Jewish Temple, which were carried off by the victorious Roman legionnaires after the sack of Jerusalem in the year 70 C.E., as depicted on the Arch of Titus in Rome, are still to be found secreted somewhere in the possession of the Vatican.

These ideas, together with several others, form the essence of this novel, as its main protagonist, a beautiful young American archaeologist, endeavours together with her Italian associate to unravel the secrets of a newly discovered catacomb near the Vatican in Rome.

The contents of the catacomb provide clues to a clandestine love affair between an unnamed Pope and a young Jewish woman in pre-mediaeval Italy, as well as evidence of Jewish religious practices at the time.

But the plot keeps on thickening, with ever stranger and more hair-raising discoveries at every turn. The time-line shifts from the modern era to the period of the Second World War, and even further back to ancient times, with the author providing sufficient background information to stimulate the reader’s imagination and accept these leaps of faith. Christianity’s rejection of Judaism and antagonism towards the Jews lies behind many of the twists and turns in the history of humankind during the last two thousand years, and this fact, too, constitute a salient thread throughout the book.

What is particularly impressive is the intimate knowledge the author seems to have of the hierarchical structure of the Vatican and the way it is run, as well as with aspects of the archaeology, art and history of Rome. The characters, both good and evil, come alive, and the reader is treated to a roller-coaster ride of suspense mingled with murder and mayhem as the secrets of the past are unraveled before our eyes.

Many strands combine to bring this novel to a melodramatic conclusion worthy of any Hollywood action movie, and although some suspension of disbelief is required, the reader finds him- or her-self unable to stop reading this tale of one woman’s quest for the truth. If in the process of uncovering the secrets of the past our protagonist also happens to find true love, this only adds another interesting dimension to what is already an action-packed novel.

 

Armenians in Jerusalem

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Alma Mahler, Franz Werfel, Jerusalem YMCA, Louis de Bernieres

 

 Whether by coincidence or design (probably the latter), Jerusalem’s YMCA building is currently showing an exhibition of exquisite Armenian ceramic work produced by one of the many workshops situated in the Old City. No mention is made of the slaughter of over a million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire exactly one hundred years ago, whether it is defined as genocide or not. Whatever term one uses, it was undoubtedly one of the major tragedies of the twentieth century, and there is enough documentary evidence to substantiate the accusations of the horrors that took place, presaging the mass murders that were perpetrated thirty years later during the Holocaust.

In 1933, after undertaking extensive research on the subject, the German-Austrian writer Franz Werfel published his novel, The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, describing the efforts of a small community of Armenians in a village in what is now southern Turkey, to stave off their deportation. The book, which was translated into many languages, was instrumental in engendering widespread awareness of the events surrounding the massacre of the Armenians. Werfel is also distinguished for becoming Alma Mahler’s third husband.

More recently, in 2004 Louis de Bernières published his novel Birds Without Wings, which deals with the same subject, describing the harmonious coexistence of Muslims and Armenians in the far reaches of the Ottoman Empire prior to the expulsion and slaughter of the Armenians.

In a plaque alongside the YMCA exhibition the owner of the ceramics workshop, describes the age-old artistic tradition involving the intricate decoration of ceramic tiles and other objects by the Armenian community, a tradition that has been maintained and taken to Jerusalem and elsewhere by the Armenian diaspora.

Armenians have been living in Jerusalem since the fourth century, when they first adopted Christianity. Their brand of Christianity is akin to the Greek and Russian Orthodox versions, but separate from them, with its own church and patriarchate. The Old City of Jerusalem is divided into four quarters, Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Armenian. The Armenian part is allied with the Christian one and is built around its central church, the Church of St. James. Some of their beautifully-decorated tiles even adorn my kitchen and bathrooms.

Armenians are scattered all over the world, and have made a marked contribution to the art and culture of their host countries. Thus, for example, famous Armenians include composer Aram Kachaturian, who was domiciled in Russia, American singer Kathy Berberian, the painter Arshile Gorky (born Vostanik Adoian) who had a seminal influence on Abstract Expressionism in America, to where he had emigrated, prominent American writer William Saroyan, not forgetting, of course, the contemporary ‘celebrities’ and media personalities, the three Kardashian sisters, Kim, Kourtney and Khloe, who are the subjects and objects of a TV series (which I don’t watch) focusing on their activities and relationships. In fact, they recently visited Israel in order to baptize their baby daughter in the Church of St. James in Jerusalem, occasioning the media stir that usually accompanies visits to this country by media personalities of one kind or another.

Israel’s government has dithered consistently between demonstrating sympathy for the suffering of the Armenians as a people and reluctance to define it as a genocide, largely for reasons of political prudence. What is to be gained by currying favour with the current Turkish leader, who does not display much sympathy for Israel or Jews, is not clear to me, but I suppose some Israeli diplomat or politician somewhere knows the reason why.

But then I suppose it’s only to be expected that diplomats and politicians will generally prefer to avoid calling a spade a spade, even – or even especially – when the question is a clear-cut one of displaying moral fibre.