Israel in Translation

This week, Marcela takes a step back from the literature itself to look at the language of the words we use. The idea of the podcast, Israel in Translation, is that the works discussed were written originally in a language other than English—indeed, in the writer's native language. But one of the realities of our age—or rather—one of the realities of literature—is that often poets and writers do not write in their first language. Or, if they do, this first language is not the language of the culture in which they find themselves. Marcela revisits the Granta Hebrew issue of the Ilanot Review to talk about Dory Manor's The Language Beneath the Skin: A Meditation on Poetry and Mother Tongues. Text Dory Manor. "The Language Beneath the Skin: A Meditation on Poetry and Mother Tongues" translated by Mitch Ginsburg. The Ilanot Review.

Set in a rural village prior to the creation of the state of Israel, The Blue Mountain describes a community of eastern European immigrants as they pioneer life in a new land. Narrated by Baruch, a grandson of one of the founding fathers of the village, the novel offers not only a fascinating account of the hardships experienced by the Jewish pioneers, but is also extremely funny and imaginative. It is arranged as a series of vignettes, narrated by Baruch, a mortician, who reflects on the many people he has buried in a remote village. Text The Blue Mountain. By Meir shalev. Translated by Hillel Halkin. Cannongate Books, 2001.

Marcela shares the second installment of a three-part podcast on Ayalet Tsabari's important and beautiful memoir, The Art of Leaving. Although it was written in English, Tsabari's native language is Hebrew. This episode gives us a glimpse of Israelis from Yemen, whose stories are so rarely told. Text Ayelet Tsabari, The Art of Leaving. Harper Collins, 2019.

Meir Shalev has been featured on two previous episodes. Four Meals is his third of eight novels. He's also published 7 works of nonfiction and 13 children's books. Four Meals is the story of Zayde, his enigmatic mother Judith, and her three lovers. When Judith arrives in a small, rural village in Palestine in the early 1930s, three men compete for her. Globerman, the cunning, coarse cattle dealer who loves women, money, and flesh Jacob, owner of hundreds of canaries and host to the four meals which lends the book its narrative structure, and Moshe, a widowed farmer, who gives Zayde his home. During the four meals, which take place over several decades, Zayde slowly comes to understand why these three men consider him their son and why all three participate in raising him. Text Four Meals, by Meir Shalev. Translated by Barbara Harshav, 2000. https://tlv1.fm/israel-in-translation/2020/07/29/meir-shalevs-my-wild-garden/ https://tlv1.fm/israel-in-translation/2015/06/03/my-russian-grandmother-and-her-american-vacuum-cleaner-israel-in-translation/

This book catapulted Ari Shavit into the international spotlight. The book was a New York Times best seller and listed by the Times in its "100 Notable Books of 2013." The Economist named it as one of the best books of 2013 and it received the Gerrard and Ella Berman Memorial Award in History from the Jewish Book Council. It also won the Natan Book Award. Text My Promised Land, by Ari Shavit. Spiegel & Grau, 2013.

Today, Marcela finishes the three-part series on Ayalet Tsabari's wonderful memoir, The Art of Leaving, with her favorite thing: cooking! This episode unveils the secrets of Tsabari's family kitchen. You're going to want to take notes for this one! Text Ayelet Tsabari, The Art of Leaving. Harper Collins, 2019

Have you seen the Crazy House on HaYarkon Street in Tel Aviv? It's a highrise that looks like pink cement, with some metallic puffed cream lobbed at the front of it? Or at least that's how it seems to Marcela. It used to look that way to the poet Lali Tsipi Michaeli, as well. Michaeli says "fear is what I felt as a child every time I drove with my parents in a car on Hayarkon Street. As the car was about to reach the "crazy house" (I called it the "scary"), I hid on the back seat floor and closed my eyes tightly. The house troubled the girl I was. Over the years it has become a Tel Aviv landscape and I have always had a certain aversion to it, a kind of traumatic childhood memory." Text The Mad House by Lali Tsipi Michaeli, translated by Michael Simkin. Adelaide Books, 2020. Previous Episode with Lali Tsipi Michaeli

School has begun, and once again children are learning how to read, encountering the alphabet for the first time. Hopefully it is a pleasant and magical time, but here is a story of a boy who feared his teacher, although he loved the alphabet. It's a chapter called The Alphabet and What Lies between the Lines, from Hayim Nahman Bialik's unfinished Novella, Random Harvest. Text Random Harvest and other Novellas by Haim Nachman Bialik. Translated by David Patterson & Ezra Spicehandler. Toby Press, 2005.

It's Sukkot again! Over the years in this podcast we've focused on various aspects of this holiday — inviting guests, selecting an etrog, the transitory nature of our existence on earth. This time, Marcela focuses on the agricultural aspects — the festival was originally connected to the harvest. And to help us along is Rachel Bluwstein, Israel's farmer-poet. Text: Flowers of Perhaps by Ra'hel. Translated by Robert Friend with Shimon Sandbank. Toby Press, 2008. Sad Melody by Ra'hel translated by Chana Shuvaly Previous Episode Featuring Rachel Bluwstein

On this episode, Marcela features Yochi Brandes' ninth book, The Orchard. It is the second to be translated into English, this time by Daniel Libenson. The Orchard tells the story of the venerated yet enigmatic Rabbi Akiva, placing him in the context of his contemporaries, the Sages of Jewish tradition and of early Christianity. Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Ishmael, Rabban Gamaliel, Paul of Tarsus, and many others. Get your discounted hardcopy through israbook@gefenpublishing.com Text: The Orchard, by Yochi Brandes, translated by Daniel Libenson. Gefen Publishing House (2018).

It may sound crazy, but A. B. Yehoshua has written a page-turner about an aging engineer in the early stages of dementia, which features descriptions of highway construction in great detail. How on earth did he do this? Well, perhaps it is the honest grappling with what it feels like to be diagnosed with an illness that will eventually erase your personality and knowledge. And surely it is the context of the engineer's long and loving marriage to a pediatrician, a marriage that is full of humor, understanding, and honesty. And finally, it is the mystery of the secret military highway in the desert, and the textured relationships of two engineers on opposite ends of their career, an army general, and the people who inhabit the negev, whose secret lives are intertwined with the fate of the road. Text: A. B. Yehoshua, The Tunnel. Translated by Stuart Schoffman. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, August 2020. Previous Podcast on A. B. Yehoshua https://tlv1.fm/arts-culture/2015/07/22/a-b-yehoshuas-green-seas-and-yellow-continents/

Miri Ben-Simhon was born into a Moroccan family, on the near bottom of the social scale. She grew up and remained in Jerusalem. Her poetry faces Mizrahi women's lives in Israel straight on. The literary critic Yitzhak Laor once noted about Ben-Simhon's work and perspective, that "In the literary arena at the beginning of the 1980s, it took a lot of courage – not to speak about Mizrahim […] but as one." Text: Miri Ben-Simhon, The Absolute Reader, translated by Lisa Katz. Toad Press, 2020.