Jews and Words

David Grossman’s “The Desire to Be Gisella”

In his essay, “The Desire to be Gisella,” Grossman ponders the root of our fear of the “other” in ourselves and in those we love, and he thinks of authorship as a mad rebellion against this fear. Text David Grossman, “The Desire to be Gisella.” Writing in the Dark, Essays on Politics and Literature. Translated by Jessica Cohen. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008.

Dory Manor’s “The Language Beneath the Skin”

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’sThe 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. [http://www.ilanotreview.com/granta-collaboration/language-beneath-skin-meditation-poetry-mother-tongues/]

Jews and Words

In 2014, historian Fania Salzberger Oz, and her father, the late writer Amos Oz, paired up to write a book which is “a nonfiction, speculative, raw, and occasionally playful attempt to say something a bit new on a topic of immense pedigree... the relationship of Jews with words.”

Meir Shalev’s “The Blue Mountain”

Set in a rural village prior to the creation of the state of Israel,The Blue Mountaindescribes 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.

The Poetry of Avot Yeshurun

On this episode, Marcela features the poems of a fascinating writer whose pen name was Avot Yeshurun. He published his first book of poems in 1942, and his last book appeared in 1992, on the day before he died. Text “Memories are a House” by Avot Yeshurun. Translated by Leon Weiseltier,Poetry Magazine [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/50965/the-son-of-the-wall] “The Son of the Wall” by Avot Yeshurun. Translated by Leon Weiseltier,Poetry Magazine [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/50965/the-son-of-the-wall] “The Collection” by Avot Yeshurun. Translated by Harold Schimel, Poetry International Rotterdam [https://www.poetryinternational.org/pi/poem/3315/auto/0/0/Avoth-Yeshurun/THE-COLLECTION/en/tile] “A Day Shall Come” by Avot Yeshurun, translated by A. Z. Foreman inPoems Found in Translation [http://poemsintranslation.blogspot.com/2017/10/avot-yeshurun-day-shall-come-from-hebrew.html]