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5.0 out of 5 stars
Majestic Tales from a, June 24, 2007
This review is from: A Crack in the Earth: A Journey up Israel's Rift Valley (Hardcover)
"The rift valley is a natural object, created by physical forces. But when we look at it, we don't see the physical object. We see stories and ideas and our own histories. People see the same landscape differently depending on who they are, when they live, what they've done, and what stories they heard when they were children."
Being congenitally predisposed to this unique and magnificent part of the physical world, I can attest to this pronouncement made by Haim Watzman in his majestic tale of a journey up the Jordan Rift Valley, "a crack in the earth's crust that begins where the Indian Ocean's waters mix with those of the Gulf of Aden." Watzman focuses on the stretch of the rift from the northern shore of the Dead Sea at Eilat to the Golan Heights bordering Syria in his riveting new book, "A Crack in the Earth".
Through a blend of science and faith, Watzman has crafted a story that tells about geological phenomena, scientific analysis, archeological examination, and philosophical musings through the distinct perspectives of biologists, zoologists, kibbutzniks, and other ordinary, modern-day inhabitants of the rift. Watzman, who is himself religiously observant, points out that he is also a journalist and a man of science, making him naturally skeptical. He challenges accepted biblical verities with the same investigative rigor that he uses when scrutinizing geological and biological ones. He notes that "modern archaeology and textual scholarship have cast doubt on the historical truth of the Bible for decades now...in many ways modern Orthodox Judaism is not a religion of the Bible. It's much more a religion built by the sages upon the foundation of the Bible, after the destruction of the Temple and the rise of Christianity." In the same way that the rift valley is the physical foundation upon which people have superimposed their `stories, ideas and histories,' the bible is the textual foundation which Judaism in its modern application builds upon, using human constructionists in the form of the sages of the rabbinic period.
Ultimately, it is the people who have inhabited the sacred lands of the rift that have kept it so fertile in our imaginations. From the Israelites crossing into the Promised Land from Egypt to Jesus being baptized by John in the waters of the Jordan, all the way up to modern Zionists like Rachel the Poetess; these are the stories of the people that fascinate Watzman, and his infectious love of the land and its people enraptures us as well.
Watzman, who is something of an anomaly in Israel as a religiously observant Jew with leftist leanings, largely refrains from politics in this book. Occasionally though, he does weave some political context into his narrative, explaining why, for example, Jericho became off limits to Israelis after the outbreak of the second Intifada. Watzman draws parallels to the turbulent landscape (Tiberias has experienced severe earthquakes almost once a century since the beginning of the Common Era) with the incessant political and social turmoil. He ruefully observes that "to an Israeli living in the first years of the 21st century, turmoil seems to be the rule. Periods of equilibrium seem few, far off, and short-lived." Yet, in geological terms, the ebbs and flows are much slower and deliberate. Some of the rocks on both sides of the rift are between 570 million and one billion years old. In that context, humankind's effect on the region is insignificant. God, who is unchanging, watches bemusedly over it all.
Perhaps not surprisingly, some have already criticized Watzman for not incorporating more of a Palestinian, Arab voice. John Leonard, in Harper's Magazine (June edition) somehow manages, through a tortured interpretation, to read into Watzman "his homeland's hateful modern indulgence of Bronze Age identity politics." Leonard continues with his knee-jerk critique. "He has a hard time even talking to a Palestinian, as if Palestinians were remnants of some antediluvian proto-species prior to language." Or Publishers Weekly, noting that "Watzman fails almost utterly to bring in non-Jewish voices; the one Arab we meet is an Israeli Bedouin."
Both critiques conveniently leave out the poignant encounter Watzman has with a Palestinian at a West Bank gas station at the end of the book, where he risks his own physical safety to preserve his moral bearings and psychic equilibrium. For those of us who know Haim Watzman and what he stands for, the irony would be hilarious if it weren't so deadly. Even in a book that is so decidedly apolitical, by an Israeli Jew who has been so vocal in his criticisms of his country's treatment of Palestinians, critics of Israel can't help but find racism and xenophobia under any and every rock.
But Haim Watzman is if anything, the ultimate mensch. The last section of his book, in which he has a very real encounter with a very real Palestinian, attests to his own very real humanity, and bravery for his beliefs (unlike some Western intellectuals who `shoot first' from the safety of their ivory towers and do their homework later, if ever) . Just before he turns back to "meet the Palestinian halfway" and offer him a ride, he muses that "since humans first began to call the names of gods, they have created their own valley of prayers, desires, deeds, and choices, which overlay the landscape just as the rain clouds do. As hard as we try to comprehend the landscape itself, it is humanity that we find."
This is a beautiful book that radiates a personal warmth and love of the land and its people. It is as uplifting as it is inspired.
[...]
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Alongside the Divide, August 14, 2011
This review is from: A Crack in the Earth: A Journey up Israel's Rift Valley (Hardcover)
Chaim Waitzman is a professional translator and I've greatly admired some of
his other work. This is his 2nd solo effort. As an occasional hiker and paddler I enjoy trying out different routes not just for the exercise and comradery but also for gaining an understanding of the history and geography of the land. Waitzman takes us on a journey along the continental rift between Africa and Arabia, starting from Eilat and ranging as far north as the Bekka Valley in Lebanon which the map on the opening page shows quite vividly in high relief. He's a journalist as well, and along the way he interviews a number of interesting professionals who've studied the geology and ecology of the rift and presents their theories and observations.
The book is divided into 3 sections, each with it's own map which I found quite useful in placing the narrative. IMV the first covering the lower Negev and third discussing the upper Galilee are strongest. We're treated to a variety of scientists describing what the area was during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras, and whether or not the rift is a transform fault like the San Adreas or a graben - a stretching of the Earth between two other faults. We meet Uzi Avner, and archeologists who specializes in ancient desert cultures and has some interesting extrapolations based on stone structures that he has found. Later on this motif resurfaces in the "cheirograph legend" which I learned as a child, where Adam and Eve, afraid of the dark following the first sunset are deceived by Satan to swear allegiance to him on a stone that is hidden in the Jordan.
Further north Dr. Naama Goren-Inbar studies artifacts related to the Acheulean stone age culture who emerged from Africa some 1.6 million years ago and lived along the upper Jordan 800,000 years ago for a period of at least 1/2 million years, possibly double that. There is a wonderful description of Dr. Amotz Zahavi's work in evolutionary biology where he studies communication through behaviour of Arabian babbler birds. His theories present an interesting explanation of altruism as well as explaining the puzzle of why the unwieldy tail of the male peacock which would seem to work against Darwinian survival. The intriguing speculation is that the large tale informs females that his offspring offers a better chance of survival because his other abilities are able to overcome the handicap of the tail! The journalist and the scientist then extrapolate this to human behaviour, altruism and risk taking on behalf of others as performing a similar function.
Nor is history neglected. There's a nice tie in between North and South with a look at the establishment of a Crusader outpost by Renaud of Châtillon where Aqaba and Eilat now stand, demanding tribute and interrupting Arab trade routes, just as the Arabs did before them. Renaud's decision to move on Mecca is credited with Saladin's decision to counter attack, drawing out Frankish King Guy's forces from Jerusalem by attacking Tiveria (against the advice of Raymond the III of Tripoli), resulting in a route of the Crusader's forces at Hittin just outside the city. To date there has been no archeological confirmation of the written accounts, but they're still looking. .
Another thing I liked about the book is that it avoided using the rift as a heavy handed metaphor for the Arab/Israeli conflict. True, politics appear in the background as the book was written during the discussions of Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, but the metaphor of a geographic fault is more often applied to the many differences of interpretation between between scientists - up close the ruptures might seem highly significant, yet they are also part of a structure of disagreement that holds everything together.
The book also contains interesting speculations on the Dead Sea Scrolls, the reconstitution of the Sanhedrin in Tiveria after the Roman sack of Jerusalem, the fit of Biblical stories into the landscape, changes in the kibbutz movement as well as localized cooperation between Jordanian and Israeli chemical factories in the area of the Dead Sea.
The writing is both smooth and interesting.
Recommended.
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