This first anthology of twentieth-century Israeli literature to feature the work of writers who were born in—or whose families originated from—the Levant, Turkey, Iran, India, and Arab worlds represents twenty-four authors whose concerns with cultural identity, race, class, gender, and political allegiances place their work alongside today’s emerging rediscovered and reinvented Arab, African, Indian, African-American, and Caribbean traditions.
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
In over 100 short stories, novel excerpts and poems, 24 mizrahi (Jews originating from the Levant, India and Arab countries) Israeli writers grapple with universal issues of family, love and death but also provide uniquely Israeli takes on culture, class and politics. Not every work is current (Shoshannah Shababo's Maria, excerpted here, was written in 1932), but most will be new to American readers. Each writer is introduced in an autobiographical sketch, and many are interviewed by Alcalay, a writer and professor in New York whose After Jews and Arabs was a Village Voice best book. The stories themselves are as different as the individuals who wrote them. In Shababo's "Simha's Wondrous Spell," Yael, frustrated with her inability to conceive with her husband, a much older scholar, chooses one one her husband's students, the Skeptic, as the father. In a series of poems describing her day, Tikva Levi writes: "past the last intersection/ from the previous poem/ a golden dusty cloud/ of neon cleaves/ the fog/ and in a doorway/ a teenage couple/ hug and kiss/ completely unrelated/ to the couple from poem three." And in Jacqueline Shohet Kahanoff's essay, "A Letter from Mama Camouna," her mother chides a younger character who wonders why his grandmother never told him family stories. Perhaps, she says, it is "because you never asked... you young people nowadays are really not interested in those old tales, when you really can't be bothered with the past, because the world they live in is so different." Luckily Alcalay did ask, and here are many of the answers.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
This comprehensive survey of the literature produced by Israeli mizrahim (Oriental Jews) covers 24 writers whose work has not appeared much in English?the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern Jews or the Jews of the Levant and the Islamic world. The writers were born, or their families come from, Turkey, Iran, India, and the Arab world. Writings include short fiction, novel excerpts, and in-depth interviews. Mainly concerned with identity and politics, the work has more in common with new writing from emerging and rediscovered cultures than mainstream Israeli literature. The foreword provides substantial historical and cultural context for the work; comprehensive biographical notes and photos are provided for each contributor. Recommended for multicultural literary collections.?Molly Abramowitz, Silver Spring, Md.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fabulous anthology of mizrahi writing,
By
This review is from: Keys to the Garden: New Israeli Writing (Paperback)
Keys to the Garden is an appropriate title for this eclectic collection of mizrahi short stories, poetry, novel excerpts and author interviews. As a key can unlock the door to reveal a hidden paradise, Ammiel Alacalay uses this anthology to provide readers in the West a glimpse into the imagination and experiences of a group of established writers who are not only unknown in North America, but are relatively unknown in their homeland of Israel. Mizrahis (Israelis whose families immigrated from the Levant, Turkey, Iran, India and the Arab World), though a numerical majority, have continually been treated as a minority in Israeli society and their artistic and literary achievements have been overshadowed and marginalized by those in the mainstream. However, by translating selections of the works of Amira Hess, Ronny Someck, Samir Naqqash and the other talents represented in this volume, and presenting them in this anthology, Alcalay give them a voice and shows how their languge, conventions, assumptions, characterizations and references differ from the standard sort of Israeli writing that we have become accustomed to. When one thinks of inter-ethnic conflict in Israel, one's mind automatically turns to Arab- Jewish tensions. Yet, within Israeli society itself, a sense of discord between mainstream Jews and mizrahis is also in evidence and this collection brings some of that to light. Tikva Levi's "We Live in Jessie Cohen..."'s reference to the ideological street name Zionism St. further develops the metaphor to describe her own situation: "We live inside Racism parallel to Holocaust awfully close to the graveyard." Sami Shalom Chetrit's poem about a rejected American corpse that had been sent to Israel for burial ("Who Is a Jew and What Kind of Jew") contains the acidic line, "if he is an Ashkenazic Jew, we will gladly bury him". This anthology is not meant to be a comprehensive collection of mizrahi literature but is meant to introduce a class of writing that has been absent for too long. While the sections themselves are not exhaustive, the reader is given a taste of the author's creativity and is referred to other works in the extensive biographical author sketches that precede each section. It is unfortunate that such an anthology is not yet available in Hebrew, as Chetrit laments in the book's final poem ("At an Auditorium of a Local University"): "When, for once, will our [mizrahi] translated poems be able to breathe in Hebrew?" Yet this remarkable collection of English translations is, at least, accesible in the English-speaking world and is a highly- reccommended addition for the collections of Jewish libraries, literature sections of public libraries and Middle East Studies collections of academic libraries. It will provide an excellent balance to any library's collection of Israeli litearture in translation.
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ammiel Alcalay: Keys to the Garden,
By
This review is from: Keys to the Garden: New Israeli Writing (Paperback)
This book is very important for it includes the Sephardim in Israel's literary history. Many anthologies of Israeli literature focus solely on Ashkenazi writers, and thus on the Ashkenazi experience, creating Israeli identity as being located in Western culture. My only complaint is that the author did not provide much bibliographical detail about the short stories translated, such as the date they were written,etc.
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Other Israeli Writing,
By Eric Maroney (Trumansburg, NY) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Keys to the Garden: New Israeli Writing (Paperback)
This is an important collection of Mizrahi Israeli writers. Jews from Arab lands suffered (and still do suffer) from years of neglect and oppression in Israel. Here, Mizrahi Jews speak in their own voice, often subverting the values of the dominant culture in the process. Some of the writers in this collection have never been translated into English before --- and some, amazingly enough --- have never published their works in Hebrew.Alacalay's collection is an important benchmark in the history of Israel writing. This fine collection will expose the reader to new voices and perspectives within Israeli culture.
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