Traditional lines between the secular and religious populations are fading, particularly in the realms of music and art.
I’d like to belatedly share excerpts from an article that appeared a few months back in Mosaic Magazine. The growing popularity of religious singers among secular audiences here in Israel has been noted elsewhere. One hopes that this rising trend can serve to combat some of the tragic division we see in Israeli society right now.
“This past Sukkot, a crowd of about 500 children, parents, and grandparents gathered in the Recanati Theater in the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. The audience was made up of affluent and mostly secular residents of north Tel Aviv and its suburbs—stylishly dressed, sipping lattes and organic juice sold at the trendy coffee shop nearby. To an outside observer, the scene would be almost indistinguishable from a family-oriented play or concert in Park Slope, Brooklyn. The content, however, was distinctly Israeli: a jukebox musical called Aluf ha-Olam (literally, “Champion of the World”), based on the songs of the religious Zionist singer Hanan Ben-Ari, written and performed by Israel’s most prestigious children’s dramatic company, the Orna Porat Theater. Tickets for Aluf ha-Olam are in high demand and sell out quickly, so I booked seats for me and my children several months in advance. One could sense from the anticipation in the theater that many others had done the same.
Hanan Ben-Ari is one of Israel’s best-known musical performers, albeit without the international break-through appeal of peers like the religious music sensation Ishai Ribo. His strength is in his songwriting; catchy tunes, drawn from eclectic influences, and coherent, powerful lyrics that comment on personal, often spiritual, struggles…
…Ben-Ari’s penchant for infusing lyrics about universal topics with the language of the synagogue and yeshiva tends to obscure the boundaries between sacred and secular idioms. His 1980s-inspired feel-good ballad “Dream like Joseph,” for instance, argues that every story in the Bible reflects some basic human experience: “everyone leaves his father’s home/ everyone nearly sacrifices his child/ deep within is a little Sodom/ that he wishes to erase already/ and angels will rescue him…”
…Thus the prospect of translating Hanan Ben-Ari’s music into an Israeli secular vernacular, as Aluf ha-Olam seeks to do, is daunting, and perplexing. It raises the question of whether Ben-Ari’s biblicism and Jewish allusions are charming embellishments or so central to his work that they cannot be disentangled from it. But merely to ask this question is to acknowledge that Israeli society’s shared cultural touchstones appear to be growing more and more Jewish, and traditional lines between the secular and religious populations are fading, particularly in the realms of music and art…”
Artwork by Sarah Kranz for Lubavitch International Magazine
This Is How It Begins . . .
SARAH RINDNER
Two summers ago, while my family finalized our aliyah to Israel from the New Jersey suburbs, a few favorite songs found themselves repeating on our Spotify playlist. One was a catchy song by Israeli singer Udi Davidi called “See My Light,” which is in fact filled with rabbinic teachings about redemption. The refrain is a quote from Rabbi Hiyya’s statement in the Yerushalmi Talmud (Berachot 4:2): “This is how Israel’s redemption begins, little by little, everywhere it goes, it goes and multiplies.”
The song gave me a little comfort as I spent the weeks packing up our life in the USA. When we first landed in Israel, and in the ensuing months, I certainly did not hear the bells of redemption ringing. Yet now, more accustomed to daily life and perhaps more sensitive to the spiritual nuances of the atmosphere here, not a few days pass by before I sense a little spark, a frisson, of redemption, geulah. These moments happen when I am out in nature, exploring the historically overloaded landscape of Israel. Vistas which appear in the Bible, were won and lost by numerous civilizations, and still remain a pleasant option for a Jewish family outing.
I feel redemption when my otherwise fully American children recite a verse from the Torah by heart like it is second nature, their natural sweetness blending with the sweetness of our tradition in a way that can’t be separated. Even as shops and businesses are shuttered because of the government’s response to the coronavirus, what should be a glum public mood is elevated by the goodness of the people of Israel. A young, secular smoothie-stand owner brought to his knees in debt still gives a free daily shake to every beggar who approaches his shop. Witnessing such an act of kindness, I looked at him with surprise and he pointed upward, “None of this is from us, you know?” I think I do know, little by little.
“Ours is physically the healthiest and most affluent society that has ever existed, and, in some ways, raising children is also more convenient than it has ever been. Yet, children are increasingly perceived as a burden.”
This month, a new Spanish volume was published about Jorge Luis Borges’s relationship to Judaism—timed to be released 50 years after his first visit to Israel at the personal invitation of David Ben-Gurion. The book, titled Borges, Judaísmo e Israel, explores the great Argentinian writer’s various Jewish connections.
A lapsed Catholic with an interest in many religions, Borges (1899-1986) was particularly fascinated by Judaism, especially Kabbalah, and surprisingly erudite references to Jewish texts make their way into several of his stories. Even more unusually for a literary figure, especially one who traveled in avant-garde circles, his appreciation of Judaism translated into enthusiasm for the Jewish state.
Indeed, the 1969 trip to Israel affected Borges profoundly, prompting him to write a trio of poems in praise of the young state and the Jewish people more broadly. “Long live Israel,” he declares in one poem, published in that same year; in another he marvels at how “a man condemned to be Shylock” has “returned to battle/ to the violent light of victory/ beautiful like a lion at noon.”
Written shortly after the Six-Day War—just when much of the literary world was beginning to turn against the Jewish state—these poems celebrating the Jews’ return to martial glory also stand in stark contrast to their cosmopolitan author’s own general suspicion of nationalism.
A half-century since the poems were written—and on the eve of Jerusalem Day, which this year falls on Sunday—its well worth revisiting the story behind them and the place of the Jews in Borges’s worldview.
It is difficult to find words to respond to the horrific fate that befell 19 year-old Ori Ansbacher. Murdered while she took a walk in the Jerusalem woods. In recent years, we have sadly grown accustomed to such tragedies in Israel. Each martyred victim seems to have been more impossibly sweet than the last. Innocents who, as Agnon once put it, “the enemy was not worthy even to touch.” Yet, the details of this particular tragedy shocks even those ears that are inured to such news. Can I add anything to the cries of mourning that have been echoing across the Jewish world?
Yet, beyond the photos and the loved ones’ memories, Ori left us with a poem. This poem, one among many to be sure, has been publicized in Hebrew and is worth examining closely. Ori’s remarkable personality is laid open within: she offers us a lens into a deep truth that she understood at a young age and was able to crystallize into words.
The poet begins with a call to action, “asi,” so that “your world will be/A world of peace.” Considering the brutal circumstances of her murder, there is something impossibly tragic about this delicate call for peace. Indeed, this is not the externally imposed peace of the activists who seek to displace people like Ori and her family in order to appease an insatiable beast. It is a peace that starts within and emanates outward. Ori understands that the first step she must take to realize this world of peace is to look within and appreciate her own value, “the girl who was” and “the honey that was,” before life became more complicated and challenging. Change is a paradox. One must reach back and reacquire something which was there all along: the sweet core of honey found in an innocent young girl.
For Ori, and perhaps, many of her peers and role-models in the community of Tekoa and beyond, the process of finding internal wholeness precedes seeking perfection from the world around you. It’s the inverse of a certain kind of activism we see among young people in other corners of the world. A world of peace is you something you must try to create for yourself before you can demand it from others. The poem offers affirmation, hopeful but not overblown, that it is possible to reclaim the best parts of ourselves. Something pure and sweet and nourishing with which we may have lost touch.
After Ori’s death, several of her friends and neighbors put her words to music, which they then shared with her family at the shiva. The words and music and voices meld into a beautiful song. And, of course, in this context the song takes on additional shades of meaning: “the girl who was,” the honey that was extracted, a “world of peace” are now invoked ironically with devastating effect. Although those who listen and sing continue to suffer and grieve, the mindset expressed by this song, the sensibility from which it emanates, is a gift. How many great people have we come to know, just in the last three years alone, through their murders by terrorists: Dafna Meir, Hallel Ariel, Miki Mark, Erez Orbach, Elchai Taharlev, Elad Salomon, Adiel Coleman, Rabbi Itamar Ben Gal, Rabbi Raziel Shevach, Kim Levinger, Ari Fuld, Yovel Mor Yosef. The list goes on much further and I do not mean to exclude anyone, only to highlight some names that made an impact on me in particular, perhaps because of similarities in background or mutual acquaintances ensuring that their story would be made known to me. There is a tendency to idealize people after their passing. Yet, these were holy people, each in their own way, in life and in death. Their stories have also introduced us to the communities that produced them, who now gather to mourn. Perhaps it is a geographic issue – many of Israel’s most idealistic citizens live in the areas most vulnerable to Arab attack. Or maybe it is testament to the strong characters of Jewish Israelis more broadly. The lives that were stolen belonged some of the finest people one could encounter, cut down by depraved monsters motivated by hatred and enabled by a political apparatus that is fed too much by the “civilized” world. Yet, in response to that ugliness we see, inexplicably, beauty. Teenagers singing softly at the shiva house, a campaign to bake and share cookies, Torah learning, internal reflection, creativity, and yes some threats to, gasp, build more homes for families in their memory.
“City Wrapped in Light” Poster for a Jerusalem Concert in Memory of Ori
Two years ago hundreds of thousands of women in pink hats gathered in major American cities to fulminate and demand a vague set of rights, most of which they already have. This past year angry mobs descended on Paris, flinging firebombs and destroying property, over rising taxes and stagnant economic conditions. In Israel, innocent children are murdered in cold blood at shockingly regular intervals. There is very little chanting. There are very few demonstrations. Rather tears, poetry, memory and love. When I think about this it’s hard not to feel a bit angry myself. I wonder whether the situation would change with a little more righteous fury and collective indignation. Perhaps it would. But I also remind myself of Ori’s words, even more potent when considering these challenges. The perfection we seek in ourselves has the power to emanate outwards. Only by recognizing and embracing our own inner sweetness, the honey that is there and has always been, will we build the world of peace we so desperately need.
Act
So your world will be
A world of peace
Peace EverlastingRemember
The young woman (alma) you are
The honey that was
Before they drew it, and you out
Reclaim
For yourself anew
That sweetness
That was
Your own
Revive the girl
And create a world
A world of peace
Before negotiating with yourself
And your beloved
Before the treaties
And the violations
And the battles
Make peace
Within yourself
עשי שיהא עולמך עולם של שלום שלום עולמיםזכרי את העלמה שאת את הדבש שהיה לפני שרדו בך
נכסי לעצמך מחדש את המתיקות הזו שהייתה שלך
החיי את העלמה ובראי לך עולם עולם של שלום לפני המשא ומתן שלך עם עצמך ועם אהובך
In his essay on the poet Raḥel, Hillel Halkin offers a fascinating study of her too-brief life (1890-1931), her poetics, and the unique place she occupies in the Hebrew literary landscape. Certainly, against the background of the pioneering Zionist ethos of her time—nationalistic, idealistic, and collectivist—the intense individualism of Raḥel’s verse stands out. No less deeply committed to the Zionist enterprise than other poets cited by Halkin, notably Uri Tsvi Grinberg and Avraham Shlonsky, she devoted herself mainly to the exploration of such seemingly inward emotions as sadness, longing, humility, and self-doubt.
The study of poetry on its own terms is a noble literary ideal, but it is difficult to read the poetry of Raḥel without also ruminating upon the personal circumstances, especially the disease to which she would eventually succumb at the age of forty, that may account for the themes of suffering, loneliness, and longing that run through her work. It is perhaps for this reason that Halkin in the end deems her to be, with emphasis on both adjectives, a “great minor poet”: that is, one who deals with localized themes, seemingly without obvious public import, but who nevertheless addresses them with a clarity and virtuosity that ensures he or she will never be forgotten—as, in Israel, Raḥel has indeed never been.
Yet might this major/minor distinction, which Halkin applies with subtlety and generosity, ultimately be something of a false choice?
The Book of Books 