Israel in Translation

In honor of the holy month of Ramadan observed by Muslims worldwide, host Marcela Sulak reads an essay by Iman Jmal, a graduate student at Bar-Ilan University. Jmal is from Jatt in northern Israel and she writes about preparing a Ramadan meal with her mother, the shopping for which they must travel through a checkpoint.

Music:

Approaching the Bridge – The Bridge Project

Notre Wagon – The Bridge Project

This week's podcast features Ilana Kurshan's memoir If All the Seas Were Ink. Originally written in English, the text translates the study of the Daf Yomi, or "Daily Page," of the Talmud, into a life story. The Talmud is the main book of rabbinic teachings spanning about 600 years. It is the basis for all codes of Jewish law. The memoir begins in the wake of a painful divorce, when Ilana decides to begin this 7 ½ year long study, one page at a time.

More info on Bar Ilan's Writing Conference.

Text: Ilana Kurshan, If All The Seas Were Ink. A memoir. St. Martin's Press, 2017.

In this episode we read from David Grossman's "Sleeping on a Wire: Conversations with Palestinians in Israel", translated by Haim Watzman. The narrative that Grossman records are the words of Aouni Sbeit.

Text: David Grossman, Sleeping on a Wire. Conversations with Palestinians in Israel. Translated by Haim Watzman. Ferrar, Strauss and Giroux. 1993

Music: My White and Brown Land by The Bridge Project

In continuation of the celebrations surrounding Israel's Independence Day, host Marcela Sulak reads from Amos Oz's iconic description of the events surrounding the struggle for Israeli independence.

Text: Amos Oz, A Tale of Love and Darkness. Translated by Nicholas De Lange. Harcourt, Inc., 2003.

Music: Ofra Haza – Eli Eli (lyrics by Hannah Szenes) City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra – Hatikvah

This episode originally aired April 23, 2015.

Tonight marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel. Moving past all the euphoria and towards attempts at wisdom, this episode will feature excerpts from the essay "The Meaning of Homeland" by Amos Oz, found in the collection "Under This Blazing Light," translated by Nicholas de Lange.

Text: Amos Oz, "The Meaning of Homeland" in Under This Blazing Light translated by Nicholas de Lange, Syracuse University Press, 2995.

Music: Canvas (Instrumental Version) by Imogen Heap

Previous Independence Day Episode: A Night to Remember on the Road to Independence

In honor of Yom HaShoah - Holocaust Memorial Day in Israel - host Marcela Sulak reads poetry by Paul Celan, including his famous "Death Fugue."

Paul Celan was born Paul Antschel to a Jewish family in Czernowitcz in 1920. The death of his parents in the Holocaust, and his imprisonment in a Romanian work camp are the defining forces in his poetry and use of language. Celan wrote in German. According to Pierre Joris, who translated Celan's later poetry, he "harbored feelings of intense estrangement from the language and thus set about creating his own language through a "dismantling and rewelding" of German."

Texts: Selected Poems and Prose of Paul Celan. Translated by John Felstiner. W.W. Norton & Co. 2001 Poems of Paul Celan. Translated by Michael Hamburger. Persea Press, 1995.

Music: Felix Mendelssohn - Prelude & Fugue in E Minor, op.35 no.1 Felix Mendelssohn - Songs Without Words, op.19 no.6 in G Minor Felix Mendelssohn - Songs Without Words, op.30 no.6 in F Sharp Minor

In honor of the seven (or eight) days of Passover, which began on Saturday night, we will continue reading the work of Jacqueline Shohet Kahanoff, whose novel Jacob's Ladder was featured two weeks ago for its reference to Palm Sunday.

This week features the essay "To Die a Modern Death," which is often used as a text on bereavement in Israeli nursing schools. It is not an easy text, but it is a very important one for those caring for aging family members, especially during the holidays.

Text: "To Die a Modern Death" by Jacqueline Shohet Kahanoff. Translated by Hannah Schlit. In Keys to the Garden. New Israeli Writing, ed. Ammiel Alcalay. City Lights Books, 1006.

In honor of the beginning of Passover this weekend, this week's episode features an excerpt from S.Y. Agnon's story, "The Home," which appears in Herbert Levine and Reena Spicehandler's English translation in Jeffrey Saks' series on Agnon, the only Hebrew-language writer to have received the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Text: "The Home," by S. Y. Agnon, translated by Herbert Levine and Reena Spicehandler, in The Outcast and Other Tales. Ed. and annotated by Jeffrey Saks. Toby Press, 2017.

In honor of Palm Sunday, this episode features an excerpt from Jacqueline Shohet Kahanoff's Jacob's Ladder. Born in Cairo in 1917, the author depicts life in Egypt between the two world wars in the novel, which was published in 1951, before she settled in Israel.

Here is an excerpt from the novel: Miss O'Brien had felt the child's hand stiffen in hers, and Rachel's unseemly interest in the beggar boy moved her. The child might be loved and spoiled, but she must be unbearably lonely if she cared for such a dirty little scamp. At first when everything in Egypt was strange, new, and often shocked her, Miss O'Brien had followed Alice's instructions and the advice of other nurses that children must be kept away from all that smacked of native life, but now this seemed cruel to her.

Text: Jacqueline Shohet Kahanoff, from Jacob's Ladder in Keys to the Garden. New Israeli Writing. Ed. by Ammiel Alcalay. City Lights, 1996.

This episode features segments from the book Jerusalem Stands Alone by Mahmoud Shukair, a collection of tales narrated in a series of stand-alone observations, usually no more than a single page, and often simply a paragraph, so that they resemble, in a way, the tenants of a house or the apartments of a neighborhood. Nicole Fares has translated it from the Arabic. Mahmoud Shukair was born in 1941 in Jerusalem and worked for many years as a teacher, journalist and editor-in-chief of the cultural magazines Al-Talia'a (The Vanguard) and Dafatir Thaqafiya (Cultural File). He was jailed twice by the Israeli authorities for his political remarks, and was deported to Lebanon in 1975, not returning to Jerusalem until 1993. He is the author of 45 books, six television series, and four plays, including Mordechai's Moustache and His Wife's Cats. In 2011, he was awarded the Mahmoud Darwish Prize for Freedom of Expression. He has spent his life between Beirut, Amman, and Prague and now lives in Jerusalem.

Here is an excerpt from "Neighbors": Her name is Suzanne. She's a thin blonde from Marseille who rented a room in the Old City, where she shares a bathroom with her neighbors, a bathroom she uses once in the morning and again around midnight. Her window overlooks a house occupied by five settlers who appear on the porch every morning. She can see the top of the pale yellow wall not far from the house. (Suzanne loved this city from the moment she arrived last years.)

Text: Jerusalem Stands Alone by Mahmoud Shukair. Translated from the Arabic by Nicole Fares. Syracuse University Press, 2018.