On The Bookshelf
Learning From
History
Israeli author A.B. Yehoshua's latest novel is set in
999, foreshadowing conflicts in the next millennium.
the second millennium provoked in
me a heartfelt desire to look ar the last
years of the first millennium, a most
significant period in the history of our
n Israel, many people look to
people." He remarks on the split at
A.B. Yehoshua, and other major
that time between the Ashkenazi and
writers like Yehuda Amichai,
Sephardi communities and the result-
Amos Oz and David Grossman,
ing boundaries between them.
as near-prophets. Yehoshua is fre-
In an interview
quently stopped in
before his lecture,
the streets and
Yehoshua, who was
argued with about
born in Jerusalem
his political opin-
in 1936 and is a
ions.
fifth-generation
The award-win-
Israeli on his
ning author recently
father's side,
visited New York to
explains that
deliver the 1999
although his novels
Edelman lecture at
have many differ-
New York
ent settings and
University. Titled
different styles
"History as
"dictated" to him
Identity," it focused
by the stories, there
on his latest novel,
is a "line that
A Journey to the End
binds them. In
of the Millennium
A.B. Yeshoshua: As a member of a
each book I try to
nation deeply affected by histog, I
$ (Doubleday;
tackle another
can't allow myself to ignore the Jewish
thing."
past-.
Even
i
f
it
were
possible,
such
a
"I'm one of those
complex,
problematic
histog
forces
In the last few
naive people who
you to come back to it, to probe it
novels, he has been
think we can still
again and again."
preoccupied " with
learn from history,
the question
he told the audience
about East and West, North and
of more than 300 people. Speaking
South, the question I am living in my
about the new novel, set in Europe in
soul." The son of a Moroccan-born
999 at the. brink of the first millenni-
mother, he describes himself as an
um, he shared the story behind the
"Oriental Jew" and in his "education
book and his view of history.
and
thinking a totally Western person.
Yehoshua is the recipient of the dis-
This combination is inside myself."
tinguished Israel Prize for his body of
A Journey to the End of the
work, which includes six novels and
Millennium is the story of Ben Attar, a
two collections of essays. When he
Moroccan Jew, a prosperous trader
began writing his previous novel, Mr.
whose contact with Ashkenazi Jews
Mani, right after the Lebanon War, he
begins when his dear nephew and
"tied a rope to the crazy pages of the
business partner Abulafia marries a
present and with the end lowered
northern European widow, Esther-
myself inch by inch into the well of
Minna, living in Paris.
the past, from the here and now to
The Ashkenazi wife repudiates her
1848."
husband's uncle on the basis of his
With A Journey to the End of the
marriage to two women. Ben Attar,
Millennium, he says, he "released the
with a shipload of goods and. Jewish
rope which tied me to the present. I
and Muslim passengers — all fearful
dived freely into the depths of Jewish
of the fanaticism spreading through
history. Our proximity to the end of
Christian lands related to the
approach of the millennium — sails
Sandee Brawarsky is a New York-based
from North Africa to Paris to convince
freelance book critic.
SANDEE BRAWARSKY
Special to the Jewish News
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