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 I 175 MERRILL STREET BIRMINGHAM, MI 248-644-6506 FAX 248-644-3632 Complimentary Valet Parking Available at the Townsend Hotel Entrance for our Bakery Customers Exclusively! Experience an upscale Steakhouse featuring Piedmontese Beef (S t\tel Italian Recognized by American Heart Assn. 40 grille Monday-Friday 11:30-Midnight Saturday 5:00-Midnight Closed Sundays (734) 254-0400 Reservations Suggested Please **** Rating By The Detroit Free Press Executive Chef Eriq Lukasik Also Featuring Variety of Bone-in Chops. Fresh Catch. Pasta. oigara 6c,jeti Mai/filth anti Plane fur lOrdardaq-Satarday ( 4-- CC CC M-14 1-96 —4 cc CC CC O co Orchard Lake Rd. • 932-3133 5/21 1999 94 Detroit Jewish News unch 'Buffet • 'Banquet _Tom LAvallable Tuirsday (11:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.) N A Plymouth Rd. "