in the North__Am_erican Literary Imagination
Joan Leegant
A
few years ago I showed a writer friend a
town, they had to survive the transitions."
draft of a story I was working on. The
Of course, not all North American writers are as
story, set in the present, centered on a 70-
restrained as Miller when it comes to the fervent poli-
year-old Jerusalemite who'd left Europe some
tics that drive such immigrants to places inside the
fifty-five years earlier. My friend, who was Jewish but
Green Line. It is precisely this fervor, portrayed in rich
had never been to Israel, said she liked the story, but
satirical detail, that forms the backbone of Tova Reich's
the character didn't seem Israeli, at least not like the
raucous 1995 novel, The Jewish War. Here we follow
Israelis she'd seen around L.A., where she lived. With
the story of Yehuda HaGoel of Hebron, formerly Jerry
his old-fashioned reserve and German-tinged Hebrew,
Goldberg of the Bronx, from his illegal arrival in the
he seemed more like someone out of Singer or
Holy Land in 1967 inside an already-occupied coffin to
Malamud, she said; more European than anything
his Wild-West style leadership of a secessionist sect,
else. Were there Israelis like that? she wondered.
with explosive results. Likewise, in a more somber
I took the compliments for what they were; told her
tone, Jon Papernick, in the title story of his 2001 col-
that, yes, there were Israelis like that, and continued to
lection, The Ascent of Eli Israel, gives us a similar
hone my story. But my friend's question raises curious
fanatic-in-the-making. Eli Israel is a washed-up for-
questions: just whom do North Americans write about
mer TV producer/alcoholic/womanizer who finds
when they write about contemporary Israel? What
himself following in the footsteps of the likes of the
kinds of Jews, what kinds of Israelis? What side — or
deceased Baruch Goldstein and unwittingly moving
sides — of Israel? And, finally, why might we be writing
into violence and cruelty. One needn't look far to guess
about Israel and its inhabitants the way we do?
why such stories are now making themselves heard:
Photo by Jun Webber
Not surprisingly, one of the main foci of recent fic-
ever since Goldstein, there has been a widespread per-
Joan Leegant's collection of
tion about Israel by North American writers is the
ception in Israel, whether true or not, that it is the
stories, An Hour in Paradise,
immigrant experience, particularly that of North
Americans who are spearheading much of the boiling-
was published by W.W.
Americans, perhaps because many of the writers them-
over nationalism in the West Bank. Of course, Israel as
Norton in August. It has
selves lived in Israel and either attempted the same or
the repository of highly charged Jewish longing is not
been selected by Barnes &
knew others who did. This is the central concern of
new; it has been inspiring dreams of glory of all stripes
Noble for their Discover Great
Risa Miller's 2002 novel, Wekome to Heavenly Heights,
for centuries. In my own story, "Seekers in the Holy
New Writers Program and
which illuminates the lives of a group of English speak-
Land," from my collection An Hour in Paradise, a disen-
will be featured in Barnes &
ers who live together in a certain Building Four in a new
chanted young American comes to Safed looking not for
Nobles stores nationwide this
complex on the West Bank. While politics and the 'sit-
messianic redemption but a short cut to religious ecstasy, a
fall. Leegant teaches writing
uation' are never far from the surface, the book's
Kabbalistically-induced spiritual high.
at Harvard University.
primary interest is the acculturation of an intimate cir-
But it is not only North American immigrants who
cle of friends, mostly wives and mothers who hail from
interest North American writers. In her hypnotic 1998
places like Cumberland, Kentucky and Hartford,
Pushcart Prize-winning story, "Women Dreaming of
Connecticut, and the grinding dailiness of their strug-
Jerusalem," Rachel Kadish turns the spotlight onto
gles: children who aren't adjusting, marriages under
Russian and Ethiopian women attempting to live togeth-
stress, even the confusing foreign foodstuffs and the
er in the Jerusalem Battered Women's Shelter. Kadish
rampant head lice. Implied here is that while the "big"
catalogues their miserable incompatibility — their fights
issues of idealism and destiny matter, it's the everyday
over the kitchen, their personal standoffs, their refusal to
that must be endured. As one character sharply
let their children play with the children of the other fil-
observes, "...noble outpost in Judea or penthouse in
tered, in part; through the eyes of an American volunteer,
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NATIONAL FOUNDATION FOR JEWISH CULTURE