2009 books
9) Haya Hoffman, ed., A Chance Beyond Bombs, 1998
There's some inevitable dissonance involved in reading an anthology of Hebrew peace poetry so soon after Israel has just bombed the Gaza Strip back to the Stone Age, but I suspect most of the contributors to this collection who are still alive would be just as dismayed as the rest of us. Some of these poems were inspired as a reaction to Israel's wars, others by a revulsion of all wars, though as far as I could tell there is no direct reference made anywhere to the Holocaust - it was probably considered off-limits for a modern anthology. Three or four poems really stood out for me, all defined by their intention of reaching across the divide with Palestinians; the best of all these here is Aryeh Sivan's 'What Will Become of Us in ’97?', an open letter to an Arab poet who embraced Sivan after he had read one of his poems to an audience. I'll quote another in full, by the late Zelda Mishkowsky, because it encapsulates the kind of uncommon spirit I like to pass on:
A Break
for the terrorist who saved an Israeli prisoner from the hands of other terrorists who wanted to torture him
A gesture of the hand wipes out
the fantasies of torture:
a gesture made
by one of the wolves of suicide,
an eager boy
who hated hatred, suddenly,
because his inner self told him
hatred lies
hatred lies
hatred lies
and his imaginative power burst forth
on a new path
with voices of miracles and childhood.
When the primaeval good
awoke in him
he saved the prisoner.
When a river flowed from his inner Eden
he gave him water
to revive him in the desert.
Gradually the monster of vengeance
retreated.
Fresh worlds of hope
were revealed
and the joy of springs rich with water.
What a pity!
Both knew:
this is not the whole truth,
only a break
on a green island
which lies beyond all nations,
all outlets.
In one of the caves on this island,
peace opened its eyes.