And the Sea Is Never Full (21 page)

The real problem? I think it is one of human relations, first between Jews in Israel and then between Israelis and Diaspora Jews. I only realized this during the Gulf War and then again during the international conference titled “The Anatomy of Hate” that our foundation convened in 1990 together with Haifa University, on Mount Carmel. I remember flying home with a heavy heart, with an anxiety that has never left me.

I know that what I am about to say will displease many in Israel. There will be those who say: “Why is he meddling in our affairs? He doesn’t live here, he is not a citizen of our country. If he wants to be heard, to take part in our national debates, let him come and live among us, share our fears and our goals, our mistakes and our successes.”

Oh yes, I know the formula, having used it myself at times: A person who does not live Israel’s ordeals and challenges has no right to criticize its decisions. Never mind. I shall speak out, because the situation is too serious and the stakes too high for me to remain silent. An ancient philosopher said: When truth is in danger, silence equals guilt.

As for me, I may well be guilty of idealizing the land of Israel, which is now the State of Israel, a human laboratory of dreams and nostalgia that successfully turned itself into a structured and pragmatic nation. For many years, moved by a love older than I am, I have been going to Israel. Granted, it has always been as a visitor. I have delighted in walking through the narrow streets of Jerusalem, meeting colleagues and friends. I instantly felt at home in places I had never set foot in. For me, the people of Israel and the land of Israel were one and a Jew could be loyal to Israel even from outside its borders. I still believe that. But … what has changed? I’m not sure. I feel that the mood in the country is charged with rancor and hostility toward us, the Diaspora Jews. And let no one tell me that it was always so. Sure of their superiority, some Israelis’ attitude toward Diaspora Jews is that they, the Israelis, are entitled to everything. They demand money and then deride those who have collected and offered it.

Ezer Weizman, the former defense minister and proponent of peace with the Arabs, now president of Israel, once asked me publicly why I did not move to Israel. The only answer I could think of was: “What is more important for a Jew: to be a Jew or to be Israeli?” I was wrong; I should not have opposed “Jew” to “Israeli.” But as far as certain Israelis are concerned, one can be Jewish
only
in Israel. According to them, the most creative Jews in the Diaspora are less Jewish than a Jewish scoundrel in Tel Aviv.

So be it. I shall be a second-class Jew.

And so, while in times of crisis Israelis ask the Diaspora for support, as soon as they no longer feel threatened, their behavior changes abruptly. Some of their voices get too shrill; they get angry too fast. Among the more obtuse and egocentric commentators, lacking even a modicum of culture, there are a sculptor notorious for his vulgarity and a humorist known for his obscenity. They envy and hate us and each other. Such behavior may well occur in other countries, but in Israel it takes unusual proportions. The saying goes that it is impossible to meet someone who does not hate someone. The fanatic
secularists hate the religious; the fanatic religious hate those who are less religious. The hate of one Jew for another sometimes seems greater than that reserved for enemies of the state. It is the main topic of magazines, newspapers, and radio. Political discourse is rarely on a high level; derision substitutes for humor, snickering for laughter, insults for wit. Malice replaces intelligence; rudeness covers subtlety. Debates are simplistic and reductive, discussions no longer about ideas but about material gains. And then there are the rumors. Nowhere else are they as vile, as poisonous. And they are everywhere. What is lacking is a sense of history. The debates in the Knesset often attain a frightening level of violence.

These feelings date from before the cowardly assassination of Rabin. I have lived in fear of the consequences of the hatred that has befallen the country for a long time.

True, other societies experience quarrels and antagonisms. The right to criticize, to oppose, to contradict, and even to denounce is the price of democracy. What would become of a political, economic, or literary system without rivalries? In civilized countries there are limitations to that right, but, for better or worse, Israel refuses limitations. Why, asks the Talmud, did God compare the people of Israel both to the stars and to dust? When Israel wants to attain the summits, none ascends as high; but when it allows itself to slide toward the abyss, it plunges to unprecedented lows.

How can I reconcile these images of Israel with the love I feel for it? I love Israel in times of joy and in times of mourning, in its hours of glory and in its periods of doubt and anguish. And when I feel saddened by it I think of Israel’s young people, who will soon be summoned by the army. I think of the dreamers in front of the Wall. I think of all those mothers and fathers who lost their sons in combat. In times of doubt it is their faces that represent the eternal image of Israel.

On Becoming a Speaker

A
ND THIS IS HOW
one beautiful day I became a speaker.

Dov Judkowski, the head of
Yedioth Ahronoth
, who in 1956 named me New York correspondent, was right: To give lectures in the United States is, as everybody knows, big business. With a little luck, lecturing can generate considerable income; not as substantial as that of a rock singer or a baseball champion, of course, but who can compare to a rock star or a stadium god?

I remember my first experience. It was 1960.
Night
had just been published in the United States. A few weeks later the Eichmann trial was headline news. I get a call from the president of a Jewish club on Long Island who invites me to come speak about my book to an audience of some five hundred couples. My honorarium? One hundred dollars, almost half my monthly salary. As I hesitate, she adds: “We have all read your work; we are totally enchanted by it. Come, we need to learn, and you are the one who can teach us.” She has such a lovely voice. Am I going to fall in love? Again? I accept. The engagement is for two or three months hence. Too bad. I am lonely, but let me be patient. At least I’ll have time to prepare myself. We agree on a date. My topic? Literature, philosophy. I devote many hours to perfecting my speech in English, the first I shall deliver in America. In my European frame of mind, a lecture demands serious research, reflection, structure.

In the taxi that takes me to Long Island that Sunday, I reread my thirty typed pages; I add notes in the margins; I am almost ready: I should be able to keep going one hour, perhaps one and a half. Suddenly a wild thought crosses my mind: The woman with the beautiful, voluptuous voice surely mistook me for someone else. Why would she invite me, a novice writer, a total unknown? Mile after mile, my
doubts get stronger, and when I finally arrive at my destination I am convinced that the audience is expecting someone else.

The woman with the voice does not disappoint me: She is even more beautiful than I imagined. Graceful, smiling, warm, she thanks me for coming. I could fall in love with her very quickly, even more quickly than usual, but she introduces me to her husband, an accountant for an important electronics firm. They accompany me into the hall: All the women are dazzling and, as expected, all have escorts. I am seated at the head table to the right of my hostess.

In time I follow her to the podium. She presents me to the public with effusive praise in the American way. She proclaims that I am a great writer, then corrects herself immediately: Great? The greatest of this generation. Not only that, of all generations. In other words, I am a genius. If one were to believe my presenter, one might conclude that the deaths of Shakespeare and Dostoyevsky were occasioned by sheer envy over my accomplishments. “All of us have read and urged others to read your magnificent book!” she exclaims. “Future generations will echo what I am saying here, on behalf of all of us: We admire your talent and we love you for sharing it with us.” I decide to test them.

Now it is my turn to speak. I thank her awkwardly and launch into a tale, improvising as I go along, that has no connection whatsoever with
Night
. I set the action in nineteenth-century France, where a Jewish seminarian becomes infatuated with a Christian “Mademoiselle” Bovary. I stress the ethical problems involved. The situation is reminiscent of Corneille’s dramas. Duty and passion, religion and heresy. I mix quotations from Seneca and Kant and Spinoza, my favorite, why not? I wait for one member of the audience to stop me, to tell me that this is not the book he read. Nothing happens. I speak for three-quarters of an hour; even I have no idea where I’m going. The seminarian is on the brink of suicide when he learns that his beloved has fled from a convent somewhere in the countryside.

The time has come to conclude, for if I don’t, I might be tempted to call upon the Bible and assorted medieval mystics and even upon texts that have come down to us from “the night of time”—hence the title of my book. My discourse is rewarded with thunderous applause. I don’t know what to make of it. Clearly my intuition had been correct. There was in this hall not a single person who had read my poor little book, the only book that bore my name. Still, I urge myself not to be too hasty. They may be shy, or they don’t want to offend me, embarrass me. During the question-and-answer period they will
surely express their astonishment at the difference between my reading of my book and theirs.

Well, the question-and-answer period is upon us and everybody refers to the outrageous and incoherent tale I have just invented. Why did the seminarian wait so long before renouncing his love? Why did the young woman not consider conversion to the Jewish faith? As I stammer, my hostess accepts three more questions and concludes the session. I follow her into an office where she hands me my due. We are alone and I use the opportunity to tell her a Hasidic story:

Invited by a disciple from a neighboring village to attend a circumcision ceremony, a rabbi hires the only coach in the village to take him there. He and the coachman begin the journey in high spirits: the rabbi because he is about to perform a
mitzvah
, a good deed, and the coachman because he will earn a few zlotys. At the bottom of the first hill the horse halts, exhausted. The coachman dismounts and begins to push the carriage. Of course the rabbi, too, leaves the carriage and helps push. They push and push until they finally arrive at the Hasid’s doorstep. That is when the rabbi tells the coachman: “There is something I don’t understand. I understand why
I
am here; the Hasid wishes me to participate in his ceremony. I also understand why
you
are here; this is how you make your living. But the horse, this poor horse, why did we bring it along?”

My hostess with the beautiful voice is speechless for a moment. Then she confesses: Neither she nor any member of her group has read my book. But then why did she invite me? It was a simple mistake: She was confused by a
New York Times
review of two books, mine and another, in the same issue.

Another lesson in humility, this one administered in a Catskill resort: A Jewish group awards me some kind of prize. Some fifty people queue up to shake my hand and congratulate me. I hear whispers: “It doesn’t look like him. He looks different in the movies.” They had mistaken me for Eli Wallach.

Flattered, I tell myself: At least we share the same initials.

For years, I roam the continents to the point of total exhaustion. I speak so much that I begin to loathe the sound of my voice. After every lecture I emerge with a sense of frustration and loss. I feel as if I have given three lectures in one: the one I meant to give, the one I gave, and the one the public heard. And then, too, how is one to prevent
repeating oneself, and how is one to avoid clichés? And yet one must improvise, for if one confines oneself to reading the text, one ends up boring one’s audience and even oneself. And what if someone in the room has heard what I have to say, if in a different form? Oh well; he or she has probably forgotten by now.

I accept the topics that are suggested to me with the exception of the Holocaust. I worry lest it become routine. There was a time when few spoke of it, and it was important to lead the way. That is no longer the case. Of course my reticence is frequently misunderstood: I speak about the Bible, the Talmud, the Hasidic movement, yet the questions I am asked nevertheless refer to the Event.

Sometimes I seem to unleash demons. In San Antonio, Texas, a man stands up to confront me: “How can you write about the Holocaust when in fact that is nothing but a Jewish invention?” In St. Petersburg, Florida, a wild man launches into a similar declaration and manages to elude authorities for a while before being removed from the hall.

In a Washington, D.C., university, a group of African Americans charge into the lecture hall. Security people are about to oust them, but I ask them not to: “Since these young men wish to be heard, let them come forward.” I invite them to the podium and tell their leader: “The mike is all yours.” Taken aback, he stammers a few words about racial intolerance. “Perfect,” I say, “that is my subject as well.” He sits down, as do his comrades.