playwrights-from-israel

"I was born in 1949, into a war, and started school in 1956, the year of the Suez War. I finished high school in 1967 during the Six-Day War, married in 1973, the year of the Yom Kippur War. My first child was born in the middle of the 1970s, when war was raging in Lebanon; my second child was born in 1982, when Israel annihilated Beirut with bombs, and my father died during the Gulf War. My whole life is mapped out by wars. When I talk to my Israeli peers, they say, 'It's the same with me.' And I say, 'But is that a good thing? Or should we do something about it?' I'm trying to fight against all this, so that my children's lives and the lives of my grandchildren are not always described by wars.'"

"("So what about Palestinian culture, in terms of those who live here in Israel, as opposed to in the West Bank or in Gaza?") SN: There are no conflicts and no real cultural differences, but of course our lives are different. They live under a military occupation, and we live under a cultural occupation...we have to differentiate between three different groups of Palestinian writers: Palestinians living in Israel, Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza, and Palestinians living abroad. As far as Palestinians in Israel are concerned, I can speak from experience. I have written about Jews myself. They are my friends, I meet them everywhere, every day. My experience of Jews is well rounded, and so I can write about how they live at home with their families, with their wives, how they love and how they hate. Because I know. It's different for a writer living in Ramallah. He cannot write about anything other than settlers or soldiers at the checkpoints - whereas I can write a short story about myself and a Jewish friend discussing love and the universe, a writer in Ramallah couldn't even imagine that. And he doesn't need to either, because the Jew is the occupying force, and you don't write about occupying forces as anything other than occupying forces."

"I know that all Israelis say that if the refugees are given the right to return, it spells the end of Israel...The point is that they think like colonials. Because they came here and took another people's land by force, they think that the return of the Palestinians will inevitably mean that they themselves are chased out and that the Palestinians will take over the whole land. But we cannot ignore the fact that the refugees are an Israeli problem, and not a Palestinian one. The Palestinians have the right to return, this is their home and country. Everyone is of course aware of the problems connected with coming back, but that is the next step. The first step has to be that Israel recognizes this right. Then we can discuss the practical solutions with each family."

"a thief's feeling of guilt lies deep in the Israeli psyche. Many of them know that they are guilty. The politicians and military cannot allow themselves to say or feel that they are in any way at fault, of course, but now and then a writer feels it. And they deal with this feeling in one of two ways: either they try to repress it, or they try to find a solution. Every so often, Israeli writers try to make contact and protest against the occupation. The problem is that they seldom talk about al-Nakba and their responsibility for what happened in 1948...That is the reason why they don't want to let the 1948 refugees back, because then they will have to admit that they have been lying the whole time. Because the official version has always been that the Palestinians left their homes voluntarily. It is a psychological and moral problem...What I try to tell the Jews is that they can ask me, as a Palestinian, to help them solve their guilt problem. I don't want them, or us, to carry on suffering."

"When I grew up, there was Hebrew literature on the curriculum, and only a bit of Arabic-but certainly no Palestinian literature. They didn't speak about the Israeli Palestinians as Palestinians at all, but rather as Arabs. They thought that if I was a Palestinian, then I was Arafat. So it immediately became a political issue. The Jewish identity is very, very confused. The Palestinians don't have that problem."

"It is not democracy when Israel defines itself as a Jewish state. That is racist. Over twenty percent of the population in this country is Arab, like me. I don't want to live in a Jewish state, I want to live in a democratic state. The majority might be Jewish or Muslim, that doesn't matter to me, as long as the state is democratic. And this Jewish state has a law called 'the Law of Return,' which guarantees the right of all Jews from all over the world to come and settle here. Whereas the Palestinians who were forced to flee in 1948, and whose houses are perhaps still standing today, are not allowed to come back. And another thing: I was born after 1948, so I have Israeli citizenship, but many of the Palestinians who live in this country and who were born before 1948 don't have that right. They are called present absentees. Is that democratic? How can Israel and Israeli authors talk about democracy? Israel should ask itself what sort of state it wants to be, one based on power or one based on justice. The Jews have the right to live here, but we Palestinians have the same right. They have created so many problems for the people here, problems that they have to solve. So no, I don't think there will ever be peace until the refugee issue is resolved."

"("I ask Natour what potential he thinks literature has in this situation. And what about his own work, translating Hebrew literature into Arabic, is there a sort of mission behind that? Is it important for Palestinians to know about Hebrew literature?") SN: Extremely important. I am strongly in favor of translations, both ways. We should get to know each other better and better. Literature is a perfect way to do that, because literature allows you to have direct contact with the other side. It takes you into their society. Knowing the other side makes it possible to have dialogue."

"Leah Goldberg, as well as Anda Pinkerfeld-Amir, wrote verse for children, but she is best known for her modernist poetry. In line with contemporary European modernist poetry, she often expressed the poet's inner struggle during the act of writing, and the difficulties in overcoming this inherently artificial medium. Leah Goldberg was active in the field of literary criticism and translation, especially from Russian, and was in search of revolutionary techniques. She experimented with prose as well as drama. Her play "Ba'alat Ha'armon' ('The Castle Owner') introduced the difficult theme of the Holocaust to women's writing."

"one of the most important women in contemporary Hebrew literature...At her peak, Goldberg wrote beautifully and sadly about thwarted love"

"Goldberg lived the bohemian life, debating for days on end with her poet friends in the Tel Aviv cafés."

"The poet, Tuvia Ribner, a close friend for dozens of years, and the executor of her literary estate said: "The memory of the father and her fear accompanied Leah to adulthood. This is the reason, I believe, that she chose the stricter poetic forms, such as a sonnet, which has 14 lines, meticulous rhyming scheme and fixed rhythm, and avoided loose rhythms. Her poetics emerge from a strong need for self-control, every single one of her poems having a rational basis, meant to guard the poem and herself."

"biographer Professor Leiblich: "...from an early stage, she felt herself old, heavy, too serious. She had a sense of guilt about all her loves, she perceived love as a nuisance, something to beware of.""

"She was always guarding her secrets behind walls, and her love poems were covered under seven veils of mystery; among her most beautiful is the sonnet sequence, 'The Love of Theresa De-Mon'"

"Professor Amiya Leiblich: " 'She suffered from emotional deficiency...She had a permanent guilt towards all the men she was in love with, as well as an inferiority complex. Even in poetry, where her value and superiority were unmistakable, she always thought she was lacking, and not as good as Ben-Yitzhak. As a feminist, I am indignant that a poet as great as Goldberg, erased herself, not just as a woman, but as an artist.'"

"'At times of lack of inspiration in writing, she turned to painting. She often made sketches of the literary protagonists who furnished her life, as she visualized them in her imagination', remembers her friend, the poet T. Carmi."

"'Leah Goldberg felt herself kin with Dante, Kafka, Beethoven, who also had imaginary loves, which were the muses that ignited their great works', concludes Professor Amiya Leiblich: "First and foremost, she was a poet, willing to let go of life for art's sake. The woman who experienced a miserable love life, succeeded in producing gentle love poems, and remains Israel's High Priestess of Love, who couples quote in moments of the most intense emotional harmony.""

"Jerusalem, adorned with the memories of the past, appealed to her more than the 'white cardboard boxes', which she associated with Tel Aviv."

"She was a fascinating university lecturer, who loved to stand on the pedestal, her eternal cigarette in her hand, and read poetry in her deep, rough, unpleasant voice, that nevertheless drew crowds into over-stuffed auditoriums."

"Although she became the Head of Comparative Literature Studies, she remained alien in the academic establishment. 'Being both an artist and a woman, the male colleagues belittled her academic achievements, and she had a hard struggle to be nominated as a professor', recalls Esther Tishbi, a friend."

"Leah Goldberg expanded the spectrum of lyricism, her poems speaking of a search for love, contact and attention, and she inspired hordes of young poets, mostly women. But she became an easy target for the new rebellious generation of poets and critics, who feared to attack the male figureheads like Shlonsky and Alterman. She complained to Tuvia Ribner, 'What do they want from me, I was never at the centre of the stage. Why do they pick on me?'"

"My days are engraved in my poems like years in the rings of a tree like the years of my life in the furrows of my brow"

"death. Its weight is not great. How lightly and with what casual grace we carry it with us everywhere we go."

"A young poet suddenly falls silent for fear of telling the truth. An old poet falls silent for fear the best in a poem is its lie."

"The years have made up my face with memories of loves and have adorned my hair with light silver threads making me most beautiful. In my eyes are reflected the landscapes. And paths I have trod have straightened my stride – tired and lovely steps. If you should see me now you would not recognize your yesterdays – I am walking toward myself with a face you searched for in vain when I was walking toward you."

"How the passing of Time tries me, its double reckoning my duty and my right: Every day it constructs and ruins me completing thus my life and my death."

"The world is heavy on our eyelids"

"preeminent, versatile, and prolific writer of modern Hebrew letters"

"Israel will continue to do everything to prevent Iran from attaining a nuclear capability."

"Great things have happened this past year. We (Government of Israel) need to continue the development that started with the Abraham Accords, to work to strengthen the peace with the Gulf States, with Egypt and with Jordan. We will work to sign agreements with more countries in the region and beyond. It's a process; it won't happen in a day. But the Foreign Ministry will coordinate those efforts."

""Friendship and trust" were the foundation of the (current Israeli) government and only "friendship and trust" will keep it in power."

"If international media is objective it serves Hamas. If it just shows both sides it serves Hamas. My argument is that the media can't just claim to bring both sides of the story. If you do that you are only bringing one. Hamas' side that's cowardly and that's it's lazy, it's an insult insult to the victims, including the Palestinian victims. It's also an insult to the core idea of what journalism is. Believe me I know, I was a journalist for 31 years. I have no problem with criticism of Israel, but when you know that one side lies and one side makes every effort to verify the facts, the least we can expect is that you don't give a Never Ending platform to their lies."

"The Israeli public deserves a functioning and responsible government which places the good of the country at the top of its agenda. That's what this unity government has been formed to do."

"We (Israel) might not be expecting a final status agreement soon, but there is a lot we can do to improve the lives of the Palestinians and the dialogue with them on civil issues."

"It is incomprehensible how one can hold an Israeli flag in one's hand and shout 'death to Arabs' at the same time. This is not Judaism and not Israeli, and it certainly is not what our flag symbolizes. These people shame the people of Israel."

"I was shocked to read about the barbaric practice of stoning women to death. I was surprised by its widespread use and by the huge number of women who were stoned to death since the Islamist revolution in Iran and recently in some other countries. But what surprised and shocked me almost to the same extent was the indifference shown by civilized nations and by the liberal democratic western states to this crime against humanity. Regimes that practice this crime of utmost savagery as part of their judicial system should be treated as criminal regimes and should be excluded from the United Nations."

"Theatre is almost the last place in the world of culture where living people meet living people."

"The reality of life is becoming more and more complicated to understand and more difficult to cope with. So there is a tendency to regress to the infantile stage in which you look for someone to take responsibility for you. Infantilism is manifested in all sorts of ways, such as the tendency to wrap oneself in a diaper to me, putting on a tallit [prayer shawl] is to wrap oneself in a diaper. For example, stickers that declare, ‘We have no one to rely on but our father in heaven’ and the like. Those slogans have become a national mantra signaling a danger of extinction. The moment a whole nation absolves itself of responsibility to look after itself and believes that there is a higher force that will do it, it can be taken over by all kinds of deviants and crazies."

"If you start looking like vour passport photo, it's high time you went abroad."

"- Driver: "How many kids do you have ?" - Sallah: "Six." - Driver: "It says here that you have seven." - Sallah: "Seven ?" [counting] "OK, seven kids." (from Sallah Shabati)"