Jews From Israel

""...Just because a person realizes how lucky he was doesn't mean that he's prepared to stop being lucky." (p 265)"

"The simple thirst for vengeance that drives so many crime thrillers becomes, in Hareven’s hands, the subject of a moral investigation that yields no clear answers. This is what gives Lies, First Person its haunting power and reveals Hareven as a novelist that American readers should embrace."

"Being a mother — especially of twins — taught me how to work efficiently. Family life saves one from the dangers of solipsism, which I think many writers encounter. One has to learn how to live with two parallel worlds, and, in a way, use the actual life as a good and safe base from which one can send expeditions to that parallel world. I think that dealing only with words all the time doesn’t do one any good. It’s good to remember that there are other human beings around you."

"Hareven, one of Israel's finest writers, has a keen insight into how a toxic relationship can consume a woman."

"Love had mobilized my entire being, love ruled me like a tyrant, and love would allow for no other master. (p67)"

"you can't put a lid on the past so easily (p355)"

"Love can be described as compulsive thinking. The thought buzzes and buzzes like an insect stuck to a wet picture...Compulsive thinking latches on to details and dwells on them as if they hold enormous significance which cannot be grasped in a moment. It keeps returning to them again and again as if there is still something left to understand. The more I think about the meaning of these gestures the sicker I get of my thoughts and of myself for thinking them. (p34-5)"

"Personally, I think it’s very important for a writer to know what kinds of things are beyond his or her knowledge. Even though I spent a lot of time with people who came from Russia, and visited Russia eight times before writing “Confessions,” I knew it wasn’t possible for me to write what’s going on in Alek’s mind."

"Anyone who grew up like I did will always see the room from the point of view of the maid who comes to clean it. (p198)"

"For me there’s no dichotomy between thought on one hand, and feelings or passion on the other. They aren’t different spheres. In a way, I believe that our passions appear to us in the form of thoughts. And that thought can be extremely passionate. Every person, when he experiences some kind of feeling, also relates to that feeling — judges it, evaluates it. I think that what makes people different is not so much what they feel as the different ways they respond to their feelings."

""Only someone with an individual voice of his own can describe what is impossible to describe" (p51)"

"you can never know what will calm the troubled soul: a poem, a philosophical saying, or a silly slogan on the roof of the Jewish Agency. (p272)"

"what does it help me to know that the heart is a muscle, just a blood-pumping muscle, if my heart still goes out to him, and the bloody muscle still yearns and swells? (p38)"

"Sometimes you have to stick your finger down your throat and vomit up the disgusting insides of the self... sometimes you have to increase the nausea in order to get rid of the disgust... (p12)"

"And Moses said to Aaron, “What did this people do to you that you have brought so great a sin upon them?”"

"וְאַחַ֗ר בָּ֚אוּ מֹשֶׁ֣ה וְאַהֲרֹ֔ן וַיֹּאמְר֖וּ אֶל־פַּרְעֹ֑ה כֹּֽה־אָמַ֤ר יְהֹוָה֙ אֱלֹהֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל שַׁלַּח֙ אֶת־עַמִּ֔י וְיָחֹ֥גּוּ לִ֖י בַּמִּדְבָּֽר׃"

"Exodus 32,21-24 (NKJV)."

"He conquered the wrath not by strength of body,"

"Wisdom 18,22-24 (NRSVA)."

"The experience of death touched also the righteous,"

"Sirach 45,15 (NRSVA)."

"Sirach 45,16-17 (NRSVA)."

"He chose him out of all the living"

"Moses ordained him,"

"Exodus 32,1-3 (NRSVA)."

"When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron and said to him, ‘Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ Aaron said to them, ‘Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.’ So all the people took off the gold rings from their ears, and brought them to Aaron."

"He exalted Aaron, a holy man like Moses[a]"

"Then Moses said to the Lord, “O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before nor since You have spoken to Your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.”"

"Wiosdom 18,20-21 (NRSVA)."

"Exodus 4,10-15 (NKJV)."

"Sirach 45,6-8 (NRSVA)."

"If we truly believe that the Holocaust taught us a lesson about the need — or really, the duty — to preserve our own humanity and dignity by protecting those of others, this is the time to stand up and raise our voices, before Israel’s leadership plunges it and its neighbors into the abyss. There is still time to stop Israel from letting its actions become a genocide. We cannot wait a moment longer."

"While we cannot say that the military is explicitly targeting Palestinian civilians, functionally and rhetorically we may be watching an ethnic cleansing operation that could quickly devolve into genocide, as has happened more than once in the past."

"...If there is, to my mind, blame, the blame is in the 1930s and the blame is when millions of people were trying to escape regimes that were saying that they would like to be rid of them. And countries like the Unites States said, well, we have no room, but the United States then had half the population that it has today, so obviously it did have some room. And Hitler at the time was saying, well, nobody wants them so we’ll take care of it. That, I think, is the point. And if you want to learn anything, any sort of lesson from all that, to me there is one important lesson, that when you can identify people who are in need, who are in danger and you just shut your eyes, close your ears and say I don’t want to know about them, then you are signing a death warrant."

"Israeli military operations have created an untenable humanitarian crisis, which will only worsen over time. But are Israel’s actions — as the nation’s opponents argue — verging on ethnic cleansing or, most explosively, genocide? As a historian of genocide, I believe that there is no proof that genocide is currently taking place in Gaza, although it is very likely that war crimes, and even crimes against humanity, are happening. That means two important things: First, we need to define what it is that we are seeing, and second, we have the chance to stop the situation before it gets worse. We know from history that it is crucial to warn of the potential for genocide before it occurs, rather than belatedly condemn it after it has taken place. I think we still have that time."

"It is clear that the daily violence being unleashed on Gaza is both unbearable and untenable. Since the Oct. 7 massacre by Hamas — itself a war crime and a crime against humanity — Israel’s military air and ground assault on Gaza has killed more than 10,500 Palestinians, according to the , a number that includes thousands of children. That’s well over five times as many people as the more than 1,400 people in Israel murdered by Hamas. In justifying the assault, Israeli leaders and generals have made terrifying pronouncements that indicate a genocidal intent. Still, the collective horror of what we are watching does not mean that a genocide, according to the international legal definition of the term, is already underway. Because genocide, sometimes called “the crime of all crimes,” is perceived by many to be the most extreme of all crimes, there is often an impulse to describe any instance of mass murder and massacre as genocide. But this urge to label all atrocious events as genocide tends to obfuscate reality rather than explain it."

"My greatest concern watching the Israel-Gaza war unfold is that there is genocidal intent, which can easily tip into genocidal action."

"Is it possible that what was lost — or indefinitely suspended — on October 7 was the minuscule chance for real dialogue, for each nation’s true acceptance of the other’s existence? And what do those who brandished the absurd notion of a "binational state" say now? Israel and Palestine, two nations distorted and corrupted by endless war, cannot even be cousins to each other — does anyone still believe they can be conjoined twins? Many warless years will have to pass before acceptance and healing can even be considered. In the meantime, we can only imagine the magnitude of fear and hatred that will now rise to the surface. I hope, I pray, that there will be Palestinians on the West Bank who, despite their hatred of Israel — their occupier — will set themselves apart, whether through action or words, from what their compatriots have done. As an Israeli, I have no right to preach to them or tell them what to do. But as a human being, I have a right — and an obligation — to demand of them humane and moral conduct. Are we capable of shaking off the well-worn formulas and understanding that what has occurred here is too immense and too terrible to be viewed through stale paradigms? Even Israel’s conduct and its crimes in the occupied territories for 56 years cannot justify or soften what has been laid bare: the depth of hatred towards Israel, the painful understanding that we Israelis will always have to live here in heightened alertness and constant preparedness for war."

"[Israel] will topple Hamas rule in Gaza. We will eliminate its military capability. We will make sure this threat doesn't exist on our border. It will take time, and it will be lethal, powerful and forever."

"I have released all the restraints, we have (regained) control of the area, and we are moving to a full offense. You will have the ability to change the reality here. You have seen the prices (being paid), and you will get to see the change. Hamas wanted a change in Gaza; it will change 180 degrees from what it thought. They will regret this moment, Gaza will never go back to what it was. Whoever comes to decapitate, murder women, Holocaust survivors, we will eliminate him with all our might, and without compromise."

"I make it now clear: At the end of the war, Hamas will not control Gaza, there will be no civilian Israeli control in the Gaza Strip, and Tzahal will retain full military freedom of action."

""The first rule of war is know your enemy, and Europe and the current American government are unwilling to define this war as against Islamist terrorism. If in Belgium they continue eating chocolate and enjoying life, and continue to appear as great democrats and liberals, they won't be aware that some Muslims in their country are organising terror, they won't be able to fight them." Israeli minister: Belgians who continue to eat chocolate, enjoy life can't fight terror"

"I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly."

"(Do you consider yourself a religious person?) No, not at all. I see the Bible as a source of inspiration, for me it’s literature. (2014)"

"Living in Jerusalem and writing in Jerusalem is always a struggle, because the tension is huge, sometimes is even tragic. On one hand, is really disturbing, but, on the other hand, is a huge inspiration. (2014)"

"Shalev is an ‘extraordinary writer,’ the French crime novelist Leila Slimani has said, one whose ‘style is poetic, luminous, demanding’ and who writes ‘with incredible delicacy and power about family, love and fear.’"

"The job of literature is to change the reader’s soul. I don’t want my readers just to enjoy themselves. I want them to go through some sort of experience that might change themselves. (2014)"

"Normally the characters I create are busy in some sort of crisis and, as a literary therapist, it is my job to help them overcome it. (2014)"

"You can feel the extremeness of Israeli society and life in my books without it being explicit. I only look for the individual experienced and give a taste of the complexity of life in Israel. (2014)"

"Creating new from old is to a large extent the story of our lives. We are born anew into an "old" narrative, as humans and as writers. (2019)"