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Up against a wall

The Jerusalem Post, December 26, 2008

Slapped over the graffiti and posters that decorate an abandoned building on otherwise glossy Dizengoff is an advertisement – in plain typeface on plain white paper – for “Desert Life,” the first exhibition of a new artists’ collective. The homegrown advertisement mirrors both the space and the spirit of the exhibition, it is do-it-yourself. Just steps away from Rothschild Boulevard’s art scene, which has been abuzz with international attention, this group of artists is attempting to carve out their own space both literally and figuratively.

Entering the exhibition on Herzl Street is a bit of a surprise – one doesn’t expect to encounter dirt floors, plants dripping from overhead balconies, and the sounds of people going about their daily lives in an art gallery. Chick Corea drifts down into the gallery, resonating between the walls. This clearly isn’t an ordinary space, but that’s the point.

Hidden from view, in the ground floor courtyard of a building noted for having Tel Aviv’s first elevator, a few people are milling about – passersby drawn in by the banner that is draped over the façade of this quintessentially Tel Aviv building. Everything about this exhibition speaks to the fact that it stands apart from the bubble of the mainstream art world.

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Bittersweet surrender

The Jerusalem Post, December 12, 2008

I landed in the Philippines as I land everywhere – with no plans. Though I didn’t know where I was going, I knew exactly what I was looking for: a mind-blowing beach, minus the mind-numbing tourist scene. I wanted meditatively quiet sands, a place to let a few days slip away. I wanted to be somewhere that I could slip out of my skin.

Manila was anything but quiet, and the minute I got a look at the city – from the backseat of a cab – I wanted out. I checked into a pension, dropped my bags and headed straight to the closest Cebu Pacific airline office, located in a nearby mall.

It’s a cliché of travel writing to talk about contrasts, but in Manila the class differences are too glaringly obvious to ignore. As I walked to the mall, I passed a family of eight living on a street corner. The mother, a baby hoisted on her hip, stood outside their makeshift shelter of cardboard. One of her children, a little boy who looked to be about four, ran barefoot and naked in and out of the street, merrily bouncing on and off the sidewalk. Air-conditioned cabs, their windows rolled up tight, spirited their shopping-bag-laden passengers by, whisking them past the family.

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Where there’s smoke: review of A.B. Yehoshua’s novel Friendly Fire

The Jerusalem Post, December 12, 2008

While perusing the bowing bookshelves of a dinner party host recently, I noticed a large A.B. Yehoshua collection. “Looks like someone’s a Yehoshua fan,” I remarked.

The hostess laughed, “Not exactly.” She explained the books once belonged to her mother. No, her mother hadn’t died – “Savta,” as everyone called her, was alive and well and sitting across from me at the dinner table.

“It came to a point that I was through with Yehoshua,” Savta said. “Enough was enough!”

A literature lover and a poet herself, she adored the writing but despised the ideology. She found herself torn, unable to throw the books away, and she bequeathed them to her daughter instead.

Love him or hate him – or both, like Savta – Yehoshua provokes strong reactions in his readers.

Sometimes.

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Bare-faced humor: review of Alan Zweibel’s non-fiction collection Clothing Optional

The Jerusalem Post, October 31, 2008

Clothing Optional and Other Ways to Read These Stories is the latest effort by award-winning comedy writer Alan Zweibel. This imaginative collection includes a wide range of forms – from a mock court deposition, to essays, to scripts, with an occasional pencil drawing thrown in for added humor.

The subject matter of the often irreverent pieces varies tremendously. Nothing is off limits for Zweibel and (reader, be warned) nothing is sacred. The opening act, “My First Love,” includes material that Zweibel refers to as “a heartwarming story titled ‘The Day I Got Caught Playing with Myself in Hebrew School… While Thinking About Abraham’s Wife, Sarah.'” Bouncing off of passages from Genesis, Zweibel takes us on a hilarious ride through the imagination of the 11-year-old “Avraham” Zweibel.

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Fugee Fridays

The Jerusalem Post, October 24, 2008

It’s almost Shabbat and Tel Aviv’s Carmel Market is slowly closing up. Stalls are clapped shut, the walkways are sprayed with water, and the last of the customers are clearing out, passing by mounds of unsold lettuce that have been dumped on the ground.

Behind the shuk, a motley crew of volunteers – some Israeli, but most American – is assembling on the sidewalk adjacent to the Carmelit bus terminal. A guy in a bright blue tank top and navy sweatpants pulls up on a bicycle. He has close-cropped dark hair and an easy smile. He looks relaxed, but the work he’s doing here is serious.

His name is Jesse Fox. He chats with some of the volunteers for a few minutes and then debriefs the group. Speaking of the vendors inside the shuk, he says, “These guys know us already. Just tell them we’re collecting food for the refugees from Darfur. They’ll give you a little food. It’s very simple.”

He’s right. It is simple. And the beauty of the project lies in its grassroots simplicity.

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From sunny Tel Aviv to cloudy Michigan: review of Danit Brown’s collection of short stories Ask for a Convertible

The Jerusalem Post, October 24, 2008

Danit Brown’s debut, Ask for a Convertible, is a collection of beautifully woven short stories, most of which revolve around Osnat Greenberg, who is both American and Israeli and comfortable with neither. Upon leaving sunny Tel Aviv for the cloudy suburbs of Michigan at the beginning of her teen years, Osnat embarks on a long and, under Brown’s artistry, exquisitely rendered struggle to find a place she feels she belongs in and can call home. Bookended by the appropriately titled “Descent” and “Ascent,” we follow Osnat as she freefalls through identity issues and as she searches for somewhere she can feel her feet firmly planted on the ground.

The journey we are on as readers is through stories full of vivid, quirky characters many of whom, like Osnat, are forced to continually define themselves and their place in the world. The characters are at turns compelling, darkly humorous and downright funny.

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Silicon Wadi: interview with Israeli author Noga Niv

The Jerusalem Post, September 5, 2008

For Hebrew readers who would like a glimpse at what life is like for Israelis in America, Noga Niv’s debut novel, Story from the Bubble, will make for a round look into their experiences. This character-driven story focuses on five Israeli women who have gathered for a weekend in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains to say farewell to one of their group, Gabi, who is moving back to Israel with her husband. While Gabi is eager to return home, her husband is still coming to terms with the upcoming change.

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Past into the present: review of Joseph Olshan’s novel The Conversion

The Jerusalem Post, August 29, 2008

Acclaimed author Joseph Olshan asserts his literary prowess once again with his latest novel, The Conversion. Hypnotic prose, several layers of intrigue, and a heady Old World setting harmonize to create a melodious, and immensely enjoyable, story. But The Conversion is more than a pleasurable read – Olshan addresses compelling themes such as religious identity, homosexuality and Europe’s current struggle to deal with an influx of immigrants from Muslim countries, deftly handling these potentially incendiary topics with thought and sensitivity.

This fast-paced read opens with a short and attention-grabbing first chapter. Russell Todaro, a struggling young writer, and his companion, Edward Cannon, an accomplished older poet, are surprised by intruders in their Paris hotel room. Edward subsequently dies and Russell is left to puzzle over both the mysterious intruders that led to his death and the unfinished autobiography he left behind.

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Honor thy mother: review of Alyse Myers’s memoir Who Do You Think You Are?

The Jerusalem Post, August 1, 2008

Formerly fodder for the psychoanalyst’s couch, memoirs recounting the abuses one has suffered at the hands of one’s mother seem to have come into vogue. Alyse Myers’s Who Do You Think You Are? is one of the latest releases in this genre.

The memoir opens with the bold statement “I didn’t like my mother, and I certainly didn’t love her,” immediately giving the reader a sense of the troubled mother-daughter relationship that will follow. The book also begins with a mystery: Myers’s mother has died and she and her two sisters are going through her belongings at her apartment in Queens. Myers spirits away a box belonging to her mother – contents unknown – and returns to her Manhattan apartment and tells her husband she didn’t find anything. “I don’t know why I lied to him,” she recalls. After tucking the still unopened box deep into her closet, Myers says, “I can’t explain why I didn’t open the box that day. And I can’t explain why I didn’t open it until 12 years later. I don’t know what I was afraid of…”

Although the author’s lack of self-awareness and insight are a bit frustrating, the prologue does capture the reader’s attention and piques curiosity about what’s inside both the box and the story surrounding it.

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