| Book | The Hilltop |
| By | |
| ISBN | 1476760438 |
| ISBN-13 | 9781476760438 |
| Publication | 28 June 2025 |
| Number of Pages | 464 |
| Format Type | Hardcover |
| Awards | Bernstein Prize (2013) |
Furnace brook winery at hilltop orchards
Habibi Assaf Gavron I was really expecting this book to give a measured view of the settlement situation in Israel But instead it was an unabashed homage to the settlers showing their joy in hard work and worship of God The Palestinians barely are present in the novel except as rock throwers or neighbors with an olive orchard The real bad guys are the government intent on shutting the settlement down It was so one sided I began to cringe when I got towards the end A disappointment in that it didn t explore the real complexities and chose to just show one side Is that what the give the Bernstein prize for Assaf Gavron Poi non arrivano gli indianiLa migliore presentazione di questo libro certamente quella di Roberto Saviano.
PDF The hilltop
This book offers what I think is a relatively rare opportunity for a reader to empathise with characters whose political religious views they may disagree with without necessarily liking them or being converted to their way of thinking The satire humour and overall neutral almost nihilistic narrative with a focus on descriptions of complex multifaceted characters rather than on judgmental analysis seems to have offended some readers on both sides of the debate on Israeli politics but perhaps in this case the varying criticism from all directions is actually evidence of just how successful the book is in achieving some of its aims The book focuses on ordinary people trying to live ordinary lives in a not so ordinary highly politicised setting which proves to be the perfect ground for humourous farcical scenes that in many cases challenge certain stereotypes and in other cases seem to enforce them in a not so politically correct way Despite the author s political opposition to unauthorized settlements in the West Bank which is stated in numerous interviews and essays he traveled weekly for 2 years to one such remote settlement mentioned in an interview with TinHouse magazine which eventually became the model for the fictional Ma aleh Hermesh C the unauthorized settlement that is the main focus point of the book Considering this along with the fact that the book isn t just a shallow farce the author s aim to inspire an empathy that transcends political religious boundaries actually seems genuine The book was an ambitious undertaking in an interview with the Los Angeles Review of Books the author says The Hilltop represents the current state of Israeli ness and Zionism but I wanted to show a larger picture and to reach out in time and in geography to the occupied territories to Tel Aviv to America and show those different types of Israeli ness Still the settlement what is going on there I think is at the forefront of the current state of Israeli ness They re a minority especially the kinds of settlers in the hilltops Still the ethics the way they behave the way they come into contact with the different other reference points like the army and the local Palestinians is very much the state of current Israel So I widened the scope to show that The narrative goes back and forth in time to draw parallels and contrasts between the secular kibbutz movement of the past and the current religious settler movements an allegory for Israel s socio political shift from left to right which are illustrated through the stories of the orphaned brothers Gabi and Roni the two main characters of the book From the range of personalities that the movements attract to the the range of personality types and complexes that they create I got the impression that both movements serve as two different remedies to the same ailments of the human condition Whether or not the movements are successful at providing what the different characters in the book seek is debatable to some extent at least we have to assume that people choose to stay because the pros of staying outweigh the cons I have to say though despite the fact that some of the characters are presented as having presumably found their life s calling and therefore have presumably achieved some fulfillment and joy in their everyday lives both movements are presented as having almost cult like tendencies that tarnish the idealistic image that they would like to create of themselves for example their preference for dealing with issues internally without getting state authorities involved including serious cases of abuse mental illness etc and their adherence to an internal social hierarchy e. The hilltop medical practice g when a dog bites one of the new settlers children they decide not to even mention the incident to Othniel one of the founders of the settlement and the person responsible for the dog There is a dark side to their everydayness ordinariness which I suppose makes them all the human and believable as characters Along with the religious and political tensions the author also uses the settlement to explore a wide range of other dynamics within the society such as generational differences explored through the teenage siblings Yakir the Second Life addict and Gatit the object of desire for secular and religious men alike who come of age in two contrasting ways Yakir questioning and moving away from their father s beliefs and Gatit hypocritically exaggerating them to the point of caricature gender marital familial conflicts e. Pdf of camp hilltop skill book g the conflict between the secular couple Anna and Gabi before he became reborn Gavriel contrasted with rift between the religious couple Shaulit and Nir and racial tensions which culminate in the verbal attack launched by Josh the American Israeli settler with supposed Marrano anusim ancestry on Yoni the Ethiopian Israeli soldier Whether it was intended to be seen that way or not I saw the chapter The Stray about Beilin one of Othniel s dogs as a sort of indication of the author s intention of creating a modern continuation set in 2009 2010 to S Y Agnon s Only Yesterday a sort of informal history of Jewish settlement in Palestine between 1904 1914 There are quite a few parallels that can be drawn between Gavron s Beilin and Agnon s Balak both dogs cross the boundaries between the secular and religious the modern and traditional Arab villages and Jewish settlements all in search of a home an identity and perhaps that ever elusive sense of belonging While it s Balak s mental state that is warped and distorted by these crossings it s Beilin s physical appearance that reflects the abnormality and torment that identifies him as the talush uprooted rootless character a significant personality archetype in Hebrew literature at the turn of the twentieth century and as an allegory for the mental states of both Roni and Gabi In a way the two brothers are two different sides of the same contemporary talush coin According to Gavron They each show different kinds of Israeli ness and both are very Israeli in very opposing ways Roni is the macho Israeli the go getter With Gabi it s the laid back shy sensitive type of Israeli but there is always a hint of violence in there quote from the interview with the Los Angeles Review of Books Typical of the talush character both brothers feel disconnected from the tradition that they find themselves in at the Kibbutz so they both decide to leave in search of self fulfillment in the modern materialistic decadent cosmopolitan world in Tel Aviv and America in which they are unable to succeed in the long term and perhaps as a result of their maladjustment and failures eventually find themselves even further alienated from anything meaningful and inevitably attempt to make a return to something with at least a semblance of familiarity no matter how miserable it might occasionally make them the illegal settlement was able to provide this for them The brothers are different permutations of the talush archetype and although one s ennui manifests itself in a secular boisterous and obnoxious decadence and the other s in a religious self conscious repressed rage both lack balance and suffer from a sense of detachment emptiness and a sort of twisted faulty sense of morality that is typical of the archetype Despite the fact that the brothers share the root of their emptiness and their desire to fill the void which they both seem to recognize and understand in each other the conflict emerges when they choose differing solutions and so no matter how tolerant and sympathetic they may be towards one another they never manage to truly see eye to eye The author doesn t choose sides in this allegory for the the make up of Israeli society neither side is spared his mockery or his empathy for that matter So what does the future hold for Roni and Gabi Depending on how you look at it the book ends on a relatively optimistic note for the two brothers Is Beilin s ability to thrive at the settlement as opposed to Balak s inability to survive the madness of life an indication that no matter how absurd uncertain and unstable life goes on at the settlement thanks to the farcical bureaucratic confusion which allows it to survive despite its illegality people get on with life and even manage to make the most of it come what may There s no end to the settlement in sight and the author doesn t offer any solutions predictions or wishes and leaves it up to the reader to make their own conclusions Assaf Gavron 2013 430 2 2 2 Assaf Gavron Assaf Gavron My review appears in New York Journal of Books Read that review first Additional remarks that appeared in a different and now defunct publication begin with the next paragraph. Kindle The hilltop auto Israeli books Assaf Gavron s The Hilltop is set in a West Bank settlementIsraeli fiction writers have set their narratives in rural kibbutzim moshavim in small mainly Sephardic towns in urban settings in Israel s three largest cities as well as overseas and now novelist Assaf Gavron has set his fifth novel and seventh book The Hilltop published last week by New York publisher Scribner in perhaps the most controversial setting of all an unauthorized West Bank settlement In my New York Journal of Books review I recommend The Hilltop to all readers who enjoy a good story grounded in current events British author William Sutcliffe also set his Young Adult novel The Wall in what appears to be a West Bank settlement but his settlers are represented by a single abusive two dimensional character By contrast Gavron s settlers in The Hilltop are complicated and believable characters. The Hilltop Modern Contemporary fiction tv Roughly one in twenty Jewish Israelis lives in a West Bank settlement Four fifths of these settlers live in settlements close enough to Israel s 1949 armistice line that they could be incorporated into Israel as part of land swaps in a comprehensive peace agreement. EPub The hilltop inn Gavron s settlers in the fictional settlement Ma aleh Hermesh C are among the fifth of settlers who would have to be evacuated in the event of such a peace agreement and since it is an unauthorized settlement an order for its evacuation has already been issued Whether that evacuation order will ever be executed is a central plot element in The Hilltop. Order paf camp hilltop skills book My recommendation to all readers in my NYJB review may be too broad Perhaps the ideal reader is one who can care about the novel s characters even though they show no empathy toward their Palestinian neighbors while at the same time disapprove of their settlement enterprise and its objectives one of which is to prevent a comprehensive peace agreement to end the Israel Palestine conflict through the partition of the country into two states Israel and Palestine. Hilltop publishing S Secretary of State John Kerry said A two state solution will be clearly underscored as the only real alternative Because a unitary state winds up either being an apartheid state with second class citizens or it ends up being a state that destroys the capacity of Israel to be a Jewish state There are indeed Israelis who share Secretary Kerry s apprehensions but they include some of Israel s newly affluent shoppers who consume organic produce and dairy products produced in settlements similar to Gavron s fictional Ma aleh Hermesh C For a fuller discussion of The Hilltop see my NYJB review Assaf Gavron I have to say I really enjoyed this book You can say all you want about it but Assaf can write And to so humorously depict Israeli society in the form of a settlement is unique The Hilltop is a thick book and at times I thought it could have been cut down but because there are so many characters and entwined stories I still found it interesting to keep reading There are no Palestinians in this story or let s say they re hardly mentioned I can see why Intentionally the writer wishes to focus on the Israeli and their peculiarities like anyone else and has thus steered away from that discussion Good or bad You decide Assaf Gavron 
Assaf Gavron grew up in Jerusalem studied in London and Vancouver and now lives in Tel Aviv He is the author of four prize winning novels Ice Moving Almost Dead and Hydromania and a short story collection Gavron is highly regarded for his translations into Hebrew of the work of novelists including Philip Roth J. Modern Contemporary Fiction The hilltop national Hailed as The Great Israeli Novel Time Out Tel Aviv and winner of the prestigious Bernstein Prize The Hilltop is a monumental and daring work about life in a West Bank settlement from one of Israel s most acclaimed young novelists On a rocky beautiful hilltop stands Ma aleh Hermesh C a fledgling community flying under the radar According to the government it doesn t exist according to the military it must be defended On this contested land Othniel Assis under the wary gaze of the neighboring Palestinian village plants asparagus arugula and cherry tomatoes and he installs goats and his ever expanding family As Othniel cheerfully manipulates government agencies settlers arrive and amid a hodge podge of shipping containers and mobile homes the outpost takes root One of the settlement s steadfast residents is Gabi Kupper a one time free spirit and kibbutz dweller who undergoes a religious awakening The delicate routines of Gabi s new life are thrown into turmoil with the sudden arrival of Roni his prodigal brother who years after venturing to America in search of fortune arrives at Gabi s door penniless To the settlement s dismay Roni soon hatches a plan to sell the artisanal olive oil from the Palestinian village to Tel Aviv yuppies When a curious Washington Post correspondent stumbles into their midst Ma aleh Hermesh C becomes the focus of an international diplomatic scandal and faces its greatest test yet By turns serious and satirical The Hilltop brilliantly skewers the complex often absurd reality of life in Israel the West Bank settlers and the nation s relationship to the United States and makes a startling parallel between today s settlements and the kibbutz movement of Gabi and Roni s youth Rich with humor and insight Assaf Gavron s novel is the first fiction to grapple with one of the most charged geo political issues of our time and he has written a masterpiece The HilltopEnjoyable and potentially controversial it s about a West Bank settlement right though it will no doubt enrage a section of readers as it s very nihilistic and doesn t take any particular stand on them thar hilltops This is in fact a rather child like ironic non violent world which reminded me a bit of a children s play set all the way down to the map at the front Nobody s getting executed for collaboration Nobody is getting lynched Nobody s bulldozing anyone s olive groves yet Oh there s a stone through a car windscreen but that s about it If it was making any particular political point it might be Look plenty of people have just turned up there Plenty of them are dippy religious types It s very pretty Yes and it s ridiculous I know And life goes on That even if the enterprise is rotten there be humans Interestingly they decided to name the book in German In a Foreign Land Germany is one of the few places in Europe they haven t embraced hip antisemitism with the quite same zeal for obvious reasons where you can talk about Israel in polite company but it s interesting that even there the publisher chose to emphasise that this is over the Green Line and In No Way Spells Endorsement Along the way we get some pretty good satire the settlement movement s machinations variously supported of course by the state along the way the Israel in the US experience funnily enough the first stop for Israelis I know who went there in the 80s 90s was to work for removals companies the wheeler dealing world of the entrepreneur and the banker Stylistically and tonally it feels very contemporary Israeli too echoes of Etgar Keret and co Everyone s overworked stressed and horny Big hearts big egos PS Yona and Yona is funny translator because yona dove is also a playground euphemism for fart That really should have been given an asterisk che suona pi o meno cos Se avete a cuore la causa degli insediamenti israeliani in Cisgiordania leggete questo libro se parteggiate per i Palestinesi leggete questo libro se non vi importa nulla di coloni e Palestinesi leggete questo libro Assaf Gavron un uomo giovane che ci racconta l Israele dei nostri giorni con spirito e talento attraverso le vicende di un insediamento in Cisgiordania chi sono i coloni qual il percorso di vita che li ha condotti ai margini del deserto a vivere in prefabbricati a costante rischio di smantellamento perch la storia degli insediamenti una spina nel fianco del governo di Tel Aviv sostenuti dalle destre religiose e tutto sommato esistenti per l acquiescenza dell esercito creano un sacco di difficolt politiche col ministero degli Interni e il ministero degli Esteri Il tono della scrittura partecipe con le difficolt delle persone farsesco quando segue i giri di telefonate fra lo sceriffo della colonia il generale delle forze armate di stanza nella zona il ministro israeliano l ambasciatore degli Stati Uniti tutti a combattere verbalmente sulla sorte di 15 camper di lamiera E eccellente la qualit di caratterizzazione dei personaggi con percorsi psicologici talmente convincenti da sembrare ritratti dal vivo in particolare il fratello pi giovane dal carattere impulsivo e imprevedibile debole e pericoloso Questo ragazzo cerca la pace nell applicazione pi attenta delle regole religiose ma non sembra avere interiorizzato la parola del suo Signore E stata una lettura estremamente piacevole interessante e avvincente che esprime bene la difficolt di essere Israeliani e ancora di pi di governare questo piccolo paese La scena che riamane impressa quella della maestra dell insediamento che porta fuori i bambini per una passeggiata Scortata da un soldato come presenza simbolica non si aspettano grossi pericoli spingendo i pi piccini poco pi che lattanti in un box con le rotelle lungo un sentiero nel deserto Poi non arrivano gli indiani le si rompono le acque Assaf Gavron E venne il fuoco che bruci il bastone che picchi il caneChe morse il gatto che quattro stelle e mezza Il 4 giugno le forze israeliane si sono scontrate con i manifestanti palestinesi a Beita nella Cisgiordania occupata Gli attivisti stavano protestando contro la costruzione di un insediamento israeliano illegale sulla terra del villaggio palestinese che mette a repentaglio il sostentamento di 17 famiglie pi di cento persone in tutto che coltivano ulivi da generazioni I manifestanti hanno lanciato pietre contro i militari che hanno risposto con pallottole di gomma proiettili e gas lacrimogeno Le foto della preghiera prima degli scontri e dei feriti Un video del lancio dei lacrimogeni con un drone delle forze israeliane Un infografica di Al Jazeera su tutto quello che c da sapere sulle forze militari israeliane Il 2 luglio l insediamento illegale di Evyatar costruito negli ultimi mesi sui terreni del villaggio palestinese di Beita in Cisgiordania stato evacuato come previsto dall accordo raggiunto con il governo Prima di andarsene le cinquanta famiglie che vi si erano installate hanno eretto un enorme stella di David sulla collina proprio di fronte a Beita Un video del canale tv statunitense Msnbc confronta il trattamento riservato ai coloni di Evyatar e agli abitanti palestinesi del quartiere di Silwan a Gerusalemme Est le cui case rischiano di essere demolite perch costruite senza il permesso delle autorit israeliane da Mediorientale la newsletter settimanale di Internazionale Assaf Gavron Our Town Our Settlement To lose yourself in The Hilltop is to find yourself in a land where according to its author Assaf Gavron even the goats and sheep have nationalities But such is misleading for this Gavron s fifth novel is most certainly not about the fraught relations between Israelis and their Palestinian neighbors the goats and the sheep as it were Instead it s a political novel that mirrors the political nature of the Israeli people It s a novel about the heart and soul of the state of Israel be that secular or religious golden calf or camel cow And it s a novel set as it is in a small Jewish hamlet in the heart of the Judean desert that promises to challenge even the fiercest critics of that most paradigmatic of geographically contested sites the settlement. Book The hilltop national Given such a rich constellation of political material to work with it s to Gavron s credit that his fiction remains recognizably realistic His characters and their preoccupations would be readily identifiable even if plucked off of the politically charged hilltop on which they exist At the same time he is clearly not afraid to use narrative strategies that stretch the limits of the real His opening sequence which sketches out the founding of Ma aleh Hermesh C the fictional setting for the novel mimics the creation story in Genesis Though clumsy in translation the scene signals Gavron s intent well enough This is a novel of deceptively simple human stories that will give meaning to larger complex cultural stories some of which may even lead to unexpected conclusions. Kindle The hilltop apartments Both the biblically parodied origins of the hilltop settlement and Gavron s attention to the customs songs and sayings of a traditional Jewish community establish The Hilltop as contemporary folklore To tell a political story though Gavron takes the same quotidian tales and using an appealing combination of allegory and farce centers the narrative on the lives of two brothers Roni Kupper and Gabi Nehushtan are orphaned while still too young to remember their parents Ordinarily such a turn of the plot wouldn t be remarkable authors have long appreciated the malleability of the orphan But Gavron s murder which he accomplishes via an automobile accident an all too common and unfortunate reality of contemporary Israeli life is freighted with transcendent meaning His heinous act represents the violent separation of Israel from nearly two millennia of Jewish diasporic traditions an event not just tied to the state s founding moment but appropriately to the ongoing cultural battles over the proper state of Jewish life in the country. Order paf camp hilltop skills book After the tragedy of their parents deaths the boys are raised by foster parents on a kibbutz in the prosperous center of the country where they enjoy a comfortable existence during the twilight of the country s socialist inspired communitarian era Army service proves a disappointment for the elder Roni and a disaster for the younger Gabi and eventually like so many young Israelis both leave Israel to find fortune and adventure abroad A decade later after making and losing a fortune on Wall Street Roni returns to Israel nearly penniless 40 years old and single he seeks refuge on the West Bank in his brother s shabby hilltop trailer As Gavron s close narrator makes clear Roni has tasted both the sweet and the bitter fruits of a secular life and his worldview has been shaped accordingly His is a world without redemption where all men are addicted to sex and violence It is a corporeal world he embraces the bodily pleasures of Athens. The hilltops phoenix Gabi by the time Roni arrives in his home has mostly extirpated the ghosts of his own past and embraced the pious comforts of a humble religious life led largely in solitude He is inward looking and interprets events out of his control as the meaningful manifestations of a divine plan Everything lies with God If He brought you here then here you should be he says to his brother Gabi a reborn convert to the teachings of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov lives in a world bound tightly by the black leather straps of the tefillin laid against his arm and forehead and shielded by the tallit draped across his shoulders Despite his brother s frequent accusations of false consciousness his spiritual embrace of Jerusalem undertaken without hesitation has yielded both redemption and solace. EBook The hilltop apartments Over the course of their year together on the hilltop which makes up the present day portion of the narrative the brothers rarely manage to see eye to eye Roni is happy that his brother has endeared himself to the community but he can never come to terms with the idea that Gabi s own enthusiasms are genuine Gabi on the other hand struggles to delineate the extent of his moral obligation to a brother in the throes of a midlife crisis Despite moments of tolerance and sympathy they never manage to achieve anything approaching true understanding When they ultimately part ways the feeling of mutual skepticism of irreconcilable differences is palpable And it is precisely there in that skepticism shaded by a barrier that separates brotherhood from contempt where the political subtext of Gavron s novel blossoms Roni the symbolic figure of worldly secular Israel Gabi that of the younger faster growing religiously orthodox Israel Together they are the heart and soul of the modern state Despite the overt allegory interpreting that political subtext is not as straightforward as it might seem The fact that Gavron is stridently secular that most of his readers are similarly secular and that the political idea of the settlement invites reflexive disdain all prove counterintuitive to the most literal reading of The Hilltop Gavron has cast Roni as a largely unsympathetic and unwelcome intruder into the circumscribed world of a traditional Jewish community From taking a phone call during Shabbat services to borrowing slowly saved money and failing to pay it back Roni is inconsiderate vulgar and dismissive of introspection Gabi on the other hand is portrayed with exquisite sensitivity He donates his labor for the betterment of the community He does physical work that stands in stark contrast to the exploitative schemes that his brother concocts with a neighboring Arab olive grower And in the most cathartic scene of the novel Gabi shows himself capable of forgiveness He s not without flaws but he is generally decent and self aware. The hilltop venue Raphael Patai the 20th century Hungarian born Jewish folklorist once wrote that t hough the Jewish religion at the height of its vitality is a sort of general code of conduct having its say in every phase of life in things material as well as social its proper domain is spiritual culture and its influence is felt most of all in mental equipment and outlook The idea captures the essence of why Gabi a character who has used his faith for precisely that reason to bolster his own mental equipment emerges as the shining light of Gavron s novel and why in the end his just desserts prove so appealing It s also why when Roni begins dating a Kindergarten teacher near the novel s end we understand it s secular Israel that needs a spiritual reeducation And so it goes throughout the novel the beneficiary of Gavron s bias is not the Israel of secular Tel Aviv but the Israel of religious Jerusalem Using The Hilltop as a megaphone Gavron brazenly declares that the future of the Jewish state irrespective of the shifting whims of its current political class will be clad in Jerusalem stone not Bauhaus stucco Roni and Gabi though important to the allegorical assemblage of the novel are not the only characters used as vessels to convey larger meaning The hamlet of Ma aleh Hermesh C contains eight homes and a never quite finished cabin all of which collectively provide for the space in which a number of comical scenes and dramatic subplots unfold The settlement s patriarch is Othniel Assis a man whose primary objective in the beginning of the novel is to find a less fettered place to grow the vegetables that his family craves That early semblance of innocence however is quickly undone when he becomes the willing if sometimes unwitting agent of politicians with agendas much larger than his own From a simple farmer thankful that the right hand of the Israeli government has no clue what the left one is doing he is transformed into a manipulative tactician willing to risk the life of his own son to further his ideological convictions a startling regression Othniel is an exception however for Gavron rarely bares the sharp teeth of vicious settler ideology More often he uses the comical hysteria of a resident beautician to lampoon the country s political establishment and skewer its defense forces. Order paf camp hilltop skills book Most of the hilltop s residents are simple people trying to live ordinary lives A young father fitfully attempts to write a dissertation on the hubris of the early kibbutz movement an ironic twist in light of the similarities to the pioneering settler movement One young couple struggles with pregnancy while another couple sees their own marriage dissolve in the face of alcoholism Othniel s beautiful teenage daughter after being caught making out with the settlement s resident soldier is sent off to an all girls religious school where her political attitudes harden Her brother meanwhile is chastened and set on a less orthodox path after he sees the destructive folly in an act of cyber terrorism that he has committed Portrayed from a human perspective rather than from the birds eye view in which they are presented to a global news audience these settlers are as familiar as the residents of Grover s Corners are to Americans of a certain age And as if to prove the point Gavron seems to revel in using them as endearing props across a number of farcical scenes. Modern Contemporary Fiction The hilltop inn S Ambassador accepts an invitation to tour the settlement in conjunction with a visit by the hapless Defense Minister a thinly veiled caricature of Ehud Barak When the Defense Minister s speech is interrupted by the sudden incessant barking of Condi one of two dogs that live on the hilltop a humorously chaotic scene balagan ensues Though Condi the dog is thoroughly Palestinian it s not any objection to the speech that sends him into a stir but rather the joy of reuniting with a visiting Israeli soldier who had previously rescued him from streets of Hebron Putting aside the fact that the Israeli government does not allow American diplomats accredited to the U. EPub The hilltop securities S Consul General in Jerusalem whose district covers the West Bank would be unlikely to visit a quasi legal settlement without first knowing the political purpose of the trip and then having it precisely stage managed the episode with a measure of suspended disbelief still manages to entertain. Book The hilltop If Gavron s humorous farcical scenes are among the strongest qualities of The Hilltop the Hebrew poetics in translation represent a distinct shortcoming The heralding of Shabbat a key event in the ritual life of the community is notably inconsistent Sometimes it s evocative t he Sabbath came down like a setting sun to the accompaniment of soft gusts of wind while at other times it s awkward t he Sabbath touched down like a space shuttle on the moon purposeful and precise A sampling of Gavron s other Sabbaths have them settle like a shawl on hair or like a veil on shoulders and fall like a fresh and bounteous rain In one instance the Sabbath reverses course and rises up from the surrounding valleys Fortunately Steven Cohen s translation of Gavron s dialogue doesn t suffer from the same difficulties His clipped English sentences nicely mimic the short muscular utterances of spoken Hebrew Generally speaking it s difficult to find fault in the craftsmanship of Gavron s novel. The Hilltop kindle unlimited The Hilltop will appeal most to those readers who have an intimate knowledge of Israel and its folk culture from Bamba to walkabouts to orthodox attire but even the Americans ever prominent as a distant monolithic force in the Israeli imagination will read it profitably Gavron offers as much insight into the realities of current Israeli cultural politics as any stack of academic or think tank reports on the same And in so much as he has used Gabi Nehushtan as a vehicle to challenge his secular minded readers pre existing prejudices in a prize winning work that has been suggested as the great Israeli novel of its generation and in so much as he has portrayed the highly politicized settlement as simply another human settlement like any other where ordinary life goes on he should be commended. Camp hilltop book I placed my two heavy baskets at my side A group of tourists was standing around their guide and I became their target marker You see that man with the baskets Just right of his head there s an archfrom the Roman period Just right of his head But he s moving he s moving I said to myself redemption will come only if their guide tells them You see that arch from the Roman period It s not important but next to it left down and a bit there sits a man who s bought fruit and vegetables for his family Assaf Gavron as tourist guide to cultural politics in Israel has delivered that redemption in The Hilltop Whether the tourists be they secular Israelis incredulous Europeans or na ve Americans are ready to divert their gaze from those artifacts of the physical world and focus on the human stories needing to be told remains to be seen Jeffrey L Otto July 17 2015 Assaf Gavron
| The Hilltop By Assaf Gavron |
| 1476760438 |
| 9781476760438 |
| English |
| 464 |
| Hardcover |
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