Who will remain?

This is the title of perhaps the most famous poem by the Yiddish poet Abraham Sutzkever, who died last week in Tel Aviv at the age of 96.

Who will remain, what will remain? A wind will stay,

the blindness of the blind man who has gone away,

a string of foam, the sign of the sea,

a little cloud entangled in a tree.

Who will remain, what will remain?

A primeval seed will sprout again

A fiddle-rose honoring herself will live.

Seven blades of grass will know what's hers to give.

Of all the stars due north of here,

the one that landed in a tear will stay.

There will always be a drop of wine left over in its jug.

Who will stay? God will stay. Isn't that enough?

(You can hear Sutzkever recite the poem in the original Yiddish here.)

I am compelled to dedicate an entry to Sutzkever for two reasons. First, he was one of the main reasons that I fell in love with Yiddish. And second, he was not only one of the greatest Yiddish poets but also one of the greatest Israeli poets, even if he remains largely unknown in this country due to his commitment to a language long repressed and derided as a vestige if the "exilic" Jewish past.

Sutzkever was an extraordinary poet who lived an extraordinary life. Born in Smorgon, near Vilna, in 1913, he spent his early childhood years during WWI in exile in Siberia. During WWII, he survived the Vilna Ghetto. In 1941, he was appointed by the Nazis to a diabolical mission. He and several other writers and intellectuals, including the Hebrew poet Abba Kovner, were forced to congregate at YIVO (The Institute for Jewish Research) to assemble Jewish books and documents that would be displayed in a perverse exhibition called Wissenschaft des Judentums ohne Juden ("The Science of Judaism without Jews"). The exhibit would be erected in Frankfurt once Hitler's "Final Solution" was complete and the world was, indeed, "without Jews." Documents deemed unfit for display were to be sent to a paper mill, where they would be destroyed. Risking his own life, Sutzkever smuggled hundreds of books, drawings (including some by his close friend Marc Chagall) and unpublished documents into the ghetto, where he buried them. In 1943, he and his wife Freydke snuck out of the ghetto into the surrounding forests, where they joined the Soviet partisans in resisting the Nazis. Throughout all of these experiences, Sutzkever never stopped writing poems.

After the war, he returned with Kovner to Vilna to dig up the treasures they had buried as members of the so-called "paper brigade." These treasures were eventually sent to YIVO in New York and Jerusalem. He recalled those days as follows:

“I felt that I must be the witness of all those events, that I was destined to be the witness. I entered a spectacle someone staged, I thought I played a role in it. Who staged the spectacle, I don’t know. Who needed it? What for? In those years of destruction, I always felt I was a witness to an immense earthly and cosmic play. I felt a divine sense of messianic mission, those were the most elevated moments of my life.”

Following a few years in Moscow and Paris, Sutzkever arrived in Palestine in 1947. Almost immediately, he established the Yiddish journal di goldene keyt (The Golden Chain) with funds from the Histadrut (Israeli Trade Union), which he edited for nearly 40 years (1948-1984), producing a total of 130 volumes. This was an extraordinary feat, considering Yiddish was barely tolerated in Israel. In fact, it was the second of two nearly impossible tasks that Sutzkever fulfilled: the first was rescuing Yiddish literature from the Vilna ghetto, and the second was sustaining Yiddish culture in Israel, where is was believed to have no future. Although he received the Israel Prize in the 1980s, and although he was a committed Zionist, Sutzkever has always remained obscure in Israel (and worldwide) simply because he wrote in Yiddish.

Sutzkever's poetry has an almost mystical quality, expressing the beauty inherent in creation and respect for the power of the Jewish word to discipline chaos. And yet, it is clearly the work of a "Litvak" (Lithuanian Jew), as evidenced by its frequent wordplay and quick-witted questions. The scholar Ruth Wisse suggests that Sutzkever's almost pantheistic approach to nature remained a constant thematic thread in his poetry, though he and his work traveled between locations as disparate as Siberia and Sinai:

“In the vastness of the Negev and the Sinai he found something akin to the stretches of Siberia, space where a solitary observer could once again take his bearings in the scheme of things. The landscape might no longer elicit the joys of virgin discovery, but the lasting imprints of the past that one found everywhere in the desert gave solace to a survivor of lost civilizations" (Ruth Wisse, “The Last Great Yiddish Poet?” in Commentary, 76, November 1983: 41-48).

Unfortunately, I don't have many of Sutzkever's poems at my fingertips (since my library is currently packed into boxes in Chicago), but I did a quick search in my computer and found a rough translation of my own. I don't think it does justice to the original, but perhaps it can offer you a bit of a taste. Plus, it seems fitting, because the poet speaks beyond the grave...

From Lider fun togbukh (“Poems from a Diary,” 1976)

Trees are made into wonderful paper. And I – the reverse:

I transform paper into trees, into the tree of life.

I root myself in it, till the song of

Birds ascends.

The birds bloom and bud the first

Blessed sounds. Unmatched, unique is my mission:

I transform the transformations into their source,

Transform myself into the protoplasm of my dream.

Transform the clumps of clay into their human face,

Transform precious stones into a living goldsmith.

And solitary mysteries, miles away from words,

I transform into a ray that reaches the bed of tears.

I dip my seal-ring in the sun and stand it in the dark

To watch over the transformations. My future heir,

The cosmic poet, will seek it and will find,

And my bones will smile.

One Zimmer, Two Zimmerim?

The plural form in German is very tricky. You never know whether to stick an "n," "e," or "r" at the end of the word, let alone when to include that wily umlaut (i.e. one "Haus" and several "Häuser"). And then there's a word like "Zimmer" (room), which remains exactly the same whether singular or plural. That is, until Hebrew gets ahold of it! The Israelis use their own plural form to refer to the latest tourist magnet: Israelis don't do B&Bs, they do "Zimmerim." The latest trends in the Zimmer industry include plasma TVs, private jacuzzis, strewn rose petals, and scented candles, so I hope I don't disappoint too much when I tell you that my first experience at one of these fashionable abodes was sans mediterranean lover. As they say in Hebrew -- lehavdil! I was there with my parents for their 40th wedding anniversary. (What a sexy personal life I do lead!) In fact, I was not just a third wheel but a fifth wheel, since their friends Jonathan and Helen came along. But I'd tag along again in a heartbeat!

The drive to the Upper Galilee was a circuitous one. Following Jonathan's cue, we made an important stop in the village of Rama to purchase local olive oil from Edouard and Sohela. Now, there are those who buy theirs pre-bottled at the supermarket, and there are others, like Jonathan, who will drive many miles to collect local Galilean olive oil in sterilized gas canisters that they have schlepped all the way from home. I think it's important to have such meshugene friends. After all, the supermarket variety not only pales in terms of freshness and flavor, it also lacks the ceremonious touch of Turkish coffee and cake by Edouard and Sohela's still-standing Christmas tree. On our way out, Edouard even picked a few bay leaves right off the tree for us to take home to dry. How's that for a personal touch?

With gallons of olive oil slooshing around in the trunk, we continued north, past Rosh Pinah, to

Sde Eliezer and the Zimmer of Gabriela and Ofer. Everything at this place makes the word "organic" sound foolish. At breakfast, orange juice was squeezed, avocados sliced, and pears jarred from fruit plucked straight from the backyard. Even our wiry hosts looked "organic" -- they seemed to subsist entirely on sunflower sprouts and birdseed. Aside from a rooster suffering from jetlag (I base the assumption on a 3:30am cockle-doodle-doo), this was the quietest environment imaginable.

But the rooster wasn't the only bird making noise in the Galilee. At the Hula Bird Sanctuary we watched--and well before that heard--the descent of thousands upon thousands of cranes (new Hebrew vocab: agurim). Our initial explanation for their incessant yapping—obviously these are Jewish cranes—was soon dispelled when the local guide explained that they are monogamous, and they find one another by calling (or is it nagging?). You can forget personalized ringtones!

Evidently, the German presence in the Galilee isn't limited to the word "Zimmer." A big orange sign informs me that the crane research project is supported by Lufthansa. I guess the German airline takes its logo seriously. It's no wonder, then, that, upon entering the viewing deck, I stumble upon another German sign, which includes a typically mammoth word: "VOGELBEOBACHTUNGSTAND." That's right, it's a three-in-one deal: bird (Vogel) + observation (Beobachtung) + point (Stand). Wacky krauts.

The following day we drive even further north, to the Golan Heights. As we cruise past abandoned tanks and minefields littered with warning signs, remains from the Yom Kippur War, the radio spontaneously starts blasting Arabic and before we know it we are looking directly at the Syrian border. You cannot imagine how tiny and surrounded this country is until you find yourself at its northern tip, where you can see both Syria and Lebanon in a single view.

Finding ourselves in the heart of Israel's bourgeoning wine industry, we pass vineyard after vineyard as we enter Emek ha-bakha (The Valley of Tears), where the bloodiest tank battle of the Yom Kippur War was fought. High up, at around 4,000 feet, an abandoned Israeli bunker offers a breakthaking view of some of the most beautiful and the most disputed territory. Since the borders between Israel and Syria remain subject for negotiation, the countries are separated by a demilitarized zone patrolled by the U.N. Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF). This is serious business, but there's always room for levity. A local cafe is named not only for its proximity to the clouds (the Hebrew word is anan), but also offers a little shout-out to the former Secretary General with a funky name. You guessed it: Coffee Anan!

Organic veggies and natural beauty...well, sort of natural

I met my friend Anat at the namal (port) yesterday to hit up the weekly organic market. Stunning day. I'm wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt -- and sweating! We squeeze our way through throngs of people snatching up fruits and veggies for their weekend feasts, sampling, sniffing and dividing up delicious oranges, tomatoes and strawberries between us. Our sacks fully loaded, we drop off our groceries before breaking for pizza. We're in a rush to get the bill because Anat has an important appointment with one of the "artists" at il.makiage, an Israeli cosmetics company. A friend of hers had hooked her up with the appointment, she tells me, and anyway, perhaps thirty isn't too young to start wearing some makeup? From farm-fresh to primped-and-powdered -- talk about contrasting experiences! "I want to look natural," Anat tells the "artist," whose deer-caught-in-headlights expression behind a thick mask of pancake makeup does not inspire confidence. As heavy brushfulls of mineral makeup are dabbed onto her cheeks, I sense Anat squirming. "Nakhon yafe?!" our "artist" keeps asking -- "isn't it nice?!" I smile sheepishly. Anat blinks, "Uh, a little heavy, don't you think?" The "artist" looks more incredulous than insulted. Somehow the whole "customer is always right" philosophy doesn't apply here. Instead, she sees this as a teaching moment. "Not at all," she replies. "There's no makeup lighter than this! And you don't have to worry about quantities, because your skin will absorb it." Now even I'm squirming. After tabulating everything on Anat's face, the total cost comes out to 1000 shekels, or a little over $250 US. What the...?!?!?! Anat gently draws one eyeshadow and a mascara from the vast pile of creams, powders, glosses and brushes and hands the slightly defeated "artist" her credit card. We're headed back to my place when Anat's husband calls and says he'll swing by on his rollerblades to pick her up. As we come out of my apartment building, we find him sitting on the sun-warmed sidewalk, unstrapping his wheels. He looks up at her and squints. "I like you better without all of that," he says softly.

I returned to real natural beauty in the evening. My new friends Natalie and Noam had invited me to Shabbat dinner on their Moshav, just a little ways north of Tel Aviv. Everything was taken care of. Their friends Amit and Virginia would pick me up on the way. As we drive down one of the main thoroughfares of Tel Aviv, I notice Virginia ducking in her seat. She's worried someone from her synagogue will see her in a car on Shabbat. She's working toward converting and taking the process seriously. "I'm nervous about choosing a Hebrew name," she says in her endearing Alabama accent. She wonders if they'll just translate her English name directly. "I wouldn't go with Betulah," I tell her, introducing the Hebrew word for virgin. We pick up another friend and arrive at the moshav. Stars abound. It's dark, but I can still make out flecks of bright orange from the kumquat tree in their backyard. Natalie serves delicious vegetable soup in beautiful ceramic bowls, which, I quickly learn, she made herself, and Noam grills a ridiculous amount of steak. A true embarrassment of riches, but the atmosphere is so chill and relaxed. The conversation is a mishmash of English and Hebrew. Virginia, who is a dentist, tells us about the time she accidentally told a patient he had a "khor ba-takhat," that is, er a "cavity in his ass," having confused "mitakhat" (underneath) with "batakhat" (yep, in the ass). Darned foreign prepositions! Her boyfriend consoles her. "But you weren't wrong!" he exclaims, "everyone has a khor ba-takhat, right?!" As the laughter subsides and we take our last sips of tea with nana, Noam and Amit clear the table and start stacking up poker chips! Well how's that for a shabbes tradition?! I turn to Virginia: "Maybe don't mention this to your rabbi."

Israel's Breadbasket

Wheat, cotton, sunflowers and corn cover the plain known as Emek Yizre'el, the Jezreel Valley, but it's unusual to see it looking quite as green as it did this past Saturday. All five seats of the car were filled. With my parents and their friends on a scenic drive from Haifa to the Lower Galilee I marveled at the view of "Israel's Tuscany." We were headed to an exhibit that recently opened at the Art Museum of Kibbutz Ein Harod. On display were hundreds of paintings by Israeli artists from the private collection of Ami and Gabi Brown. But the building was the main attraction. A stunning example of the International Style by Samuel Bickels, a member of the kibbutz, it was erected in 1948, making it as old as the country. Apart from a few slender lamps on the ceiling, all of the gallery spaces were illuminated with natural light, the subtle curvature of the stark white ceiling facilitating its entry. The modest cafe was located in the most charming courtyard. A dream. And the paintings! Uri Reizman, Yosef Zaritsky, Yehiel Krize, Batia Apolo, and (my neighbor) Yigal Tumarkin were among those represented. I think Zaritsky is my favorite. There was one watercolor in particular, entitled "Jerusalem Habashim Gate" — something about the restrained, almost cube-like brushstrokes, which are usually so much freer-flowing, had me mesmerized.

We had lunch on the balcony of "Havat Ha-tavlin" (The Spice Farm), which has the most incredible view of the valley. Where else could I enjoy dining al fresco in January?!

Christmas in the Holy Land...

It is a well-known custom among North American Jews to seek out special little enclaves at Christmas. Those without the rare luck of being invited (as my brother and sister-in-law apparently were) to a "Jews, Losers and Boozers" party resort to the more traditional fallback, Chinese food and a movie, preferably, for those who are really devout, one by Woody Allen. (The latest, starring Larry David, is just out in theaters here, by the way). But a North American Jew in Israel feels obligated to fulfill the opposite task: to find a dash of Christmas cheer in a landscape bereft of goyishe-naches.

The direct train from Tel Aviv to Haifa that I boarded yesterday evening was packed, but not one of my fellow passengers was rushing home for Christmas Eve. Just your average weekend. I was leaning against the back of a seat watching two Ethiopian kids on the floor munching noisily on Bamba, and, on either side of them, exhausted young soldiers with heavy packs filled (I think it's safe to assume) not with stocking stuffers but with dirty laundry to unload on mothers anxiously awaiting their return. One poor kid had konked out so heavily on his gear that he didn't even hear the Ricky Martin ringtone blasting directly into his ear. Another dozed off quietly with Amos Oz's "To Love a Woman" rising and falling rhythmically on his chest. A far cry from the macho image of the Israeli military one finds in the media.

I arrived in Haifa just in time for my mom to serve me a plate of piping hot meatballs and a side of red cabbage (where's the Christmas roast?!) before scurrying out the door to a doctor's appointment. No sipping eggnog by the fireplace, no ring-jing-jingling sleigh bells, no presents under the fragrant tree. Just a little pleasure-reading before retiring early to bed. I must admit, I missed the lights and the kitsch just a teensy-weensy bit.

Today was different. How nice it was to spend a REGULAR lazy Friday here. I had a haircut in the morning, and, on the way home, went with my dad to pick up some nuts in Vadi Nisnas. It seemed quieter than usual. And that's when we realized: Christmas! Of course! This is the Arab Christian part of town. Besides one baklava shop and the spot where we picked up our goods, all the shops and restaurants were shut for the holidays, their unlit windows adorned with mismatched nativity scenes and acrobatic Santa Clauses. At last, the kitsch I'd been longing for! Even the bagel shop was closed. If only someone could explain to me why a place that advertises "bagelakh" (yes, in Yiddish), is owned by Arabs who are spending the day celebrating the birth of baby Jesus.... Well , Jesus may have been born here, but he sure feels a long way away today.

This is one of the first Christmases I've spent not feeling like a minority (and not freezing my ass off!). That's exciting on both counts. But I'm still going to search for Bing Crosby on youtube later. Gotta hear "White Christmas" at least once this time of year. It wouldn't feel right not to.

The miracle of light...er, electricity

In keeping with the theme of Chanukah, this past week involved eight firsts.

#1: It all began with my first power outage. At around 9:00pm on Wednesday, moments before I was to leave my apartment for my second (yes, there were some seconds, too) tango lesson, boof! Lights out! I of course broke the number one rule of Chanukah—i.e. "and we do not have the permission to use them except to look at them"—by lighting every Chanukah candle I could get my hands on...but it made the whole miracle of light business that much more meaningful.

#2: My very first live karaoke performance! No, I didn't perform (there's a fine line between humor and ear-shattering noise). Seriously, people, you have not lived until you have heard M.C. Hammer's "You Can't Touch This" performed in a heavy Israeli accent by a prematurely balding bloke in tapered jeans and a striped polo shirt... the antithesis of Mr. Hammer, and I'm not just talking about the legwear. Breathtaking.

#3: My first hexalingual Shabbat dinner. Yes, hexa as in six. I was invited to light the last candle of Chanukah at the home of Jonathan and Helen, close family friends (and my surrogate Jerusalem parents!). Now, I knew I'd be among interesting company, but I didn't expect the United Nations! Seated around the table were: our hosts, the German cultural attaché to Israel, two French cultural representatives, their spouses, one eight-year-old boy (who alone accounted for three languages: French, English and Arabic -- thank goodness my cab driver had just taught me four different ways so say the word "lion" in Arabic so that I had something to show off to the brainy pipsqueak!), Jonathan's mother, who is 93 years old and may not hear well but is still the paragon of British wit and eloquence, and little old me. Between Helen's French-Hebrew-Italian hybrid and Jonathan's multilingual explanations of the food (an array as international as the guests, with everything from herring salad to salmon sashimi to chicken tikka masala), there were, indeed, six languages represented. Oh, I almost forgot, that dinner was responsible for first #4: Vacheron Mont d'Or cheese. OH. MY. LORD. The Frenchies almost wet their pants, they were so excited.

#5. My first Israeli date. The formula? Tango lesson #2 --> date #1. Won't elaborate just yet, except to say that the tapas restaurant we went to was also responsible for #6, my first Israeli mojito, which was delightful.

#7: My first time putting flowers in an empty pickle can. Nothing earth-shattering, but it put a smile on my face.

And finally, just today, #8: My first academic lecture in Hebrew! I met a lovely Israeli professor at a conference in Berlin in October, and he invited me to give my talk before the Yiddish literature department at Bar Ilan University. I didn't think twice about accepting, having assumed, of course, that he simply wanted me to repeat the lecture I gave in Berlin. The formal invitation that I received per email last week, however, informed me otherwise. As the Thai tourist industry puts it: "Same same...but different." Oy vavoy. Talking about Yiddish poetry in Hebrew was a challenge, for sure, but I did it! I highly doubt I'll be winning any awards for my oratorical skills, but I was proud of myself for standing up to the challenge. My audience was very warm and responsive. They numbered 12, so perhaps it's not a full notch on my academic belt, but a little scratch at least.

plain white cheese...yet so much more

A number of years ago, during one of his first visits to Vancouver, my then fourteen-year-old cousin Uri asked me, artlessly, "How do you say gvina levana in English?" I looked at him, somewhat baffled by his loss for such simple words (after all, Uri had by the age of ten developed an exceptionally sophisticated English vocabulary, thanks to countless successive hours spent watching "The Simpsons"), and offered what I thought to be the simplest and most straightforward of answers: "white cheese." He looked dissatisfied.

Little did I realize then that the term gvina levana defies translation. In Israel, it is a way of life. The average Israeli family goes through five 200-gram containers of it per week (I'm totally making up the statistic, but I don't think I could be far off). I have witnessed children under the age of two polish off an entire container in one sitting (again, I'm exaggerating, but not much). Civil wars have been fought over it (okay, that one's a downright lie). Upon entering any grocery store (makolet), convenient store (tsorkhania) or supermarket (wait for the translation...super) one is bound to encounter a vast array of seemingly identical cylindrical tubs filled with it.

Now, I say seemingly identical because, in fact, this vast array presents many tricky choices. First of all: white cheese or cottage cheese (allow me to teach you another sophisticated Hebrew word: kotej)? (I'll spare you the confusion and leave labane and cream cheese out of the picture, let alone feta and Bulgarian cheese from cow or goat, in blocks, strips or cubes...it's exhausting, really.) There's the question of brand: Tnuva or Strauss? Now we come to the matter of milk fat: 9%, 5%, 3% or 1/2%?

I thought I had selected my pick: tnuva brand, white cheese, 5% milkfat. How naive. I soon realized that the matter is infinitely more complicated. Yesterday, I opened the lid of a new package, peeled off the plastic protective layer, spread it on a piece of bread, and -- ack! -- saw flecks of green! What is that?! MOLD?! I picked up the piece of plastic I had just torn off -- oh no! Printed in small letters below the brand name were the words I had so recklessly overlooked: "with OLIVES"! Yes, my friends, that's right, the white cheese industry has expanded to produce FLAVORED cheeses. I must be more careful next time.

NOTE: I forgot to mention gvina levana's equally sly and slippery stepsister: gvina tsehuba (yellow cheese). But that's a whole other adventure in the making.