Jerusalem, August, 1998
"And you shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants; it shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his family." (Leviticus 25:10)
Shnat yovel - Jubilee Year (the very word "jubilee" derives from the Hebrew yovel) is the biblically-ordained fiftieth holy year following seven cycles of seven years, when we are commanded to refrain from sowing and reaping but rather, to live from the fruits of our past endeavours - and inter alia, to respect and treat our neighbours fairly. "In this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his property. And if you sell to your neighbour, or buy from your neighbour, you shall not wrong one another."
Indeed, we have "returned to our property" and in this year of jubilation (another word deriving from yovel), it is right and fitting that we should celebrate the states manifold achievements: the building of democratic institutions which are unique in this part of the world the creation of a pluralistic society where freedom of speech, freedom of thought and freedom of belief, are set out both in the Declaration of Independence as well as ingrained in the national psyche; where the population has grown from 640,000 to six million by creating a refuge for oppressed Jews worldwide a feat of absorption unparalleled in world history. A land for which we have fought, through no wish of our own, six wars and yet which has survived to become a thriving, vibrant and dynamic nation.
And yet, there is still a great deal to be done as we face both our next fifty years and the onset of the new millennium. Despite the achievements, there are still too many rifts in our society that must be healed. There is too much polarization of people and of views Arab and Jew, religious and secular, Ashkenazi and Sephardi, immigrant and old-timer and even rich and poor, as well as the growing spectre of unemployment.
And apropos our neighbours: the prospect of peace is a vision shared by all Israelis regardless of their political views. However, the argument as to how this may be achieved still thunders furiously about us. The peace process, first kindled back in 1977 by President Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt, and kept alive throughout the vicissitudes by succeeding Israeli and Arab leaders, is now at a critical stage. We can only hope that the clash of two national movements will, in the very near future, be replaced by an atmosphere of mutual cooperation and understanding, that can only benefit all the peoples of the region.
The double issue of Ariel you are now holding in your hand is our own modest contribution to Israels yovel. It has been produced in cooperation with Keshet, a quarterly magazine published between 1958 and 1976. Keshet was among the countrys most distinguished Hebrew cultural magazines ever to have been published. To mark 40 years since its first appearance, a one-time special issue recently appeared. This volume of Ariel contains much of the fiction published in that special edition of Keshet.
Asher Weill