Book Reviews

Pilgrims and Travelers to the Holy Land
Bryan F. Le Beau, Menachem Mor, Editors, Creighton University Press, 284 pp.

The Zealous Intruders
Naomi Shepherd, Collins, 282 pp.

Daniel Gavron

Few countries have attracted as many pilgrims over the years as Eretz-Israel the Land of Israel and few cities have been a more powerful magnet for them than Jerusalem. Pilgrimage is a well-established human habit, connected to religion; but not necessarily essential to it. It has existed, in the words of the introduction to one of the volumes under review, "on the edge of religious life, rather than at the centre of its day-to-day ritual." At the same time pilgrimage, an attempt to "escape the mundane and encounter the spiritual," is vitally important. Each of these books deals in its own way with the phenomenon of pilgrimage to the Land of Israel, and in particular to Jerusalem, and each of them demonstrates how such visits are much more than mere journeys.

"Jerusalem, The Holy City in the Eyes of Chroniclers, Visitors, Pilgrims, and Prophets from the Days of Abraham to the Beginnings of Modern Times" (to give it its full title) is an updated edition of F. E. Peterss wonderful anthology first published ten years ago in hardback. "Pilgrims and Travelers to the Holy Land" is a collection of papers presented at a 1994 symposium on the subject at Creighton University. "The Zealous Intruders" is a comprehensive survey of what Naomi Shepherd calls the "Western Rediscovery of Palestine" in the 19th century. All three are warmly recommended to Jerusalem addicts and lovers of the Land of Israel.

Illustrated with some fine photographs, many of the aerial ones published here for the first time, Peters volume is a collection of writings about the Holy City from the Bible and other ancient texts to Robinson in the 19th century, linked by the authors own commentary. Peters, a professor of Near Eastern languages, literature and history at New York University, has a remarkable grasp of the mythology and history of Jerusalem. His selection is wide-ranging and varied; his commentary lucid and readable.

"Jerusalem" is a marvellous collection, collating a vast number of fascinating and vivid accounts of Jerusalem through the ages. It is not so much a reference book as a general guide to what Jews, Christians, Moslems and others felt, thought, saw and wrote about Jerusalem through its different phases of development and under its different regimes. Rather than another good book about Jerusalem, it is a mini-library on the subject.

Every reader will discover preferences and make his or her personal discoveries. New to me was the evidence showing that, right up to the time of the Crusades, there were considerable numbers of Christians living in, visiting and worshipping in the Moslem-ruled city. Thus the bloody wars of conquest had nothing to do with the situation in Jerusalem and Palestine, and everything to do with the internal religious politics of Europe.

Peters presents a full and sympathetic picture of the Jewish involvement in Jerusalem through the ages, so that anyone reading his book will be under no illusion of the paramountcy of the Jewish connection, while realizing that the Jewish claim, although pre-eminent, is not exclusive.

My one criticism is that, despite an adequate index, excellent notes, and a list of "Works Cited," I still had difficulty in identifying the authors of some of the selected passages. Peters often quotes a writer several times before explaining who he was, when he visited Jerusalem, and when he wrote his account. In a number of instances, I did not find a description of the author at all. But this is a minor blemish in a book that all lovers of Jerusalem should possess.

"Pilgrims and Travelers to the Holy Land" contains a number of interesting papers; but it is really a work for the specialist. Peters, in a far more academic vein than in his own work reviewed above, contributes "Holy and Haram," a thoughtful piece that compares the concepts of sacredness as understood by Jews, Christians and Moslems. He describes Jerusalem as a "cascading series of circles of holiness," extending outward from the Temple.

Several of the papers present original ideas and concepts, including, "Mediaeval Women Pilgrims to the Holy Land," and "Bahai Pilgrimage to Israel." Of special interest to Israelis is a paper by Roger Friendland and Richard D. Hecht, showing the way that the annual Nebi Musa pilgrimage, which Moslems observe around the time of Passover and Easter, was adapted to the needs of Palestinian nationalism. However the most fascinating paper to me was "Mandevilles Jews Among Others" by Benjamin Braude.

Sir John Mandevilles "Travels," first published in the 14th century, "the most widely read European book of travels in the late mediaeval and early modern period," is shrouded in mystery. Nobody knows who he was, or even if John Mandeville was his real name. Furthermore, it is not certain that Mandeville actually travelled. His use of other peoples work, a general practice in the Middle Ages, is clear.

His journey starts with a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, continues to Asia and then returns to Palestine. The book is famous for its relatively tolerant view of Islam. It demands a new crusade to recapture the Holy Land for Christendom; but anticipates an almost bloodless campaign and the eventual conversion of the Moslems to Christianity. Very few commentators - not even Jewish scholars - have noted the unrestrainedly vicious picture of the Jews, presented in the work, who are depicted as a sinister international threat. At one level, the Hebrew-speaking "ten lost tribes" are locked up in the mountains of central Asia, poised to swoop down on unsuspecting Christian Europe. At another, they are the sinister allies of the Turkish Antichrist. The two-phase triumph of Christianity, according to Mandeville, is the regaining of Palestine from the Moslems, followed by a titanic struggle against the real enemy, the Jews.

Braude suggests convincingly that this neglected aspect of Mandevilles "Travels" was at least partly responsible for the "Western image of the Jew over the next centuries, and served to ease the transition of Jew hatred from mediaeval anti-Judaism to modern antisemitism."

And finally, Naomi Shepherds book, which takes us from Napoleon besieging Acre in 1799 up to the activities of the "London Society for the Promotion of Christianity among the Jews" in the mid-19th century. On the way, we meet a variety of nonconformist characters and movements of the pre-Zionist period. From Robinson and Holman-Hunt to the German Templars and missionaries, Shepherd sketches a vivid canvas of the explorers, believers, and eccentrics who made Palestine their stamping ground.

One of the manifest aims of the modern Zionist movement was to normalize the Jews. In our time it has become increasingly evident that the Jews can never be a "normal" people, and that Israel will never be a "normal" country. Each of these three books offers important clues as to why this is.

Israel Before Israel: Silent Cinema in the Holy Land
Hillel Tryster, Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive, Jerusalem. Illustrated, 226 pages.

Jan-Cristopher Horak

Every year in October, film historians, critics, cineastes and film collectors meet in order to view silent films, literally from morning until after midnight. Held in Pordenone, Italy, a provincial capital northeast of Venice, the Giornate del Cinema Muto has become so famous that people travel from all over the globe to rediscover lost portions of the worlds film history. In 1955, one part of the programme was dedicated to silent films made by Zionist pioneers. It was curated by Marilyn Koolik and Hillel Tryster; the latter was also responsible for the very handsome accompanying catalogue, Israel Before Israel: Silent Cinema in the Holy Land.

With this monograph, Tryster has filled a huge gap in our knowledge of early film production in Palestine. Until a few years ago, Israeli film historians and archivists showed little or no interest in pre-statehood Israeli cinema. Possibly because so many of the films from that era were considered either "amateur" or Zionist "propaganda," rather than "art" films, virtually nothing was done to collect and preserve the early film history of Eretz-Israel. All this began slowly to change with the establishment of the Abraham F. Rad Film Archives (now the Steven Spielberg Film Archive) at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, in 1969. But even as late as 1983, when I went to Israel to research an article on Zionist film propaganda in the 1930s, virtually nothing serious had been published on this period. Most of the work on Israeli cinema, was indeed being written and published abroad, especially in the United States.

Tryster belongs to a new generation of film historians, sensitive not only to questions of cinema art, but also to film as a historical document. The monograph under review combines both points of view, presenting an exceedingly readable account of both the history of film production in Israel from 1895 to about 1935, and of Zionist culture in general. He has been particularly careful in his research of documents from the Central Zionist Archives a previously under-utilized resource allowing him to ascertain and describe not only the actual process of film production, but also the political motivations and struggles behind the scenes. Tryster divided his book into eight chapters, focusing both on early pioneers, such as Yaacov Ben Dov and Joseph Gal-Ezer, and on the Jewish National Fund. (Keren Kayemet Leisrael) and the Foundation Fund (Keren Hayesod), which were of central importance in the funding of early film production. Later chapters deal with narrative fiction films and the transition to sound films in the 1930s. Well-illustrated and including a wealth of additional information in the endnotes, "Israel Before Israel" is destined to become a standard work of film history in Israel.

Film production in Eretz-Israel began almost immediately after the invention of cinema: as early as 1896 or early 1897, the Lumière cameraman Alexandre Promio shot street scenes in Jaffa, Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Over the next decade, several other foreign film companies, including Charles Urban, Thomas A. Edison, and the Kalem Company sent teams to the Holy Land to record film scenes or shoot fiction films on location. Zionist film production proper probably began with Murray Rosenberg, a founder of the British Zionist Federation who travelled to Turkish-controlled Palestine in 1911 and produced a film, "Palestine, the Jewish Return From Exile," which was widely distributed by the Warwick Film company.

However, Trysters real pioneering work lies in the resurrection of the first practitioner of the Israeli cinema, Yaacov Ben Dov. Generally credited as one of the cameramen who recorded General Allenbys march into Jerusalem in 1917 (footage was shown around the world in various newsreels), Ben Dov was previously discredited in most historical sources as an amateur, worthy of not more than a few lines of text. However, as Tryster proves, Ben Dov was a working professional who for many years worked together with the Jewish National Fund and Keren Hayesod to produce propaganda films. The surviving footage, while cinematically unsophisticated, represents a priceless record of the growth of Jewish Palestine in the 1920s. Tryster notes: "In fact, Ben Dov was a visionary whose vision was fulfilled in its totality, for his surviving films are today precisely what he meant them to be" (a historical record).

The close relationship between early filming in Palestine and the Jewish National Fund is illustrated even more dramatically in Trysters discussion of the career of Joseph Gal-Ezer, an official with the JNF who took a particular interest in filmmaking activities. As early as 1921, Gal-Ezer wrote a pamphlet, "Prospectus for a Palestine Film Company," which in many of its details was to become a blueprint for all future Zionist filmmaking. In 1926, when Gal-Ezer became the JNF official responsible for all film activities, he became directly, though invisibly, involved in much of the film activity taking place in Israel.

Trysters chapter on the Jewish National Fund and the Keren Hayesod, documents not only their film production efforts, but equally important, the incredible efforts at film distribution and exhibition. The fourth chapters subtitle, "How the Movies Helped Buy a Country," makes an important point: filmmaking was never an end in itself, rather it was part of a multi-media effort to propagate and finance Zionist colonization in Palestine. Indeed, Zionist film production represents the first continuous long-term effort anywhere in the world to adopt film propaganda at the national level. Furthermore, as Tryster points out, film screenings at Zionist events generated a substantial amount of income: audiences at special screenings paid higher admission prices and were then asked to contribute again to the cause when the ubiquitous blue and white collection box was passed around. For example, at a screening on 16 December, 1923, of Palästina Erwache ("Palestine Awakening") at the Berlin Alhambra Kino, 2,300 Reichsmarks were raised.

Given the technical difficulties and expense of producing sound films, it is not surprising that silent cinema continued in Palestine until well into the 1930s. Even such masterpieces as Helmar Lerskis Avodah ("Labour"), 1936, were essentially silent with a musical soundtrack.

In the final chapter of his book, Tryster discusses many of the silent efforts by such filmmakers as Tim Gidal, Manfred Epstein, and Fred Dunkel, the latter a particularly interesting figure of whom little was previously known. In this chapter, Tryster also discusses the growth of cinemas and film culture in Eretz-Israel.

Reading "Israel before Israel" is a thoroughly enjoyable experience, both for the lay person and the professional film historian. It is to be hoped that Tryster will continue his research into the early sound era of pre-statehood Israeli cinema.

(See also article in this issue)

Journey to my Father, Isaac Bashevis Singer
by Israel Zamir, translated by Barbara Harshav. Arcade, New York:
240 pp.

Haim Chertok

Two of my own great-grandfathers did it. Upon emigrating to America as young married men and saving enough money for passage, they sent for the wives and children they had left behind them in eastern Europe. Such was the typical pattern, but as was seen again recently among thousands of immigrants to Israel from the former USSR, it didnt always work out that way.

Prima facie, the bare facts that set "Journey To My Father" into motion constitute indictment. In 1935, a young Yiddish writer, sensing the danger of remaining in Poland, fettered by marriage to a rabbis daughter, became a fervent communist and put Warsaw behind him to start a new life in the New World. His wife too soon had to flee... for Moscow. In 1937, however, inexplicably expelled from the Soviet Union, she made her way to Palestine, where her mother lived.

Her husband wrote from New York that Palestine had always been his fondest dream. From time to time he sent small sums and large excuses for neither joining nor sending for her. Leading her along with small sums and false hopes for almost another decade, the increasingly successful writer neglected to inform her that he had taken a new wife. And, Oh yes, there was something, someone else. Not merely had he abandoned the incompatible wife but the inconvenient five-year old son as well.

The writer of course, was Isaac Singer, born in 1904, who in America incorporated Bashevis, from his mothers name Batsheva, into his own, the better to distinguish his own work from that of his eminent elder brother, the novelist Israel Joshua Singer (1893-1944). The five-year old son "Gigi" grew up to become Israel Zamir (Zamir is "singer" in Hebrew): kibbutznik, artificial inseminator of cattle, admirer of Stalin (until 1956), soldier, and the father of four - all in all, the very antithesis of his introspective, Yiddishist, book-centered, demon-haunted father. Save for one saliency: the writer son of a writing father, he is the author of this memoir.

Fueled by curiosity and barely repressed resentment, at the age of 25, Zamir sailed for New York to meet with his now famous father for the first time in 20 years. He encounters a man of fixed habits, secretive affairs, ingrained stinginess, and highly selective memory, a compulsive womanizer who appears to have little inclination to establish rapport or time to spend with his only son. Zamir records his version of a number of their arguments, in most instances, perhaps ungenerously, reserving for himself the final word.

"My weakness, Singer explains in self-exculpation, is that, in my soul, Im still a bachelor. I soon understood that the whole thing was one big mistake, but I didnt know how to get out of the trap I had fallen into. I wandered around the streets of Warsaw for days, escaping from your mother, from you, from myself, running to other women -- most of them show up in my stories. I was trying to repress the fact that I had a son, but I didnt have much success. I think you did, I said ruefully. He glanced at me and smiled sadly."

In such ways, Singer again and again defuses any real rancour. As encounter passes into encounter, both in New York and Israel, the son gradually unburdens himself of accusations which the father artfully deflects with wryness and self-deprecation. Zamir accompanies his father on walks along Broadway to feed his beloved pigeons as well as on lectures to college campuses where he notes how adroitly his father wins over anti-war youth with his vegetarian pronouncements. He also witnesses how almost every day his father is called by new women admirers, many of whom get invited to lunch and manoeuvered with consummate skill into bed.

Little by little, Israel Zamir, becoming his fathers Hebrew translator, succumbs to the charm of this most charming of men, a case study, as far as one may judge, of the validity of the apothegm: to understand all is to forgive all. This account peaks, of course, when Zamir extensively records how, when his father accepts his Nobel Prize for Literature in 1978, his wit and self-possession undercuts the ceremoniousness even of the Swedish Academy.

Ironically, his Nobel celebrity status tainted Singers remaining years. No longer could he eat in privacy at a cafeteria or amble anonymously to feed the pigeons of the Upper West Side; well-wishers would approach for autographs, scattering the birds. He was forced to request an unlisted telephone number. The man who fled Warsaw was now imprisoned in his Manhattan apartment, his trap until the death in which he never believed, in 1991 made its final claim.

Did Singer love anything or anyone except Yiddish, the demons of his imagination, and himself? In his account, Zamir would like us to believe that his filial affections were, in the end, somewhat reciprocated, but with one signal exception, the reader remains sceptical that Singer was capable of genuine love. In Stockholm, in a poignant, unguarded aside, Singer remarks, "if only my brother Joshua were here with me." Notwithstanding all the women in his life, surely more than his wives, or the son, or the grandchildren he scarcely knew, the one person who really seemed to matter to Isaac Bashevis Singer had died 34 years earlier.