By Ethan Bronner
Saturday, November 15
BR13
A.B. Yehoshua’s Yirmiyahu is an interesting character. He "has sought to cut himself off entirely from his roots." This is a typical Jewish experience today. Why do Jews do this? This matter should be the center of a novel. Instead, Yehoshua chooses to focus on a played-out matter – the occupation.
The main issue is the death of Yirmi’s son "in the Israeli-occupied West Bank." So this will be a statement about the woes of occupation. Yirmi “travels twice to the West Bank Palestinian home where his son lost his life, and his encounters there are the most powerful scenes in the book," writes Bronner. Why would someone want to confront the enemy to seek answers? Isn't this an unusual response - especially because his son was killed through friendly-fire?
Yirmi “can't blame them for failing to feel sorry for the occupier and his dead occupier's son." Of course, the answer to the painful question – why? - is the occupation, the key Palestinian propaganda talking point of the last two decades. How trite. Yirmi is angrier at his Judaism than he is at Palestinian irrendentism. Now, that would be an interesting matter to explore!
Bronner discusses two other issues in his review of Friendly Fire – the Shoah and monotheism – two of Judaism’s sacred cows. First, the Holocaust and its universal and particular dimensions arise. "Suffering, even holocaust, Yehoshua implies, arent the monopoly of the Jews, and they're no excuse for cruelty." What cruelty? This word is inserted without reference to a situation. That suffering and genocide happen to people other than Jews is a recognized fact in the Jewish community. Yehoshua has brought nothing new to the table with this apparent insight.
According to Bronner, Yehoshua, through Yirmiyahu, suggests that “monotheism isnt the only honorable explanation for the inexplicable mysteries of the universe." Fair enough. But this sounds more like the fetishizing of animism than a rational explanation of polytheism’s merits.
All in all, Yehoshua’s book appears – at least from Bronner’s review – less than original, but “critics” of Israel get first-rate space in the NYTimes.
A.B. Yehoshua’s Yirmiyahu is an interesting character. He "has sought to cut himself off entirely from his roots." This is a typical Jewish experience today. Why do Jews do this? This matter should be the center of a novel. Instead, Yehoshua chooses to focus on a played-out matter – the occupation.
The main issue is the death of Yirmi’s son "in the Israeli-occupied West Bank." So this will be a statement about the woes of occupation. Yirmi “travels twice to the West Bank Palestinian home where his son lost his life, and his encounters there are the most powerful scenes in the book," writes Bronner. Why would someone want to confront the enemy to seek answers? Isn't this an unusual response - especially because his son was killed through friendly-fire?
Yirmi “can't blame them for failing to feel sorry for the occupier and his dead occupier's son." Of course, the answer to the painful question – why? - is the occupation, the key Palestinian propaganda talking point of the last two decades. How trite. Yirmi is angrier at his Judaism than he is at Palestinian irrendentism. Now, that would be an interesting matter to explore!
Bronner discusses two other issues in his review of Friendly Fire – the Shoah and monotheism – two of Judaism’s sacred cows. First, the Holocaust and its universal and particular dimensions arise. "Suffering, even holocaust, Yehoshua implies, arent the monopoly of the Jews, and they're no excuse for cruelty." What cruelty? This word is inserted without reference to a situation. That suffering and genocide happen to people other than Jews is a recognized fact in the Jewish community. Yehoshua has brought nothing new to the table with this apparent insight.
According to Bronner, Yehoshua, through Yirmiyahu, suggests that “monotheism isnt the only honorable explanation for the inexplicable mysteries of the universe." Fair enough. But this sounds more like the fetishizing of animism than a rational explanation of polytheism’s merits.
All in all, Yehoshua’s book appears – at least from Bronner’s review – less than original, but “critics” of Israel get first-rate space in the NYTimes.
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