Orient (n.)c.1300, “the East” (originally usually meaning what is now called the Mid-East), from O.Fr. orient (11c.), from L. orientem (nom. oriens) “the rising sun, the east, part of the sky where the sun rises,” originally “rising” (adj.), prp. of oriri ”to rise” (see orchestra).
reorient1933 (trans.), 1937 (intrans.), from re- ”back, again” + orient (v.). Reorientate is recorded from 1933; reorientation is from 1920.
Travelling makes one so dis-oriented in general. On Monday, our DIL couldn’t find her rings, so there was a moment of sincere anxiety.
“Do you have any pockets?”
Problem solved sooo easily. Ironically, this was just after she had told us about how her grandmother, who was visiting from Miami, didn’t want to get out of bed because oh she was disoriented being out of her own world. And of course, that’s what happens when you’re old.
Next was ISHI’s turn. He forgot his carry-on case in the little one’s stroller. Thank G-d for cellphones and slow loading of kids into the car. They rendezvoused and delivered the case.
Next was my turn. The next morning, I couldn’t find my wedding ring. I had taken it off to wash my hands and I put my earrings on, but where was the ring? We turned the room upside down and I started a quiet panic. A friend of mine loses her wedding ring so often that she just buys a bunch so that she can always have one. I wasn’t willing to do that.
Of course, ISHI found it. It was under my big bag that I was readying for the day.
We were going to play tourist. Since we were staying a hopskipandajump from the Empire State Building, and neither of us had been there in let’s say 50 years, why not take advantage?
And so after the day before, when we were looking up and looking all around, Tuesday we spent looking down. I’ll throw just a few photos in, but I’ll save a few for later.
and maybe this one, too.
I really wanted to talk about why travel disorients you and why we need to be oriented. Now, we Jews always use Jerusalem as our center of orientation; I wrote about it here almost a year ago, in case you want to revisit. And let’s throw in Yehudah HaLevi’s beautiful poem that we read every Tisha B’Av:
My heart is in the East, and I am at the ends of the West;
How can I taste what I eat and how could it be pleasing to me?
How shall I render my vows and my bonds, while yet
Zion lies beneath the fetter of Edom, and I am in the chains of Arabia?
It would be easy for me to leave all the bounty of Spain –
As it is precious for me to behold the dust of the desolate sanctuary.
So then our youngest son writes this and it says it all:
After several months, our lift from Israel finally arrived. Now although it is somewhat exciting to see all these material objects, I can’t say I really missed them. Our kids weren’t going barefoot through the streets of Melbourne and our hands are adequately and organically moisturized. It’s amazing how much STUFF just accumulates. I mean, it is definitely nice to have my seforim, but I’ve managed with Bar-Ilan and the local Chabad library. And yes, there were lots of mementos that we were without, but new memories are being formed.
What really caught me off guard was how emotional I felt looking at the dirt still caked in the treads of our stroller and on the bottoms of our shoes. It’s just dirt, but it is one of the most precious things in the world.
Though I may be down under, my heart is still on aliyah.
May this be a Chodesh of goodness and redemption for all.
So when ISHI forgot his carry-on bag again Tuesday at the coffee shop and then his coffee mug when picking up the car today, should we have been surprised?
Since I talked about my menorah last time, I’ll talk about our menorah this time.
Before we got getting married, we did a lot of running all around Jerusalem. I don’t remember now if this particular run was associated with regular food shopping in the shuk, Machane Yehuda, or we were going to get something else. But again, like the kiddush cup and like our Finnish stoneware, we both did a double-take when we passed the window of an unlikely store for such items. It was in an area that is more upscale now, but at that time, was pretty much just for finding hardware and electrical tchotchkes. But around Hanukkah in Israel, everything becomes about Hanukkah. Well, everything except for where it isn’t. But I’m not getting political here. It’s that Hanukkah is as ubiquitous as Christmas is here, pretty much severed from religious connections in general, and so all the items, like the menorahs and the sufganiyot (doughnuts) and other fried foods are all over the place.
So it wasn’t really surprising that a hardware store of sorts would have a menorah.
Except it probably was a Judaica/antique store of some sort, somewhere on Agrippas Street, perhaps. Clear memory eludes me now.
I do remember our discussion with the shopkeeper, for sure.
We were moved by the menorah. This again is the unknown, why something of beauty strikes a chord in you. But we both were attracted to it and then the shopkeeper started up with his shpiel.
I’m freely translating from my memory (and from the Hebrew).
“You like it, yes? It is one of a kind, and very old. It is from the time of the Marranos, when they had to pretend they weren’t Jewish and so they would twist the arms of the menorah around to look like a candelabra.”
Actually, I’m sure that he didn’t use that word, but he showed us how to swivel the arms in all different directions.
We were also intrigued since we were thinking ahead of how to pack it up to bring it back to the states after our stay in Israel. It could come apart, pack somewhat easily, and be put together somewhat easily, too! In those days, remember, you didn’t have to worry about weight.
Terror, yes, but not weight.
So we bought the menorah and were happy to light it that year and since then, except when we have traveled over the holiday. It’s not really easy to transport now, but that’s okay.
When my parents came to Israel in advance of our wedding, they were also taken by the menorah and asked us where we got it. And we repeated the story, saying that the shopkeeper said it was unique. So we weren’t sure if he had others. But hey! Why not ask?
So we told them where to go–I don’t remember going back there with them. And you can guess what happened next. They came home with a menorah. Maybe it wasn’t exactly like ours, but.
No, it’s exactly like it.
Except it’s cleaner.
Maybe I’ll take another photo of it by itself soon.
I could also add that when we did come back to America and I started teaching in a Hebrew School somewhere in Connecticut (I really don’t remember the town), when I walked into the rabbi’s office, guess what he had there?
But not that these are in any particular order. This follows the previous one only because of the design.
I told you that there was a back story to our kiddush cup, having to do with one of our menorahs. Well, it actually has to do with one that I had bought before we were married, when I was looking around for things to buy in Jerusalem and found this.
I liked it. I was drawn to it, but I could not explain even today why. I can just say that I love/loved the use of the symbolism and its Art Deco style.
If I were really clever, I would also post another photo of the kiddush cup, the other side, for on it, it says the same thing that is engraved on the bottom of this menorah–Betzalel Yerushalayim.
This refers to the art school Bezalel in Jerusalem. I’ll let my friends at Wikipedia tell you a little about it.
The Bezalel school artists blended “varied strands of surroundings, tradition and innovation,” in paintings and craft objects that invokes “biblical themes, Islamic design and European traditions,” in their effort to“carve out a distinctive style of Jewish” art for the new nation they intended to build in the ancient Jewish homeland.[2] The works of art created by the group contributed significantly to the creation of a distinctive Israeli national culture. [3]
One of the artists mentioned in the group is Ze’ev Raban. Let’s look at his entry a bit, shall we?
Raban easily navigated a wealth of artistic sources and mediums, borrowing and combining ideas from East and West, fine arts and crafts from past and present. His works blended European neoclassicism, Symbolist art and Art Nouveau with oriental forms and techniques to form a distinctive visual lexicon. Versatile and productive, he lent this unique style to most artistic mediums, including the fine arts, illustration, sculpture, repousee, jewellery design, and ceramics.”[4]
Raban also designed a wide range of Jewish objects, including Hanukkah menorahs, temple windows, and Torah arks.
In fact, if you think back to how Hanukkah candles used to be packaged, you’ll remember (if you are of a certain age and ethnicity, that is) this:
By Ze’ev Raban, of course. Notice the little symbols on the right? Same style, for sure.
And the birkonim that we had bought when we first got married, also with artwork by him.
And our kiddush cup.
But I didn’t put this together for the longest time.
My FIL actually was the one who made it happen, not because he noticed it but because he bound a book for Yeshiva University Museum called
and we looked inside the book.
Wow. That’s the guy who designed all of this stuff!
And…
There’s my menorah.
Now you might notice that mine has a little difference at the top from say, this one.
Today is a Fast Day, the 10th of Tevet. Here is a brief description:
Today, the 10th of Tevet, the Nation of Israel fasts and remembers. On the 10th of Tevet of the year 3336 from Creation (425 BCE), the armies of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon laid siege to Jerusalem (See II Kings 25:1-25:4). Thirty months later on the 9th of Tammuz in the year 3338 (See Jeremiah 52.6-7), the city walls were breached. Tragically on the 9th of Av of that year, the Holy Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed and the Jewish people were exiled to Babylonia for 70 years.
The Tenth of Tevet is the first part of the cycle of fasts connected with these events, which includes: Shivah Asar B’Tammuz (17th of Tammuz) and Tisha B’Av (9th of Av).
The first reference in Tanach to the Tenth of Tevet as a fast appears in Zechariah (8:19) where it is called the “fast of the tenth month.”
According the Jewish tradition, Ezra the Scribe, the great leader who brought some Jews back to the Holy Land from the Babylonian exile and who ushered in the era of the Second Temple, died on the ninth of Tevet.
The Nation of Israel is built on its collective memory. Our past gives us the power to move forward into the future. As many greats have said, “You can’t know where you’re going if you don’t know where you come from.”
Yes to whoever the greats are. So are we sure where we come from? This is a great deal of the issue, since we don’t agree on that.
Treating women as impure and filthy begins with halakha and continues with actions. As long as the religious and ultra-Orthodox parties – Shas, United Torah Judaism, Habayit Hayehudi and National Union, none of which have any women in the Knesset – are not disqualified, their nakedness will continue to sing out and the nakedness of the land will be revealed.
A number of people (see here, for starters) have tried to counter his arguments, none really successfully. And countless others (okay, here and here) are trying to give another view. We know, of course, that he is wrong. We know that there are reasons to continue learning and not look at things just how they are printed. We know better, don’t we?
But if we don’t figure out how to get out the message, then we have failed. If we don’t convince the secular world, Jews and non-Jews, that we are much more sophisticated in our outlook than this, then they will have no reason to think that we are not lumped together with these extremists who are doing an excellent job marketing themselves as Jews.
Of course I am bothered by many issues of Judaism and how it should/could be. I was going to write “modernize” but that’s the rub, isn’t it? Much of what “Orthodox” (because I’m more and more bothered by that title) Judaism is about is maintaining a hold on the old. How do we share the power?
Here is what Chief Rabbi Sacks says about this week’s parashah regarding the repeated tears of Yosef:
In a fine essay, “Yosef’s tears,”[1] Rav Aharon Lichtenstein suggests that this last act of weeping is an expression of the price Joseph pays for the realisation of his dreams and his elevation to a position of power…
This is Rav Lichtenstein’s comment: “At this moment, Yosef discovers the limits of raw power. He discovers the extent to which the human connection, the personal connection, the family connection, hold far more value and importance than does power – both for the person himself and for all those around him.” Joseph “weeps over the weakness inherent in power, over the terrible price that he has paid for it. His dreams have indeed been realised, on some level, but the tragedy remains just as real. The torn shreds of the family have not been made completely whole.”
…
But at a deeper level, Rav Lichtenstein’s remarks recall Hegel’s famous master-slave dialectic, an idea that had huge influence on nineteenth century, especially Marxist, thought. Hegel argued that the early history of humanity was marked by a struggle for power in which some became masters, others slaves. On the face of it, masters rule while slaves obey. But in fact the master is dependent on his slaves – he has leisure only because they do the work, and he is the master only because he is recognised as such by his slaves.
Meanwhile the slave, through his work, acquires his own dignity as a producer. Thus the slave has “inner freedom” while the master has “inner bondage.” This tension creates a dialectic – a conflict worked out through history – reaching equilibrium only when there are neither masters nor slaves, but merely human beings who treat one another not as means to an end but as ends in themselves. Thus understood, Joseph’s tears are a prelude to the master-slave drama about to be enacted in the book of Exodus between Pharaoh and the Israelites.
Rav Lichtenstein’s profound insight into the text reminds us of the extent to which Torah, Tanakh and Judaism as a whole are a sustained critique of power. Prior to the Messianic age we cannot do without it – consider the tragedies Jews suffered in the centuries in which they lacked it. But power alienates. It breeds suspicion and distrust. It diminishes those it is used against, and thus diminishes those who use it.
Even Joseph “the righteous” weeps when he sees the extent to which power sets him apart from his brothers. Judaism is about an alternative social order which depends not on power but on love, loyalty and the mutual responsibility created by covenant. That is why Nietzsche, who based his philosophy on “the will to power,” correctly saw Judaism as the antithesis of all he believed in.
Power may be a necessary evil, but it is an evil, and the less we have need of it, the better.
Why does the current fight seem to revolve around women’s issues? We are the gatekeepers of the tradition. If we let them continue to denigrate us, from either side, from the complete lack of boundaries of flaunting our sexuality to the opposite, with trying to make us disappear, then we all lose. We have to figure out what we want and the honorable way to achieve it.
So today, when we remember walls being broken, maybe we should be looking to break down more barriers to let truth in.
IN JEWISH tradition, it is customary to bless people on their birthdays that they should live to 120, which was the age at which Moses went to meet his Maker. As far as anyone knows, there is no one in contemporary Israel who has reached that age, but according to a report in Yediot Aharonot, which quotes the Population Registry, there are 669 Israelis who have passed their 110th birthdays.
With the next Knesset elections only 18 months away at most, the people responsible for the Population Registry want to be sure that all the triple-digit citizens who are registered for voting rights are indeed still alive. Election scams in the past have included making use of the ID cards of deceased people whose deaths were not reported to the Interior Ministry. According to the report, Population Registry head Amnon Ben-Ami has asked these super senior citizens to contact his office within 30 days of receiving a letter asking for confirmation that they are still living. Anyone who doesn’t contact the office will lose their voting rights.
Telem Yahav and Akiva Novik, who wrote the story, discovered Zacharya Broshi, a 111- year-old Jerusalemite who was born in Kurdistan and who, despite his advanced age, lives alone, is self sufficient and has all his faculties. A former employee of the Jerusalem City Council, he is also a Worthy of Jerusalem and has received other significant recognition as well. He has been living in the Land of Israel since 1936 and helped to build the Burma Road during the 1948 siege of Jerusalem.
He has numerous descendants, and one of his great-great grandchildren has just been inducted into the army. When the Yediot reporters asked him to what he attributed his long life, he said that it was written in the Torah that one must honor one’s mother and one’s father in order that one’s days be long. He had indeed honored his parents, he said, because it was such an easy thing to do. When the reporters persisted and asked whether he did any exercise, he replied that he dances in the middle of the circle at family celebrations.
The time between these two fasts is known as Bein Hametzarim, between the straits.
The oldest extant reference to these days as Bein haMetzarim - which is also the first source for a special status of the Three Weeks – is found in Eikhah Rabbati 1.29 (Lamentations Rabbah, fourth century CE?). This midrash glosses Lamentations 1.3, “All [Zion's] pursuers overtook her between the straits.”
This was one of my motivators for writing this today:
A Borough Park resident named Ephraim told The New York Jewish Week that the incident was a “a double murder — one was the child, and the other is the image of a Jew.”
Actually, now that I remember it, this was the first thing that set me off this morning, an email from Jdeal (“seriously surprising deals”–they got that right (: ):
Wish you could find your soulmate, get a better job and keep your family in good health (“gay gazinta hate!”)? Buy this jdeal for $38 and a Torah scholar will pray on your behalf at the Kotel for 40 consecutive days ($95 value).
Of course, it would be such a m’chaya if you could get there yourself…but unless you won our recent seriously surprising jdeal for a free ticket to Israel via the HAS Advantage card, it may not be in the cards. Let a Torah scholar do it for you with daily trips to the Kotel (come wind, hail, rain or snow) where he will daven with kavana and say all the right things to help get your prayers answered. You too can join the countless individuals who found their beshert, and improved their jobs and health after these prayers. The best part: Your $38 will go to charity to support Jerusalem families.
Buy this jdeal today and thank Hashem for always being there…even when you can’t be.
Please follow redemption instructions on voucher. On the sign up form, you’ll be able to indicate name of the person the prayer is for, what the prayer is for, etc.
Expires 07/29/2011. May buy unlimited vouchers. Voucher redeemable 1 business day after purchase. Sign up form needs to be completed within 10 days after run date. No limit to sign ups per person. One person will be prayed for per sign up. Prayers will begin within 2 weeks of sign up. Must use in one sign up. Tax included. No cash or credit back. Not valid with other offers. Subject to availability. Redeemable online only.
Do you want to ask the obvious? Please, go ahead.
If you dare to look at the website, it gets even worse. This is marketing at its most terrifying, I think. I’ll just quote a little bit more from the end.
Batya trained and certified as a spiritual therapist under Rabbi Efim Svirsky (head of the Aish HaTorah Russian program). She brings these skills to her role at Western Wall Prayers, using an understanding and intuitive approach to help applicants articulate their personal prayers. She sees her involvement in Western Wall Prayers as a true calling, an opportunity to help people get closer to their Creator and develop their power of prayer.
Do you want to ask the obvious, again? Please, go ahead. I’m still reeling.
Apparently, there are takers. Since I started this thing (yes, I don’t write it straight), two more people bought in. I mean, bought the deal. That’s up to 61. Unless they’re padding it with fakers.*
(JTA) – The board of directors of Americans for Peace Now voted unanimously to support a boycott of products manufactured in West Bank Jewish settlements.
The board, meeting Tuesday in special session to discuss Israel’s new anti-boycott law, endorsed the Israeli Peace Now’s campaign to challenge the law and voted to join in the settlement boycott, according to a statement issued by Americans for Peace Now.
Debra DeLee, the organization’s president and CEO, called the law passed last week by Israel’s Knesset “a travesty of democracy.”
“APN proudly supports our colleagues in the Israeli Peace Now movement as they lead domestic efforts to challenge the new law,” DeLee said. “They understand what this law means for Israel and for their future as Israelis. They know that it is not just their own ability to fight for peace, but also the very soul of Israel that it is at stake.”
DeLee said that APN continues to oppose boycotts and other forms of BDS (boycotts, divestment and sanctions) against Israel and the Israeli people as a whole, and urged consumers to buy Israeli products.
“However,” she said, “today it is clear that Israeli extremists are exploiting concerns about BDS, turning them into a pretext to effectively outlaw peaceful opposition to settlements and the occupation. In light of these attacks, no one who cares about Israel can afford to be squeamish about the issue of settlement boycotts.”
DeLee said the new law is not about boycotts or settlements, but rather is “about stifling dissent, smothering activism, and suppressing freedom of expression.”
Do you want to point out the obvious, or should I?
So I’ll just end with another quote about these days of mourning that we have now entered:
Rambam (Hilchot Ta’aniyot Chapter 1) — as noted by Chasam Sofer (Orach Chaim 208) and later by Rav Soloveitchik — highlights a different aspect of these days — that of repentance. By contemplating the past tragedies and realizing that any generation that has not merited the restoration of the Mikdash is also considered guilty of the same crimes which led to its destruction, the individual is spurred to repent for the misdeeds of both his ancestors’ and his own generations.
said ISHI to me earlier today. What did ISHI say? Can you guess?
I figured I’d make a list of things it’s time to do and then I’ll get around to the correct answer provided (what he said).
do whatever clothes shopping I was thinking about doing, even though you can buy things on sale (but not wear them), but I figure I needed some lightweight clothing for this hot summer. Also, my clothes keep getting stained, even with my super-duper washing machine:(.
listen to music. Good music. Yes.
go to the movies? Nah, nothing playing. Go to the theatre? Hardly.
I can’t think of anything else that I would miss. Have a party? Not unless I have to. Sorry that I’m a party-pooper.
eat meat before the 9 days? Again, you got the wrong person.
get a haircut? Yes, that is it. That’s what ISHI was mentioning.
think about Yerushalayim and why it was destroyed and whether we have learned our lessons? Yes, that’s definitely the correct answer.
This poem was posted on Facebook by MyIsrael, an organization that is well, very pro-Israel. You can look at their website, but it’s in Hebrew, so be forewarned. If you click on the English, it will take you to their Facebook page, where I began. I will translate the poem roughly, but I think you’ll quickly get the gist. It starts with a bit of an introduction.
ז’ בתמוז, 7 שנים לפטירתה של המשוררת הלאומית נעמי שמר ז”ל The 7th of Tamuz marks 7 years since the passing of the nationalist songwriter Naomi Shemer, ob”m.
שיר נשכח של המשוררת, המתאים לחברי ישראל שלי – “איש מוזר” Naomi had a poem that had been forgotten that is fitting for the organization Yisrael Sheli (My Israel), “Oddball”.
**
לפני ימים אחדים כינתה עיתונאית מסוימת את תנועת ישראל שלי בכינוי “תנועה מוזרה” – כנראה בגלל שאנו עדיין אוהבים את ארצנו ואת עמנו A few days ago, certain journalists pointed out the organization as “an odd movement”. It seems that this is because we still love our land and our people
אם להיות ציוני ואוהב את הארץ זה להיות מוזר – אז אנו גאים להיות מוזרים If to be Zionist and to love the land is to be considered odd, then we are proud of being odd.
**
.תודה לחברה למור מזרחי על שהביאה את יום פטירתה לידיעתנו Thank you to Mor Mizrachi for pointing out her yahrzeit.
**
כמה מתאים להיזכר בשיר נשכח של נעמי שמר ז”ל How fitting to remember the poem of Naomi Shemer, “Oddball.”
“איש מוזר”
מאת: נעמי שמר ז”ל
**
פגשתי איש מאוד מוזר I once met a very odd man
שהלך כמו סהרורי, who went along like a sleepwalker
מלמל לעצמו בשקט ואמר: He muttered quietly to himself and said
על משכבי בלילות אני שומע On my bed at night I hear
קול פעמון גדול מצלצל the voice of a great bell ringing
ארץ ישראל שייכת לעם ישראל Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel) belongs to the People of Yisrael
ובקומי בבוקר אני חוזר ואומר And when I rise in the morning, I repeat
וכמו מתפלל like a prayer
ארץ ישראל שייכת לעם ישראל Eretz Yisrael belongs to the People of Yisrael
והד עונה לי מן הגאיות And an echo answers me from the valleys
והזריחה בהרים היא יפה להלל And the sunlight on the mountains is unutterably beautiful
וארץ ישראל שייכת לעם ישראל and Eretz Yisrael belongs to the People of Yisrael
וכך בקול ענות, And with a whimper
וכך בקול ילל And with a loud howl
וכך יומם וליל- And day and night
ארץ ישראל שייכת לעם ישראל Eretz Yisrael belongs to the People of Yisrael
והיא שייכת לו – And she (the land) belongs to them
לא כדי שיחזיק בה חיל כיבוש Not so that they will hold it by force or conquest
או חיל מצב Or garrison
היא שייכת לו כדי לבנות בה She belongs to them so that they will build her
את בית חלומותיו The house of their dreams
וכך בהקיץ ובחלום And so in waking hours and in dreams
ומדור לדור And from generation to generation
ומתוך הרגל And from force of habit
ארץ ישראל שייכת לעם ישראל Eretz Yisrael belongs to the People of Yisrael
איש מוזר, אמרתי. תתבייש, “Odd man”, I said, “Shame on you.”
סיסמא כל כך ישנה “Such an old idea.
הרי אתה מחוץ לתחום ומחוץ לקו You are so out of touch and out of line
ובעיקר – מחוץ לאופנה And most important, out of fashion.”
אבל האיש המוזר לא ענה לי, But the odd man did not answer me.
הוא לא ענה…He did not answer…
ואז ראיתי מסביב And I saw all around
את עשרות ואת מאות ואת האלפים The tens and hundreds and thousands of
אנשים כל כך מוזרים People just as odd
אנשים כל כך יפים People so beautiful
וקולם במקהלה גדולה And all of them a great chorus
כרעם הרחוק מתגלגל – Like distant thunder rolling
ארץ ישראל שייכת לעם ישראל Eretz Yisrael belongs to the People of Yisrael.
ואז – מיושנת ללא תקנה And so, hopelessly outdated
וסנטימנטלית ללא רחם –and relentlessly sentimental
אמרתי –I said
אנשים מוזרים – לו יהי חלקי עמכם! Odd People! Let my portion be with you!
**
Now see how someone fit the poem into a further context…
Being so inspired by this poem, I went to find out a little more about this unknown part of Shemer’s life, at least unknown to me. So I found a few articles, which I will share the appropriate parts.
‘Al Kol Eileh’ is a perfect example of how Shemer’s deceptively simple lyrics could spawn manifold interpretations. Settlers and the expansionist right adopted it as a battle hymn. They sung it defiantly in 1979, when Menachem Begin’s first Likud administration ordered bulldozers to dismantle the Sinai settlement of Yamit, in the cause of peace with Egypt. Yet in 2004 peace activists evoked its other message, of respect for nature and humanity, when they protested against Israel’s demolition of ancient Palestinian olive groves in the West Bank.
Shemer originally wrote the song to comfort her sister, Ruth, who had just lost her husband. But she did not object when settlers adopted it as their anthem, especially at Yamit. On the contrary – and to the chagrin of her left-leaning fans – Shemer backed the settlers’ umbrella group, Gush Emunim, as it grew after the 1973 war. Occasionally she even marched with them. She also wrote some controversial songs during that period; one was provocatively called ‘Ish Muzar’ (‘Oddball’) and contains the line: ‘The Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people.’
In 1999 a writer to an online peace bulletin board, Ira Weiss, wrote sadly of the ‘expropriation’ of his favourite song, ‘Al Kol Eileh’. On learning of Shemer’s settler affiliations, he commented: ‘I am deeply saddened. I love that song so . . . I don’t want to let them steal it from me . . . not even with the help of its author.’
Shemer’s affiliations here raise the wider issue of why certain scions of Labour’s founding generation, descendants of the largely Ashkenazi and secular chalutzim of yore, found the settler movement so beguiling. Perhaps they saw it as a logical continuation of the ‘tower and stockade’ campaign of socialist Zionists in the 1930s. The clearest example of this ideological evolution was Moshe Shamir, a revered author from ‘the Palmach generation’, former Marxist and key figure within the left-wing Mapam party, who died two months after Shemer, on 20 August. Shamir surprised his erstwhile allies immediately after the Six Day War when he became a leader of the Land of Israel Movement. In 1979 he helped found Tehiyah, a party to the right of Likud, many of whose members were former Labourites.
Religiously Orthodox Gushniks must have felt they were enacting biblical prophesy and fulfilling divine edicts ‘in our days’; yet their zeal found resonance in what may be called the romantic Zionism of Shemer and her ilk. Such romanticism gives zest to her songs, but it also, arguably, led her to ignore the whole issue of Palestinian rights.
In the mid-1970s Shemer began to identify with the people of Gush Emunim, the national religious movement that arose after the Yom Kippur War and also earned the support of people who were considered at the time people of the labor settlements, who saw them as settlers of the land. At that time Shemer wrote songs like “Paranoid’ and “Oddball” (Ish muzar), which caused a scandal. The words of “Oddball,” for example, included the line, “The land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people.”
At that time it was also held against Shemer that she wrote the line “The market square is empty” in the new verse she added to “Jerusalem of Gold,” even though the square was not indeed empty and Arabs were living there. Shemer said in response: “As long as there were no Jews there, in my eyes it was empty.”
The song “Do Not Uproot What has been Planted” (Al na ta’akor natua) became the anthem of the settlers of Yamit in Sinai in 1979. However, in an interview Shemer related that she had written the song to encourage her sister Ruth, who lost her husband. For Shemer, the evacuation of Yamit was a breaking point, and thereafter she rarely made political statements. In an interview with Haaretz four years ago, Shemer said: “At Yamit I learned that the commandment to settle the land on which I was raised was no longer valid. In settling the land there is definitely desire and passion. I am not prepared to be ashamed of this, because I grew up on the importance of settlement. But since Yamit, I feel that we have already evacuated the Golan Heights. This is the case, even though I wrote `There are the Mountains of Golan,’ and I feel terrible sadness.”
c.1300, “the East” (originally usually meaning what is now called the Mid-East), from O.Fr. orient (11c.), from L. orientem (nom. oriens) “the rising sun, the east, part of the sky where the sun rises,” originally “rising” (adj.), prp. of oriri ”to rise” (see orchestra).
