Since
childhood, writing has been one of my main channels of expression.
Creating my own kingdoms, and populating them with characters of my choice
fills me with immense joy and satisfaction. Moreover, writing is my
anchor. Putting reflections into words is vital to my thought process; it
gives form and weight to abstract notions, and helps me gain a better
understanding of myself and the world at large.
Before I began writing, I was an avid reader,
which I doubtless owe to my mother. When I was young, she would cross
town twice weekly, in any weather, to borrow books at the pubic library for my
sister and me. Back then my parents had little money to spend on such
luxuries, and my mother’s dedication has enriched my world far beyond where my
imagination, or life in the insipid suburb of Tel Aviv where we lived, could have carried me. Thus I
became a bookworm. By the time I was a teenager, I had already consumed
the library’s children and young adult books, and began devouring adult titles.
Many of them, like Gone with the Wind, took me years to fully digest, as I
lacked context and the appropriate maturity to comprehend the narrative’s
implications. In high school I treasured the summer vacation
recommendation-list, from which we were asked to choose one or two books.
By the end of the summer, I had read all the books I could find in the library,
covering between ten and fifteen volumes.
Though as a child it was clear to
me that I would become a writer when I grow up, it took me half my life to
fully realize this vision. The reasons for this might be many, but one of
them, no doubt, is the language itself. My knowledge of the English
language has been reasonably proficient from an early age, yet it took many
years to gain the confidence and skill to be able to write with fluency.
Born and raised in Israel, Hebrew is my native
language. As an obsessive reader, I had mastered the Hebrew
language. And just as childhood experiences leave deep impressions in us,
Hebrew had resonated in me with layers of meanings. Certain words, or a
combination of them, would conjure up visceral feelings, such as longing and
loneliness that were associated with the ambience typical of Jerusalem’s quiet streets on the
Sabbath.
After immigrating to the U.S. in 1991, when I
was in my mid 20s, I continued using Hebrew in my creative writing. I was
working on a short story collection when a friend asked me which language I was
using. Hebrew of course, I replied. With my friend’s question
hovering in my mind, I could not resist the urge to try and compose in English.
And so I decided to throw away the crutches and experience English
from within. It was a struggle. Like other immigrants, I too often
translated from English into my native language to fully comprehend what I
heard or read. Moreover, the English vocabulary is much larger than
the Hebrew one, and its grammar and spelling are more complex. I have
leapt from a lake into a vast ocean.
As a child, I looked forward to my
grandmother’s visits from London. I loved her suitcase that held a
delicate bouquet of perfume, and promises of gifts and sweets we did not have
in Israel back then. With her German-accented English Granny made me
admire the language. It, as she, represented worldliness, opportunities,
and a vague sense of freedom.
Growing up in Israel, I never quite felt I
belonged there. I imagined a place where people are unstressed and kind
to one another, and the landscape is green and lush. As a preteen, my
bedroom wall was covered with picturesque photographs, cut out from a Scottish
calendar. Gazing at the open pastures, many hours were spent daydreaming
about these landscapes. Beyond the obvious attraction for someone who
grew up in an arid country, these images represented a different reality:
Peaceful, harmonious, and generous. Though I never traveled outside its
borders before I emigrated from Israel, I somehow knew I belonged elsewhere.
This sense of unease was amplified when I
turned into a young adult. It was doubtless the result of growing up in a
war zone. In particular the four years of living in violence-ridden
Jerusalem, prior to arriving in Boston. The first Intifada (the
Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation) plagued the entire country, and
it hit the Israeli capital the hardest. In 1987, a year after I moved to
Jerusalem to attend college, the city’s sleepy streets were radically
transformed. People were knifed in public spaces almost daily. The
bus I took to school, crossing Arab neighborhoods on the east side of town, was
often stoned. Once, a rock hit the window right beside me. I was
deeply thankful that I had been too lazy to open it earlier, as I usually
did. Through my years in Jerusalem I have developed a habit of looking
over my shoulder whenever walking in the street; a nervous tendency I have
never been able to overcome, even though I had left my homeland more than
twenty years back.
My grandmother’s visits were my most direct
connection with the kingdom of “abroad” I had been cultivating in my
fantasies. It took effort and time, but this vision has since become my
reality. And it doesn’t fall short from my childhood imaginations.
Brought to the Boston area by serendipity, I soon felt quite comfortable
here. Of course, no place is trouble free, yet I find life here to be
much more manageable. Unaffected by traumatic wars, nor burdened by the
weighty past of the Holocaust, New Englanders seem to be relatively calm, kind,
and most important, tolerant of the “other.” Inspired by the liberal
spirit—and the diversity of its international and multicultural populace—my new
locale feels like home.
Though my work often draws on my Jewish-Israeli
background, I find it easier to write in the U.S., as I wrote in my piece, Air:
“[here] my wings gained strength, by and by, until they grew large enough to
break the bars. And I tiptoed into new air. Crisp air. Open
air. I began breathing; small swigs at first, deeper gulps at last.
In this new land. In this new air.”
Over the years, being immersed in English, my
relationship with Hebrew has transformed. In fact, a few years back I
read some poems I wrote when I was sixteen, which left me impressed by the high
quality of the writing. I even needed to translate a few words into English.
The resonance I so enjoyed in the past slowly faded; nowadays, when I read
Hebrew, my emotions are rarely stirred by the words. At some point I
realized that, though I am no longer intimate with Hebrew, I might never
acquire a similar relationship with English. In a recent poem I
wrote:
I love to write.
I am a writer.
I am a writer without a language.
It was working on my first novel, From the
Desert, that enabled me to complete the immigration route into my new
lingual homeland. Weaving the story for more than three years, thread by
thread, has granted me a sense of ownership over the English language. I
might never be able to emulate the relationship I once had with Hebrew, yet
English and I are certainly growing closer. With this, my work and focus
have gained impetus, and my mind is inundated with ideas.
I often work simultaneity on a few pieces;
flash fiction, poems, short stories, and a novella that is slowly
brewing. While much of the themes center on new ideas, some of my work
relates to past experiences, such as my service in the Israeli Air
Force.
With the distance from my native country, and
using a second language, I am now better able to exorcise my devils and examine
that which keeps gnawing at me. When
put in words, war and violence seem less traumatic, and help me better
appreciate my homeland and my upbringing, and all the raw feelings and throbbing
memories that come with it. I find that writing liberates apparitions and
enhances the act of living.
One can never know what the paths
untaken might have offered, but I am quite certain that had I remained living
in Israel and writing in Hebrew, my work would have taken a very different
shape. And I love the wide horizons my immigration of both home and
language made possible!
