Abraham B. Yehoshua (1936-2022), colors and light of a great writer
By Simonetta Della Seta*
I first met him in person at the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem. It was the early 90s and I had not yet read his books. His eyes pierced with passion and his still dark curls swirled with the head movements. He was pointing his finger at an audience of academics and intellectuals. He was not talking about literature but politics. He was concerned by the occupation of the Palestinian territories. “What will we become?”, he said. “How can we Jews occupy other peoples?”. My Hebrew was already good enough to understand his sentences, punctuated with such clarity and confidence. A rounded pronunciation, powerful, even if the tongue clashed his teeth when he pronounced the double “t” of the Hebrew alphabet, giving a quick and funny lisp. His eyes often met those of a woman sitting in second row. She would smile, reciprocate, approve. Soon I would also meet Ika, psychologist, lecturer, mother of his children, companion of his life. They had met and loved each other, sharing a love for the children and their country, for France and then Italy, for friends, for music, for theater and finally, for their grandchildren.
Their home on Mount Carmel was full of colour and light. Ika always seemed to be in a good mood, but one could tell that everything was subject to his judgment. Bulli, as friends called him, taught literature at the University of Haifa. He would tell me about his students, how sometimes their questions intrigued him. Ika already knew everything. He had made her aware of it, had confided in her, they had already discussed every detail.
One day in May, in glorious weather, I showed them Rome from the roof of the Victor Emmanuel II National Monument. They looked like two lovers on holiday. He pointed his finger, not to blame this time, but to ask what that church was, and that building, and that ruin. A relentless, insatiable curiosity. Both were always full of questions about every new thing they saw, about the customs of people, about the habits that they were not familiar with, about personal and family stories, about how each and every one of us reacted to life, from the smallest things to the way bigger ones. Although, for them home had always been Israel, with its contradictions and problems. It was still the centre of life, the trunk of their tree, the special post from which they observed and commented on the world. It was their perspective to be explained, defended, and even questioned, should their conscience feel the need to rise up and speak out.
One evening we invited them to dinner in Tel Aviv, and it was a Shabbat meal. My husband recited the blessings of the holy day. We sang some hymns to the Sabbath. There was an atmosphere of great serenity in the house. Bulli and Ika said they were impressed and began to flood us with questions. What had led us to respect that day so fully? Bulli kept asking such questions for years.
He too asked: Why do you think Italians love to read my books? Because you talk about common values, I would answer. Because you describe a very known environment: the family. And you do it from the inside, digging, dissecting, telling what happens to each person at key moments of life: love, betrayal, divorce, lying, relationship with children, the one with death. He was fascinated by his Italian readers, his popularity, even underneath the sun umbrella. “I do not write for them, but I get to them”. That’s what makes a great writer, I used to repeat to him. But he did not like categories. “I do what I know how to do, narrate the life I know”.
Our conversations spread to almost everything, fluttering a little: from his books to daily life, to science. For months he worked on understanding how the electric car that his son had recommended would work. For just as many months, he talked about how nice it was to travel knowing that he was doing less damage to the environment.
During one of his many Italian visits we climbed up the Janiculum hill. It was at sunset. Ika asked me if I could take their picture. They looked like a young couple in love. Although Ika made me realize that she had been diagnosed with a tumor, showing me that her new hairstyle, with long hair I had never seen before, gathered in a tail, was a wig, albeit a very well-made one.
When he went back to Italy, it was without Ika. “I am not the same”, he whispered when I welcomed him in Ferrara. “I would have liked to leave with her, but it was not possible”. His curiosity had faded a bit. Something about him had gone with her. He wanted to visit Ferrara, but he no longer had so many questions about life. I guided him through the newly-built Museum of Italian Judaism and the Shoah. He was impressed by the resilience of Italian Jews, by their ability to maintain a Jewish identity throughout so many centuries. We held a public conversation, at the Municipal Theatre in Ferrara, on ‘The Jewish Book’. The subject fascinated him, his dark eyes rekindled as he spoke about how he used the Hebrew language, his language. An ancient and new language, he explained to us. A synthetic language that loves repetition, he reminded us. A language that he loved and that he masterfully shaped, like a great artist, like the sculptor who can bend marble even, like those few who leave an imprint on the soul of the world.
We met in Jerusalem, and he spoke of his sickness and death as a living testament. He welcomed me, happy to see me again in Israel. He greeted me with an affectionate look. He could not wait to join Ika.
* The author is the former director of MEIS – National Museum of Italian Judaism and the Shoah
Photo by Marco Caselli Nirmal
Translation by Maria Cianciuolo, revised by Alida Caccia, students at the Secondary School of Modern Languages for Interpreters and Translators of the University of Trieste, interns at the newspaper office of the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities – Pagine Ebraiche.