false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174730163m/433881.jpg 433881 3 "Months afterwards she would remember that morning with dismay, when she had sat with them for the first time, as though they were at home there: drinking from cups like welcome guests ... and only the part of her, the part that didn't laugh with them, thought: Could these hands, serving coffee, be the ones that planted the booby-trapped doll at the gate of the religious school at the end of the street?" <P> In the stories of Israeli author Savyon Liebrecht, personal relationships can't help but become political. In "A Room on the Roof," an unnamed Jewish woman hires three Arab workers to build an addition onto her house while her husband is out of the country. So paralyzed is she by her fear of <I>Arabs</I>, she is unable to recognize the essential decency of these particular men; on the rare occasions when she <I>is</I> able to see past her own blind bigotry, the realization that her workmen are human beings with their own set of hopes, fears, and prejudices is so terrifying that she becomes even more strident in her intolerance. <P> Though a few of the stories in <I>Apples from the Desert</I> are directly concerned with interactions between Jews and Arabs, the collection is, in fact, more about how Israelis deal with each other. The Holocaust is the unmentioned elephant in the drawing room, for Liebrecht, herself the daughter of concentration camp survivors, is particularly interested in the impact that tragedy has had on the children of survivors. In "Hayuta's Engagement Party," everyone fears that Grandpa, a Holocaust survivor, will ruin this festive occasion (as he has many others) with his grim recitals of death-camp atrocities. The protagonist of "'What Am I Speaking, Chinese?' She Said to Him" returns to her childhood home in Poland in order to stage a sexual encounter in the same room where her parents--again Holocaust survivors--once argued about sex. <P> If the Holocaust is one theme running through most of these stories, the position of women in modern Israeli society is another. Many of the women--especially older ones--in Liebrecht's stories are in oppressive marriages with men who neglect, ridicule, and sometimes physically abuse them. In "Compassion," a Jewish woman who was hidden from the Nazis in a Catholic convent as a child marries an Arab man who eventually imprisons her and takes a younger wife. Victoria, the mother of a rebellious daughter in the collection's title story, only recognizes the depths of her own marital misery when she sees the loving relationship her child has formed outside the legal bonds of matrimony. <P> There is nothing subtle about Liebrecht's stories, and readers accustomed to the finely tuned ironies of an Ann Beattie or Alice Munro may find these stories a trifle emphatic. However, anyone interested in the literature coming out of Israel today will find Savyon Liebrecht's window on the land and the people illuminating, if sometimes uncomfortable reading. 422821 1998 Apples from the Desert: Selected Stories (The Helen Rose Scheuer Jewish Women's Series) total:15|5:4|4:7|3:2|2:2| 15 58 21 4 2 0 false false Sat Sep 26 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Sep 27 21:00:23 -0700 2009 Sun Sep 27 21:09:27 -0700 2009 more...]]> 0 0 false false Tue Mar 24 16:28:51 -0700 2009 Tue Mar 24 16:29:28 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Sat Mar 14 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Mar 05 07:07:04 -0800 2009 Sat Mar 14 12:30:21 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Sat Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Fri Dec 28 10:16:42 -0800 2007 Fri Dec 28 10:17:41 -0800 2007 5 0 false false Sun Sep 20 13:57:40 -0700 2009 Sun Sep 20 13:57:40 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Sun Jul 05 12:38:06 -0700 2009 Sun Jul 05 12:38:06 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Mon Jun 29 19:09:01 -0700 2009 Mon Jun 29 19:09:01 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Mon Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Jun 21 02:18:02 -0700 2009 Sun Jun 21 02:18:16 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sun Feb 01 07:11:10 -0800 2009 Sun Feb 01 07:11:10 -0800 2009 4 0 false false Wed Jan 21 12:26:10 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 21 12:26:10 -0800 2009 4 0 false false Mon Dec 15 08:08:06 -0800 2008 Thu Nov 06 15:07:44 -0800 2008 Mon Dec 15 08:08:06 -0800 2008 3 0 false false Tue Oct 14 03:41:34 -0700 2008 Sat Sep 20 13:45:51 -0700 2008 Tue Oct 14 03:41:34 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Mon Sep 08 09:59:31 -0700 2008 Mon Sep 08 09:59:31 -0700 2008 4 0 false false Sun May 25 03:26:54 -0700 2008 Sun May 25 03:26:54 -0700 2008 4 0 false false Sat Apr 26 22:41:47 -0700 2008 Sat Apr 26 22:41:47 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Thu Mar 20 07:48:22 -0700 2008 Thu Mar 20 07:48:22 -0700 2008 5 0 false false Sat Dec 29 21:36:43 -0800 2007 Sat Dec 29 21:36:43 -0800 2007 0 0 false false Sat Nov 03 17:29:17 -0700 2007 Tue Mar 10 20:07:59 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Sat Sep 01 15:18:07 -0700 2007 Sat Sep 01 15:18:07 -0700 2007 5 0 false false Fri Aug 31 08:23:37 -0700 2007 Fri Aug 31 08:23:37 -0700 2007 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=433881