"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?" 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 Arabs, she is unable to recognize the essential decency of these particular men; on the rare occasions when she is 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. Though a few of the stories in Apples from the Desert 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. 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. 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.


From Publishers Weekly
As Grace Paley notes in her foreword to the first English translation of popular Israeli writer Leibrecht's work, these dozen stories are "personal?but they are also fierce pleas for understanding and justice." Their themes are somber: the enmity between Jews and Arabs; the oppression of women in sometimes violently unhappy marriages; the lingering effects of the Holocaust. In "A Room on the Roof," a young Jewish woman finds herself drawn to the educated and sensitive leader of a group of Arabs she has hired?against her husband's wishes?to build an addition to her house, but prejudice, misunderstanding and fear overcome her attempts to connect with them. In the title story, a woman who has gone to a kibbutz to retrieve her runaway daughter comes to admire the egalitarian affair between the girl and a fellow kibbutznik, but returns to her own loveless marriage at the end. And in "Hayuta's Engagement," a woman tries unsuccessfully to mediate between her heartless daughter's desire for a smooth engagement party and her father's compulsive need to reveal the horrors of his long-ago concentration camp existence; though compassionate, she buckles under her daughter's insistence that the old man be silenced, with tragic results. Liebrecht's strong prose bears witness to conflict in powerful ways, and if her refusal to provide upbeat endings makes the tone of these tales unrelievedly dark, she is true to her subjects and their history. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Available in English for the first time, these selected stories from best-selling Israeli author Liebrecht cover a wide range of feminist themes. Liebrecht portrays the gulf between Israelis and Palestinians, macho Israeli men and their misunderstood wives, Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews, and the older generation who remembers the Holocaust and the younger generation, who would prefer to forget it. In "A Room on the Roof Salah," for instance, a strong-minded young Israeli wife and mother contracts to have a room built on the roof of her house while her husband is away. She feels ambivalent toward the crew of Arab workmen: could these hands be the ones that planted a booby-trapped doll at the gate of the religious school down the street? The workmen evoke both fear and compassion in her, and she achieves a kind of egalitarian rapport with one of them. An excellent collection of well-written reality checks on Israeli life; highly recommended.?Molly Abramowitz, Silver Spring, MDCopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, Suzanne Ruta
These finely wrought stories of private lives shed light on a terrifying political conflict.


The Washington Post Book World, Beryl Lieff Benderly
Though resonant with deep philosophical and social themes, this book teems not with images or ideologies but with rich, exciting, believable stories. Each has a beginning, a middle and an end; a deftly drawn locale; a cast of real, rounded characters; conflict and climax--though not always resolution. Liebrecht offers no literary tricks, ideological positions or special pleading, just engrossing and skillful tales that take you, through the lives of real people, to the heart of their emotional and moral being.


From Booklist
"I want my child to hear stories about Cinderella, not Auschwitz," a young mother insists in one story in this moving collection originally published in Israel and translated from the Hebrew. Liebrecht is herself the child of Holocaust survivors, and many of her stories are about the conflict between a haunted older generation who cannot forget and an impatient younger set who don't want to know. The conflicts are also between Jews and Arabs, men and women, secular and religious groups, with unexpected individual moments of empathy that reach across the divide. One heartbreaking story is like the reverse of Isaac Bashevis Singer's Enemies: A Love Story (1972): a woman goes mad when her husband leaves her for the first wife he had thought was lost in the camps. Sometimes the metaphors go on too long, and the plots are contrived to spell out the message, but in the best stories, the immediacy of the contemporary scene shows the power of history, of memory, in individual lives. Hazel Rochman


Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Hebrew


About the Author
SAVYON LIEBRECHT is the author of one novel and four short story collections. Her selected stories have also been published in German, Italian, and Chinese. LILY RATTOK teaches at Tel Aviv University. She edited the first anthology of women’s writing in Hebrew. GRACE PALEY’s books include Later the Same Day, Long Walks and Intimate Talks, Just As I Thought, and Begin Again: Collected Poems.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Savyon Liebrecht's stories reveal the impact of larger social and political conflicts within the private worlds of home and family. She depicts the personal tragedies -- and the small acts of courage and reconciliation -- that grow from the deep-rooted conflict between Arabs and Jews, women and men, and older and younger generations in present-day Israel.

FROM THE CRITICS

Tikkun Magazine

What makes these stories most powerful are their unflinching commitment to enter into the consciousness of women as they approach the complexities of contemporary life with a distinctively self-affirming women's perspective. It is work that is finely nuanced to social reality and yet powerfully alive to the inner struggles and psychological twists of its characters. A truly beautiful piece.

Benderly - Washington Post Book World

Engrossing and skillful tales that take you through the lives of real people, to the heart of their emotional and moral being.

Publishers Weekly

As Grace Paley notes in her foreword to the first English translation of popular Israeli writer Leibrecht's work, these dozen stories are 'personal -- but they are also fierce pleas for understanding and justice.' Their themes are somber: the enmity between Jews and Arabs; the oppression of women in sometimes violently unhappy marriages; the lingering effects of the Holocaust. In 'A Room on the Roof,' a young Jewish woman finds herself drawn to the educated and sensitive leader of a group of Arabs she has hired -- against her husband's wishes -- to build an addition to her house, but prejudice, misunderstanding and fear overcome her attempts to connect with them. In the title story, a woman who has gone to a kibbutz to retrieve her runaway daughter comes to admire the egalitarian affair between the girl and a fellow kibbutznik, but returns to her own loveless marriage at the end. And in 'Hayuta's Engagement,' a woman tries unsuccessfully to mediate between her heartless daughter's desire for a smooth engagement party and her father's compulsive need to reveal the horrors of his long-ago concentration camp existence; though compassionate, she buckles under her daughter's insistence that the old man be silenced, with tragic results. Liebrecht's strong prose bears witness to conflict in powerful ways, and if her refusal to provide upbeat endings makes the tone of these tales unrelievedly dark, she is true to her subjects and their history.

Library Journal

Available in English for the first time, these selected stories from best-selling Israeli author Liebrecht cover a wide range of feminist themes. Liebrecht portrays the gulf between Israelis and Palestinians, macho Israeli men and their misunderstood wives, Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews, and the older generation who remembers the Holocaust and the younger generation, who would prefer to forget it. In "A Room on the Roof Salah," for instance, a strong-minded young Israeli wife and mother contracts to have a room built on the roof of her house while her husband is away. She feels ambivalent toward the crew of Arab workmen: could these hands be the ones that planted a booby-trapped doll at the gate of the religious school down the street? The workmen evoke both fear and compassion in her, and she achieves a kind of egalitarian rapport with one of them. An excellent collection of well-written reality checks on Israeli life; highly recommended.--Molly Abramowitz, Silver Spring, MD

Suzanne Ruta