2003. I was sitting at my kitchen table agonizing, as so many of us did, over the bus explosions, train explosions, coffee houses and people – actual people bursting into flame. That was the moment I decided to portray the country as it really is, rather than through the objectified black and white perspectives of the media. I wanted to show the beauty, the complexity and the richness of Israel and Israeli life while demonstrating the extent to which the lives of everyday human beings there (like so many others, unfortunately) are intertwined with violence; I wanted my readers to see for themselves the way Israelis struggle to transcend pervasive, ongoing turmoil, and perhaps even to learn why. What physical and ethical struggles do these people combat on a daily, often hourly basis? What is it like to live with insoluble conflicts?- To continue living like that? - To sacrifice your children to a never-ending drama?

As I wrote, fictional characters and a story line popped up. I found myself interacting with people I felt I knew, human, passionate people and their desperate struggle to maintain the “good life” under war. Before I realized, Israela evolved into a novel that I now believe paints a far more real picture of the area than any history book I could have written.

I am aware that this is only a perspective, perhaps the perspective of many like myself, of a conflict that originated way back in pre-historical, times. It is perhaps a call to people of a different historical and cultural background who want peace. In fact, it is mostly a work of fiction, of fantasy, ultimately – of hope.

Interview with the author:

Why did you choose to use the medium of a novel to get your message out, instead of a play or a non-fiction book? I didn’t want to write a history book or a political treatise. They have been, and are being, written all the time. In my opinion, such works of scholarships, while wonderful, are written for those who are well acquainted with the area, and who have already picked their “side” on the political chessboard. I wanted to portray the human story of individuals trapped in a drama of epic, if not tragic proportions. I wanted my readers to sit on Israeli balconies and in Palestinian backyards and hear the conversations of real people - Arabs and Jews. I wanted them to taste the hunger of all the good people who live in that land for peace, for a good life for their children; and I wanted them to feel the threat of fundamentalists breathing down their necks. All of their necks, whether it be by means of guilt, as with the Israeli Arabs, or with open violence. I wanted my readers to understand from the mouths of Arabs and Jews, how contradictory their histories and their cultures are, so that they - my readers - will ask for themselves whether and how two such people can live together in this fragmented corridor of land, surrounded by enemies.

2. What do you feel is missing from the attention the media gives to the Israel-Palestinian problem? I keep thinking of Ireland. For 500 years Protestants fought Catholics in Ireland. Uprisings, random rockets and constant battles would be reported on the media, yet other than for a few platitudes and black-and-white perspectives, few of us ever really knew what they were fighting for, nor, if truth were told, did we care to find out. And so it is with the Israel/Arab conflict. The media conveys its messages in short, pithy sound bites, picking from their computers those tidbits of information that will have the most sensational effect, then they chew those tidbits to pieces, in hour-long debates. In Israela, I try to show the history, the traditions, the fears and prayers, and the songs, the fight for the “good life” under war that Israelis experience on a daily basis.

3. What do you believe is the solution? How can peace be brought to the Middle East? The truth? I don’t think peace can be brought to the Middle East, that is – not between Israel and her neighbors. There is too much hatred. It is too widespread and too embedded in the culture of the Middle East. The question is harder than the one you pose, much harder. It is, how can these people endure? How can they go on sacrificing their children to war knowing there will not be peace?

4. Your family moved to Israel in 1956 – 55 years ago. Almost since the birth of the Jewish state (1948), you have witnessed historical events there. But has anything really changed? Yes. For the first time since antiquity we are witnessing the miracle of having three generations of Israelis together in their own land; for the first time, Israelis are able to control their destiny and defend themselves. Fortunately, the grandchildren of the original 1948 generation have experienced neither life in the Diaspora, nor the holocaust. They do not remember the necessity of a homeland. They don’t remember the wars that caused their map to change, and change again. They, like the rest of us, are impatient for peace. Reality has its own strange laws. History has been rewritten, and it is the rewritten version that is their guidebook.

5. You have lived in many parts of the world, including Scotland, England, and South Africa. What have your international experiences taught you about life? If I have learned anything at all, I have learned that other than for the terrorists, the suicide bombers, and those radicals who idealize warfare, hatred and death; other than for them and the people who’ve been inculcated by them into a mindset of hatred, people everywhere are the same. Human beings want peace and prosperity for their children. They want to have love and meaning in their lives. And they want food on the table. The Palestinians need their state too. They deserve peace. If only the fundamentalists who call themselves leaders would stop robbing their people’s resources, robbing their freedom of thought, and the finances necessary to build them a home.

6. In your new book, Israela, you take an interesting approach. The story is divided into three stories being told at the same time. You share those connected tales in a way where the chronology of years does not evenly match up. Why did you choose this method? I play with two major themes in Israela: time, and names (which are souls), hence the Nietzsche quote at the beginning. In Israela, each of us comes into our present tense when we no longer look to the future for our lives to begin, and before we start looking backward, and so it is that the three main characters have different present tenses. They simply come into their own at different stages of their lives. Also, in the second book of Israela, Ratiba goes from her earlier days, 1966, in which she’d fallen in love with Ibrahim, (past tense), to her newly married status and her childrearing (present,) until she reaches middle age and the birth of Hamzah, her son, 1982. These scenes are interspersed with those of Elisheva’s nursing days, and Avrohm, her patient’s, stories, all of which take place in 1982; for it is then, while lying on his deathbed in Elisheva’s hospital ward, that Avrohm records his life. Ratiba’s son, Hamzah, is conceived as Avrohm dies. Avrohm’s soul, as evidenced by the timing and by the physical similarity that they share, has passed into the newborn child. In this book, souls recognize no borders. I also play with names. The most obvious, of course, are Avrohm and Ibrahim, Jewish and Arabic words for their shared biblical ancestor, father of both religions. I also refer to Isaac and Isma’il and their biblical stories. In Israela, Isma’il and Isaac are the Best Men at Orit’s wedding. Will they relive the biblical story that set us all off on the wrong foot in the first place? Will they be compelled by irreconcilable hostility to repeat it? Or is this an opportunity to change that story altogether, to jump to the next historical chapter, free of violence? For sure, the novel offers no answers.

7. One of the compelling stories in your book features two sisters who grow apart when one sister turns her back on her Jewish heritage to marry an Arab. How challenging was it for you to write in the mindset of such a woman? It was challenging. First because I truly believe there is nothing whatsoever of myself in Ratiba. Second, because I was afraid I’d be accused of writing something I know so little about. Then I remembered that writers of murder mysteries or star-crossed lovers are not necessarily murderers or lovers themselves. I decided to write her as a human being, as all of us are, and everything I wanted to say fell into place. Good metaphor for life, no?

8. In your book you write poetically of what Israel stands for and what it needs to be. What does Israel mean to you? I am still of that generation that remembers the dreams and sacrifices of our parents; I know that Israel was given as a homeland to the Jews. I also remember why. Israel, I believe, has realized her dreams to a level that way exceeds her early expectations of nation building. The challenge remaining is how to find a meaningful and mutually profitable language with our neighbors - not with those who openly deny our existence and claim Israel as their own – that is a challenge of another kind - but with those who live in peace, despite their ambivalent identity.

9. What do people fail to realize about how people try to live their lives in a country that is always on the verge of violence? - The temerity, the incredible soul-searching and earnestness with which Israelis struggle over political and social issues, for they do struggle. Soul-searching is a national pastime. Daily, often hourly, while mourning their dead, or celebrating life with those they love, while maintaining their right to live on that land, they struggle to maintain their humanity.

10. What are some of your most frightening memories of your time in Israel? All the wars are frightening. Especially for children. It is not fun to crowd into shelters, to hear sirens and planes roar overhead, to wear gasmasks, to hear rockets fall. The intifadas were scary too. People literally left their homes in the morning not knowing what bus or coffee house would burst into flame, or whether they’d see their loved-ones again. My teenage niece visited me during the Intifada. I was teasing her about dating, telling her that she’d be married in a few years. She said she was as likely to be dead as married. Israelis evacuated Gaza on August 22, 2005. Before then, Israeli soldiers would roll into Gaza with their tanks warning civilians that they planned to destroy their homes, homes that stood guard over the tunnels through which Arabs smuggled bombs, rockets and explosives into Gaza. Arab women and children lived in terror. To them, the “evil” Israelis were the source of all their troubles. Wars are terrifying for them too.

11. One of the themes expressed in your book touches upon the notion of how individuals live with secrets and how doing so can tear apart the very things they’d hoped to protect. Tell us about that. For that, I think you’ll have to read the book. Israela is about lies, secrets, and alienation. It is also about heroism, about Arabs who save Jews from disaster, and Jews who heal Arabs.

12. Batya, how did you use your experience as a director, actor and theater teacher to write your book? I believe the purpose of theater is the dramatization of our deepest concerns and the confrontation of those concerns with society. Conflict is the heart of theater; without conflict there is no theater. My deepest concerns lie in the unending conflict of Israel and its neighbors. It is these concerns that I try to evoke by means of my characters.

13. Your book demonstrates how Arabs save Jews and Jews heal Arabs. Is it just a fairy tale or can we make this a reality? No. It is not a fairy tale. All those scenes of Arabs saving Jews, and Jews healing Arabs, are true – except for the story of Hamzah – which brings us back to my original point: Good people are everywhere.

14. Why did you write this book? Wherever I go, I hear condemnations of Israel, mostly from people who are ignorant of the area and of the excruciating ethical and existential dilemmas that torment Israelis on a daily, hourly, basis. Everyone has their perspective; wars are fought over perspectives.

15. What surprised you the most as you researched and wrote it? I originally launched into this project out of my own need to trace the trajectory of modern Israel since its inception, to see how, if, and where, this tiny state has gone wrong. Consequently, in its original form, it contained a great deal of history, material that has since been deleted, for much to my surprise, Israela took me into areas I had not foreseen. It became a work of fiction. Thinking, talking, passionate characters emerged, as did imaginary actions: acts of love, betrayal, heroism, secrets and surprising twists of plot. Israela took on a life of her own which, it now seems to me, provides a far clearer picture of the country and the people who live there than any history lesson I could have provided.

16. What do you think will surprise readers most? Biblical names appear and reappear in this story as part of recurring family constellations, perhaps suggesting openness for realignment, for new possibilities. The aspect of the book that surprised me the most however, is that Israela, quite late in the writing process, found her own voice. It might surprise my readers to know that.

17. What’s the most important lesson or message readers will get from it? I hope they’ll gain a sense of the soul searching and the courage that Israelis manifest on a daily basis; the feeling that Israel is not a place of ruthless domination, but of people like you and me who are forced, by the circumstances of their lives, to make painful decisions, decisions they question daily and struggle to live with.