Page 51 - HaMizrachi Tu BiShvat 5782 - USA

Israel was never strong enough to get a wonderful poet, is that he is the first Cairo Geniza, information that no one
them to actually go to Israel. Jew on record to come to Israel out of knew about previously. In that sense,
a deep existential need. And he does it we know more about Rabbi Yehudah
If you look at the pattern of Jewish most incredibly. He was a famous man, HaLevi today than anyone did for the
migrations through history, after Israel a great poet living when the Jewish last thousand years.
ceases to be a sovereign Jewish nation, community honored and adored its
Jews go and settle everywhere in the poets; he was the uncrowned king of I’ve had a lot of luck with biographies.
world – everywhere! Everywhere, that Spanish Jewry! And then, at about the I’ve written two biographies in my life,
is, except for one tiny country – Israel! age of 70 or close to it, he gets up, all by about Rabbi Yehudah HaLevi and Jabo-
Until the 19th century, the Jewish pop- himself – no one offers to come with tinsky. Generally, from my experience,
ulation of Israel was tiny. You can argue him – and he goes to the port and sets the more you know about a writer or
that Jews didn’t move to Israel for sail for Palestine via Egypt. He is by any great figure, the less you like them.
economic reasons, as Palestine never himself, with no knowledge of where You begin to see their warts and faults
had the developed economy that other he is going, and no one he knows will and the unpleasant aspects of their
countries had. But you can’t help but greet him when he arrives. He knows personality. But with Rabbi Yehudah
come to the conclusion that for some that he is going to a tiny and impov- HaLevi and Jabotinsky, it was the exact
deep, unconscious reason, Jews avoided erished Jewish community ravaged opposite – the more I got to know
living in this country. Perhaps it scared by the Crusades. What this man did is them, the more I saw them up close
them, or was too much of a burden. incredible, and he has deeply moved and understood their surroundings, the
Perhaps they were afraid that when me. more I came to love them! Both of those
they actually came to the Holy Land, biographies turned out to be works of
they wouldn’t be able to see its holiness; I wanted to find out more about him, love about men I came to revere.
that it was better to imagine it from but our information is sparse. He wrote
afar than to try to experience it when many poems, and a lot of them have an What is it that drew you to Jabotinsky?
autobiographical basis; without these
you were there.
poems, I couldn’t possibly have writ- I grew up in a Labor Zionist home; I
One of the things that drew me to ten his biography. Much of what we went to Labor Zionist summer camp.
Rabbi Yehudah HaLevi, besides being know about him was unearthed in the And so Jabotinsky was both an

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