Hello everybody,
I was so preoccupied with the closing of my favorite bookstore, which saved me numerous times while I was looking for sources for my writing classes that I was unable to finish the posts I promised you about evil.  Instead, we’ll have to deal with it this week.
One of my friends criticized my point of view about the literary condition in Israel. This friend, let’s call him J, says that he thinks the reason that literary criticism in Israel is in a shambolic state is because the critics in the past were well educated and they were not a part of the academy. Today, all of the well educated critics are doctors and professors, and they are subjected to politics and they do not keep the old calling of Barukh Kurzweil: “If I would pity the writers, who will pity the readers?”
The newspaper critics are not as educated and talented as those who come from the university and the literature suffers. Alex Zehavi, god rest his soul, who was a critic and editor, told me that when he wrote criticism for Keshet – one of the most important literary magazines in Israel from the 50s – 70s and later during the first decade of the 21st century, the editor concealed his identity and would not reveal it despite authors’ pressure. Would there be an act so generous today? I doubt it. Not just because the editors are not like they use to be, but today writers write for glory and this affects their writing. Today it’s not the writer nor the reader that are important, but the critic himself.
About my claim that if the literary genius would show up today the book market would not help him thrive. J says that a society should be ready for the successful writer to appear like Russia in the second half of the 19th century, and Israel is well ready to groom the next genius. From what I see in my writing class, Israel has many talents, most of them are wasted for all sort of reasons, some psychological, some economical, but no one can deny that today, despite the economical crisis, the price tag for taking part in Tel Aviv’s cultural life is not cheap, and does not assure you successes.
I told J that one of the reasons I’m so happy writing this blog is that it can be a meeting place for all sorts of literatures and we talked about the fact that this dialogue is much more present than people think. But that is something to talk about another time.
Yours,
Yoav