While we’re aware of nature’s fragile state, our views of Israel’s natural environment are still often romantic. We think of the landscape of the Holy Land as eternal, unaffected by the passage of time and man’s demands upon it.
When I first visited Israel, I found myself captivated by the country’s natural beauty. As a teenager spending a year abroad, I was drawn to the juxtaposition of the clear waters of the Gulf of Eilat and the Sinai Peninsula’s expanses of sand and rock. No hotel booking was needed—just my backpack, sleeping bag and the perfect spot on the beach at Sharm el Sheikh or Nueba. By day, I hiked the shores and snorkeled amid schools of brightly hued angelfish, parrotfish and clownfish as they darted in and out of pristine coral reefs. Come evening, I gathered beside campfires with people my age from all over the world, strumming my guitar and singing beneath the stars, and marveled at the untouched beauty of the Sinai.
I may have fallen in love with the underwater world and craggy coast but in truth, I knew little about them. The word “ecosystem” had not entered my vocabulary. Today we’re much more educated. But while we’re aware of nature’s fragile state, our views of Israel’s natural environment are still often romantic, as if we never got over junior year abroad. We think of the oasis, forgetting the toxic dump. We think of the landscape of the Holy Land as eternal, unaffected by the passage of time and man’s demands upon it. So Mitch Ginsburg’s “The Legend of a Lost Lake: A Tale of Death and Resurrection” makes for startling reading. The story of the draining of the lake and wetlands in the Galilee’s Hula Valley—the biblical waters of Merom—reveals how early Zionists remade the Holy Land in their image—and the consequences. Ginsburg explores what Judaism has to say about our relationship with nature, the changing attitudes of Israelis and the explosion of the country’s environmental movement.
For those inclined toward the literary, our June issue has much to offer. Did the “devil” play a hand in Adolf Hitler’s life? We asked journalist Ron Rosenbaum, author of Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil, to interview Norman Mailer about A Castle in the Forest, his recent novel about the dictator’s childhood. We hope that you will enjoy this lively and often surprising conversation.
One place where I did not expect to encounter Hitler was in Mandy Katz’s essay on prominent anti-Semites and the Jews they loved. As it turns out, the odd impulse to persecute the Jewish people doesn’t provide immunity from falling in love with a Jewish woman—or man. From the flamboyant Italian dictator Benito Mussolini to the weird American sci-fi writer H.P. Lovecraft to Wilhelm Marr—the 19th century founder of Germany’s Anti-Semitic League—anti-Semites have chosen unexpected bedfellows.
I’d like to draw your attention to our June book section. Vanity Fair’s David Margolick has composed a beautiful and touching paean to Primo Levi’s A Tranquil Star, while New York Times’ Jerusalem bureau chief Steven Erlanger, a careful observer of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, reflects on Sari Nusseibeh’s memoir, Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life.
Readers of our columns will notice that the two American-born, Israeli journalists, Gershom Gorenberg and Naomi Ragen, express very definite and different opinions as to how American Jews should cast their votes come the next election. No, we didn’t plan it this way, but side by side the two columns say even more than they do alone, which illustrates why it is so important to publish divergent views in the same publication. More than half of our letters to the editor come in response to our columns, including threats to cancel subscriptions unless we drop this or that columnist. While we may not agree with every column or every columnist, we are all the better for reading something that makes us want to write a letter to the editor. Diversity of opinions and hearty debate are among the most treasured Jewish values.
In April, we hosted a salon reading by young writer Jeremy Blachman, author of the hilarious Anonymous Lawyer novel. The event raised money for our newly established Moment Magazine Investigative Journalism Fund. I encourage you to support this important effort as well as send us ideas for our muckrakers to explore.
We are also delighted to announce the four authors who have won Moment Magazine’s 2006 Emerging Writers Award. Turn to page 75 to find out who they are! And in this issue we are publishing the first place winner of the 2006 Moment Magazine-Karma Foundation Short Fiction Contest: “Mark Gertler in 13 Sketches” by British writer Shaun Levin. Hint: The story revolves around London’s famous Bloomsbury Group, of which the Jewish artist, Mark Gertler, was a part. In it, you’ll encounter Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell, Lytton Strachey, D.H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield, Edward Marsh and Dora Carrington, as well as Gertler, his wife Marjorie Hodgkinson and their son Luke. Jonathan Safran Foer, author of the bestselling Everything is Illuminated, was the contest judge this year and this story was his first choice from among the many submissions.
Speaking of Jonathan Safran Foer, you are invited to meet him as well as Shaun Levin and our other winners at 7:30 pm on Thursday, June 21 at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun in New York City. Hear these wonderful writers read from their works and then join us for a reception in their honor.
