J'accuseNew Directions Publishing, 2003 - 64 páginas Playing on Zola's famous letter denouncing the anti-Semitism of the French government throughout the Dreyfus affair, Aharon Shabtai's title can be taken literally: it charges his government and his people with crimes against the humanity of their neighbors. Here we find snipers shooting children, spin-masters trying to whitewash blood baths, ammunition "distributed like bars of chocolate," and "technicians of slaughter" for whom morality is merely "a pain in the ass." With a splendid lyrical physicality that accentuates Shabtai's terse immediacy and matter-of-fact scorn, the poems cover a period of six yearsfrom the 1996 election of Netanyahu as prime minister through the curfews, lynchings, riots, sieges, and bombings of the second intifada. But at the heart of J'Accuse is the fate of the ethical Hebrew culture in which the poet was raised: Shabtai refuses to abandon his belief in the moral underpinnings of Israeli society or to be silent before the barbaric and brutal. He witnesses, he protests, he warns. Above all, he holds up a mirror to his nation. |
Contenido
Times Are Bad | 3 |
The Moral It Seems Doesnt Come with a Smile | 10 |
Nostalgia | 16 |
War | 22 |
The New Jew | 30 |
The Victory of Beit Jalla | 36 |
Términos y frases comunes
Aharon Shabtai al-Aqsa Intifada Amira Hass Arabs Ariel Sharon Aviv Ayn Masbach Basel Square Beit Jalla Beit Sahour beneath blood books of poetry Caca child doorstep is heard Ehud Barak election eyes fate flight and biological Gaza Greek Gurion Ha'aretz Haidar Abdel Shafi hand head heart Hebrew poems Human Rights imprisoned in ghettos Israeli government Jenin Jerusalem Jewish Joseph Mintser Kibbutz Merhavyah killed King Kiryat Motzkin land lioness live Lotem Abdel Shafi Love Passover Mahmoud Darwish Majed Nassar Moab Moustafa Barghouti Muhammad Neta Golan northern Israel Palestinian Legislative Council peace Peepee Peter Cole poems of J'accuse poet's prime minister Prominent Palestinian physician Raada Rafi'ah Ramallah Rosh HaShanah Seder Selected Poems Shenkin shooting soldiers Street tanks technicians of slaughter Tel Aviv Temple Thabet Translation TREES ARE WEEPING Tul Karem underpinnings of Israeli VICTORY OF BEIT village Wadi Ara Wadi Faleek words I suckled Yasser