Taking the Long View
On a clear day in 1977, one could plainly and painfully see the bloody state we’re in today | Guest Chef Yehonatan Geffen | Sour Soup
Last Thursday marked one year since the death of my father-in-law, the wonderful Israeli poet and journalist Yehonatan Geffen. This year has gone by like a week—apparently time flies when you’re bombing and being bombed. To honor the anniversary, I wanted to share with you a piece that Geffen wrote in 1977 for an Israeli newspaper, which Shira – his daughter and my partner – found in a box in his apartment. The article, which the newspaper chose to censor, was never published. It contains several references that may be obscure to American readers (and even to many young Israeli readers), but you need only to replace “Jimmy Carter” with “Joe Biden,” and “Merkava tank” with “F-35 combat aircraft,” to discover that the dire, chaotic reality we are now living through in Israel was already here 47 years ago. It seems that sensitive, discerning poets like Geffen are the canaries in the coalmine: they can sniff out the stench of toxic fundamentalism and militarism long before the rest of us can. I miss you, Yehonatan!
The Day of Masada / Yehonatan Geffen
May 31, 1977
The Day of Masada [*] will be much like any other day. On television they’ll broadcast four terrific basketball games, to distract the fans from the final battle. The attrition warfare along the northern border will bolster the nation’s sense of unity, and a sense of unity is essential when a nation is about to ascend its final peak. The newspapers will run editorials summing up the era. Dov Goldstein will interview Rafael Bashan.[**] Despite the excellent laws imposed on Judea and Samaria,[***] the Palestinians will keep wanting their own homeland, and terrorist attacks in the country will turn into open rebellion alongside propaganda aimed at the West. The Prime Minister will place a yarmulke on his head and bless himself and his wife. And you will no longer be able to distinguish between a patriot and a man of faith. The Day of Masada will find the Israel Defense Forces ready and willing. Jimmy Carter will briefly erase his imperial-yet-friendly smile and speak to the nation from coast to coast: “We’ve tried everything, but they insist on following the Bible.” Merkava tanks will prove effective. The youth of ’79 will be even better than the youth of ’73, which was, for those who remember, a most wonderful youth. Flight supervisors won’t cause problems because the airports will be shut. The entire country will be the front. The leader of the Labor movement will convene at headquarters and tell himself that it’s time to go back to values and start from scratch, because this is on us. Flavius Josephus will sit around with friends in Manhattan and write his memoirs for a respectable American publisher. An archeology professor will guide us through the fortifications at the gloriously imposing mountain, and the smoke from his pipe will signal the reversal and the slippery slope.
The Day of Masada will be much like other days, and all days after the Day of Masada will be night.
That’s a piece of treasure. Thank you.
It’s funny to think that this is kinda moderate for news nowadays 🤷♀️