All Rivers Run to the Sea: Memoirs (68 page)

Zalmen
was performed in many theaters in Europe and the United States. The play contains two particularly painful monologues. In one the old rabbi, having gone “mad,” pleads with Western Jews not to forget their Russian brothers:

In the other the inspector (a KGB commissar) informs the shattered old man that his daring, mad revolt was in vain, that his sacrifice has been rejected:

The inspectors speech is hard and cruel. He reminds the rabbi that even during the war, when

I often think about that speech when participating in demonstrations in support of persecuted Jews anywhere, and I tell myself the inspector was wrong. In the play the aged rabbi’s cry is heard. All the characters undergo a metamorphosis in the second act; even his adversaries rally to him. And yes, a man’s desperate cry is never lost. The sacrifices of the Soviet Jews were not in vain. As I write these lines, thousands of them are landing at Lod Airport. If they were released, it was thanks in part to people like Rivka’s father, who, before he died, shared with his daughter his conviction that a Jew’s honor is linked to his Jewishness.

Of all the productions of
Zalmen
, it was the one in Tel Aviv that proved most disappointing, nearly causing a break between my old friend Dov and me. It also marked a turning point in my relations with certain Israelis.

Until then I had been quite kindly regarded. I had friends in the establishment and the opposition alike. I tried not to take sides in
the political quarrels that have always divided the Israeli nation and the Jewish people at large. My news reports and articles on cultural affairs were greeted positively, my books favorably reviewed in the press. At
Yedioth Ahronoth
my colleagues wondered whether I had any enemies at all. In time this would change, and the first sign of that change came with the production of
Zalmen
.

It all began with a proposal from the director of Habimah, the National Theater, who came up to our table in the restaurant at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, introduced himself, and shared with us his indignation. “I just got back from Germany, where I saw a performance of
Zalmen
. An outrage.” I asked him politely what exactly he was talking about. “Your play should have had its world premiere here in Israel and nowhere else,” he declared. Then he pulled up a chair, but seemed even more unhappy sitting down. Marion and I listened in silence, wondering whether we should tell him we didn’t even know the play had been staged in Germany. I waited for him to come up for air and then told him how sorry I was to see him so unhappy on my account. “I would like to buy the rights to your play,” he said. I replied that the rights belonged to my French publisher, Le Seuil, and that he should get in touch with them. He made a note of the name, address, and phone number. “It is high time,” he then solemnly announced, “for
Zalmen
to come home to live among his own people.”

Back in New York we thought no more about it. The world of the theater is full of promises and illusions, and I knew enough not to take this kind of commitment seriously. That was my first mistake. Some six or eight months later Le Seuil informed me that Habimah was interested in the rights to
Zalmen
. In fact, the letter said, it seemed I had already agreed. I immediately corrected that impression: I had agreed to nothing. Next came a phone call from Tel Aviv. The director of the National Theater appealed to my kind Jewish heart and to my love of Israel: it was absolutely essential that
Zalmen
open the season. After all, the play was about Soviet Jews, and was there any cause more sacred to me than the struggle for their freedom? In fact, the director remarked, rehearsals were about to begin. I protested that he had no right to stage the play before a contract was signed, that Le Seuil could sue him. Not to worry, he said, agents and lawyers would take care of the contract. The purpose of his call was simply to assure me that he intended to use only the best talents and that the play’s integrity would be scrupulously respected: Not a word would be added, not a word deleted. His passion and energy persuaded me to yield, especially
since he promised to invite me to Tel Aviv in a few weeks to attend the initial rehearsals and correct any small, if unlikely, mistakes. A week went by, then a month, then two months, and we heard nothing more from him. Then, one day, there was another phone call from the director, inviting me to the premiere. This time I lost my temper. “What premiere?” I asked.

“The premiere of your play, of course.”

“When is it scheduled for?”

“A week from now.”

“In other words, you held rehearsals and plan to open without a signed contract?”

He was unflappable. The contract, he said, had been duly signed; his agent had convinced Le Seuil that I had agreed. “You’re wrong to react like this,” he said. “It’s going to be a huge success.” I should come, and see for myself that I had not been betrayed. Yes, a few changes had been made, but they were minor. “What changes?” I asked, sensing catastrophe. He repeated that they were minor. Now I was getting annoyed. “Such as?” Well, Joseph Milo, the great director, had been replaced. What else? The starring role would be played not by Aharon Meskin, at that time Israel’s greatest actor, but by someone less well known. Was that it? Well, he said, the title had been changed; he preferred
The Jews of Silence
. Here I blew up: “That’s the title of another book!” If he had dared change the title, I feared the worst. And indeed, he had also cut a few passages here and added a few there. “As I told you, aside from these details, we’ve made no changes in your play.” I told him that I forbade him to stage the play and that if he did anyway, I would see him in court. And I hung up.

I alerted Le Seuil. The person in charge of foreign rights was dumbfounded. “What signed contract? Signed where? By whom? We never signed anything.” I was furious. “We must stop this production
before
the premiere,” I said. A threatening telegram was dispatched immediately, and the reaction was swift. The director was on the line again, informing me that I could not do “such things” in Israel: What would the Israelis say, what would the Soviets say, and what about the anti-Semites? Had I thought about that? My reply was brief. He had lied to me, and I don’t like dealing with liars. Now he started whining. What was he supposed to do? The premiere was scheduled for this week. Prime Minister Golda Meir had announced she would attend; diplomats, members of the academy, politicians, and journalists would be there too. It would be a scandal for the state of Israel, for the people
of Israel. I refused to budge. Another call soon came in from Jerusalem: a famous writer pleading Habimah’s cause. “He shouldn’t have lied to me,” I replied. The next call was from the poet Haim Guri. I gave him the same reply. Then a Labor member of the Knesset called, followed by a colleague. You would think the state of Israel had nothing more important to worry about. Then someone called on behalf of Golda. At that point I gave up. They had worn me down, and yes, I had to concede: to file a lawsuit against the National Theater of Israel would not be pleasant.

With the exception of Dr. Haim Gamzu, the critic of the largest morning daily,
Haaretz
, nearly everyone panned the performance. They were right. And I was wrong to quarrel with Dov, whom I chided for publishing a review by the
Yedioth
critic that did not mention my disagreement with the director and the whole sad saga of the production. But, to my great surprise, the play was a commercial success, a sellout. One month later, when I decided to see the show incognito, a friend of mine had to pull strings to get me a (paid) seat in the second balcony. The performance that evening was held in the presence of the minister of foreign affairs, Abba Eban.

But what I saw on that stage went beyond my worst fears. My play had become an incoherent, sentimental mess, complete with ethnic dances, the sounding of the shofar, and a Kaddish. It was pure kitsch.

But the audience loved it. They applauded and wept. I found that intolerable. I paid a visit to Golda, who failed to understand my indignation. The play was doing well, what was I complaining about? Besides which, she thought I should be delighted to have succeeded. It was a public relations coup: Everyone was talking about Soviet Jews. “Sit back and enjoy it,” she advised me. Determined at least to explain my position, I went on television and asked, among other questions, whether those in charge of Habimah would have acted in such a cavalier way had I not been a Jew devoted to, and an unconditional defender of, Israel? I said that I considered the production a betrayal, and I appealed to the public to boycott it. The play was withdrawn a few weeks later.

The entire incident left me troubled and sad, especially since it had an unpleasant sequel. While
Zalmen
was being performed in Tel Aviv, a man who claimed to have been an aide to the late prime minister Eshkol asked me to support an Israeli committee for Russian Jewish intellectuals. He wanted me to introduce him to rich people. I
replied, politely, that I did not do fund-raising, not even for Russian Jews or Israel. But he was so insistent that in the end I made him an offer: Just as the proceeds from the American production had been donated to the New York Conference on Soviet Jews, so all the proceeds from the Israeli production would go to his committee. I told him I would so instruct Le Seuil that very day. For months thereafter he called me from Jerusalem two or three times a week: “Le Seuils check still hasn’t arrived. It’s outrageous!” Though it did take time, he eventually collected quite a hefty sum. I expected a word of thanks, which never came. The same was true of a certain New York organization: it received the royalties and forgot to say thank you.

Let me backtrack a little, for I have not yet spoken of the events that marked the 1960s: the war in Vietnam, the beginnings of ecumenicism, the Prague Spring, the May ’68 riots in France. All these events brought about changes in our sensibilities, in our way of looking at the world and at our responsibility for it.

The Chicago Seven in the United States, with Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin; Daniel Cohn-Bendit and his slogan “We are all German Jews” in France; the occupation of the Sorbonne; Columbia University students clashing with the police, demanding change. There were those who viewed the revolt of youth as signifying a thirst for transcendent truth and justice. I happened to be in France in May of 1968, and I loved the students’ mixture of combativeness and generosity. Some of the slogans were wonderful: “Power to the imagination,” “It is forbidden to forbid,”
“Changer la vie”
I was less appreciative of slogans such as “CRS = SS?” (the CRS is the French state police). To compare the French police to the SS was not only historically inaccurate and politically outrageous, but in thoroughly bad taste. It was not entirely the students’ fault. The philosophy of ’68 was linked to the Occupation and the Resistance. Listening to or reading this new generation of French intellectuals made you think you were back in 1944, when life was a struggle against received ideas and oppressive laws, a fight for freedom, for the right to say and write whatever you pleased. But so much had been said and written since the Liberation.

I speak of these times in
The Fifth Son:

These insurgents, with their fiery dreams, accomplished the ouster of General de Gaulle. It was patricide.

The Czechoslovak insurgents and fighters suffered a more tragic fate: Their spring was extinguished. The Soviet tanks smothered the fervor of Alexander Dubček’s supporters, and the world did not take action. Yes, I know, tender souls cried out, speeches were made. But Moscow didn’t care. Its tanks crushed Prague. And Lenin did not awake to tell his disciples they had all gone mad.