Tomer Gardi says one of the things that embodies his new book "Rock, Paper," and also him as a writer, is that he doesn't know how to write about things, he just knows how to be. And while he doesn't know how to write about disobedience, he does know how to be disobedient. "This entire book is a book of disobedience," he says, "so there is also a disobedience of the genre demand that says 'Tell us where to put this on the bookshelf.'"
In the book, published by Hakibbutz Hameuchad, Gardi tells the story of the Beit Ussishkin Museum, on Kibbutz Dan (where he was born ). His research showed that the museum was built with stones from the old Arab village, Hunin, west of Metula.
Beit Ussishkin is a nature and history museum in the Hula Valley, designed by the architect Leopold Krakauer in the 1950s. It was built in the wake of the plan to dry up the Hula swamp and out of a desire to preserve the flora and fauna that would disappear following the drying of the swamp. But this is not the only story Gardi investigates and he does not just tell it one way. Gardi uses several genres to describe his journey. The book contains research, history, documentary, prose, poetry and even photos from a play. Gardi breaks down concepts that appear to be obvious, and he presents them uncovered in a fascinating manner to the reader.
Two main elements he discusses in the book are the archive and the swamp, which prompt many questions. What is an archive, and who controls the information in an archive? Why are there no traffic jams on the road to the archive? And alongside this, what is the swamp and what is the significance of drying up swamps? Why are humans filled with a desire to drain them? What are they afraid of? What is the dark world residing in the swamp that they are seeking to dry up and do away with?
Yet it is important for Gardi to state that his is not a "nakba book" - a reference to the Palestinian term for the "catastrophe" when the State of Israel was founded in 1948. There were times, Gardi says, "when Jewish writers had no problem mixing philosophy with poetry, with narratives and personal writing. The Talmud is such a book. Strict adherence to genres is a new thing. In any case, it is not an obvious thing to do - to publish a book like this in the political and literary atmosphere we are now living in."
This is 38-year-old Gardi's first book. Although he was born on Kibbutz Dan, he now lives in Tel Aviv's Neve Sha'anan neighborhood. He studied literature and education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and did a master's degree in intercultural education in Berlin, where he lived for two years. For five years he edited Sedek, "A Journal on the Ongoing Nakba," published jointly by Zochrot, the Parhessia Group and Pardes Publishing. Gardi has published poetry and stories in Haaretz's Culture and Literature supplement, and in the journals Mita'am and Ma'ayan.
The choice of Beit Ussishkin on Kibbutz Dan, he says, is not a result of a desire to point an accusing finger. Gardi says he wanted to "tailor my life to this and to this story of the occupation, with all the ensuing difficulties, which are also biographical difficulties."
Is the kibbutz angry at you because of this book?
"They are also angry. It's always a mix of the family being proud that their son wrote a book and uneasy feelings regarding the content."
Among the stories Gardi uncovers in the archives is the story of four anonymous Palestinian women who were raped and murdered by Israel Defense Forces soldiers. This story, like the story of the village of Hunin, is handled by the archivists in an interesting way which was intended to preserve the moral Zionist story. Gardi seems to be searching within the souls of the archive workers and trying to find the mechanism that operates them. He started with the Kibbutz Dan archive and from there went to search through the Haganah Archives and the IDF Archives. He says the workers' reactions and the way documents are archived and censored in the archives astonished him.
"I never previously thought about the archives," he says. "It only happened during the course of the time spent there and while talking to the people who work there. The first archive I searched, on Kibbutz Dan, welcomed me and slowly began to realize what I was doing. Anyone in the archive is human and he lives with us here with all of our taboos; and on the other hand, he is interested in history. There is not a single-minded attitude of concealment. There is concealment and disclosure. It's like the way people tell stories. During the process of writing, I realized that I was actually creating an archive which would be different from the archives where I was spending time."
Failure to make contact
Gardi writes about a large Palestinian community from Hunin who now live in Germany and about his attempts to correspond with one of the Hunin refugees, which were unsuccessful. "For the Palestinians living abroad, it's very hard to talk to Israelis," he says. "This failure to make contact with Israelis is a very basic component of their Palestinian identity, in my experience. The guy I wrote to wanted to write a book about his village. He had the oral history and perhaps also documents; maybe he could have gone to the British National Archive and discovered things about his village that I didn't find because I didn't have the money to travel to England, but he couldn't get a thing from the Israeli archives, unless someone local were to help him. Our correspondence created a problem for him. On one hand, he wanted the help, but he had a hard time accepting the contact with me."
He knew about the rape and murder of these women?
"I'm not sure I told him about the rape and murder, it's not something you can just drop in there. I assume there are some people who know and others who don't."
People will tell you that's the way it is in a war. Things happen, some of them despicable. They were establishing a state here.
"The position that maintains we were fighting them, we screwed them, to hell with them - this is a position with more integrity than the [Zionist-socialist political party] Mapai position. On the one hand they wronged, expelled and stole; on the other they had a headline in [daily newspaper] Al Hamishmar that said 'Zionism, socialism and brotherhood among nations.' This is a contemptible position. You expelled, wronged, stole, so say that's the way you are; this is the way the world is, it's a jungle. That is a position with integrity. You announce that you are a barbarian, but okay.
"The radical Zionist left's position is hard to reconcile with its self-perception and the brutality of the reality it created; that's why it's so easy for them to blame the settlers. It's a self-righteous and Tehran-like position. These are people who say 'We are okay. It's because of the settlers, the religious, the Middle-Eastern people, and every set of people who disrupt our efforts to live in peace with them.'"
When asked about the price he pays for his political activities, Gardi notes that although he pays a price, "I also gain capital - cultural capital, and not just moral gains. I don't feel persecuted. There is animosity, but I always remember that it's a terrible thing that the left is constantly whining about being persecuted. Basically I'm living well and the ones being persecuted here are the Palestinians. And if there is some shred of persecution of activists and left-wingers, it's to disrupt their work with the Palestinians."
According to Gardi, things changed for him last summer and this also caused the book to change. "The position of being a political person is now different," he believes. "The protest is very much alive; one can't say it's over when people are still active. It doesn't make the news, because it doesn't interest them, but there are activities constantly - protests, disruptions, revolution and struggles.
"Political consciousness and politicization is a long process," Gardi continues. "The problem is that just about everyone who came to the state of Israel was a Zionist. The radicals, anarchists and communists either died or were killed or stayed elsewhere. What remained here is a political atmosphere composed of homogeneous people, but it has been evolving over the years. Because of this it's impossible to judge the struggle based on what they achieved over the summer."
One of the achievements Gardi points to is the fact that many people became activists over the last summer, adding: "My activism also changed. Before, there was no way I would have gone to protest in the Hatikva neighborhood. I didn't do it and I say this without any pride, but it just wasn't in my system. I have been a political person for many years and my politics has changed. It happened to many people. Things are shifting."
Now he is working on his next book, which he wrote in what he refers to as "broken German. For a long time I wanted to write in the German language. The book, 'Rock, Paper,' is written from a position of power - it's about a political subject in a male, Ashkenazic Jewish space, and with my command of Hebrew. After I wrote it, I decided to enter a different place by writing in a language in which I express myself and write like an immigrant."
