Subscribe to Print Edition | Thu., October 29, 2009 Cheshvan 11, 5770 | | Israel Time: 21:40 (EST+7)
Haaretz israel news English
web haaretz.com
Jewish World Haaretz Toolbar
Diplomacy
Defense Opinion National
Print Edition
Car Rental
Focus U.S.A. Strenger than Fiction Business Travel Magazine Week's End Anglo File Books
Share |
The Makings of History / Off the record
By Tom Segev
Tags: Israel news

One evening in the winter of 1955, President Harry Truman walked into the living room of his house in Independence, Missouri, and saw his wife Bess throwing into the blazing fireplace stacks of letters she had written to him when they were young. Truman was appalled: "Bess - Dear God, what are you doing? Think of history," he cried. "Oh, I have!" his wife replied, and went on burning the letters. But she missed a few: One hundred and eighty of her 1,300 letters to Harry were discovered after her death in 1983, and have been kept ever since in the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum, which intends to display them to the public in 2013. Last week the Trumans' grandson gave American news outlets a peek at eight of the letters.

When I read this story, I was reminded of Dahn Ben Amotz, who died 20 years ago this week.

Sometimes it is better if people's life stories go up in smoke, rather than enter the pages of history. Ben Amotz was a popular media figure and author who is considered one of the founding fathers of Israeli humor. He was a man Israelis loved to love, and many teenagers emulated him. Along with Amos Kenan, Uri Avnery and others, he helped shape the new Israeli culture, which sought to free itself from the ideological cliches of Zionism.
Advertisement
It is usually said that Amnon Dankner's biography of Ben Amotz led to the latter's being expunged from Israeli culture. That is because Dankner recounted, among other things, that Ben Amotz liked to have sex with young girls, sometimes more or less forcibly. Ben Amotz is indeed all-but-forgotten, but this might well have been the case even had it not turned out after his death that he was not actually a nice guy. Because what had once been considered a cultural and political breakthrough - and gave rise to the routine of life in the Tel Aviv "bubble" - was really rather shallow. Ben Amotz, who survived the Holocaust as a child, created himself as the antithesis of everything he deemed "Diaspora." He was in the Palmach (the elite strike force of the Haganah, the pre-state Jewish militia), and he shared in the dream of shaping a "new man" in Israel who would look like Paul Newman in "Exodus"; Ben Amotz himself played "Uzi" in that film.

His role in the effort to create the new man affiliated Ben Amotz with the establishment that he loathed with such passion - though never completely, as he was more court jester than revolutionary. Many people in Tel Aviv take their secular Israeliness for granted, and their lifestyle is no longer in need of a prophet like Ben Amotz. Many more Israelis have learned over the years to make their peace with Jewish tradition, realizing that despite the dreams of Ben Amotz and others, it is impossible to erase 2,000 years of history. The Ben Amotz doctrine no longer speaks to them.

And perhaps he would have been forgotten even if he had bequeathed a deeper cultural legacy; greater people than he have sunk into oblivion.
PROMOTION: Mamilla Hotel
Bookmark to del.icio.us  
 
Rabin's legacy
In video message, Obama to tell Rabin memorial that U.S.-Israel bond is unbreakable
U.S. anti-Semitism
New ADL poll shows anti-Semitic views in America are at a historic low
Special Offers
Advertisement
Eldan Rent a Car
Israel's leading car rental company offers you a 20% discount on online reservations
Date Local Jewish Singles
Ready to meet your match? Join Jdate today!
Junkyard
Junk a car - get free towing nationwide and a tax-deductible receipt
More Headlines
21:09 Gunman wounds two in attack on L.A. synagogue
20:36 ADL voices 'deep concern' over L.A. synagogue shooting
20:51 Obama to tell Rabin memorial: U.S.-Israel alliance is unbreakable
19:30 At Rabin memorial, Netanyahu vows to fight political violence
21:01 One person killed in suspected Mob 'work accident' in Bat Yam
18:54 Iran hands over response to UN-proposed nuclear deal
17:26 Poll: Anti-Semitic views in the U.S. at a historic low
00:10 TV ROUND-UP: Rabin murder commemorated; child abuse suspect extradited
17:37 Qaida-linked group in Lebanon claims rocket attack on Israel
14:28 Are there 20,000 or 20,000,000 refugees in Israel?
21:31 Turkey envoy: Good ties with Israel part of our global aspirations
16:47 73 years later, row erupts over discovery of Beit Shearim caves
Home | TV | Print Edition | Diplomacy | Opinion | Arts & Leisure | Sports | Jewish World | Site rules |
| Advert: Recommended Restaurants | Makom: Engaging on Israel
| Search engine marketing
Haaretz.com, the online edition of Haaretz Newspaper in Israel, offers real-time breaking news, opinions and analysis from Israel and the Middle East. Haaretz.com provides extensive and in-depth coverage of Israel, the Jewish World and the Middle East, including defense, diplomacy, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the peace process, Israeli politics, Jerusalem affairs, international relations, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the Israeli business world and Jewish life in Israel and the Diaspora.
© Copyright  Haaretz. All rights reserved