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Last update - 14:23 21/05/2008 Cultural studies Life, and nothing but By Avirama Golan Tags: Lieblich, Jaffa, anthropology  Arak le?aruhat boker (Arrack for Breakfast), by Amia Lieblich Schocken Press (Hebrew), 294pages, NIS 89 "You made my day," Amia Lieblich quotes herself as saying light-heartedly to the people sitting in the coffee shop that she depicts in her new book. It is doubtful whether this is the phrase that the erudite and cultured professor from Jerusalem would have used, or quoted herself using, with such nonchalance in the era before her exposure to the sea. For, as much as "Arrack for Breakfast" is an account of Lieblich's field research, it also reveals the researcher herself in a new light. For years now, Lieblich the psychologist has chosen to deal less with hair-splitting discussions about the human soul and more with the observation of society in its various parts. She does so with tools taken from the discipline of anthropology, but in a way that strays from that discipline's regular course. Her subjects of research are almost always close to her heart from the start, but at the same time they manage to touch on the roots of socio-cultural conflicts in Israel. More than once, Lieblich has created new definitions, or at least new circles of definition, for such basic concepts as couplehood, parenting and others, and provided them with a renewed interpretation, on the face of it polite and cautious but, post factum, to the point and scathing. Since her deep ties to Hebrew literature and language are evident in all her work ?(among other things, she dealt with the biography of the poet Leah Goldberg?), there is no doubt that the sum total of her books creates a complete series that constitutes a kind of genre of its own. This style of working is not a choice that is self-evident. Moreover it also lays a trap for the writer, who appears to have placed it there for herself, whether wittingly or unwittingly, and is at risk of falling into it. What is this trap? Well, Lieblich walks a very fine line between anthropological research and impressionistic writing, and since she has had some kind of personal involvement with regard to almost every subject she has dealt with, especially over the past few years, her intellectual integrity forces her to ask herself why she has chosen that subject and what her attitude toward it is. Nor does she let up on these questions, as she continues to ask herself during the research whether her opening position has changed. This means that, unlike an academic researcher who remains dissociated, she is almost forced to reveal herself, even if this exposure is not convenient for her. This kind of position perhaps invites additional observation, a kind of external eye that will examine the change that has taken place within Lieblich from book to book over the years. For it is clear that she has made a conscious choice about how much to reveal herself, something that is central in the life and work of any anthropologist, particularly those who work "close to home" and choose objects of research that have some kind of involvement with themselves and their worldview. Even though in earlier books too, Lieblich did not hesitate to reveal her position and examine, it seems to me that this time she did so in a slightly different vein, a more gentle and less rational vein that arouses greater empathy than ever before. "Arrack for Breakfast" presents a series of conversations conducted by the author with people who come to sit in a small coffee shop, almost a mere kiosk, on the beach between Jaffa and Bat Yam, not far from the new home to which she moved from Jerusalem. Cloak of tranquility Two things, she said, attracted her to document what happened at the place that she calls by the fictitious name of "Cafe Rahmani" ?(in order to protect the privacy of the owners and those who frequent it?). One was the "bubble" -- that is the coffee shop's ability to cut itself off at even the most difficult times ?(terrorist attacks, suicide bombings, accidents and war?) and to create a cloak of tranquility for those who frequent it. The second -- inspired by an anthropologist she admires, Barbara Meyerhoff, who studied a group of elderly Jewish men and women who met at Venice Beach in Los Angeles -- was Lieblich's decision to observe what appeared to her to be "searching for the most comfortable and aesthetic way to grow old." In the very midst of a dramatic change in her own life, when she moved from the cold bubble of Jerusalem to the house opposite the sea on the edge of Jaffa, and from orderly academic activity to what is sometimes politely called "the third age," Lieblich admits quite openly that she was not merely curious about the nature of the new bubble but rather, and perhaps even exactly in the same context, she was trying to understand "the nature of the golden age, and the attachment to life and healthy way of living of the community that frequents the beach." "The common denominator to both these questions," she declares, "is my identity, that of me the researcher, who is undergoing a similar process in my life: I am growing old and looking for a bubble to dwell safely in." It is enough to read this and to clap our hands with emotion for the researcher. Because she is so frank and because she has realized, in its full sense, and according to its values, the significance of feminist research, which demands of the researcher that she bring her own life and experience into the work, and which places on her the responsibility of paving the way for those who will follow. In all fairness, therefore, I must be thankful that, from the point of view of age, I am a few steps behind Lieblich, and perhaps also for that reason found in this book beauty and comfort. With regard to the bubble, however, a clarification will follow. In her attempt to understand the beachgoers' lifestyle, Lieblich relates a simple story, one that moves all the time between the monologues of the various characters who arrive at the coffee shop every morning and her dialogues with them, and the descriptions of the place and the people sitting there from her vantage point. She gives each of them a tag and divides them into groups, each of which she attempts to characterize according to spheres of employment, and age, ethnic and socio-economic history, to all of which she adds here and there snippets of literary-like conversation. Such as the following dialogue: "'A coffee for Kochava!' declared Shmuel, aged 78, pretending to be a waiter. "'My name isn't Kochava,' I said, 'it's Amia!' "'To us you are Kochava,' he declared. And so it was." Or the humorous conversation between the writer and a group of macho men who, when they saw her for the first time together with her partner, a man whom they recognized from the beach, changed their entire attitude toward her. More interesting than observing the people themselves, hearing their stories and following in Lieblich's tracks as she wisely and attentively deciphers them, is the engrossing way in which the polite Jerusalemite examines herself and the world vis-a-vis the sea. Woman cannot become dated In the face of the men's conservative remarks, the love stories and farewells and broken hearts, in the face of the cultural mélange that flooded her world via these people, Lieblich looks at herself in a new way. And she sees what is very difficult to see in the ambitious and restless Western world from which she has come: that a woman and her sexuality cannot become dated, and that no title or splendor will deter the "beachgoers" from seeing her as she is, Kochava, a shining star [in Hebrew, "kochav"] in their sky, because that is what they want; and that relations between people can be warm and intimate but that at exactly the same time they can maintain clear boundaries and respect privacy; and that women are indeed destined to sit at home and keep quiet and that men are indeed destined to run the world, but that this external distribution of duties is loaded with different hues and colors, out of which the woman can be depicted as possessing a great deal of power even when she is alone. Lieblich transmits the reality she describes in an extremely reliable manner, but it appears that she is cautious lest she lock it up in some definitive definition. The bubble, she says, focuses on good food, gossip, talk about exciting movies and it ?(the bubble?) tells itself some kind of story, a vague history in which the sea has a major role. And this is precisely the matter that requires clarification: The two things that Lieblich went in search of, and which she no doubt found, come from the sea and go back to the sea. The very same bubble that Lieblich found exists, as she herself recalls in one of the chapters, on the Greek Islands and in other places around the Mediterranean Sea. But the sea is not a "secondary matter," alongside the attitude toward old age. Because the attitude toward old age, just like the attitude toward women, and just like the occupation with food and stories, all are an inseparable part of that same bubble, so to speak. It is indeed possible to suspect that Lieblich, who recoils from expressions of "kitsch" and is wary of effusive outpourings of feeling, refrains from stating to her readers explicitly what she has really found -- that this is not a bubble. In contrast to the education that she and her generation received, and in contrast to the demanding and nerve-wracking heritage of diligence that their parents imparted to them, the "bubble" of the seagoers is precisely what is called "life" in Mediterranean countries. For in the countries around the Mediterranean, a person gets up in the morning and asks his neighbors what is happening with the sea. For long hours, men and women of no age sit and carry on excited conversations, filled with exaggerated theories, about the waves that swept away yesterday and the storm that is brewing today, and the fish that were caught last week and the boat that sank exactly here several years ago. The days of these men and women who are fading away, opposite the sea, are not a bubble. They are life itself. Not the ear that is placed close to the radio to hear the news every half hour. Not the scratching desperately to find out "what will be" nor the governments that are formed every Friday night in the living room, and not the adding up of the material and other spoils that every one of them achieved during his lifetime. How good it is that after all the years of study and writing and thought, without giving up everything that has been accumulated, and with a wise and slow step, and so human, the delicate-looking woman, Kochava who came from the university in Jerusalem, chooses to belong to the community of Cafe Rahmani. And at a time when many members of her generation fantasize that they are living in America, and are busy having facelifts and fighting the flabbiness of their bodies, and spend time gossiping hollowly about economics, and are convinced they are living in reality -- she goes barefoot to the sea. Avirama Golan, a writer and columnist for Haaretz, is the author, most recently, of the novel "Simanei Hayyim" (Signs of Life), published by Hasifri'ah Hehadashah. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Fear of extinction The state of over 20 species of birds in Israel has worsened considerably. Taking advantage Jerusalem police probe possible gang rape of disabled woman.

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