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| Dorit Orgad |
Silent Love |
| Young Adults |
Tel Aviv, Hadar, 1997. 140 pp. Ages 11-15
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This book is a collection of one novella and three short stories. The novella “Silent Love” is a love story between two young people of different backgrounds who share a deep love for Eretz Israel.
This is a story of Mr. Pays-Bas’ (an English Jew) journey to Palestine at the turn of the century, then under Turkish rule. The Pays-Bas family (of Spanish descent who settled in Holland after the inquisition) are observant traditional Jews; they quote the Bible, observe Jewish customs and long for Palestine.
The story is the father’s account of his journey in search of his nephew Gideon, who left Britain for Palestine years earlier and had not been heard of since. Descriptions of the landscapes he sees, local customs and flavors, the different people whom he meets (Jews, Arabs, Turks) are all intertwined in the story; he visits many places and sites: Jerusalem, the Galilee, Safed, Acre, the Sea of Galilee, the Wailing Wall, etc. Orgad masterfully conveys the atmosphere of both time and place, contrasting the scenes of those times with those of present day.
Mr. Pays-Bas gives a detailed report of his trip as well as pictures of family life. He brings back with him from Palestine a sixteen-year-old boy, David, who remains silent and mysterious and whose history is slowly revealed. Despite David`s silence, he and the youngest daughter Ruth feel an immediate affinity for each other. As the story unravels, the family discovers that David is an orphan who was found in a Christian mission; Mr. Pays-Bas was asked to take him to England so that he could enter a yeshiva. The father relates his arduous journey, the difficulties and adventures he encounters along the way and the strange people he has met.
Ruth and David fall in love and when he finally begins to talk and decides to go to the yeshiva, she is heartbroken. He spends a year there, atoning for a sin he feels he has committed and when he returns they become engaged and later move to Palestine. The rest of the family follows. Their lost cousin Gideon is never found.
“Pomegranate Juice” and “Vera and Michael” are stories about new immigrants who find their new surroundings strange and unfriendly. Although these stories take place in the past (“Pomegranate Juice” in the 1950s, “Vera and Michael” during the British Mandate) they are also pertinent today.
“The Fast of the Seventeenth of Tammuz” describes an elderly immigrant whom the children ridicule, but later become enthralled with his stories. These three stories help teach children to accept those who are different and may serve to strengthen tolerance and understanding.
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