Tel Aviv Stories

This collection brings together Judith Katzir`s three Tel Aviv stories, filled with dreams and disappointment.

In Closing the Sea, Ilana visits her successful childhood friend, Tami, expresses her love for her, and is hurt by her rejection. Whether or not Ilana fully understands the meaning of her emotional outburst, she is forced to confront the wall of lies and blindness she had erected. Fellini`s Shoes tells of a hotel waitress who dreams of becoming a movie star-she believes she can realize her dream with the help of a failed director who once met Fellini. However, her romantic fantasy dissolves when the director fails to make good on his plans for a movie about his mother, a former actress.

In Inland Lighthouses, Katzir describes the private odyssey of Reuven who is about to retire. As he wanders the streets of Tel Aviv, his life flashes before his eyes, as does the Israel of years ago, before the Rabin assassination. Like in The Odyssey, where the mythical hero is “born” from the waves, Reuven returns to the shore to seek out the widow of an old friend and partner. The novella, with its attempted suicide at sea, is an allegory of the Zionist dream.