הגבעה

by Assaf Gavron, אסף גברון

מה כבר ביקש עתניאל עסיס? לגדל קצת רוקט ועגבניות שרי לסלט של אשתו רחל, לחלוב את העז?

הוא מצא גבעה עם שדה קטן. והעלה לשם מכולה. וקיבל גנרטור. והקים עמותה.

ואז נפרץ ציר גישה. ובלילה חורפי הוצבו חמישה קרוואנים סמוך לחווה. המח"ט הגיע, הרוחות התלהטו, ובמִנהל האזרחי אמרו שאין אישור להציב את הקרוואנים. אבל גם אין אישור להוריד אותם.

כך נאחז המאחז מעלה חרמש ג'.



השנים חולפות והגבעה פורחת: עוד קרוואנים, גינת משחקים, שדות אורגניים ובית כנסת; הכלבים קוֹנדוֹליסה וביילין, הסוס קילר, ונאקה; משפחות ורווקים, עובדי אדמה ומחנכים, דתיים וחילונים, קוסמטיקאית חמת מזג ושני אחים, קיבוצניקים לשעבר.

יום אחד נקלע למקום עיתונאי זר, ומתחילה מהומה: איך יצליח שר הביטחון להוריד מהגב את הלחץ האמריקאי? מה יעשה סרן עומר, שמקבל הוראות סותרות מגבוה ותושבי הגבעה עולים לו על העצבים? האם ימצא החוזר בתשובה גבריאל נחושתן אהבה ושקט לנפשו הפצועה? מה לקריסת הכלכלה באמריקה ולמאחז הלא-חוקי? ומה מחפשים יפנים מסתוריים בכפר הפלסטיני השכן?



הגבעה הוא רומן רחב יריעה ונועז, המפרק לגורמים את המציאות הקיצונית והאבסורדית ביהודה ושומרון. מלכוד 22 פוגש את ישראל במאה ה-21: אלימות, רדיפת ממון וכוח, טשטוש ערכים וגבולות, אבל גם תשוקה אידיאולוגית יוקדת. הרומן מספר על שנה בחייהם של תושבי המאחז הלא-חוקי מעלה חרמש ג', ומגולל את סיפור היחסים המורכבים של המשפחות, הזוגות והרווקים החיים במקום, בינם לבין עצמם וגם עם שכניהם הפלסטינים, הצבא, התקשורת והפוליטיקאים. הרומן מבוסס על תחקיר מעמיק שנמשך כמה שנים, ומציג את עולמם של המתנחלים, לטוב ולרע, בדרך שאינה מוכרת לרוב הישראלים. זהו רומן רחב-יריעה, רציני ומלא הומור כאחד, המשרטט תמונה עשירה של ישראל בימינו.



חלק מחמש שנות העבודה על הספר עשה אסף גברון בכתיבה בבקתה מבודדת בתוך מאחז ביהודה ושומרון. שם הוא נחשף מקרוב לעולמם של המתנחלים, עשה חברים, ונחשף לתרבותם העשירה.



אסף גברון מעפיל בהגבעה אל פסגת יצירתו עד כה. הוא מלהטט כדרכו בין סגנונות וז'אנרים, בין ריאליזם נוקב לסאטירה חריפה, בין רצינות להומור פרוע.

Genres: Fiction, Israel, Middle East, Jewish, Contemporary, Audiobook, Religion

430 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Assaf Gavron grew up in Jerusalem, studied in London and Vancouver, and now lives in Tel Aviv. He is the author of four prize-winning novels (Ice, Moving, Almost Dead, and Hydromania), and a short story collection. Gavron is highly regarded for his translations into Hebrew of the work of novelists including Philip Roth, J.D. Salinger and Jonathan Safran Foer.

Reviews

[piperitapitta · Rating 4 out of 5]

...E venne il fuoco, che bruciò il bastone, che picchiò il cane
Che morse il gatto, che… quattro stelle e mezza.



«Il 4 giugno le forze israeliane si sono scontrate con i manifestanti palestinesi a Beita, nella Cisgiordania occupata. Gli attivisti stavano protestando contro la costruzione di un insediamento israeliano illegale sulla terra del villaggio palestinese, che mette a repentaglio il sostentamento di 17 famiglie, più di cento persone in tutto, che coltivano ulivi da generazioni. I manifestanti hanno lanciato pietre contro i militari, che hanno risposto con pallottole di gomma, proiettili e gas lacrimogeno. Le foto della preghiera prima degli scontri e dei feriti. Un video del lancio dei lacrimogeni con un drone delle forze israeliane. Un’infografica di Al Jazeera su tutto quello che c’è da sapere sulle forze militari israeliane.»

«Il 2 luglio l’insediamento illegale di Evyatar, costruito negli ultimi mesi sui terreni del villaggio palestinese di Beita, in Cisgiordania, è stato evacuato, come previsto dall’accordo raggiunto con il governo. Prima di andarsene le cinquanta famiglie che vi si erano installate hanno eretto un’enorme stella di David sulla collina proprio di fronte a Beita. Un video del canale tv statunitense Msnbc confronta il trattamento riservato ai coloni di Evyatar e agli abitanti palestinesi del quartiere di Silwan a Gerusalemme Est, le cui case rischiano di essere demolite perché costruite senza il permesso delle autorità israeliane.»

(da Mediorientale, la newsletter settimanale di Internazionale).

[Jeffrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Our Town, Our Settlement

To lose yourself in The Hilltop is to find yourself in a land where, according to its author Assaf Gavron, “even the goats and sheep have nationalities.” But such is misleading for this, Gavron’s fifth novel, is most certainly not about the fraught relations between Israelis and their Palestinian neighbors, the goats and the sheep as it were. Instead, it’s a political novel that mirrors the political nature of the Israeli people. It’s a novel about the heart and soul of the state of Israel, be that secular or religious, golden calf or camel cow. And it’s a novel, set as it is in a small Jewish hamlet in the heart of the Judean desert, that promises to challenge even the fiercest critics of that most paradigmatic of geographically contested sites: the settlement.

Given such a rich constellation of political material to work with, it’s to Gavron’s credit that his fiction remains recognizably realistic. His characters, and their preoccupations, would be readily identifiable even if plucked off of the politically charged hilltop on which they exist. At the same time, he is clearly not afraid to use narrative strategies that stretch the limits of the real. His opening sequence, which sketches out the founding of Ma’aleh Hermesh C, the fictional setting for the novel, mimics the creation story in Genesis. Though clumsy in translation, the scene signals Gavron’s intent well enough: This is a novel of deceptively simple human stories that will give meaning to larger, more complex cultural stories, some of which may even lead to unexpected conclusions.

Both the biblically parodied origins of the hilltop settlement and Gavron’s attention to the customs, songs, and sayings of a traditional Jewish community establish The Hilltop as contemporary folklore. To tell a political story, though, Gavron takes the same quotidian tales and, using an appealing combination of allegory and farce, centers the narrative on the lives of two brothers. Roni Kupper and Gabi Nehushtan are orphaned while still too young to remember their parents. Ordinarily such a turn of the plot wouldn’t be remarkable—authors have long appreciated the malleability of the orphan. But Gavron’s murder, which he accomplishes via an automobile accident, an all too common and unfortunate reality of contemporary Israeli life, is freighted with transcendent meaning. His heinous act represents the violent separation of Israel from nearly two millennia of Jewish diasporic traditions, an event not just tied to the state’s founding moment, but more appropriately to the ongoing cultural battles over the proper ‘state’ of Jewish life in the country.

After the tragedy of their parents’ deaths the boys are raised by foster parents on a kibbutz in the prosperous center of the country where they enjoy a comfortable existence during the twilight of the country’s socialist-inspired, communitarian era. Army service proves a disappointment for the elder Roni and a disaster for the younger Gabi and eventually, like so many young Israelis, both leave Israel to find fortune and adventure abroad. A decade later, after making and losing a fortune on Wall Street, Roni returns to Israel nearly penniless. 40 years old and single, he seeks refuge on the “West Bank” in his brother’s shabby hilltop trailer. As Gavron’s close narrator makes clear, Roni has tasted both the sweet and the bitter fruits of a secular life and his worldview has been shaped accordingly. His is a world without redemption where “all men are addicted to sex and violence.” It is a corporeal world; he embraces the bodily pleasures of Athens.

Gabi, by the time Roni arrives in his home, has mostly extirpated the ghosts of his own past and embraced the pious comforts of a humble religious life led largely in solitude. He is inward looking and interprets events out of his control as the meaningful manifestations of a divine plan. “Everything lies with God. If He brought you here, then here you should be,” he says to his brother. Gabi, a “reborn” convert to the teachings of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, lives in a world bound tightly by the black leather straps of the tefillin laid against his arm and forehead and shielded by the tallit draped across his shoulders. Despite his brother’s frequent accusations of false consciousness, his spiritual embrace of Jerusalem, undertaken without hesitation, has yielded both redemption and solace.

Over the course of their year together on the hilltop, which makes up the present-day portion of the narrative, the brothers rarely manage to see eye-to-eye. Roni is happy that his brother has endeared himself to the community, but he can never come to terms with the idea that Gabi’s own enthusiasms are genuine. Gabi, on the other hand, struggles to delineate the extent of his moral obligation to a brother in the throes of a midlife crisis. Despite moments of tolerance and sympathy, they never manage to achieve anything approaching true understanding. When they ultimately part ways, the feeling of mutual skepticism—of irreconcilable differences—is palpable. And it is precisely there, in that skepticism shaded by a barrier that separates brotherhood from contempt, where the political subtext of Gavron’s novel blossoms: Roni the symbolic figure of worldly, secular Israel; Gabi, that of the younger, faster growing religiously orthodox Israel. Together, they are the heart and soul of the modern state.

Despite the overt allegory, interpreting that political subtext is not as straightforward as it might seem. The fact that Gavron is stridently secular, that most of his readers are similarly secular, and that the political idea of “the settlement” invites reflexive disdain all prove counterintuitive to the most literal reading of The Hilltop. Gavron has cast Roni as a largely unsympathetic and unwelcome intruder into the circumscribed world of a traditional Jewish community. From taking a phone call during Shabbat services to borrowing slowly saved money and failing to pay it back, Roni is inconsiderate, vulgar, and dismissive of introspection. Gabi, on the other hand, is portrayed with exquisite sensitivity. He donates his labor for the betterment of the community. He does physical work that stands in stark contrast to the exploitative schemes that his brother concocts with a neighboring Arab olive grower. And in the most cathartic scene of the novel, Gabi shows himself capable of forgiveness. He’s not without flaws, but he is generally decent and self-aware.

Raphael Patai, the 20th century Hungarian-born Jewish folklorist, once wrote that “[t]hough the Jewish religion, at the height of its vitality, is a sort of general code of conduct, having its say in every phase of life, in things material as well as social, its proper domain is spiritual culture, and its influence is felt most of all in mental equipment and outlook.” The idea captures the essence of why Gabi, a character who has used his faith for precisely that reason, to bolster his own mental equipment, emerges as the shining light of Gavron’s novel and why, in the end, his just desserts prove so appealing. It’s also why, when Roni begins dating a Kindergarten teacher near the novel’s end, we understand it’s secular Israel that needs a spiritual reeducation. And so it goes throughout the novel; the beneficiary of Gavron’s bias is not the Israel of secular Tel Aviv, but the Israel of religious Jerusalem. Using The Hilltop as a megaphone, Gavron brazenly declares that the future of the Jewish state, irrespective of the shifting whims of its current political class, will be clad in Jerusalem stone, not Bauhaus stucco.

Roni and Gabi, though important to the allegorical assemblage of the novel, are not the only characters used as vessels to convey larger meaning. The hamlet of Ma’aleh Hermesh C contains eight more homes and a never-quite-finished cabin, all of which collectively provide for the space in which a number of comical scenes and dramatic subplots unfold. The settlement’s patriarch is Othniel Assis, a man whose primary objective, in the beginning of the novel, is to find a less fettered place to grow the vegetables that his family craves. That early semblance of innocence, however, is quickly undone when he becomes the willing, if sometimes unwitting, agent of politicians with agendas much larger than his own. From a simple farmer thankful that “the right hand [of the Israeli government] has no clue what the left one is doing,” he is transformed into a manipulative tactician willing to risk the life of his own son to further his ideological convictions, a startling regression. Othniel is an exception, however, for Gavron rarely bares the sharp teeth of vicious settler ideology. More often he uses the comical hysteria of a resident beautician to lampoon the country’s political establishment and skewer its defense forces.

Most of the hilltop’s residents are simple people trying to live ordinary lives. A young father fitfully attempts to write a dissertation on the hubris of the early kibbutz movement, an ironic twist in light of the similarities to the pioneering settler movement. One young couple struggles with pregnancy while another couple sees their own marriage dissolve in the face of alcoholism. Othniel’s beautiful teenage daughter, after being caught making out with the settlement’s resident soldier, is sent off to an all-girls religious school where her political attitudes harden. Her brother, meanwhile, is chastened and set on a less orthodox path after he sees the destructive folly in an act of cyber terrorism that he has committed. Portrayed from a human perspective, rather than from the birds-eye view in which they are presented to a global news audience, these settlers are as familiar as the residents of Grover’s Corners are to Americans of a certain age. And, as if to prove the point, Gavron seems to revel in using them as endearing props across a number of farcical scenes.

In one of those scenes, the U.S. Ambassador accepts an invitation to tour the settlement in conjunction with a visit by the hapless Defense Minister (a thinly veiled caricature of Ehud Barak.) When the Defense Minister’s speech is interrupted by the sudden incessant barking of Condi, one of two dogs that live on the hilltop, a humorously chaotic scene—balagan—ensues. Though Condi the dog is thoroughly Palestinian, it’s not any objection to the speech that sends him into a stir, but rather, the joy of reuniting with a visiting Israeli soldier who had previously rescued him from streets of Hebron. Putting aside the fact that the Israeli government does not allow American diplomats accredited to the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv to travel to the West Bank for official purposes, and the fact that even the U.S. Consul General in Jerusalem, whose district covers the West Bank, would be unlikely to visit a quasi-legal settlement without first knowing the political purpose of the trip and then having it precisely stage managed, the episode, with a measure of suspended disbelief, still manages to entertain.

If Gavron’s humorous farcical scenes are among the strongest qualities of The Hilltop, the Hebrew poetics in translation represent a distinct shortcoming. The heralding of Shabbat, a key event in the ritual life of the community, is notably inconsistent. Sometimes it’s evocative: “[t]he Sabbath came down like a setting sun, to the accompaniment of soft gusts of wind,” while at other times it’s awkward: “[t]he Sabbath touched down like a space shuttle on the moon—purposeful and precise.” A sampling of Gavron’s other Sabbaths have them “settle like a shawl on hair” or “like a veil on shoulders” and fall like a fresh and bounteous rain. In one instance, the Sabbath reverses course and rises up from the surrounding valleys. Fortunately Steven Cohen’s translation of Gavron’s dialogue doesn’t suffer from the same difficulties. His clipped English sentences nicely mimic the short, muscular utterances of spoken Hebrew. Generally speaking, it’s difficult to find fault in the craftsmanship of Gavron’s novel.

The Hilltop will appeal most to those readers who have an intimate knowledge of Israel and its folk culture—from Bamba to walkabouts to orthodox attire—but even “the Americans,” ever prominent as a distant monolithic force in the Israeli imagination, will read it profitably. Gavron offers as much insight into the realities of current Israeli cultural politics as any stack of academic or think tank reports on the same. And in so much as he has used Gabi Nehushtan as a vehicle to challenge his secular-minded readers’ pre-existing prejudices in a prize-winning work that has been suggested as the great Israeli novel of its generation, and in so much as he has portrayed the highly politicized “settlement” as simply another human settlement, like any other, where ordinary life goes on, he should be commended.

Yehuda Amichai, the great Israeli poet, wrote in the last lines of his poem Tourists:

Once I sat on the steps by a gate at David’s Tower.
I placed my two heavy baskets at my side. A group of tourists
was standing around their guide and I became their target marker. “You see that man with the baskets? Just right of his head there’s an arch
from the Roman period. Just right of his head.” But he’s moving, he’s moving!”
I said to myself: “redemption will come only if their guide tells them,
‘You see that arch from the Roman period? It’s not important: but next to it, left down and a bit, there sits a man who’s bought fruit and vegetables for his family.’”

Assaf Gavron, as tourist guide to cultural politics in Israel, has delivered that redemption in The Hilltop. Whether the tourists, be they secular Israelis, incredulous Europeans, or naïve Americans, are ready to divert their gaze from those artifacts of the physical world and focus on the human stories needing to be told remains to be seen. – © Jeffrey L. Otto, July 17, 2015

[Jake Goretzki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable and potentially controversial (it’s about a West Bank settlement, right), though it will no doubt enrage a section of readers as it’s very nihilistic and doesn’t take any particular stand on them thar hilltops. This is in fact a rather child-like, ironic, non-violent world – which reminded me a bit of a children’s play set (all the way down to the map at the front). Nobody’s getting executed for collaboration. Nobody is getting lynched. Nobody’s bulldozing anyone’s olive groves (yet). Oh, there’s a stone through a car windscreen, but that’s about it.

If it was making any particular political point, it might be ‘Look, plenty of people have just turned up there. Plenty of them are dippy religious types. It’s very pretty. Yes, and it’s ridiculous, I know. And life goes on’. That even if the enterprise is rotten, ‘there be humans’? Interestingly they decided to name the book in German ‘In a Foreign Land’. Germany is one of the few places in Europe (they haven’t embraced hip antisemitism with the quite same zeal, for obvious reasons) where you can talk about Israel in polite company – but it’s interesting that even there, the publisher chose to emphasise that this is over the Green Line and In No Way Spells Endorsement.

Along the way, we get some pretty good satire: the settlement movement’s machinations (variously supported of course by the state along the way); the Israel-in-the-US experience (funnily enough the first stop for Israelis I know who went there in the 80s/90s was to work for removals companies); the wheeler-dealing world of the entrepreneur and the banker. Stylistically and tonally it feels very contemporary Israeli too – echoes of Etgar Keret and co. Everyone’s overworked, stressed and horny. Big hearts, big egos.


PS: 'Yona and Yona' is funny - translator - because 'yona' (dove) is also a playground euphemism for 'fart'. That really should have been given an asterisk, habibi.

[Marica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poi non arrivano gli indiani
La migliore presentazione di questo libro è certamente quella di Roberto Saviano, che suona più o meno così: -Se avete a cuore la causa degli insediamenti israeliani in Cisgiordania, leggete questo libro; se parteggiate per i Palestinesi, leggete questo libro; se non vi importa nulla di coloni e Palestinesi, leggete questo libro.-
Assaf Gavron è un uomo giovane che ci racconta l'Israele dei nostri giorni con spirito e talento, attraverso le vicende di un insediamento in Cisgiordania: chi sono i coloni, qual è il percorso di vita che li ha condotti ai margini del deserto a vivere in prefabbricati a costante rischio di smantellamento: perchè la storia degli insediamenti è una spina nel fianco del governo di Tel Aviv: sostenuti dalle destre religiose e tutto sommato esistenti per l'acquiescenza dell'esercito, creano un sacco di difficoltà politiche, col ministero degli Interni e il ministero degli Esteri. Il tono della scrittura è partecipe con le difficoltà delle persone, farsesco quando segue i giri di telefonate fra lo “sceriffo” della colonia, il generale delle forze armate di stanza nella zona, il ministro israeliano, l'ambasciatore degli Stati Uniti: tutti a combattere verbalmente sulla sorte di 15 camper di lamiera. E' eccellente la qualità di caratterizzazione dei personaggi, con percorsi psicologici talmente convincenti da sembrare ritratti dal vivo, in particolare il fratello più giovane, dal carattere impulsivo e imprevedibile, debole e pericoloso. Questo ragazzo cerca la pace nell'applicazione più attenta delle regole religiose, ma non sembra avere interiorizzato la parola del suo Signore.
E' stata una lettura estremamente piacevole, interessante e avvincente, che esprime bene la difficoltà di essere Israeliani e ancora di più di governare questo piccolo paese.
La scena che riamane impressa è quella della maestra dell'insediamento che porta fuori i bambini per una passeggiata. Scortata da un soldato, come presenza simbolica, non si aspettano grossi pericoli: spingendo i più piccini, poco più che lattanti, in un box con le rotelle lungo un sentiero nel deserto. Poi non arrivano gli indiani: le si rompono le acque.

[Scott Schneider · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really expecting this book to give a measured view of the settlement situation in Israel. But instead it was an unabashed homage to the settlers showing their joy in hard work and worship of God. The Palestinians barely are present in the novel (except as rock throwers or neighbors with an olive orchard). The real bad guys are the government intent on shutting the settlement down. It was so one-sided I began to cringe when I got towards the end. A disappointment in that it didn't explore the real complexities and chose to just show one side. Is that what the give the Bernstein prize for?

[Mohammed Morsi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to say. I really enjoyed this book. You can say all you want about it but Assaf can write. And to so humorously depict Israeli society in the form of a settlement is unique. The Hilltop is a thick book and at times I thought it could have been cut down but because there are so many characters and entwined stories, I still found it interesting to keep reading.
There are no Palestinians in this story or let's say, they're hardly mentioned. I can see why. Intentionally the writer wishes to focus on the Israeli (and their peculiarities like anyone else) and has thus steered away from that discussion. Good or bad? You decide.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

My review appears in New York Journal of Books. Read that review first. Additional remarks that appeared in a different and now defunct publication begin with the next paragraph.

Israeli books: Assaf Gavron's The Hilltop is set in a West Bank settlement

Israeli fiction writers have set their narratives in rural kibbutzim, moshavim, in small mainly Sephardic towns, in urban settings in Israel’s three largest cities, as well as overseas, and now novelist Assaf Gavron has set his fifth novel and seventh book The Hilltop (published last week by New York publisher Scribner) in perhaps the most controversial setting of all, an unauthorized West Bank settlement. In my New York Journal of Books review I recommend The Hilltop “to all readers who enjoy a good story grounded in current events.”

British author William Sutcliffe also set his Young Adult novel The Wall in what appears to be a West Bank settlement, but his settlers are represented by a single abusive two dimensional character. By contrast, Gavron’s settlers in The Hilltop are more complicated and more believable characters.

Roughly one in twenty Jewish Israelis lives in a West Bank settlement. Four fifths of these settlers live in settlements close enough to Israel’s 1949 armistice line that they could be incorporated into Israel as part of land swaps in a comprehensive peace agreement.

Gavron’s settlers in the fictional settlement Ma’aleh Hermesh C are among the fifth of settlers who would have to be evacuated in the event of such a peace agreement, and since it is an unauthorized settlement, an order for its evacuation has already been issued. Whether that evacuation order will ever be executed is a central plot element in The Hilltop.

My recommendation “to all readers” in my NYJB review may be too broad. Perhaps the ideal reader is one who can care about the novel’s characters (even though they show no empathy toward their Palestinian neighbors) while at the same time disapprove of their settlement enterprise and its objectives, one of which is to prevent a comprehensive peace agreement to end the Israel-Palestine conflict through the partition of the country into two states, Israel and Palestine.

This past spring U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said, “A two-state solution will be clearly underscored as the only real alternative. Because a unitary state winds up either being an apartheid state with second-class citizens—or it ends up being a state that destroys the capacity of Israel to be a Jewish state.”

There are indeed Israelis who share Secretary Kerry’s apprehensions, but they include some of Israel’s newly affluent shoppers who consume organic produce and dairy products produced in settlements similar to Gavron’s fictional Ma’aleh Hermesh C. For a fuller discussion of The Hilltop see my NYJB review.

[Dottie Resnick · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Hilltop is an engaging novel about a complex issue in Israel today, the settlements. This book helps to bring some understanding to the viewpoints of the settlers, the Arabs, and the Israeli government, specifically the IDF. Story of two men, switching back and forth from their youth to the present day describing their lives on the kibbutz growing up, when and how they moved to the U.S. and their transformations and moving back to Israel and what brought them to the settlements. Well-written, descriptive, includes some of the controversy of the settlements and how media can effect policy.

[987643467881 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book offers what I think is a relatively rare opportunity for a reader to empathise with characters (whose political/religious views they may disagree with) without necessarily liking them (or being converted to their way of thinking). The satire, humour and overall neutral, almost nihilistic, narrative (with a focus on descriptions of complex, multifaceted characters rather than on judgmental analysis) seems to have offended some readers on both sides of the debate on Israeli politics, but perhaps in this case, the varying criticism from all directions is actually evidence of just how successful the book is in achieving some of its aims. The book focuses on ordinary people, trying to live ordinary lives in a not so ordinary, highly politicised setting – which proves to be the perfect ground for humourous farcical scenes that in many cases challenge certain stereotypes, and in other cases seem to enforce them in a not so politically-correct way.

Despite the author's political opposition to unauthorized settlements in the West Bank (which is stated in numerous interviews and essays), he traveled weekly for 2 years to one such remote settlement (mentioned in an interview with TinHouse magazine), which eventually became the model for the fictional Ma'aleh Hermesh C, the unauthorized settlement that is the main focus point of the book. Considering this, along with the fact that the book isn't just a shallow farce, the author's aim to inspire an empathy that transcends political/religious boundaries actually seems genuine.

The book was an ambitious undertaking; in an interview with the Los Angeles Review of Books the author says:
“'The Hilltop' represents the current state of Israeli-ness and Zionism, but I wanted to show a larger picture and to reach out in time and in geography to the occupied territories, to Tel Aviv, to America, and show those different types of Israeli-ness. Still, the settlement, what is going on there, I think, is at the forefront of the current state of Israeli-ness. They’re a minority, especially the kinds of settlers in the hilltops. Still, the ethics, the way they behave, the way they come into contact with the different, other reference points like the army, and the local Palestinians, is very much the state of current Israel. So I widened the scope to show that. ”

The narrative goes back and forth in time to draw parallels and contrasts between the secular kibbutz movement of the past and the current religious settler movements (an allegory for Israel's socio-political shift from left to right), which are illustrated through the stories of the orphaned brothers Gabi and Roni, the two main characters of the book. From the range of personalities that the movements attract, to the the range of personality types and complexes that they create, I got the impression that both movements serve as two different remedies to the same ailments of the human condition. Whether or not the movements are successful at providing what the different characters in the book seek is debatable – to some extent at least, we have to assume that people choose to stay because the pros of staying outweigh the cons. I have to say though, despite the fact that some of the characters are presented as having presumably found their life's calling (and therefore have presumably achieved some fulfillment and joy in their everyday lives) both movements are presented as having almost cult-like tendencies that tarnish the idealistic image that they would like to create of themselves - for example their preference for dealing with issues internally without getting state authorities involved (including serious cases of abuse, mental illness, etc.) and their adherence to an internal social hierarchy (e.g. when a dog bites one of the new settlers' children, they decide not to even mention the incident to Othniel, one of the founders of the settlement and the person responsible for the dog). There is a dark side to their everydayness/ordinariness which I suppose makes them all the more human and believable as characters.

Along with the religious and political tensions, the author also uses the settlement to explore a wide range of other dynamics within the society, such as
- generational differences (explored through the teenage siblings Yakir (the Second Life addict) and Gatit (the object of desire for secular and religious men alike) who come of age in two contrasting ways, Yakir questioning and moving away from their father's beliefs, and Gatit (hypocritically) exaggerating them to the point of caricature),
- gender/marital/familial conflicts (e.g. the conflict between the secular couple Anna and Gabi, before he became “reborn” Gavriel, contrasted with rift between the religious couple Shaulit and Nir), and
-racial tensions (which culminate in the verbal attack launched by Josh, the American-Israeli settler with supposed Marrano/“anusim” ancestry on Yoni, the Ethiopian-Israeli soldier).

Whether it was intended to be seen that way or not, I saw the chapter “The Stray”, about Beilin, one of Othniel's dogs, as a sort of indication of the author's intention of creating a modern continuation, set in 2009-2010, to S. Y. Agnon's Only Yesterday, a sort of informal history of Jewish settlement in Palestine between 1904-1914. There are quite a few parallels that can be drawn between Gavron's Beilin and Agnon's Balak; both dogs cross the boundaries between the secular and religious, the modern and traditional, Arab villages and Jewish settlements - all in search of a home, an identity, and perhaps that ever elusive “sense of belonging”. While it's Balak's mental state that is warped and distorted by these crossings, it's Beilin's physical appearance that reflects the abnormality and torment that identifies him as the “talush”/uprooted/rootless character (a significant personality archetype in Hebrew literature at the turn of the twentieth century) and as an allegory for the mental states of both Roni and Gabi.

In a way the two brothers are two different sides of the same contemporary “talush” coin. According to Gavron “They each show different kinds of Israeli-ness, and both are very Israeli in very opposing ways: Roni is the macho Israeli, the go-getter. […] With Gabi, it’s the more laid back, shy, sensitive type of Israeli, but there is always a hint of violence in there.” (quote from the interview with the Los Angeles Review of Books). Typical of the talush character, both brothers feel disconnected from the tradition that they find themselves in (at the Kibbutz) so they both decide to leave in search of self-fulfillment in the modern, materialistic, decadent, cosmopolitan world (in Tel Aviv and America), in which they are unable to succeed in the long term, and (perhaps as a result of their maladjustment and failures) eventually find themselves even further alienated from anything meaningful, and inevitably attempt to make a return to something with at least a semblance of familiarity, no matter how miserable it might occasionally make them (the illegal settlement was able to provide this for them). The brothers are different permutations of the “talush” archetype, and although one's ennui manifests itself in a secular, boisterous and obnoxious decadence and the other's in a religious, self-conscious repressed rage, both lack balance and suffer from a sense of detachment, emptiness, and a sort of twisted/faulty sense of morality that is typical of the archetype.

Despite the fact that the brothers share the root of their emptiness and their desire to fill the void, which they both seem to recognize and understand in each other, the conflict emerges when they choose differing solutions, and so no matter how tolerant and sympathetic they may be towards one another, they never manage to truly see eye to eye. The author doesn't choose sides in this allegory for the the make up of Israeli society - neither side is spared his mockery, or his empathy for that matter.

So what does the future hold for Roni and Gabi? Depending on how you look at it, the book ends on a relatively optimistic note for the two brothers. Is Beilin's ability to thrive at the settlement as opposed to Balak's inability to survive the madness of life, an indication that no matter how absurd, uncertain and unstable, life goes on at the settlement (thanks to the farcical bureaucratic confusion which allows it to survive despite its illegality) - people get on with life, and even manage to make the most of it, come what may. There's no end to the settlement in sight and the author doesn't offer any solutions, predictions or wishes, and leaves it up to the reader to make their own conclusions.

[Moshe Mikanovsky · Rating 3 out of 5]

יכול להיות שהיו לי צפיות גבוהות מהספר, או שסיפור האחים רוני וגבי נראה לי לא במקום לאור הטקסט על העטיפה שמדבר על עתניאל, מקים ההאחזות הבלתי חוקית... אכן האחים בניגודם, בטרגדיות שלהם ובשונה והדומה בינהם יוצרים מתח מבוקש, אבל רובו במחוזות אחרים ורחוקים, לא אלה שמשכו אותי מראש לקרוא את הספר. גם לשון הספר לא היתה מספיק עקבית, ובמקום להנות מ"להיטוטו של המחבר", דוקא זה גרם לקצת עצבים אצל הקורא שלפניכם

[Siv30 · Rating 3 out of 5]

ספרי עליית הגג, 2013, 430 עמודים

כשקראתי את הספר הזה רציתי למרוט לעצמי את כל השיערות מהגוף עם פינצטה. אחת אחת. ביסורים. זה ספר מעצבן, מרגיז ומכפר בצורות שלא נראו עוד. אסף גברון מצייר את החברה הישראלית על תחלואיה. אבל למרות שהספר מעצבן מאוד, הוא קולח והוא לא משעמם. האירועים בו מתגלגלים מפרק לפרק והקצב נשמר.

***
אסף גברון מתאר כרוניקה של גיבעה אחת. מאחז, בעצם מאחזון.

למעשה תחת הכתיבה הקלילה אפשר להריח את הרקב מפרי הביאושים של הקיבוצים ושל ההתנחלויות. תיאור הווי ההתנחלויות ואז כמו מקבילית שאינה מקבילה באמת אלא יותר קוים נפגשים, תיאור ההווי הקיבוצי.

התיאור הזה, חייהם של רוני וגבי הנע על הציר קיבוצים / התנחלויות הופך את הספר לסיפורה של החברה הישראלית והפנים המכוערות שלה. הפנים המכוערות של האי שוויון, של תרבות הסמוך, הזילזול, האפליה הבוטה. השופוני והתחושה של כל יכולים שאוכלת בנו.

הספר הזה מרגיז ביותר. הוא מראה עקומה שעונה על השאלה מי האישה המכוערת בסביבה.

וזה לא משתפר ככל שמתקדם הספר. החוק השונה לתחומי הקו הירוק והעדר החוק בהתנחלויות. המאחזים הבלתי חוקיים שהמדינה מכשירה בלי מצמוץ למרות שבגצ קובע את מה שקובע. חוסר הבושה ועזות המצח מול כלל הציבור הבוחר בניצול כספי ציבור לתועלת אוכלוסיה קטנה.

הבדיחה שעבור 2 וחצי משפחות, ב 2 וחצי קראוונים, הציבור כולו משקיע כל כך הרבה כסף. ובשיא החוצפה ההשוואה לחברה הקיבוצית, כאילו ש 2 קראוונים על גבעה פלסטינאית הם באיזו שהיא צורה יישוב הארץ.

אסף גברון מציף את כל מה שמכוער בחברה הישראלית ואפילו הוא לא צריך להתאמץ בכדי להראות כמה החברה הישראלית מסואבת ושסועה. ספר מטריד ביותר.

והנה ציטוטים מפרק מעצבן במיוחד -

ציטוט מ "הגבעה"

""מקינלי הגזים," טען השר. "מדובר במאחז קטן ולא משמעותי של כמה משפחות, אי־אפשר לטעון שהאזרח או משרד האוצר האמריקאיים שילמו שם משהו מכיסם, מהסיבה הפשוטה שאף אחד לא הוציא שם כלום. חוץ מממלשטיין, שהוא אדם פרטי, ומה כבר תרם שם, גינת משחקים קטנה."
"אבל מה עם החשמל, המים, ההגנה הצבאית?" שאל הנשיא, שהוכן היטב מראש, למגינת ליבו של השר. "מה עם הכביש שסללו שם? זה היה מע"צ - תמונות לוויין אמריקאי מוכיחות זאת - לא תרומה פרטית."
"כן, אמר השר, זה מורכב, כי אנחנו צריכים להגן על האזרחים שלנו מפני התוקפנות הערבית, גם אם הם יושבים שם באופן זמני, והחבר'ה הצעירים שגדלו בהתנחלות, אין להם איפה..."

אני בטוחה שהדברים מעירים לכם איזה זיכרון אפילו לא מהזמן הרחוק. זיכרון ממש מהיומיים האחרונים בהם המדינה הודיעה לבג" צ שהיא תכשיר את הבניה הלא חוקית באיזה מאחז מצ'וקמק ששנים לא מצליחים לאכוף עליהם פינוי. פשוט בושות.

וההמשך -

"השר צפה שהפגישה תהיה החלק הקשה ביותר, ואחריה ינשום קצת לרווחה, אלא שציפתה לו הפתעה. כשחזר לארץ הולעט משרדו בטלפונים יומיומיים מהשגריר האמריקאי, ולפעמים גם מזכירת המדינה התקשרה לשאול איך מתקדמים. הוא החליט לנסוע למעלה חרמש ג' כדי להראות לאמריקאים שהוא בכל זאת עושה משהו.....

"מה אנחנו עושים איתם, גיורא?" הפנה השר את מבט הבולדוג העצוב שלו אל האלוף.
זה משך בכתפיים. "אנא עארף? מה שתחליט, אנחנו נבצע."
השר עצם עיניים וניענע את ראשו מצד לצד. "לא, גיורא. את זה אני יודע. אני שואל אותך מה להחליט." האלוף לא ענה. השר המשיך, "מה קרה שם עם הבולדוזר? למה ויתרתם לכמה מופרעים? איך נראה לכם שאנחנו נראים בעולם? הנשיא אומר לי, 'מה זה, אין לכם חוק שם?' אתה מבין את הפַדיחוֹת?"
"מה שקרה שם זה שראש הממשלה התקשר ואמר להפסיק. אתה יודע את זה. זה לא קשור אלינו. אנחנו היינו ממשיכים עם החישוף. שלושת הליצנים האלה לא שינו כלום. אבל היה שם שר החינוך, והוא התקשר לראש הממשלה, והם הביאו מאות מפגינים..."
"מה אתה אומר, אברם?" הביט שר הביטחון בשב"כניק, כאילו נזכר פתאום בקיומו. "אי־אפשר להעיף אותם משם, כדי שהאמריקאים יֵרדו לי מהגב"?"

האבסורד בשיאו : לא העבריינות, השתלטות על קרקעות, התחמקות מפסיקת בג"צ, בזבוז כספי ציבור יניעו את השרים בממשלת דמיקולו לתקן את העיוותים החוקיים. רק האמריקאים וההצקות שלהם.

כמה פעמים כתבתי מעצבן? אז כן הנה לכם עוד מעצבן.

[Jim Leffert · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you took two fine recent non-fiction books about “The Situation” in Israel, Like Dreamers by Yossi Klein Halevi and My Promised Land by Arie Shavit, mixed them up into a blender, and cultivated the resultant mulch into a fine novel about a West Bank settlement, The Hilltop is what you would get. Many of the aspects of Israeli society captured by these two non-fiction works are brought to life in this impressive 450-page tale.

The Hilltop offers a compelling account of goings on at Ma’aleh Hermesh C, a fictional settlement outpost overlooking a West Bank Arab village. We get to know many of the settlers intimately (and they are convincing characters). Ma’aleh Hermesh C, which is an illegal settlement, becomes the focus of controversy and conflict within Israel and between Israel and the United States. The Hilltop presents all aspects of the settlement issue and offers both the personal story of the settlers and a satiric look at Israeli society’s divisions and strivings.

The Hilltop also includes the life story of two brothers, Roni and Gabi Kupper, who grew up as orphans on a kibbutz in the Galilee. Both are refugees: Gabi, after fleeing a series of messed up situations, has become religious, changed his last name to Nehushstan, and is one of Ma’aleh Hermesh C’s settlers. Roni arrives at Gabi’s doorstep, a penniless fugitive who needs to be “off the grid” for a while, having piled up huge losses as a trader on Wall Street. Gabi is seeking a new life through religious practice and “pioneering” work as part of this small community. Roni, freeloading off his brother for now, sees an opportunity to regain his financial footing by marketing the Arab village’s “extra extra virgin organic” olive oil at a hefty markup in Tel Aviv.

The Hilltop offers answers to the following questions: What happened to the energy and drive of the secular Israelis who single handedly developed the state and turned it into a military and economic powerhouse? Who are the settlers and what motivates them? What is Israeli foreign policy about? Can the Israeli government lead the nation forward in a coherent direction? Does Israel’s government have the will to contain the settlement movement to allow for progress toward a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Can individual Israelis manage the strains and stresses of their pressure-cooker society, and live as occupiers while feeling like embattled victims, without violence and hooliganism erupting at times?

The story of the settlement is the most compelling part of the book; the brothers’ life story is overly long and is told in out-of-sequence segments, so that it takes a bit of effort for the reader to integrate the entire story. Nonetheless, it all comes together at the end, leaving an emotional wallop on this reader!

[Mandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Engaging, informative, thought-provoking and very well-written, Gavron’s examination of an illegal Israeli settlement is a powerful and compelling portrait of Israel today, and the conflicts and contradictions that the country has to deal with on a daily basis. The hilltop of the title is a small rocky outcrop where almost by accident rather than a design a small settlement has taken root. Ma’aleh Hermesh C holds an ambiguous position on contested land and having become established, none of the authorities involved quite knows what to do about it. The resulting bureaucratic confusion is almost farcical at times, but Gavron avoids making too much fun of the situation, with his satire merely underlining the seriousness of what is happening.
As well as the focus on Ma’aleh Hermesh C, the novel also focuses on two of its inhabitants, brothers Gabi and Roni Kupper, with the author taking us away from the settlement to fill in on their life histories, thus giving a broader perspective to the Israeli experience. Both brothers spend time in America, and this gives the reader a chance to meet other Israelis as a foil to the sometimes entrenched view of the settlers back on the hilltop.
The novel moves back and forth in time and alternates place and perspective, examining the detail of everyday life as well as considering the wider issues. This panoramic sweep of Israel and Israelis makes the book very much a state of the nation novel and offers a deeper understanding of what can at times appear very polarised positions. The residents of the settlement may be short-sighted and prejudiced, insular in their outlook, but none of them are wholly bad. Gabi himself is a “good” man following his recent religious reawakening, but there is a deep-seated violence within him which mirrors the violence never far from the surface in Israeli society. With his depictions of life on a Kibbutz in the 20th and 21st centuries, life in Tel Aviv, and the experience of Israeli immigrants in the US, the author manages to be even-handed and non-judgemental for the most part but it is clear that his underlying criticism of the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate is both perceptive and insightful. This is not an optimistic book, certainly not in regard to the fraught situation regarding the illegal settlements, but it is certainly a valuable one for both insiders and outsiders who want to gain a greater comprehension of what is happening in Israel right now.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m seesawing a bit on this rating. I’m a little overwhelmed with personal stuff right now, and this book was a little overwhelming. I was worried I’d hate it because the main characters are all Israeli settlers, but instead I was compelled by it. None of the characters are particularly likeable, except in some occasional moments (other moments showed folks to be extremely unlikebale.) It was satire, rather than something bombastic and overwrought, which might have touched upon the sincerity of some of these people’s beliefs, but would absolutely drown me as a reader in too much self-righteous miasma. Usually I got swept away by the story, but every once in awhile I’d get an uncomfortable pit in my stomach that these people were our Jewish ambassadors of this not quite fictional world. Maybe the seesaw was between me, the reader, who likes a good and complicated story, and me the Jew who worries about reputation. Very occasionally they’d compromise, and I’d feel some affinity for a ritualistic note, or even that tribal connection to the land.

But enough of my theatrics. Here’s the story at play. It’s 2010, and we’re in the Territories on a fictional illegal settlement called Ma’aleh Hermesh C. One of the founders, Othniel Assis, came out there to do organic farming, and then opened his outpost to other Jews who’d like to brave the proverbial wild west. This is a place of mobile homes and generated power, where niceties like a small playground come from rich US donors, where settlers badger the Israeli government for services they’re not supposed to have, and yet their presence means that the Army is there to protect them, paving roads and the like.

Ma’aleh Hermesh C accidentally gains international attention when a Washington Post columnist gets lost on the way to visit a politician. It becomes a source of embarrassment for the government, and after more comic bureaucracy, they elect to forcibly evacuate the place. Before all of that, we get introduced to a large cast of characters, most of whom weren’t developed enough for my taste and served more as accoutrements of the setting. The big exception to this are the Kuper brothers—Gabi, who reinvented himself on the settlement as a religious man after a tumultuous past, and Roni, the stereotypical secular sabra, who nevertheless left Israel to make it big as an investment banker in New York…until he made a wrong call and lost everything.

We go into the backstories about how these orphaned brothers got to where they are, and I even teared up a bit at a redemptive scene for Gabi late in the game. The big question Gavron seems to be asking here is if people can change. It’s ambiguous, though if Roni is still wheeling and dealing, he’s doing it on a smaller scale and facilitating real relationships this time. As for Gabi, I wouldn’t say that religion was a cure all for his violent temper, which was on display in a particularly climactic act. But he also gets a little bit of a hopeful ending with a new female companion.

It's a book, perhaps, of second chances. I’d say that’s why the settlers moved to Ma’aleh Hermesh C, no matter what language they used to couch it. They came from disparate Jewish backgrounds but this place, in the wilderness, is undeniably a fresh start. Gavron compares the settlements to the kibbutz movement—which at the beginning would have also referred to itself as a settlement movement. I’d quibble about the mirror images claim—kibbutzim started before the founding of the state, before this power imbalance with Palestinians. (I should mention that one of Roni’s get rich quick schemes involves an Arab from a nearby town with an organic olive oil press.) Also, many members were tried and true refugees from the Holocaust or the pogroms, whereas most here would be more comfortable in their previous lives.

Something I’ve been thinking about a bit, and what came up in my synagogue’s Israel book club is about warped nationalist perspectives. How the settlers, imagining back to when Israel was fledgling, imagine themselves as David when really they’re Goliath. Israel in within the green line is a safe, viable place, and yet they’re living out a wild west fantasy. They are, by definition, an obstacle to peace, though as I read through the minutiae of their lives, I wondered if they really are theobstacle to peace, or if the big one is really the ebb and flow of violence on all sides.

Gabi and Roni can at least question themselves within their own lives, but probably my favorite character in this regard is Othniel’s 15-year-old son, Yakir. Yakir spends much of the book in Second Life where he and a handful of vengeful, isolated Diaspora Jews wreak havoc and cyber bullying on Muslim and Palestinian virtual spaces. I think my breakout group in book club kinda missed the point here a little—it’s more than just a “video game” when you’re making up the rules and electing to harass real people. It’s like Twitter on steroids—an ironic, satirical Twitter where the online space offers you the chance to try out new perspectives, but instead you fester in your own narrow hate. Yakir does, for awhile, until something propels him to look in the proverbial mirror and he signs off in disgust. Maybe it could have been better explained in story, but it led to him dismantling the binary thinking of his community and daring to challenge his status quo. The real happy ending!

I’d quibble with other characters, like his sister who oscillates between virulent, anti-solider nationalism, and her illicit affair with a soldier guarding her. A soldier who just happens to be Ethiopian, and there’s a racist subplot, but I think Gavron dropped the ball a bit on nuance in the soldier’s POV. Then there’s the big thing about how the climax takes place during Purim—is it legit that the Jewish state would think to evacuate any Jews on a Jewish holiday? Maybe I’m overthinking things.

This feels like the type of book maybe I should give five stars to, but at the moment I’m too overwhelmed, and I also think maybe there was a bit too much going on in these pages (I haven’t even gotten to the Israel Antiquities subplot yet. :P Or the canine backstory.) But when I read, I was engrossed. I don’t know what spell Gavron, and/or his translator, Steven Cohen, cast over me. But it largely worked. I’m glad I got around to this one.

[Raffaele Esposito · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un decennio fa, quando gli ultimi fuochi della Seconda Intifada si erano appena spenti, Assaf Gavron (classe 1968) ci mostrò il mondo attraverso gli occhi di un attentatore suicida palestinese: il giovanissimo Fahmi, figura complessa e contraddittoria di terrorista riluttante, era il coprotagonista di La mia storia, la tua storia; quel romanzo, costruito su un'efficacissima doppia narrazione parallela, riusciva a rappresentare il conflitto dall'interno e da ogni punto di vista, senza sconti per nessuno e senza dimenticare l'umanità di nessuno.
Oggi, con La collina, Gavron ci trasporta sulle alture della Giudea, tra vento incessante e freddo pungente, sole impietoso e notti sotto le stelle, per mostrarci il mondo attraverso gli occhi dei coloni israeliani in Cisgiordania. Abbiamo a che fare, è evidente, con un autore che ama affrontare sfide e lavorare con figure impopolari; ma soprattutto abbiamo a che fare con un attento osservatore votato all’esplorazione della realtà attraverso il mezzo a sua disposizione: la narrazione. Probabilmente il solo mezzo in grado di restituire spessore umano a una serie di parole, definizioni, etichette, che ascoltiamo o leggiamo distrattamente tra i titoli delle notizie.

Il luogo immaginario al centro del romanzo è un minuscolo insediamento: Ma‘alé Chermesh C, fondato da un giorno all’altro, per l’iniziativa personale di un singolo, come avamposto del preesistente Ma‘alé Chermesh (“Salita della falce”). Alla ricerca di uno stile di vita più autentico, o forse, più banalmente, di una comunità che lo riconosca come capo indiscusso, il coriaceo Otniel Assis, con pochi e fidati compagni, ha fissato la sua nuova dimora su una collina nei pressi del villaggio arabo di Charmish; un buon posto in cui allevare capre e coltivare rucola e pomodorini «per l’insalata di sua moglie».
Se l’insediamento di origine è ormai una realtà consolidata, una cittadina riconosciuta con tanto di municipio, la vita nell’avamposto è a dir poco spartana: ciascuna delle poche famiglie vive in un caravan, l’acqua proviene da una cisterna e alla corrente provvede un generatore malandato che salta un giorno sì e l’altro pure. Ma Otniel e compagni sono felici, finché possono condurre la loro vita di duro lavoro fisico e preghiera comunitaria; si pensi a qualcosa di simile a monaci eremiti nel deserto, però con moglie, figli e fucile.
C’è solo un piccolo dettaglio sul quale i coloni sorvolano: l’avamposto, oltre a non essere riconosciuto da nessuna autorità, sorge in parte su terre private di palestinesi e in parte in una riserva naturale. Ed è così che, con l’umorismo e il ritmo a cui Gavron ci ha abituati, ci viene offerto il resoconto dettagliato e realistico del lungo processo di consolidamento e normalizzazione di una realtà illegale; tra amicizie ai vertici e scambi di favori, equilibri di governo e reazioni internazionali, fervore ideologico e interessi del momento, i meccanismi contorti della burocrazia lasciano intatto l’insediamento che cresce. E in questi meccanismi il fondatore Otniel sa muoversi fin troppo bene, sfruttando il paradosso di un’amministrazione civile e militare che è incaricata di sgomberare e smantellare l'insediamento ma allo stesso tempo è tenuta a fornirgli protezione e servizi.

Sarebbe già abbastanza, eppure La collina non è soltanto la storia di un insediamento immaginario come analisi di un fenomeno reale; è anche, e soprattutto, la storia di due uomini, due fratelli, che in quell’insediamento si trovano a condividere un pezzo della loro vita.
Roni e Gabi Cooper sono cresciuti, laici, in un kibbutz della Galilea (nel nord di Israele) in seguito alla tragedia che li ha lasciati orfani; da adulti, dopo il servizio militare, ciascuno ha preso la propria strada, vivendo effimeri successi e totali fallimenti, per finire entrambi soli e senza una chiara idea di futuro. Il fragile Gabi ha trovato conforto nella religione ed è stato accolto tra i fondatori di Ma‘alé Chermesh C, dove è benvoluto da tutti e considerato un giusto; ma a portare scompiglio nella sua pace tanto faticosamente costruita provvederà il fratello maggiore Roni, né di destra né religioso, che torna dall’America senza un soldo e si piazza nel suo caravan per mesi.
A cominciare dalla seconda parte, in una narrazione onnisciente che alterna il passato dei protagonisti alle vicende attuali dell’avamposto, il romanzo ripercorre la storia dei due fratelli ricostruendo le loro vite sullo sfondo di quattro decenni di storia israeliana. Nel presente, l’inattesa convivenza non fa che accentuare la distanza incolmabile che il tempo e le scelte opposte hanno scavato tra i due: se Gabi difende la propria ricerca spirituale, Roni non vede cosa possa trovare suo fratello in «cose dette duecento anni fa da qualche rabbino ucraino» e non comprende l’ostilità dei coloni nei confronti dei vicini arabi; ma le continue discussioni servono soltanto a radicare ciascuno nelle proprie convinzioni.

Non è casuale che gli anni della vita di Roni e Gabi siano gli stessi anni in cui si è formato e consolidato lo status quo degli insediamenti con tutte le sue conseguenze, tra spaccature e limiti di comunicazione, anche all’interno della società israeliana. In una certa misura, questi due fratelli e la varia umanità che ruota attorno all’avamposto sono lo specchio dell’attuale Israele, una Israele post-sionista, di cui il romanzo offre un affresco corale: coloni aggressivi e politici irresoluti, edonisti di Tel Aviv e disadattati alla riscoperta della fede, soldati etiopi e ragazze educate al fanatismo, ufficiali progressisti e immigrati razzisti, tutti sono coinvolti nella questione degli insediamenti, riedizione del movimento dei kibbutz in salsa messianica.
E tutti i destini si incrociano nella una gelida notte di Purim che precede il finale, a pochi passi dagli ulivi del vecchio arabo Mousa e dalle grotte in cui il tempo ha custodito antiche monete ebraiche.
Va segnalato che un piacere particolare nella lettura de La collina è riservato a chi ha familiarità con la realtà di Israele oggi: tra ministri e consiglieri, ambasciatori e vertici militari, gruppi politici e attivisti, in questo romanzo ogni riferimento a fatti e personaggi reali è puramente voluto. Un nome tra tutti: nel fittizio Sheldon Mumelstein, magnate statunitense che finanzia l’insediamento mettendo in imbarazzo la Casa Bianca, è fin troppo riconoscibile il tutt’altro che fittizio Sheldon Adelson, magnate statunitense che da anni influenza l’opinione pubblica israeliana (in direzione pro-Netanyahu) attraverso il suo giornale gratuito.

Pur senza mirare al perfetto equilibrio simmetrico di La mia storia, la tua storia, Gavron rivela ancora una volta il suo grande controllo sulle modalità del racconto, confermandosi maestro nella costruzione e nell’intreccio di trame e sottotrame. E, ancora una volta, le sue strutture narrative servono uno scopo preciso: mettere il lettore di fronte alla realtà e costringerlo ad affrontare questioni urgenti, tenendosi ben lontano da semplicismi didascalici e risposte a senso unico.
Il tono della narrazione è costantemente in bilico tra empatia e ironia, con momenti non rari di vera comicità; ma non per questo risulta meno triste la storia e meno pessimistica la visione generale. A consolarci c’è proprio quell’ironia con cui il narratore ci accompagna fino all’ultimissima riga.

Un’ultima osservazione, forse fuori luogo o forse no, riguarda una parte dell’accoglienza, fortunatamente perlopiù positiva, riservata a questo libro. Sarà pur vero che l'umorismo di Gavron può essere apprezzato in ogni sfumatura se tanto la realtà israeliana quanto il mondo ebraico non ci sono del tutto estranei (si pensi al momento in cui il laicissimo Roni si sorprende a ragionare come uno studioso del Talmud), tuttavia è desolante vedere quanto i più elementari meccanismi dell’ironia non siano alla portata di tutti: si è già fatto avanti chi si indigna per questo «libro dalla parte dei coloni», etichetta complementare a quella di «libro dalla parte dei terroristi» che qualcuno appiccicò alla storia di Fahmi. E poi, come sempre avviene quando c’è di mezzo Israele, qualcuno si è scagliato contro la pubblicazione stessa del libro, senza averlo aperto e senza avere idea di chi sia Gavron (solo per averlo recensito, Roberto Saviano s’è preso la sua quotidiana dose d’insulti).
In situazioni del genere, va da sé, converrà risparmiarsi queste cinquecento e più pagine, accontentandosi dei titoli delle notizie o, peggio, di slogan e post la cui viralità è direttamente proporzionale alla superficialità.
Chi invece cerca di conoscere, anche commuovendosi e sorridendo, troverà in questo romanzo – al di là della denuncia e del racconto di una realtà locale – quella capacità di osservazione, trasmissione e condivisione dell’esperienza umana che distingue la buona letteratura.

[Audrey Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this book so much.
I read it because the Temple bookclub chose it. It was a rough go at first because there were so many people whose names were hard for me to remember, but once I realized how enjoyable the reading would be, I committed to mastering the names. Although The Hilltop takes place over ten years ago, I felt I was living there at that time and it helped me to see Settlers as people rather than “hot heads” causing trouble. I liked the people; I enjoyed living there with them; and I am so happy I read this book.

[Erez Davidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The Hilltop” is a story about a fictional settlement, “Ma'ale Hermesh Gimel”, located in Gush Etzion, which is to the south of Jerusalem. In the center of the plot is a complex relationship between two brothers. The younger among the two, Gabi, has started to practice Judaism and has moved to the isolated Ma'ale Hermesh Gimel to fight the demons of his past. Roni, the elder brother, has left to New York to make his big score in Wall Street, but eventually lands up penniless and living in the last place he ever thought possible - Ma'ale Hermesh Gimel with his radical younger brother.

The story is slightly all over the place and includes almost all of the colorful residents of Ma'ale Hermesh Gimel along with the past stories of Roni and Gabi. Although somewhat more aggressive editing would have been helpful, the story is still well-written, easy to read with a good rhythm to it. I think Gavron describes Ma'ale Hermesh Gimel and its people in a fairly stereotypical manner. If you would ask a person on the streets of Tel Aviv to describe a settler in the West Bank, he would probably describe someone pretty similar to one of the characters in “The Hilltop.”

The writing itself is very modern, and it reminds me of Jonathan Safran Foer’s writing in its modernity and wit. “The Hilltop” is oftentimes witty, sometimes critical, and almost always enjoyable. Gavron shows an unknown side of Israel, though in a slightly banal way, that not a lot of people are aware of.

[Terri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review also found at http://kristineandterri.blogspot.ca/2...

I received an advanced copy of this book from the publisher Scribner via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. The expected publication date is October 7, 2014.

This is not a book for the casual reader. For someone with limited knowledge of Israel (but trying to learn) I did find it difficult to keep track of the unfamiliar names as they were not what I am accustomed to.

The synopsis of the book captures it accurately. It does give one some insight on the area which often comes in the media. Although fictional it sheds a little bit of light on what it is like in this region and a glimpse of the conflict and might I add confusion occuring.

I will keep my comments short but I will say this is worth the read for those who are interested in this region and stories surrounding it. For those who enjoy reading "fluff" stories I would advise to stay away. To close I will say I do feel I am no closer to understanding the area particularly the conflict surrounding it however I will continue to learn through literature until I am confident that I have all the facts

[Olivia-Savannah · Rating 1 out of 5]

*Thank you to the publisher for sending me a copy for review*

I am afraid to say I really, really couldn’t finish this book. I had to put it down at the 10% mark.


I don’t really think I should’ve requested this book either. Usually, I am not someone who likes translated books. In general, there seems to be something lost in the magic of the literature when a novel is brought into another language. The last translated book I read (called 172 hours on the moon) I absolutely hated as well, but struggled through. This one I decided wasn’t worth it. It was not only the language, but also there seemed to be long descriptions that I skimmed over and characters that I felt nothing for. At the beginning I felt a bit bombarded with a lot names and regardless of translating, I don’t think this was my cup of tea.



I think people who enjoy books like of Mice and Men (which strangely enough I did enjoy) might also like this. Especially if they are someone who cares a lot about setting in novel and likes beautiful language that describes things.

http://olivia-savannah.blogspot.nl/20...

[yoav · Rating 5 out of 5]

הגבעה מתחיל בתיאור כמעט קישוני על איך מוקם מאחז שלא קיים. משם אנו למדים להכיר את אנשי המאחז ואת שתי הדמויות המרכזיות, גבי ורוני, שני אחים שגדלו בקיבוץ ומצאו את עצמם בהאחזות והסיפור נע בין ההווה והעבר, בין הקיבוץ לעיר, בין ישראל לארה"ב, בין הצלחה לכשלון ושופך אור על שיטת הקומבינה הישראלית ועל איך אמת וצדק הם עניין של נקודת מבט.
התיאור של ההאחזות מעלה חרמש ג' וגורלה מזכיר (כמעט) את סיפור עמונה: כיצד מוקם מאחז בקריצה, איך השלטונות בנשימה אחת מסייעים ומתנגדים לקיומו וכו' וכו'.
הגדולה של גברון, היא בכך שעל אף שהוא נוגע בישראליות בדורות שונים, במקומות שונים, במינים שונים הכל מתואר בריאליזים ובאמינות ובהזדהות גדולה, גם עם דמויות שרחוקות מעולמנו.
על סוף הספר לא אפרט אבל כמה מסצנות הסיום ממחישות עד כמה אנחנו חיים באבסורד מוחלט.
מאוד אהבתי את הספר (וכן אני נוטה לדרוג גבוה אבל אני גם משתדל לברור היטב מראש ספרים שיקלעו לטעמי) זה הספר הראשון של גברון שקראתי (התכוונתי לקרוא דווקא את הידרומניה אבל לא הסתייע ואקרא אותו בהמשך) ונראה לי שמצאתי סופר אהוב חדש.

[Jeffrey · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I started, I really enjoyed it, but the characters were a little too one-dimensional and the troubles a little too predictable. I should have kept at it, but I found the characters really off putting (everyone seemed to just too conniving and out to ruin one another) and just lost interest..

[Michal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book with interesting insight into Palestine-Israel conflict as seen in the daily life of an illegal settlement.

[Paul Sánchez Keighley · Rating 4 out of 5]

RTC

[Sam McBratney · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book a while ago but it was a trip to the West Bank that prompted me to read it. It wasn't easy going but worth the effort. It is a fascinating insight into the complexities of the Settler Movement in Israel and the impotence of the State to control it's more radical citizens. The jumping back and forth in time got a bit confusing at times but, if you want some idea about why the situation in Israel/Palestine is as it is, read this book!

[Chris Lindert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Given this book as a farewell gift from a valued colleague, on my retirement from teaching senior English, I keenly anticipated the pleasure of reading it. Further encouraged by the high praise of Khaled Hosseini, on the cover, I began to discover the complex, and to me largely unfamiliar, world of the ‘settlements’ in Israel and source of much conflict that is frequently covered in the media. The settlement of the never quite official Ma’aleh Hermesh C, is maintained predominantly through the range of contacts of Othniel Assis who have often intervened to save it from destruction. Whilst this constant battle for survival is going on the lives of the people in the settlement, particularly that of the brothers Gabi and Ron Kupper, are most engaging. We’ll worth the journey. Readers of The Kite Runner will really appreciate this one.

[Lippes · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book right for this time.
Imagine seeing a plot of good land that would perfectly fit your dream to grow tomatoes and basil. You start growing, farming, tend to sleep there, get a caravan to live more comfy, bring your family, bring friends, who bring their friends and all of a sudden a small village appears. Nothing spectacular, except it is on foreign land. It's an Israeli community ilegally established in the West Bank....
And this is where the book sets in showing the struggle of the village to live against the laws but according to their own rules, negotiating with every visitor and fighting with their Palastine neighbours when a new member joins the community. He tries to make business between the Israeli settlement and the Arabian village and only gains distrust on every side, leading to a catastrophy that culmintates in ... well that's for you to read.
It's a book where you quite often shout out: "Why don't you just talk to each other? Why is it all about the past, about revenge and never about forgiving? Why can't you see the HUMAN on the other side, in another skin?" to me it's a book that explains how the conflict could culminate in the way it did and does now and maybe it's a way to overcome those difficulties...

[Bess · Rating 2 out of 5]

I cannot deny this book was well-written and that the author is extremely talented. However, (!), I had several moral issues with this book.

In interviews, the author explains how he didn’t want to insert his politics into the story and just present it as it is, however everything the characters do is inherently political and so it is very naive for the author to think he can write a book without political consequences. The author seems to occupy a place of such privilege that he feels that one, he can write this book, and two, that it can stand alone as a work of art. I understand that there is heavy irony in this book, but for me “the commentary” was just not strong enough. I am lucky to have lived in the West Bank for some time and am educated in the situation and so yes, the book was playful and took many jabs at Israeli society and life in the settlements, but the average reader might not have that understanding and might take the book as face value, or maybe worse as truth. I have two major problems with this book, among others.

One, I fail to understand why Palestinians are depicted the way they are, when the narrator is in the 3rd person! There is not one multi-faceted Palestinian in this entire book, other than Mousa, but that character is weak at best. This author depicts Palestinians just as his settlers see them, menacing shadows in the background (who drive like crazy), and there is no excuse for this, the narrator is 3rd person! The author could have taken some chapters to include characters from the neighboring Palestinian village, but he chose not to.

Two, settlement life is heavily romanticized here with some passages edging on propaganda and the ending in my opinion was despicable. The only thing that I think was handled well, were the subtle jabs at the role of woman in religious life, and the low-level violence and moral decay present in Israeli society. I found the troubled histories of both Gabi and Roni to be the best parts of the book.

I understand that there is some larger, nuanced point to this book, but is it worth the price, is it worth these fundamentally racist people being empathized with? Is it their voices that need to be heard?

[La mia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Una vicenda corale con troppi personaggi, una trama ballerina che sembra sbandare in varie direzioni ma non riesce ad essere avvincente nel suo svolgimento principale, una scrittura non particolarmente avvincente. Un romanzo mediocre, il cui maggior pregio è quello di raccontare una realtà poco conosciuta, quella dei coloni israeliani che in barba a ogni diritto e regola internazionale occupano territori non assegnati, giocando sulle ambiguità della burocrazia e sulla protezione dello stesso esercito che dovrebbe sgombrarli. Gavron è molto bravo nel non giudicare, racconta le piccole debolezze degli uomini e i grandi paradossi di uno Stato che è diverso da tutti gli altri. Lo fa con ironia, e se il gioco si fosse concentrato in 200 pagine con metà dei personaggi forse avremmo avuto un punto di vista originale ed efficace. Il romanzo invece perde ritmo, torna indietro nel tempo per ricostruire le vite dei due fratelli Gabi e Roni senza poi sviluppare le loro vicende odierne; chiama in causa Arabi, Giapponesi, Americani; segue Roni e Gabi nelle loro trasferte negli USA; trova spazio per parlare delle vicende di tutti gli abitanti dell’avamposto della collina, inclusi cavalli, cammella e cani. Insomma un grande coro stonato, che canta una canzone senza ritmo. E la noia prende il sopravvento.

[Brenda · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

I won a copy if this book through the goodreads giveaway.

It's written by one of Israel's most popular authors and I can understand why.

The book is made up of 5 sections with simply titled chapters within each. Some of the chapter titles include "The Butterflies", "The Shed", "The Wallet", but they don't really hint at what's to come in that chapter.

The book goes back and forth between the present, with a host of characters, and into the past with 2 brothers who are central to the present storyline.

It shows the complexities within the West Bank and how the government and politics help to increase these complexities.

The story goes from heartbreak to humor and back again in the blink of an eye...which makes for an enjoyable reading experience.

I'm one of the furthest people that you'd ever call "political", but this book really has me wondering about what's actually occurring in the West Bank with Arab/Jewish tensions...in this book, government intervention leads to heated tensions between Arabs and Jews, where tolerance was once practiced. Things would be a whole lot easier if politicians mellowed out and just let people be people.

The advanced reader's copy is missing a map which I would have been very interested in seeing.

[Shelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Hilltop was disappointing.
It has been called "the great Israeli novel", so I expected it would include the messy layers of day to day life in Israel. It had the inane workings of bureaucracy I expected, it had the overlapping and conflicting rules, the mixture of secularism and piety, the juxtaposition of neighbors who can quickly become friends or enemies. But - the characters still seem shallow. We see all their failings, clearly, but we don't see if their lives can be more than their failings.
The interactions with the people of the ancient village of Kharmish (and even the characters themselves) were not deeply explored.

I had expected to love the book and reccomend it to friends. It took some time after reading it to conclude that I really did not.

wonder too about the target audience. Israeli's? I don't think so. Maybe for non-Israelis who think West Bank issues are easily solved? Even for non Israelis, a book like Blood Brothers by Elias Chacour would be better.