Valley of Strength

by Shulamit Lapid, Philip Simpson (Translator)

This scenic, moving novel, set at the end of the nineteenth century, follows the first seven years of Gai Oni—a settlement in the Galilee, the precursor to the town of Rosh Pina—through the life-altering trials and experiences of a pioneer woman. Fania, a 16-year-old survivor of a pogrom in the Ukraine, arrives in Palestine with her uncle, her deranged brother and her unwanted baby, a product of rape. Upon her arrival in Jaffa, she meets Yehiel, a 26-year-old widower, the father of two, and one of the few courageous souls left in Gai Oni. Severe drought and exhausting work have driven away most of the pioneers, leaving behind only a few tenacious families.

Genres: Israel, Historical Fiction, Literature, Fiction, Jewish, Middle East, Historical

350 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Schulamit Lapid (hebrew: שולמית לפיד) is an Israeli author and orientalist.

Reviews

[Tamar...playing hooky for a few hours today · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this a gazillion years ago and loved it. Books about pioneers carving a life out of rough terrain and surviving great hardships (not to mentions hostility) always interest me.

[Ram · Rating 3 out of 5]

1880, The land of Israel is under the Ottoman rule, and the Jewish population is about 26,000 people. The Zionist movement in the world is rolling, following various pogroms in Russia. Jews start to swarm to the land of Israel, in what will later be called the first wave immigration. The immigrants that came here, came for various reasons and there are many conflicts among them: between Farmers and merchants, between religious and non (or less) religious, between those who live on overseas donations and those that live independently and many others. In the background, there are many other dangers lurking: Hunger, Diseases, The Arab population and the Ottoman authorities. Fania, is a refugee from Russia. She lost most of here family in Pogroms in Russia and arrives to Palestine, with her infant daughter. She is a feminist, even though the word was not invented yet and she does not know it herself. The book describes her struggle with hardships and her love for Yehiel, her husband. I enjoyed the historical background of the book, was less impressed with the story

[Petra · Rating 3 out of 5]

On the surface, this story of Fania's resettlement into the new state of Israel in the late 1800s is a bit rocky yet the surrounding story of people of determination, commitment & strength, the devotion to God & his covenants, the descriptions of the land, etc. bring this story a depth that I'm sure is deeper than what I experienced. In a sense, I got the feeling this author was writing about an Israel that perhaps cannot be fully appreciated without having lived there and knowing something about the history & customs.
Fania is a young Jewess with a violent past. She led a somewhat rich childhood in Russia with schooling, music, good clothes, etc. After the Pogrom in which her family was killed and she was raped, she goes to Israel because that was her father's most desired wish. This book starts in Israel with Fania learning a new way of life that is far from the poetry & music that she came from.
For me, the rocky part of Fania's story comes from her relationship with her husband. It seemed "romancey" to me. She's forever asking herself "does he love me? does he not?", reacting with jealousy...yet leaving him for months at a time to lead her own independent life, then rushing back to him.
However, I believe the author was trying to show that Fania, while making mistakes, was strong and devoted and committed to furthering her & her family's lives, just as the new Israel (or the commune of Gei Oni) is furthered by strong, committed & devoted people. She never gave up, the people never gave up; she grew, the people grew; etc.
I loved the descriptions of the landscape throughout this book. I have always been interested in visiting this land and am now really looking forward to the stark beauty of the vistas.
There is a lot of history and politics throughout this book, which made me think that the author intended this book to be a reminder (?) or a synopsis of Jewish history in early Israel. In reading through some reviews, I saw this, which was an "aha" moment for me and verified my thoughts about the author's intent:
"This novel has been first published in the early 1980's, specifically with the intend to enlighten the Israeli reading public about the period of early colonisation and the pre-cursors to Zionism." (Sylvie)
So, all in all, a very interesting read. The book reads well. However the main story of Fania and her life is rocky (not in terms of what she lives through but in terms of her thoughts, ideas and the connectivity & reason between them) and a bit romancey (I say that as someone who does not like romance novels, so take it with a grain of salt).

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

For some personal reasons, I've had trouble this year finding books that engage me. But this novel of late 19th century Palestine did the trick. I came to it after watching the movie, which left me with a lot of historic questions, and was thrilled to discover the movie was from a novel. Real historic Zionists, shieks and politicians populate this novel, the story of Fania, a young woman immigrant who has lost her family in a pogrom in Russia. Fania and her Israeli husband make for compelling characters whose story one wants to follow. Sometimes the plot gets a bit Harlequin-esque, but the terrain is competitive with the best of adventure novels.

[Moshe · Rating 5 out of 5]

!איזו דרך נהדרת ללמוד היסטוריה

זו הפעם השנייה שאני קורא ספר זה, הפעם
נהניתי ממנו יותר טוב מאשר בפעם הראשונה
(כשהיה חובה).

לחוות את חוויית הקמת המדינה ו"לחוש" את
מקימיה מנקודת מבטה של דמות אחת.

זה נראה ומרגיש כל כך ריאליסטי
שקשה להניח את הספר בצד, אלא
!להמשיך לקרוא בו בלבד

[Siv30 · Rating 3 out of 5]

לסקירה מפורטת בעברית ואנגלית, קישור לבלוג שלי -

https://sivi-the-avid-reader.com/גיא-...

[Nitzhia Peleg]

בימים אלה אני מסיימת את מערכת החינוך כהורה, אחרי שישה ילדים שעברו בה במשך עשרים וארבע שנים, וזה בדיוק הזמן המתאים לדבר עליה קצת, או לפחות על חלק ממנה. יום אחד, בעת שביתי החמישית היתה בכייתה י"א ונדרשה להכין עבודה לכבוד הבגרות בהיסטוריה, גיליתי שסבתא שלי לא מספיק היסטורית. במהלך העבודה התלמידים התבקשו לראיין דמות "היסטורית" שעדיין בחיים, והוגדר בדיוק מה: ניצול שואה, אדם שלחם במלחמת השחרור, אדם שעלה לארץ באחת העליות של שנות החמישים, והיה עוד איזה פרמטר שמאפשר לבני העדה האתיופית להשתתף, עולים במבצע משה או משהו. טוב, יש לי סבתא, כלומר היתה לי באותו הזמן, היא היתה בת תשעים וחמש, רעננה וצלולה.

ולא היסטורית לחלוטין. סבתא שלי אמנם נולדה בפולין, אבל הוריה השכילו להגיע ארצה בשנת 1936, הרבה לפני שנות החמישים, ותודות להם היא גם לא ניצולת שואה. והיא לא לחמה במלחמת השחרור. מסתבר שלחיות כאן בתקופת המנדט הבריטי, כולל פרעות, להתחתן, ואז ללדת ילדה יומיים לפני קום המדינה, ולגדל אותה בזמן שבעלך משרת 14 חודש בצבא, ובכן , זה לא מספיק "היסטורי". סבא אמנם כבר מת באותה תקופה, אבל למזלנו מצאנו את סבתא רותי ששירתה בנח"ל, וכך היה מה לכתוב, כולל לראיין אישה. עם זאת, הקטע שבו גדול משפחה בתקופה סוערת לא נחשב היסטורי לא מרפה ממני עד היום.

עד כאן הבגרות בהיסטוריה, ועכשיו לבגרות בספרות. כבר כתבתי כמה פעמים בסקירות פה שהכללתו של ספר כחומר לימודי היא ערובה מלאה לכך שדורות של תלמידים יסרבו לקרוא אותו. ובכן גם כשלקחתי את הספר הזה ליד שאלו אותי הדור הצעיר למה אניי עושה את זה אם כבר עברתי בגרות, והתשובה היא שבזמני (ההיסטורי!) זה לא היה לבגרות אלא סתם ספר נוער, ואני עכשיו חוזרת לחוויה.

פאניה מנדלשטם, בת 16, מוצאת את עצמה מוכה וחבולה, אחרי פרעות בעיירת המולדת שלה, אחרי אונס אכזרי, עם תינוקת קטנה, עם אח שהפך חולה נפש ובורח מאנשים, ובלי ביית. היא מגיעה לגליל העליון, מתחתנת עם יחיאל סילס, אלמן שמבוגר ממנה בעשור ומטופל בשני ילדים קטנים, ומגיעה אליו למקום שהערבים קוראים לו ג'עוני והיהודים שמתיישבים בו קוראים לו גא-אוני. במקום הזה פאניה מתמודדת עם עוני, רעב, חיים של חקלאים מחוסרי ממון, התמודדות עם מחלות קשות, פערים תרבותיים לא פשוטים ועם חיזורים של לא אחר מנפתלי הרץ אימבר. פאניה חרוצה ובעלת תושיה ולכן היא מצליחה במיני יוזמות כמו ללמד את הילדים באיזור, לסחור בתרופות ולהתמודד עם מציאות לא פשוטה. מצד שני היא עדיין ילדה, ולכן הקשר בינה ובין יחיאל מבולבל ומתערבב.

בסוף זה ספר נעורים שמנסה לחשוף היסטוריה, אבל הוא גם בידיוני ולכן לא ברור מה מתוכו תיאור לא מסופר של יומיום נשי ולא היסטורי בעליל, ומה אנכרוניזם פמיניסטי שהמחברת מכניסה פנימה. וכן, אימה של סבתי היתה פמיניסטית בסוף המאה ה-19, אבל אני לא יודעת כמה זה היה מצב שכיח כפי שאולי היינו רוצות לחשוב.

ועם כל החולשות, הספר נעים לקריאה. כלומר למי שלא צריך לדעת אותו לבגרות.

[Tara Chevrestt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good story. I enjoyed reading about Fania and how she struggles with the fact that she has a child as a result of rape and how she slowly comes to love the man she married for convenient purposes. However, between her emotional struggles, blossoming friendships, and the developing bond between her and her husband and children, it was boring at times. There is drought and more drought and immigrants come and go and land is bought and sold and there is drought again. Most of the novel is about the Jewish colony on Gai Oni and how hungry they are. When rain finally comes, they have no money for seeds and so on the story goes in this pattern. I also got the impression that the author was trying to install as much Jewish history as she could into this novel, making it almost textbook like at times. I also failed to see the point in the crazy lunatic brother character. As I said previously tho, I really did like Fania. I think this novel would be more further enjoyed by someone more familiar with or wanting to be more familiar with Jewish history. It is not so much about Fania as early Jewish colonization and the struggles of the Jewish people.

[Laura · Rating 1 out of 5]

This story of a young Jewish woman arriving in the Holy Land after losing most of her family in the Russian progroms of the late 19-th century is fascinating, but like reading Pamuk's book "Snow" I flounder when the text turns to the politics and religious divisions of the time. Fania, is - as many great female characters are - a refreshing mix of naivte, determination, inexperience and strength. This was a very hard read and I don't really recommend it, but by ggawd, I finished!

[Moshe Mikanovsky · Rating 2 out of 5]

לצערי שמעתי את גרסת האודיו ולא קראתי את הספר. הספר מוקרא ע"י ליאת שנפ ולדעתי היא הורסת את כל חויית הסיפור. קולה חד גוני ואינו מתאים לניואנסים הדרושים להעביר את הדרמה והעוצמות הנדרשות מדמויות אלו בדרך החתחתים שעברו
מכאן גם לא הבנתי את חשיבות הסיפור או מקום הכבוד שקיבל במדף הספרים העברי. אולי יום אחד אקרא את הספר הכתוב, אך כעט איני נמשך אליו כלל וכלל
אז תעשו לעצמכם טובה, אל תקשיבו לגרסה הקולית

[Claire · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fania brings her uncle and lunatic brother to Palestine to settle in Zion in the early early days of settlements. Grim grim grim. Privation. Desperation. This book is not fun, but I learned a lot about the early settlement by the Jews amid the Bedouins.

[Maj · Rating 4 out of 5]

"We're stronger than we think, Sasha. It's seems we can't take any more and then something else happens. And we endure that too. Is that a sign of strength or weakness?"

...

"We should have cried out till the skies cracked open, even if it meant dying in the process. We need to yell, Sasha, yell! Remind the world of its shame. Remind it that *we* are the crucified Christ. Why are we ashamed?"

"Perhaps it's because we're human....meaning...we're ashamed of the acts of humanity..."

Towards the end of the book, this is the dialogue of two characters whose families were murdered in the pogroms in Ukraine, (though since this is the late 19th century and they are Jewish, they refer to their former homeland as Russia). These two finally found how to give voice to the incredible trauma they both came through.

It really gets on my tits when people can't see the humanity and pain behind Zionism. The Zionism that means return to the original Jewish homeland, not the far right, racist Zionism. I hate when people put Zionists on par with, say, US white supremacists. It makes no fucking sense. And it entrenches the feelings of being hated and put upon which in turn feeds the far right and racist wing of Israeli (& diaspora) society.

This is not a novel one is going to read to get joy from.
The heroine's parents get murdered, she raped (at 15). Pregnant, she sets out to Israel, accompanied by her useless intellectual of an uncle and a brother so traumatised by his encounter with the pogroms he's taken the leave of his senses, for good. "Jews! Fire!" is the only thing one ever hears from this young former soldier. She meets a handsome widower on the way, marries him and at 16 becomes mother to three children. Traumatised, she throws herself into the incredibly hard work of trying to cultivate the barren land on which he had previously settled with his late wife. And the firehose of shit she and the other settlers have to endure has not yet stopped gushing.

Through her story, one gets to learn (and get confused by) the tangled, complicated, maddening mess that was the late 19th century, Ottoman-ruled but owned by everyone and no-one, Israel.

And as is often said, two Jews, three opinions! Whenever the passages of the various movements and ideologies butting heads with each other appeared, I do have to confess, I became increasingly fed up with them and nearly skimmed them by the end. But it sure was important to include them. To show the messiness. The Ottoman over-rule. The land owners. The various necks of the wood the Jews were returning from. The people living from charity. The people refusing charity and stubbornly trying to cultivate the land on which no-one, Arab and Jew alike, was able to grow anything much for hundreds of years. The various intellectual movements. Everyone trying to live somewhat together but having different ideas about how and resenting each other.

But it was important to include all of this in the book to truly understand the...zeitgeist.

Our heroine is hard to love, despite all the tragedies that befall her. That, I think, is a sign of great writing and characterisation. Fania is stubborn, abd all a-tangle. She comes from a middle class intellectual family, loves books, is good at playing the piano. Boom, most of the book she spends barefoot and hungry, bullishly trying to occupy her mind with hard work and business ventures. She doesn't communicate well, and neither does her husband. She's not like the other girls, dutifully staying in the kitchen and with the kids, not because it would bring her some social clout, (she's tolerated at best), but because there she is and she can do no other. Also, by the end of the book, she is still only 21. Her brain is not quite there yet.

(I think we in general underestimate just how many of the big - and small - decisions in our shared human history were made by people whose brain has not yet fully developed! We're so fucking pampered nowadays, but I wonder if, going forward, it's actually gonna result in something better than what our traumatised and under-developed, poorly communicating forebears were able to manage.)

The youth of many of the characters, the hard work that even the children took part in. It's a lot. It's a lot to confront from the relative comfort of 21st century life. (And I'm poor.)

I read this book incredibly fast, engrossed. I don't know if I loved it, because there was somehow some sort of a remove in the style of the writing. (I have no way of comparing the author's son's fiction writing to hers, but I'd say his non-fiction style is warmer.) Perhaps it was for the best though, because this is certainly not a joyful book. Perhaps a more emotive style would destroy the reader. (Or perhaps it's the translation.) Hence 4/5. It's really, really good. But just a bit too detached to be a 5.

Note: I've wanted to read this book for a year and am glad this English translation is available via the Internet Archive. (I prefer ebooks and the Czech translation was not available in that format.)

[Tiffany · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book had been on my TBR list for a few years. I finally order it through ILL. I learned so much about the first immigration wave in Israel. The story was interesting and I learned so much too.

[Hermien · Rating 5 out of 5]

Engaging story about the pioneer days in Israel/Palestine at the end of the 19th century.

[Tahel · Rating 5 out of 5]

ספר מאוד מעניין מבחינה סיפורית אך גם עם המון רקע היסטורי על התקופה והמקום.
הסיפור של פאניה ויחיאל מאוד נגע בי והתחברתי אליהם מאוד.

[Sharanya Perez · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had so many issues with this book on top of that the storytelling is so weird and jumpy

[Hilary Sinclair · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting to think about background history of Zionism and societal norms and attitudes.

[Yoav Matityhu · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Dennis Fischman · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's the 1880's, and Fania, a teenage Jewish girl has made a hard bargain. To save herself, her baby daughter (the outcome of a rape by a Cossack), and her brother (driven mad by his experience in the Russian army), she marries a widower, Yehiel, from one of the early Zionist settlements and moves there to take care of him and his two children. It hasn't rained in two years, and the ground is parched. People (both Jews and Arabs) are working like slaves and starving. What's worse, the sister of her husband's first wife is always on the scene, and Fania fears she is making a play for Yehiel...whom Fania realizes she has begun to love.

This is the first half of Valley of Strength, and although it's melodramatic, it's worth reading. Aside from the story, you will get a good look at pioneer life, and the divisions between the various Zionist movements. Fania is an interesting character: at the same time spirited and self-conscious, idealistic and hardheaded, a tireless worker and a reader of Anna Karenina.

Unfortunately the story drags on too long. The second half of the book is an endless series of stratagems for making a living combined with an interminable discussion of how the Jews of the settlement resent the charity of the philanthropists and organizations on whom they depend. Also, for an audience that's not familiar with Jewish culture or Israeli history, too many references will be lost. The translation should have included notes and a glossary.

I am a big reader of mysteries, and apparently the author Shulamit Lapid has written several that have not been translated into English. I see enough in Valley of Strength to make me hope the translations will be forthcoming. I would like to read them.

[Sylvie · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I have no clue as to the quality of the translation, as I read the Hebrew original, I just want to share with you all that this is a wonderfull book.
This novel has been first published in the early 1980's, specifically with the intend to enlighten the Israeli reading public about the period of early colonisation and the pre-cursors to Zionism. It fits in with the 'New Historians-movement', a movement that began to re-examine the way Israeli history had been presented up to that time.
It is a wonderfull book, in which the main characters are fictional, but many of the people inhabiting the surrounding scenery (so to speak) are actual people who were living the life depicted in the book (Sir Oliphant, Israel Bak, Eleazar Rokeah, Naftali Herz Imber as well a many of the smaller personae)
I wrote my master's degree thesis on this book and researched the authenticity of the historical background. I can vouch for the thorough research of the author and I can only admire the wonderfull way she has woven a tale of reality and fiction.
A must read for everybody interested in the area and the history.

[Deborah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Starts off with a lot of dynamic promise. I've never read about this period so it's a good way for me - a resident of the Western Galilee who's traveled a bit in the areas mentioned - to learn the history. (For example, I hadn't known that Jews lived together with Arabs in nearby places like Kafr Yasif and Shfar'am!) Can't help but be reminded of the conditions faced by the American pioneers settling the West. An extra element, relevant today (the book was published in Hebrew in 1982) is the Jewish tradition as practiced by these people raised in an Orthodox observant environment, how it informs their practices and neighborly relations.

I'm reading it in Hebrew, and only agricultural, etc. vocabulary presents a real challenge.

I started the book because I understand its film version by Dan Wolman is premiering across Israel next week!

[Danna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was quite slow and not very gripping, but at least it was enjoyable. Had to read it for school, so I assume this might have influenced my eagerness about it.
I did not like how Lapid added religious and political issues into the course of the novel, it was just so boring! On the other hand, the story is beautiful, due to the fact that she did not try to beautify history and told it as it was! Upon all, this is a human, true-to-history story.

[Beth · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not sure how I feel about. I like both the story and characters but I hit points in this book where I can't figure out what is going on. It's translated from hebrew, so this could be part of the problem, just a bad translation, or me.

And in the end I think I was just disappointed. I really thought I'd get more form this book.

[K C · Rating 2 out of 5]

If the purpose of the book was to show the tedium of life in late 19th century Jewish agricultural settlements in Israel, it certainly succeeded. Although there were some interesting points,not even the artificial injection of women's liberation and the overuse of exclamation points could break the tedium of the story.

[Mark Steinman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed reading about the history of Israel before it became a modern country. Interested in reading about the pograms that happened in the Ukraine in the 1880s. My great grandmother lived there during that period and talked to me about the experience.

[Eterushi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great historical novell.
An Israeli Pride and prejudice/Outlander. Very emotional, and true to history.
Timeless. Have re-read it so many times,
a love story that begins with a Hero calling the Heroine Stupid, not a cheesy love story, but that's what's so compelling to me.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A novel about Parke Davis' first pharmaceutical representative to Israel, Fania, a Ukrainian Jewish girl who immigrates to Israel after the pogroms of 1882.

[Beatrice · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is the story of a young woman whose life was totally changed by a Pogrom in Russia. She marries and moves to Gai Oni, a Jewish settlement
in Galilee at the end of the nineteenth century.

[Rachel Kaberon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great walk into history of early Israel and brings to life the clash of cultures and harsh realiities of the true chalutzim. Great read, wonderful characters and spirit.

[Paula Gantz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent portrayal of early life and hardships in late 19th century Israel (Palestine then). I could not put it down; it was so engrossing.