2003-2004 Cultural Calendar: Lectures & Literature

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Spotlight on
Sami Michael

True Lies: Two Israeli Novelists on War and Oranges
Sami Michael: 'Jews Are the Barometer of Civilization'

By F.M. Black

Forward, November 29, 2002

A paper: The wish of the three prophets
World Conference on Culture, Stockholm 1998

A Trumpet in the Wadi
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
August 2003, 256 pages
ISBN 0743244966

Israeli novelist Sami Michael shares his gift for navigating the cultural conflicts in modern Israel with A Trumpet in the Wadi, a novel that transcends its Middle Eastern setting with a story of impossible love and the strength of family.

Set in the months preceding the 1982 Israeli-Arab conflict in Lebanon, this beautifully written tale is the coming-of-age story of two fatherless Christian Arab sisters, Huda and Mary, who live in the wadi -- the Arab quarter in the Jewish city of Haifa on the northern coast of Israel. An extraordinary bond of love and mutual respect unites the sisters -- polar opposites from their appearances to their tempers. Huda, the narrator of the story, is thin and withdrawn and, after abandoning her chance at marriage a few years back, has prematurely resigned herself to the monotonous life of an old maid. Her younger sister, Mary, is voluptuous, carnal, and perennially unemployed. Wrapped in the love of their sometimes bitter mother, their iconoclast grandfather, and the cheerful and omnipresent neighbor Jamilla, the sisters' lives change when a peculiar young Russian Jewish immigrant, Alex, moves into the upstairs flat. The melodies of the soulful trumpet player become the intoxicating theme music for Huda's unexpected reawakening -- and for Mary's dangerous foray into a love triangle with the heir of the local Muslim mob and her country cousin. A Trumpet in the Wadi is a story that draws on the conflicts in the Middle East, but one whose insights into love and family can cross all cultural and political boundaries.

Refuge
Publisher: Jewish Publication Society
December 1994, 382 pages
ISBN: 0827603088

Centering on the moral and ethical dilemmas faced by Shula, a wife and mother, Michael weaves an intricate and solemn story of politics, conflict, racism, and mercy.

From Publishers Weekly:
Although it suffers from lapses into artless, abrupt and even bombastic prose, this work has considerable merit and interest as a social document. Michael fled his native Iraq to escape hanging as a leftist during WW II; after 25 years as a field worker in Israel, he began to publish fiction. Refuge , which follows Equal and More Equal , chronicles the activities of various Jewish and Arab members of Israel's Communist Party during the first days of the 1973 war. Marduch, an Iraqi Jewish immigrant and Zionist by default, enters combat to repay a debt to the country that gave him refuge. His wife Shula is left to cope with their retarded son, with her feelings for a former lover and career officer who is lost in battle and with an Arab comrade seeking sanctuary in her home from the Israelis. Michael trains his gaze on Israeli Communists, who are seldom scrutinized in fiction, to reveal a party struggling with hypocrisy and rife with anti-Semitic Arabs and Arab-hating Jews, misogynists and conformists.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A Trumpet in the Wadi
(HATZOZRA BAVADI)
Israel, 2001 - 97 minutes
Directed by Lina Chaplin, Slava Chaplin
Even in Israel there's Something About Mary. This beguiling young woman of Arabic Christian heritage entices a string of suitors in the neighborhood (including her landlord's son), but she seems uninterested in commitment to any man in particular, much to the chagrin of her debt-ridden household, consisting of three generations crammed into a small apartment. Meanwhile, Mary's more pragmatic older sister Huda, works at a travel agency, but she's over 30 and considered a lost cause as far as marriage material. At least, that is, until a trumpet-playing student named Alex moves in upstairs. He's a short, stocky, spunky, Russian-Jewish immigrant with no prejudices or preconceptions who came to Israel against his will, mainly to placate the demands of his strident Zionist-dissident mother. Alex can barely speak fluent Hebrew, and he pines for the lover he left behind in the Old Country, as he blows his horn solos on the roof. After helping protect the family from the results of Mary's indiscretions, Alex begins a touching relationship with Huda and her relatives. Will their connection surmount the seemingly-unbridgeable divisions between Arab and Jew? Winner of the top prize at the Haifa International Film Festival and "Best Drama" at the 2001 Israeli Academy Awards, this bluesy romantic drama will gently challenge your own assumptions. (In Arabic and Hebrew with English subtitles)
Producer: Riki Shelach
Screenplay: Amit Leor
Cinematography: Itzik Portal
Editing: Bracha Zisman-Cohen
Music: Eviatar Banai
Principal Cast: Alexander Senderovich, Khawlah Hag-Debsy, Raeda Adon, Slawa Nakkara-Hadad, Itzhak (Babi) Neeman, Imad Gabarin
About the Director: Lina Chaplin is a graduate of the Moscow Film School and teaches in the Communications Department of Hanegev College. She has directed more than 50 documentaries.

The film features in many film festivals, among them:

Haifa International Film Festival, Best Film, 2001
Rutgers New Jersey Jewish Film Festival 2003
Montreal Jewish Film Festival, May 2003
Cleveland International Film Festival, 2003
2003 filmfest DC
Festival of Israeli Cinema in Paris 2003
Minneapolis Saint Paul International Film Festival 2003

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