The Ravens
Published in Issue #7 Translated from Hebrew by Dalya Bilu(Excerpt from a Novel)
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Sari asked Didi if she met Shimon at the university. No, said Didi, I met him long before. Where? It’s a long story, ask my mother. Whenever anyone asks her, she volunteers her refined version.
Shimon was two years ahead of Didi in the regional kibbutz high school, but he wasn’t one of ours, he was a boarder from outside the kibbutz, and Sarka, Didi’s mother, who before embarking on her nation-wide activities in the movement was regarded as an outstanding educator, called him in him two or three times for a talk, because he was a boy from a difficult background. I’m not saying, God forbid, that he himself is depressive, said Sarka, but there’s clearly a strong influence on the part of a self-sacrificing mother figure. Women from the Sephardi community were educated to passive suffering, she explained to the embarrassed homeroom teacher.
I think you’re exaggerating, said the homeroom teacher. His father was a prominent personality in the Yishuv,* and Hannah – she pronounced the name with the stress on the last syllable – is not a primitive woman from an immigrant transit camp. After all, when she was young she was a member of the underground in Iraq. Who knows what she went through.
Don’t get me wrong, said Sarka to the homeroom teacher. I have nothing but admiration for the boy’s inner strength, and by the way, I have no doubt that he has been influenced to some extent by our basic egalitarian values, but you can’t treat my instincts...
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