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A love across Israeli-Palestinian lines
Every journalist is a frustrated author and dreams of writing a great novel, says South African-born writer living in Israel, Joel Gordin, whose book “Love Song To A Stranger” fulfils this ambition.
SUZANNE BELLING
The book portrays the Israeli-Palestinian problem in both a knowledgeable and somewhat naïve way.
“It has no pretensions to be a heavy discourse on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; it is simply a romantic drama set against this background,” says Gordin.
The romantic scenes are explicit but not perturbing. They are natural and highlight the difference in attitude between Jews and Arabs.
The book is cleverly simplistic, but shocking in its revelation of dishonesty and hatred on the part of both sides. But it serves to gain sympathy for Israelis and Arabs alike, revealing an innate understanding of the bystanders – ordinary people who become involved in the conflagration of the Middle East purely by being in the wrong (or right) place at the wrong or right time.
It is the story of Yossi and Samira, who, although obsessed by their own personal complexities, cannot escape the war lurking in the background and the bomb placed in Samira’s bag without her knowing.
“They are a couple made in hell, but made for each other,” is the summation according to the blurb on the book cover.
Gordin’s writing is appealing through its clarity. A former Capetonian, he attended Herzlia School from 1958 to 1962. His mother, Micky Gordin, chaired the Cape Town branch of the Union of Jewish Women of South Africa.
In the early sixties, Gordin and his family moved to Brakpan on the East Rand and he graduated from Wits with a BA in history and economics.
Gordin worked as a sub-editor on a now-defunct Soweto newspaper, The World, the Cape Times and Cape Argus, before returning to the then Transvaal, where he was a sub on the Sunday Times and also a reporter “under the legendary Joel Mervis”.
In 1973 he left for Australia, where he worked on the Melbourne Age.
His former Capetonian wife, Tessia, is a committed Zionist and he went with her to Kibbutz Gan Shmuel, where Gordin was a member for 12 years.
Tessia remained on the kibbutz and Gordin became a reporter for the Jerusalem Post and also motoring editor and sports reporter.
“I simultaneously established a distribution business for quality overseas newspapers, among them The Economist, The New England Journal of Medicine and Business Week.
“I wrote articles for publications, among them Playboy, and got paid $4 000 for three pages – I kid you not!”
He served in the Israeli Army as a liaison officer to the United Nations.
Gordin’s brother, Jeremy, is a well-known South African journalist and author.
Gordin and Tessia had two daughters – Jacqui, who was killed in a car accident in 1989 at the age of 20 (the book is dedicated to her), and Tali, a clinical psychologist in Sde Boker. They have three grandchildren.
“Love Song To A Stranger” is an easy read, but shakes the reader out of complacency, as it is a story that can happen to anyone.
To obtain the paperback in South Africa, contact Gordin’s agent at 071-470-9439 or (011) 486-0159 or e-mail gordin@mweb.co.za
The Kindle version of the book can be bought on Amazon UK for £6,34 (about R100). The paperback costs about the same and postage to South Africa is an additional R100. On Amazon.com, the Kindle version costs $5 and the paperback version $1