Israel and Diaspora
There was neither diaspora nor land of Israel nor Jewish people when Avram, who was not yet called Abraham, made the decision to leave Ur Kasdim. In the writings recovered from the ruins of that queen-city, there were only the expenditures and receipts of the town. Avram revolted against this world with no other ideal than amassing money. He needed something else. What? When he left everything behind, he did not know.
The midrash recounts that the Hebrews, become slaves in Egypt, would climb in the evening onto their terraces and say: “We were born for something else.” They crossed the Red Sea, wandered in the desert for forty years, carried by this desire for something else: such was the starting point of the history of the Hebrew people.
This name, Hebrew, comes from the verb lahavor, which means “to pass,” “to cross over.” In the word “Israel,” there is “sar,” which means “prince,” and “el,” which means “impulse toward.” Israel is first of all the name of a people’s function: you shall be the servant of the creative force. And it is the name of a State that was destroyed, and that today exists. Its precariousness comes not only from its enemies. It comes from the grandeur of its origins. Abraham was on intimate terms with the creative force; he chose the land that brought him closer to it. The Chronicles tell how this sort of marriage never worked. The diaspora results from a failure in Israel. It has been, at times, the source of a renewal.
PLURIELLES — What is your relationship to Israel?
LILIANE ATLAN — When I went to Israel for the first time, I was seventeen, and I felt at once that I would not be able to live in that country. My true homeland is the French language. Even though I have ties to the Hebrew language.
Then came the Six-Day War. Israel, in danger of being destroyed, became my country. As soon as I could, I went to Jerusalem. I walked, for hours, through the alleyways of the Old City, dreaming of an improvised theatre on the steps of those narrow staircases, packed with people, where each would recount, in his own language, his tragedy; we would have to stop now and then to eat, to rest; we would form the habit of killing one another, without dying of it, on the staircase-stages, and in life we would put up with one another. Perhaps even, one day or another, we would love one another.
I had written to Kateb Yacine to propose that he write this performance with me. He agreed. He saw in the sacred books — the Koran included — the source of wars. As for the politicians: “They are all ugly. We’ll have to find the tone of farce.” Another day: “If I tell the truth, they’ll kill me.”
I lived in Israel for three years. I was taken for a Zionist, when all I wanted, quite simply, was to draw closer to Israel so as to be able to write a play with Kateb Yacine. I did it on my side, and he on his, in Algeria. Pierre Laville, who at the time directed the Palace, wanted to stage Mohamed, prends ta valise (Mohamed, Pack Your Bags), by Kateb, in the large hall, and Les musiciens, les émigrants (The Musicians, the Emigrants), which I had written after my return to France, in the small hall. Even that was not possible.
Shortly after the Yom Kippur war, in Jerusalem, I ran into a friend returning from the Sinai; he was one of the only two survivors of his unit. “We must make theatre with Palestinians and perform in the streets. — But I live in France. — For this, you’ll come back.”
And I came back. In the chapter “Killing Death” of my book Petites bibles pour mauvais temps (Little Bibles for Hard Times), I recounted in detail how Arabs, Israelis, French women — we rehearsed in my room, in Hebrew and in Arabic, two metres from Israeli Radio. Since we are going to perform outside, we must rehearse outside! — Yes, but where? — In the gardens of the Knesset. They are lit in the evening and there is no one there.
We had given our performance, in Hebrew and in Arabic, on the Givat Ram campus: a very bad performance, but the cleaning women of the University had discovered the talent of the Palestinian actors. We had given proof that one could live side by side, on condition of speaking to one another, of saying what is on one’s heart, and of respecting one another.
When my grandchildren were born, I went back to school — I mean that I took, in Paris, Hebrew classes so as to be able to have real contact with them, if only by telephone. Had they not been born, I could never have translated into French Marchands de caoutchouc (Rubber Merchants), by Hanoch Levin. And above all, I would not have kept a carnal bond with that land of Israel where I cannot live.
PLURIELLES — What is the place of Israel in your life?
LILIANE ATLAN — Constant, though distant. A perpetual anxiety. I cannot forget these words spoken before the Yom Kippur war by one of the actors who had created, in Hebrew, my play Monsieur Fugue ou le mal de terre (Mister Fugue, or Earth Sick): “We would need to invent baggage, something like the Talmud, that would let us survive the day we have to leave.”
PLURIELLES — What would change in my life if Israel disappeared?
LILIANE ATLAN — Fortunately, I have no need to ask myself that question: I shall disappear well before Israel. But I ask it for my children, for my grandchildren, for this people of which I love to be a part. Israel is a country, but it is first of all a people, whose land — inner, portable — is a Book.