A Village by the Jordan. Told by Joseph Barati (Harvill,
12s. 6d.)
THE Russo-Jewish pioneer who founded one of the most famous and one of the earliest collective settlements in Palestine has written, or rather dictated, the story of his life. He tells of being a child in the orthodox Jewish community of a small town in Bessarabia. He describes his conversion to Zionism, his journey to Patesticle in 1906, his novitiate as a pioneer stonemason chipping away to build the walls of new Jerusa- lem, his subsequent life in malarial swamps and rocky mountain sides where the early Zionists set to work. And, in the largest part of the book, he describes the fortunes, ideals, tribulations and triumphs of the collective village of Degania, in the valley of the Jordan, of which he is rightly known as the father. Both as a personal story, and as history, there was a wonderful book to be written here. Mr. Baratz has failed to Write it for the very best of reasons: because he is a man of such simplicity and such sincerity that he has denuded his own achievements of significance to the point that they appear, miraculously, dull. It is the greatest possible tribute to himself, but an unsuccessful formula for a book. But for those who are interested in the nature and problem of Israel, the book remains worth reading. For" in its very dullness and singleness of heart and mind, in the fact that it omits almost all references to the political issues raised by the Jewish immigration to Palestine, to the spiritual issues raised by the attempt of many Zionists to live communally, and to the economic issues raised by the introduction of modernised and mechanised farming in the Middle East, it reveals something about Israel and the Israelis which politicians tend to forget and other gentiles probably have never known.
JENNY NASMYTH
Previous page
