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Commentary
Dahn Ben-Amotz, “The Refugees,” 1956. Commentary by Roy Holler
For over twenty years, the Israeli writer Dahn Ben-Amotz documented the birth pangs of the young Israeli nation in a weekly feuilleton titled “Ma Nishma” (“What’s Up,” literally: what is heard). Armed with a notepad and wide-eyed naïveté, Ben-Amotz toured the country trying to locate and document the diverse individual experiences lost in the Zionist melting pot.
As an immigrant from Poland who was desperate to get published, Ben-Amotz began writing feuilletons in the 1950s. He used the popular genre to pave his way into the Hebrew literary milieu. Ben-Amotz wrote the first feuilletons for Davar Ha-shavua, the uptight newspaper of Mapai (Zionist socialist party). “Ma Nishma” was located in a section under the national news, separate from the mainstream narratives about the hardships of a young state in the making. Ben-Amotz’s feuilletons were primarily urban sketches, travel accounts, and local reportage. They covered a wide range of topics, from glamorous opening nights at the theater to the minute details of a random conversation overheard at the post office. Ben-Amotz’s feuilletons were written in a natural, flowing, and localized Hebrew and introduced the somewhat archaic newspaper to a younger generation of readers.
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While the vast majority of his feuilletons were entertaining and lighthearted—writing in a socialist party’s newspaper had its limitations—Ben-Amotz was still able to make use of the medium’s advantages, flying under the radar of ideological editors and strict state censors. He often utilized his feuilletons to tackle underrepresented topics and deliver biting political commentary. This feuilleton, titled “The Refugees” and published in Maariv in 1956, is an excellent example of the leeway that was given to a feuilletonist.
It was mid-November, 1956. The Sinai War had just ended with the occupation of the Gaza Strip and Ben-Amotz decided to visit the new uncharted territories. He opens by announcing to the reader that the feuilleton is not reporting the news—one can learn about the topic by skimming last week’s papers. Instead, Ben-Amotz describes a particular moment he witnessed in a Palestinian refugee camp, raising keen and controversial questions regarding the new geographical constellation and the humanitarian crisis for which Israel is now responsible.
Ben-Amotz’s descriptions of the scene and his use of language lie between high literary Hebrew and very earthy urban slang. For example, he mixes Hungarian, the Hebrew vernacular and a healthy dose of Arabic curse words, such as “sharmuta” and “yil’an abuk”. The feuilleton is self-contained, like a short story, and although ironic and sadly tragic, the result is not satirical; Ben-Amotz is genuinely interested in portraying the existence in the occupied territories and the experiences of the refugees in the camps.
But most important are the ethical concerns that Ben-Amotz raises about the conquered territories, the Israeli control over the Palestinian population, and the moral corruption of the Jewish soldier. The author witnesses how a random Israeli soldier dehumanizes and mistreats the refugees, and comments that he “seemed to have been taking much pleasure in fulfilling his duties.” In doing so, Ben-Amotz’s feuilleton raises an explosive analogy between Israel and Germany in 1956, when such a comparison was unthinkable and could exist nowhere else but below the line.