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Espionage and Cultural Mediation Walter P. Zenner Amnon Shamosh, Arazim (Cedars of Lebanon), Tel Aviv: Massada, Ltd., 1990. hen we speak about the meeting of cultures, we usually think about individuals who represent differences between two distinct social systems and who learn traits and patterns from the "other" culture. The spy, however , must stand between two cultures surreptitiously. I recall a World War II film about American spies who had to learn to eat in a European fashion, holding the knife in the left hand and the fork in the right in order to pass as Frenchmen after parachuting into Nazi-occupied France. The central irony of Amnon Shamosh's 1990 novel, Arazim, deals with this kind of ambiguity. In this case, the spies have been subjected to a double acculturation process. They are Middle Eastern Jewish immigrants to Israel who have been taught by Europeans who wanted them to rid themselves of their "Oriental" ways. However, as Israeli agents, the spies must now return to an Arab world which they had left behind. The author of this novel has made the movement across cultural boundaries a major theme in his fiction, as it was in his own life. Amnon Shamosh was born in Aleppo in 1929 and immigrated to Eretz Yisrael as a child.1 He became a Or 31 Espionage and Cultural Mediation Walter P. Zenner Amnon Shamosh, Arazim (Cedars ojLebanon), Tel Aviv: Massada, Ltd., 1990. (~henwe speak about the meeting of cultures, we "'--- til7 usually think about individuals who represent differences between two distinct social systems and who learn traits and patterns from the "other" culture. The spy, however , must stand between two cultures surreptitiously. I recall a World War II film about American spies who had to learn to eat in a European fashion, holding the knife in the left hand and the fork in the right in order to pass as Frenchmen after parachuting into Nazi-occupied France. The central irony of Amnon Shamosh's 1990 novel, Arazim, deals with this kind of ambiguity. In this case, the spies have been subjected to a double acculturation process. They are Middle Eastern Jewish immigrants to Israel who have been taught by Europeans who wanted them to rid themselves of their "Oriental" ways. However, as Israeli agents, the spies must now return to an Arab world which they had left behind. The author of this novel has made the movement across cultural boundaries a major theme in his fiction, as it was in his own life. Amnon Shamosh was born in Aleppo in 1929 and immigrated to Eretz Yisrael as a child. 1 He became a 31 Walter P. Zenner 32 member of Kibbutz Ma'ayan Baruch at its founding in the late 1940s; he has continued to live there. He turned to writing in the late 1960s. Shamosh has published novels, poems, short stories, and nonfiction. Much of his writing is centered around the portrayal of Aleppine Jewry in Aleppo, the metropolis of North Syria, and in the various countries to which they have immigrated. The Aleppian Jews constantly mediate between cultures. He points out that even in their everyday language, words from Arabic, Hebrew, French, and Spanish are strung together in single intelligible sentences. In describing their lives in Syria, the Americas, and Israel, he shows how they preserved their identity while at the same time adapting to a variety of settings. While the fate of Aleppine (North Syrian) Jewry is a central theme, Shamosh is more than an ethnic author. In fact, the dilemmas of the kibbutz as it has changed from a revolutionary experiment into an agribusiness represents a strong motif in his work. The loss of collective ideals, the disenchantment with socialism, defection of kibbutz youth, the loss of a clear vision by members of communes, the kibbutz as a Jewish community without a synagogue, and similar topics can be found in his stories. They play a role in Arazim, too. Ethnic themes serve both as a counterpoint to his concern with the kibbutz and as a critique of the way in which Israeli society in general has absorbed immigrants. He is particularly critical of the way in which the Diaspora culture was devalued in Israel, especially with regard to the rich cultures of the Middle East. In his fiction, he uses a historical perspective on the conflict between dominant Euro-Zionist culture and that of Middle Eastern Jews which extends from the 1930s to the present. In this chapter, we will...

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