Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Mourning a Father Lost: A Kibbutz Childhood Remembered

Returning to the kibbutz of his childhood to attend his father's funeral, Avraham Balaban confronts his buried yet still intensely painful childhood memories. Comparing the kibbutz of today with that of his early years, the author weaves together two interrelated stories: a sensitive artist growing up in the intensely pragmatic world of Kibbutz Huldah and the rise and fall of a grand yet failed social experiment. As he moves through the seven days of sitting shivah for his father, Balaban experiences an expanding cycle of mourning―for self, family, the kibbutz, and Israel itself. With a poet's keen voice, Balaban pens a poignant, frank portrait of the emotional damage wrought by the kibbutz educational system, which separated children from their parents, hoping to establish a new kind of family, a nonbiological family. Indeed, he realizes that he is mourning not the physical death of his father, but the much earlier death of the father-child bond. Only the unwavering love of his remarkable mother rescued him. Readers will see the kibbutz movement, and Israel in general, with new eyes after finishing this book. In the process of unearthing his earliest memories, Balaban meditates on the mechanism of memory and the forces that shape it. Thus, he examines the varied layers―familial, societal, and national―that establish individual identity. During the shivah, he discovers the tremendous power of words in shaping one's world, on the one hand, and their redemptive power on the other. Review [Avraham Balaban's] lyrical voice and his honest criticism of the kibbutz's social experiment will pull readers in to this elegy not only for a father but for the slow death of the socialist kibbutz dream.--Publishers Weekly Each section is as sharp as a poem. . . . This is an unforgettable book for anyone whose life is, or has been, bound up with the state of Israel.--The Jewish Chronicle, USA A top-notch work of literature. . . . Avraham Balaban seeks to express the sorrow of parents who missed parenthood and of children who missed childhood, and does this with talent and an exacting, complex, and most sensitive vision.--Eleonora Lev, Ha'aretz After his father's death, Avraham Balaban, author and Professor of modern Hebrew literature at the University of Florida, journeyed back to the kibbutz in Israel where he was raised. Intending to mourn the death of his father, Balaban is confronted with the ghost of his own life as he swirls into his past and sifts through his memories of being raised on a kibbutz. Upon examination, Balaban laments over what he know sees as a childhood lost, and parents who were restricted in parenting style by the limitations and structure of communal living. Balaban's prose is lyrical, and the book is a well-written and honest account of his own childhood that is sure to hit a nerve in all who venture to read it.--A. F. Roberts, University of California "Jewish World Book " An extremely impressive book.--Elie Wiesel An important and sensitive literary work, written with restraint, wisdom, piercing insight, and impressive narrative and descriptive skill.--Dan Miron, Columbia University An English translation of a book which has appeared in Hebrew to great critical acclaim and wide appeal. A fascinating work.--David Patterson, emeritus president of the Oxford Center for Hebrew and Jewish Studies Breathtaking. . . . This marvelous literary text weaves together present and past, and original metaphors accompany authentic memories and literary inventiveness.--Karni A'm-A'd, Iton kibbutz Many stories were written about childhood, motherhood, and parenthood in the early days of the kibbutz movement, but Balaban conveys the collective voice with great talent and new force.--Amia Lieblich, Hado'ar The child examines with an adult eye all the participants in the drama of his childhood, looking backward, at times with anger and at times with pity, pain, irony, and love. This child is a universal