Ebisu Publications

This is what was, and what might have been.

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Category: Israel

  • Reviews, and a Holiday Sale!

    hanukkah

    I’ve just had both books reviewed by Amos Lassen, a gay activist and scholar of Jewish history. A somewhat abridged version of the reviews is below. And these came just in time for the holidays! So I’m announcing a special holiday sale of the second volume, The Stars in their Courses. Normally you can buy it at this website for $15 plus postage, but from now until the end of December, it is $10 flat–but only if you send a check for that amount to Ebisu Publications, 9026 N. Syracuse Street, Portland OR 97203. Please note that since I am out of town until November 20, all books will be mailed out starting on November 21. Here are the reviews:

    The Throne in the Heart of the Sea: Tyre was a major maritime empire in the Ninth Century, B.C.E (for those of you who are not aware, Jewish readers of the Bible and history do not use the initials B.C. but rather B.C.E. referring to that period as Before the Common Era). The king’s daughter, Jezebel, feels that the gods have chosen her to rule Tyre. Elijah, an Israelite farm boy, is bitter and swears to avenge his father’s death at the hands of the king [of Israel].

    There is another character, Tamar, a poor, dark-skinned young woman who yearned to be a scribe yet who is also a lover to Jezebel.

    I am totally in awe of author Martha Shelley ’s prose and her command of Biblical facts here and I cannot even imagine the amount of research that went into the writing of this book.

    We enter the worlds of Ancient Israel and Canaan as well as the lives of the three main characters. It was a world ruled by men and for men and to challenge required great strength and self-assuredness. What Shelley has done here is create characters that although they lived at a very different time in history, somehow seem to be quite contemporary and whose lives mirror ours to a degree. Jezebel, for example, dared to question her father and, in effect, doing so made her also question the status quo. As readers, we get to watch her development just as we watch Elijah transform from an Israelite farm boy into a prophet. (All I can say is WOW!!!).

    I have spent a great of my life studying the Hebrew Bible (The Five Books of Moses) and Elijah has always been one of the most mysterious characters in it but here he comes to life and seems so real that I believe everything he says and does. The three major characters come across as being very real and there was a moment when I looked up from the pages of the book and expected them to be in my study with me. I also must mention that the prose is gorgeous. This is a book that must be read. It is not often that we get a treat like this and the best news of all is that there are another two volumes to complete the trilogy.

    The Stars in Their Courses: In Book II of her Jezebel trilogy, Martha Shelley gives us a large story of sexual politics and religious wars as well as the clash of empires. Once again we go back to the ninth century; this time to the Levant and once again we see the characters that we read about here much differently than we see in the Bible. Our main characters are Jezebel, Elijah, Tamar and her guard Bez. Bez is a mutarajjul, a woman dressed in male clothing who usually works as a soldier or harem guard.

    At the beginning of the book, Tamar is in Egypt with Bez. She has come to further pursue her studies in medicine. Jezebel who had been her lover is now married to Ahab, king of Israel. She knows that if she wants to keep her position, she must give birth to an heir. She also flirts with the women in her husband’s harem. It seems that Elijah, by accident, has begun a massacre and is now on the hit list as the most wanted and dangerous man in Israel. When Ahab is away at war Jezebel takes over the reigns of government. The characters come together in various ways and eventually they will have to deal with Assyria, the mightiest and strongest empire in the world. We see how the characters came to their places in history as well as how they lived their daily lives. We also learn a bit about how they were psychologically— their loves and their hates, what they thought and how they became part of history.

    This is a sequel but it is not necessary to have read the first book as this stands on its own. The paths of the characters change in this second volume. There is a lot of drama and a lot of adventure here. There is also a great deal of tension that the reader feels as we move toward the war that has been brewing but to which the characters seem oblivious at times.

    Shelley brings history and fiction together and makes it a bit difficult (and a bit fun) to decide which is which. Her research is impressive and she uses it beautifully to weave the stories of these characters. I have one problem with this book is that I have to wait for the third volume and knowing that is a trilogy that will be the end.

    Now I have a bit of confession. I have always considered myself something of a gay activist and I know many others who were far more active and vocal than me. However, I ashamedly admit, that I had not heard of Martha Shelley before and after reading about who she is, I am a bit embarrassed to not have known. But now I know that she has been of the leaders in our liberation movement and an excellent writer to boot. She is a marvel of a person and I am so proud to have met her through her writing.

  • Elijah and Olive Oil

    Olive Press Ancient IsraelPeople have asked me how I went about researching a historical novel. Here’s one example.

    Developing Elijah was a major challenge, both in my first and second novels. He appears in the Bible quite suddenly, a full-blown champion of justice, complete with miracles. All we know about his past is that he was from a town called Tishbe, in the province of Gilead. Moses, by contrast, has a childhood and plenty of motivation for his actions. You can understand why he loses his temper and kills an Egyptian, why he flees the country, and why he eventually takes up the cause of his people.

    In Jewish (and Christian and Muslim) tradition, Elijah can do no wrong. He orders his followers to kill the priests and priestesses of a rival religion, but all’s well, because the one true God wants it that way. My pagan friends, who subscribe to some variant of that rival religion, see Elijah as a villain. I don’t believe in angels, devils, or miracles, so I had to create a complex, believable human being.

    He needed a childhood. The province of Gilead was known for production of herbal medicines (the fabled balm of Gilead). In studying maps of the area, I found that it is also olive-growing country and gave his family a large olive orchard. But it’s not enough for a writer to say that her character makes a living from olives; she has to show him doing the work. The best source was History and Technology of Olive Oil in the Holy Land. Of course the technology changed over time, so I had to decide what types of equipment and what methods of processing oil were most likely to prevail in the area during the 9th Century BCE. Then I could show Elijah rising in the damp morning, climbing on a primitive ladder, picking fruit or shaking it off the branches, and so on.

    He also needed a motive for challenging the existing power structure. Part of the answer was in the Bible: he must have been a child during the civil war in Israel (885-881 BCE). Half the people sided with General Omri, who prevailed and became king. My Elijah’s father Ben-Hanan dies fighting on the losing side. As we all know, winners take the spoils. Now the scene is set:

    Elijah is still mourning the death of his father. He and his mother and young aunt are preparing summer oil, an expensive product.

    Elijah squatted beside the mortar stone on the edge of the grove, tending the fire under the pot. Mama and Aunt Eglah stood on the mortar itself – a limestone shelf pocked with cup-shaped depressions – and pounded fruit. Fragrant green droplets glistened in the sun. It was the end of Etanim and would have been a lovely summer afternoon, except that Elijah had a hole in his heart and the pestles slammed into it like a gravedigger’s spade.

    Tsaduk the carpenter, who fought on the other side, comes through the trees. He proposes marriage to Eglah, and offers the rest of the family a home with him.

    “We already have a home,” Eglah said frostily.

    “Yes, for now. But Ben-hanan had no brothers who could claim it, and your nephew isn’t old enough to take on a man’s responsibilities, so Omri agreed to give me this land.”

    Elijah felt as though he’d been kicked in the chest. Mama was pale as dry grass. “You mean, you asked him for it?”

    “My dear Milcah, I just thought I’d be the best person to look after you. I’m trying to make it as easy as possible, but sooner or later I’ll have to take possess-”

    “It’s mine! You can’t have my inheritance!” Elijah threw himself at Tsaduk, who simply grabbed the boy and hurled him into the dirt. He jumped up and was knocked down again.

    “I don’t want to hurt you,” Tsaduk said, retreating. “And I don’t want to be unfair. You’ve tended the trees all year, so you can keep three-fourths of the harvest. I’d say that’s pretty damn generous. But after that” – he looked at Eglah – “you’d better think about my offer.”

  • Blood Sacrifice in Israel

    DomeOfTheRockImageThirty years ago I visited Israel for the first time, partly to do research for my novels about Jezebel. In Jerusalem I passed a store window with small but colorful posters—artistic imaginings—of the ancient Temple, supposedly built by Solomon. The storefront was the information center of a religious group that wanted to tear down the Dome of the Rock—Islam’s third holiest shrine—and rebuild the ancient Jewish Temple, complete with animal sacrifices. “But if you try to do that,” I protested, “all the world’s Muslims in the world, over a billion of them, will declare war on Israel.”

    “God will grant us the victory,” the woman behind the counter replied serenely.

    At that time, I dismissed her group as a tiny cult, destined to become less than a footnote in the history of a modern state. But this month the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz published two articles discussing the project of rebuilding the Temple. Apparently there are significant numbers of Israelis, including political and religious leaders, who intend to do just that. According to the November 29th article, a rebuilt temple would mean the end of modern Judaism and any pretense of Western liberal democracy: “…control [would be] in the hands of a priestly caste that is centered not around schools of Torah study but around one temple; one that does not pray but sacrifices animals, does not seek God in holy actions and at holy times, but at one special holy site.”

    So, a hereditary priesthood and bloody animal sacrifices. And quite possibly a man (certainly not a woman) claiming descent from King David would be chosen as monarch. Many Zionists argue that Jews have a right to all the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. This is appalling enough, but the Temple rebuilders take it even further. They think they are entitled to re-establish the legendary empire of Solomon. It supposedly extended all the way to the Euphrates, encompassing a large chunk of what is now Syria.

    I wonder how much bloody human sacrifice—soldiers and civilians—they will tolerate in attempting to achieve their goals.