This Year in Jerusalem - Softcover

Mordecai-richler

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099521415 ISBN 13: 9780099521419

Publisher: Vintage, 1996

Synopsis

Part autobiography, part history, part political commentary - and quintessentially Richler -THIS YEAR IN JERUSALEM is irreverent, illuminating, and provocative. A personal, often hilariously funny memoir about growing up Jewish in Canada, it is also a passionate and honest examination of Zionism and the state of Israel.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

4, I was aware of three youth groups committed to the compelling idea of an independent Jewish state: Hashomer Hatza'ir (The Young Guard), Young Judaea, and Habonim (The Builders).

Hashomer Hatza'ir was resolutely Marxist. According to intriguing reports I had heard, it was the custom, on their kibbutzim already established in Palestine, for boys and girls under the age of eighteen to shower together. Hashomer Hatza'ir members in Montreal included a boy I shall call Shloime Schneiderman, a high-school classmate of mine. In 1944, when we were still in eighth grade, Schloime enjoyed a brief celebrity after his photo appeared on the front page of the Montreal Herald. Following a two-cent rise in the price of chocolate bars, he had been a leader in a demonstration, holding high a placard that read: down with the 7cents chocolate bar. Hashomer Hatza'ir members wore uniforms at their meetings: blue shirts and neckerchiefs. "They had real court martials," wrote Marion Magid in a memoir

About the Author:

Mordechai Richler ws born in Montreal. He is the author of nine novels and several collections of essays. St Urbain's Horseman and Solomon Gursky was Here were shortlisted for the Booker Prize and he is a winner of the Commonwealth Writer's Prize. He lived in England throughout the sixites and has recently returned, now dividing his time between London and Quebec.

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0099521415
• ISBN 13: 9780099521419
• Binding: Paperback