Upgraded website - www.eshalit.com/

Dear friends and colleagues,

My website, www.eshalit.com/ (also at www.eshalit.co.il/) has now been upgraded. I invite you to visit – and will be happy to receive any comment you may have.

You will find details about my books, contents, reviews and excerpts.

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One of the features is open ends, with access to excerpts from books, book chapters, published papers and journal articles. Most of the material can be accessed directly from the page, while some of it requires login.

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At et ceteri (from Latin: 'and others'), you will find announcements of organizations, lectures, et cetera, pertaining to psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, such as the Jungian program scheduled to open at Bar Ilan University, and the upcoming exhibition of Jung's Red Book in Zurich, et cetera. I believe that much, perhaps most value, and great treasures, are to be found with the other(s).

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Another feature is town square, a place where you can look at the stuff others bring to the city square, and you can bring your own paraphernalia. You are invited to stroll around like a flâneur on an Italian passeggiata - as Lewis Mumford has said, "What is a City? - Above all else a theater of social action.”
You may want to share something about yourself, your activities, picture/s or poem/s, to present a thought, tell a story or call attention to a cause of concern. You can also link to your blog or website, if you would like.
The place is open for development, so feel free to contact: townsquare@eshalit.co.il.

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Additionally, at re: sources, you'll find an expanding treasure chamber of links to valuable online resources. For purposes of clarification, brief descriptions of the sources will eventually appear next to the links.

All the above features are in their initial states of development – suggestions are welcome!

Many of you have been very generous in sharing comments and thoughts, reading what I write and attending my lectures, for which I am grateful. I do hope that my website, together with my blog (http://erelshalit.blogspot.com/; to which you can subscribe, if you are interested), will further the open and ongoing dialogue between us.

In gratitude and friendship,

Erel Shalit






Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return is on sale now for $14.95, and Enemy, Cripple, Beggar is on sale now for $17.95 or $30.00 for the pair when ordered directly from the Fisher King Press Online Bookstore. You can also order The Hero and His Shadow: Psychopolitcal Aspects of Myth and Reality in Israel directly from Fisher King Press.

Phone orders welcomed, Credit Cards accepted. 1-800-228-9316 toll free in the US & Canada, International +1-831-238-7799

Fisher King Press / PO Box 222321 / Carmel, CA 93922 / Phone: 831-238-7799 orders@fisherkingpress.com / http://www.fisherkingpress.com/

Hamas filmmakers present “The Liberation of Tel Aviv and Palestine”

A new video clip, gaining popularity in the West Bank and Gaza, depicts the take-over of Tel Aviv, renamed Tel-Arabiya, and the conquest of Israel. The High Court of Justice and the Bank of Israel buildings in Jerusalem are burned down.
After Israel is successfully attacked and "liberated," Palestinians are shown walking along the Tel Aviv promenade and on its streets. The height of the film is when the channel 2 TV studio has been taken over, its Israeli broadcaster replaced by a Palestinian, ready to declare the “liberation of Tel Aviv and Palestine.”

I doubt that the Palestinian filmmakers read my recent novella Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return, which includes captions like,

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of demonstrators arrived in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. It turned out that many policemen had simply remained at home, exhausted from the events of the last few weeks. Tel Aviv’s central Rabin Square and the surrounding streets filled up with demonstrators and banners, “Palestine for the Palestinians,” “One Palestine,” “Free Palestine.” Young boys climbed every pole and every pillar, raising the Palestinian flag. Soon the crowd started chanting “Tel Aviv, Tel Arab, Tel Aviv, Hill of Falastin.” (p. 82)

A recent article by prominent Professor Shlomo Avineri depicts a similar, fictitious scenario, in which the Jewish character of the country is progressively erased. The account, which, as Avineri says, will not happen, begins and ends as follows,

A radical Jewish leftist who supported the steps that led to the legislation turned to a head of an Arab organization and asked: "We did what you wanted, and you still aren't satisfied. What should we call the country so you'll really feel equal?" With a broad smile the head of the Arab association replied: "What's the problem? The real name was and always will be: Falastin."
(Shlomo Avineri: Biladi, Biladi – What's in a Name? (http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/biladi-biladi-what-s-in-a-name-1.312848)

The Hamas film, Avineri’s article and my novella all deal with the threat to Israel’s existence. The UN partition plan in 1947 divided the land into two states, Arab Palestine and Jewish Israel. Tragically, the Palestinians still reject the recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. Likewise, the idea of two states for two peoples is impaired by the settlements beyond the security fence, comprising a majority of settlements but a minority of settlers.

A major purpose of mine has been to imagine a worse case scenario, which will not happen, but which can easily be imagined, and in the lack of constructive imagination and determined policies, creates fear and anxiety, on the one hand, fantasies and delusions, on the other. Therefore, my novella ends optimistically (for those who care about Israel's existence), since its survival relies on human traits and capabilities beyond either the fear or the wish for its extinction.

Review of Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return, by Erel Shalit (posted on Amazon)

Slender, Succinct, Superb, February 3, 2010
By Edith Sobel (Fort Lee, New Jersey)

This slim but incisive novella is a philosophical but completely comprehensible take on contemporary Israel. From a "litany of lamentations" drawn from the current generation which appears to be the antithesis of their idealistic founding fathers, the thoughtful narrator Eli Shimeoni (about to give a lecture in New York) recounts his overriding despair - but eventually concludes with hope.
Elegantly and thoughtfully mourning today's saga of Israeli disillusion without hope, bitter alienation, and collapse of Zionist ideals, Shimeoni indicts the present movement out of the country for profit and the concomitant surrender of "soul."
But relying on the consistency of past Jewish history and the "triumphalism of hope" the reader reluctantly puts the book down - and smiles!

Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return is on sale now for $14.95, and Enemy, Cripple, Beggar is on sale now for $17.95 or $30.00 for the pair when ordered directly from the Fisher King Press. You can also order The Hero and His Shadow: Psychopolitcal Aspects of Myth and Reality in Israel directly from Fisher King Press.

Phone orders welcomed, Credit Cards accepted. 1-800-228-9316 toll free in the US & Canada, International +1-831-238-7799

Fisher King Press / PO Box 222321 / Carmel, CA 93922

Shana Tova!

painting by Eliaz Slonim, http://www.eshalit.com/pages.aspx?pageid=9

Shana Tova ! שנה טובה

To those of you who celebrate the Jewish New Year,
September 9, 2010; 1st of Tishrei, 5771

I wish you all a Happy and Healthy Year of Peace and Good Changes

Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav died October 16, during Sukkot 1810, thirty-eight years old. On the eve of his death 200 years ago, tens of thousands of Hassidim, and particularly his devote followers, visit his grave in Uman, Ukraine. In order to protect themselves from "forbidden sights" some of them cover their eyes with scarves.
I compliment them on this development, which may signify a progressive turn as regards women, assuming that it is the women who constitute the primary sight of danger and temptation for these men, young and old.

Does this new fashion indicate that not the women need to be pushed away, segregated, their faces covered, but the time has now arrived for the men to carry their own folly?

Yet, I do hope that some of the internal sights of sin and misdemeanor will penetrate into consciousness from within their soul, to allow for appropriate sinfulness and madness.

Rabbi Nachman told the story of The Tainted Grain:

A king once told his prime minister, who was also his good friend: "I see in the stars that everyone who eats from this year's grain harvest is going to go mad. What do you think we should do?"
The prime minister suggested they should put aside a stock of good grain so they would not have to eat from the tainted grain.
"But it will be impossible to set aside enough good grain for everyone," the king objected. "And if we put away a stock for just the two of us, we will be the only ones who will be sane. Everyone else will be mad, and they will look at us and think that we are the mad ones.
"No. We too will have to eat from this year's grain. But we will both put a sign on our heads. I will look at your forehead, and you will look at mine. And when we see the sign, at least we will remember that we are mad."