Tel Aviv Rooftop

        Kobi Peretz Messing around on the rooftop the other day while listening to a cultural roundup on the main current affairs radio station, Reshet Bet, I heard a new song by the Mediterranean music   singer Kobi Peretz called “Barukh Hashem”(Thank God) . The presenter - Vered Yiftachi-Green - predicted that it was destined to become a “national anthem” and, after the final strains had died away, enthused: “This is the most Israeli song!” The arrangement had all the elements of big hits in Israel nowadays: low key, minimalist verses accompanied only by Spanish guitar and oud, leading to an earworm chorus over a thumping Reggaeton beat. Yup, I nodded to myself, it’s a hit. I hadn’t really paid attention to the lyrics, apart from noting that barukh hashem (thank God) featured regularly and that there was a general self-satisfied hakol beseder (everything’s fine) message. But since this was being touted as the quintessential Israel song ...

    A few weeks ago a friend lent me a copy of the 'The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon' by the Portugal-based Jewish-American author Richard Zimler. Historical murder mysteries are not my literary cup of tea but it was hard not to be affected by the backdrop: the harrowing descriptions of the Lisbon massacre of 'New Christians' in 1506 and the vivid portraits of these forced Jewish converts to Christianity who continued to practice their Judaism in secret under mortal risk.  On its final page, the kabbalist hero Berakiah Zarco, having finally escaped to Istanbul, warns his Jewish brethren in prophetic mode: "Cast out Christian Europe from your heart and never look back!" The book was a bestseller in 1998 and won numerous awards. Strangely enough I came across Zimler's name again only a few days ago in a news item. Zimler claims that, while promoting his new book "The Gospel According to Lazarus", his publicist, 'John', told him that he ha...