Israela (Book) - 10/25/2022 11:51:27 AM
This is an important book that should be read by all who want a complete view of the Middle East.
It is a personal story that highlights the differences of cultures but yet the similarities of cultures at the same time.
This book should be read by all those interested in exploring the depths of the human experience in different worlds.
Electra: A Gender Sensitive Study of the Plays Based on the Myth, 2nd ed (Book) - 8/13/2021 12:40:19 PM
The introduction of the book, "Electra - A Gender Sensitive Study of the Plays Based on the Myth," provides the reader with an excellent review of the beginning of myths from oral tradition until now and gives an exemplary description of the myth in question featuring the "Electra Myth" as visioned by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripide, three great tragedians of classical Athens (Greek mythology). A brief explanation is that Electra is one of the most popular mythological characters in tragedies. She is the daughter of Agamemnon and Clyemnestra and she saves her brother (Orestes) by sending him away when their father is murdered. Later she helps him kill their mother and her lover, Aegisthus to obtain revenge for the father's death. "Electra is one of the most recurring myths of Western civilization" and the book seeks to compare this play to other plays from that time and forward, even throughn the 1980's, but a myth "exists in two simultaneous time spaces: at the moment of presentation and for all time." We are told that "tragedies were not presented merely for entertainment; they were also the playwrite's opportunity to stage issues of vital social importance" and it is help to remember this as one reads "Electra" as it "attempts to define the nature of its mythical complex and illustrate how all the plays under examination are comprised of the same mythical deep-structure."
"Electra - A Gender Sensitive Study of the Plays Based of the Myths" main focus is on the feminine principle versus the masculine with reflections on the familial bond a boy child has with his mother from breastfeeding throughout the time frame when the child begins to separate himself to enter into manhood (patriarchal takeover of earlier female goddessess). It is also a study of male/female , spiritual/material, and rational/emotional from a time when Electra, instead of being described as a "strong and willful woman" is labeled "a woman with the will of a man" reflecting the strong use of the masculine/heroic characterizations of the time and the "slaying of the maternal dragon." The author, Batya Casper, declares that "her foundation of our two themes: chaos vs law and order or male vs female can be applied throughout humanity. "The masculine and the feminine have been represented as dramatic metaphors for contradictory impulses" and, as "Electra" shows can be applied and interpreted throughout the centuries of literary writings focusing on the need to redefine the perspective roles of the male and female.
The author, Batya Casper has a very strong command of the material and provides the reader with a thought-provoking study in the case of the Electra Myth. The work is thorough and interesting, even comparing the "Electra Myth" in the "ending with a couple playwrites which deliberately deviate from the deep structure of the myth." This is a well-written study that finishes with the statement that "perhaps it is time to relinquish the myth, and liberate Electra." I highly recommend this work.
Electra: A Gender Sensitive Study of the Plays Based on the Myth, 2nd ed (Book) - 4/26/2021 7:16:46 PM
In this erudite work titled Electra: Myth of Eternal Return, the author delivers a scholarly work analyzing three famous versions of the 5th Century B.C. play by Euridepes, Sophocles, and Aeschylus. The synopsis of the play is as follows: Agamemnon is murdered by Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus after he returns from the Trojan War. Electra and her brother Orestes plot to execute vengeance on the pair for the crime. Sophocles focuses on Orestes and Euripedes focuses on Electra. In this version, Electra's marriage to a peasant is highlighted. Aeschylus portrays Clytemnestra as a woman who is wronged, not one who is in the wrong.
Casper exposes the reader to lines from each of the original plays. The reader will receive a review of Western academia as the author synchronizes the disciplines of psychology, history, religion, and English literature. The comparisons and contrasts to such great minds as Freud and Shakespeare are illustrated with excerpts from their works. Freud's theory on the relationship between paternal and maternal caregivers and their offspring is referenced. Shakespeare's Hamlet is alluded to. So is the Biblical character Cain and his brother Abel The author discusses the attempts of different cultures including Egypt as making sense of the world as man grapples with the dilemmas of evil actions and their retribution and consequences. A reader will take note of the cohesiveness of Western education, as the allusions show a breadth and depth of knowledge that is admirable. The reader will be enticed to read the plays for himself.
Israela (Book) - 7/11/2014 4:38:40 AM
This is a thought provoking and different sort of book about the
middle east.It views the situation from very personal thoughts from
diverse backgrounds that have become all an integral everyday part of
Israeli life.Many sides who share issues that have the power to
divide but also to unite them
Israela (Book) - 4/10/2012 3:24:18 PM
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Review of Israela, April, 2012 10/04/2012
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http://www.jewishnh.org/reporter/2012/2012-April.pdf
Israel becomes a character in the story as we follow the lives of three women growing up in Israel after the the counry’s independence in 1948. In this beautifully written book by Dr. Batya Casper (Tate Publishing, 2011), we explore the
debate between the Israelis and the Arabs as they try to live side by side. I found Casper’s way of presenting each side’s view through these women’s eyes really made me feel that I was in their shoes as they try to figure out how to live in peace and why after all this time the Arabs and Israelis cannot find a way to get along. Her descriptions are poignant, and her viewpoint is objective.
Our main characters are Orit, a child rescued from the Holocaust and brought to Israel, then adopted by parents who are sympathetic to the idea of Arabs and Israelis co-existing happily; her half-sister, Ruiti, also known by the Arab name Ratiba, who takes this idea so much to heart that she marries an Israeli Arab and hides the fact that she is Jewish from him and his family; and their cousin, Ellysheva, who comes to Israel as Allison, and as an adult works in a hospital searching through Arab homes look- ing for explosives and suicide bombers. Hamzah says, “The tragedy is that in the long term, when they wake in the middle of the night to see the ‘evil’ Israeli soldiers in uniform in their home, their guns at the ready, they look into our eyes, and I know that at that very moment I have created a second generation of suicide bombers.”
Casper also brings to life the character of the State of Israel, Between chapters of the story we hear from Israela.
These parts are written in italics, and it is like you are listening in to her private thoughts. At one point she says, “It was not me who first separated Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau. That would be far beyond my abilities. Do the stories of their Bible not clearly warn them how not behave? What not to repeat? Why don’t they see that? It was not I who misinterpreted the Koran into an imperative for murder. Would Allah not have preferred his people to live in peace? Does Elokim, my G-d, want anything but peace for His children?... So they have Allah and we have Elokim, and we are at war.” Elisheva works in a hospital taking care of the wounded of the wars and the suicide bombers. They are all trying in their own way to make sense of the world they live in and seeking to deal with the sadness and despair they are experiencing.
Ellysheva is at the memorial service for her father, thinking back on the synagogue and religion of her youth, and she thinks, “I wonder now why loving G-d is a commandment and why to love your neighbor like yourself is the second most important principle of faith, a rule like not crossing the road on a red light. I wonder why protecting the stranger in our midst is almost as mportant in the scriptures as honoring our father and our mother, as not coveting our neighbor’s wife. Because if the strangers in our midst were friendly, we would not need a law to protect them.
In a local book group that read this book, the consensus was that this story reflected the reality of life in Israel, presenting a realistic view of the social history of Israel. In the story, the character Orit has a series of dreams interspersed with news bulletins. Batya Casper told me in an interview, “All the news bulletins are factual, as are the stories of Arab/Jewish intermarriage. There are, in fact, a growing number of such cases.” Casper says that her interest in writing Israela “was to show a truly loving relationship between two good people.” All of the scenarios in this story are based on fact.
Casper moved to Israel in 1956. She has lived there intermittently since childhood.
Merle Carrus, The New Hampshire Jewish Reporter
