Sami Michael
Yesterday I went to Haifa to interview Sami Michael. You can read more about this famous Israeli author, who is listed as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in literature, here.
After finishing the interview, I recorded Sami speaking a bit about himself in Arabic. The video is below (Arabic speakers will have an opportunity to giggle when I speak a bit at the end), and below that is the short post that I wrote for the BBC's Arabic website. I'll write a long post about what I saw in Kiryat Shmona later tonight or tomorrow (truly, I will).
Sami Michael speaks in Arabic
Uploaded by Lisang
The short post I wrote for the BBC's Arabic service website, to which both Carmia of the truly excellent Kishkushim blog and I have been contributing, is below:
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On Wednesday morning I drove up to Haifa in order to interview the Israeli author Sami Michael.
Mr. Michael was born Sallah Menasse in 1926 in Baghdad. As a teenager he was active in the Iraqi underground Communist party and wrote for the movement's newspaper. At the age of 21 he escaped to Iran after a warrant was issued for his arrest; he continued his communist activities in Iran, then emigrated in 1949 to Israel and settled in Haifa.
During the 1950's and 1960's Mr. Michael wrote for Al Itihad, a Haifa newspaper that was founded by the renowned Arab-Israeli author, and major proponent of Jewish Arab co-existence, Emile Habibi. Today Sami is best known for his novel "Trumpet in the Wadi," which has been translated into Arabic, and for his activism in the areas of peace with Israel's neighbours and co-existence between Israel's Jews and Arabs.
Last week he was photographed for Maariv newspaper, standing in front of the bombed out building that housed the offices of Al Itihad , the newspaper that was a symbol of Arab-Jewish co-existence. The building was located in the Jewish-Arab Haifa neighbourhood of Wadi Nisnas. On Sunday night several Hezbollah missiles landed in Wadi Nisnas, causing extensive damage - including the collapse of two residential buildings. Three people were killed - two Arabs and one Jew - and more than 100 were injured.
I watched the news coverage of that horrible event on a television at a hotel in Metulla, whilst sitting beside a young female Israeli-Arab journalist from a Galilee village. We spoke together in Hebrew about our horror at the scenes we were watching on television, while in the background we could hear the crashing of Hezbollah missiles that were being fired at Metulla from nearby Lebanon.
I went to interview Sami because we wanted to know what he thought about Hassan Nasrallah's warning to Haifa's Arab citizens to leave the city. We sat in the author's modest, light-filled apartment that overlooked Haifa Bay and we gazed at the hills of Lebanon and Syria on the horizon. As he spoke, Sami played with some of the deadly metal balls that are packed into the Hezbollah missiles, which are made in Syria. He had collected the balls in Wadi Nisnas, on the day he was photographed there in front of the bombed out Al Itihad offices. He spoke quietly and thoughtfully as he played with those balls that have killed or maimed so many people. He spoke about peace and mutual recognition, about talking instead of shooting. Our conversation was interrupted three times by the siren announcing incoming missiles.
Three of the thousands of metal balls that are packed into each of Hezbollah's missiles. They splatter everywhere, leaving holes in cars, buildings - and people. Well over one hundred missiles have been landing in Israel every day since July 12.
