Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Begin's Home As A Cultural & Literary Salon

Michal Aharoni Regev is the author of new book, "The Journey to the Kingdom of Oridor" (published by Arieh Nir). It is a fantasy story and, as Regev recounts, Menachem Begin figured in her upbringing:

Regev says it took her nearly 30 years to complete the book. She wrote the first version when she was a young mother and abandoned the draft in a drawer upon completion. Years later she could not find the manuscript and sat down to write it again...

...Aharoni Regev grew up in a religious Zionist family in Ramat Gan. Her father, Yaakov Aharoni, was a member of the Irgun (the pre-state underground militia) and eventually a member of the Ramat Gan city council. He was also an amateur author who published a number of little-noticed novels. She remembers him sitting at his desk for hours on end and she says that sight provided her with the inspiration to write. Every Saturday evening they would visit friends from the Irgun in Tel Aviv, Aliza and Menachem Begin and sometimes poet Uri Zvi Greenberg.

The Begin home was like a cultural and literary salon. "I was an absolutely still audience when they read aloud, Greenberg's 'The Streets of the River,' with pathos," she says. "I was enchanted. Those meetings shaped me. Those people were imbued with a sense of mission."
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