Nili in real life

Nina Ananiashvili, the Georgian-born Bolshoi Ballet dancer and artistic director of the state ballet of Georgia.

NILI

EXT. MOSQUE - DAY

Ali walks out of the mosque slowly, reverently. He is alone. A few boys beat around an old soccer ball in a field just next to the mosque - otherwise the street is deserted. He walks down the street a little bit, waiting until he's out of sight of the masjid to light a cigarette. At the end of the street he sees a two-story ramshackle  building - it doesn't look like much more than an immigrant atelier - but the lights are on and young girls are walking into it. Jewesses, apparently.

Mildly intrigued or at least too bored to do anything else, Ali walks to a brick building across the street from where the girls are going in. There are curtains up - he can't see anything. He leans against the building, puffing on his cigarette, and waits. He taps the ash out at the side of the building, almost as though he's embarrassed - embarrassed that someone would see him emptying his ashes on an uninhabited and fit-to-be-condemned building. He hums to himself - and waits.

After a moment, he walks across the street - no more girls are coming in the door. He hunches down at a gap in the curtains - and he sees her. He hears Chopin's "Nocturne" over the burps and squeaks of the loudspeaker - the stereo is awful. The floors are scuffed and the girl's ballerina outfits are patchy and more khaki/beige than white. But it makes the one at the head of the class - the teacher - look like one of the visions from his holy books.

Her skin is dark, almost as dark as his, with dark hair and eyes. Her tutu is white. Ali stares at her through the gap in the curtains as the girl stretches along the wall at the front of the class, mouth slightly open, the cigarette still hanging there. She looks up for a moment, and Ali gets down on his haunches below the window, the smoke still going up in front of the window. The girl looks out the window, semi-sentient of him.

Ali looks sadly at his clothes - even his Friday best is a long way off from resplendence. He fingers the sleeve of his robe and pulls out another loose thread. He opens his satchel and takes out a piece of paper, then lays it out on the ground. He butts his cigarette out on the wall, then wipes it off and puts the butt on the piece of paper. FADE OUT and back IN TO

EXT. STUDIO - NIGHT

The cigarette pile, which has a pile of butts on it now. The girl opens the door and walks out, her face beaded with sweat. She hasn't showered, and she casts a glance of discomfort and hauteur at him, with a Mona Lisa trace of defiance. She turns away; Ali watches her go. He looks at the cigarette pile and sorts them out. She looks back and sees him doing this; then she walks away.

Ali stands up, putting the cigarettes back into the paper, folding it and putting it into his satchel. He goes over to the door, and sees a paper on the front - it's in Hebrew, which he can't read. So he copies the letters down - not a little awkwardly - on a scrap of paper inside his satchel, and then puts it into his pocket. He lights one final cigarette - the embers blaze orange as the night falls - and pulls an old baseball out, tossing it up and down as he walks away.

EXT. ALI'S ROOM - LOD - MORNING

Venus fades in the early morning over a two story stone house in this small agricultural village. The muezzin is calling the faithful in the distance, but it's lugubrious - tending towards a smirk rather than a solemnity. We follow the angle into a simple room at the upstairs window, where a young MAN - he can't be more than 25 or so - is arising from his prayer rug. His room is barren but clean - a well-worn prayerbook lies open on his nightstand, and he murmurs Arabic blessings for the morning as though he knows them by rote. He bends down and folds the prayer rug reverently, then tucks it into a dresser by his bed. On the dresser is a daguerrotype-style picture of him with his parents and two other children, presumably a brother the same age and a baby sister. CUT TO

KITCHEN,

where we see the images of a fresh tea bag steeping in a white cup. The boy - his name is Ali - is still contemplative; prayer-time hasn't worn off yet. He takes saucer in hand and walks out onto the back porch, tilting his head up to sniff the air and closing his eyes. Ali takes a sip of tea, and goes out and walks in the lemon grove in his backyard, closing his eyes and singing along with the muezzin. Then he sighs and begins walking back into the house - it's finally time to go. CUT BACK TO

ALI'S ROOM, where he gets his satchel and starts to leave, then turns around. He bends down OS for a moment, then comes back up and puts on a brand-new New York Yankees cap. He smooths the brim down, then takes the mound, eye on the invisible catcher behind his mirror. He shakes his head - no, not the slider, not the knuckle. Finally he nods slowly - the fastball. He winds up, but midpitch he notices his

SISTER, standing in the doorway, tittering and then running out of the house with her friends. Abashed, Ali tears the cap off, grabs the satchel and heads out of the house to get to services.

INT. DAN MARGALIT'S HOUSE - NIGHT

Semi-sepia light clearing through a cigarette haze as we enter the dining room, where eight men are seated around the 20th century version of Arthur's table round. At the far end is the STUDENT, who finally appears to have found his home among old comrades. The TABLE is spread with everything necessary for a really capital Shabbat meal - kreplach, Jerusalem kugel, tabbouleh, piroshki. Bottles of beer abound. The apartment is filled with Spartan furniture, but the wall is lined with classical art and the shelves and cases overflow with books.

None of the men is yet thirty, and we see at once that they respect the student as their leader. He stands up from his perch at the table and rubs his stomach, complimenting his host - a blonde-haired man who gives a very solicitous impression. But a fighter. He proposes a toast to the old times, and all of them give full-hearted assent. Old jokes and old nicknames flourish, and the undercurrent of tension and conflict seems to lighten palpably under a brotherly benison and peace.  

After a few moments, the humor dies down, and the eyes of the eight turn to the student, who holds up a PHOTOGRAPH - the same one we've just seen of the woman. He passes it around to the men, who look expectantly back at him to receive a second PHOTO - this one of the MAN who threw the bomb into the house. Murmurous approval fills the room as the men scrutinize the photo. After a moment or two, one of the MEN - he's six-five if an inch - gets up and lights a cigarette while he looks out the apartment window. He sees the moonlight falling on the Tower of David and, in an almost preternatural state, begins to speak to the men. All of them - including the student - look at him as though he were Prince Hamlet himself, soliloquizing on Elsinore's battlements. We then look at the student, who now sees what he formerly thought of as mere duty and drill, begin to see his role in the light of destiny. The tikva is kindled.

Hebrew University

Mount Scopus, Jerusalem

A breathtaking view from the campus. Wide angle shot coming into one building. Slow moving shot into EXAM ROOM with old-fashioned desks. Students writing and checking their watches. An instructor in shirt and tie mopping his forehead and fanning himself at the front desk. We focus on one student – young, handsome, in full military attire. Sure of himself. Even taking an exam.

A young MAN, also in military attire, comes into room and whispers to the professor, who nods and points to the student. He walks over and, after a moment, the student gets up and walks out with him. 

They drive, the student in back. They pull over by a military compound not far from campus, then both get out and make their way to an OFFICE. The student is about to sit when another aide motions him to come in. Before him is a short, bald man with oak clusters on his shoulders. On his desk is a folder with photographs. We see the same PHOTO of the family from the bombing.

The student sits. They talk, appearing to agree on something. Reluctantly, on the part of the student. The student walks back out, looking back up towards the examination building he just left.  

Qibya in ruins: the response to the Kanias bombing 

The Palestinians leave the ruins of their town in the aftermath of a reprisal raid by Sharon's Unit 101 on Qibya, the Israeli response to the murder of Susan Kanias and her two children by terrorists.

Scene 1. Susan Kanias

Home of Susan Kanias

Yehud

Sunset. A ramshackle house on a hill with reeds blowing in the wind. Cicadas chirping on a moonless night, sky thick with stars. We move closer to a WINDOW with curtains fluttering, where we enter into a neatly kept ROOM – it could only be the room of a young girl. A lazing CAT guards a PHOTO on the nightstand of a radiant WOMAN, flanked by her daughter and son. We pass from the nightstand to the bed, where the girl is listening wide-eyed to the woman – it’s storytime. A CANDLE lights the darkness of the room and gives a heavenly haze to the pair, and the transaction. The MOTHER is tired and dirty after another day in the orange groves, but her eyes are full of love for her child as she reads out of a storybook.

The GIRL motions and asks for something, and the mother reaches over and hands her a glass of water. We then follow the camera across the room the way we came back outside of the window and across the yard to an

ORANGE TREE,

Where we see a DARK HAND pluck an orange off of the tree and peel it, smelling it before he eats. He looks at the WINDOW, then over at his FRIEND. They are dressed in grubby robes, with greasy haversacks and furtive expressions. They inch towards the house, getting closer and closer. We PAN BACK to the

ROOM,

Where we see the CANDLE go out and the room go dark. The MEN see the

MOTHER walk into the KITCHEN, then back into her DAUGHTER’S room. Their fingers loosen the straps of their bags, and they go up gently to the WINDOW, tossing the charge in as silently as they can.

The GIRL wakes up, understanding immediately, as the

HOUSE

Goes up in flames and the MEN run away.   

Of Uzis, Merkavas and Popsicles

A soldier enjoys a dramatically improved iteration of the K-ration.

Psalm 60.9-12

- Who is there now to take me into the fortified city, to lead me into Edom? God, can you really have rejected us? You no longer march with our armies.

- Help us in this hour of crisis, the help that man can give is worthless.

- With God among us we shall fight like heroes, he will trample on our enemies.

Waiting

...these will hammer their swords into ploughshares, their spears into sickles. Nation will not lift sword against nation, there will be no more training for war.

- Isaiah 2.4

Memoir Chapters

There is always a sense of freedom here - a spaciousness. The region is a joy. This impulse, Meir told himself, is not an accident. At Shoshana's Estate she was his companion on many trips, even sharing his fate when their trails led them to capture in a Damascus prison. Perhaps this impulse came in the wake of the atmosphere after the Liberation War. Shoshana and Meir were only boy and girl when the war ended. A gift fell to them - the will to walk "to and fro" throughout the length and breadth of the land. Everywhere they found signs before them: Stop! Danger!

Maintaining these boundaries

Maintaining these boundaries was not easy. Unlike in other books, books in which the participants are removed far from the process of writing, the protagonist's picture this time was painted without any poetic license. I knew the story must be published in every detail. All the dialogue is true. They also filmed movies based on his book.

Over the last year I paid many visits to Shoshanna's Estate and talked with Meir. From the balcony of the house I looked out over the mountains and valleys and appreciated the immensity and beauty of the open spaces. Though hidden then, later as I listened to the stories of Meir, their romance seized me as I sat in my room and began to tell the tale. I kept asking myself where it comes from - this impulse to break boundaries and conventions, walk little-trod paths, climb to the mountain eyries, to be the first and last visitor to those precious places no one sees.

Not all actions

Not all actions, while the diaries were being written, were recorded. If unmentioned, the action was unrecorded. But no recorded action was omitted. The diaries join Meir's story on Rose Manor - the story of rehabilitation after injury in a harsh action against the police. This occurred near the edge of Mount Hebron at the time of the Sinai Campaign. Read the discourse presented in the book with a grain of salt, though it is real. In the telling of one story, another unfolded. I asked Meir to come to me and tell me the story of my sister Shoshanna, murdered by Bedouins in the Judean desert at the end of 1954. Shoshanna's story led to Meir's story. Our conversations lasted over a year and were recorded on tape.

Foreword

Dear reader,

Here you are presented with a unique book. If in buying this book you seek a literary standard, remember that no literature is of use but that which claims the author's whole strength. This is a document of my life - this is a document of an era. General events and personal doubts, successes and failures, bad and good fit into the picture - described unembellished and without an attempt to excuse anything. The diary entries, begun by a young boy at Kibbutz Ein-Harod and continued by the same man as an IDF soldier, are submitted to the reader in their full content and original style. No corrections have been made from foreign tongues - to maintain the authenticity of the original ones. Over the years, various papers published some of the entries, but they were often distorted. There is thus no comparison between the passages as they appeared in the press and the events narrated in the diaries as they occurred.

At the store

Introduction by General Ariel Sharon, continued

Combat commanders are tested mainly when they are asked to carry out an assignment independently, when there is no higher officer of a higher rank around to help and rescue them if necessary from the battlefield, an officer who will notice them during a battle. The greatest effort is demanded of an independent officer. He leads his men, fights himself, heads the attack, and brings his men back to their base safely after the battle. An officer in this situation decides whether or not the mission will be carried out and decides how it will be carried out.

Introduction by General Ariel Sharon

Meir came to us when Unit 101 was established. He had been a corporal in the Nahal who could not find peace there for his stormy spirit, for his desire to be active, for his belief that we must and could find a way to overcome the Arab terrorist activity. Within a short time he became the most daring fighter in Unit 101 and the paratroopers, and an excellent scout, perhaps the best that the IDF has ever known.

He outshone the others by far in leadership qualities. His achievements on the battlefield were many. He commanded several operations himself, and played a major role in others. Meir Har-Zion became a symbol of a fighter in the paratroop units and in the army as a whole.

Memoir Chapters: Table of Contents

Memoir Chapters: Meir Har-Zion

Set by Naomi Frankel

Drawings & maps by Sol Baskin

1. Introduction by Naomi Frankel

2. About Meir Har-Zion's book by General Ariel Sharon

3. Dialogue on Mount of the Winds

4. Travel diary

5. Dialogue at midnight

6. Military diary

7. Ahuzath Shoshana

8. The Reprisal Raids: A lecture by Moshe Dayan (1955)

Pirkei Yoman, Meir Har-Zion

The following is the beginning of a (rough!) translation of Meir Har-Zion's military memoir Pirkei Yoman (Memoir Chapters).

About the Author:

Meir Har-Zion, a farmer born in 1934, grew up in Rishpon, at age 13 moved to Ein-Harod. Married with seven children. Servied in the IDF during the years 1952-1956 and since 1959 has lived at Ahuzath Shoshanna next to the Star of the Jordan, east of the moshav of his homeland and above Kibbutz Neve Or in the Jordan Valley.

Ancient predecessor to the reprisal raids

Reprisal raids were nothing new to the Israelis, even 60 years ago when Arik and his men conducted the bulk of their night operations. The following is an excerpt from the second book of the Maccabees about an incident in the town of Joppa (shown at left) by one of Unit 101's most illustrious predecessors:

"The people of Joppa went so far as to perpetrate the following outrage: they invited the Jews living among them to go aboard some boats they had lying ready, taking their wives and children. There was no hint of any intention to harm them; there had been a public vote by the citizens, and the Jews accepted, as well they might, being peaceable people with no reason to suspect anything. But once out in the open sea they were all sent to the bottom, a company of at least two hundred.

When Judas heard of the cruel fate of his countrymen, he issued his orders to his men and, after invoking God, the just judge, he attacked his brothers' murderers. Under cover of dark he set fire to the harbor, burned the boats and put to the sword everyone who had taken refuge there."

- 2 Maccabees 12.3-6