Anecdote about Erica Sherover in 1959, by Elisha Porat --On Dec 27, 2010 Elisha Porat wrote to Harold Marcuse (lightly edited): So in 1961-62 Ricky came to my Kibbutz - Ein Hahoresh, in the Sharon plane, between Haifa and Tel Aviv. She came as a young girl with a guitar and a friend. Her father M. Sherover came to visit her, and tried to meet her a few times while she was at the kibbutz, but she was angry with him and didn't want to see him. She was a volunteer, working at the agricultural branches of the kibbutz. She worked at the fishing pools, a very difficult job in the water, under the hot Israeli sun. She also worked at the grapefruit orchard and in the grapes plant, the vineyards. She was very very interested in the Hebrew language, she was very talented with languages, so she learned how to speak Hebrew in a very short time. She had a boy friend from the kibbutz about her age, and she played on her guitar by the fire at nights, the songs of that period, songs by Joan Baez. She tried to sing like the great singer, but it was very far from Joan Baez. I think she liked Baez' songs very much. We were on the same age. I was born too in 1938, exactly like Ricky. I think she spent one or two years maybe more in our Kibbutz. In her time in the Kibbutz she learned not only to speak Hebrew, but also to read Hebrew. And I know that many years later, when she worked in Germany, she met a couple of Israelis tourists in the airplane. And when she saw the Hebrew newspaper they had, she was very excited and asked them if she could read the paper. I think she loved the Hebrew language until her last days. I'm sorry that I haven't more details or more stories about Ricky. Links to articles by Elisha Porat, who won the Israeli Prime Minister's Prize for Literature (named to commemorate Levi Eshkol) in 1996 and again in 2010:
PS. by Harold Marcuse: I was in Israel for 10 days in November 2010, for a conference at Haifa University. Someone who had been a student there in 1969 told me about Herbert being present at the opening of Haifa University in 1969, where he gave a speech. He was asked about Israel's politics and said something very interesting, but I already forgot what it was--if anyone can fill in any details, I'm all ears! ([email protected]) Response 1: Herbert was invited to Israel. He was asked to talk about art, not politics, and he accepted, and started by saying all art was political, and came out for a one state solution. I've read it, and it's available somewhere. page created Dec. 31, 2010 by Harold Marcuse, updated 1/2/2011 |