liberation@igc.org
Subject: One of us it terribly off track...
Date: April 2, 2010 11:29:08 AM EDT
To: ezakim@gmail.comAbsolutely not the case. No Trumpeldor here.
This is a very sophisticated poster that is quoting the Song of Solomon (8:6) where it says something like "love is strong like death." The whole verse is on the edge like this. From King James: Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.
The poster draws on two words—strong as death— and leaves out "love." We know this is a quotation definitely and immediately (despite the incompleteness of even the full phrase from the verse) because of both the font (very biblical) and the diacritical markings, i.e., the vowelization, which can only be biblical within the Hebrew context.
Now, why these two words, you ask? Well, the word for "strong" is a homophone for Gaza: "'aza" in Hebrew is both strong (the adjective in the feminine singular form because love is a feminine noun and this modifies love in the original verse) and the Hebrew version of the geographic name Gaza. By leaving out the word for love, we get a possible meaning for the phrase: Gaza is like death.
Wow, baby, that's strong stuff, and a far cry from the original Biblical text.
Now, the new meaning is certainly reinforced (and perhaps even made possible) by the colors of the posters, a point that I am sure was not lost on you.
There is some text on the lower right that I can't make out. It includes a date and some explanation. Can you enlarge?
Is this really a Berliner poster? Isn't this a Molcho?
e.
On Apr 2, 2010, at 11:04 AM, Dan Walsh wrote:
http://www.palestineposterproject.org/poster/it-is-noble-to-die-for-one0...
you may have even helped me with the long ago...before I had a system for tracking things. I am pretty sure it says EITHER:
"En davar, it is good to die for one's country"
Or just:
"It is good to die for one's country"
If you say this is NOT the case, then either I guilty of shoddy scholarship or my sources are hallucinating.
danwalsh
Hebrew translation: It is noble to die for our country
Teachers: This poster may be viewed in tandem with 11th of Adar as part of a classroom discussion on political Zionism or contemporary Israeli culture.
In this poster, by Israeli artist Arie Berliner, we see the Hebrew inscription from the Tel Hai memorial in Israel: "It Is Noble to Die for Our Country", said to be Joseph Trumpeldor's dying words.Though both posters relate to Tel Hai and Trumpeldor we see that this inscription was only alluded to in the former: it was not decipherable. Berliner has completely reversed what visual artists and designers call the "graphic hierarchy", which is the structure and importance of the visual features of a poster. Berliner has, in effect, focused in on “11th of Adar” and completely removed everything except the inscription.
Berliner designed this poster using only the Palestinian nationalist colors: red, black, white and green. Had Berliner printed this poster in blue and white, the emblematic colors of political Zionism, it might have been read as a homage to Trumpeldor, his life and his manner of dying. It might have found an honored place among the collections of classic Zionist posters stored in the Central Zionist Archives, in Jerusalem. It might have been reprinted any number of times across any number of Israeli media, such as bumper stickers, t-shirts, billboards or even been adopted as an official Israeli-government sponsored poster. Instead, it is seen as an act of subversion against the efforts of organized Zionism to inculcate and reinforce an unquestioning embrace of Trumpeldor’s ideals among Israelis and in Jewish communities worldwide.
This poster provides critical cultural knowledge because it provides an empirical marker for tracking the life span of a myth, or legend within a society. Its publication in 1994 marks the terminus of the historical arc that was inaugurated at Tel Hai in 1920. Taken together these two posters offer an opportunity for understanding the role of myth and legend in the contemporary Zionist narrative. They also offer an opportunity to consider the moral dilemmas associated with unquestioned acceptance of state-sponsored mythologies.
Simultaneously, Berliner is suggesting that owing to the grinding humiliation imposed by Israel's continued occupation of the Palestinian Territories the Palestinians have entered a new revolutionary stage in their own nationalist narrative, one that is marked by its own distinctive notions of resistance and heroism. Berliner is saying, in effect, to beware or irony. By deliberately casting this poster in the Palestinian nationalist colors Berliner is suggesting, paradoxically, that Trumpeldor is more of a heroic model to Palestinians (who are still in their revolutionary period) than he is to Israelis (who are in their post-revolutionary period).
Berliner's poster does not disparage Trumpeldor. It does not suggest that Trumpeldor was not a courageous man or deny that he is one to whom Zionism owes an enormous debt. Rather, it opens for wider discussion the synthetic nature of much of the modern Zionist historical narrative. Berliner reminds Israelis, and anyone else who cares to think about it, that what may have been inspirational in 1920 may not be so in 1994 or 2010. In this he offers an eloquent gift of honesty that says that many of today's military age Israelis are not enamored of yishuv-era heroics. It suggests that they understand the origins, and perhaps even the legitimacy, of their enemy's struggle.
Dan Walsh
April 2010
From: ezakim@gmail.com
Subject: Re: did the last jpeg confirm at least that the poster is by Berliner and not Molcho? danwalsh
Date: April 2, 2010 1:24:45 PM EDT
To: liberation@igc.orgNo, it says "May 18, 1994 the IDF clears out the Gaza Strip."
But I must be wrong, no? Could they really have fucked up that badly in the catalogue? Hard to believe.
On Apr 2, 2010, at 1:08 PM, Dan Walsh wrote: