Israel In Translation

Jews everywhere are celebrating Purim this Saturday night, the story of which took place in the ancient Persian Empire. On this week's episode, host Marcela Sulak reads from the essay "Journey to the Land of Israel" by the Iranian writer Jalal Al-e Ahmad. The highly controversial essay is based on his two-week long trip to see Israel in 1963. This is the intro to “Journey to the Land of Israel”: "Jewish rule in the land of Palestine is a guardianship state and not another kind of government. It is the rule of the Children of Israel’s new guardians in the Promised Land, not the rule of the inhabitants of Palestine over Palestine. The first contradiction arising from the existence of Israel is this: that a people, a tribe, a religious community, or the surviving remnants of the twelve tribes—whatever designation you prefer—throughout history, traditions, and myths suffered homelessness and exile, and nurtured many dreams in their hearts until they finally settled, in a way, in answer to such hopes and in a lan