Subscribe to the [em]Israel in Translation[/em] podcast

[button style=’orange’ url=’https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/israel-in-translation/id882702904?mt=2′ target=’_blank’ icon=’iconic-rss’]Subscribe via iTunes[/button] [button style=’orange’ url=’http://israelintranslation.tlv1.libsynpro.com/rss’ target=’_blank’ icon=’iconic-rss’]Subscribe via RSS[/button]

In May 2000, the IDF withdrew from Southern Lebanon and Beaufort Castle, which Israel had held since 1982. Host Marcela Sulak reads from Ron Leshem’s novel called “Beaufort” in the English translation (the Hebrew title translates as “If there is a Heaven”). It is written as the diary of Liraz Liberti, the twenty-one-year-old head of a thirteen-man commando team stationed at Beaufort during the last winter of Israeli occupation.

“…We carried out a comprehensive search, circled the place to determine whether terrorists had beaten a path in through the undergrowth, and which route they’d chosen to booby-trap the target. We unrolled white marking tape wherever we walked in order to know where we’d already been. It was hot and sticky out. The sun had come up too fast. It took us half an hour to complete the first half-circle…“

Leshem’s novel was made into a film in 2007, directed by Josef Cedar and co-written by Cedar and Leshem. The film won the Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival and was a nominee for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Beaufort was Ron Leshem’s first novel, and it won the prestigious Sapir Prize.

Texts:
Beaufort by Ron Leshem. Translated by Evan Fallenberg. The Delacorte Press, 2008.

Music:
Ishai Adar – “Beaufort” Original Soundtrack
Eviatar Banai – Avot Ubanim

Producer: Laragh Widdess
Technical producer: Alex Benish