Years passed, memories settled and were invented, stories were told and sprouted different versions, and all the while the American sweeper sat in a locked bathroom in Nahalal.

Meir Shalev was born in the village of Nahalal, Israel’s first moshav, in 1948. He is the grandson of the amazing Grandma Tonia, who arrived in Palestine by boat from Russia in 1923, and who devoted her life to battling against the biggest enemy in the new land: Dirt.

Host Marcela Sulak reads from Shalev’s memoir, My Russian Grandmother and her American Vacuum Cleaner, translated by Evan Fallenberg.

Texts:

My Russian Grandmother and Her American Vacuum Cleaner: A Family memoir, by Meir Shalev. Translated by Evan Fallenberg. Schocken Books, 2011.

Music:

Arik Einstein – HaTsarich HaZe (written by Yehonatan Gefen)
HaKeves HaShisha Asar – KeShe Ehiye Gadol (written by Yehonatan Gefen)
Yoni Rechter and Yehudit Ravitz – Layla Tov (written by Yehonatan Gefen)

Producer: Laragh Widdess
Technical producer: Alex Benish