Tel Aviv Diary: Karen Alkalay-Gut

“What do you do?” says the woman sitting next to me at “View from the Bridge,” where all I want to do is slobber over the ticks and twitches of Liev Schreiber. “I teach literature.” “Modern? American?” “Yes.” “Like Philip Roth?” “Yes.” “He ruined an entire family with that Goodbye Columbus of his.” At last she gets my attention. I was so focused on the idea of community in Arthur Miller’s work, the sense of responsibility in society, and she reminded me of how Philip Roth first ‘betrayed’ the Jewish community when he wrote disparagingly of Jewish life in the U.S. The question that had kept coming up in my day about Israel and all the dirty laundry in its politics was invading my entertainment as well. Where is my responsibility – to the truth or to the protection of my community? And if to the truth, then whose truth?