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A Crack in the Earth

Name: A Crack in the Earth
Author: Haim Watzman
ISBN: 9780786753536

by Haim Watzman

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Overview

The Jordan Rift Valley, stretching from the Red Sea to Lebanon, was ripped open millions of years ago by vast forces within the earth. This geological object has also been a part of human history ever since early humans used it as a path in their journey out of Africa. And for a quarter of a century it has been part of the biography of Israeli writer Haim Watzman.

In the autumn of 2004, as his country was riven by a fierce debate over its borders, Watzman took a two-week journey up the valley. Along the way he met scientists who try to understand the rift through the evidence lying on its surface—an archaeologist who reconstructs the fallen altars of a long-forgotten people, a zoologist whose study of bird societies has produced a theory of why organisms cooperate, and a geologist who thinks that the valley will some day be an ocean. He encountered people whose life and work on the shores of the Dead Sea and Jordan River have led them to dream of paradise and to seem to build Gardens of Eden on earth—a booster for a chemical factory, the director of a tourist site, and an aging socialist farmer who curates a museum of idols. And he discovered that the geography’s instability is mirrored in the volatility of the tales that people tell about the Sea of Galilee.

As an observant Jew who has written extensively about science and scholarship, Watzman tries to understand the valley in all its complexity—its physical facts, its role in human history and his own life, and the myths it has engendered. He realizes that human beings can never see the rift in isolation. “It is the stories that men and women have told to explain what they see and what they do as a result that create the rift as we see it,” he writes. “As hard as we try to comprehend the landscape itself, it is humanity that we find.

Watzman’s poetic evocation of the scientific and the human is a unique chronicle of a quest for knowledge.

Finalist, Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, 2008.

Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature 2008 Finalist!

About the Author, Haim Watzman

Haim Watzman is a translator and journalist who lives in Jerusalem with his wife and four children. He is the author of Company C: An American’s Life as a Citizen-Soldier in Israel (FSG, 2005).

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly

Israeli author Watzman (Company C) ambitiously takes on the whole of geological and human history as they developed in the Rift Valley, the defining geographical feature between Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian West Bank. Though he occasionally drops too much information too quickly, Watzman is a talented storyteller, deftly engaging readers interested in the Earth's constant evolution, along with those more likely to be interested in the humanity affected by it. With a nice sense of irony and the absurd, the American-born Watzman makes a lively tale out of his travels in the valley, lending a practiced ear to experts and plain folks alike. Yet there are important gaps. Though he clearly wants to do justice to all the rift's stories, frequently referring to his belief that "people see the same landscape differently depending on who they are," Watzman fails almost utterly to bring in non-Jewish voices; the one Arab we meet is an Israeli Bedouin. He is also inconsistent in his references to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, mentioning Palestinian violence frequently, but largely ignoring Israeli military operations and the ongoing occupation of Palestinian lands. Though this is a thoroughly enjoyable read, readers won't get a fully rounded version of the tale Watzman attempts to tell. (June 3)

Kirkus Reviews

Watzman (Company C, 2005), an Israeli journalist and Orthodox Jew, ruminates on his 2004 travels by car, bicycle and foot along the great geological rift that both geographically and metaphorically splits the Holy Land. The author does not consider the sacred texts of his people to be accurate history. Throughout, he displays a healthy skepticism-even cynicism at times-routinely challenging the assumptions of the archaeologists, ornithologists, farmers, security guards, Christian pilgrims and others he interviews. After introducing us to the geology of the rift and explaining the debate about its genesis, he begins his journey, conducted over a period of months in a variety of weather conditions. He visits scholars, some old friends and numerous significant historical sites-often of Biblical importance-and notes that, in some cases, locations (e.g., the pit into which Joseph's jealous brothers tossed him) are highly debatable. He encounters some Christians being baptized where the Jordan leaves the Sea of Galilee; they tell him they are there because it was the site of Jesus' baptism. Watzman does not contradict them but notes for readers that the Gospels place the event elsewhere. Some may be surprised to learn that Israel contains the world's highest density of bird species; the author teaches us about bird behavior, always with a sharp eye on the relevance to human behavior. He is frustrated that international borders prevent his visits to some places. He ends with a stunning encounter with a Palestinian at a remote gas station. A graceful, erudite guide leads us across a fractured land.

Publishers Weekly

“Watzman is a talented storyteller, deftly engaging readers interested in the Earth’s constant evolution, along with those more likely to be interested in the humanity affected by it. With a nice sense of irony and the absurd, American-born Watzman makes a lively tale out of his travels in the valley, lending a practiced ear to experts and to plain folks alike…a thoroughly enjoyable read.”