Winner of the Sapir Prize, Israel
Translated by Hillel Halkin
"Anyone I ran into on the bus would want to know where I had been, and where I was going, and what I had been doing, and what did I think. What would I say? That I had been in the war? That I had met my own self there?"
When war breaks out in 1973, childhood friends Haim and Dov are calles up together to serve in their tank battalion, but in the chaos of battle the friends are separated. A month later, Haim returns alone, on his first leave home. As he struggles to come to terms with his experiences, weary and saddened but sustained by his religious faith, there is one question that remains uppermost in Haim's mind: What happened to Dov during those fateful days after the outbreak of war?
Reminiscent of SY Agnon, Sabato's compelling, poignant account tells the story of a young man who has to adjust not only the sights of his tank, but his understanding of the world he lives in.
Hardcover, 154 pages
Haim Sabato descends from a long line of rabbis from Aleppo, Syria. His family had lived in Egypt for two generations, before moving to Israel when he was six. He served in the tank corps in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and is today the head of a Yeshiva near Jerusalem.