Dearest Anne
Yehudit Katzir

I'm a little conflicted about how to review this book. On one hand, it's well-written and provocative and it does present a beautifully-observed time capsule of Israel in the late 1970s when the country's youth was freeing itself from the strictures of classic Zionism and opening itself to the world of hedonistic sexual liberation.
It's also rich in literary allusions (curiously, one scene refers to Goethe's poem, "The Erlking" which also looms large in my own book The Nazi Hunter: A Novel
On the other hand, there's something very nasty and vile at the center of the book that the author only half-acknowledges -- an affair between a 14-year-old girl and her 28-year-old English teacher.
The fact that this is a lesbian affair didn't bother me. The fact that such blatant child-abuse is presented as something beautiful and precious did.
The book is cast in the form of a diary written by 14-year-old Rivi Shenhav. Inspired by Anne Frank who wrote her diary to an imaginary friend she called "Kitty", Rivi writes her diary to Anne and signs her entries Kitty. Some suggested this device is disrespectful to the Holocaust and the memory of its victims. I don't agree. It's an effective framing device and makes the point that in many ways Rivi gets to live the life Anne was denied by the Nazis. Rivi and Anne share many characteristics, not least a literary talent and poetic sensibility. I can definitely imagine a young Israeli girl identifying with Anne. It may be that Katzir is arguing for a more nuanced way for Israelis to grapple with the Holocaust and memory. Two scenes regarding the way Holocaust Memorial Day is observed in her school in Haifa make that point in interesting ways.
Rivi is bruised by her parents' divorce and her father's inexplicable decision to shun her. Lonely, nerdy and miserable, she hero-worships her literature teacher Mihaela, a married women with flaming hair who seems like the only sympathetic adult in her life. Soon, a love affair develops between them, which persists for almost two years. Rivi presents herself as the sexual aggressor but we gradually learn that she is far from being so.
Mihaela is the pivotal character of the book. She deceives her husband to carry on with this young girl -- but we later learn she is also capable of betraying Rivi. In one revolting scene, she lures Rivi to a tryst with a 50-year-old sculptor; the two of them get the girl drunk and drugged and try to engage in a threesome aimed at relieving Rivi of her "hetrosexual virginity." Perhaps she also wants to sour the young girl from men for ever.
As an adult, Rivi confronts her former teacher and asks, "How could you have done what you did?" Mihaela responds that she did it for love. But the scene is unsatisfactory. Neither Rivi nor the author force Mihaela to give a full moral accounting of her actions.
And yet, it is Mihaela and not Rivi who seems most damaged by the affair, which seems to me another blatant evasion by the author.
The gay and lesbian community in Israel rejected this book -- and one can see why. Lesbianism is presented as a choice (the older Rivi has affairs with men, marries and has two daughters of her own) and it is also conflated with the very touchy issue of pedophilia.
I too found the many mixed messages problematic. Rivi reverts to hetrosexuality and traditional motherhood and is rewarded by "happiness" while Mihaela continues to prey on younger female student, develops cancer and dies in her fifties. What is Katzir trying to say here?
There are many complex strands here, which is what makes the book interesting and worth reading. But the message ultimately seems not just subversive but curiously perverse.