Who Will Replace Benny Ziffer?

The Great Enemy of the Bad - Is the Worse

We've already arranged the train, come children, let's sit, the engine is already whistling  (Source)

Recently, our Benny happily celebrated his 66th birthday. With him, the entire literary community celebrated: another year - something like fifty weeks and a bit - until "Manyek" [Translator's note: slang for discharge from military service], as they say in the army when waiting for release. Not that I did military service, just national service, but like the custom of those miserable soldiers, my partner and I mark each week in the table of despair until the mythological editor reaches retirement age. Then the entire Israeli literary republic will carry him on their shoulders and bless him as one blesses a child who has reached the age of Bar Mitzvah: Blessed is He who has freed us from the punishment of this one. But there's not only despair in the table, but also concern. It could be worse - much worse. As they write in those mythological watchtowers (which my then-combat friend told me about): The light you think you see at the end of the tunnel - it's the train coming from the opposite direction.

What do you think about Lisa Peretz as the culture and literature editor? What do you think about the almost sole regular critic in the supplement - Berkowitz? In fact, what successor generation did Ziffer nurture within the newspaper, whom did our literary Bibi groom? Who is his Gideon Sa'ar? Because it's clear that under him, no one grew who could replace him, in Netanyahu's method, and anyone whose star rose or could have been nurtured for this purpose was abandoned to another party. Will there be an import from outside "Haaretz"?

The question of who will be the new editor of "Culture and Literature" in the day after Benny is a more critical question for the literary republic than the question of who will replace the other Benny [Netanyahu] for the Israeli banana republic. It has the potential for a significant cumulative impact on the character of Israeli literature in the coming decades - one more bow tie or jester's hat and we won't recognize our face in the mirror. The issue should have been a central topic of discussion in the literary discourse, for fear of a traffic-biased snatch (as is customary in "Haaretz") that will end in weeping for generations (well, let's not exaggerate. Ziffer only held his position for a generation and a half), but in practice - silence. As someone who holds Hebrew literature dear to her heart, I would expect our senior writers and poets to approach the Haaretz editor and publisher with a worthy and public list of names, and prevent in advance the disgrace that there are grounds to fear is being planned (as a mocking grand finale, in the sense of "you'll still miss me").

So, who are we betting on in the name exchange? Let's start with the Gabi Ashkenazi scenario returning from retirement to rehabilitate the system. If only Yitzhak Laor was capable of taking on the task. He has many years of experience as an editor on behalf of, and he would also receive support from Ziffer, who before his homo-erotic entanglement with Bibi was involved in an admiring relationship with Laor. Laor's literary taste is not to our liking, but there's no doubt he's a worthy choice, certainly compared to the alternatives. Laor also writes wonderful literary columns, among the best ever in "Haaretz" (in political columns he's actually not among the brightest. A seemingly strange matter only at first glance, if we think about his poetry). This is also a choice that will allow Laor to nurture a worthy heir, and he actually has quite good taste in young writers.

Two horror scenarios, one worse than the other, are Roi (Hassan, and Chiki Arad). It's chilling to imagine the supplement under their editing, so we won't imagine it. Dori Manor - a bit better. A much preferable scenario is the return of the esteemed and veteran critics - who left Ziffer with a door slam - to the editor's role: Arik Glasner has shown editorial tendencies over the years in various initiatives, and it's very intriguing how a supplement edited by Orin Morris would look. But the best scenario, to which our eyes are raised, and it's even called for (when thinking about it deeply), is to take the most diligent, knowledgeable, and refined editor in the country, who publishes the best literary journal in the country, and also writes literary reviews in Haaretz that receive a lot of traffic, and appoint him as the editor of "Culture and Literature".

The main problem with Yehuda Vizan is that he (unlike Ziffer) is too narrow in his taste, and will exclude too many voices from "Culture and Literature". But there's no perfect candidate, and over-correction is part of any process of correction and raising standards that is needed after the current prostitution. Such a move will restore the supplement to its former glory, return cultural depth and respect for its tradition to the literary system, and inject renewed self-confidence into Hebrew literature. Vizan has many enemies and he produces them wholesale, and this will lead to constant uproar that will bring endless traffic, but this time for the right reasons - a struggle over the proper version and the poetics of this place and time. We hope that Vizan's exaggerated tendency to categorically disqualify creators who are not to his taste will moderate over the years and with the maturity that the role brings, and we see signs of this already today. At the Bitches, we put "Vizan" in the ballot box.

Finally, a few words of premature eulogy on the Ziffer era. The supplement under his editing was still the best among the weekend supplements, and he kept a fairly open mind over the years and didn't become fixated (not an insignificant virtue after so many years. He was appointed before I was born!). I don't fully know to what extent the editor-in-chief - who admitted that he dreams about traffic metrics even at night - bends him under the yoke of clicks and clickbaits, so it's difficult to judge his decisions (he's not among the brave ones in front of authority figures). But the tautology stands: any tenure that's too long - is too long. My grandfather, sick with cancer, asked me to vote for Gantz because he wanted to see Bibi go before he died. I'm waiting to see Ziffer go home - and wish him long days, and hopefully he'll manage to be appointed in the twilight of the Bibi era as the head of the Israeli Institute in Cairo as he wishes, where he'll enjoy Levantinism and all the goodness of Egypt and its sons under diplomatic patronage. A strange cosmic combination might bring all this together, in less than a year. In any case, the best thing is to limit the tenure of the next editor, from now on, to four years.