House Arrest
By Noa Yedlin. Translated by Shira Atik and Evan Fallenberg (New Vessel Press)

The long-overdue English publication of Noa Yedlin’s novel House Arrest is a welcome event for anyone interested in the sociology and psychology of Israel’s branj’a, Hebrew slang for the inner circle of self-absorbed journalists, actors, media figures and other cultural tastemakers. They are intelligentsia who blend celebrity with a whiff of condescension. Winner of the Sapir Prize, Israel’s top literary award, the novel, first published in 2013, wittily punctures the cluelessness of Israel’s secular Ashkenazi elite. Despite the ensuing 13 years and the volcanic changes in the country, Yedlin’s pungent satire still rings true.

The Fogels, the multigenerational Israeli family at the heart of House Arrest, have connections and status.
Matriarch Elisheva Fogel—the larger-than-life, imperious heart of the book—lives with her husband, Ben-Ami, in a beautiful house in Jerusalem, a city the two love “with all their souls—as much as one can love it and still be leftist.”

Two of their three children are at the top of their fields. The novel, however, is told from the perspective of their underachieving middle child, Barak, an underemployed academic.

Elisheva is a professor of Israeli history and vice chair of a left-wing think tank that works to improve the lives of Palestinians. She also serves on the boards of Friends of Soroka Hospital, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and the executive committee of the Israel Museum; she knows all the important people in politics and culture and can make things happen with a phone call.

The family’s comfortable lives are upended when Elisheva faces possible criminal charges of embezzling 3.4 million shekels from her think tank. She is placed under house arrest and spends the book’s considerable length in meetings with her attorney. All along, she assures her children she has done nothing wrong.

Elisheva’s guilt or innocence matters less to the author than the uproar and public embarrassment her situation unleashes on her family. They alternate between rallying around her and wondering whether she actually took the money. Watching this through Barak’s eyes, we sympathize with his insecurities and jealousy of his more successful siblings, but do not necessarily trust his reading of his relatives or the crisis engulfing them. He inches toward recognizing the hypocrisy of his professional do-gooder mother, who seems more concerned with preserving her lifestyle than with the causes she champions, but ultimately stops short.

Much of the dialogue unfolds in lengthy run-on sentences without quotation marks. And the translators aptly replicate Yedlin’s widely noted use of “street” Hebrew through slang and, occasionally, grammatically incorrect English. The original resonated in Israel, as it won the country’s equivalent of a National Book Award, but the style may put off American readers unfamiliar with contemporary Israeli fiction. Stick with House Arrest and you will get caught up in the story.

It is not a spoiler to reveal that breadcrumbs Yedlin sprinkles throughout the book lead the reader to believe Elisheva made unauthorized use of the think tank’s money. Yet the question of her guilt still propelled me through the occasionally awkward passages.

Years ago, while working as a journalist, I met and wrote about people like Elisheva Fogel. I’ve also seen powerful Israelis wave away scandal without taking responsibility, so I’ll admit to wanting to see her comeuppance.

Alan D. Abbey is a research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. He is working on a novel set in first century Roman-controlled Judaea.