Israeli war opponent's son killed in Lebanon fighting
By Noga Tarnopolsky
The New York Times
August 13, 2006
JERUSALEM In a deeply Israeli tragedy, Uri Grossman, 21, the son of one of the nation's most prominent writers and peace activists, has been killed in fighting in Lebanon.
Throughout Israel's first war in Lebanon, from 1982 until 2000, and during the first intifada in the late 1980s, his parents, David and Michal Grossman, were ubiquitous protesters at antiwar rallies and demonstrations. Most often they came accompanied by their two young sons, Yonatan and Uri.
Occasionally, said Galia Golan, a founder of Peace Now, David Grossman would declare a "writing strike" and disappear to work on one of his growing list of novels and books of essays. "But even then, if something important came up, if olive trees being uprooted or if anything happened in Hebron, he was always, always there," she said.
Last Thursday, David Grossman, the author of such international bestsellers as "The Smile of the Lamb" and "See Under: Love," and a book-length political treatise, "The Yellow Wind," about Israel's occupation of the West Bank, joined the other two titans of Israeli letters, Amos Oz and A.B. Yehoshua, to publicly proclaim their opposition to the continuation of the current war in Lebanon.
On Aug. 6, the three wrote a public letter calling for Israel to accept a mutual cease-fire with the Lebanese.
"We supported Israel's right, when faced with ongoing missile attacks upon its civilian population, to embark upon this war," said Nissim Kalderon, a university professor, who signed the appeal. "But once Lebanon announced its seven-point plan, including the deployment of Lebanese soldiers in the south, we saw no point in continuing a military campaign, and no point in endangering more soldiers' lives."
Then, Kalderon said, "the very thing we most feared came to be."
On Saturday, Uri Grossman, a soldier serving in a tank unit, was one of 24 Israeli casualties in fierce clashes with Hezbollah. News services identified him as a 20-year-old sergeant. His brother, Yonatan, himself recently released from an armored tank unit and currently traveling in Colombia, could not be found immediately, so following Israeli custom, the announcement of his death was held back all day Sunday.
Beneath the formal silence, however, Jerusalem buzzed as the unmentionable piece of news floated among the friends of one of Israel's most reserved celebrities.
Speaking as he left the Grossman home, Yehoshua said, "David is like my younger brother. For some days now I've been worried about Uri and calling daily, and this morning, when I called to ask how he is, Michal simply said, 'He was killed.'"
Yehoshua stopped and could not continue speaking.
Reached at his home, Oz requested to be allowed "to mourn in silence."
On Sunday night, Channel 10 in Israel broke the news of Uri Grossman's death.
David Grossman, 52, slight and soft-spoken, is often described as the anguished conscience of Israel.
Menachem Brinker, a literary philosopher, described him as "the consummate public intellectual." Grossman, he said, was "the first who brought the figure of an Arab into Israeli letters, in 'The Smile of the Lamb,' and he brought much needed artistry into our new traditions."
Brinker described "The Yellow Wind," an uncompromising examination into Israel's policies in the occupied West Bank, as "the worst indictment produced by an Israeli Zionist writer against the occupation, commensurate with Norman Mailer's 'Armies of the Night' in terms of its importance."
Meir Shalev, another renowned Israeli novelist, is a good friend of the family. "It is awfully sad that a man has striven for peace his entire life, publicly and as a writer, should have to live through such a tragedy," Shalev said.
He described a tour the two men undertook 10 days ago, reading in Hebrew and Arabic from their children's books to Galilee youngsters living in shelters because of this current war.
"We chatted like two parents," said Shalev, whose son, Michael, was recently released from military service. "David expressed deep anxiety about Uri. He was their second son serving in tank units, and he mentioned that Uri was headed into Lebanon."
When something like this happens, Shalev said, "you lose the garments you normally wear as a writer or as a political activist, and you are left standing exposed, as another parent whose son has fallen."
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