Helen Katz Kaye Eleasari (1934-2020)

 

[On the night of Saturday, 16 April 2022, I discovered some very sad and upsetting news.  My Tel Avivian friend, Helen Eleasari, who wrote for the Jerusalem Post as Helen Kaye—I’ve posted many of her pieces, including theater reviews as “Dispatches from Israel”—died nearly two years ago and I never knew.  Apparently, no one in her family had me on a list of people to notify. 

[I had written or e-mailed her a few times over the pandemic period and just afterwards, but the messages weren’t answered, even though they didn’t come back.  I knew she’d been unwell; she wrote me that on 22 September 2016, she “fell over a bollard on the sidewalk (don’t ask how—I don’t know) and broke my hip.”  

[She had a partial hip replacement and had been in the hospital for 24 days.  She was doing rehab and physical therapy, she told me, and after six weeks as of 4 November, when she wrote me about all this, she was looking at six more before she expected to be “completely healed.”  Meanwhile, her mobility—she had just graduated from a walker to a cane—was severely curtailed.

[On 23 May 2020, Helen e-mailed me from the hospital again.  She’d gone to the ER at 4 in the morning of the 22nd because she woke up an hour earlier with intense pressure on her chest and was afraid she’d thrown another pulmonary embolism.  (She’d thrown one in September 2018, but had recovered completely, she reported.)  “But no,” she wrote at almost noon on the 23rd. “Thank heaven.”

[She’d been given a CT scan and was taken to the chest surgery ward at 5 that evening “because [the] docs did not like what they saw on [the] CT.”  She explained in a later message that evening that she was now awaiting a bronchoscopy, but she hadn’t said what diagnosis was anticipated.

[Indeed, Helen had signed off in the first e-mail with the line: “As Lady Bracknell says ‘a life crowded with incident’!”  (It’s a line from Act 3 of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest.)  The word ‘cancer’ was never used in any of the messages Helen sent me, so I just assumed the best.

[As it turned out, that was the last message thread I got from Helen—though I didn’t actually realize it.  I knew she was fighting some illness she didn’t specify, but she appeared to be healing, however slowly, from the busted hip.  She’d seemed otherwise fine—Helen was a little over 10 years older than I—from her attitude in the last e-mails.

[When I continued not to hear from her, I started to get worried, but I was actually afraid to look into the situation.  I wrote to her about posting my 1982 Israel/Egypt travel journal on Rick On Theater, which I was sure would interest her, but I got no response.  (I turns out, she’d died a year earlier!)

[Late yesterday, while I was doing some research on a Habima stage production for an upcoming post, I hit on a review of Helen’s (it was a passing mention; one of the actors in whatever show she was reviewing had been in the earlier Habima production), so I was finally prompted to look online for news.

[The first hit on the Google list was Helen’s JP obituary (posted below).  What a shock!

[Well, I guess not really.  I was already convinced that something dire had happened.  I just hadn’t wanted to confirm it.  Now I had.

[As ROTters will remember, I’d known Helen since I directed her in a showcase of Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan back in 1978.  Helen played the Duchess of Berwick and she did the costumes for our no-budget, non-union showcase production.  After rehearsals at the theater’s West 20th Street storefront, members of the cast often gathered in my living room at 15th Street and 5th Avenue, just five blocks south of the theater, and worked on Helen’s costumes. 

[For practical reasons, I’d reset the 1892 play in the 1920s.  Helen designed a gorgeous kimono dressing gown (worn by Mrs. Erlynne) from an embroidered tablecloth.  After the production ended, one of the actresses kept the robe—I don’t remember now if it was Helen or our Mrs. Erlynne. 

[Though she was born in the U.K, (Walton-on-Thames, Surrey), Helen lived in the States for years and became a dual citizen before making her aliyah to Israel in 1983 (a year after I visited the country; see “Travel Journal: Israel & Egypt, 1982,” 11-23 July 2022).  We kept in touch regularly and she visited New York several times after she made her aliyah.

[(Aliyah is the Hebrew word meaning ‘ascent’ or ‘the act of going up.’ It’s the word Zionists use for immigration to the Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael, which today means the State of Israel); ‘making aliyah’ is the term for immigrating from the Jewish diaspora to Israel and is one of the most basic tenets of Zionism.)

[The articles Helen’s sent me for ROT included “Berlin” (posted on ROT on 22 July 2013), her account of a trip she made with her daughter Rava, and coverage of the 2012 Acre (Acco) Festival (9 November 2012), summer theater for children (“Help! It’s August: Kid-Friendly Summer Festivals in Israel,” 12 September 2010), and “A Trip to Poland” (7 August 2015).

[The 20 installments of “Dispatches” ran randomly from 23 January 2013 to 25 February 2020, five months before her death.  Her reviews, for which she was allowed a very small amount of space, were always concise yet complete.  I always admired how well she conveyed her estimation of the shows in such few words.  (I’m terrible at concision, but Helen did it excellently and I was very jealous!)  Over the years, Helen also covered the cultural beat for JP.

[Aside from her writing, Helen directed local productions in English, both musicals and straight plays, classics, standards, and originals.  She spent two years teaching English at a provincial university in China in 2003 and ’04.] 

“VETERAN CULTURE WRITER HELEN KAYE DIES 2 WEEKS SHORT OF HER 86TH BIRTHDAY”
by Greer Fay Cashman

[Cashman’s obituary for her colleague, Hellen Kaye, the pen name of my friend Helen Eleasari, ran in the Jerusalem Post on Sunday, 26 July 2020.]

Critic and journalist began working for the ‘Post’ in 1987

                               photo credit: Courtesy

 

If there was a single phrase to sum up Helen Kaye, the veteran arts and culture reporter whose byline in The Jerusalem Post publications first appeared in July 1987, it would be mistress of the metaphor.

Kaye had a unique gift for allegory. She also wrote succinctly, and invariably succeeded in packing a lot of information and drama into a small amount of text.

For instance, a theater review would include not only her impressions of the performance, but also the reactions of the audience, a brief history of the play, and the future plans of the theater group, the director, or the main actors.

Kaye, who died on Sunday [26 July 2020], after a short-lived battle with an aggressive form of lung cancer, would have turned 86 in early August [3 August].

She did not originally set out to be a theater critic when at age 18 she first made aliyah from her native London. All in all, she made aliyah three times: the first time from England, the second time from the United States and the third time from China.

When she first came in the early 1950s, her ambition was to be a nurse, and she trained under the late Dr. Chaim Sheba, the founder of the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv.

She worked for several years in her profession until 1963 when her husband, Jacob Eleasari, decided to go to America to study filmmaking at UCLA, because at that time there was no film school in Israel.

There’s an old Hebrew saying that a change of location means a change of luck, but for Kaye, it meant a change in calling.

She enrolled at a theater course at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in theater arts.

When she returned to Israel in 1983, she opted for yet another career – journalism, working initially as a freelancer.

When she began writing for The Jerusalem Post in July 1987, it was for the now-defunct Metro weekend supplement that was distributed throughout the Coastal Plain.

It did not take long for her to begin writing for the Arts and Entertainment section of the daily paper and to eventually become the editor of that section.

When Barry Davis, who is today the key writer for the Arts and Entertainment section, first encountered Kaye some 20 years ago, their work relationship did not exactly get off to a flying start.

Perhaps, because of her nursing background, she was a stickler for detail and accuracy.

“On more than one occasion I was subjected to a bit of a ticking off over some professional matter or other which, Helen felt, dipped below her requisite high standards of editorial and literary excellence,” recalls Davis. “Once – feeling miffed one time too many – I fired back that she was being dogmatic. She suggested that, in fact, I meant didactic and I replied that I meant what I said. She went very quiet for a while and I became aware that, behind the stern, professional and, seemingly, unforgiving exterior lay a sensitive and warm soul.

“Once Helen recovered her poise, our relationship changed – for the better. I learned to appreciate her attention to detail and, after reading some of her reviews of theatrical and dance performances, I realized she had earned the right to be critical of anything she considered not quite up to scratch.

“I also learned to appreciate her warmth and generosity, and it became clear to me, over the years, that she had taken her fair share of knocks in life and managed to stay true to her principles and to veer to the sunny side of the street. She will be missed, professionally and personally.”

Following her retirement, Kaye was far from ready to just sit and ruminate. Instead, with boldness and courage which were typical of her, she shot off to China to teach English, and stayed there for several years.

She thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and long before cars gave way to bicycles in the West, Kaye was traveling by bike wherever she had to go in China.

On her return to Israel, she once again began writing critiques of theater, ballet and opera performances, and of various special events connected with the performing arts. One of her last news items, written as recently as late April of this year, was about the Israel Festival, which she had long written about annually.

This time, her opening paragraphs were completely different to anything she had written in the past.

“No other event – not the 1967 Six Day War or the 1973 Yom Kippur War or the 1991 Gulf War – has in 59 years done what COVID-19 did this year: scupper the Israel Festival.

“Festival general manager Eyal Sher announced Sunday that due to the coronavirus pandemic, the 59th Israel Festival in Jerusalem, slated to take place from June 4-20, would be indefinitely postponed.”

Given the rapid deterioration of her health, it is doubtful that Kaye would have been able to attend the festival even if it had taken place as originally scheduled.

She is survived by her two daughters: Rava who lives in Israel and Eylat who lives in Los Angeles.

Despite travel restrictions, Eylat was miraculously able to catch a flight to Israel, undergo isolation, and still spend a few days with her mother during Kaye’s final days.

The family will hold a private funeral on Monday [27 July 2020].

[Helen was survived not only by her daughters, but also three grandchildren; Rava gave her two, a boy and a girl, and Eylat another granddaughter.  I only met Helen’s daughters once, when she was still living here in New York.  I did a small Thanksgiving dinner in my apartment one year and invited Helen; she brought her daughters, then both still little girls. 

[I said above that Helen came to New York City several times after she moved back to Israel.  One evening during one of those visits, I was home, but Helen was out seeing other friends when a phone call came.  Eylat, who was pregnant with her daughter—the reason for Helen’s visit to the States that time—and a complication had occurred. 

[This was years before cell phones were available, and I had no way to reach Helen.  I had to wait until she came back and after Helen called L.A. to find out what had happened, we spent the rest of the night getting her on a flight west, repacked, and to the airport. 

[Helen got to L.A. in time to see the crisis resolved and Eylat delivered the baby, not without difficulty and, I daresay, a lot of anxious prayer, and all ended well.]

*  *  *  *
MANIFESTO
by Helen Eleasari 

[Helen sent this to me on 17 March 2019.  She had submitted the manifesto—the word she used to characterize the piece, to Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper published in both Hebrew and English and known for its left-wing and liberal stances.  The paper, considered Israel’s newspaper of record, didn’t publish the manifesto, which didn’t surprise Helen.  She also posted it on her Facebook page (no longer on line). 

[I didn’t know what to do with Helen’s manifesto, with respect to Rick On Theater.  It seemed too tied to Israeli politics to be of general interest, and too personal to Helen to fit on a blog belonging to someone else (that is, me).  I never did figure it out, so it never appeared on the blog.  I felt now would be a good time to unveil it

[According to Wikipedia:

Early legislative elections were held in Israel on 9 April 2019 to elect the 120 members of the 21st Knesset. Elections had been due in November 2019, but were brought forward following a dispute between members of the current government over a bill on national service for the ultra-Orthodox population, as well as impending corruption charges against incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu's Likud [Israel’s principal rightist political party] tied with Blue and White alliance of Benny Gantz [a centrist and liberal political alliance], both winning 35 seats.  The balance of power was held by smaller parties, with a majority being right-wing and religious parties that had previously sat in coalition with Likud, which would have allowed Netanyahu to form the next government.

Due to continuation of the disagreements over the national service of the ultra-Orthodox, a snap election was called, and was held on 17 September 2019.  (April 2019 Israeli legislative election - Wikipedia)

[Then:

Snap legislative elections were held in Israel on 17 September 2019 to elect the 120 members of the 22nd Knesset.  Following the previous elections in April, incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to form a governing coalition for a second consecutive time.  On 30 May, the Knesset voted to dissolve itself and trigger new elections, in order to prevent Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz from being appointed Prime Minister-designate.  This election marked the first time the Knesset voted to dissolve itself before a government had been formed.  (September 2019 Israeli legislative election - Wikipedia)

[And:

Legislative elections were held in Israel on 2 March 2020 to elect members of the twenty-third Knesset.

The election result showed a political stalemate, which was resolved when Likud and Blue & White reached a coalition agreement.  Under the terms of the agreement, the premiership would rotate between Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz, with Gantz given the new position of Alternate Prime Minister until November 2021.  These elections followed continued political deadlock after the April and September 2019 Knesset elections.  (2020 Israeli legislative election - Wikipedia)

[Finally:

Legislative elections were held in Israel on 23 March 2021 to elect the 120 members of the 24th Knesset.  It was the fourth election in two years.  Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett announced they formed a rotation government on 2 June 2021, which was approved on 13 June 2021.  (2021 Israeli legislative election - Wikipedia)

[Since December 2016, Netanyahu, the prime minister to whom Helen refers below, had been under investigation for corruption by Israeli police and prosecutors.  On 21 November 2019, he was indicted on charges of breach of trust, bribery, and fraud.  Due to the indictment, Netanyahu was legally required to relinquish all of his ministry posts other than the prime minister position prior to his ouster.  Helen had died before the final resolution.]

Not since November 29, 1947 has there been so critical a date for the state of Israel. On that day the United Nations passed Resolution 181 that divided Mandatory Palestine into two states, one for the Arabs, one for the Jews. On April 9, 2019 we shall vote in a general election that will either confirm us as a democracy or denigrate us to the state of a third rate banana republic mired in the sludge of corruption and toxic nationalism that have here become the norm.

Politics are frequently murky, but over the last few years our politics and politicians have attained an unparalleled level of indecency. It began with the assassination on November 4, 1995 of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, continued with the enactment of laws and statutes curtailing civil rights, such as the recently passed Nation State Law, interfering with due process, such as the law attempting to curtail the activities of the High Court of Justice, and most recently readmitting the outlawed Jewish supremacy party, hitherto Kach, now Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) to the electoral rolls.

Over the last decade our Prime Minister, in word and deed, has denigrated and insulted the Arab citizens of Israel. He and his government label as traitors any person or institution that dares to suggest that promoting discrimination, lawlessness and extremism is not the way to go. Israeli citizens have been detained at the border for presuming to question government policy, and the list goes on.

Many years ago, and however much it’s quoted, it’s still relevant, German pastor Martin Niemöller wrote his famous poem:

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Is that who we want to be?

[Kach was a radical Orthodox Jewish, ultranationalist political party in Israel, existing from 1971 to 1994.  The party was founded by Rabbi Meir Kahane (1932-90) based on his Orthodox Jewish-nationalist ideology (subsequently dubbed Kahanism).  

[Kach was barred, however, from participating in elections after 1988 under the revised Knesset Elections Law banning parties that incited racism, and banned outright in 1994. 

[Martin Niemöller (1892-1984) was a German theologian and Lutheran pastor.  He was a national conservative and initially a supporter of Adolf Hitler, but he became best known for his opposition to the Nazi regime during the late 1930s and for his widely quoted 1946 poem “First they came . . .,” the verse that Helen quotes above.

[Many variations and adaptations in the spirit of the original have been published in English.  The best-known versions of the poem in English are the edited versions in poetic form that began circulating by the 1950s.  The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., quotes a version of the poem.]