Apples from the Desert

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Savyon Liebrecht. Apples from the Desert

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Apples from the Desert

A Memoir of the Lower East Side

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In her first published story, “Apples from the Desert,” Savyon Liebrecht has pointed to a possible way out of the impasse that faces every woman in patriarchal society. Rivka, the young heroine of the story, recognizes the need to free herself from economic dependence on men in order to achieve equality with them. She joins a kibbutz, where she works for a living and is independent in every respect.24 Her decision to live with the man she loves without marriage is meant to ensure her absolute emotional freedom as well. For Rivka, her move is a revolutionary one, since the secular, basically Ashkenazic kibbutz is so different from the traditional, Sephardic community in which she grew up. Her decision is an expression of her rebellion against her father, who has ignored her all her life, thought she was an inferior specimen of womanhood, and tried to find a match for her without even consulting her.

In fact, Rivka’s departure from home is a concealed rebellion, since she never confronts her father. The confrontation takes place via her mother, Victoria, who comes to the kibbutz in order to bring her rebellious daughter home. But Victoria betrays the mother’s traditional role, dictated by the patriarchal system, of making daughters conform and accept male domination. Victoria not only fails to quell her daughter’s rebellion; she actually colludes with Rivka in keeping the father in the dark about what is going on. This surprising development has several causes. The first is Victoria’s rediscovery of her daughter through the eyes of the young man with whom Rivka lives. Victoria is moved by the way her daughter has blossomed and is amazed at the changes in her. Another reason is her identification with the young couple’s love, viewed against her own missed opportunity in her youth, an episode she recalls upon witnessing her daughter’s loving relationship.

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