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who drag him into acts of vandalism on the verge of a crime, and
through the attempts he and his father make in order to enter him into
an educational system that will be able to cope with him. Alongside
failure and breaking points the writer describes sources of power and
strength – his father’s great support of him, his faith in God and the
therapists and educators who identified the strengths within him. All
these are woven by the writer into his life story like buds of the great
change he underwent. The turning point occurred when the writer
was drafted into the army under the “Eitan” program designed to
promote special populations, through his battle to survive and excel
in the army until he became an officer and a commander. Similar to
the story of Liron Breier-Danziger’s journey, Barak Biton’s life story
is more than a personal life story; it teaches us the importance of the
support system of family members, educators and military personnel
in identifying the sources of strength of a child, a teenager and a male
or female soldier and their capability to grow from a place of risk and
crisis.
The issue closes with a poetry section called
“Et Le’ehov”
(Pen/Time
for love). This time the section hosts the poet Nahir Libi. In his poems
the poet describes long years of battling with schizophrenia. His poems
move along a continuum between exclusion, pain and brokenness on
the one hand, and aspiration for healthy worlds, belonging and healing
on the other hand. In his writing the poet opens before us a window
into the world behind the poems, his desire to belong to society both
with his talents and with his brokenness.
***
Devorah Baron’s story “Sunbeams” (Shavririm) talks about Chaya-
Fruma, a girl who grew in a reality of disconnection, alienation and
poverty. The story brings together various crises with moral and
physical strengths. This crisscross of pain and power is incorporated
into the issue from beginning to end – bereavement and loss
alongside finding renewed meaning, brokenness and helplessness
alongside inclusion and acceptance, disintegration and division within
the community alongside the power to innovate and lead change, loss
and trauma alongside finding sources of strength, injury, exclusion
and fracture alongside development and growth.