"I do not define myself as a catwoman," says poet, author and editor Anat Levitt, whose new book, "What is Love," which was recently published by Locus, describes in a musical and delicate language her love of cats.

"If there is love in the world, I was privileged to know her," she writes of her love for her cats, though at times she also describes how her love of cats deprives her of human loves.

"I never planned to have cats. I did not grow up with cats. I would look at them as if they did not exist at all. Even when I had cats at home, I did not look at stray cats. Only after a stray cat named Michelle adopted me did I open up to stray cats. It's like parents. For children - do they love all the children in the neighborhood? If I am a parent, are all the children the same for me? "

So what's in cats?

"Cats gave me a rich intuitive world, a world of senses. Until the cats I was a person of emotion, not of intuition. Cats taught me that not everything has to be explained in words. Even without talking, they are very expressive - and understand a lot. People tell me, the cat rises To you upstairs because he has food with you, but it's not true, food has a lot downstairs too. They go up for other things. I learned that cats have a whole world, friends and enemies. From man. "

Levitt describes in the book the experiences of the cat family that lived in her home from the time she adopted her first cat, until she found herself, two decades and seven cats later, with the last cat left in her home.

"I was going to write the book years before I wrote the first line. I planned to start writing only after all the cats ascended to heaven. Then when I was left with Clio, the last cat, some intuition pushed me to start, and within a month and a half I finished the first version.

"One day, a little while after I finished the book, Cleo started to feel bad. Within two days I put him to sleep, and then I added the last chapter, about Cleo's death. For a long time I was tormented by it, I thought I brought his death upon him by actually writing. "Waiting with the writing of the book until after everyone was dead, the book would not have been written. The pain of losing this whole bunch of cats was so total, that I would not have been able to write without Clio next to me, to hold my pen."

High spiritual level

The cats Levitt describes are complex characters, who go through plot twists and emotional developments. "Quite a few books have been written about cats, but I deliberately did not read many of them before writing. In all the books I read, for example 'Memoirs of a Wandering Cat' (by Hiro Arikwa, Korsa Publishing), or 'Rona and Giora' by Inbar Ashkenazi (Pardes, 2016) "Humanized the cat, spoke from his throat. I did not humanize the cats."

You are destroying human beings.

"Exactly. The cats in the book are just as heroes as humans, they do not need personification. On the contrary, they are my teachers and my friends. I will give you an example: my daughters grew up in a house where mother needs order. I do not allow dirt, and even when I bought the cats, I wanted them to adjust to the living room, not to make a fuss. And they did not make a fuss. "And to apologize for making noise with the vacuum cleaner. But then I felt guilty, because with my daughters this gifted feeling did not float so easily."

So we give cats much more freedom than we give our human loved ones.

"When a partner tells me, 'We have no obligation to be together tomorrow,' it's terribly hard for me to live with it, but cats have to accept it. I'm trained to please my environment, and cats do not. "

Does that mean the cats taught you to give up humans too?

"Humans? No. Humans I still expect. Humans are not cats. If I have to look for the partner's authenticity, I prefer the cat. He is not cunning, not lying. I can live in peace with a cat knowing that tomorrow he can But I could in no way contact a person who could leave me in an instant. Humans are not cats,They should have a moral world. "

You expect a lot from people.

"If humans are like animals, I prefer the animals."

"Like a Priest in the Holy of Holies"

Levitt has been working as an editor for 43 years, since she began her career at Haaretz at the age of 20, and over the years has edited for many book publishers and privately.

"The literary written word, the musicality of language - it's an epic soul since I remember myself as a person. But not many survive this profession. It's through butts, full of frustrations and disappointments. Unfortunately, most of what I did was books I had to rewrite, in the spirit of the creator. A job that left me - divorced with two girls and minimal alimony - in a state of stress, existential and mental insecurity. "

Today she works in a limited editing position at Keter-Modan. She attributes her survival in such an unrewarding field not to her great success in the past, but to the fact that a few years ago the disability she suffered from her birth worsened, which brought with it not only financial support but also emotional relief. "The same thing I was ashamed of all my life became the greatest gift of my life. The movement difficulty became the focus and liberated the mind, which learned to fend things off like I never knew. My personality structure, which I get excited about everything, needs that difficulty. And I prefer Physical difficulty over mental difficulty. "

In retrospect, Levitt describes that squeezing period, in which she edited at a rate of three books a month and did not refuse any book, as "poison to the soul."

Although, "there were times when the salary was much higher than today - once they paid me 18,000 shekels a month and apologized for not paying more", but the editor's work deserves it: "Editing books is like a priest in a shrine. Today when there are so many unskilled writers "Who do not know exactly what literature is, what music of literature is - this priest is very vital and his role is very difficult."

So a reversal is created, precisely when the role of the editor is needed, he is rewarded very little.

"It could be because the status of literature and the value attributed to it has decreased. A lot of books are published today, but not every book is literature. The treatment of literature, especially in Israel, is disrespectful, and the price paid by the people who have to make the book, the editors."