Since the Jewish people are called the People of the Book, it is easy to get confused and think that this means that its people read a lot of books. This, of course, is not true. The book in question is the Bible. The people of Israel may write a lot of books (more than 7,000 a year in recent years) and buy a lot of books, but their reading habits span the end of the spectrum.
According to data from last year's Central Bureau of Statistics, 16% don't read at all, 33% read (or claim to read) between one and four books a year, and the rest are women, elderly, and religious, who read for all of us, and then enthusiastically recommend a book that may have been read, and most likely not.
It is commonly argued that reading books is a virtue. The person reading is walking around the world, his head raised half a meter above those who don't have time, who really meant it but didn't come out, who don't know what everyone is talking about. Although the reader has an undeclared competition, it certainly exists with classical music lovers. They, like him, compete for the prestigious title of citizen, but conventions recognize the value of the reader and celebrate him. It is possible, only possible, that he is deeper, wiser, and more just than someone who consumes information and culture from other sources. The book, somehow, is always more respectable. It has a cover! It's heavy! He counted!
Torah scrolls. Reading for the same reasons?, Photo: Liron Moldovan
The prestige of writers was justified in the days when most of the population was illiterate, so literacy placed the reader in several degrees of education above the rest. Books were handwritten and copied by hand, on calf skin. With the invention of printing, books were still printed and sold expensively, and reading them was not considered a popular occupation, but the province of those who could afford the pleasure of acquiring education and buying books.
Romantic books, which were my plankton, no longer interest me. The genre pattern has been fixed in my mind until I no longer need variants
And we, the people of the book, as usual, taught our children to read, read the Torah and wrote books of thought and halacha. Even today, more books on Jewish subjects are published in Israel than beautiful literature. According to data from the National Library, 25% of all titles published in 2021 were books of prose and poetry. 28% of all books are Jewish Studies.
Do you read Jewish books for the same reasons and purposes as reading novels? Will we attribute the same qualities to both types of readers?
Jewish books aside, is the man who reads another biography of Stalin looking for an experience similar to the one his wife is looking for when she buys a new book by Jojo Moyes, or of their son who is currently on page 800 of the third book in the "Skill of Time" series? And if we consider the necessary goodness inherent in the claim that reading books is important, culturally, intellectually - are we sure that all books are born equal and that everyone who reads them is necessarily more cultural than someone currently sitting in the cinema, for example?
When it comes to cinema, which is a much newer art form than literature, we will be able to distinguish between Lars von Trier viewers (pity them) and viewers of Guardians of the Galaxy 3 (not a movie), but literature still enjoys an aura of prestige that cinema has not yet reached. It seems that the time is not yet ripe to declare that books are also a form of entertainment with varying degrees of quality.
Frequent reader
I, for one, read a lot. How many lots? All the time. Not because I'm extraordinarily civilized, but because I'm a woman. And women read more than men. Mostly prose. I am the profile stamp of the frequent reader: a woman, not necessarily very young. The prose book market was created for me and others like me.
Book Fair. How many Israelis really read?, Photo: Yossi Zeliger
I read books like a blue whale eats plankton. And I remember most of them as the whale distinguishes between phytoplankton and zooplankton. Probably every now and then a sardine whale gets stuck between its teeth (although the blue whale has no teeth, but balees, which I read somewhere, and well done for remembering), and even rarer one of the baleen breaks due to a collision with a tuna fish. And after a while, if the whale is on the adult spectrum, it will forget the tuna as well.
Sometimes I read a book more than once. Not necessarily because it shook my world, but because I remembered that I loved it, but not what it says. Sometimes I read it a second time because I forgot I read it the first time. That's how it is when you read ten books a month, prose of all kinds and laymen's reference. If a sediment of quality remains, a large wave of new books will come along and sweep it into the depths of the ocean.
And that's nothing compared to the amount of books I read in my childhood and youth. My mother worked in two elementary schools and brought me books from the library from both. A friend of hers, who worked at another school, joined the supply line. Some of them I remember better than I remember the book I read last week. And I flatter myself, as I have no idea what book I read last week.
There are types of books I don't read anymore: romantic books, which were my plankton back then, no longer interest me. The genre pattern has become so ingrained in my mind that I no longer need variants. The thrillers are on their way to a similar fate. Even Scandinavians have succumbed to American clichés.
I don't relate to the books that are happening now: they seem too familiar, and if they touch on topics on the agenda in the news, they are likely to annoy me. After all, I can't see "based on a true story" without sitting with Wikipedia in front of the screen to check the gap between history and script. Then I get even more annoyed.
I read just for fun. Abandoning a book in the middle without hesitation. True, I also read magnificent classics and some of them I enjoyed to the roof. I didn't make it to others, and wish health and longevity to those who lasted until the end of Moby Dick.
By the way, did you know? Moby Dick is also a book about whales! But not a blue whale but their head. I read about him once, too.
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