LUCY GRAUMAN
When Ayelet Tsabari lost her voice.
Ayelet Tsabari is an Israeli writer of Yemeni origin.
She lost her voice a few months ago while recording an audio version of her latest novel.
The novel is the story of a woman, who through discovering songs that her mother used to sing in the past, explores the world of Yemeni women of earlier times. A world in which women were mostly illiterate and lived very close to each other.
To be able to write this novel, Ayelet took singing lessons with a singer of Yemeni origin, like herself. She learnt that in Yemeni society, men and women sang differently. While the men sang in Hebrew for religious purposes, the women sang in Arabic, songs about love, jealousy, loss and desire.
They sang among themselves to share their joys and sorrows, in a world in which they remained otherwise mostly silent.
While writing her novel, Ayelet protested against the Netanyahu government's reforms and joined activists against the occupation.
She felt the exhilaration of being part of the singing crowd. She brought her own daughter with her so that she could raise her voice and learn not to be afraid of being heard.
She wondered whether the loss of her own voice was caused by her powerlessness in the face of public discourse. The simple act of advocating peace or expressing empathy was perceived as polemical.
She remembered the picture of a woman from Khan Younis, her mouth open and turned towards the sky in a silent cry.
Through her writing, Ayelet used her own voice as a writer to amplify the silent voices of women of Yemeni origin, tracing the injustices and prejudices they encountered in Israel.
Her book also tells a larger story, one that concerns all people living between the river and the sea. The devastating effects of the Nakba and the occupation are a thread running through the whole novel. Ayelet says: however small, however insignificant it may seem, isn't it the role of the writer to write from a place of empathy, authenticity and courage, and to offer a sliver of light on what it means to be human?
In the novel, Zohara, the female character, heals herself by singing. First on her own, then in a group.
Ayelet has found her voice again and sings in a choir in her neighborhood, an amateur choir where all women are welcome. A group of mostly like-minded women who sing and talk about what they think, what's on their minds and their fears.
In the novel, an old woman Zohara meets tells her: "We couldn't talk, so we sang."
The novel is called "Songs for the Brokenhearted" and has just been published in English.
Text based on an article published in the Globe and Mail (Canada) on 7 September 2024.
I had planned to read this text as a preamble to a concert by my choir "Voix de Voyageurs", in September 2024. Ayelet's choir reminded me of our choir, especially the human dimension.
A virus made me ill and I totally lost my voice on the day of the concert.
This text about the loss of Ayelet’s voice, about women's voices and their silence affected me in my own body, like a trick played by a teasing spirit.