Hanan Ben Ari's ex-wife: "Something unimaginable happened to me, I am heartbroken"
Writer Hadasa Ben Ari shared the dramatic step she was forced to take in the English version of her successful book, and the unimaginable gap she encountered regarding American culture: "I made difficult and painful decisions."
Writer Hadasa Ben Ari published a revealing post last Saturday evening, in which she shared the complex decision to delete passages from her book "What Do You Know About Longing" in its English version, alongside reflections on childhood and the difficulty of letting go of pain in adulthood.
"When I was little I had asthma attacks; I have an inhaler in my memory, a blue-and-white bicycle that my big brother bought me, and wet stairs that I crashed on," wrote Ben Ari. "Everyone wants to remember those moments in an old memory. In two months I will be thirty-eight, and unfortunately, I have not yet let go of the dream of being Peter Pan, to reach the land where one never grows up."
The ex-wife of singer Hanan Ben Ari added:
"Every pain and every fall peeled me in childhood, but I let them go quickly, in the way of children. Why am I writing this to you? Because it is the summer vacation, and we all want to hear people who are over the age of ten. And secondly — because I made difficult and painful decisions this week."
Further on, Ben Ari told of the situation that broke her heart regarding the translation of the book and the gap she discovered between the cultures: "The book 'What Do You Know About Longing' in English translation is going to print. When we went over the notes of the professional translators, something unimaginable happened to me. 'Very hard to understand, I would delete,' they wrote to me about paragraphs that touched tens of thousands of Israeli readers. I wrote in response: 'But this is the heart of the book!' One story did not even make it into the English version."
"I am heartbroken by this," admitted Hadasa. "I had endless discussions through which I saw the gap between the rough Israeli reality that sees life and hope through pains, falls, and survival, and the American culture that has not met our abysses. And although it is not really built to meet the burning sensation of life in Israel, it yearns to hear something that will restore its soul in the face of the antisemitism that they did not believe would haunt them in 2026 as well. Certainly not in New York and its peers."
Ben Ari concluded her appeal with a message to the readers: "When we grow up we ask our wounds for the peeling in order to find beneath it our identity, and the deep meaning we are looking for in life. In my journey to Neverland, this is what I am asking to find. If someone can pack this in a gift wrap — send it to me."
