Books
“Mingled delight and dread/ tint my childhood garden/ and colour my life.” Those are the poet’s first words about her childhood.
With this poetry collection, ‘In the Midst of Eden,’ the poet takes a spiritual journey to reveal and confront her extended childhood trauma, which took place in the vicinity of an enchanted garden on our beautiful planet, defiled by bloodshed, violence, perversion and greed.
The poet envisages a return to the original, unsullied Garden of Eden and to an Era of Universal Peace and Love.
Her vision of a bright future creates a sense of immediacy to the coming of the Messiah.
The joyful life of London born Kaila is transformed into a nightmare when she is stricken with a mood disorder after her wedding to David, whom she met when working on an Israeli kibbutz after the Six-Days War. She awakens on her bridal bed proclaiming she has conceived the Child of Peace that she is a prophet and privy to the reality of Universal Peace.
After months in a psychiatric hospital suffering from extreme mood swings, David takes his bride home to Israel, a broken vessel on mind-numbing medication to treat manic-depression. Attempted suicides, physical symptoms of depression and delusions of grandeur plague her early years as a new immigrant. She fantasizes that she is destined to become a world-famous writer and usher in the New Era.
She begins to write a detailed journal which soon becomes a means of self analysis, uncovering the horrors of her early years and provides the material for her memoir, ‘I Missed the Spring.’
Back from Beyond is a collection of one hundred verses inspired by Rubin's (Kaila Shabat) experiences of bipolar disorder, and the places and people that have influenced her life. Within its various sections , it addresses the illness in all its frightening yet also deeply spiritual aspects; focuses on the 'reawakening' from the abyss and explores human relationships and social issues, many relating to Israel and Jewishness.
Throughout this challenging mental and emotional condition, Rubin has kept her sense of humanity and coped courageously with life's usual passions and struggles, using her creative drive as both tool and balm.
NEW BY
Kaila Shabat
Vagaries
Mali, a writer, who has suffered from bipolar disorder (manic depression) for most of her life, welcomes New Year 2007 with a ‘high.’ After swimming at dawn, she spends the day writing with frenzied inspiration or making long bus journeys to visit friends. During the night, she compulsively cleans her house and transmits endless e-mails to her psychiatrist.
Her manic episode is accompanied by familiar delusions of grandeur. She imagines, not only that she is in a league with Leo Tolstoy, Beethoven and Leonardo da Vinci but that she is a prophet, herald of world peace, and will be rewarded with eternal life.
Mali manages to hide the extent of her aberration from her loving husband Shimon but in the sanctuary of her psychiatrist, Dr. Laurie Rosen, orthodox mother of six, she reveals her illusory inner world, her sense of destiny and overwhelming ambition to become a serious writer, which permeates not only her every waking moment but also her dreams.
Through glimpses of her everyday life with Shimon and sessions with Dr. Rosen, Mali is seen, gradually, ‘to return to planet earth,’ in time for the spring festival.
I penned 'Child of Peace' in 1977, one month before
President Anwar Sadat of Egypt announced his Peace
Mission to Jerusalem.
When so much of the world is suffering from the
blights of conflict, civil war, dictatorship, economic
straits and shaky leadership, it is surely timely to
initiate an International ‘Child of Peace.’ With the help
of friends, versions have been created in: Hebrew,
Arabic, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch,
Danish, Russian and Chinese.
Language is one of the most important components of
peace. It is my fervent wish that everyone who reads
this poem and longs for a better world will pass it on
to their friends and that translations will flow from all
over the globe. The same Word is on the tongue of
every human being, it just sounds different. If we
listen to the Word in the mouth of the other, former
enemies may become friends.
PORTRAIT OF A SURVIVOR
I ask myself why I survived
when all those dear to me perished in the flames.
I know only that I wanted so to live
and in my heart sensed Divine Guidance:
He opened the ghetto gates and sent me forth,
nestled me unseen in leafy forests,
and surrounded me with fearless fighters.
Roots from the frozen ground nourished me,
even my thirst He quenched with rainwater
in the ruts left by passing trucks.
He set my feet on the path to freedom.
‘Venus Empowered’ is just one voice among those
of the feminine multitudes who are aspiring to
ascendency in today’s world, to create a future of
peace and prosperity for their children and the
generations yet to be born. For it is women who
give birth, who carry precious life within them. We
cherish and hold it dear as many men do not. Yet
throughout time, we have left the matter of war and
peace to men. My mother-in-law, Yiddish poet, Sara
Shabat (of blessed memory) expressed this powerfully
in ‘Mener Zogn’ (Men Say,) her moving call
for women to shout out against war, translated into
English by Hinde Burstin.
…Men preach and call,
Send the younger ones to war.
Women stand by the wayside
Full of sorrow, eyes welling…
To create a better world, we have to learn to love and
respect ourselves, our neighbours and our Land, and come
to the realization of the existence of a living accessible God
who is in every one of us.
TO MY TRAVELLING COMPANION
My brief glimpse of you on the Golan Heights after the
Six-Day War has almost become a legend. In a letter to
my parents, I depicted the warrior, who drove past in a
jeep, as a modern King David. My first thought was: ‘This
man will be my husband and will always be good to me.’
Definitely pure prophecy! We have been together for
forty-five years and every single day has affirmed my
initial intuition.