A Bottle in the Gaza Sea

“But I don’t have superpowers or a time machine, and that’s what’s so heartbreaking when you think about it.”

Tal says this when describing her wish that she could have told Anne Frank that Bergen-Belsen would soon be free. It demonstrates Tal’s deep sense of empathy and her belief in the power of hope and conveys the pain of feeling powerless to change the past and the things that almost went right. The allusion also conveys the power of history and storytelling to influence people’s perspectives.

“He believed in it, my father. And, as I believe everything he tells me, that at least made two of us who saw white doves flying through the skies above Jerusalem that day.”

Tal concludes her description of her parents’ hopes for peace in September 1993. The doves, a universal symbol of peace, show their faith that peace would soon come to Jerusalem. Moreover, Tal’s assertion that she saw the doves with her father affirms that she sees the world through his hopeful perspective.

“‘Hey, you two gossips, this isn’t the market, is it? You can sharpen your forked tongues after my lesson, please.’

I hate teachers who think that chatty girls are gossips and chatty boys just need to let off a bit of steam. […] But it just shows that female solidarity doesn’t stand up to a misogynist teacher’s bad jokes.”

Caught talking to Efrat in class, Tal is resentful of her teacher’s admonition. This characterizes her as someone willing to question authority and unwilling to be hemmed in by gender stereotypes or unfair perceptions. Ironically, the idiom of the “forked tongue” is used in many cultures to describe a person who says one thing and does another, which is what Tal is doing as she lies to Efrat about the contents of her letter.