הטעויות (The Mistakes)

The novel centres on Dafna Shamir, a veteran Hebrew-language and composition teacher in Rishon LeZion who, at around sixty-three, has reached what ought to be the triumphant culmination of her career. She is on sabbatical, recently divorced from her husband Ra’anan after decades of marriage, and has just been selected as “Israel’s Teacher,” a heavily publicised national award she had initially mocked as a commercial gimmick. Very quickly, however, Dafna embraces the recognition. She has always believed herself to be an exceptional teacher: perceptive, unconventional, emotionally intelligent and able to identify what adolescents need before they can understand themselves. Her most famous former pupil is Yakir Breinin, now known as Yakir Bar, an extraordinarily wealthy international entrepreneur and philanthropist. Dafna regards Yakir as one of the great proofs of her pedagogical gifts and privately credits herself with having changed the course of his life. For the award ceremony, the organisers decide to invite all twenty-eight pupils from the first class she ever supervised, class 12/5, which graduated in 1994.

Then an extra ceremony invitation arrives at Dafna’s school. On its reverse somebody has written: “When you stand on the stage, don’t forget also those whose lives you destroyed.” Soon there are other anonymous communications: a hostile online comment warning the prize organisers to investigate who Dafna really is; a newspaper left outside her home with “Tells only what makes you look good. I’ll remind you at the ceremony” scrawled on it; and eventually a note on her car asking whether she is stupid or merely pretending. What begins as anger becomes fear and then obsession. Dafna assumes the culprit must be one of the 1994 pupils because they are the people who received invitations. Her friend Gabi, another retired teacher, half-mockingly encourages her to treat the class list as a suspect list. Dafna does exactly that. The mystery therefore becomes an investigation not merely into who hates her but into whether the self-image on which she has built her life is true.

The first great buried incident involves Ya’ala Shifris. In 1994 an excellent anonymous short story was submitted to the school newspaper. It described what Dafna interpreted as a sexual relationship, verging on rape or exploitation, between a teenage schoolgirl and a married teacher. Dafna became convinced that the author was Ya’ala, a gifted, shy, insecure pupil whom she loved and worried about. Rather than seeing the story primarily as fiction, Dafna interpreted it as a disguised cry for help. She refused to allow the school newspaper to publish it and demanded that its student editors reveal the writer. They refused, reminding her that Dafna herself had taught them not to confuse an author with a fictional character. Dafna nevertheless confronted Ya’ala. Ya’ala denied writing it and denied having an affair. Dafna escalated the matter to the principal, counsellors and Ya’ala’s parents. Ya’ala continued denying everything, her parents eventually believed her, and Dafna’s colleagues concluded that Dafna had overreacted. Yet Dafna still refused publication. In protest, the student editors printed an empty page containing Dafna’s photograph and the word “Censored.” The dispute was leaked to a local newspaper, and Dafna was portrayed as a hypocritical, narrow-minded teacher suppressing her pupils’ creativity. Ya’ala eventually left the school.