Writer Jonathan Ames, creator of the defunct HBO television series “Bored to Death,” is known for his fearless and exhibitionistic persona. He’s on YouTube, eating herring and boxing, having knives thrown at him by a person called “Throwdini” and ranting drunkenly at an awards ceremony. And when it comes to writing, Ames’ essays tend toward racy topics.
So, it’s a bit surprising to learn that Ames’ recent trip to Israel made his Jewish mother happy.
“My mom, for the entire length of my writing career, which began in 1989, was saying, ‘I wish your book would come out in Israel,’ ” Ames said. He never was able to fulfill that wish, he said. Then finally, when his longtime agent Rosalie Siegel was retiring, the last thing she did for Ames was sell his 2005 novel “Wake Up, Sir!” to an Israeli publisher, Tel Aviv-based Penn Publishing. Siegel’s gesture, Ames said, was “like a great last gift from a fantastic relationship.”
As happy as this made his mother, Ames confessed that “I was just as nuts there as I would be in New York. Any neuroses or emotional issues I may have were not arrested by being in the Jewish homeland.”
Neuroses and all, Ames did enjoy being in Israel, for both the place and its people. He found Israel to be a “fascinating, dusty, exuberant place.” He enjoyed the Dead Sea more than any other location, saying it was “beyond beautiful, the closest I will ever come to experiencing a gravity-free moment.”
This was Ames’ first trip to Israel as an adult; he visited with his family when he was 7. He said visiting Israel now was “one of the best trips of my life, my recent life.” There was “something beautiful and mythical” in Israel, even though it is “also a place fraught with trouble,” he said. “Being there, I had a great wish that a peaceful and just solution could be found [to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict].”
Ames said he wants to go back to Israel and stay longer next time, because of his desire to “understand better the troubles and as a journalist [to] go into [the Palestinian] territories,” to learn about all the perspectives in the conflict. He said he was touched by the ways the situation in Israel affects its civilians.
“Almost every conversation inevitably led to the perplexing and devastating situation with the Palestinians,” he said. “All those I met are desperate for a solution and fairness, and everyone is deeply troubled by it and still trying to go about their lives.”
And it touched him as a Jew. “I think any American Jew is struck by the surreal sense of how every person, the grocery clerk, the taxi driver, old man shuffling down the street, everyone you see is Jewish,” he said.
Since his reputation as “The Herring Wonder” in the boxing ring preceded him to the Holy Land, Ames’ trip included a sparring match organized via Twitter. Amit Kling, who writes for a Tel Aviv entertainment newspaper, challenged Ames to a bout. Despite Ames’ demurrals due to injuries, and his six years off from boxing, the match took place in the alley behind Rothschild 12, a Tel Aviv bar where Ames held a book reading.
Ames was glad that he could inspire Kling, a young Israeli writer, to “get in the ring and be tougher.” As an American Jew, Ames said he had a “sense of Israeli Jews as strong from their army service,” so it felt good for him to turn the tables and be the one to inspire Kling to throw some punches, rather than vice versa.