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WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: Good morning with news from Minnesota Public Radio. I'm William Willcoxen.

Minnesota House Minority Leader Steve Sviggum is meeting with Governor Carlson this morning to work out a deal on education. Sviggum, a Republican from Kenyon, says he thinks a deal will be made before tonight's midnight adjournment. And a special session will therefore be unnecessary.

At issue is the $150 million in tax credits and deductions Carlson wants. The DFL-controlled legislature does not want to put public money into private schools. Carlson estimates about $18 million of his proposal would go to private school tuition for lower-income families. Swiggum says the aim is to target the credits to children who are failing.

A bill restricting youth access to tobacco products will be presented to the state Senate for a vote today. The measure, which easily passed the House last week, was said to have been three or four votes short of passage in the Senate. Chief Senate author Ember Reichgott Junge held on to the bill for a few extra days to lobby for support. And McMullen of the American Lung Association is among the anti-smoking activists lobbying the Senate today.

EMBER REICHGOTT JUNGE: I think we just want to hope that we're going to have people who voted for this bill last time, vote for it again. We don't understand why only six people voted against the entire bill last time. This is a weaker bill than what came off the Senate floor. It's a compromise between the House and Senate. We want the senators to support it today.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: But opponents of the bill say it puts undue pressure on retailers to enforce restrictions on minors. McDonald's heiress Joan Kroc is the angel of Grand Forks. The mayors of East Grand Forks and Grand Forks, North Dakota, say the woman flew into Grand Forks for a tour of the cities on Saturday night, and a check at the airport revealed her identity.

Mostly cloudy and cool across Minnesota today. A chance of rain near Lake Superior. Could be mixed with snow in the far North. Highs from the lower 40s near Canada to the upper 50s in Southern Minnesota. For the Twin cities, mostly cloudy and cool with a high in the middle 50s. And that's news from Minnesota Public Radio. I'm William Willcoxen.

PAULA SCHROEDER: It's six minutes past ten o'clock. You're listening to Midmorning on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Paula Schroeder. Today's Programming is supported by 3M, who generously matches more than 900 employee contributions to Minnesota Public Radio.

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Retiring Augsburg College President Charles Anderson has been instrumental in pulling the Minneapolis school through a money crisis and broadening enrollment to include minority students. Now he faces another big challenge, a diagnosis of cancer. Today on our Voices of Minnesota interview, Dr. Anderson talks about all those chapters in his life.

The Madison, Wisconsin, native is a Marine veteran and a Lutheran seminary graduate who studied church history. And it is church history where Dr. Anderson's conversation with Minnesota Public Radio's Todd Moe begins.

TODD MOE: Let's talk a little bit about church history for just a moment. What's the contribution of Judaism to Christianity?

CHARLES ANDERSON: Well, I think it's very significant if you want to think of a mother in that analogy. Christianity springs, from comes from the Jewish tradition. In fact, so does Islam.

Christianity gets the whole understanding of the Covenant, God's covenant with his people, A covenant of promise. It gets the law, It gets the profits, and it gets this great theme that is common in Judaism. There's a great theme of expectation.

The difference is that the Jewish tradition, those who are religious Jews, look with passion toward the Messiah who has yet to come when all things will be fulfilled and the so-called messianic age is ushered in. Christians believe that the Messiah has come in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. And so that's where the parts diverge a little bit.

But there is a surprising connection between some of these different traditions. A pious Muslim, for example, speaking of Jesus, would always say, Jesus, may his name be blessed forever. And so there is a connection and we should be building on that more rather than emphasizing differences, I think.

TODD MOE: Do you think Christians appreciate the traditions of Judaism?

CHARLES ANDERSON: I don't think they know too much about them, the specific traditions and their wealth. And that's unfortunate. We're diminished by that because their understanding of things like the day of atonement, for example, is an important one.

TODD MOE: Give us a little historical perspective. Has the conservative religious revival in the United States peaked, or is it still growing?

CHARLES ANDERSON: I think quite apart from the conservatives, I think there is a religious revival abroad in the country, at least in the sense that there's a deeper and a more widespread interest in matters spiritual. Now whether that is because we have done such a good job putting these virtues, the values of these things forward, or because people are becoming more and more disenchanted with the results of secularism in the world.

I mean, in terms of the conservative group, I think it's confused by some of the political ideology that's associated with that group, the positions that they have espoused. Some of which, in my judgment, are quite contrary to both Old and New Testament in concern, for example.

In the Old Testament, a person was known as a member of the Covenant people, not because he or she worshipped regularly, did such and such that was important, but they were judged by, among other things, they're concerned for the widow, the orphan, the outcast. And Jesus ministry was geared to that same thing. He had very little to do. I mean, he knew a few wealthy folks. Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, who had loaned him a tomb.

But he spent his time with different folks. And I think that is causing some difficulty for that particular movement, along with the fact that many others who are evangelical Christians have decided they don't want to be identified specifically with that group.

And so there is a counter group that had-- and I've forgotten the name of it. That has become quite prominent. They're just saying that we are also Christians and we don't accept that particular line. So it's quite a confusing situation.

Now it's a danger to talk that way also because some Christians historically have believed that Christianity was basically a matter of God and me. It's a one-on-one thing here and no real concern for the rest of the world. And that also is contrary to the Judeo-Christian tradition. The concern for not only the disadvantaged and so forth, but for everyone.

Luther had a tremendous statement. At one time, he talked about the Christian-- he tried to described the Christian life. He said, surely as our Heavenly Father has freely come to our aid, so also we ought to aid our neighbor through our body and its works. And each should become, as it were, a Christ to the other. That Christ may be the same and all, that we may be truly Christian. Well, that's interesting social commentary.

TODD MOE: What's your view of the Bible? Should it be interpreted literally? Or should we use passages from the Bible as metaphor for life?

CHARLES ANDERSON: Well, this is a long-standing debate. There are some people who have, for years, believed that the scripture was dictated by the Holy Spirit. And in fact, there's a medieval imaging of that where you have one of the writers supposedly with a dove sitting on his shoulder. That Dove is a symbol of the Holy Spirit dictating.

That has created a more difficulties than can be imagined. And the whole literal thing, how to say it's not to be taken literally in each instance and still maintain its authority is a problem.

In our church, we've had long debates on this. And I believe that in matters of faith and life, the words are God's revelation to His people, His intention. But I also believe that the writers of the scripture, rather than being dictated to, wrote on the basis of their understanding of the world.

I'm satisfied that the promises of God that we find in the scripture are for me, and they're true. But I mean, that's what faith is. But see, faith is not based on empirical data. And in Hebrews, they talk about faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. And it's a leap. It's a risk. But that's what people are willing. And I mean Jewish people also are willing to-- they're willing to take that risk.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Retiring Augsburg College president Dr. Charles Anderson talking with Todd Moe. You're listening to our Voices of Minnesota interview on Midmorning. Coming up, following the interview with Dr. Anderson, we will be talking with A.B. Yehoshua, who is Israel's leading novelist.

We'll be talking about Israeli identity in a time of peace and also about the role of the novel in a modern democracy. That's coming up at 10:30 this morning. We continue now with our conversation with Dr. Charles Anderson at fourteen minutes past ten o'clock. Money and diversifying enrollment are two big questions facing most small private liberal arts colleges like Augsburg. We returned to Todd Moe's conversation with Charles Anderson on those topics.

TODD MOE: Let's talk a little bit about your years at Augsburg College. Describe the situation at Augsburg in 1980 when you took the post of President.

CHARLES ANDERSON: Well, this is an interesting question, and others have put it to me. And the expectation would seem to be that if you can demonstrate how hard things were, then what you have accomplished in x number of years becomes grand. And I don't want to do that.

The school has always been short of money. Most schools are. And we had a rather modest budget at that time, and people were not well paid. They're still not well paid on some major scale. And then as now, we were very deeply dependent on tuition revenues. And we had about 1,400 some students, 1,470. 1,500. And we needed to expand.

We could have continued at that size, but there would have been far fewer opportunities for different types of learning, different programs and so forth, and far fewer ways of meeting what we thought were the needs of this community, this urban community. And so some budget is much better now. We were maybe 13 million then, and we're about 35, 37 million now.

And the faculty is, I think, much stronger than it was at that point. And that takes some time. And one of my goals has always been to get facilities here that match the quality of the faculty and the students. And I think the faculty and students are very good. So we've been working at that.

But it was difficult for most schools at that time. But based partly on what Oscar and his colleagues did and then my staff, we've been in the black now for 24 years, which is fine. But see, that starts before I came. So my own style of frugality matched the necessity of the school at the time.

TODD MOE: You've said that Augsburg is a leader in Minnesota in serving minority students. How so? And what's happening here at Augsburg that isn't happening elsewhere?

CHARLES ANDERSON: Well, for one thing, we've been very intentional about reaching out to not only minority students, but other populations that represent diversity. And this has been successful. Another consideration, and this is to be fair to all the other schools.

We have a good location. When I came as dean, for example, it would bother me. We had so few American-Indian students. There are about three. And they were in a revolving door.

And we got a committee together and studied why schools like Augsburg usually fail in serving American-Indian students. And one of the things that came out, and it's true of some other populations too, is that to have a good program, you have to have a population base off campus nearby. We then have put some money behind it. We have one full-time counselor, a full-time counselor for each of the four major minority groups on campus, and another person for international students.

Now at one of the state schools-- I won't mention because they'll get mad-- they have maybe 20,000 students on campus. So they have one person coordinating all the activities for minority students. Well, this makes having counselor advocate, or whatever you want to call it-- that's what I call them-- for each group, makes it possible for them to be treated as individuals.

It was important for me-- well, I studied at Strasbourg part of one year. And man, I was lonesome. And I could get along in the languages, but it was just different until I found one or two who were like me. And that's important for minority students in particular. And they're also here because we have 11% minority faculty, and that's very important.

And so I'm very pleased with that. That's an accomplishment of over time. And I've helped a lot in that because my daughter-in-law is African-American and we have two lovely grandsons in that marriage. And the people in the African-American community on campus know that.

We have to work on this because this is one-- I mean, all schools do. This is one way of countering the movement now toward a two-class society, people with the means and people who are without them. And because education is one of the great entry points into an upward movement, economically, socially, certainly intellectually.

TODD MOE: What's your perception of the future and the importance of liberal arts education as we head into the 21st century?

CHARLES ANDERSON: I think that the liberal arts notion is venerable. It goes back to classical times. And as molded to our time, It aims at educating people so that they can be constructive, participating, critical numbers of a society, responsible members of a society. It's concerned not so much about how people make a living, but what kind of people they are.

Any college you look at the core curriculum, or whatever they want to call it, what is it that everyone takes? And you get some clue of what that is. And the majors that we have, and there are 53 here, are concerned primarily with how you're going to make your living.

But see, unless we want to see education as basically training, not education, whereas you produce sort of economic units to produce certain things, and then have this elite group who makes all the decisions and handles all the money, obviously. Unless you want that, you have to have a strong liberal arts tradition. And this enables people to not only be breadwinners, but to be responsible and constructive people in the society.

TODD MOE: One of your former colleagues at Augsburg says the reason he stayed at the institution was because you supported an atmosphere of intellectual freedom. What's your reaction to that assessment?

CHARLES ANDERSON: I think there is. See this relates not only to a personal attitude, but this school was founded by a group, or related to a group, that is beginning called the Lutheran Free Church. And they emphasized the freedom of the congregation, the freedom of the gospel, responsible freedom always.

And you put that together with a strong tradition in the United States' higher education, and that relates to the tenure system, I think, in a positive sense, people should be-- you hire competent people and they should be free. Then within the bounds of good taste, is the only thing I would say, to pursue their disciplines and to express their opinions responsibly in whatever way it goes.

This fits my understanding of a specifically Church College too. I think all truth is God's. And we don't have to be concerned about someone. See, I don't have to be concerned about a geologist telling me that there's 20,000 years of strata in this cliff because it seems to conflict with the Bible. I mean, the geologist is right.

TODD MOE: Let's turn to some questions about your personal health. You were diagnosed with cancer of the lower intestine.

CHARLES ANDERSON: Well, upper intestine. Actually, it's the adjoining place of the large and small intestine.

TODD MOE: What was your reaction to that diagnosis?

CHARLES ANDERSON: I was not afraid. I wasn't angry and so forth. I was sad at the prospect of leaving things undone and so forth. But other than that, then I started reading and talking to good people, and so forth.

And the main thing that I found helpful is I found it in some book. I don't know where. That any cancer patient-- I mean, you hear it, it's really a shock because the big C has a big reputation. The main problem for many people is that they cannot distinguish between a diagnosis and a verdict.

Many people go into remission with or without treatment. And we have so many fantastic medical procedures now, not only to diagnose but to cure and so forth that the failure to distinguish between diagnosis and verdict is unfortunate. You're on a slippery slope. If you decide you're going to die, you're going to die in a relatively short time.

And so on all the literature indicates that attitude is very important. And mine was malignant and it hadn't gotten outside. But I'm very confident. I have wonderful doctors and so forth, and they've got me on a year-long chemotherapy regime.

And this is one thing nice about being in a religious context. I have a support group you wouldn't believe, including some of my colleagues in the private college council at the Catholic school. They say mass for me. It's just very interesting.

And I have a wry sense of humor. I find funny things in all this. The oncologist told me that the pills I take are the same medicine that veterinarians use to treat worms and horses. And I said right away, I say, we should buy it from a veterinarian wholesaler rather than a pharmacy because they cost a fortune and so forth. But there are a lot of things like that.

TODD MOE: What did you do to resolve to go on with life? I don't think I made a particular resolution. I think life is a gift. And part of life is growing old and having diseases and so forth. And as long as the gift is in your hand, you just make use of it.

CHARLES ANDERSON: Well, I just gave a talk last week in Egon about that. They asked me about this sort of thing. And I said, cancer can be seen in two ways. One, as a challenge. It's a traumatic, sometimes painful challenge. And all the things about anger and denial and blaming and bargaining, all these things that Elisabeth Kubler-Ross talks about in her books on death and dying are possibilities.

But in terms of my understanding of life and my understanding of the faith position that I have, I didn't have any of those things. What I had was mainly sorrow at the prospect of leaving. But I don't know when I'm going to leave. I mean, I could live to be 92. I mean, I'll just hang on to life as long as it's given to me. It is a gift.

TODD MOE: What's your advice for others who feel devastated by such a diagnosis?

CHARLES ANDERSON: Most of all, I suppose all the literature now agrees that of all the ingredients or steps or whatever on the path to remission, patient attitude is one of the most important. You shouldn't see yourself as just an object upon which all these medical people are fussing or working or manipulating. That you are a person. And you can ask all the questions you want and take charge or be involved in this whole process. That also will probably get your mind off of some of the long-term problems.

I would say I've been blessed in a sense of being involved actively in the Christian community for some time, and I have a different perspective on some things. And so I could never be-- I was spared being angry at God, or why me? Why not me?

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PAULA SCHROEDER: Dr. Charles Anderson, he retires this year as president of Augsburg College in Minneapolis. He spoke with Todd Moe. Next week on our Voices of Minnesota interview, we hear from Duluth resident, Joe Gomer, a Tuskegee airmen, the all Black World War II Army Air Corps regiment. Our Voices of Minnesota interview series is produced by Dan Olson, with help from intern Becky Sisko.

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RACHEL REABE: Today's programming is sponsored in part by Vicki and Bill Michaelis of Gray Eagle, Minnesota, on their anniversary. We're heading up North for Friday's special Main Street edition of Midmorning. I'm Rachel Reabe asking you to join us as we broadcast from the shore of Gull Lake outside Brainerd.

How does a small, rural community cope with the summer population explosion? We'll talk about the challenges and hear from resort owners about the changing tastes of vacationers. Tune in for the start of Minnesota's official summer season Friday morning at 9:00 on KNOW-FM, 91.1, in the Twin Cities.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Well, and hopefully it will seem like summer by the time we get to Friday. We are expecting a little bit warmer temperatures getting up into the upper 60s to mid 70s by the end of the week. But it's going to be cold again today. A frost and freeze advisory is in effect tonight for extreme southwestern Minnesota.

There could be some snow up near the border with Canada today. And there is a chance of rain in the northeast. Otherwise it will be mostly cloudy and cooler with highs from the low 40s in the North to the upper 50s in the south tomorrow, partly cloudy in the south and west, mostly cloudy in the northeast with highs in the 50s to low 60s.

In the Twin Cities today, look for a high around 55 degrees. Northwest winds at 15 to 25 will be decreasing to 10 to hour in the afternoon. It's 10:30 and you're listening to Midmorning on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Paula Schroeder.

A.B. Yehoshua is one of Israel's leading novelists, having won every major literary award in that country. His 1990 novel, Mr. Mani, was critically acclaimed and won several international awards. It tells the 150-year history of a family in Jerusalem in five different voices.

Since 1972, he has been a professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at Haifa University and is on the editorial board of several publications, including Mifgash, a periodical published in both Hebrew and Arabic, with the purpose of forming a connection between the writers of both cultures.

The New York Times describes him as a kind of Israeli Faulkner with a particular gift for describing the lives of contemporary Israelis. His novels and stories have been translated into several languages, an indication of his ability to speak to the human condition regardless of country of origin.

He's in the Twin Cities at the invitation of the program in Hebrew language and literature at the University of Minnesota. He spoke last night on the topic of Israeli identity in a time of peace and today addresses modern democracy and the novel at the Bell Museum on the University of Minnesota campus. That address, by the way, is taking place at 12:15 today, and it is free and open to the public. But A.B. Yehoshua, we want to welcome you to Midmorning today. Thanks for coming in.

A.B. YEHOSHUA: Good morning. And I'm very pleased to be here.

PAULA SCHROEDER: You know, we did a program a few weeks ago on the topic of the future of Judaism in America. And Alan Dershowitz wrote a book called The Vanishing American Jew. And he says that so often, Jewish people have relied on conflict and on discrimination for their unity and for their identity.

And I know that last night, you spoke about Israeli identity in a time of peace. And certainly we think about Israel in terms of politics, in terms of conflict, in terms of war. Are you concerned about how the countries-- the people will begin to think of themselves if there is peace?

A.B. YEHOSHUA: Yes, this is exactly the point. And I'm afraid that the Jews can leave or can feel themselves only because if they are in conflict, only if there are some contradiction between them and their environment. And if this will turn to be the truth, this will be a disaster.

I mean, I believe still that I want to be a Jew even nobody is hating me and there is no anti-semite. This famous sentence formula of Sartre, Jean-Paul Sartre, the great French philosopher who was saying that under the regard of the anti-semite, the Jews feel himself better. He can identify himself. But I want to be like the dance, like the Norwegian, like the French that feels their identity coming from themselves without any conflict.

And this is the reason why I was speaking yesterday about what will happen to the Israeli identities, the black holes that will now be started to be in this identity when the conflict and some many other activities that were related to the question of the war will be missing, and how we can recreate new elements of identity in order to fill this black hole.

PAULA SCHROEDER: What part of an Israeli soul is connected with conflict? Since the beginning of the country itself in 1948, there has been that contact.

A.B. YEHOSHUA: Yes. Not only in the beginning of 1948, it was the beginning of Zionism in the 1880. When the first Jew was coming to Palestine, he was entering in conflict. And he was coming from the diaspora in which there was another kind of conflict.

So it means that 120 years of conflict. And this is the reason why I explain. I was giving, for example, the Bosnian example. I said in Bosnia, there was a terrible war. And in all this war, there was about 300,000 casualties.

In all the wars between Israel and the Arab countries, there was no 300,000 casualties. And here in five years, there was such devastating war. But still before this war, there was a peace. And after this war, there will be a peace.

So the war is coming in the middle of a peace era. But for us, the notion there is no feeling. We don't know what to do in peace time. And this is the reason why we have to think ahead in order to fill the cracks that will be open in the Israeli identity with new elements, with creative positive elements that will give sense to our life.

PAULA SCHROEDER: So much of the-- now I am certainly no expert on the Israeli economy, but I am presuming that a great deal of it is associated with that conflict. So many young people are part of the military. Much of the money goes to support that military.

A.B. YEHOSHUA: Yes. But at the same time, you have to know that-- and this is very sad to construct-- that wars are also giving some kind of an energy to a country. And we had received a lot of money also from outside because of the war. So the economic growth of Israel was tremendously and exceptionally.

Now, I don't know if let's say there will be peace, the United States will say, we don't give you the $2 billion per year to buy weapons and things like that. You don't need it anymore. And not in the same sense. And perhaps the Israelis will say, it's not good because we had an easy way how to expand the economy and how to do it.

But still the coming war in Israel will not be if-- God forbid. And I say it with a horror. Because the next war, if something will be going wrong in the peace process and there will be a next war, this will be a devastating war. It will not be like the six-day war. It will not be like Yom Kippur War. This war will hit civilians.

Because till now, in the last two or three wars, all was done by the Army. It was outside our borders. Now it will be inside because of this devastating weapons, nuclear and biological missiles that will hit our civilian targets. So better to have peace even without the money of the United States.

PAULA SCHROEDER: A.B. Yehoshua is a novelist and a writer, but he is also a peace activist who works with his Palestinian and Arabic counterparts in the world of literature to work for peace. What kind of an impact do you think you're having?

A.B. YEHOSHUA: I mean, we are-- and I think about not of course, about myself, but I would say the majority of the writers in Israel were very active in the peace process. And when we had spoke about the mutual recognition between us and the Palestinians 30 years ago, after the six-day war, we were very much active.

And I can say that I, in the '70s, when we were about representing perhaps 3% or 4% of our population, now we can speak about 80% of the Israelis who are recognizing the fact that there are Palestinians. That they deserve a self-determination, and there will be a Palestinian state. And you have to talk with the PLO. And we recognize the PLO.

So really, we feel as if we help. Not we help. The reality helped, but we have put this little drops of oil in order that the wheels will go perhaps smoothly. And I have to say to the honor of the Israeli society that always, they listen to us. Even when the majority of the public oppose our opinions and was considering us naive and unexpected and dreamers and things like that, they always opened the doors to hear what we say and they were listening to us.

And I think this was unable them that when the reality forced them to recognize after the Intifada, the uprising of the palestinians, that there is a Palestinians and we cannot dominate them. And they were saying, OK, our writers and our intellectuals were saying this for a long time. So we can do it.

PAULA SCHROEDER: You write fiction. And I think that so many of us here in the Western world, in the United states, always think of Israel in terms of politics, in terms of that conflict. But reading your literature, of course, reminds us that there are living, breathing human beings who live in this country.

A.B. YEHOSHUA: Yes. Yes. It's very important to a country through its literature, through its theater, through its music and things like that. And I am very much puzzled because we have to be pushed all the time to the corner of the headlines, of the newspapers and things like that. Of course, the majority of our lives are concerned with loves and family conflicts and all these things. But I have to say that the conflict, the political conflict, gave to our writing a sort of maturity.

And this is the reason why I feel that perhaps in the west, when things are so easy and so going well and so smoothly, you have to find very perverted kind of flavor in order that people will pay attention to you. You have to find cancer. You have to find very bizarre kind of accidents in order to kill your hero or your character.

We can do it more in a reliable way to send him to the war and to do it in a more realistic. And it was giving also to the South American, for example literature and all this frame of this literature. And the great literature of the 19th century was coming from also the proper balancing of the external distress with the interior agony.

It was well balanced. It was not all depend on the agony of the self. It was also balanced with what was happening outside. And in peace time, we will have difficulties as writers. But better we will have difficulties as a writer than to have another war.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Your books are written in Hebrew to begin with?

A.B. YEHOSHUA: Yes, Of course.

PAULA SCHROEDER: And have been translated into-- I think Mr. Mani was translated into, what, 24 different languages?

A.B. YEHOSHUA: No. 13, but the latter was about 20. There are many, many translations. I cannot even trace them. This is my agent that is doing the job.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Well, I mean, is Hebrew a language that really needs to be read in that language in order to get all the nuances of it?

A.B. YEHOSHUA: I think that I would say this is the same thing as every language. In translation, you lose something, but also you gain something. I mean, I always say when I read the great Russians in Hebrew, of course. And I know that I lose something. And people are saying to me that no Russians say, you miss this nuance and this nuance. And I say, but still I gain also something.

Again, let's say, a flavor of mystery that perhaps the Russian that is reading it doesn't see it because it is translated. Because it dealt with Saint Petersburg or Moscow, I feel some more exotic that give a certain flavor that the Russian cannot get it.

When we are coming to America and we see so many American films in Israel through the television, I feel myself in the beginning in a kind of a small festivity, as if I am watching all the time films because I see it. Person is going out from his car, I see this is a scene from a movie. It's not just a person that is slamming the door. So in the beginning, you feel something more than you will feel when you will see American films. So for you, it is reality. For us, it's something else.

PAULA SCHROEDER: But you use that very same device in writing about Hagar in Mr. Mani, where one of your characters said she felt like she was a character in a movie.

A.B. YEHOSHUA: Characters in the movie. This was done into five segments on television show in Israel, in a very sophisticated way, but shown here in North America, in Canada, and I think in New York also. And this was really the first time because some of my works were adapted to movies. And I was not satisfied. I couldn't even see it. But here for the first time, there was a wonderful director who was doing the job. And for the first time, I felt as if my images that was in the book was coming to life correctly in the movie.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Has that been aired yet?

A.B. YEHOSHUA: Been what?

PAULA SCHROEDER: Has it been broadcast?

A.B. YEHOSHUA: It was broadcast in Israel, of course, the five sequences of Mr. Mani. But abroad, it was projected in film festivals and in television festivals, things like that.

PAULA SCHROEDER: OK. A.B. Yehoshua is a novelist and a peace activist in Israel. And he is here in the Twin Cities to deliver a couple of addresses. One of them has already been given, Israeli identity in a time of peace. Today, he is going to be talking about modern democracy and the novel. And that will be at 12:15 today at the Bell Museum auditorium. And that is on the University of Minnesota campus. It's right behind Northrop auditorium. And that is free and open to the public.

When you talk about modern democracy in the novel, what is that all about?

A.B. YEHOSHUA: I wanted to examine what was happening to the novel in a regime of what we call modern democracy. I am doing the distinction between democracy and modern democracy. And I speak especially about the last 50 years of what we call modern democracy.

The democracy had been perfecting in itself all the time. And in a certain way, It's not that we cannot compare the democracy of our days to democracy in the beginning of this century. And especially, there are so many countries who were not at all democrat in the beginning of this century.

So I want to see what was happening to the novel. Had this was beneficial to the novel or on the contrary? And my feeling, it was not beneficial to the novel. And I just give an example. If you will have to take 10 novels from this century to the next century, you have the permission only to take 10 novels in your bookshelf. And now you have to choose between all the novels that were written in this century. I think that the majority of the novels that you will take with you to the next century will be novels that have been written in the first half, and especially in the 20th of this century. You will take Proust. You will take James Joyce. You will take Faulkner, that I admire so much. And you will take a Thomas Mann. You will take Kafka. You will take this novelist. And you will not take a Saul Bellow and Philip Roth or even Updike and things like that.

And I was asking why? And this is not only in America, I think it's in all the world. And this is the topic of my lecture. I will not now give all the details, but I try to go point by point to understand why the modern democracy had weakened some aspects of the novel. Some had stripped the novel of some of its sources. And how to overcome these problems and how to improve the novel in the time of a kind of too much democracy in a certain way.

I say too much democracy. And I cannot now explain. And I have to be very cautious here in the Minnesota because really, I was feeling-- I was traveling a little bit in the United States and I'm teaching in the University of Chicago. So it is a very conservative University. And I came here and I watched the news this morning in the television. And I felt as if I am in a totally different country.

Yes, it means there was really something liberal that is coming from this state that is really different from all other states. For the first time, I saw a documentary issue about poverty in the United States. I have watched television all across the country, and I haven't seen a real issue about the poverty. And not only the Black problem. It is easy to deal. But with the white problem and American all and some other things.

But what I say is the way in which quantity is becoming the criteria to judge everything. This is the problem. And this is also coming from democracy because the majority is deciding. So the problem is how you a little bit struggle against what I will call the tyranny of majority.

The fact the majority is deciding. So if there is quantity, so it is good. If the majority are saying this is good, this is a bestseller, this is a good book. Or the list of bestseller and all these things.

PAULA SCHROEDER: And on that point, I would heartily disagree that most often the bestsellers are not the best books at all. We've only got a couple of minutes left in our conversation. But I wanted to ask you a little bit just about your background in growing up in Israel. I know that you were born in Jerusalem, work now in Haifa. You teach Hebrew and Comparative Literature at the University of Haifa. And I'm just curious that in a country as small as Israel, is there a lot of difference in character of cities from one city to another?

A.B. YEHOSHUA: It's a very small country. Almost a city. I would think that in these two days in Minnesota, between Saint Paul and Minneapolis, I have done more kilometers, more miles than I have done in on my traveling in Israel in the last week. So it's really a small country. But still there is a character.

And I think this is the fine things in this world. We have to combat this international, cosmopolitan kind of identity that is coming to us from all these media, from the television, from the CNN and things like that. We have to cultivate the local things. And even in Israel, there is a different aspect. And especially now Jerusalem and Tel Aviv are becoming so opposed cities that you can speak about the culture of Tel Aviv and the culture of Jerusalem. Even the distance between them is 40 miles.

PAULA SCHROEDER: 40 miles?

A.B. YEHOSHUA: 40 miles, that's all. 40 miles and stick when you are crossing, it's a whole world.

PAULA SCHROEDER: I guess I would think of Jerusalem as being old and Tel Aviv is being new.

A.B. YEHOSHUA: Old and fanatic and religious and sacred and abstract and things like that, and with a lot of troubles. And Tel Aviv is more normal, more liberal and things like that. And Haifa, where I live, is a combination between the two. And this is the reason why I'm a little bit far away, even from Tel Aviv and from Jerusalem.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Well, we do have to wrap up our conversation, I'm afraid. But I want to tell listeners to that if you have not read any of A.B. Yehoshua's books, you should. Mr. Mani, of course, has been internationally acclaimed as a wonderful insight into that Israeli identity that we've been talking about. It covers 150 years of history. And I want to read your latest book, Open Heart, which combines love and passion and medicine and Eastern mysticism. And it looks like a fascinating look at your part of the world. Thank you so much for coming in and talking with us today.

A.B. YEHOSHUA: Thank you very much.

PAULA SCHROEDER: A.B. Yehoshua will be once again speaking today at the Bell Museum auditorium at 12:15 this afternoon.

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It's 7 and 1/2 minutes before 11:00. You're listening to Midmorning on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Paula Schroeder.

SPEAKER 1: (SINGING) Way down, way down in Arkansas--

SPEAKER 2: October 1919, Elaine, Arkansas, five whites and scores of Blacks are killed in one of the bloodiest race riots in American history. The pogrom remains a fragmented memory in the stories passed down in Arkansas families, black. And white.

SPEAKER 3: Witness history in the next episode of "Will the Circle be Unbroken?" From Public Radio International.

SPEAKER 4: Coming up today at noon here on Minnesota Public Radio.

PAULA SCHROEDER: See, we were speaking with Mr. Yehoshua about Jerusalem just a few minutes-- a couple of minutes ago. And tomorrow on Midmorning, we will be talking with Karen Armstrong who has written a book called Jerusalem. It looks at the history of that great city and the role it has played in the three great religions of the world. She is the author of A History of God. Tomorrow, we'll talk with her about her new book, Jerusalem. It's 6.5 minutes before 11 o'clock. It's time for Garrison Keillor and the Writer's Almanac.

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GARRISON KEILLOR: And here is the Writer's Almanac for Monday. It's the 19th of may, 1997. It was on this day in 1536 Anne Boleyn was beheaded, the second wife of Henry VIII, because she had failed to bear him a son as had his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. So the King's men cooked up charges of adultery against Anne Boleyn, beheaded those she was said to have committed adultery with, and then she was given a court executioner.

He came from France. He asked her forgiveness. He received it, and then he severed her head with a single stroke of his sword and held the head up to show the crowd that justice had been done. And Henry married her lady in waiting, Jane Seymour, just 11 days later.

It was on this day in 1780, there was an inexplicable eclipse on the entire Northeastern part of the United States. It became dark at noon. There was no cause for the phenomenon that was found, and many believed that doomsday had arrived. It's the birthday of journalist and screenwriter Nora Ephron, born in New York city, 1941 today. Whose mother told her, you are a journalist, take notes.

It's the birthday of the New York Times food and diet writer Jane Brody born in Brooklyn, 1941, who receives about 10 times more mail than any other writer for The Times. It's the birthday of broadcaster James Lehrer, born in Wichita, Kansas, 1934. The anchorman of the Jim Lehrer News Hour and novelist. The birthday of Malcolm X, born in Omaha, 1925. Malcolm Little was his name. His father was killed by a trolley car. Three of his four uncles were murdered by whites. His home was firebombed.

It's the birthday of politician Ho Chi Minh, born in the central Vietnamese village of Kim Lien in 1890. At the age of 21, he shipped out on a French steamer as a cook. He was a seaman for three years, visiting many cities, including Boston and New York. Lived in London for two years, settled in France for six years, where he became a socialist and led the Viet Minh from 1941 on first against the Japanese, then against the French, and finally against the Americans.

And today is the birthday of philanthropist and merchant Johns Hopkins, born in Anne Arundel county, Maryland, in 1795. He made his money in wholesale groceries, banking, and in railroading. A very frugal man who never wore an overcoat, walked wherever he could, never left Baltimore, and left the bulk of his fortune to be used in founding a great hospital and university, which bears his name, Johns Hopkins. Here's a poem for today by Stephen Dunn entitled "From the Manifesto of the Selfish."

Because altruists are the least sexy people on earth, unable

To say "I want" without embarrassment

We need to take from them everything they give

Then ask for more

This is how to excite them, and because it's exciting

To see them the least bit excited

Once again we'll be doing something for ourselves,

Who have no problem taking pleasure,

Always desirous and so pleased to be pleased, we who above all

Can be trusted to keep the balance

Upon by Stephen Dunn from the "Manifesto of the selfish", from his new and selected poems, 1974 to 1994, published by WW Norton and Company, and used by permission here on the Writer's Almanac for Monday, May the 19th. Made possible by Cowles Enthusiast Media, publishers of Wild West and the historynet.com, where history lives on the world wide web. Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Programming on Minnesota Public Radio is supported by the Virginia Piper Cancer Institute's, Piper Breast Center, part of Abbott Northwestern hospital. Providing innovative breast care in a compassionate environment. Well, that's mid-morning for today. We'll be back at 9 o'clock tomorrow morning to have a conversation with Karen Armstrong, the author of a new book called Jerusalem.

And she is also the author of A History of God. At 10 o'clock tomorrow, we'll be talking with Paul Elwood, who is considered the father of HMOs. We'll find out what he thinks about the way managed care is going. That's all coming up tomorrow on Midmorning. Stay tuned for Midday coming up next. I'm Paula Schroeder. Thanks for joining us today.

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JOHN GORDON: Kasparov wants a rematch, but IBM says no. That story on the next Future Tense. I'm John Gordon. You can hear Future Tense in one half hour on Minnesota Public Radio K-N-O-W FM, 91.1.

PAULA SCHROEDER: You're listening to Minnesota Public Radio. 47 degrees under clou--