SUMMER IN GALILEE

A recent return from Israel gives this reader an added reason for interest and appreciation of this very concentrated record of a ""summer in Galilee"". For one can see again the shimmering beauty of the lake; feel the waves of heat; recapture the scents and colors and beauties of flowers and foliage. Juliette Levy was spending months here with her children, recapturing some of the memories of an earlier period when she worked as a shepherd at a kibbutz, appreciating the great changes that were coming over Israel, sensing the tensions, the fears, the hopes, recognizing the needs still felt. The account is anecdotal, too concentrated --unless one brings to the reading a prior interest- and too limited to that one area. Nazareth, Capernaum, Tiberias- names that bring back the stories from Old Testament and New-something of the holidays and Holy Days- but one could wish for a wider range, while enjoying the riches that are here. In no sense an historical, a religious, a political book- this should be read as a personal experience.