The Dovekeepers

“Victims often attack one another, they become chickens in a pen, bickering, frenzied.”

Yael notes that as the Jewish people of Jerusalem are persecuted by Romans, they turn on each other. Powerless to act against Rome, Yael describes the community as divided and contentious. This image of a quarreling community will form an important contrast to the unity the Jews will demonstrate during their last stand during the Siege of Masada.

“Stone should last forever, but on that night, I came to understand that a stone was only another form of dust.”

The image of a stone being nothing but “dust” symbolizes the impermanence of life. Just like the strong Temple of Jerusalem falls, everything else in this life will fall too. This passage reflects the fatalism that some of the characters contend with in the novel, reflecting The Interplay Between Faith, Destiny, and Free Will.

“I had no talent for magic of any kind.”

Yael’s statement is unintentionally ironic because as it will turn out, she does have a talent for magic. Since magic is linked with nature, Yael, who has an affinity for animals, is a natural practitioner, even if she does not know it yet.

“I gazed up to see that a dove had lit on the wall. I was quiet and held out my hands. After all I’d done and all my sins, it came to me, unafraid.”

Doves are a powerful symbol of peace, forgiveness, and divine knowledge in the text. The fact that a dove alights on Yael’s hands shows that Yael’s sins have been forgiven, even though she continues to mentally reproach herself. The dove’s affinity for Yael also reinforces Yael’s special connection to animals in the text.

“Perhaps it is possible to discover more in silence than in speech. Or perhaps it is only that those who are silent among us learn to listen.”

Yael has always understood the power of silence because when she was a child she was left largely to her own devices. Alone and quiet, she begins to realize that silence enables her to truly listen to, and understand others. Yael senses the same quality in Wynn, which draws her to him.

“As for me, I’m grateful for my work in the dovecotes. The more distracted I am, the more possible it is for me to go on for another day.”

This statement by Revka illustrates her complex process of surviving grief and trauma, reflecting The Solidarity and Resilience of Women. Revka’s work becomes her solace, as it keeps her from thinking about the violence she has experienced. At the same time, the distraction means her grief and rage go unexpressed.

“I never once stopped to consider that what you are given can also be taken away.”

Revka’s quote is an example of the text’s use of foreshadowing to build an atmosphere of tension and tragedy. When Revka makes this bleak observation, it foreshadows the violence that is to soon unfold as Revka recounts her daughter’s death.

“‘She speaks their language.’

‘Really? Of birds? What language is that?’

Shirah smiled in response. ‘You of all people should know.’

Then I understood. It was the language of silence.”

This exchange between Revka and Shirah underscores the connection between Yael, animals, and the powers of listening and observing. It also shows the similarity between Yael and Revka, two women who understand silence, illustrating the importance of doubles and mirror images in the novel.

“The murder of a dove was a crime punishable by law. Certainly none were to be taken for the darker uses of keshaphim.”

When Shirah kills a dove to perform a spell, Revka notes that her action crosses an impassable line. Since doves in the text are an overwhelmingly positive symbol. Shirah’s act is bound to have consequences. Thus, the novel foreshadows Shirah’s doom. She too dies, like the dove, drowning in her own blood.

“I was a shell, a beetle, a shock of flesh stitched through with demon thread.”

These series of disparate images are stitched together to convey Revka’s wild grief. Her pain at her daughter’s loss rises around Zara’s first death anniversary and is simultaneously unbearable and indescribable. Revka can only suggest it with images of a hollow shell, an insect, and flesh being pierced.

“I had never before noticed that rain contained every color within itself, green as the fields, blue as heaven, white as a lamb, yellow as my daughter’s hair.”

An example of Hoffman’s use of simile, Revka’s line is bittersweet. Revka’s joy at the rain summoned by Shirah reminds her of her dead daughter’s yellow hair. The rain also restores speech to her grandsons, giving her hope, and reinforcing the importance of water in the text as a symbol of life and renewal.

“No matter how you refuse me, our spirits combine to form a single thread.”

Aziza addresses her thoughts to her sister Nahara, which shows how profoundly Nahara’s separation affects her. While Nahara refuses to return to Aziza, in her thoughts Aziza can claim her sister as hers. Aziza hopes that by reminding her sister of their shared past and identity, she can use The Significance of Storytelling to change her sister’s mind.

“You followed me as the dove follows the fields of grain.”

Aziza uses the simile of a dove following grain to describe how a younger sister follows an older sister. In choosing her own path despite her sister’s objections, Nahara has chosen to exercise her own agency, defying the traditional hierarchy between the sisters.

“The Essenes were immobilized, as a mouse stands motionless before a black viper.”

Another instance of Hoffman’s use of simile, this expression by Aziza describes how the Essenes are frozen in the face of Shirah’s rage. Shirah is furious that the Essenes have claimed Nahara and is ready to perform the darkest of spells to bring her back. Their passivity here also reflects the Essenes’ more general belief in non-resistance and pacifism.

“‘You don’t fight for peace sister,’ Nahara told me, ‘You embrace it.’”

The conversation between Aziza and Nahara illustrates The Interplay Between Faith, Destiny, and Free Will. Nahara’s words reflect her passive acceptance of fate. Aziza, by contrast, is more committed to trying to shape her own destiny.

“Did you not think this was what the world was like?”

Yoav’s words to Aziza after she discovers the truth about war encapsulate Aziza’s disillusioning experience of war. He conveys to Aziza that the battle she glorified in her mind has a dark side. Aziza realizes that war is not quite the heroic enterprise she had assumed it would be, marking an important turning point for her character.

“My name is Rebekah, I told him as we stood there together.

As he was Yoav, the Man from the Valley, the love of my life.”

Yoav’s wisdom and gravity attract Aziza. Both Yoav and Aziza are true warriors, who fight to defend others and refrain from unnecessary violence. That is why Yoav is the man to whom Aziza reveals her birth name.

“There were ten varieties of wise men known but only two kinds of women who might hear the voice of the Almighty: prophetesses and witches.”

Shirah observes the world’s hypocrisy around men and women of knowledge. While men who seek wisdom and spirituality have many respectable names, women who are curious about these matters are to be either revered or feared as oracles or witches. Thus, society itself forces women’s knowledge into a corner and casts it as magic and prophecy.

“When children are ailing and babies refused to be born […] when the amulets […] of the minim offer no solace […] they come to us.”

Shirah claims that women need magic because mainstream traditions dismiss their concerns as trivial and womanly. However, matters such as sick children are anything but trivial. This is why, Shirah notes, keshaphim are always sought after.

“Here is the riddle of love. Everything it gives you, it takes away.”

The idea that love exacts a price is a recurrent motif in the novel. Nisa’s words to Shirah are pertinent in the context of the position of women in their world. Since the lives of women are not free, love always costs them.

“I must keep my head and not give in to desire, for desire is what causes women to drown.”

Shirah’s observation foreshadows her death, because as the novel ends, her love and desire for Ben Ya’ir does cause her to drown In her own blood. Yael has exhorted Shirah to come with her, but Shirah chooses Ben Ya’ir, and thus death.

“Let our story bear witness that we perished out of choice, a choice we made at the beginning, to choose death rather than slavery.”

Ben Ya’ir’s words at the plaza show his courage and leadership, and also invoke The Interplay Between Faith, Destiny, and Free Will. Ben Ya’ir chooses death for his people over their potential enslavement and torture, presenting it as the more honorable course. Shirah, in her final moments, will question this commitment to death in place of a commitment to life.

“As for me, I was not about to lose another lion. I could not yield to our leader’s commands. If this was treachery, I was traitor indeed.

But I had broken laws before, and God, who had witnessed my sins, had forgiven me.”

Just like Ben Ya’ir, Yael too makes an impossible decision regarding The Interplay Between Faith, Destiny, and Free Will. She knows she may be considered a traitor for not following her leader, but she admits that the only authority to whom she submits is God, and her God is a forgiving God. In choosing to exercise her own free will in place of passive acceptance, Yael also demonstrates The Solidarity and Resilience of Women.