by Paula Wagner
Advance Praise for Paula Wagner’s
Newcomers in an Ancient Land
“Israelis live in such a complex situation, but Wagner’s account is mindful of the conflicts surrounding everyday life and the difficulties integrating them with personal conflicts as well. Her sensitivity (nefesh adina), wit, and introspection are so succinctly conveyed, I didn’t want to put the book down. A thought-provoking and enjoyable read.”
—MARYA LUX, member of Kibbutz Hazorea
“A luscious guide through an important history. Wagner’s warmth and bravery make us open our eyes a little wider as she guides us through her and her twin’s journey not just living below the Golan Heights but also through adolescence in a world where it’s ordinary to see an Uzi casually draped over the back of the bus driver’s seat.”
—EIREENE NEALAND, author of The Nest
“A book that is part coming-of-age story, part travelogue, and that lets the reader peek into a time and place through the innocent eyes of youth. With a trustworthy voice, Wagner gives us glimpses into a life few of us will ever know, but she tells a universal story of discovering who she is when she changes where and how she lives. Would that everyone approached those from other cultures with the same openheartedness as Wagner shows in this story—the world would be a more peaceful place.”
—BETSY FASBINDER, coach, speaker, and author of Filling Her Shoes and Fire & Water
“This thoughtful memoir about a pivotal year in Israel takes us back to a time when both the author and the nation were young, but not altogether innocent. It’s a lovely interweaving of a remembered past and an older-and-wiser present moment.”
—RABBI NAOMI STEINBERG, Carlotta, CA
“This memoir and travelogue is a refreshing read. The conversational voice and vivid details are immediately engaging . . . seemingly disparate elements are seamlessly woven throughout the book, well organized, and delightful to discover.”
—ANN GREENBERGER, Content Editor, Greenline Editing, Portland, Oregon
“Let us hope some of the commitment in this book to the loving, idealistic impulse transforms Israel back (or forward) to its redemptive Jewish essence.”
—PETER GABLE, associate editor of Tikkun and author of The Desire for Mutual Recognition
Baruch atah, Adonai Eloheinu, Melech haolam, shehecheyanu, v’kiy’manu, v’higiyanu laz’man hazeh. Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Sovereign of the universe, who has created us and sustained us, and brought us to this day.
Copyright © 2019 by Paula Wagner
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, digital scanning, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please address She Writes Press.
Published July 2019
Printed in the United States of America
Print ISBN: 978-1-63152-529-2
E-ISBN: 978-1-63152-530-8
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019902942
For information, address:
She Writes Press
1569 Solano Ave #546
Berkeley, CA 94707
Interior design by Tabitha Lahr
She Writes Press is a division of SparkPoint Studio, LLC.
Names and identifying characteristics have been changed to protect the privacy of certain individuals.
For my mother Jean, who shared her love of language and believed I could write.
For my father Leon, whose Jewish heritage set me on a lifelong journey.
CONTENTS
Introduction: Sunrise Over the Golan
PART I: ISRAEL—FALL 1963
Chapter: 1 Setting Sail
Chapter: 2 Esther: A Charismatic Mentor
Chapter: 3 A Fantastical Farewell
Chapter: 4 “Gingit!”
Chapter: 5 Dad and Avram: Two Jews, Ten Opinions
Chapter: 6 Israel at Last: Arriving and Parting
Chapter: 7 Kibbutz Ein Hashofet
Chapter: 8 Rediscovering the Feins
Chapter: 9 Work
Chapter: 10 The Ulpan
Chapter: 11 Shabbat
Chapter: 12 Visiting Naomi on Hazorea
Chapter: 13 Making Aliya
Chapter: 14 Stranger in a Strange Land
Chapter: 15 Eilat
PART II: ISRAEL—WINTER/SPRING 1964
Chapter: 16 Gidon
Chapter: 17 René
Chapter: 18 Becoming a Couple
Chapter: 19 Saying Oui
Chapter: 20 Moving to Kibbutz Dan
Chapter: 21 Snoring and Snakes
Chapter: 22 Sunrise over the Golan
Chapter: 23 The Kerem
PART III: ENGLAND—SUMMER 1964
Chapter: 24 A Detour to England
Chapter: 25 London
Chapter: 26 Wedding Dresses
Chapter: 27 A Hitch in Plans
Chapter: 28 Jonathan Comes to Israel
Chapter: 29 Hopes and Fears
Chapter: 30 Sightseeing in the Upper Galilee
Chapter: 31 Winning and Losing
PART IV: ISRAEL—FALL 1964
Chapter: 32 Naomi’s Wedding
Chapter: 33 Rene’s Cousins
Chapter: 34 Ein Kerem
Chapter: 35 Passage to France
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Introduction:
SUNRISE OVER THE GOLAN
I crept along a dirt road under a black dome studded with stars on my way to my job as a volunteer in the vineyards of Kibbutz Dan. At four in the morning, only the chirping of crickets and the crunch of my work boots broke the peace along this deserted stretch of the pre-1967 border between Israel and Syria. Until the rest of the work crew arrived at six, I would be alone. Or would I?
DANGER, EXPLOSIVES, KEEP OUT warned the faded signs in Hebrew, English, and Arabic on a haphazard barricade of rusty barbed wire, broken concrete, thorn trees, and weeds. From just beyond, I could hear a faint braying, and I caught a glimpse of something white and flowing. A parachute? My heart pounded and my red hair stood on end as adrenaline surged through every cell in my eighteen-year-old body. But on closer inspection, it was only the billowing jellaba of a Syrian farmer tilling his fields with a hand-held plow drawn by a recalcitrant donkey. Such a biblical vision made it hard to imagine that conflict still racked this ancient land.
One by one, the stars winked out, the sky turned pale, and a rosy glow backlit the massive shoulders of the Syrian hills hunched over the valley. I knew those silhouetted hills hid bunkers; and in those bunkers crouched soldiers; and in the crosshairs of their Kalashnikovs, I could be a target. Yet for a moment, a wild part of me dared imagine that the sight of a naïve young girl in khaki shorts and shirt might offer a welcome distraction from the tedium of war.
By now, opalescent clouds of apricot, lavender, and magenta were gathering at fever speed. Just when it seemed the light could get no brighter, a blinding fireball burst over the mountains. Quaking in my boots, yet quivering with delight, I stood transfixed by the beauty and danger of this ancient land in which I was a newcomer.
The Israel that greeted me on that distant, dusty road no longer exists except in memory. Today, parts of the Promised Land have been paved over to such an extent that the life and landscape of the early sixties in this story may sound fantastical. Humming freeways carry a population of nine million between skyscrapers and shopping malls. Villages have become towns and towns have burgeoned into cities in a building fr
enzy designed to accommodate a population that has tripled in half a century. Jerusalem, while officially united, remains a tale of two cities deeply divided, East and West.
Of course, I too have grown and changed from a teenager whose life was practically a blank slate into a professional woman, wife, mother, grandmother, writer, and more. But back then, Israel and I were in many ways coming of age like a pair of adolescents (we had, after all, come into being only three years apart). In that sense, the country’s cocky chutzpah and can-do attitude were a good match for my own mix of idealism and bravado. If the country’s pioneering spirit inspired me, my post-war generation was a source of hope and renewal for Israel after the Holocaust.
But the country’s heady idealism was not shared by all. As I was falling in love with my adoptive homeland, I was barely aware that Palestinians were grieving the loss of theirs. What Israelis called the War of Independence, they called the Naqba—a national disaster that had driven them into squalid refugee camps in an unwelcoming diaspora. But after two thousand years of exile and persecution, the new Jewish inhabitants had little sympathy for the misfortunes of Palestinian refugees. While ordinary citizens on both sides longed for peace, security and geopolitical issues beyond their control increasingly overshadowed their desires. Although it would still be several years before the War of 1967 launched the ongoing occupation of Palestinian lands outside Israel’s recognized borders, the clouds of conflict were never far from the horizon.
However, this book is not meant to romanticize, politicize, rationalize past or present affairs, but to tell the story of a personal journey that came to determine the course of my life, though I had no idea of this at the time. I went to Israel in search of a closer understanding of my father through his Jewish roots, but planted my own roots there instead. Not only was I leaving my small hometown, I was also leaving my mother for a foreign land, just as she had left hers. On top of this, I was struggling to become an individual, distinct from my identical twin. Lurching on the tightrope between fear and the urge for independence, I plunged into the future with all the inexorable momentum of youth. That quest has now become a reverse journey through the arc of time, connecting the young girl I was with the woman I have become.
I have tried hard to render all the events, people, and places in this book to the best of my memory, research, and intuition. But memories can be like snowflakes, distinct yet quickly dissolving on the wavy mirror of the mind. Even shared memories within a family can be wildly dissonant. So who is to say what is strictly true? I only know my words to be “truly true” when they resonate in my heart like a well-struck gong or the solid crack of a baseball bat on a home run.
PART I
ISRAEL—FALL 1963
Chapter 1
SETTING SAIL
Walking a gangplank, cutting the cord
Sailing the sea to an unknown shore
Whump! The New York Port Authority Customs Agent stamped my passport photo, raising an inky welt like a slap in the face. Next in line, my twin sister Naomi presented hers. Squinting, the agent swiveled his head from one of us to the other in a double take.
“Didn’t I just stamp your passport, young lady?”
“No sir, that was my sister’s,” Naomi replied. We were used to the twin drill. Still perplexed, he finally stamped her photo with an identical welt.
“Even with wrinkled faces, people still can’t tell us apart,” I groaned as we got in line to board the Theodore Herzl.
“Maybe that’s how we’ll look when we’re old enough to write our memoirs,” joked Naomi, pretending to hobble up the gangplank.
At the age of eighteen, old age was as unimaginable to me as infinity. But whatever lay ahead, I hoped it would be exciting enough to write about when I got there.
On October 19, 1963, Naomi and I were on our way to Israel to study Hebrew in a program called an ulpan and work on a collective farm called a kibbutz. But now that my urge to explore my Jewish roots was becoming a reality, it felt like a one-way passage through uncharted waters. I felt seasick just standing on the dock.
Now a large gate clanged shut as if to seal off my childhood behind me. Meanwhile, the sailors herded us up the gangplank with the other passengers. There was no time to look over my shoulder with regret like Lot’s wife in the Old Testament. Only the future mattered now.
“Kadima, kadima,” (move along) shouted the sailors.
Before its recent conversion to carry passengers, the Theodore Herzl had been a cargo vessel. With our limited budgets, flying had been out of the question. But the glossy Zim Lines brochure had made the seventeen-day voyage across the Atlantic and Mediterranean look as inviting as a cruise. So why were the rough and tumble stevedores not behaving like white-gloved waiters?
“This feels like Exodus,” muttered Naomi.
“Yeah, like the ancient Hebrews fleeing Egypt,” I added as the gangplank buckled beneath my feet, almost pitching me into the sludgy harbor below. I grabbed the swaying guide rope for balance, but the rough yet slippery fibers ripped my palms raw. “Ouch!” I yelped.
The exhausting two-week trip from San Francisco to the East Coast by Greyhound Bus was finally catching up with me. Schlepping my heavy pack and dodging midnight gropers in grimy bus terminals hadn’t been as romantic as I’d imagined. Having risen at dawn for the last leg of the trip from Philadelphia to New York, my arms ached and my head throbbed. The sheen on my dreams was wearing thin.
No sooner had I reached the upper deck than a sailor took one look at our tickets and jerked his thumb downward toward a rusty metal staircase.
“Your cabin is down below.”
“Phew, what stinks?” asked Naomi as we spiraled down two levels.
“And what’s that deafening noise?”
The floor vibrated under our feet with a thunderous roar, while the putrid odor of diesel fumes and stale urine filled our noses.
We stared incredulously at the door with our number on it.
“These are our, uh, quarters?” Naomi quipped. But I was not amused.
In my fantasies, I had imagined myself rocking in a cradle as I crossed the ocean, not swallowed up like Jonah in the belly of this belching beast. Located squarely between the roaring engine room to one side and leaky toilets on the other, our third-class cabin was in the bowels of the ship.
“Guess we’ll be spending a lot of time above deck,” I gasped, but the noise and stench drowned out my words. Tossing our bags on the narrow bunk beds, we rushed back up the rickety staircase just as the ship nosed out of the harbor.
“How on earth will we survive like this for seventeen days?” we moaned in unison. I’d kept the promise I’d made at fifteen to make this trip, but now I wondered what the Promised Land would deliver.
Shadows lengthened across the deck as the sun set over the rusty scow that would be our home for the next three weeks. Unsure whether to laugh or cry, Naomi and I clung to each other as the darkening sky and water slowly swallowed up the land.
“Oh well, seventeen days in this clink will give us plenty of time to think,” Naomi rhymed.
“Or die in the stink,” I retorted.
“I’m starving. Let’s get us some vittles.”
“Not sprinkled with spittle!”
“Oh cease!” I cried. “In seventeen days we’ll be utterly crazed!”
Spontaneous rhyming was a favorite pastime that always lightened our mood, but it was hard to stop once we got going. We made our way to the mess hall for a surprisingly tasty supper of crispy pan-fried chicken breasts called schnitzel, roasted potatoes, and a tomato/cucumber salad. Exhausted, I fell asleep not long after dinner, the incessant drone of the engines drowning out my dreams.
At breakfast the following morning, we shared a table with an Israeli man in khaki pants and a casual shirt open at the neck. As soon as he learned we were going to study Hebrew, he insisted on giving us a lesson over our soft-boiled eggs, thick slices of brown bread and butter, various cheeses, yogurt, tomat
oes, cucumbers, and pickled herring.
“Bruchim ha’ba’im! Baruch Ha’Shem!” (Welcome, God be praised!) We did our best to repeat the phrase.
“Good. Now enjoy a typical Israeli breakfast,” he said. “The herring is especially tasty, but watch out for the tiny bones.”
To please him, I took a slimy bite and gulped it down with my tea.
The man laughed. But his smile faded at the taste of his soft-boiled eggs.
“These eggs are cold,” he complained, summoning the waiter.
“So what?” snapped the waiter with an insolent smirk.
Instantly, a shouting match began until suddenly, the waiter grabbed another egg from the table, tucking it between his legs with a suggestive gesture and more rapid-fire Hebrew. But instead of the outrage I expected, the passenger burst out laughing as if the sailor had told an off-color joke.
“What on earth was that all about?” I asked as soon as the sailor took his leave.
“Ah,” chuckled the man, “I’m embarrassed to tell you. But in Hebrew the word for eggs—baetzim—is also, how can I say, uh . . . slang for a man’s balls. So when I said my eggs were cold, the waiter asked if he should warm them up between his legs. Now you’ll never forget this important lesson, I’m sure!”
Until that moment, I had revered Hebrew as a sacred language. But if these two men were any indication, the daily modern version had taken a turn for the profane.
After breakfast I went on deck for some desperately needed fresh air. The morning was mild for mid-October, and the sea was a calm gray-green. A pale band of clouds trailed the ship’s wake. Nursing the remains of my tea, I let my memory of the past six months unspool:
May—leaving home on the day after high school graduation and steeling my heart as my mother waved and wept from the doorstep; June—landing a summer job in San Francisco; August—receiving my passport; September—buying a bus ticket and boat fare; October—rumbling across the country on the Greyhound to board this ship. Yet everything that had led up to this moment now seemed to belong to another lifetime.
