Newcomers in an Ancient Land

by Paula Wagner

  “There’s another gingit just like you?”

  When I finally found her, we shared a long hug that reaffirmed our connection despite our new lives. Then she took me on a tour of her kibbutz.

  Hazorea looked only slightly different from Ein Hashofet. It too had a communal hadar ha’ochel overlooking a wide lawn; it too had children’s houses and small stucco apartments for its members. But when we arrived at her room, I marveled at her matching desk, chair, and bed frame all made of teak wood.

  “How did you rate such nice things?” I couldn’t help asking, trying to hide my envy.

  “Well . . . Hazorea is famous for its teak furniture factory,” she explained with pride. “Can you believe these are actually seconds? It’s a rich kibbutz. On top of that, most of the members receive German reparations.”

  “Reparations?”

  “Yeah, Hazorea was founded by a bunch of German Jews—so-called Yekkes—most of whom came to Palestine in the early thirties, like Ein Hashofet, although some came after WWII. They were lucky to have escaped or survived the Holocaust, but many of them lost family members who stayed behind. So the German government pays the survivors reparations. By pooling their individual payments, the kibbutz has plenty of money.”

  As we walked to the dining room, I pondered how such unimaginable loss could become a source of abundance. But the now familiar scent of soup, steamed greens, beets, and roasted chicken soon banished these thoughts. Fresh-picked flowers and braided loaves of challah adorned a sea of white tablecloths. Amid smiles and laughter, the men sported dark trousers with white shirts open at the collar, while the women wore simple skirts or dresses. Well-scrubbed children darted in and out, eager to share a weekly meal with their parents.

  Everyone exchanged greetings of, “Shabbat Shalom!”

  After dinner, the tables were pushed back to make space for folk dancing. A small ensemble of flutes and drums played traditional Israeli folk songs as dancers swirled in a hypnotic circle. I watched the intricate steps with a degree of envy. When it came to dancing, I had two left feet. In any case, the fatigue from my week’s work was catching up with the warm room and my full belly, causing my eyelids to droop.

  Groggily I asked Naomi where I’d be sleeping, and she guided me to a room near hers, where I flopped down on the teak-framed bed and fell instantly into a deep sleep.

  The next morning Naomi showed me around her work site at the mashtela, the tree nursery where she was learning to plant, nurture, and graft row upon row of seedlings whose names she already knew in Hebrew. Compared with my own mindless schlepping heavy chairs and hosing of floors, her job in horticulture seemed far more interesting and valuable than housework. In addition, she also seemed to know almost all the Hebrew words I had learned. How could she get so far ahead of me in so short a time? My thinly veiled envy triggered my competitive spirit, and I vowed to match her phenomenal pace.

  Saturday evening, it was time to return to Ein Hashofet.

  “Shabbat Shalom,” we called out as the bus departed. Next weekend Naomi would visit me on Ein Hashofet. The new routine would bridge our time apart and give shape to our new lives, in separate yet connected spheres.

  I came to love the traditional Israeli week with its predictable cycle of beginning, ending, and sabbath renewal. Whether religious or secular, the entire Jewish population followed this rhythm, creating a sense of community I’d never before experienced. Even my single day off felt more restful than a full weekend at home. But here, with Fridays held holy by Muslims, and Sundays by Christians, three out of seven days of the week were sacred to someone, creating a certain mindfulness that was missing in the US, where everything hummed 24/7.

  Chapter 13

  MAKING ALIYA

  I’d been in Israel for less than a month when the news of President Kennedy’s assassination on November 22, 1963, swept through the kibbutz. At first I choked on disbelief, thinking it must be a bad joke. Without instant access to the news (television had not yet come to Israel), it was hard to verify such a horrifying act. Stunned, I ran to the Feins’ bungalow to see what they might have heard on the radio. There, Avram confirmed my worst fears. I listened to the solemn announcement in Hebrew on the station of the Israeli Army radio, Galei-Tzahal, and then in English on the BBC, the most reliable news sources in Israel, each confirming the horrendous truth.

  Like a bullet in my own heart, my blood drained as shock turned to despair, then alienation. How could this have happened in my own country, and to a president so revered? The mythical kingdom of Camelot, so artfully constructed by the media, lay in ruins. With the Viet Nam War and the Civil Rights Movement looming larger on the horizon, the assassination deepened my disillusionment with American politics. Dissent had always been a cherished political principle in my family. While I admired the way Dad always rooted for the underdog, his constant criticism of American misdeeds at home and abroad left me feeling powerless. Instead of joining protests against unjust causes, I longed to support causes that were just. That was a huge part of Israel’s draw for me. I never questioned the myth of the tiny nation of David beating the Goliath of Arab nations arrayed against it. Here was a noble cause I could embrace.

  The assassination of Kennedy made me consider staying in Israel as a real possibility. To make aliya—literally one who comes up into the land—and become an olah hadasha—a new immigrant—would require changing my visa status from tourist to permanent resident. Under a special agreement between Israel and the US, I could become a dual citizen. What did I have to lose?

  My idea thrilled the Feins, and I glowed in their approval. Even the earnest Avram smiled warmly, perhaps hoping the seeds he’d planted in an effort to convince Dad of the virtues of kibbutz life had finally germinated. But whether or not I chose to stay on the kibbutz, making aliya carried a special status in those days (while leaving—making yerida—was tantamount to treason).

  However, I doubted my parents would support me as enthusiastically as the Feins. Writing to ask their permission would take weeks. Slowly it dawned on me that having turned eighteen, I was legally an adult. I could make this decision without their consent. With my mind made up, I decided I would let them know only after the deed was done, at which point it would be a fait a compli.

  The following week I took a bus to the office of the Interior Ministry in Haifa to begin aliya paperwork. But when I arrived, a line of applicants from every nation and style of dress extended halfway around the building. A cacophony of languages rose from their ranks. Daunted, I stepped back to survey the scene. Women in long dresses and headscarves stood beside others in sandals and miniskirts; men in loose turbans and dhotis squatted next to guys in Ts and stovepipe jeans. Several Orthodox men wore traditional black suits with the edges of prayer shawls (tzitzit) peeking over the waistbands of their trousers.

  I worked my way toward the entrance to ask if this was indeed the line to apply for aliya. But a gray-bearded man in Orthodox garb blocked the door. A greasy skullcap was bobby-pinned to his wiry gray hair, and a dusting of dandruff covered the threadbare lapels of his black jacket, giving him the look of a goblin or troll.

  Running his rheumy eyes over my khaki kibbutz shorts, he waived me away. “Sorry, no appointments today.”

  “But, sir . . . there’s still room inside,” I protested, pointing to some empty seats through the smudged window of the waiting room.

  “No matter, tavoi mahar,” (come back tomorrow) he insisted, his voice rising.

  I felt suddenly self-conscious of my bare legs and freckled arms. Was my outfit not modest enough for his liking? How could he bar me because of my dress? Crushed, I slunk away, vowing to catch the bus at the crack of dawn the following week.

  On my next visit, I wore a long skirt and blouse with ample sleeves. But I wouldn’t go so far as to cover my head with a head scarf. My secular ulpan friends would have laughed me off the kibbutz! Hoping to outsmart the wolfish little man like one of the three (non-kosher) little pigs, I arriv
ed well before seven a.m. only to find an unruly crowd shoving and elbowing to hold their place in what passed for a line. And there at the office door sat the little man at his rickety table. But I needn’t have worried. When the office finally opened, the surging crowd nearly toppled him. Taking advantage of the stampede, I barged past him too. Along with my lessons in Hebrew, I was also learning the power of chutzpah—the impudent assertiveness with which Israelis gleefully challenged authority.

  The chairs were quickly taken, so I shifted from one foot to the other until I was beckoned to a window at ten o’clock. I shoved my application papers under its bars and held my breath. Peering up at me, the official rose from his chair, adjusted his thick horn-rimmed glasses, and muttered something that sounded like “tea break” before disappearing into a back room as a clock struck ten.

  Pandemonium broke out behind me. People shouted, shoved, and shook their fists.

  “How dare you take a tea break when we’ve been waiting hours?”

  But others were more circumspect. Some even laughed. “Savlanut (patience)!” crowed a man to my left, shaking his upturned palm in a gesture I’d seen before.

  After what seemed like forever, the door of the inner sanctum creaked open and the man returned, casually wiping a few stray drops of tea from his beard before plopping into his seat.

  “You have your American passport and the two required photos, yes?” he asked in a thick Polish accent. I pushed them dutifully under the grate.

  “And are you a Jew?” he asked, as if this were a routine question.

  “Of course,” I answered, pointing to the box I’d checked. The form’s only other choices were Christian, Muslim, or Druze, none of which seemed to apply. So I had marked the box that most closely fit my secular identity. I was not so naïve that I couldn’t guess what he was getting at—whether my mother was Jewish—but he hadn’t posed the question directly. Fearing he might prevent me from making aliya solely because I didn’t comply with the Orthodox definition of a Jew, I didn’t elaborate.

  Along with chutzpah, I was also learning not to offer Israeli bureaucrats any more information than they requested. I’d noticed that Israelis practiced a kind of don’t-ask-don’t-tell code, breaking or bending the rules with the motto that it was better to ask forgiveness instead of permission.

  Emboldened by this attitude, I felt indignant that my Jewish heritage should be denied just because it happened to have come through my father. After all, according to family lore, my great-grandparents on his side had taken pride in helping to found the secular reform movement in America, a tradition they had brought with them from Vienna to Seattle and later to San Francisco.

  I was also learning that one of the many paradoxes of Israeli life was the disproportionate legal power of the religious minority over the secular majority, especially when it came to marriage, divorce, or citizenship. The religious/secular divide was also deeply political, pitting the Orthodox and kibbutz movement, to which Ein Hashofet and Hazorea belonged, against each other. Making aliya on secular terms, I could identify as an Israeli without religious baggage.

  The tension between bumbling bureaucrats and rebellious citizens was another such irony. Many of Israel’s Russian and Eastern European early settlers had learned to outfox the arbitrary rules there—only to perpetuate the byzantine bureaucracy built by the British under the Mandate in Palestine prior to 1948. Thus, the British were the only culprits everyone could agree on. Nevertheless, the habit of challenging authority remained ingrained in Israeli culture.

  The sound of the official’s stamp on my documents startled me from these thoughts. With a half-smile, he pushed a small square of paper imprinted with the seal of Israel through the grill.

  “Congratulations, you’re now an olah hadasha,” he announced for all to hear, then rattled off my ID number just as loudly: 06956338. “You’ll receive your official card in a few weeks.”

  Committing the magic numbers to memory in Hebrew, I hurried for the door. The entire process had taken hours, and now I’d have to skip lunch to catch the next bus back to Ein Hashofet in time for my evening shift. My stomach growled even as a wave of triumph rose inside me. I’d made it past the troll of a doorkeeper, and the official hadn’t rejected my application.

  But I didn’t leave quietly. The bureaucrat’s announcement brought cheers from the crowd of onlookers.

  “Mazel tov, gingit,” they yelled. “Bharuch Ha’Shem!” (Good luck, redhead. God be praised!)

  I felt my cheeks blaze as red as my hair. A room full of nosy strangers didn’t seem to care which half of me was Jewish, secular or religious, as long as I was joining their tribe. Only a huddle of Arab men in dignified robes and checkered red-and-white keffiyehs kept silent as I hurried past them on my way to the exit. Their lined faces and lowered eyes masked their thoughts, but as a nefesh adina, I sensed a deep resentment. Had my celebrated status as an olah hadasha come at the expense of their own rights? Was I a newcomer or an interloper in this ancient land?

  Chapter 14

  STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND

  With the approach of the weeklong Chanukah vacation in mid-December, the ulpan was abuzz with travel plans. Everyone itched for a break from the routine of kibbutz life. Eilat, a tiny outpost on the Red Sea at the southern tip of the country, was the favored destination—a full day’s journey if you were lucky enough to thumb a ride. With few cars on the roads in those days, hitchhiking was the preferred mode of travel, especially for soldiers and cash-strapped students. I too was excited. This would be my first adventure beyond the confines of the kibbutz.

  I assumed Naomi would come with me, but at the last minute, she reneged. Adventurous as I was, I couldn’t summon the courage to hitchhike alone. Almost all the other ulpan students had already made plans, which left only Mordechai, a gawky, pimple-faced kid from New York, who was hardly my type. Swallowing my pride, I invited him along, emphasizing that we’d need to leave by seven a.m. Friday morning to beat the heat and compete with the other hitchhikers who would surely be crowding the roads.

  But the next morning Mordechai was nowhere near ready as the agreed time approached. It was almost ten by the time we finally hit the road, and I was seething with irritation. The sun cut across the back of my neck like a knife. I couldn’t help noticing all Mordechai’s perceived flaws: his sweaty, pockmarked forehead, brushy brows, and eyes that bulged like a bullfrog’s behind his thick smudged glasses; the dandruff-laced tufts of hair that poked out from the edges of his knit yarmulke, a symbol of religious observance I didn’t share; and finally, the hairy heavyset legs protruding from the white socks he insisted on wearing under his heavy leather sandals. What a nerd! Already I regretted asking him along. Why didn’t I have the guts to go alone? As long as I had a partner like my twin, I seemed to have plenty of courage to face the world. But flying solo felt like piloting my life with one hand tied behind my back.

  “We shoulda left earlier,” groused Mordechai in his nasal New York accent.

  “What? You’re the one who delayed us,” I shot back. “I was ready by seven. I even had our lunches together.”

  I’d packed the traditional kibbutz fare for our teul (trip)— tomatoes, cucumbers, hard-boiled eggs, sardines, brown bread, apples, and chalva.

  Mordechai wasn’t going to offer much protection anyway. He’d been afraid to hitchhike, although it was common practice, with so few people able to afford a car. I’d finally persuaded him we could be safe and save money, but now he was whining again in his nasal New York accent.

  “We shoulda taken the bus. What if we get kidnapped by Arabs?”

  “What if they shoot at the bus?” I retorted. He flinched at the reminder of infiltrators from Jordan who had recently attacked a bus to Eilat on this very road. Luckily the driver had managed to outrun if not outgun them. He’d been hailed as a hero for his efforts. But to me, such a threat seemed remote, even vaguely exciting. Unlike most Israelis, I hadn’t been raised to consider the Arabs my enem
ies.

  Now I was stuck with this dithering dufus. Part of me wanted to blame Naomi for my predicament. She seemed to enjoy being on her own more than I did. Although she hadn’t been specific, I suspected her decision to stay on Hazorea had something to do with someone she’d met. She’d hinted as much in her last note, but it would be several weeks until I could confirm my hunch. By early afternoon, my moaning travel mate and I had only made it as far as Tel Aviv—still less than halfway to Eilat.

  “Stop complaining,” I said for the millionth time, trying to put a positive face on our slow pace while secretly wondering if we’d make it by nightfall. Huddled in the shade of a bus shelter, we had seven other hopeful hitchhikers for competition. It was almost a social duty for drivers to pick up riders if they had room; but the real problem was how few drivers there were.

  Hitchhiking also had an unwritten pecking order. First dibs went to female soldiers in combat boots and khaki miniskirts, next to their male compatriots in olive fatigues, and finally to civilians like us. Serving their compulsory two-plus years of duty right out of high school, the soldiers looked as young as I was. Yet I couldn’t imagine myself clad in army togs, an Uzi rifle slung over my shoulder.

  I’d never seen machine gun-toting soldiers up close. Although my father had proudly served in World War II, he and my mother strongly opposed guns on principle. Yet here in Israel I couldn’t help feeling a kindred spirit with these rosy-cheeked recruits tasked with the country’s defense. In those days, it never occurred to me how a Palestinian might feel on the wrong end of their firepower.

  As the sun reached its zenith, the wind blew a gritty powder in my face. What if we couldn’t reach Eilat by nightfall? Our haphazard plans hadn’t allowed for that possibility. Finally a truck with benches in the back scooped up the last of the soldiers, leaving us a clear shot. Still I worried there might not be room for both of us, even if another car stopped. A girl alone always had a better chance of getting picked up, not because drivers had bad intentions, I’d been told, but because they assumed she needed their protection.