No Time for Tears

by Cynthia Freeman

  Dovid was speechless. By the end of the evening, they had raised their two million dollars. When Chavala shut the door after her guests had left with the promise that the money, in cash, would be at the landsman’s in the morning, she allowed herself a yelp of joy. Running to Dovid’s arms she said, “Oh, Dovid, we did it.”

  “No, Chavala. You did it, as you’ve done everything else you ever set your mind to.” He held her closer. “I love you, my darling. My God, how I love you.”

  “And I you, Dovid. Hard as it may have been for you to believe it.”

  And they went to her bedroom, to reaffirm what they both felt so overwhelmingly.

  In the morning Chavala was singing as she fixed breakfast for Dovid and Joshua. A woman well-loved, she thought, was a happy woman. How could she ever have forgotten, or lost sight of that… ?

  At the breakfast table Joshua looked intently at his father, scarcely listening to the conversation that went on between his parents. Did he have the courage to discuss what had been eating at him? When he’d come home from his summer in Palestine his mother had said that from now on his vacation would be spent at camp, at Lake Minnetonka. Who cared about that? He wanted to see Lake Kinneret. Finally he blurted out his long hidden thoughts: “I want to spend this summer in Eretz Yisroel too … is it all right with you, abba?”

  Dovid looked at Chavala. She’d already given up one son, and now Joshua? It wasn’t merely the suggestion of another summer spent in Eretz Yisroel. Both knew that this was only a prelude to his ultimate goal of living there. Joshua, smart as he was, didn’t give his parents credit for being perceptive enough to read his deeper feelings.

  He waited for what seemed a very, very long time, watching the exchange of looks between his parents.

  At long last, Chavala nodded slightly to Dovid … It was he who had been asked the question by Joshua. He should be the one to answer.

  Knowing too well how painful that apparently simple nod was for Chavala, Dovid also knew it meant she understood and respected her son’s need to be where his heart was.

  Still, for a moment Dovid was tempted to say, some other summer, but seeing the look in Joshua’s eyes, and not wanting to demean Chavala’s sacrifice, he said, “I think you should ask your mother.”

  Joshua was afraid. Wasn’t it a certainty that mother would say no? If only his father had just said yes, not placed him in this position. But his father had always said to Reuven, and to him too, “Never be afraid.” All right … “Could I … mama?”

  Without hesitation she answered, “Of course. I’m surprised you didn’t ask sooner … In fact, I want you to go.” She would kill herself if she allowed a tear to come.

  For a moment he sat there in disbelief. Then slowly he got up from his chair, put his arms around his mother and kissed her. “Thank you, mama… I love you very much.”

  She smiled. “Well now, that’s the best gift I ever received. We’ll call it your vacation going-away present.”

  When Dovid returned to Palestine, it was at least with a feeling of hope that the Yishuv would be protected and that the Haganah could have its beginnings. No sooner had he gone to his apartment in Tel Aviv than he sat down and wrote a letter to Chavala. He told her of all that had been accomplished, the careful smuggling of weapons, the building of an arsenal, and ended by saying …

  And one day, my dearest Chavala, when we are a free and independent state, I can proudly tell the world that my Chavala contributed to its birth.

  With my deepest love,

  Dovid

  He also wondered if he should tell the world about the gentlemen from New Jersey. Would it ever be ready for that? He had to smile…

  After the bloodshed and riots of 1929, Kfar Shalom joined the Haganah organization and began receiving arms and military instructions. The whole community of men, women and children was, of course, sworn to secrecy. Sentries were posted and warned that adults should police all approaches to the entrances of the moshav. Lessons in judo and pistol shooting were given, but handling weapons seemed less important than belonging to the Haganah, especially for the boys. As for Reuven, firing a carbine was not new. His father had taught him when he was only thirteen….

  On a December night in 1932, the settlement of Kfar Shalom was jolted by a loud explosion. Rushing out into the rainy night it was discovered that Eliezer Har-Zion and his eight-year-old son, Dov, had been killed. There had been recent attacks on Jewish settlements in the Jezreel Valley during the year, but still, this assault on Kfar Shalom was a terrible surprise. Since its establishment, the settlement had experienced nothing more serious than an occasional quarrel with Bedouins over property rights.

  After months of intensive investigative work by the Haganah, and with the help of the police, Ahmed el Gala’eini and Mustapha el Ali were arrested. After their arrest three other suspects were rounded up. All five had one thing in common—wildly unkempt beards—and thereby was uncovered a terrorist group that had become known as the Bearded Sheikhs, also as Kassamai’in, named after their leader … Syrian-born el Kassam preached insurrection from a mosque in Haifa; his recruits were the disenchanted quarry workers, mechanics, and blacksmiths—in fact, anyone who had access to explosives or knew metalcraft. He and his small band specialized in making homemade bombs, which he used to kill the Jews. A religious fanatic, he customarily read passages from the Koran before sending his men out to kill….

  By dawn the farmers of Kfar Shalom were in the fields.

  Ari, Zvi and Reuven were plowing the west section when a tire blew and Reuven went back to the barn to bring back another while Ari and Zvi took off the old one.

  Dvora was fertilizing her newly planted crops of vegetables in the far east field.

  Pnina was in the barn, milking her cow, Shoshanna.

  Just before Reuven reached the slight incline into the courtyard, hell erupted … guns firing, curses of “Kill in the name of Allah,” “Destroy the Jews …”

  Chaim Zadok’s farm was ablaze in the distance, billows of smoke rising from the northern sector of the moshav.

  And now the terrible sounds of vengeance for the Bearded Sheikhs were coming closer.

  Reuven dropped the tire, ran to the house. When he came out with the carbine his father had given him, he heard Pnina screaming from the barn, then saw her being dragged out. The whole world spun. The terrorists had infiltrated the moshav. Without hesitation he positioned his rifle, aimed, shot the Arab through the heart. He ran to Pnina, picked her up in strong arms. He stroked her hair, holding her closer. “Shh, Pnina, it’s all right … it’s all right, I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

  And feeling his strength, she did feel safe. She lay still in his arms, head cradled against his shoulder. “I love you, Reuven … I do and I can tell you now. Is it all right … ?”

  “All right? God, I feel the same way, darling Pnina, I love you.” A simple declaration.

  Except Reuven didn’t quite accept that she loved him like a woman, that her love had grown from childhood to this …

  He carried her into the house, put her down on the bed and hovered over her for a moment. Finally he said, “I think they’re leaving … Now, you stay here, I have to go… join the others. You’ll be safe, please trust me…”

  She reached up and kissed him. “I love you, Reuven, my dearest… just believe that…”

  In the fields Reuven saw his family standing with the rest of the moshavim, and thanked God that, in all this destruction, at least Ari, Zvi and aunt Dvora were alive. Ten others were not so fortunate … They had given their lives to protect their sacred piece of earth.

  When they reached their farm and Ari saw the dead body in the courtyard, he sent Dvora into the house, then looked at the face of the dead man. It was the face of the same man who had massacred hundreds in the name of Allah … it was the face of Az-el Din el Kassam. Ari felt no sorrow or compassion. The body was removed and placed along the roadside, where it was taken to Jenin. A fitting place, since it wa
s there that they had decimated the bodies of twenty-three Jews in prayer.

  This day irrevocably set the course of Reuven’s life. His first dream had been to become a scientist, an agronomist like his father had been. But, like his father, other pressures intervened. Both had wanted to be farmers, to live in peace, work their land, but from this moment on, Reuven knew his mission was to be a defender of his people. From this moment on, he dedicated himself to the Haganah.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  IT WAS 1933. HITLER had come to power. But the consequences of that awful fact were hardly on Joshua’s mind. The only one he felt able to turn to, as he had through the years of his young life, was Reuven. Sitting down at his desk, he wrote in Hebrew … Reuven, of course, was fluent in English, but it made Joshua feel closer to Eretz Yisroel to write in Hebrew.

  Dear Reuven:

  As you know, even though I was only five when I came back after that first summer in Palestine, I felt America was no longer really my country. I live here, but my heart isn’t here. I’m too far from the land I love. From you.

  I’ve friends here, but I feel like a foreigner because I belong to a different world than they do. I want to be with you and abba. That’s not to say that I don’t love ema. We both do, you and I, but we’re different from her. Even the Americans in the Zionist youth groups I work with don’t seem to be the same as Zvi and Pnina. I am one of them. Of you—

  I hope you’ll forgive me for bothering you with my small problems when I know that yours are so big, being an officer in the Haganah. But still, Reuven, I feel that only you really understand. This letter isn’t only to tell you once again, as I always do, how much I want to live in Eretz Yisroel. As you know, my birthday will be this October, and ema is planning a bar mitzvah as elaborate as the wedding she gave to Chia. Of course she plans that the whole family will come to America. She never asked me what I want. What I want is to be bar mitzvahed standing at the Great Wall in Jerusalem.

  I wish I were like you, but I think I’m sort of a coward. Over and over again Uncle Moishe, aunt Julie and Chia tell me that her sacrifices have been so great, how much she has done for all of us, and how hard she works. I can’t bring myself to hurt her. So I suppose I’ll just wait until I’m of age, so maybe then I’ll be man enough to tell her that it’s time for me to have my own life.

  I know this letter sounds as though I’m feeling very damn sorry for myself, and I suppose I am. But at least it makes me feel good inside that I have you to tell about my own secret feelings.

  Please stay well and safe, and give abba and the family all my love, as I give you mine.

  Your brother,

  Joshua

  P.S. Please write soon. I’ve saved every one of your letters.

  Reuven was more than touched by Joshua’s letter. He was twenty-six now, but it seemed like yesterday that he’d stood in his mother’s dirty cold flat and announced that he was going back to Palestine to live with his father. Strange, he thought, he’d been thirteen too, like Joshua. He remembered too well his feeling of desolation that his father wasn’t present on the day of his bar mitzvah … “You belong to one another,” he’d been told … the echoes of Dovid’s words were never stronger than at this moment. Never mind his important work, Reuven turned it over to his lieutenant and left for Jerusalem.

  Fortunately for Reuven’s purposes, Dovid had just returned from an important Zionist conference in Basel. Dovid said, “They’re keeping you pretty busy these days with all the mischief Haj Amim is making … he doesn’t seem to give up, does he?”

  “Not so long as there’s a rotten breath left in him. But then you wouldn’t have had to go to Basel if it hadn’t been for Haj Amim’s dear friend, Adolf Hitler. But we have another problem that has to be taken care of,” and Reuven handed Joshua’s letter to his father.

  Dovid read it, looked at Reuven. “Like brother, like brother, or so it seems.”

  Yes, I think he should be here, don’t you, abba?”

  “I’m not as positive as you two are … For one thing … a very important thing … your mother must be considered. We both know … and so does she … that once Joshua has his bar mitzvah here in Eretz Yisroel, nothing will pry him loose. Your mother will be heartbroken. To be deprived of two sons, Reuven? That’s a lot to ask, wouldn’t you say … ?”

  “But what about Joshua? Maybe if we give him the bar mitzvah it will satisfy him … well, for a while, anyway …”

  “You don’t believe that, Reuven, any more than I do.”

  “Whether I do or not, for God’s sake, he deserves it…”

  Dovid nodded slowly … in a way he had no choice, no more than did Chavala … “Your mother has to be eased into this …”

  “Write her a letter. You can convince her.”

  “Stop buttering me up. You’re not as brave as I thought you were. You’re pretty good in the word department yourself.”

  “So, I’m a coward … but the truth is, only you can help make her understand.”

  Or accept, Dovid thought, what she had understood … and dreaded … for a very long time…

  In spite of Dovid’s sensitive and careful letter, Chavala’s heart sank. It was as though she had been in the room and heard the conversation between Reuven and Dovid … Once Joshua went to Palestine for his bar mitzvah, she would have lost him and that she knew as well as she knew that her name was Chavala Landau. But she also knew she could not deprive Joshua of this, even if it meant…

  When she announced to Joshua that she had decided it was only fitting and proper that his bar mitzvah should take place in Jerusalem, he could only say, “I’ll never forget that you’re doing this, mama … I love you. Don’t you please ever forget that…”

  On the twenty-third of October the entire family—all but Sheine—stood near the wall and saw Joshua taken into the covenant of his faith. It was a simple, brief ceremony. It needed no trimmings. A boy had entered the state of manhood at the most enduring place in the history of his faith.

  After visiting in Jerusalem for a few more days, Chavala, Julie, Moishe, Laura, Chia, Lenny and the twins said their good-byes and were airborne. Joshua stayed. As Chavala sat on that flight, Joshua’s words came back, the one’s he’d spoken to her as a man … “Mama, I love you more than words can say. But the greatest gift you can give me is to let me go, let me live where I feel I belong, here in Palestine … I’ll go back if you insist, but the day will come when this will be my home. I ask you, let it be now.”

  From the night Chia had been born, Chavala had had precious little time for tears. Now, it seemed, there would be the rest of her life to shed them.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  IF JOSHUA’S WORLD NOW took on a new meaning, for many others in this year of 1933 life became a hellish terror.

  Few knew what Hitler’s new order would bring to Germany, and at first the Jews of Berlin actually waited with high hopes that Hitler would not harm those Jews who had given their devotion to the Fatherland for three hundred years. Hopes quickly faded, though, as lawless bands of youths roamed the streets, actually looking for Jewish blood. Not only the once-derelict and street brawlers, but university students from “good” German homes swarmed over the city, seeking revenge against “Jewish traitors.”

  Platoons of men dressed in brown uniforms marched in the streets, raced in cars and motorcycles, carried torches to the accompaniment of martial music blaring from loudspeakers. Worst of all was the terrifying, constant marching, the pounding of knob-heeled boots.

  In the beginning of the Third Reich the Jews were urged to leave the country, with the provision that their property be confiscated, their possessions taken from them. All they could leave with was the clothes on their backs. The relatively few who accepted these terms … most Jews still lived in the delusion that as Germans first and Jews second they would be spared … found that few countries wanted them. To appease the Arabs the British restrictions in Palestine remained in effect. In the Yish
uv’s most desperate hour of need for open immigration, the British turned their backs. The Balfour Declaration was not worth the paper it had been written on.

  Desperate to help those who wanted to leave Germany, Dovid—by now one of the Yishuv’s most important troubleshooters—was sent in search of foreign governments to take in those Jews. He flew from Lydda Airport to London, though with little hope that the British High Command or the foreign office would honor its commitment of 1917. He was right. In France the government agreed to accept a token number, provided that they were self-sustaining. They could not become citizens nor avail themselves of any of the benefits of French citizenship.

  With the aid of American dollars, all of five hundred Jews were issued visas to come, without possessions, to Paris.

  Aside from France there were few other countries left to appeal to. Italy was fascist… Russia communistic … One thousand were sent to Sweden, 750 to Denmark and 600 to Norway, with the provision that they would be supported by funds from world Jewry. Holland’s doors, however, were open without question.

  Still, the country most looked to was America. Dovid flew to Washington, D.C., where Chavala joined him in his crusade. The best America would do was allow a limited amount of immigration provided that affidavits were signed by reliable American Jews that they would take full responsibility for the support and employment of these refugees. They would be entitled to no other benefits. Bonds of good intention were required to be posted.

  Chavala herself signed two hundred affidavits.

  In New York, for the first time Chavala noticed that the enormous strain of the past few months was written in Dovid’s face. The silver streak in his full black hair had widened. There were wrinkles around his eyes, it seemed to her, that had not been there even the day before. Looking at him, she realized that he was giving himself to a dream, a cause, that had become more precious to him than life itself.