Return to sender: Advice from a younger self
hat advice would you give your younger self?” is a popular question with interviewers everywhere. I don’t have all the answers, but I have the second-best thing. In an extraordinary “Return to sender” incident, a letter I wrote to a friend 40 years ago was given back to me last week by the recipient.
Nikky Goldstein Strassman, a tour guide who found herself with much more time on her hands than she would have had in the pre-corona era, took the opportunity to do some spring cleaning and came across the letter postmarked March 1980. In it I wrote – at great length – of my experiences in a pre-army group (a Nahal garin) on Kibbutz Saad.
Nikky at the time was living in dorms and studying education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and had asked me what I thought about her doing military service in Nahal. We both made aliyah from England at age 18 in 1979, I chose to immediately join the garin while Nikky decided to study first.
We’ve known each other so long that neither of us remembers where we met. We assume it was through our activities on behalf of Soviet Jewry, the cause that we both passionately embraced in our teen years in the 1970s. We participated in marches, vigils and other demonstrations calling for the release of Jewish “Prisoners of Conscience.” And as experienced protesters watching what is happening in the US today, we can both unequivocally state that rioting and looting is not a form of protest, however legitimate the cause.
We met up last week in Jerusalem’s lovely Train Track Park as the country was easing up from the corona lockdown. Neither of us could have imagined even last year, let alone 40 years ago, that we would be wearing face masks against an invisible but nasty enemy. We’re sadly used to terrorism and real wars, but this is something different.
I didn’t appreciate at the time how close my immigration was to the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which had traumatized the country, rocking the sense of security in an unprecedented way. When we came, Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin had just signed on the peace treaty that although cold has thankfully held. Today, Kibbutz Saad is often described as close to the border with Gaza. In 1980, there was no border and Israelis often went there for the
Italy this week celebrated its 74th Republic Day, but due to concern for the health and well-being of the hundreds of guests who annually gather on the spacious lawns of the Italian ambassador’s residence in Ramat Gan, there was no reception, though there was an online Italian film festival. Italian ambassador to Israel
posted a message on the embassy’s website in which he apologized for the absence of a reception this year, but spoke of Italian solidarity in the face of the many challenges posed by the novel coronavirus.
He also referred to the different areas of cooperation between Italy and Israel, and was optimistic that Italy, which is known for its creativity, could rely on what it has created in the past as a foundation for creativity in the future.
Gianluigi Benedetti,
■ THE WORRISOME spike in coronavirus cases in India, prompted the Foreign Ministry to decide it did want any of its people who were stationed in India to be sick or dead heroes, and therefore opted to bring them home on a special Air India flight from New Delhi to Tel Aviv. Among the passengers was Ambassador to India
came to diplomacy from the world of high finance. Other than diplomats and their families and Israeli representatives of various other interests in India, passengers on the flight included Israelis who had been stranded and had been unable to join earlier flights back home.
Ron Malka,who
SOCIAL ACTIVIST
who was informed just before she was due to start her new job as CEO of Keren Hayesod that, due to economic belt tightening,
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Bronstein, Polly
beautiful beaches while Gazans worked in Israel and there were strong business ties. At the time, it was residents of the North who suffered from Katyusha rockets and terrorist infiltrations. In June 1982, Operation Peace for the Galilee – what was to become known as the First Lebanon War – broke out, with a lasting impact on our generation.
REREADING THE letter today, after four decades, was like meeting my younger self.
“There’s something to be said for being young and idealistic. Now we’re ‘old’ and idealistic,” Nikky quips. Together with her husband she has four children – the youngest still serving in the IDF – and four grandchildren; while I have one son, due to start military service next year.
Although both of us are happy we came and consider ourselves full members of Israeli society, we realize it wasn’t always easy.
“Kol hahathalot kashot” (all beginnings are hard), Israelis like to comment. I say it irritatingly enough too.
Israel at the end of the 1970s was not the successful Start-Up Nation of today. Looking back, I marvel at how we managed in those early days with little Hebrew and no phone other than very public ones which needed to constantly be fed asimonim (tokens).
“If we’d had phones, you would have texted, emailed or WhatsApped the letter to me and it would be lost for posterity,” Nikky notes.
The letter itself contained personal recollections along with general impressions about life on a religious kibbutz.
“Never underestimate the difficulties of being accepted by Israelis as part of the crowd: They will probably have known each other more than a year and therefore have their own jokes and gossip about things with which you have no contact,” I warned Nikky.
“One good and bad point of Nahal is that you are very protected from general Israeli problems (especially economic and social) but it can be overprotective so that you can’t wait until your hofesh [vacation] ... just to see a falafel bar and get pushed on the bus!”
Curiously, I have no recollection of being so fond of falafel – it might have been an effort to fit in, like learning to drink my tea without milk (a statement of an end to my Englishness if ever there was one.) I do remember the buses. They were hard to forget. There was no air conditioning and smoking was permitted. Whenever the news came on the radio, the driver would turn the volume up for the passengers’ benefit.
My younger self told a younger Nikky that it was the best of times and the worst of times. the position had been scrapped, missed out on making history because she would have been the first woman to hold the position. What is perhaps more extraordinary is that she was hired in March, when the economic effects of COVID19 were already in the air. Bronstein’s long-term predecessor, the popular, easy-going but highly efficient
resigned several months before Bronstein’s appointment, which means Keren Hayesod has been without a CEO for more than half a year. Masel, who now works as a freelance consultant, did not publicize the reason for his resignation, but it came soon after the installation of
as chairman of Keren Hayesod’s World Board of Trustees, though it is doubtful he had anything to do with Masel’s stepping down, given the fact that Masel is very close to Lowy’s father Sir who lives in Israel.
Greg Masel, Lowy Frank Lowy,
■ FORMER AUSTRALIAN Ambassador to Israel
is now a parliamentarian, has developed something in the nature of a blood brother relationship to Israel and the Jewish people. Sharma will be among the speakers at an on-line Limmud Oz&NZ (Australian and New Zealand) multi-disciplined experience, with an amazingly diverse range of subjects on Jewish matters, and speakers from many parts of the Jewish world, as well as some non-Jewish speakers. The event runs from June 6-14. Full details are available on the Limmud Oz website.
Sharma,who Steven Dave
■ MUCH MEDIA attention has been given to the high ratio of coronavirus victims in America’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities, particularly those in New York. In fact, in some circles they have been blamed for the spread of the dreaded disease. But a CBS broadcast indicates that more than half of the tens of thousands of blood plasma donations from people who have recovered from coronavirus came from these very same communities.
Lawyer one of several people spearheading the blood plasma donations campaign, said on the CBS newscast it was important for people who have recovered to give back to the community. CBS also showed an emotional online meeting between and who saved his life. Kovacs had been in hospital for almost a month suffering from severe oxygen deprivation until receiving a blood plasma donation from Markowitz. Both men looked ecstatic on screen and told each other they had been waiting for the moment they could meet. “It’s the
Kovacs Mordy
I obviously yearned now and again to escape from the close confines of the kibbutz and see new faces in the big city (not that the cities were that big then) but I had enjoyed the excursions, singing around a campfire – yes, in a religious Bnei Akiva garin, boys and girls sang together – and the “general balagan.” I obviously picked up the Hebrew word for a mess very quickly.
I didn’t so much offer Nikky conflicting advice as spell out my conflicting experiences and tell her that ultimately she had to make up her own mind. I left the garin a few months later, not long after basic training, and went into the regular army.
Nikky also learned from my experiences. She decided to skip Nahal and ended up in the Education Corps. This was the result, she later tells me, of her own letter writing.
With chutzpah (or initiative) she still finds surprising – “It was self-made proteksia” – when she was finishing her degree she wrote to IDF chief of staff Raphael (Raful) Eitan and
Searl, Robert Jacob Markowitz,
best thing that could have happened to me that I could help,” said an exuberant Markowitz. “It made my day, it made my year, it made my whole life I feel so connected to you.”
“We’re brothers from different mothers,” said an excited Kovacs.
IN ENGLAND,
has endorsed a virtual book of remembrance for COVID-19 victims. The prince released a video in which he said the pandemic had brought agonizingly painful tragedy and heartbreak to thousands of families whose loved ones had been taken from them with such suddenness. The initiative for the project, known as “Remember Me,” came from St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. The virtual book of remembrance will include the names of victims of all faiths and ethnic groups. In his video-taped message Charles said:
“This virtual book of remembrance is here to help
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Charles Prince
the head of the Education Corps, Joseph (Yos) Eldar, to ask what she could do in the army. Eldar, who also received the letter that Raful forwarded him, was impressed enough to invite her to an interview, where he told her she could teach him about being a Zionist. He presented her with two possibilities, serving as a soldier-teacher or as a mashakit havaya, an NCO who led trips and explained about the history and geography of the country. She took the latter path and – when there are tourists – still literally works in the field as a tour guide.
Like mine, Nikky’s army service was not easy but neither of us regretted having enlisted.
“It taught me a lot about Israeli society,” she says.
Given the recent reports of the increased number of people thinking of making aliyah, we pondered what advice we would give new immigrants. (Remember, we came to Israel before the age of Nefesh B’Nefesh and other organizations helping newcomers.) us remember; not just to recall our loss and sorrow, but also to be thankful for everything good that those we have loved brought into our lives, and all that they have given to others.”
■ RACISM HAS many forms, but the common denominator is antipathy or even hatred towards the other who may be of a different ethnic group, religion, nationality, sexual orientation or even political party. Racism exists almost everywhere, in all classes of society.
Anyone who flips through international media can see that racism is fast becoming a global scourge and police officers who are supposed to defend the public are in the forefront of racial bias, neutralizing suspected criminals by killing them instead of shooting them in the foot.
Aside from what we know of the deaths of Iyad al-Halak, Solomon Tekah and George Floyd, there have been other incidents ending in death or humiliation. In Paris, Adama Traore, a man of African background, died in police custody, thereby sparking a riot against racial injustice. In Nunavut, Canada, a Mountie deliberately drove a truck into an apparently intoxicated, staggering Inuk man. As was the case with Floyd, a bystander video taped the scene, which in both instances contradicted police versions of what had taken place.
In America and elsewhere, peaceful demonstrations have led to riots, and expressions of solidarity with peaceful demonstrators and social posts of outrage of what was done to victims have sometimes led to viciously hateful responses. Among the many celebrities who have expressed revulsion at what happened to George Floyd were supermodel and Wonder Woman
What each of them wrote was not remotely provocative, yet their messages elicited a barrage of vindictive verbosity. Refaeli had featured a clip of a dark skinned girl saying she feels she is treated differently because of the color of her skin. To this, Refaeli added a text stating “little girls, big girls, children, men, women – no one should feel different or inferior because of the color of their skin.” Response was quick in coming, accusing her of hypocrisy in view of the bias practiced against anyone of Ethiopian background in Israel. She was also asked where she was when Tekah was killed and why she had not sent a similar tweet then.
Gadot, who had written it wasn’t good enough to be silently anti-racist but to come out against racism with a loud voice, was reminded that she is an Israeli who is well aware of the racism practiced against Palestinians and who as a soldier in the IDF had played a role in continuing the “occupation.”
Gadot.
Both of us agree that the most important thing is to learn as much Hebrew as you can before you come. And once in Israel, the guiding principle should be: Don’t compare. Consider what looking back did for Mrs. Lot. Don’t give in to the temptation of comparing the size of your home, job and lifestyle in Israel with what you left behind or might have had. (If nothing else, corona has shown us all that there are no guarantees anywhere in life.)
Dare to take control of your own fate as much as you can. There are some circumstances you can’t change but there are many more that are up to you. I’m still a firm believer in drawing up lists of pluses and minuses when I need to take a tough decision.
Four decades after I wrote to her, let me give Nikky the last words of advice: “Be idealistic, stick to your principles, and just believe that you can do things.”
And, we both agree, never underestimate the lasting power of writing letters.
Bar Refaeli Gal
■ACTOR, AUTHOR and politician
Arnold Schwarzenegger,
who as governor of California came to Jerusalem in 2004 to participate in the groundbreaking ceremony of the controversial Museum of Tolerance, has done more than post a message. He has produced a video in which he talks about bigotry, hatred, white supremacy and neo-Nazism.
Until the beginning of this year, the museum was still under construction, and had just begun a running in period when all museums were closed indefinitely.
Throughout the years, Schwarzenegger has remained in close contact with the original Los Angeles-headquartered Museum of Tolerance, which is the educational arm of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Schwarzenegger knew the legendary Nazi hunter with whom he was friendly, and has been a regular financial supporter of the Museum of Tolerance.
The Austrian-born Schwarzenegger always knew his father Gustav had been a Nazi, but wasn’t sure whether his father could be considered a war criminal. He asked the Simon Wiesenthal Center to investigate, and was relieved to learn that none of his father’s wartime activities could be characterized as criminal.
In the video, Schwarzenegger says there are no two sides to bigotry and no two sides to hate.
Addressing neo-Nazis he says: “If you choose to march with a flag that symbolizes the slaughter of millions of people, there are no two sides to that.”
Addressing Schwarzenegger tells him that, as president he has a moral responsibility to send an unequivocal message he will not stand for hate and racism, and that he rejects the support of white supremacists.
“The country that defeated Hitler’s armies has no place for Nazi flags,” he says.
Donald
US
President
Trump,