Back in the 1950s, when Uncle Joe and Aunt Rose decided to visit Israel for the first time, a trip like that was sufficiently rare that the local paper, The Montgomery Advertiser, did an article about it. I recall the story behind the headline. The reporter asked Uncle Joe if he was visiting his relatives, and he said, “Of course.”
“Do you have a brother or a sister there?”
“No.”
“An uncle or aunt?”
“No.”
“Cousins, perhaps?”
“No.”
Finally, the reporter asked, “Who exactly are the relatives you will be visiting, Mr. Weinstock?”
Uncle Joe answered, “The whole country is made up of my relatives, the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
So, the headline in the paper was “Weinstocks to Visit Relatives: the Children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
Well, in 1965, I had the opportunity to visit Israel for a year of study at Yeshiva Kerem B’Yavne, and I, too, got to meet my family, am Yisrael. Although I am writing about people I met 41years ago, the memories are still fresh in my mind. On none of my subsequent trips did I ever have the opportunity to meet so many interesting people from such varied backgrounds.
Back in those days, it wasn’t as common as it is nowadays to spend a year in Israel. At Yeshiva University High School, I had an older chevrusa, a college student named Yitzchok Pichenik. He was the one who planted the idea in my head, and he himself moved to Israel after college. In those days, not only did Kerem B’Yavne not charge a penny of tuition, but the Jewish Agency paid for our transportation and arranged field trips while we were in Israel.
I was part of a group of about 15 fellows, many from the Skokie yeshiva. We spent two weeks traveling to Israel on the luxury liner, the SS Shalom of the Zim Lines. Not only was this a traveling luxury hotel but also our first introduction to the State of Israel. The first thing I noticed was that, although the ship was very large, the synagogue was very small. The first Friday night, our table started to sing zemiros, and the maitre d’ came over to tell us to stop singing. I said to him, “But it is Shabbos, and this is a Jewish ship.” His reply was “This is an Israeli ship, not a Jewish ship.” It also seemed that almost the entire crew was purposely lighting up cigarettes to show that they were not observant. I had never before seen this need to show that one was not religious. In Alabama, being mechalel Shabbos was the norm, but it wasn’t a statement of anything.
There were two kashrus supervisors, one a very old man who seemed not too aware of anything but who wore a fancy uniform. The other one told us that he was a talmid chacham and wanted very much to give us a shiur in a sugya of Shas so that we would write down his chiddushim. We did go once, but the guys didn’t find his shiur so great, and it was discontinued. I assume that he was indeed what he said: someone who had once learned in a great yeshiva but who, in the modern State of Israel, was reduced to being a mashgiach on a ship whose crew most likely treated him with very little respect.
The voyage was very interesting, and I met all sorts of people on the ship. There was Rabbi Lipnick and his family, who were spending a sabbatical in Israel. He was a Conservative rabbi and had a daughter Mimzi, who was about 16, and a son. They were going to live in Jerusalem, and I visited them a number of times on Rechov Al Charizi in Rechavia. I also became friendly with Ora Nissani, who was about 21. She was from Tel Aviv and was dati (religious). She had been in the US for a year or two and was now returning home. I visited her family many times and enjoyed meeting her very smart mother and her father, who was a wealthy Persian and a big shot in the shuk (marketplace).
Before going further, I have to make a disclaimer. At that point in my life, no one had ever told me that frum boys don’t speak to girls. I was only 19 and not remotely thinking of getting married to these girls or anyone else. They and many others whom I met in the course of the year were all interesting people and just friends.
After two weeks and stops for touring in Malaga, Marseilles, and Pompeii, we landed at Haifa. The yeshiva picked us up and took us to Kerem B’Yavne. I remember sitting down to the first supper at the yeshiva. On the table were tea, bread, farmer’s cheese, and olives – and maybe tomatoes and sardines. I sat waiting, assuming that these were just foods you put on the table in addition to the main course. After a few minutes, someone explained to me that this was the main course. It was all we would get. Wow! No more SS Shalom. But at least I could be certain that it was kosher.
The way it works with a ship is that you have to come back another day to take your luggage through customs. So, with another boy, I went back to Haifa. Once we had taken care of the luggage and sent it on to be delivered to the yeshiva, my friend wanted to visit someone whose address he had been given. In those days, anyone who went to Israel was given addresses of people’s relatives to visit. We wandered around and never found the street, but we did chance upon a large and ornate synagogue up high on the mountain. It was getting dark, and we had no idea where to go, so we went into the shul. There was a board of directors meeting. One of the men came out, and we explained who we were. He said to wait until after the meeting and someone would invite us home.
I don’t remember his name, but the man who took me home was a wealthy German Jew who grew carp in a pond and sold it to stores. His wife barely spoke Hebrew, but they were of the highest caliber and treated me with great hospitality. I visited them several times for Shabbos during the year. Years later, I found out from Naomi Miller’s late mother, Mrs. Rabenstein, that the lady was her relative and had written to her about me.
The next morning, my friend and I met up and toured some of the sights of Haifa. By chance, we met a postman and started talking to him. He was a Moroccan Jew and he was very anxious to invite us to his home. So, we went with him back to the main post office. (Israeli postmen don’t work a full day.) He treated us to lunch in the workers’ cafeteria. Then he took us to his neighborhood. What a change from the day before! We had been at the top of the mountain, and now we were in a slum area at the bottom of the mountain. Our host could not have been more generous, though. He took us to a butcher store and bought some meat especially for his honored guests. That evening, we slept in his parents’ apartment, because his home had no room. The father was a Sefardi of the old school, and we got up very early for Selichos, which the Sefardim say the entire month of Elul.
Here I was in Israel only a few days, and people were treating me like a relative and opening their homes and hearts to me. Where else can a Jew feel so at home?
* * *
Kerem B’Yavne was a wonderful and new experience for me. In America, we have some yeshivas that are Torah only and some that allow college. In Israel, there are yeshivas that are Torah only, where students are deferred from army service. Kerem B’Yavne was founded by the World Mizrachi Organization in order to produce learned, religious Zionists. Israeli students all served in the army in conjunction with their time in the yeshiva. In contrast to the religious kibbutzim, which were more liberal in their Yiddishkeit, the yeshivas like Kerem B’Yavne were the progenitors of the modern day chardal (chareidi dati leumi) community. In 1965, the process was not that far advanced but the seeds were being planted. Physically, too, Kerem B’Yavne was much smaller and not as physically developed as it later became.
Kibbutz Yavne donated the land for the yeshiva, and I heard that they originally thought that the boys would work in the kibbutz and also study Torah, in keeping with the Torah ve’avoda (Torah and work) ideology, which was strongly held in 1965. However, as the saying goes, “a mentch tracht und G-t lacht – Man proposes and G-d disposes.” The Mizrachi recruited a talmid of the Chazon Ish, Rav Goldvicht, as the rosh hayeshiva, and from the beginning, he established that yeshiva students are not part-time farmers but full-time learners as long as they are in the yeshiva.
Rav Goldvicht was the first rosh hayeshiva in the traditional mold that I had ever encountered. He dressed in the same garb as any rosh yeshiva, and the Sefardic pronunciation of his daily Hebrew was forced; you could almost hear him reformulating the traditional Ashkenazi pronunciation before he spoke. One thing he did not change was the shem Hashem, which was always in the Ashkenazi pronunciation.
It took a while to get acclimated to all-day learning, which was much more learning than I had previously experienced. Davening was early in the morning, like 6:30. Our shiur, taught by Rabbi Reuvain Aberman, was given in Hebrew. Rabbi Aberman had originally been the rav of Kibbutz Yavne but had left when they refused to follow his psak that there should not be mixed swimming. He was a musmach of the Skokie Yeshiva, in Chicago, which in 1965, at least, seemed to be one of the most religious Zionist yeshivas in America.
My shiur consisted of first year students from abroad, including a lot of students from South Africa and European countries. I made an effort to meet boys from all over and not stick with only Americans. One of the Israelis that I became friendly with was named Stern; I forgot his first name. Israeli elections were going on, and he and some other guys were spending the time talking about the elections. I asked how he could “botol,” waste, so much time talking about elections when he should have been learning. He told me that Americans like me didn’t understand how important the elections were in Israel. I guess the Rosh Yeshiva didn’t understand either, because this boy didn’t come back after Elul zman. However, Stern told me that I was always welcome to visit his home in Jerusalem, and I took him up on this offer many times.
For pampered Americans like myself, the food was very different. However, we got used to it. I remember that the main meat meal was lunch. All courses were served in the same soup bowl, first soup, then “meat,” and then desert, if there was one. Meat was mostly rice with some meat in it. The breakfast and supper meals were very simple and we got used to bread, cheese, and eggs, with olives on the side. I remember one very rich Canadian boy who had one of those gadgets that slice a hard-boiled egg into many slices. He brought it to breakfast daily. I thought it was ridiculous.
I had arrived with a steamer trunk full of clothing. My Israeli roommates had very little clothing. They wore the same shirt all week. Before Shabbat, they put on a clean one and gave the dirty one to the laundry for the next Shabbat. I don’t remember more than one pair of pants and not much else. We only had a little cubby for our clothes and I had to store 90 percent of my clothes in the storage area (machsan). In those days, no one had cell phones and many homes did not have telephones at all. Israeli boys didn’t have money to take buses, they always hitched, called “tramping.”
I made a point of getting Israeli chevrusas as much as possible, so I could learn Hebrew, and at meals, I tried to sit with Israelis, also to learn to speak Hebrew. I subscribed to a newspaper for new immigrants called HaOmer. It was a version of Davar, the Histradrut paper but in easy Hebrew. It was sent once a week and I would spend a half-hour every day with a chevrusa from England studying one article to learn the new Hebrew words. I became relatively fluent over the course of the year.
For someone who came to Israel hardly knowing anyone, I soon developed a long list of homes that were open to me whenever I wanted to visit. I feel a little sorry for many of today’s kids, including some of my own, who, after a year in Israel that costs a fortune, still can’t speak Hebrew and whose knowledge of Israelis is mostly confined to American olim.
Of course, I found out that Rav Goldvicht didn’t agree with my leaving yeshiva for Shabbos. He would ask why I wanted to leave, and I would say “kibalti hazmana – I got an invitation,” and he would say, “Ani mazmin otcha lihyot bayeshiva leshabat – I invite you to remain in yeshiva for Shabbos.” This was the first time for me that Shabbat was part of the curriculum. In YU high school, we had been encouraged to find places to go for Shabbos and had to pay for our meals if we stayed. Shabbos at Kerem B’Yavne started early. Davening was at 7:00 a.m. Then we ate breakfast. Rav Goldvicht had a melodious voice and I still remember the singing, especially around havdala.
It was a wonderful year, in which I grew in knowledge and in the awareness of what a yeshiva was. It was the year that I learned Mesilat Yesharim for the first time as well as a number of National Religious thinkers, like Rav Bar Shaul. I don’t remember anyone teaching us anything about Rav Kook. There was one sefer being sold that I regret not buying. Someone had written a Sefer Ha’isurim. He had collected every possible issur, forbidden thing, that is found in the entire religious literature. I looked at it and thought that the person must have had some “issues,” as we say now, since everything seemed to be forbidden. That wasn’t the Judaism that I had been taught, and if they had tried that on me, I would have run for the hills.
One minor recollection, but it reveals a lot: I remember Rav Goldvicht invited us over for a Chanukah mesiba (party) in his home; it must have been just our shiur. We were singing all the normal yeshivish songs, and I, in total naiveté, asked why no one sang a Chanukah song I had learned in Sunday school in Alabama. It is “Mi Yimalel gevurot Yisrael.” Someone explained that the song is “apikorsut,” heresy. Instead of “Who can recount the gevurot Hashem, it gives credit to the people. There is the refrain, “Hain, bechol dor, yakum hagibor, go’el ha’am – Behold, in every generation, the gibor, the hero, will arise, redeemer of the people.” Once he explained it to me, I realized how anti-religious this song was. It encapsulated, in a nutshell, the difference between secular Zionism and religious Zionism.
I don’t even recall Yom Ha’atzma’ut being much of a day at Kerem B’Yavne. In my day, we left early and visited other places, like the parade. In my year, the parade was in Haifa, but I didn’t go. I think I went to Mercaz Harav, where they did have a seudat mitzva. I think that Rav Goldvicht was a rosh yeshiva, and wasn’t interested in politics. Even when he took me on a trip to Yibne, the Yemenite village near the yeshiva, where he had to speak to the people encouraging them to vote, I remember that all he said was that they should vote for one of the religious parties, vezeh hu.
My year in Israel was a transforming one, I have only the most positive memories and much hakarat hatov to Rav Goldvicht, zichrono libracha.
* * *
There were numerous times, though, when I did get to spend Shabbos in various places. Yerushalayim in those days was not as big as it is today. This was 1965, before the Six Day War of 1967. I stayed in one of two neighborhoods, either with the Sterns or the Picheniks. Both were very interesting people. Dr. Stern lived with his family in Kiryat Moshe. He was in charge of special education in the Ministry of Welfare and an important and very dignified individual. The Sterns were Swiss Jews, very cultured. They lived in a private home, and they had a Sefardi girl who was a full-time, live-in servant. They explained that she came from a dysfunctional home where she had been abused. They took her in and raised her, and she helped around the house.
I learned many things from the Sterns, about their rescue efforts during the Holocaust years and what they thought about the new State of Israel. Remember Israel was only 17 years old then. Dr. Stern was a member of Poalei Agudat Yisrael (Agudah workers party), and he was very distressed that the religious parties could not get together on one unified list. He sat in a special seat in the front of the shul that had formerly been his father’s, but he told me he would not urge anyone to vote for any party until the religious could unify as they had done in the very first Israeli elections. They were people who sent their children to Ezra, the co-ed youth group founded in Germany. They were both religious and believed in building the State. I would say that, overall, the Poalei Agudah people I met that year were the most idealistic and sincere people. It is a shame that the party died. Their children either became national religious or chareidi (maybe a few). Today, people don’t even know that Shaalvim and Kibbutz Chofetz Chaim were founded by the Poalei Agudah.
It was through their son that I had my one and only meeting with Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook.
After his leaving Kerem B’Yavne, Stern was enrolled in Mercaz Harav Yeshiva very close to his home. He had a dorm room that he almost never used and told me that anytime I was in Yerushalayim I could use his room. One motza’ei Shabbos, I was actually learning in the bais hamedrash, and the rosh hayeshiva, Harav Tzvi Yehudah was showing an American tourist around. He brought the man over to me and said, here is one of the American boys who learn in our yeshiva. The man asked me how I liked it, and I sang the praises of Mercaz Harav. It was the least I could do to repay them for letting me sleep there.
If Dr. Stern was apolitical, Rabbi Pichenik was a party man through and through. He was the father of my former older chevrusa, and he worked for the Mizrachi. He had some kind of editorial job at Heichal Shlomo (the headquarters of the chief rabbinate) putting out their annual calendar book with essays. He believed in the party a hundred percent. Once, I really got him nervous. Two of the most prestigious religious academics in Israel, Professor Efraim Urbach and Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz, called a meeting of a new organization named Tenuah L’Yahadut shel Torah – the Movement for Torah Judaism. I think they were disgusted with the mixture of politics and religion and wanted an organization that was apolitical to reach out to the Israeli people. I was staying at the Picheniks and mentioned that I was walking over to the Yeshurun Synagogue to hear these two famous people. He tried everything he could to keep me from going, afraid that I might hear criticism of the Mizrachi. I assured him that I would never accept lashon hara on the party and promised him I would just listen but not join. Of course, nothing ever came of the new organization. It died after the first meeting.
When in Rechavia with the Picheniks I would also drop by the Lipnicks. The son and daughter were both attending a religious public high school, and the father was taking some courses at Hebrew University. They invited over some very interesting guests. I remember two of them specifically. One was Zeev Vilnai, the fellow who wrote a guide book to Israel that everyone used. The other man was named Rivlin, who also was important, but I forget how. I do remember him telling me that there were three groups in Yerushalayim: Ashkenazim, Sefardim, and Rivlinim, because there were so many members of that family. He also said that during the time of the British White Paper, before the war, which prohibited Jews from entering Palestine, he wanted to bring over a relative. There were no more certificates for Jews, so he went to a prominent Arab (Nashashibi, I think) and asked for his relative to come in on the Arab quota. The Arab said that if it was for his friend, Rivlin, he would do it as a personal favor. This is something I remember from over 40 years ago.
I also visited Ora Nissani’s family in Tel Aviv. They lived in a nice apartment in a neighborhood called Mugrabi. I remember the first time I went to the Persian synagogue, and there was an appeal for something. Everyone called out the same amount as they went around the shul, “meah ve’achat,” 101. I thought, wow, these guys are giving 101 lirot, but Mr. Nissani later told me they were each giving 101 agorot (pennies, like $1.01 in our money). Although the Nissanis were well to do, there was only one bedroom in their apartment. When it came time to go to bed, every room except the kitchen turned into a bedroom. They opened up sofas, etc. In other words, why waste a room just on sleeping, when it could be a den or a dining room in the day and a bedroom at night?
Although I was very friendly with the family, which included a son and some younger daughters, I saw that there was a big generation gap between the father and the children. They were real Israelis, who went to government religious schools and aspired to attend Bar Ilan. I don’t think any one of them would have gone down to the shuk to help their father sell fruits and vegetables. Mrs. Nissani once taught me a pitgam, a saying, that is pithy and often true. She was telling me that she had sent Ora to America to find a husband, but after a few years of staying with her relatives, she saw that nothing was happening, so she brought her home. She said the best relatives are rachok umatok – far away and sweet. This means the further away they live, the better you get along with them. This is certainly not true of all relatives, but sometimes it rings true.
* * *
Kerem B’Yavne had students from all over Israel as well as many foreign boys from places like Belgium, Holland, Denmark, and Great Britain. Then there was a group of adults who came for the winter zman. They were residents of National Religious kibbutzim like Sdeh Eliyahu and Ein Tzurim. They explained that after a certain number of years on the kibbutz, you are entitled to a trip abroad paid for by the kibbutz, but you can choose as an alternate to spend a zman in a yeshiva. Because of these guys, I got to visit kibbutzim and see how they lived. I remember a wedding where the bride and groom were riding on a decorated tractor. It was a lot less expensive than what we have to do nowadays.
One of the most memorable weeks that year was my visit to Netivot. A boy in the yeshiva named Choury invited me home to Netivot. It was a different Israel. First of all, I learned that Netivot was divided between the Tunisians and the Moroccans. Little did I know that each group thought they were more cultured than the other. I was with the Tunisians, so I heard their side. The Choury family came from the Isle of Gherba, and they told me all about this island off the Tunisian coast where the Jews were learned and pious and of course far better than the uncouth Moroccans. I knew Galitzianers and Litvaks had a rivalry, but no one in Alabama told me that Gherba was the “Yerushalayim of wherever.”
Mrs. Choury did not speak a word of Hebrew. She had a modern stove in the kitchen that she probably did not know how to use. She preferred to sit on the ground in her “garage” and cook everything on a single-burner kerosene stove. And cook she did; they fed me royally. Mr. Choury explained to me that couscous is the real mon (manna), and everything goes with couscous. He also told me that Ashkenazim eat everything too sweet. Tunisians eat everything hot. I remember that they would take a wedge of tomato and dip it on all sides into black pepper before eating it. I brought them a bottle of wine, but he gave it back, saying it was sweet Ashkenazi wine.
There was no inside bathroom at the Choury home. They were poor. After a few days, it occurred to my not too swift American mind that I had my own bedroom. I asked how he could give me my own room, so he told me that he sent the girls to sleep elsewhere. I never experienced more hachnasas orchim than by the Sefardim. The Ashkenazim were wonderful, but these people just went above and beyond our concept of how to treat a guest.
* * *
When we had a bein hazmanim vacation, we were in the care of the Sochnut, the Jewish Agency’s religious division, in other words, the Mizrachi party. They used Machon Gold, in Yerushalayim, as our home base. We ate there and had sessions there, and I met a whole lot of interesting people at Machon Gold, which you may know is a girls’ seminary. First of all, it was the only time that I had the opportunity to hear a shiur from Nechama Leibowitz. She was brilliant and showed us how to see what was going on in the Chumash, The topic she taught us was the request of the two tribes to stay in Transjordan and how they valued their livestock more than their children. It was the first time I had heard Chumash expounded that way.
Another speaker was Josef Burg, one of the leaders of the National Religious Party (Mizrachi). He was born in Dresden, Germany, and was ordained at the Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary in Berlin. A member of the Knesset from 1949 on, he was a wonderful speaker. He was minister of the interior at that time, I think. Because I wanted an opportunity to get to know this man better, I asked him for a ride downtown in his chauffeur-driven automobile, and he gladly acquiesced. Israel, in those days, was a little country, and you could get close to anyone, even the important leaders. It was heimish. I remember him pointing out an old Sefardi man in Middle Eastern garb and telling me that this man’s son was a high officer in the army. This was his way of showing how Israel was absorbing and advancing the immigrants.
A familiar figure at Kerem B’Yavne was Dr. Zerach Warhaftig, the Sar Hadatot, the minister of religious affairs. He was saved from the Holocaust by fleeing to Lithuania and then to Japan, the United States; he finally got to Israel in 1947. At the founding of the State, he was elected to the Knesset on the Hapoel Hamizrachi list. He came to the yeshiva for a number of reasons: number one because Kerem B’Yavne was the pride and joy of the National Religious Party, and also because his son Itamar was a student in the yeshiva. Later in the year, Itamar married the daughter of Pinchos Kahati, of mishnayos fame, at the yeshiva.
I want to digress for a moment. The National Religious Party of 1965 was nothing like the party today. First of all, there were no territories to be settled. Israel was a little country, and no one dreamed that in a short time, there would be the Six Day War with the ensuing settlement movement. I remember attending hakafot shniyot, the motza’ei Yom Tov celebration with a band, etc., at a time that is still Simchas Torah for us Diaspora Jews. It was held in an open area near the Kings Hotel, and the man in charge announced that this year it was very crowded but that next year the hakafot would be held at the Kotel Maaravi and there would be plenty of room. I thought that was the wildest hyperbole imaginable. Who would have thought that two years from then, it would indeed come true.
The National Religious Party then was the largest religious party, with 12 Knesset seats. The Agudah had four and Poalei Agudah had two seats. The leaders of the party were determined to infuse as much religion as they could into a state that was led by people opposed to or, at best, not too fond of religion. Dr. Burg and Dr. Wahrhaftig were scholars, very intelligent men who worked within the system to get whatever they could. One Israeli explained to me at that time that the NRP’s goal was to help the broad masses keep a little Yiddishkeit; it was not an elitist party like those to the right of it, he said.
Who knows how different Israel would look today if the party had not been taken over by the disciples of Harav Tzvi Yehuda Kook. It is amazing how a socialist party, which believed that being a part of the coalition was an imperative, could have changed into a party to the right of the Likud and estranged from most of the nation because of its single-minded devotion to only one thing: land, land, land. My Uncle Joe left bequests in his will to the Mizrachi and to Poalei Hamizrachi. I don’t think he would have identified with today’s agenda.
While I am making everyone mad, let me also state that the politicians in that earlier age were men and women of substance, not like the hacks who run Israel today. One may find many of Ben Gurion’s actions despicable, but he was not a crook and didn’t enrich himself at the public’s expense. At a time when Israel needs great leaders, look who we’ve got, a zoch in vei.
* * *
Machon Gold was not only an opportunity to meet some important people. It also gave me a little understanding of how Israel is gathering Jews from the four corners of the earth. There were girls there from all over, especially large groups from Iran, Aden, and South America. I remember that, on one of our tours, I noticed one girl who seemed to have no friends. I felt a little sorry for her, as she was all alone, so I struck up a conversation.
Her name was Segula and she was from India. She was older than the other girls; she told me that she already had a college degree and was fluent in a bunch of languages. I think her problem was that she needed a husband but was too educated for what she could find over there. I was more than a little naïve. Afterwards, she started sending me letters, and after a while, I realized that she thought that maybe I would be the solution to her problem. In hindsight, I was insensitive, as we men are sometimes. I told her that, as Rudyard Kipling wrote, “East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet.” Forty years later, I cringe at how dense I was, but, at the time, I was a kid and didn’t want to marry Segula or anyone else.
One of the more interesting people I met was Professor Dov Sadan. I got to him because Fannye Goldfield, of Prattville, Alabama, told me that he was a relative of her machatanim or some such distant relationship and I should give him a call. Dov Sadan, in 1965, was a member of the Knesset from the Mapai (Ben Gurion’s) party. He was one of the founders of Davar, the Histadrut newspaper and professor of Yiddish and Hebrew literature at the Hebrew University. He was part of the secular elite, the founding generation with such people as Ben Gurion, Ben Tzvi, Berel Katznelson, and others. It shows how small and heimish Israel was. I called him up and he invited me over. He and his wife were most gracious. I remember his huge library, but the only Gemara I saw was a one volume Shas, which he must have used as a reference book.
I asked Professor Sadan a question. I said, “How can Israel survive as a Jewish State if you don’t practice the Jewish religion?” His answer was very self assured: “We have the army, the language, the culture, the love of the land.” I answered that I didn’t think that was enough, and he looked at me the way a learned professor looks at a 19-year-old boy and answered, “Well, we do think it is enough.” He was wrong and I was right, as it is self-evident today.
Dov Sedan was not the only non-dati Israeli I met. I became very close to the Menakers. Mrs. Menaker was the sister of Mrs. Merenstein, the wife of our shochet in Montgomery. The Menakers lived in Gedera, which is very close to Kerem BYavne. I could either hitch a ride or even walk there if I wanted to. They were my introduction to that broad mass of Israelis who were not dati (observant) but still kept a kosher home. They sent their children to secular public schools, and I don’t think they went to shul too often, maybe the High Holidays. He told me that if I came for Shabbos, they would make a cholent and we would go to shul, but I never came for Shabbos.
Mr. Menaker survived the Holocaust by pretending to be a Catholic Pole. He wore a big cross and lived with a Polish woman, who protected him. I asked him what he did after the War. He said that he told his “wife” that he was going to town; he left and never came back. It might not make an ArtScroll biography, but it was true, and that is how he survived. He was also the first person I met who was a follower of Menachem Begin. I also remember that one time he went to the annual reunion of Holocaust survivors from his town. Although they did speak Hebrew, I think one of the side benefits of being around the Menakers is that I learned to speak Yiddish. No one else I had anything to do with in Israel spoke to me in Yiddish. They were poor people, but made me feel like a member of the family.
* * *
Thinking back after 40 years, I realize that I had opportunities to meet so many Jews from so many backgrounds because I was young, nonjudgmental, and ignorant of all the prohibitions that might have kept me away from many of these opportunities. But that’s the way it was. I met Jews from Germany, Morocco, Gherba, and Persia, as well as Poles and Russian Jews. I met sabras and immigrants, youngsters and older people, rich and poor, and I felt they all were my mishpacha. It wasn’t a theoretical relationship, either. Each one treated me like a member of the family. Each one hosted me royally. It was one year and a once-in-a-lifetime, eye-opening experience. Some of you might be wondering how I got from there to Ner Israel, but that’s another story!
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