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April 7, 2006
Comparing his homelands
Journalist documents his own story – and that of Israel,
too.
KATHARINE HAMER EDITOR
Let Me Create a Paradise: A Journey of Conscience
from Johannesburg to Jerusalem
by Hirsh Goodman
HarperCollins: Toronto, 2005. 288 pages. $36.95 Hardcover
Born and raised in South Africa, Hirsh Goodman was part of a wave
of young people bred with Zionist ideals who made aliyah to Israel
in the 1960s.
In the recently published memoir, Let Me Create a Paradise: A
Journey of Conscience from Johannesburg to Jerusalem, the renowned
journalist tells the story not only of his own coming-of-age but
of Israel's.
A member of the Habonim movement since early childhood, Goodman
was brought up as a fervent believer in social justice – yet
even from the beginning, recognized the paradox of living in a country
where the majority of the population led a severely restricted existence.
He notes in Let Me Create a Paradise that he needed neither
Habonim nor the anti-Semites who occasionally targeted him to convince
him to move to Israel: "I made up my mind unequivocally one
Sunday afternoon a week after my 15th birthday. I had gotten off
the bus on the way to a soccer game at Balfour Park, when I saw
two black men fighting on the pavement. They were hitting each other,
using bricks as clubs, and one man's brains were oozing out of his
head. A crowd of whites were standing by, laughing, clapping and
encouraging the two men to battle until death. Four policemen sat
on the bonnet of a blue van, craning their necks to watch the spectacle,
laughing and clapping as hard as anyone. It was at that moment I
knew I could never live in South Africa and I remember thanking
God ever so deeply that I had an alternative."
When he arrived in Israel; saw the flag and heard everyone around
him speaking Hebrew, "A good warm feeling came over me. I was
intensely happy, my feet firmly planted over me, at home though
I had just arrived. I was liberated."
His new life became considerably more challenging after that. Goodman
went straight on to intensive military training and service, while
spending his off-duty time in a kibbutz where, he says, "socialism
seemed to stop at the front gate."
Unlike in South Africa, a stint in the Israeli army meant almost
immediate combat, and Goodman did his time on the front lines during
the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War. He describes the united
sense of achievement when the Old City of Jerusalem was secured
– and a certain unease about his place on the battlefield.
Through a storied career as a reporter and editor for the Jerusalem
Post and later the Jerusalem Report, Goodman spent time
on the road with some of Israel's most legendary figures –
Golda Meir, Moshe Dayan, Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon, to name
just a few – and covered enormously historic moments, such
as the first-ever visit of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to Israel
on Nov. 19, 1977. His insights into the attendant political manoeuvring
are fascinating - even as he questions some of the decisions being
made. The book also provides an intriguing perspective on the journalistic
life and the (usually) jocular sense of competition between reporters.
Ultimately, while remaining deeply loyal to his country, Goodman
begins to take on board David Ben-Gurion's early beliefs that Israel,
"better rid itself of the territories and their Arab populations
as soon as possible. If it did not, Israel would become an apartheid
state." This was in 1967 – and that label has long since
been applied to Israel by its opponents (for the past two years,
the University of Toronto has hosted a controversial Israel Apartheid
Week). Meanwhile, Prime Minister-elect Ehud Olmert is moving forward
with plans for further withdrawal from the West Bank.
Though Goodman is well aware of the street-level – never mind
the grand political scale – conflict between Israelis and Palestinians,
and says he finds it "impossible to have a rational political
discussion" with settlers, he does not believe apartheid exists
in Israel. Indeed he says quite clearly that "to compare the
two [Israel and South Africa] demonstrates ignorance or malevolance."
What he does believe, having been witness to the changes in South
African society, is that people can learn to live together. As hard
as it may seem to imagine, he says, peace is possible.
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