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Dec. 23, 2005
Portraits from Israel
Travels turn up a wealth of moving experiences.
JACK CHIVO
A few weeks ago, we travelled through Israel on a Jewish National
Fund (JNF) mission, along with some 80 other people from across
Canada.
Since our return, I have been asked by many friends if we felt safe
in Israel. Of course, there were security guards at the entrance
of the hotels and some stores; of course, my wife's handbag was
searched when we entered a post office, or a bank. But the restaurants
were full, the beaches crowded with thousands of sun worshippers,
people were playing beach volleyball and the plaza in front of our
hotel in Tel-Aviv became a huge party area every Friday afternoon,
with hundreds of people, young and old, locals and tourists, singing
and dancing to the tunes of a lively Israeli band.
There is a wonderful promenade in Tel-Aviv, along the shores of
the sea, and every evening, we walked for hours, once after midnight,
while children were playing with their peers and lovers were embracing
in some quiet corner.
Here are some of the snapshots from our trip.
A visit to our trees
I never realized how many trees have been planted by JNF in Israel
until we saw them with our own eyes. We travelled through forests,
covering hundreds of hectares; we saw rows after rows of palm trees,
producing the sweetest and most delicious dates in the world; we
listened to the birds singing in the bushes and marvelled about
the huge water reservoirs created in
the middle of nowhere to keep the forests green and growing. Of
course, over the years, we have occasionally given money for ourselves,
or relatives, to have a few trees planted in their honor and, probably,
somewhere, among the more than 200 million trees growing in the
JNF forests, there must be the ones we paid for, but never saw blossoming.
Trust me, nothing comes even close to the feeling of putting your
own seedling in the sacred Israeli earth, pressing your fingers
around the edges of the soil, feeling the moisture with the palm
of your hand, watering it a bit and praying silently that the little
green thing will grow strong and healthy into a beautiful, mature
tree.
It rained the day we went to plant the seedlings. The path was slippery
and the mud was gluing to our shoes. One cannot imagine the spectacle
of some 80 adults, many with grey hair and a slow gait, carefully
carrying the miniature trees with their few tiny leafs like a precious
present, protecting them from the blowing wind and the rain drops,
and looking around for the best spot to connect with Mother Earth.
When we left, we were wet, with dirty shoes and some stains on our
clothes. It didn't matter. Everyone was smiling and glancing through
the bus windows, waving a warm goodbye to our trees.
The prayer we chanted
After a long trip through the Negev, a harrowing ride in a column
of mountain jeeps, up and down the narrow paths of the nearby hills
and dry wadis, with some daring and fearless Bedouins at the wheel,
and having survived the darkness and the dust of the "Flour
Caves," we were exhausted. The only thing we were hoping for
was a speedy return to the hotel at the Dead Sea, a warm shower
and a hefty meal.
Our guides, however, had something else in mind. Soon we were trekking
towards a ruin, which looked awkward at first, in the middle of
the barren landscape, until we learned that there were the remnants
of a third-century synagogue, probably build by Jews fleeing Roman
persecution after the destruction of the Second Temple. Everything
was there, the walls, the entrance oriented towards Jerusalem, the
bimah, the benches – but there was no roof, and we could see
the stars above.
From somewhere, a voice decided, "Let's pray," and the
voices of all of us, from the 92-year-old Vancouver lawyer to the
young Toronto couple who will get married once they return from
a trip to Asia, joined in the prayers, growing stronger with every
tune and the chanting of the ma'ariv service filled the ruins with
a hymn of devotion and a message of hope. There were no books. Some
had kippot, others covered their heads with the JNF caps, not everyone
knew the words, but somehow, 80 people, Orthodox, Conservative,
Reform, some secular, even non-Jews, connected with each other in
a unique and meaningful way, and we all connected with Hashem.
I do not know how many of us were wondering whether one of our ancestors
ever prayed there, some 1,800 years ago, and we returned silently
to the bus while the air was filled with the smells of the desert
and the presence of God.
A silversmith's jewelry
On the way to Jerusalem from the Dead Sea, we stopped in Tel-Aviv
for some sightseeing and window shopping. Suddenly, it started raining
and we all ran to a falafel shop for lunch. The bus was waiting
on Allenby Street, next to the Great Synagogue, and some of the
women went to buy hand-made jewelry from the silversmith next to
the bus station. My wife found a Bedouin bracelet, but we had to
return to the waiting bus before she could choose a matching ring.
One week later, when the tour was over and we were back in Tel-Aviv
for some additional days of fun, we went again to the silversmith.
He recognized me as the "guy with the JNF group who was born
in Romania."
"My mother was also born there, in the same city like you,"
he told me. "She survived the Nazis and the communists."
Before I could ask how she was doing, he continued, "She was
killed here, three years ago, by a suicide bomber." Instantly,
I saw before my eyes the news item: "Sept. 19, 2002. Suicide
bomber on Dan bus number 4 kills six on Allenby Street, in front
of the Great Synagogue."
For 40 years, his mother ran the makolet (convenience store)
next to the shul, where people would buy a few nuts, a candy bar
or some cold drinks in the hot days of summer. All this came to
a deadly end just three years ago, while she was handing a bottle
of Coke to a thirsty passerby.
"In front of the synagogue, where people come to pray, like
in Iraq, where they bomb the mosques. You came to plant trees, they
plant bombs. What kind of the humans are they?"
We hugged in silence and left the shop. I did not dare to ask for
his mother's name, for she might have been a childhood friend or
a neighbor. I looked around and there was no monument, no plaque,
not even an inscription at the place where six innocent people had
been slaughtered by a fanatic. Perhaps it was better that way –
the street was alive with shoppers, the vendors displayed their
merchandise and our silversmith was talking to a group of tourists,
obviously Christian pilgrims. Slowly, the queue formed at the bus
stop, with a few elderly people and a group of students waiting
for the next Dan bus number 4 to arrive. Life goes on.
The Druze's invitation
Most of the restaurant managers and waiters at the historic King
David Hotel in Jerusalem are Arabs, following a long tradition that
this was a place where Jews and Arabs have worked peacefully side
by side since it opened some 80 years ago. As matter of fact, I
learned from the history of this magnificent place that before 1948,
it was customary to bring employees from Sudan, where working for
the King David was considered an honor and a good training for future
hotel employment.
My wife liked a table at the window, so every morning, the same
young man would come and ask if he could be of help. Soon we learned
that he was from a Druze village and it was his first week there
after finishing army service. Slowly, we smiled at each other, he
started losing his shyness and, somehow, I had the impression that
he was expecting us every day to exchange a few words and to learn
more about us, as we were learning about him.
The last breakfast morning, there was some silence when I told him
that we would be leaving in a couple of hours. I sensed that he
was a bit apprehensive, so later I waved at him and our young man
came alive. He gave me a little piece of paper with a telephone
number on it. In his halting English, he told me that he had spoken
to his father the night before and mentioned that we were so kind
to him in his first days at work.
"My father would like to invite you to our home, in the village,
but you are leaving. Are you coming back next year? Then, you must
visit my family!" he said.
"Of course we will come," I told him, "and of course
we will visit your family." We shook hands like two old friends.
Next year in Jerusalem!
Jack Chivo is a writer living in West Vancouver.
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