Lessons of Living by Whitney Harris (McCrimmon Runner-up)
In last ditch efforts to escape the demands of the real world, many young people
have upheld the enduring tradition of “taking a few years off” after
college to explore other countries and make sure there is nothing to do anywhere
in Europe that could possibly make them happier than working in their native
country. It is a natural reaction for many young adults stuck in the sticky
situation that is the in-betweenness after childhood and before adulthood to
get away, take a break, sow some wild oats before the shackles of the working
world are forever bound. My personal experience with this post-collegiate phenomenon
is limited to the stories I’ve heard from friends and other characters
about their deeply enlightening stints spent country hopping via pub and ganja
bar and the ensuing carousals with the opposite sex which undoubtedly led to
some serious soul-searching and career planning. The first source of these escapade
tales I was exposed to was—probably to the dismay of many contemporary
adventurers who assume they’ve invented such journeys—my grandfather,
Peter Lippman, now sixty-eight years young and a retired South Florida resident.
Over the years, my grandfather’s periodic reminiscing out loud has given
me bits and pieces of what he has experienced, giving away much about him, but
at the same time making his life seem incomprehensible, heroic, and mysterious
in a way that is unique to the understanding an eighteen-year-old has of the
life of someone two generations removed. It wasn’t until very recently,
in an interview with my grandfather, that I was able to really pry at his memory
and get a better picture of the events about which he has always hinted. Our
exchange, which occurred in pieces over the course of several days, revealed
a responsibility-evading leave in Europe during which, I can only speculate,
my grandfather followed an itinerary not unlike those of his younger counterparts.
The difference between my grandfather’s fling in Europe and those of many
other path-seekers is that today, he can attribute much of his successful adult
life to the events which resulted from that trip.
Adrift and light-pocketed in Naples in 1955, my grandfather found much allure
in the Israeli Consul’s offer of a seventy-five dollar payment and complimentary
ship fare to anyone interested in booking passage to Haifa. My grandfather said
he accepted the offer as a means to extend his excursion, and to my surprise,
the decision hadn’t much to do with religion. His orthodox upbringing
had fairly effectively alienated him from such strict practice of Judaism, and
his assumption that Israel was refuge for orthodox Jews had deterred any keen
support he might have shown for the state. “I went to Israel because it
was the ‘wild west’ of the period,” he told me, only confirming
his ambition to pursue pure adventure. It was at this point in his journey that
the society my grandfather was exploring made plans of its own for his immediate
and long-term future. The course of the next two and a half years of my grandfather’s
life was ultimately dictated by one small word that was erroneously stamped
into his passport. The word? “Oleh.” “The English translation?
“Immigrant.” The implication? An abrupt end to the individual-directed
touring and immediate conscription to the Israeli Defense Force (Lippman).
After the initial shock that I assume is the typical response to finding out
that you’ve accidentally been enlisted, my grandfather became absorbed
by the demographic marvel he was witnessing on the bus ride from Haifa to the
Negev army camp. Having lived in French Canada, he and his family were very
much a minority in their faith, and my grandfather had, on a number of occasions,
been forced to defend himself as a result. The passengers that shared the bus
ride from Haifa “were arrayed in every color and racial origin,”
an observation that in itself might have been of significance (Lippman). “I
was enthralled by the knowledge that every single person on the bus […]
was a Jew,” my grandfather said. Long prior to the establishment of the
State of Israel, the Zionist Movement gained momentum under the leadership of
Theodore Herzl, and Jews around the world began to unite behind the idea that
a Jewish state was needed to provide safe harbor from anti-Semitic governments
(Bresky 1). With the dream willed into reality in 1948, Jews from every imaginable
background were leaving their homes in other parts of the world to contribute
to their infant country, and an instance of this was the awesome spectacle my
grandfather beheld for the first time in his life (Founding 1).
When my grandfather arrived in Haifa, the State of Israel was just seven years
old, but those were seven years of constant attack, and seven years of constant
defense by an elite civilian militia (Founding 1). The Israeli Defense Force
had been founded amid the relentless strike of the Arab nations which surrounded
the small piece of land carved into the largely Muslim Middle East (Sicker 3).
To a degree foreign to most countries and their armies, the existence of Israel
has centered on defense, and the most fundamental kind of it (Sicker 3). “After
the U.N. vote, the Arab countries, in concert, decided to exterminate the new
state,” my grandfather recalled. “They mounted their armies and
invaded from all sides. To this day, I cannot understand how the nascent Jewish
state managed to defeat them.”
From a logistical standpoint, it seems against all practical reasoning that
Israel has been able to fend off its adversaries who are advantaged in number
and geographic position. Further duty for the Israeli Defense Force demanded
considerable involvement in building and maintaining the country’s infrastructure
(Lippman). The majority of my grandfather’s stories, while intertwined
with bursts of gunshots and organized combat, related to his work operating
heavy equipment and driving tractors or semis for the army, to transport materials
like piping and fish to various parts of the country. These non-combat chores
carried out by my grandfather and his brothers-in-arms seem to have been the
most basic and essential factors in building a secured, functioning Israel.
My grandfather’s time stationed at Maayan Zvi, a kibbutz in northern Israel,
was spent performing many tasks of manual labor, providing security, and running
errands at managers’ requests. He used the assignments to transport items
to market as opportunities to temporarily liberate himself from the daily routines
of cooperative life, and in doing so would later provide his grandchildren with
entertaining anecdotes about the laws of physics and what happens when 22,000
pounds of live fish cargo are not hauled at a very conservative pace.
While exchanging conversation with my grandfather about details of the two
years he spent putting hair on his chest defending Israel’s land and people,
I still supposed that with such experiences under his belt, he must have become
a dedicated advocate of the state’s cause. It is an off month if I don’t
receive at least one email from him about current affairs pertaining to Israel’s
continuing fight for security or discrimination against Jews. Prior to our interview,
my assumption was that someone so keen to any traces of blatant or elusive anti-Semitism
in the modern world would also harbor a significant internal devotion of the
State of Israel, if not a loudly obvious one. Lesson learned. A Jew is not necessarily
a Zionist, and my grandfather does not call himself the latter. “As a
Jew today I provide whatever political and financial support to the State of
Israel that I can, but I would not call myself a dedicated Zionist, certainly
not in comparison with so many others that I know,” he said.
Clearly, a Zionist devotion was not among the souvenirs my grandfather took
with him from his experience. What he did gain came not so much in the form
of a specific sociopolitical doctrine but through a more universal understanding
of human beings which he learned only when caught in the tumult of the 1950s
Middle East. “I was fortunate enough to meet the right people. Their attitudes
and personal philosophies were so dramatically divergent from those I had learned
and been conditioned to in my parents’ home that I was stimulated to much
related reading, discussion, and soul searching,” he explained. “[It]
helped me identify who I was.” My grandfather’s forced residence
and enlistment were a most extreme wake up call to a nineteen-year-old who had,
until then, refused compliance with most forms of authority in his life. My
grandfather considers much of what he takes pride in today to be of direct or
indirect consequence to his service in Israel and its effective redirection
of his prior path. All that I know about that path and the young Peter Lippman
is what I trust is accurate from the animated stories, but I can, without doubt,
attest to the exceptional success that he has achieved since his experiences
in Israel. It is evident in his character, his tremendously sharp sense of what
is rational, right, and wrong. It is an unmistakable part of the way he has
been able to provide for his family. Most significantly, I see it in his everyday
interactions with people, whether they are family, friend, or hardly acquaintance.
He regards human beings in the highest esteem I have witnessed of anyone, and
these are the invaluable, irrevocable things that his service in Israel gave
to him.
Works Cited
Bresky, Binyamin. "Zionist Movement Beginnings." The Vindicator 2
Mar. 1998. 24 Mar. 2004 <http://www.csuohio.edu/tagar/herzl.htm>.
This website provided information about Theodore Herzl and the early Zionist
Movement. Facts were used to support historical aspect of paper.
“Founding of the State of Israel.” 2004. Palestine Facts. 24 Mar.
2004 <http://www.palestine
facts.org/pf_independence_israel_date.php>. This website has background
information about Israel. The site was referenced in order to cite the year
Israel was founded.
Lippman, Peter. Telephone interview. 1 Mar. 2004. This was the initial interview
with general questioning about world events affecting his life. Founding of
Israel and its significance today was mentioned.
Lippman, Peter. Online interview. 23 Mar. 2004. This was the second interview
conducted after research was gathered on topics relating to founding of Israel
and the Israeli Defense Force. The questions focused on gathering information
about the events leading up to his service in the IDF. Various information was
used.
Lippman, Peter. Online interview. 24 Mar. 2004. This interview included much
of the information about his experiences in Israel. Relevant historical topics
mentioned were the founding of Israel, the work of the IDF, and the Zionist
Movement. Much information was taken from this interview.
Sicker, Martin. Israel's Quest for Security. New York: Praeger, 1989. 3. This
source has plenty of information about Israel’s particular security issues.
Details about its geographical location and the security implications were used.
Information about surrounding Arab countries was cited.
Lessons of Living, draft 1
Whitney Harris
Lessons From Israel
In last ditch efforts to escape the demands of the real world, many young people have upheld the enduring tradition of “taking a few years off” after college to explore other countries and make sure there is nothing to do anywhere in Europe that could possibly make them happier than working in their native country. It is a natural reaction for many young adults stuck in the sticky situation that is the in-betweenness after childhood and before adulthood to get away, take a break, sow some wild oats before the shackles of the working world are forever bound. My personal experience with this post-collegiate phenomenon is limited to the stories I’ve heard from friends and other characters about their deeply enlightening stints spent country hopping via pub and ganja bar and the ensuing carousals with the opposite sex which undoubtedly led to some serious soul-searching and career planning. The first source of these escapade tales I was exposed to was—probably to the dismay of many contemporary adventurers who assume they’ve invented such journeys—my grandfather, Peter Lippman, now sixty-eight years young and a retired South Florida resident.
Over the years, my grandfather’s periodic reminiscing out loud has given me bits and pieces of what he has experienced, giving away much about him, but at the same time making his life seem incomprehensible, heroic, and mysterious in a way that is unique to the understanding an eighteen-year-old has of the life of someone two generations removed. It wasn’t until very recently when, in an interview with my grandfather, I was able to really pry at his memory and get a better picture of events about which he has always hinted. Our exchange, which occurred in pieces over the course of several days, revealed a responsibility-evading leave in Europe during which, I can only speculate, my grandfather followed an itinerary not unlike those of his younger counterparts. The difference between my grandfather’s fling in Europe and those of many other path-seekers is that today, he can attribute much of his successful adult life to the events which resulted from that trip.
Adrift and light-pocketed in Naples in 1955, my grandfather found much allure in the Israeli Consul’s offer of a seventy-five dollar payment and complimentary ship fare to anyone interested in booking passage to Haifa. My grandfather said he accepted the offer as a means to extend his excursion, and to my surprise, the decision hadn’t much to do with religion. His orthodox upbringing had fairly effectively alienated him from such strict practice of Judaism, and his assumption that Israel was refuge for orthodox Jews had deterred any keen support he might have shown for the state. “I went to Israel because it was the ‘wild west’ of the period,” he told me, only confirming his ambition to pursue pure adventure. It was at this point in his journey that the society my grandfather was exploring made plans of its own for his immediate future. The course of the next two and a half years of my grandfather’s life was ultimately dictated by one small word that was erroneously stamped into his passport. The word? “Oleh.” The English translation? “Immigrant.” The implication? An abrupt end to the individual-directed touring and immediate conscription to the Israeli Defense Force.
After the initial shock that I assume is the typical response to finding out that you’ve been accidentally enlisted, my grandfather became absorbed by the demographic marvel he was witnessing on the bus ride from Haifa to the Negev army camp. Having lived French Canada, he and his family were very much a minority in their faith, and my grandfather had, on a number of occasions, been forced to defend himself as a result. The passengers that shared the bus ride from Haifa “were arrayed in every color and racial origin,” an observation that in itself might have been of significance. “I was enthralled by the knowledge that every single person on the bus […] was a Jew,” my grandfather said. Long prior to the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist Movement gained momentum under the leadership of Theodore Herzl, and Jews around the world began to unite behind the idea that a Jewish state was needed to provide safe harbor from anti-Semitic governments (Bresky 1). With the dream willed into reality in 1948, Jews from every imaginable background were leaving their homes in other parts of the world to contribute to their infant country, and an instance of this was the awesome spectacle my grandfather beheld for the first time in his life (Founding… 1).
When my grandfather arrived in Haifa, the State of Israel was just seven years old, but those were seven years of constant attack, and seven years of constant defense by an elite civilian militia (Founding… 1). The Israeli Defense Force had been founded amid the relentless strike of the Arab nations which surrounded the small piece of land carved into the largely Muslim Middle East (Sicker 3). To a degree foreign to most countries and their armies, the existence of Israel has centered on defense, and the most fundamental kind of it (Sicker 3).
“After the U.N. vote, the Arab countries, in concert, decided to exterminate the new state,” my grandfather recalled. “They mounted their armies and invaded from all sides. To this day, I cannot understand how the nascent Jewish state managed to defeat them.”
From a logistical standpoint, it seems against all practical reasoning that Israel has been able to fend off its adversaries who are advantaged in number and geographic position. Further duty for the Israeli Defense Force demanded considerable involvement in building and maintaining the country’s infrastructure. The majority of my grandfather’s stories, while intertwined with bursts of gunshots and organized combat, related to his work operating heavy equipment and driving tractors or semis for the army, to transport materials like piping and fish to various parts of the country. These non-combat chores carried out by my grandfather and his brothers-in-arms seem to have been the most basic and essential factors in building a secure, functioning Israel. My grandfather’s time stationed at Maayan Zvi, a kibbutz in northern Israel, was spent performing many tasks of manual labor, providing security, and running errands at managers’ requests. He used the assignments to transport items to market as opportunities to temporarily liberate himself from the daily routines of cooperative life, and in doing so would later provide his grandchildren with entertaining anecdotes about what happens when 22,000 pounds of live fish cargo are not hauled at a very conservative pace.
After exchanging conversation with my grandfather about details of the two years he spent putting hair on his chest defending Israel’s land and people, I still supposed that with such experiences under his belt, he must have become a dedicated advocate to the state’s cause. It is an off month if I don’t receive at least one email from him about current affairs pertaining to Israel’s continuing fight for security or discrimination against Jews. My assumption was that someone so keen to any traces of blatant or elusive anti-Semitism in the modern world would also harbor a significant internal devotion of the State of Israel, if not a loudly obvious one. Lesson learned. A Jew is not necessarily a Zionist, and my grandfather does not call himself the latter. “As a Jew today I provide whatever political and financial support to the State of Israel that I can, but I would not call myself a dedicated Zionist, certainly not in comparison with so many others that I know,” he said.
Clearly, a Zionist devotion was not among the souvenirs my grandfather took with him from his experience. What he did gain, came not so much in the form of a specific sociopolitical doctrine, but through a more universal understanding of human beings which he learned only when cast into the tumult of the 1950s Middle East. “I was fortunate enough to meet the right people. Their attitudes and personal philosophies were so dramatically divergent from those I had learned and been conditioned to in my parents’ home that I was stimulated to much related reading, discussion, and soul searching,” he explained. “[It] helped me identify who I was.” My grandfather’s forced residence and enlistment were a most extreme wake up call to a nineteen-year-old who had, until then, refused compliance with most forms of authority in his life. My grandfather considers much of what he takes pride in today to be of direct consequence to his service in Israel and its effective redirection of his prior path. All that I know about that path and the young Peter Lippman is what I trust is accurate from the animated stories, but I can, without doubt, attest to the exceptional success that he has achieved in his adult life. It is evident in his character, his tremendously sharp sense of what is rational, right, or wrong. It is an unmistakable part of the way he has been able to provide for his family. Most significantly, I see it in his everyday interactions with people, whether they are family, friend, or hardly acquaintance. He regards human beings in the highest esteem I have witnessed of anyone, and these are the invaluable, irrevocable things that his service in Israel gave to him.
Works Cited
Bresky, Binyamin. "Zionist Movement Beginnings." The Vindicator 28 (1998). 24 Mar. 2004 . This website provided information about Theodore Herzl and the early Zionist Movement. Facts were used to support historical aspect of paper.
Founding of the State of Israel. 2004. Palestine Facts. 24 Mar. 2004 . This website has background information about Israel. The site was referenced in order to cite the year Israel was founded.
Lippman, Peter. Telephone interview. 1 Mar. 2004. This was the initial interview with general questioning about world events affecting his life. Founding of Israel and its significance today was mentioned.
Lippman, Peter. Online interview. 23 Mar. 2004. This was the second interview conducted after research was gathered on topics relating to founding of Israel and the Israeli Defense Force. The questions focused on gathering information about the events leading up to his service in the IDF. Various information was used.
Lippman, Peter. Online interview. 24 Mar. 2004. This interview included much of the information about his experiences in Israel. Relevant historical topics mentioned were the founding of Israel, the work of the IDF, and the Zionist Movement. Much information was taken from this interview.
Sicker, Martin. Israel's Quest for Security. New York: Praeger, 1989. 3. This source has plenty of information about Israel’s particular security issues. Details about its geographical location and the security implications were used. Information about surrounding Arab countries was cited.
Lessons of Living, interviews
Preliminary Interviews for “Lessons of Living”
Interviewer: Whitney Harris (WH)
Interviewee: Peter Lippman (PL)
WH: Hi, Grandpa, are you ready?
PL: Yes Ma'am, shoot!
WH: So, we'll be talking about your experience in Israel instead of WWII now.
PL: Well, I can give you about a half hour now and, if necessary more time after noon tomorrow (since my excursion to Peanut Island has been cancelled due to high winds).
WH: Okay. Will you tell me about the kind of Hebrew school you attended?
PL: I first attended grades 1 through 6 of the Talmud Torah in Montreal, followed by 7-9 at the Herzliah High School. Both were orthodox-oriented. I also spent some time in the late afternoon at the local Merkaz Hatorah (i.e. Lubavitch yeshiva).
WH: While you were in school, was there a lot of debate between the Arabs and the Jews? Or what kind of relevant issues were there that would later play into the founding of Israel?
PL: There was virtually none. In those days, the concept of the existence of a State of Israel was only a dream. News from Palestine was either of Arab slaughter of Jews or, in later days, of attempts by the Jewish underground to smuggle shiploads of displaced Europeans into the country despite the best efforts of the British to stop them.
WH: When did the idea of creating an Israeli state develop?
PL: The founding of Israel was the immediate result of a vote by the U.N. to partition Palestine into Arab and Jewish sectors. In the period leading up to that vote, there was much discussion of and concern regarding the positions that the U.S., France and the Soviet Union would take in the matter. In the end, it was very surprising to some that the motion passed. Other relevant issues included a general global sympathy for the Jews, given the ongoing detailed revelations concerning the Holocaust. But I repeat: There was little or no discussion of any sort between Arabs and Jews. After the U.N. vote, the Arab countries, in concert, decided to exterminate the new state. They mounted their armies and invaded from all sides. To this day, I cannot understand how the nascent Jewish state managed to defeat them.
WH: At what age did you take interest in the subject?
WH: And how would you characterize your interest?
PL: I suppose that Theodore Herzl can best be identified as the originator of the idea and resulting philosophy behind the movement that eventually saw the re-birth of a Jewish state in Palestine. I assume that you are familiar with his personal history. Many notables followed, from all parts of the Diaspora.
PL: My interest was passive and minimal. I (incorrectly) associated the new state with orthodox Judaism, to which the educational environment had pretty well alienated me . . .
WH: You said in our first interview that when you came of age, you took the initiative to travel to Israel. What influenced your decision to do that?
PL: I'm not sure that I ever took real interest in it until I decided to live there, and even then I was not an overwhelming patriot until well into my related experience.
WH: When did you decide that you wanted to live there?
PL: I went to Israel because it was the "wild west" of the period and, to some extent, because I ended up destitute in Naples and the local Israeli Consul was paying $75. and ship passage to those who were interested.
WH: What were you doing in Naples?
PL: I had been bumming around Europe for a while: Driving a lorry in England, schmoozing on the Left Bank in Paris, etc. etc.
WH: Sowing some wild oats?
PL: I'll share some of the background with you personally some day, but not in this venue . . .
WH: Haha, okay
WH: Did you go to Israel alone?
PL: Yes,
WH: Do you remember a rough date?
PL: 1955
PL: Remember, I entered university at 16 . . .
WH: Yes, I have to readjust my human timeline...
WH: So, your intentions in going to Israel were strictly those of a tourist?
PL: Yes, but as I mentioned to you at our last exchange, the Consul stamped my passport "Oleh" (immigrant), rather than "Tayar" (tourist), so when I got off the ship in Haifa, I was in. Not to sympathize with my plight, though, It took three days of sailing from Naples to Haifa and the ship was loaded with young lady Zionists from a variety of South American countries, all with stars in their eyes . . .
WH: So the passage was bittersweet.. bitter because once you set foot in Haifa you were conscripted, and sweet for obvious reasons... ?
PL: Yep. But, to be fair, once I had aclimatized myself to the military environment and then to my Nachal duties, life was tough, but not bitter. The experience is probably responsible for straightening out my then convoluted life and eventually setting me on the path that I took. Whitney, I’ve got to quit now. When do you want to resume? I can give you a little time between 8:30 and 9:00 tomorrow morning and as much time as you’d like after 1:00 PM.
WH: I have to leave for class at 830 and then I'll be back at 1030. I have class again from 330 - 445 but at 100 I can talk.
PL: OK. See you then.
WH: Talk to you tomorrow, bye
PL: I'm back, Whitney. Are you ready?
WH: Yep
PL: Shoot!
WH: Okay, I'm trying to read up on some of this stuff because I'm not familiar with most of it. We were talking about your passage to Israel and how you "joined" the army. Did you write home to your family during any of this?
PL: Well . . .No. My leaving attended a situation which did not leave family relations in particularly good shape. I wrote home perhaps once or twice a year. Then, when I fell ill and the local doctors appeared unable to remedy the situation, they recommended that I go back to Canada for treatment, That forced me to contact my parents for air fare home.
WH: What were the circumstances of your leaving?
PL: Ah, well that's the somewhat delicate subject that I felt hesitant to discuss in this venue.
WH: Okay, but did your parents want you to go or not?
PL: NOT.
WH: Gotcha.
WH: How long after you got to Israel did you have to return to Canada for medical treatment?
PL: Two years and a couple of months. I sometimes wonder what would have happened had I not fallen ill (FYI: I returned home weighing under 125 pounds, standing 5' 11" tall). Life had grown reasonably comfortable despite the 15 hour work days, I had developed a few close friendships (I still maintain several of them to this day) and had taken many steps to the resolution of the emotional ills that had previously encumbered me.
WH: How long was your contract with the army?
PL: It was a total of 2-1/2 years. There was three months of basic training, a one-month university course, then being stationed at a border community under the "Nachal" program; you worked a full day but - along with a half dozen other people - were also responsible for security. Maayan Zvi was only a couple of kilometers from the nearest border and accordingly considered subject to assault. That's where they put me.
WH: If you hadn't been forced to return home, would you have considered extending your service?
PL: No, but there were lots of related opportunities out there, both within the co-op (i.e. kvutzah) environment and without.
WH: When we were in Israel, what was the place with the fish ponds that you recognized? I don't remember where we were.. was that Maayan Zvi?
PL: That was the place: Maayan Zvi. Except that in the intervening 45 years, it has apparently been converted from a kvutzah into some sort of manufacturing and farming cooperative. At the time, it was strictly a commune. There was no pay. You did the work that was assigned to you and the community provided for your every need, food, clothing, shelter, medical care, even cigarettes and condoms. The only time I saw cash was when I was assigned to deliver pipe or fish and would be on the road for a day or so. They would provide a per diem to cover my eating and sleeping expenses.
WH: Apparently now it's home to some rare bird species in Israel...
PL: I didn't hear that. Where did you pick up the info?
WH: http://www.efronim.org.il/db/showcomp.pl?comp=Israel%2c+Maayan+Zvi
PL: Thanks, I'll browse the site later on.
WH: Did you have an occupational specialty in the IDF?
WH: Or was it mostly infantry?
PL: I was educated in ballistics, but never got to use the knowledge. Somehow, I ended up operating heavy equipment (D-8 Cat, converted Sherman tank) and later running a tractor and semi-trailer when its driver was killed.
WH: And your assignments were mostly security related? Did you do any construction or work in getting the country up and running?
PL: My security assignments were few and far between other than nighttime Mishmara. I used the D8 to do miles and miles of deep plowing in reclaiming swamp land on the banks of the Mediterranean and the GMC 920 and trailer to either deliver pipe to a water delivery project in the Negev or fresh fish (in an open tanker with bubbling oxygen in order to ensure that all remained alive) to major markets.
WH: I want to go back a little bit to when you arrived in Haifa. How did you feel once you reached Israel knowing that you were stuck there, alone, and you belonged to the army?
PL: It was an overwhelming initial experience. On the bus ride from the port at Haifa down to the Negev indoctrination camp I was enthralled by the knowledge that every single person on the bus - and they were arrayed in every color and racial origin - was a Jew. Remember, I came from French Canada, from frequent rejection and attack. This was exciting stuff. I was initially not too upset about my situation, I suppose because I felt that a mistake had been made and that it could be readily rectified. I'll admit that a couple of weeks into incessant exercise and climbing mountains equipped with 40 Kg back packs in hundred degree weather soured my perspective a little, but there was also the counter-balancing incentive of proving that I WAS tough, even within a group of Arab-country-origin young men who (it did not take too long to discover) were a hell of a lot tougher than I.
WH: Would you say that at any time you began to feel "at home" in your new lifestyle?
PL: It took the better part of a year. By that time I had met someone and we were living together, I had established a reasonable niche for myself in the working community (which at the time was mostly of pre-war German origin) and was getting used to the food (mostly fish and vegetables and fruit, with perhaps one slice of meat per week).
WH: Once you gained a better understanding of what the State of Israel was (not the refuge for orthodox Jews that you previously thought) did you appreciate the cause?
WH: Did you develop any sort of dedication to it then?
PL: Well, no. There was no magic metamorphosis. It was a young country beset by enemies on all sides and as such invited my support. But even in those early days there were elements that repelled me: there were conflicts with the religionists, there were examples of prostitution and petty crime easily to be found in Tel Aviv and elsewhere, there was some abuse and exploitation of the indigenous Arab population and so on. As Jew today I provide whatever political and financial support to the State of Israel that I can, but I would not call myself a dedicated Zionist, certainly not in comparison with so many others that I know.
WH: Were you involved in any combat?
PL: Only as a truck driver. One morning I was instructed to pick up certain supplies and deliver them to what turned out to be a minor battle area at Nitzana (El Ujah), then to transport prisoners to an internment camp. I was home in bed by 2:00 AM.
PL: Incidentally, at that time the opposition was Egyptian.
WH: What kind of combat was it?
PL: The Egyptians had something close to a brigade moving in on one of our positions. We sent in a platoon of Yemeni, Egyptian, Ethiopian and Moroccan kids, probably none older than 21. They crept off into the night. A while later, we heard a few shots, then, about ten minutes later following a radio exchange, a procession of over 1000 prisoners. They, too, were very young - uneducated farmers, mostly - who had collapsed and surrendered immediately upon our guys' assassination of their officers. Nothing very exciting.
WH: Where were you while this was happening?
PL: Stationed with my truck, trying to appear calm, but plenty scared.
WH: Just curious, what was your rank when you left the army?
PL: Keep in mind that the cab of my truck was armored and that I was frequently shot at traversing certain sections of highway south of Bersheva, so that I was not particularly frightened of gun fire. It was the unknown, the quiet, that was disconcerting. Rank was intially the equivalent of 2nd lieutenant (chiefly by virtue of my education), but I was reduced to private after a couple of run-ins with my superior officer.
WH: I read that "two particular concepts have dominated in the shaping of the IDF: an egalitarian attitude to rank; and an intense regard for human life and the individual human being." Comments?
PL: Accurate. At least it was then. I surmise that this resulted directly from Jews' general level of education (virtually everyone had at least graduated high school) and cultural predisposition. But there were difficulties, particularly in assimilating the aforementioned fellows of Middle Eastern and North African origin. They had less education (although the army looked after that) and many had been subjected to a lifetime of abuse.
WH: Okay, I'm going to try to wrap this up pretty soon.. I still have to do some work before my 330 class. A couple more questions.
WH: Do you have any particularly interesting or memorable anecdotes about your service or friends in Israel?
PL: We had a GMC 920 tractor and semi-trailer that was used to transport pipe to the Negev and fish to market. One day, traveling on a major highway with a load of pipe, its driver was forced to stop suddenly. The steel pipe had apparently not been adequately secured. It came loose, penetrated the cab and killed the driver. But this was Israel in 1954. No matter how badly it had been damaged, the truck had to be repaired, following which a call went out for an experienced driver. Although I had never been so much as a passenger in one of these rigs, I volunteered. It would be an occasional avenue to the outside world, away from the daily grind and I was confident that I could wing it. My first job was to transport a load of fish to the market in Chadera. Early one morning, the pipe carrier was disengaged from the tractor and replaced with a very large open tanker. The tank was filled with several thousand gallons of water, and 20 or so oxygen tanks fitted to its periphery. Each was equipped with a regulator and tube leading to the bottom of the tank so that oxygen could be bubbled through the water to ensure that every single fish that we delivered to market was alive. (At the time - and perhaps to this day - there was a 1000 Lira fine for every dead fish with which you were caught by the authorities.)My rig was positioned at the side of the main Haifa-Tel Aviv highway. Throughout the morning a particular pond was emptied of young carp, which were transported in small trucks and emptied into my tanker. By noon the job was done; I had a total of about 22,000 pounds of fish and water aboard. They gave me my documents and a day’s travel allowance and told me to get moving. I shifted into compound first gear and gunned the engine. The rig moved slowly, then a little faster onto the center of the highway. I depressed the clutch (actually, it was a double-clutch operation, required in the days before synchromesh to get the transmission gears up to the correct speed before engaging the next gear) and tried to shift into 2nd. It balked. I eventually managed to find and engage the gear, but it was too late; by this time half a ton of water and fish had catapulted out of the trailer, over my cab and onto the middle of the highway. What embarrassment! I was convinced that this was the end of my truck driving career and that the next day would see me back at some army camp in the desert. But no, there was no attendant excitement. A crew quickly cleaned up the mess, there was no admonishment, and I was soon on my way, albeit at a somewhat gentler pace. Lesson learned.
WH: Check out this website http://www.goalweb.com/world/kfarblum.htm It’s about Kibbutz Kfar Blum. We visited it, and the site says that it no longer has any volunteers.
PL: Yes. On our visit, I was told that the community could no longer survive as a Kvutzah and that there was an expectation of a majority vote to sell the land, take the profit individually and go on to other things.
WH: Yes, I remember that. Just thought you'd be interested in seeing what became of it. Before we all went to Israel a few years ago, did you make any trips back? If so, what places did you visit, and were there any familiar faces?
PL: None for over 25 years and never to any of my old haunts. My company had a factory in Bat Yam Israel and Grandma and I visited it once (1975), but only for a couple of days.
WH: What kind of relationships do you still have with the friends you made while living in Israel? Do many of those friends still live in Israel?
PL: None still live in Israel. One is back in South Africa, one in Switzerland and one in the U.S. The last fellow is now a shrink in Lugano.
WH: You place great personal value on your service in Israel and attribute much of your "straightening out" to it. Would you like to elaborate at all on how those years had such impact on the direction you chose afterward. How does it influence you today beyond financial and political contributions, if at all?
PL: I was fortunate enough to meet the right people. Their attitudes and personal philosophies were so dramatically divergent from those I had learned and been conditioned to in my parents’ home that I was stimulated to much related reading discussion and soul searching (including with a professional psychologist with whom I happened to be working), which helped me identify who I was, why I was so angry and what steps I might take to
modify my attitudes and behavior. It also taught me a respect for everyone – no matter my first impression of them. It was not a quick and easy process, but it eventually led me to (as you can see successfully) venture into marriage and subsequently into a business career which would previously have been impossible. I’m not certain that I would be any less of an Israel supporter today if I had not spent those years there, but who knows . . .?
WH: I'm going to do some work now. Thank you for taking alllll this time to help me with my assignment. Talk to you later.
WH: I think I want to include a little more about the new philosophies that you were exposed to in Israel. Can you tell me about the different kinds of people and how their attitudes and ideologies were so different from yours?
PL: The people I knew best (but initially least) were the German expatriates who formed the majority at Maayan Zvi. Most had emigrated from their homeland prior to 1938, had served in the Jewish Brigade (part of the British Army) during WW II and had played a role in eventually getting the British out of Palestine in the late 1940's. They lived in a total collective. Everything was pooled, even the children. A week or two after giving birth, a woman would return to her normal work, while her child would be looked after in a community nursery (then pre-school, then school), to be attended to by its parents mostly on the Sabbath. There was an inverse social order here; the highest ranking job was that of chicken coop keeper (the man who held the position while I was there had been the German consul to The Netherlands in the 30's) and the lowest was that of administrator.
PL: My job, tractorist and truck driver, was pretty high up there. I got it not because I was particularly popular, but because they were short of young, reasonably bright, reasonably tough young men. I knew that I had been accepted into the extended group when, in the communal shower room after work one day, a manager who had never previously given me more than a sidewise glance or a curt direction sidled up to me.
PL: He said "Why don't you get rid of that beard?"
PL: I asked why. The response: Because it is emblematic of a class of people in this country who do no work, who do not serve in the army, but who sponge their food, clothing and housing off of others, The bloodsuckers.
PL: The point, obviously, was that even in those days, people on the actual or figurative firing line looked down on the hyper religionists.
WH: What had you previously been taught to think of the hyper religionists?
PL: There was a dark side to these people, though. They employed Arabs from a neighboring village to work the fields, pick the bananas and guavas and cotton, collect the fish and so on, as necessary, but they did not treat them as equals. There was an implicit air of condescension in their treatment and when things went missing they were the first to be blamed. There was a period during which substantial quantities of our grapes were disappearing from the roadside vineyard overnight. Unknown to me, an order went out to poison some of the vines. A few mornings later, two black and bloated bodies were found on the highway. There were no further grape thefts.
WH: Yesterday you refered to meeting "the right people," and how their personal philosophies were educational to you. What were they like?
PL: To answer your first question: Well, in my home and that of my grandparents, the hyper religionists (my maternal grandfather approached being one) were the cream, looked up to and respected. When you ate Chinese food out, when you drove your car on Saturday, when you went to the movies on a holiday instead of attending synagogue, the spectre of THEIR holiness and your comparative lack of merit always presented itself.
Lessons of Living, process memo
Process Sheet
My initial response to this assignment, which asked students to conduct two interviews with an older adult and produce a narrative tied into a history, was to gather facts, facts, and more facts from my grandfather about the events he’d experienced. I asked him a lot of “who, what, where, when” questions but not a lot of “why” or “how.” The end product was several pages of data about World War II, but there wasn’t much that I couldn’t find in a history book. I understood that the assignment demanded a more probing, personal process, so I started over with a clean page and asked my grandfather for several more time slots during his busy days so that I could pick his brain about a new subject.
Of the historical events my grandfather mentioned, I had first chosen to write about World War II because it was a fairly safe topic. No one in his family had been lost to the war, and there would be plenty of interesting information—minus emotion. With my second attempt, I was trekking uncharted territory with my grandfather and asking him to disclose to me personal, emotional details of a chapter of his life about which I knew little. He rarely talked about his life in Israel and when he did, he made sweeping statements that elicited minimal understanding. I met with my grandfather a number of times in our internet chat room and collected the information I needed to write about his military service in Israel, though this time it took several days and a handful of extra interviews.
Before starting my essay, I didn’t plan out the writing on paper or make a brainstorming list, but there was a very active process of planning going on in my head while I was interviewing my grandfather. Things he said triggered ideas, and any written planning I needed was essentially included in the interviews. Much of the work was done for me because my grandfather is such an articulate man and can convey messages with perfect propriety and sense. When I began to write the paper and my grandfather was cut out of the process, I suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of responsibility in trying to tell his story. I was working with ideas, memories, and feelings that had not previously been voiced to me or my immediate family, and I was commissioned to reproduce them to a more alien audience of college-aged peers and my English instructor. The weight of my undertaking contributed consistently to my writing process. I constructed every sentence with my grandfather in mind, thinking very consciously about how he might receive my rendition of his own story. I wanted to keep the tone of the paper as light-hearted as possible, while doing justice to my grandfather’s experiences and being cognizant of the fact that I had to appeal to an audience of eighteen- through twenty-year-olds.
When I finished my essay, I had given as much attention as I could to word choice and rhetorical sensitivity and felt that the juggling-act-of-a-writing-process I’d used had helped me to write an effective personal history that my audience could enjoy. My toughest and most important critic, though was my grandfather, and his enjoyment in reading the final draft of my essay was the most significant and rewarding part of the writing process.