Fifty Years

I was in the ninth month of my first pregnancy when the Six Day War broke out, fifty years ago. I have written in some detail about this point in my life in my first novel, ‘The Balancing Game,’ so if you have read it I apologise for being repetitive.

The way that, together with some scared neighbours from upstairs, we hunkered down in our ground-floor apartment, with sandbags at the door and sticky tape pasted on the windows, still remains fresh in my memory. In my ‘delicate’ condition I refused to go to the public air-raid shelter, not wanting to find myself surrounded by people, both adults and children, in a place which I assumed would be neither comfortable nor clean. I may have been wrong in my assumption, but I was not to be budged. We were living at the time in one of the neighbourhoods of Jerusalem that was not very near the then border with Jordan, so perhaps that gave me a sense of security.

I know that the situation in which Israel found itself aroused the anxiety of Jews around the world, and all the more so of my immediate family, parents and sisters, who were then living in London. I had been advised by the British Embassy to leave the country, but the practicalities of leaving Israel seemed almost insurmountable then, and I somehow assumed that things would work out.

And work out they certainly did. After two or three days and nights during which we heard artillery falling around us, and planes flying above us, the announcement came over the radio that we could leave the shelters and our homes and emerge into the light of day. When I went outside I was astonished to find that all the houses were standing, unscathed, and nobody in the immediate vicinity seemed to have been hurt. This was all the more astonishing to me because as a child growing up in post-world-war London I had seen more than one house that had been destroyed during the Blitz, so that the remnants of those damaged buildings were a not uncommon sight.

And then there was the euphoria, the sense of relief at the news that not only had Israel not been obliterated, as the Arab leaders around us had promised, but that our forces had succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest dreams in averting the threat to our existence and overcoming the armies that threatened us.

With hindsight it seems that our joy was premature because many years of anguish and tragic events were to follow, but at the time all this could not be imagined. The idea of being able to go to the Old City of Jerusalem, to Jericho and to many other places that until a few days previously had seemed to be as remote as the other side of the moon was intoxicating. And we did indeed go to those places. In Hebron there were expert glass-makers whose wares soon adorned our house, and in the Old City of Jerusalem we were entranced by the beautiful ceramic objects made by the Armenian craftsmen. Altogether, a new, exotic and enchanting country opened up before us, and the inhabitants seemed quite happy to interact with us and engage in commerce with us Israelis.

Much has changed since then, but it is still possible for the average inhabitant of Israel to visit the Old City of Jerusalem, enjoy its lively markets, take tourists to see its exotic places, and visit the Western Wall, where previously Jews were forbidden to go. Today, the places that are holy to any of the three major religions of the world are freely accessible to their respective adherents, a situation which did not exist before.

Fifty years have passed and much has changed, but it would be a tragedy if Jerusalem were to be divided again, preventing Jews, Moslems and Christians from whatever country from going freely about their business within it or worshipping openly at their own particular holy site.

In those fifty years I have grown older and, hopefully, just a little wiser, my children and grandchildren have been born here and almost all the members of my wider family now live (or lived) in Israel.

These have been fifty momentous years, both for me personally and for my country.

And now the baby that very considerately waited for another two weeks to be born has grown up to become a devoted wife, successful professional and treasured mother of three.

Happy birthday, Dana!

 

 

Israel and Africa

Last week I was invited to hear a talk by Sharon Bashevkin Perry, who has been involved for many years in early childhood education in a variety of positions in Israel, the US and Africa. The talk was entitled ‘From Israel to Ghana – Building Bridges and Friendships Through Early Childhood Education.’

In 1958 Golda Meir, then Israel’s Foreign Minister, visited Africa and was appalled by the poverty and privation she witnessed there. On her return to Israel she established a programme, known as Mashav, involving cooperation between Israel and African countries in the fields of education, health and agriculture. Her objective was twofold: to extend a helping hand to those countries and to foster good relations with them. Since then the programme, known as Mashav, has continued, under the auspices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with Israeli educators and training teams in various areas of expertise spending periods of time in Africa. In addition, African educators, medical personnel and farmers are brought to Israel to participate in intensive training programmes. All these activities have helped to create a favourable attitude towards Israel in those countries, though over the years diplomatic relations with various African countries have had their ups and downs.

Together with my friends, I was treated to a fascinating talk, accompanied by a colourful Powerpoint presentation, about Sharon Bashevkin Perry’s experiences working in this programme in Ghana. We were able to hear about her encounters with local preschool and early school educators, share her own personal insights into the various aspects of Israel’s outreach activities and gain an understanding of the importance of training preschool and elementary school teachers in Ghana. We saw the various ways in which Sharon and her associates showed the local teachers how to take everyday items (e.g., bottle-tops, sticks, fabrics) and use them in making toys and educational aids in the pre-school and elementary school environment. Sharon stressed the positive and welcoming attitude towards Israel and Israelis shown by the people with whom she came into contact.

One of the features that struck Sharon in her encounters with the local populace was the limited verbal interaction between mothers and small children. She witnessed many instances in which a child would be sitting with its mother, even in close contact, stroking and caressing her, but the mother would not speak to the child. This, of course, has repercussions for the child’s verbal and possibly even cognitive development, and Sharon and her associates sought to stress the importance of talking to children at as early a stage as possible.

Additional objectives of the programme in which Sharon participated are to foster leadership and interpersonal skills among the teaching personnel, to change cultural norms such as the use of corporal punishment in the classroom, and to show the teachers that the tools and aids for stimulating the minds of their young pupils are to be found in the environment and to use local and natural materials for this purpose.

It is hoped that both the adults and the youngsters who come into contact with Israel’s outreach programmes will benefit on an individual basis as well as being able to pass on their newly-acquired knowledge to their colleagues and others around them, thereby advancing their community as a whole.

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

What exactly lies behind the closing of Israel’s Broadcasting Authority after its seven decades of serving the public is a subject for speculation. Politics, finances and greed are part of the picture for sure, although other reasons have been posited.

The radio, followed by television, has been the constant companion of daily life in Israel for the vast majority of its population. Initially there was only one radio channel, and during the day its various programmes of talk and music, both light and heavy, constituted the means whereby information was disseminated to the population.

The various languages spoken in the nascent State reflected its composition, which consisted to a large extent of immigrants from a wide range of countries. There were programmes in Yiddish for those originally from Eastern Europe, many of them Holocaust survivors. There were programmes in Arabic for the immigrants from the countries of the Maghreb, who were forced to leave their homes when Israel was established. Those programmes also served the indigenous Arab population. There were even programmes in French and English, consisting mainly of news, as well as programmes in simple Hebrew to help all immigrants. One important programme was devoted to the search for missing relatives, which often succeeded in reuniting family members who had lost touch with one another due to the events of WWII.

For someone like me, who grew up in the England of the 1950s and 1960s, when the BBC ruled the sound waves, our daily routine was accompanied by stalwarts like Music While You Work, Mrs. Dale’s Diary, Listen With Mother and Women’s Hour. At the weekends there was Educating Archie and the Billy Cotton Band Show, with the highlights of the week being Family Favourites and the Goon Show. All that is ancient history now, but the fact that those names come easily to my brain show that they evidently made a deep and lasting impression on me.

The same goes for the early days of radio and TV in Israel. I was not here when Israel was founded, but made my way here only in 1964, upon graduating from university in London. I brought a radio with me and very quickly came to know the daily routine, despite my very inadequate knowledge of Hebrew. The early morning programme would start with an energetic male voice instructing listeners in some elementary gymnastics – a subject I had always hated at school, and was not very enthusiastic about then either. This was followed by a gentleman speaking Hebrew with a strong American accent giving drivers some helpful hints about driving carefully and avoiding accidents. Light music and talks of various kinds generally followed. At the weekend there was the weekly music quiz, where one of the first Hebrew words I learned was the one for composer.

After my daughter was born and I found myself unable to continue in my job at the university I benefited greatly from the daily programme devoted to housewifely matters and hosted by Rivka Michaeli. It contained medical advice from children’s physician, Dr. Sherashevsky, cookery hints from Chef Nikolai, and many other useful items. I must confess that that, too, helped me to learn Hebrew.

Life changed for me when a programme was inaugurated devoted to music, primarily of the classical kind. And that improved even more when that programme was extended to twenty-four hours. I later learned that the programme from midnight to 6 a.m., which I encountered occasionally, was in fact produced by a computer, but that did not bother me as I continued to enjoy the music.

The TV programmes also played a major role in Israel’s communications scene, and I was even able to use texts from two TV news programmes as the basis for my M.A. thesis in Communications at the Hebrew University, comparing their respective uses of rhetorical devices.

But now all that has gone. No more talk programmes. No more phone-ins. No more news broadcasts. No more sports commentaries. My constant compantion, The Voice of Music, has been replaced by the computerized programme of music (which is not at all bad, I must admit). I don’t know how many people were once employed there, but it can’t be making them feel any better to know they’ve been replaced by a computer.

I wonder what would happen if the British government decided to scrap the BBC.

Violence Around Us

The sight of officials of United Airlines dragging a helpless passenger down the aisle of an airplane as other passengers scream in shock and protest is not one that I will easily forget. Physical violence of any kind is shocking, and any time the TV news shows a violent demonstration anywhere in the world or the violent repression of a peaceful demonstration my horrified attention is drawn once again to man’s inhumanity  to man (and woman).

The use of violence against unarmed individuals is something that has been prevalent throughout human history. In addition, the Bible and the annals of ancient peoples are full of accounts of battles waged in order to gain ascendancy over other nations, or to fend it off, and the massacres that ensued. The Ancient Romans were past-masters in the art of war and subjugation. In recent history the atrocities inflicted by Germans and other European nations on innocent victims, with attendant evil and sadistic acts of gratuitous violence, directed particularly at Jews, went ahead unabated until eventually  stopped only by the deployment of tremendous force by the Allies. The European Union was establishment primarily to put an end to conflicts between the nations of the region, and by and large it has been successful in this.

In this day and age, mainly because the prevalence of modern media enables us to witness the violence being perpetrated by the indigenous peoples of the Middle East against one another, the existence of barbarous acts is evident for all to see, though not enough is being done to put an end to it. Evidently, no world leader wants to risk his or her position by sending their military into dangerous situations in order to help stop the slaughter or enslavement of innocents in a distant land.

In an interview I saw recently on BBC (‘Hard Talk’), the son of Hans Frank, the Nazi Gauleiter of Poland (the General Government, as the Nazis called it), spoke of his contempt and shame when he thinks of his father, claiming he can never forgive him for destroying millions of lives and bringing tragedy to so many families. Hans Frank was hanged at the Nuremberg Trials for his crimes but his son, Niklas, who still lives in Germany, maintains that to this day he does not trust the German people. “At present they are enjoying economic prosperity, but if the situation were to deteriorate once more, as it did in the 1920s and 1930s, history could repeat itself,” he said.

The fact that the members of a nation that prides itself on being a bastion of culture and civilization could be whipped up into a frenzy of fanatical hatred and be able to inflict untold misery on other human beings is something that continues to mystify me. The psychology and sociology of mass hatred for others can’t be simply explained away as the actions of a group of psychopathic criminals. An entire nation countenanced and participated first in ostracism and persecution and eventually in mass murder. And it is common knowledge that not only Germans were involved in all the atrocities that constituted the Holocaust throughout Europe.

Every now and again there is an isolated incident or statement that can restore my faith in human nature, but over against it there are many more that undermine it. Sometimes I wonder how we can go on living in this world where there is so much misery and inhumanity.

But then I remind myself of the pleasant way in which I live and that every day I, my family, and most of the people around me have enough to eat, a roof over our heads, and the ability to go about our daily lives without being oppressed. That is a gift that should never be taken for granted. The dark days of the Holocaust are gone, hopefully never to return, and that should be our solace, constituting the yardstick by which we measure our current lives.