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BEGINNINGS, 1948

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Contents

Preface.......................................................................viiIntroduction..................................................................ixChapter I My Life Begins in Palestine........................................1Chapter II Mordechai Eizikowitz..............................................17Chapter III Marriage and the Little House on the Prairie.....................25Chapter IV Escalation and Attack.............................................35Chapter V The Fall of Mishmar HaYarden.......................................45Chapter VI Syria.............................................................54Chapter VII Where is Home?...................................................76Epilogue......................................................................95Granddaughter's Note..........................................................105Notes.........................................................................109Bibliography..................................................................111

Chapter One

The U.S.S. Marine Carp

Under the British mandate, Jewish immigration policies were tight. To enter Palestine legally, one had to have a certificate. I purchased one in New York for four hundred dollars. A friend of my father's helped me with the legalities. The four hundred dollars was a kind of security deposit against permanent settlement. If I left Palestine I'd get my deposit back. If not, they would come looking for me. I thought I was making permanent Aliyah—moving to the Holy Land to live out my destiny there.

I sailed on the second voyage of the first American ship to sail through the Mediterranean after World War II; a converted troop carrier called the Marine Carp. A fellow traveler, one Solomon Bloom, has posted his own account on the internet. As Bloom recounts, the boat hadn't been through any renovations since the war:

We slept on sheets of canvas, lashed to metal tubing suggesting the shape of a bed, which in turn were stacked in four or five tiers on metal rods extending the height of the deck.... The ship was a rusty gray, even the old Army food trays off which we ate in the paint gray mess section had a silvery gray cast.

The surroundings may have been gray, but the passengers were colorful: They included a throng of oil men, both American and Arab, headed for Iraq and Iran via Beirut; other Arabs returning home, some of whom were dignitaries (I think there was even a princess among them); Zionists returning to settlements they'd left in wartime; and first-timers like me. I slept in a section of the ship with the other Jewish kids. They spent their time talking politics and studying Hebrew, singing and dancing. I however was seasick for the most of the journey—so I couldn't join their activities and spent most of my time on deck. During the voyage a sweet little Jewish girl of about three years old attached herself to me. She followed me everywhere.

Up on deck, I came to befriend some of the Arabs on the ship. One man, some kind of big deal in Lebanon, even tried convincing me to disembark with him in Beirut. He said the charms of his cosmopolitan French-influenced city made it an obviously superior alternative to my Palestine: an uncivilized expanse of rocky land. (This would be the first of several curious propositions during my time in the Middle East!) I gave him my father's address in Hertzeliyah, in case he would like to send a postcard.

Dusk in the Lebanese port: warm hues and foreign sights and sounds to excite imaginations after two weeks at sea. About twelve passengers headed home, to their business in Lebanon, or to travel by land to Iraq or Saudi Arabia. Others disembarked to explore the city. However, the Jews were not allowed to have a look around. Solomon Bloom describes his experience:

Our passports clean of any reference to religious leanings, were scrutinized by name and a Goldstein, Levy, Cohen were denied the right to go ashore. Other Americans, how Waspish they were I can't remember, had their passports stamped to proceed down the gangway to enjoy the fabled Beirut.

Bloom recounts that he and some of the American Jews got together and outraged at being denied the ability to go ashore, decided no other Americans would have that privilege, and simply pushed and shoved the Lebanese immigration officials down the gangway—they drove away in a huff!

I had no idea what was going on during the week we were docked in Beirut. I was told later that the Lebanese wanted to remove and imprison the American Zionists, and the Americans spent a week in negotiations, which was why we were docked for such a long time. Arabs in small fishing boats would hover in the water around the ship, yelling "baksheesh! baksheesh!" meaning they wanted money from the passengers, or maybe they were offering to sneak us to shore for a fee. I was bemused that they must consider me a rich American with money to burn, I who had worked from the age of ten just to get by.

Haifa was a big mountain full of houses hanging off the cliff, and the port was full of people looking for people. There were hundreds, everyone screaming and yelling. Peering off the bow of the ship, I eventually recognized my father. He had already arranged for my luggage to be shipped to Hertzeliyah. Our meeting was not overly emotional, but, somewhat tense. We were both apprehensive about re acquainting ourselves with each other. We were father and daughter, yet we had not been a part of each other's lives for 13 years. We did not hug, but shook hands. I was very excited and anxious to begin living out my dreams of a better life. I think he was happy to see me and hopeful too.

We stayed one night in a hotel and another at a friend's house in Haifa. Then we boarded a bus for Hertzeliyah, which was also just a cliff at the time.

Kibbutz Alumim

My naïve ideas of a free farming life, building a house for oneself and becoming established in a community were all too American for the reality I met in Palestine. Here, at Kibbutz Alumim (Alumin means "youth" in Hebrew) in Hertzeliyah, was a struggling collective of young, religious Holocaust refugees who would rather be somewhere else, America for example. On the other hand, had I been looking for rustic socialism this would have to be it: all transportation was by horse-and-wagon, and children lived in communal housing separated from their parents.

My father lived like a hermit in a small barn-like house, with a dirt floor, on the outskirts of the kibbutz. He worked on construction projects on and around the kibbutz, and helped out generally. He was seventy years old, and was known by all as the Grandfather of the Kibbutz. He was considered an honorary member, because to be a real member, one had to be young and a refugee. As "Reb Sholom's daughter," I was also welcomed as an honorary kibbutznik. We attended services there, and "Shabbes was Shabbes;" everything in keeping with my father's standards of orthodoxy.

The anger I had held against him for being gone these many years failed to fade into the surroundings. I wanted him to provide for and nurture me; I expected to make up time lost in childhood. Of course this was impossible. We occupied a position, instead of at the center of a...