Newcomers in an Ancient Land

by Paula Wagner

  Would we never escape their hounding? Like hungry alley cats, the sailors chased us over the decks and through the rigging in hopes of cornering us for a kiss.

  “Kiss me and I’ll let you go,” they teased as we struggled against their strong tattooed arms. Stevedores by trade, they hated their new roles as bellboys now that their ship carried passengers instead of cargo. We did our best to outsmart their advances, but appeasement was often our only means of freedom. Yet even the smallest concession of a peck on the cheek would make the sailors clamor for more. To survive, we stuck together, leaving our cabin only for meals or when the steamy stench became unbearable.

  Still, I couldn’t resist the beauty of the nocturnal sky. Leaving Naomi below late one evening, I crept up on deck alone. The scene that greeted me made me forget all about the sailors. High over the cobalt sea, a shimmering canopy of stars arched all the way down to the horizon like a fishnet tugged by unseen hands. Flying fish played in the ship’s wake, their silvery tails and bellies twisting and flashing in the starlight. Leaning over the stern, I let the salt spray wash over my face. Time stood still, as boundless as eternity. Only the low thrum of the engines, the slapping of the blue-black waves, and the starry dome overhead reminded me I was still on Planet Earth. As I watched in awe, a poem that had won me first place in my third-grade class in Iowa floated into the net of my memory:

  Sailing boat, sailing boat, sailing away

  Over the ocean and far away

  Will you come back or will you stay there?

  Where will you go? Where, where, where?

  Had the mention of an ocean somehow set it apart from the cows and cornfields in my classmates’ poems?

  This journey begged the question once again: where did I belong? Where was home? Perhaps I wasn’t charting my own course after all. Maybe I was following in my mother’s footsteps by leaving her just as she had left her mother. Now Naomi and I would be the second generation of daughters to leave our mother for a foreign land.

  But a shadow slinking up behind me suddenly interrupted my reverie.

  “Gingit,” it hissed.

  Quick as a mouse, I scurried across the deck and disappeared down the spiral staircase to the safety of my berth below. The pungent dungeon was better than a nocturnal confrontation with my tormentor.

  I banged on the door to our cabin with my fists, shouting for Naomi to open up. She didn’t need to ask to know I was escaping a sailor. I flopped down on my bunk, heaving for breath.

  “One more week and we’ll be off this floating flophouse,” was all she said.

  Indeed, this would be our final night on the Atlantic after ten long days at sea. The next morning, the Theodore Herzl would pass through the Straits of Gibraltar and into the Mediterranean. If only I could get some sleep, I hoped to see the mighty Rock of Gibraltar at sunrise.

  Our final week also promised a brief reprieve off ship in the form of a one-day stop on the island of Rhodes and two days in the Greek port of Piraeus. I wasn’t the only passenger dying to set foot on terra firma. For days, the ship’s dining room had been buzzing in anticipation of the excursion to Rhodes’ famous Valley of the Butterflies. The velvety golden-brown insects were fabled to cling to your clothes and hair as you hiked through their gum tree habitat. After Rhodes, we’d have two full days in Athens to explore the ancient Greek city and the Parthenon. A mere two days later, we would dock in Haifa at dawn!

  Chapter 5

  DAD AND AVRAM: TWO JEWS, TEN OPINIONS

  As the seventeen-day passage drew to a welcome end, I felt a surge of excitement tinged with fear displacing my long-nurtured dream. What would life on Kibbutz Ein Hashofet be like? Would I recognize my hosts, the Feins, whom I remembered only from my parents’ stories of how our families had met on another Atlantic crossing so long ago? A photo from that trip shows Naomi and me snuggled between another pair of twins—Ruth and Naomi Fein. Their long dark braids look untouched by the salty spray whipping through our unruly red curls. I did a mental calculation. The Fein sisters would now be twenty-three, but in my memory, they remained forever nine.

  Now the sea spray showering over the deck of the Theodore Herzl teased my memories of that trip back to life.

  “Remember when we flapped our arms in the wind and pretended to be seagulls on the Mauritania?” I asked, hoping she too recalled how we’d swooped across the slippery deck, arms outstretched.

  “Caw, caw!” she crowed in an exuberant child’s voice.

  Our family and the Feins had met by sheer happenstance fourteen years earlier when Naomi and I were only four. While lining up to board the Mauritania for our first visit back to London, a murmur had rippled through the crowd: “Did you see those two twins—no, did you see those four twins?” Naomi and I usually ignored the attention attracted by our identical curly red mops, but this time another set of identical girls with dark brown braids stood directly behind us!

  “Dad,” I whispered, “look at those girls behind us.” Dad glanced in the direction of the family behind us, then turned to introduce us.

  “I see we appear to have something in common,” he quipped. “I’m Leon Wagner, this is my wife, Jean, and these are our daughters, Naomi and Paula.”

  “Plis to mit you,” came the heavily accented answer. “I’m Avram Fein, and this my wife, Frieda, and our girls, Naomi and Ruth.”

  “Well, we have even more in common than I thought with two Naomis, a Ruth, and a Paula,” my mother said with a laugh. But I squirmed at the sound of my name. Why couldn’t my parents have given me a biblical name like my sister? But at the same time, I was glad they hadn’t called me Ruth, a name I liked no better than my own. Maybe in Israel I’d find a new Hebrew name, as many people did there. But try as I might, no other name felt or sounded quite right.

  The handshakes between the Feins and my parents that day would launch an enduring friendship. With my arrival in Israel, that relationship was about to take another turn. Much as my parents had worried, they’d been reassured by the Feins’ invitation for me to stay on their kibbutz. Meanwhile, Naomi would stay nearby on Kibbutz Hazorea.

  Over the course of that first transatlantic voyage, Naomi and I had explored the Mauritania with our newfound friends who were supposed to be keeping an eye on us while our mothers enjoyed a rare chance to read uninterrupted, and Dad and Avram carried on deep conversations without end.

  Later I would learn that the Feins were on their way home to Israel following a three-year stint in the US, where Avram had worked as a shaleach, a recruiter for the Ha’Shomer Ha’Tzair kibbutz movement. Short and square, he may have been forty, but his graying hair made him appear older, although to my child’s eyes, all grown-ups looked ancient. Avram was Polish but had immigrated to Palestine before World War II to become one of the founders of Kibbutz Ein Hashofet in 1937, then fought in Israel’s War of Independence in 1948. Staunchly committed to the secular, socialist, and collective ideals of Zionism in that era, he was part of the Pioneer generation called chalutzim.

  Despite his heavy Polish accent, Avram was as talkative as Frieda was quiet. Naomi and Ruth spoke fluent Hebrew and English, a feat I both envied and admired, and which made me yearn to learn another language too. Why not, when they made it seem so easy? It was my first exposure to another language, and the new sounds and rhythms made my brain dance!

  Of course, at age four, I couldn’t possibly have understood Dad and Avram’s deck chair conversations that summer of 1949, but from their tone of voice, they sounded quite serious. Dad was always telling Naomi and me to watch our tone of voice when we got snarky, but this was somehow different. Years later, I realized that Avram had been pouring his considerable powers of persuasion into recruiting our family to come to Israel and join his kibbutz. I imagined the conversation going something like this:

  “Leon, you should bring your family to visit our kibbutz! Ve haf everything you need—free healthcare, education, and a wonderful sense of community. Besides, Israel needs people li
ke you to help realize the socialist dream!”

  But for Dad, an assimilated political lefty who felt American first and Jewish second, Avram’s logic was tantalizing yet troublesome. Caught between his lofty political ideals and his desire to expand beyond the confines of Jewish life, Dad felt ambivalent.

  “Thanks, Avram. You make kibbutz life sound amazing. But what would a nonpracticing Jewish college music professor like me do in Israel—much less my non-Jewish wife?”

  “Ah, no problem,” answered Avram. “Ve haf a soluuuu-tion! You and your wife spend six months in an ulpan—a work-study program—learning the language, getting used to our system. After that, you can both work on the kibbutz.” Avram had a soluuuu-tion for everything.

  “But what kind of work would we do?”

  “Why, you can teach music, and Jean can teach English at our regional high school. Ve haf lots of cultural activities on our kibbutz. Almost everyone plays an instrument or sings. We value the arts as much as physical labor, but of course, it’s more important to put the good of the group over your own individual desires.”

  Dad didn’t mind physical labor; in fact, he respected it. He supported unions and had later pushed to unionize university professors in California. At home, he was always refinishing old pieces of furniture or working in his garden.

  “But what about the girls—what would they do?” he continued.

  “They can live in the children’s house,” answered Avram without missing a beat. “Trust me, your kids will learn Hebrew chik chak—in no time. And Israel has the best education in the world. As for Jean, Frieda tells me she doesn’t really like to cook. So . . . she’d never haf to cook another meal in collective dining room!”

  “Well, that’s true.” Dad couldn’t help but laugh. I loved whatever Mom cooked and wolfed it down voraciously. But Mom would much rather have been producing a play than putting three meals a day on the table.

  “But Avram, I just don’t know how Jean would fit in,” Dad continued. “After all, she’s not Jewish.”

  “No problem,” answered Avram. “She can convert.”

  But Avram’s soluuuu-tion struck Dad like a thunderclap.

  “What, convert?” he growled. “I thought you detested those old rabbis like I do, Avram. Do you want Israel to be a theocracy or a democracy?”

  “Calm down, Leon. You don’t have to believe all that religious mumbo jumbo, but you know as well as I do if your wife converted, it vould be easier for everyone, especially your girls. They vould haf a clear identity—not half and half.”

  Dad took a deep breath, struggling to regain his composure, but his nostrils still flared, a sure sign of consternation. Avram had touched a raw nerve.

  “Well, Avram, I have to disagree. I can teach my girls all the Jewish values they need without the sanction of official Judaism. I’m sorry, but they will just have to figure out their identities for themselves.”

  My need to trace this contradiction to its roots was exactly why I was on my way to Israel. Without a sense of belonging or acceptance by any religion, I felt like an outsider, confused and ashamed. On some level, had Avram been right?

  For a few minutes, Avram let the hot potato of religion cool. But Dad, emboldened by his outburst, soon pulled out another one, this time political.

  “Well, it’s true you have all the elements of a good life on the kibbutz, but what about justice and equality for the Arab minority in Israel? What are you going to do about all those Palestinians who fled—or were chased—into squalid refugee camps just over the border during the War of Independence? How can you justify the creation of a state for Jews—when they’ve become stateless? Now they’ve been turned into Wandering Jews instead of us!”

  Avram must have flinched. It was one thing to challenge socialist theory, but questioning Israel’s right to exist was pure heresy.

  “Oh, no, no, my friend, you have it all wrong! We bought the land from the Palestinian owners, fair and square. In fact, the American Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis helped raise the money. That’s why we named the kibbutz after him— Ein Hashofet means “spring of the judge.” And don’t forget when the UN declared Israel’s right to statehood, it also tried to create a state for the Palestinians. But then the surrounding Arab countries attacked us. We were outnumbered like David against Goliath, but they lost! The Palestinians fled, and Jordan took possession of what should have been Palestine. I fought in Israel’s War of Independence, so I should know!”

  “And bravely, too, I’m sure,” Dad acknowledged, dialing back his challenge to the myth of tiny Israel surrounded by enemies, only to challenge it again. “I also fought in World War II, and I know the official version of history isn’t always accurate.”

  “Well, of course fighting Hitler was a great mitzvah,” retorted Avram. “But where were all the Jewish refugees supposed to go after the Holocaust? Don’t we deserve a safe homeland where we can live in peace and dignity at long last?”

  But Dad was undeterred. “You have a point, but let’s admit it—the Holocaust wasn’t the fault of the Palestinians.” Avram frowned like a man teaching a history lesson to the biggest doubter in his class. Dad had always encouraged me to question authority—except, of course, his own—but Avram wasn’t buying this piece of critical thinking.

  Naomi & Paula with Naomi & Ruth Fein on ship deck, 1949

  “Look, Leon,” he said wearily, “as far back as the early 1900s, Jews were already beginning to settle in Palestine. For centuries there has always been a small but continuous Jewish community in Jerusalem anyway. But after the Holocaust, we had a duty to bring the survivors to Israel. Don’t you agree? Now we need Jews from all over the world to help build the country so we’ll never face annihilation again. Let our hostile Arab neighbors figure out a solution for their Palestinian brothers. We must take care of our own.”

  The conversation ended in a stalemate just in time for lunch.

  “Hungry?” asked Avram, clearly eager to chart a new course.

  “Sure, but our conversation has been good food for thought,” said Dad, trying to lighten the mood, though his pun was lost on Avram.

  “Let’s agree to disagree,” said Avram, then added, “but in the end, you’ll see I’m right. “For every problem there is a soluuuu-tion.”

  “Hmm,” answered Dad. Now it was his turn to wonder if Avram was serious or joking.

  Despite their differences, my parents and the Feins exchanged letters and small gifts over the years to come, keeping their friendship alive. So it was only natural that I write them of my plans. Thrilled, Avram wrote back that I’d be welcome to join the ulpan on Ein Hashofet, although it was already two months in progress.

  But the knowledge that I’d be under the watchful eyes of the Feins only partially reassured Dad. His stubborn silence on the subject made me think he simply hoped my youthful infatuation would blow over. Although I longed for Dad’s approval, I didn’t want to provoke a full-on confrontation. Besides, as soon as I turned eighteen, I’d be free to make my own decisions, with or without his blessing.

  In two days, Israel would rise from the sea, transforming my dreams into reality.

  Chapter 6

  ISRAEL AT LAST: ARRIVING AND PARTING

  On the final night before the Theodore Herzl reached the Promised Land, the Mediterranean dozed quietly under a light veil of mist. But I was too excited to sleep! Determined not to miss the moment, I persuaded Naomi to stay up on deck for an all-night vigil until finally streaks of gold and apricot illuminated faint but unmistakable signs of solid land on the eastern horizon.

  “Look, Crusader ramparts rising from the sea!” I stagewhispered.

  “Just like the photos in the travel brochures.” She yawned, annoyed to be roused.

  Our seventeen-day endurance test in this rusty scow was about to end. No more stinking latrines, grinding engines, or randy sailors. But the trip had been a wonder as well. All across the Atlantic, porpoises had flashed their silver bellies in
the ship’s wake, and the nights had sparkled with stars. We had passed through the Straits of Gibraltar and stopped on the island of Rhodes, where we’d hiked the Monarch trail with swarms of honey-brown butterflies alighting on our hair and clinging to our clothes. The layover in the port of Piraeus had been enough time to get tipsy on red wine (there was no minimum drinking age in Greece) before visiting the ruins of the Parthenon.

  Like a prisoner loath to leave the familiar security of my hellhole, a sudden fear of the unknown gripped me. The roar of the engines was now no more than a dull drone, allowing the ship to glide quietly on the softness of the sea. The vibrations that had jostled me for three weeks had also subsided to a gentle hum. Suddenly a strobe of green-and-cobalt light flashed through the mist, stippling the water in an iridescent sheen that rippled over it like quicksilver. Backlit against the sunrise, the Crusader ramparts reared up from the shore.

  “That’s the ancient port of Akko (Acre),” pointed out a sailor reverently as he materialized by my side. A few days earlier, we’d finally made a truce—he and his friends would call off their chase if Naomi and I agreed to help them pack up the goods they were bringing into Israel from New York. It seemed like a decent bargain. We’d even had fun ripping the sales tags from the piles of Levis so the sailors could pack them into their own duffel bags.

  I wanted to savor the moment of our arrival forever—the ancient round towers rising from the mist, the sunrise making rainbows on the sea—but the sounds of stevedores and machinery soon shattered my reverie as the hull of the Theodore Herzl bumped up against the dock with a deep thud.

  “Welcome to Haifa!” laughed the sailor, squeezing my shoulder one last time. His eyes danced, and his dark curls shone around his sweaty temples. But my eyes were not for him now. I’m here, I’m here, I thought. My dream has come true!

  But the helter-skelter disembarkation into the steamy port quickly swallowed up my dreams, and after seventeen days at sea, my legs wobbled on terra firma. Suddenly several sailors thrust their duffels into my hands.