Roberta wonders if it’s diplomatic to ask how this refugee camp compares with those in Gaza or the West Bank. Finally, she gets her courage up and is surprised to learn that there are other camps, not only here in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip but in Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan as well.
“Let me educate you, Roberta,” Da’oud states. “First of all, there are over seven million Palestinian refugees worldwide. My numbers may not be exact, but they are close enough. Check them out. There are more than one million refugees living in camps in Gaza, well over two million on the West Bank.” He tells her he is uncertain about the numbers in Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, but he does know there are nine camps in Syria, twelve in Lebanon, and in Jordan, ten. “I do know,” he continues, “that the West Bank has the largest number of recognized refugees, and that in all camps, these people suffer from unemployment, depression, post-traumatic stress, illness . . .” He stops midsentence and abruptly turns and walks toward the car.
On the ride back to her hotel, Roberta thinks about Palestinian terrorism and their despotic leaders; she thinks about the aborted peace efforts, and then her mind turns to the Jewish ghettoes in Europe—the Pale of Settlement, for example, that she read about as she pursued her family’s history—and wonders how this differs from that. Groups of people isolated in ghettoes because of their religion, or the blacks living in their ghetto because of the color of their skin, or so many others because of their political affiliation or ethnicity or sexual identity. She considers whether one must always avenge history by repeating the trauma to another group further down the pecking order. She wonders how this situation can possibly be resolved or how peace can ever be achieved given this sordid account. She is quiet, even sullen, overcome by a sense of futility and sadness.
Chapter 17
THE MEANING OF NAMES
The evening following the camp tour, Roberta and Hannah treat Reuben and Rivka to dinner at a spot recommended by the concierge at their hotel. The restaurant is housed in an Ottoman-era villa in Tel Aviv’s Neve Tzedek district. One discerns from Rivka’s expression of surprise that this is not an eating place they would have come to on their own. No one talks about Roberta’s camp experience.
Not wanting to appear like rich, ugly Americans—which they are neither—Hannah and Roberta pass by the bottle of Dom Pérignon listed on the menu for $159 USD and settle on a more reasonable but “not too shabby” Veuve Clicquot. Hannah toasts the cousins, affirming her admiration for them, and expresses her gratitude for finding mishpucha. After a round of toasts, Roberta orders a slow-cooked lamb dish, as does Reuben. Hannah and Rivka both order mozzarella-filled veal meatballs in a chicken-and-sage sauce. Afterward, although they complain that they couldn’t possibly put another morsel of food in their mouths, the quartet somehow manages to scarf down the house specialty, an Arabian filigree pastry stuffed with cheese and served with sage ice-cream topped with honey.
Over coffee—black and thick as mud—Rivka talks about her children. “What can I say? They are all so very different. I swear, sometimes I think that each one came from a different set of parents. From the moment she came out, my youngest was observant. She just took on the injunctions and rituals of Judaism—and believe me, she didn’t get it from me. I’m what you call an ethnic Jew, not at all observant but proud to be a Jew nevertheless. Yes, every so often I light Shabbos candles, and we do have Passover but with no mention of God, but that’s it. We’re both atheists, you know. So who knew when we named her Batya—that’s Hebrew for daughter of God—that she would grow up Orthodox?”
“Names have meanings,” interjects Reuben. “There’s a not-so-subtle message conveyed when one names a child, perhaps subconsciously. Don’t you agree, Hannah? We even have a naming ceremony, for God’s sake.”
“She’s so good, so sweet, so passive. But about her religion, she’s a warrior,” continues Rivka, paying no attention to Reuben’s comment. “I worry for her health though. Pregnant with her seventh child and she’s only thirty-three. No contraception. How much can her little body stand?” She sighs.
“She’s stronger than you think,” asserts Reuben. She must take after her great-grandfather, Shmuel, which reminds me, Robbie and Hannahla, remember you’re having dinner with us on your final night in Israel. Don’t forget! I have something I want you to have. Yes, I know. I know you’ve been hocking me the whole time you’ve been here. Anyhow, don’t think I didn’t notice. So come early, we have a lot to talk about.”
“So, how would you translate Shmuel into English?” Hannah asks.
“Samuel,” Rivka responds.
Rivka turns the conversation back to the children. “My oldest son is progressive, wouldn’t you say, Reuben? Typically, his opinions are the same as ours, more or less. It’s just what I would have expected from a child raised in our home with our strong convictions about diversity and treating others as you would have them treat you.” She pauses and then adds, “He’s also gay.”
“But you didn’t tell us what Zechariah means?” observes Hannah, not knowing whether to pursue that theme.
“It means remembering God,” smiles Reuben. “So I guess it doesn’t always work that way since Zech is not religious at all. Not at all. And, by the way, we accept him and love him for who he is, in case you’re wondering.”
“Okay, that he is liberal is easy to understand,” Rivka moves on. “But I cannot understand how our Tamir became so conservative. Yes, you heard right,” she affirms as she notes Hannah’s stunned expression. “As liberal as we are, our son Tamir is the opposite. He even voted for Netanyahu as prime minister. That’s the closest Reuben ever came to having a fistfight with a child. He didn’t, but it was dreadful. Every night, an argument at the dinner table. Words and names thrown around. We finally agreed not to talk politics anymore, except between the two of us. We’re very political people, you know. We belong to the Histadrut.”
“I’m not familiar with that name,” remarks Roberta. “I know Likud and Labor and—actually, now that I think of it, that’s all I know.”
“There’s the Green Party,” chimes in Hannah, delighted to contribute to the discussion.
“True, Hannah,” adds Reuben, “and Histadrut means the Union, which is shorthand for the General Union of Workers and is made up of many labor unions. I have some books about it that I could give you, Robbie, if you’re interested, that is. And you too, Hannah.”
“I’d like that, thanks,” Roberta responds.
“So how did Tamir become so conservative?” Roberta wonders out loud.
“I swear,” Reuben asserts, his voice now raised an octave, “I believe it was in reaction to me and to his place in the family, the middle child. And yet his twin holds a different point of view. Batya was the baby and beautiful, and by the time she came along, all we wanted was another girl. If we were praying people, we would have prayed for a girl. Everyone pampered her and treated her like a doll. She was always, as Rivka said, spiritual. Loved nature. Planted flowers. Wrote poetry. Somehow it was safe for her to express herself; I don’t think it was a rebellious act at all. It came from her heart. And Zechariah—well, he was the first son and a wanted and adored son. You know—a prince, a Jewish prince. He knew from the beginning he was wanted and loved and that we thought him special, so he could identify with us—with me—and had no need to rebel or prove anything to anyone. He knew who he was.”
Reuben goes on to talk of the time he spent with the older children clamoring for attention, especially at the dinner table with every word that fell from Zech’s precocious mouth treated like gold.
“Then when Tamir came along,” he continues, looking for agreement from Rivka, “he couldn’t compete with our beautiful girls with all their words, so he had a lot to prove. Sitting on a lot of anger too, most likely against me. I think I was harder on him than the others.”
“What does his name mean?” asks Hannah, trying to change the subject.
“Tall,” answers Reu
ben. “And that he is, the tallest of the lot. Over six feet. Except for his brother. I keep thinking I did something wrong. That it was my fault. That he had to rebel against me, to retaliate against my harshness.”
“Well, my husband,” Rivka says, “who knew you were a psychoanalyst? For me, I am convinced our children came out the way they came out, with their philosophy intact. You weren’t around that much and I, their mother, saw it. A mother knows. But I’d like to call your attention to how you just now put Tamir’s point of view down, like it’s a disease. I don’t like his perspective any more than do you, but you can’t just explain it away by his place in the family or as rebellion against you. It’s demeaning. Could he not come to his viewpoint on his own, despite the difference with you? He’s not exactly stupid—he’s quite intelligent. In fact, he just may be the smartest of the bunch.” Following an awkward silence, Roberta and Hannah simultaneously call for the bill.
The sisters arrive at Reuben and Rivka’s by cab the night prior to their departure, insisting that Reuben not make the trek to their hotel for the hundredth time. Before leaving, they stop at the hotel’s gift shop to purchase an orchid plant, a parting gift to the Keters. This time it’s Hannah who says, “Damn the expense. They’ve been so good to us, and orchids are so rare in Israel. Let’s do it.”
After a typical Israeli dinner of grilled lamb on pita bread with a salad of tomatoes, cucumbers, and green and red peppers followed by ice cream for dessert, Rivka, with the help of Hannah and Roberta, begins to clear the dishes from the table. After they are finished, Reuben opens the closet door in the entryway to retrieve a package wrapped in layers of linen cloth. Gently, and with starched ceremony, he unpeels the fabric and then unfolds layers of tissue paper to reveal a sheaf of brown-edged lined paper. The lettering, written in Yiddish hieroglyphs, is unreadable to Roberta’s eyes. Reuben’s eyes fill with tears. “Here it is, my dear cousins—like a good woman, more precious than diamonds and rubies.”
In silence, as if they have entered a sacred temple, the group of four sit staring at one another, appearing like a medieval tableau, frozen in time and space. “Nu, so isn’t this what you’ve been waiting for?” asks Reuben. “So I’m showing it to you, but we can’t touch it. It will fall apart. When I copied it myself—I wouldn’t trust anyone else to handle it—some of the pages began to disintegrate. But I want you to at least see the original. I’ve made translated copies for both of you.” He explains that he wanted this time with his cousins for Rivka and himself. “The children will come by later to say goodbye.”
Slowly, Hannah and Roberta begin to move and then talk—the tableau thawing. “I feel as if I’ve been socked in my stomach. I mean, I knew that was why we came and that you were going to show it to us, but the reality is different from my fantasy. I thought I’d grab it and pour through it immediately. Now it’s almost like I’m afraid of what I’m going to find,” Roberta says. “Who is this man? And if he was Grandpa Mendel’s brother, how come we didn’t know about him? Is there some secret that our parents were hiding? Did he murder someone?” Hannah nods her head in agreement.
Reuben’s response is a knowing smile. “It’s okay. Be at peace.”
The evening ends when the children arrive to say farewell with long embraces, kisses on both cheeks, tears, and many promises to stay in touch, to telephone, to e-mail, to visit again, and, for Reuben and Rivka, to make a trip to America. Hannah murmurs, “Shalom, l’hitraot,” and Roberta adds, “Next year not in Jerusalem but in Los Angeles.” As they walk to the cab that will carry them to their hotel for their final night in Israel, each carries a manila envelope containing their very own copy of Uncle Shimshon’s journal.
“Oh, my God,” whispers Hannah, “I have goose bumps.”
The hotel clerk calls with a wakeup message. He speaks in flawless, albeit accented, English. “Good morning. It’s five a.m. The weather is predicted to be sunny, with temperatures in the nineties. I would be happy to call for you a cab.”
Roberta and Hannah slip into the jeans and T-shirts they set out the previous evening. Their bags are packed and stand by the door in anticipation of their early departure.
“I’m dying for coffee,” exclaims Roberta.
“There are thermoses of coffee and paper cups in the lobby for early birds. We can grab some and drink it in the cab on the way to the airport. Come on, let’s go. I’m kinda sad. You?”
They make a last-minute inspection of the room, searching for overlooked items; they open and close drawers, check out the bathroom counter, and peer into the medicine cabinet. At the final moment, Hannah places four twenty dollar bills on the bedside table for the housekeepers. And then they shut the door to their Israeli adventure and to the space—inner and outer—they shared for the past two weeks and a day.
As if by previous agreement, the taxi ride to the airport proceeds in circumspect silence, with Roberta and Hannah both gazing out the window, absorbing the final sights and sounds of the city as it comes alive in the morning’s first light. A sigh escapes the lips of one, then the other. Even the striking new terminal at Ben Gurion Airport, with its gold Jerusalem stone façade, does not disrupt the subdued stillness. Dedicated to their thoughtful quietude, they roll their bulging baggage down passageways that seem unending until they reach the security checkpoint, where the silence ends. Abruptly.
Unlike security agents in the States with their tight-lipped, surly approach, the young examiners give lie to the gravity of their interrogation by their pleasant banter. But as they query each passenger, one discerns the way they scrutinize the traveler’s facial expression, their pattern of speech, and their body language as they look for signs of edginess, apprehension, or controlled fear. Does he fidget? Does she touch her chin? Or nose? Does he avert his gaze or look slightly to the right when asked a question, in seeming pursuit of the correct answer? Those signs, they’ve been taught, indicate deception.
The eyes are dead giveaways—the gateway to the soul. And so the inspectors carefully peruse the passengers’ eyes to see if pupils are contracted or dilated or if they dart spastically from side to side, like the palsied hand of a Parkinson’s patient. The El Al security guards have been educated to rely on their sixth sense—to pay close attention to the human factor rather than to the contents of luggage or to whether a tourist carries liquids in four-, six-, or eight-ounce containers. They do not, for example, require that passengers remove their shoes.
“Eh, where have you been? So what was your business in Israel? So you came to meet relatives? Nice! Please to give me their names. Where are the receipts for your hotel room? Who is this woman that you are traveling with? Sisters? You don’t look alike. Why different last names? Why did you stay for two week in Tel Aviv?” All solicited with a laid-back, affable bearing that contradicts their goal: to weed out terrorists.
“Gee, do you think we look like terrorists?” Roberta whispers, a little too loudly, to Hannah. “Wouldn’t you think they’d have better things to do with their time than to interrogate middle-aged women? Like we’re out to blow up the airplane or the terminal. Jeez, I mean, do we look like fanatics or something?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Rob, will you kindly shut your mouth. It’s not funny. And don’t give me that look. You want to end up in jail? I don’t!”
“Oops, sorry, you’re right,” Roberta replies.
Once installed in their side-by-side aisle seats—suitcases placed securely in the overhead bin, seatbelts fastened firmly across laps—they simultaneously open the packet that holds copies of the journal of Shimshon (Samson) Kolopsky, Shmuel (Samuel) Keter. They wave away the steward’s offering of a beverage prior to takeoff, wanting nothing to stain the manuscript or to disturb their concentration.
Chapter 18
SHIMSHON’S CHRONICLE
October 21, 1961
To those who might be interested in one very old man’s journey from Odessa to Israel—and foreign places in between—I write this account from memory.
Everything I write comes from my heart and, I swear on my blessed mother’s grave, is true. If it is out of sequence or a bit inaccurate, blame it on the passage of time, with its erasure of recall, and the weariness of a man who has lived too long. Mostly, I will pass over what is hazy (because maybe I have embellished it over the years so that I now believe it to be true) and write only what is clearly etched on my mind, what I know to be true—as much as anyone can really know what is accurate and true. It is not to cover up any bad deeds, believe me, because there is abundance, and I will write about some. I’m writing for many reasons.
First, to look squarely at the life I have lived—the good and the bad of it—and to set the record straight as I know it. Second, because I want my children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren to know who I am, who I was, and that I existed and made some small difference. And third, I write for my own selfish purpose: to keep my ninety-nine-plus-year-old brain active and to reassure myself that the path I took, with its many twists and turns—turns that deprived me of mother, father, brothers, language, country, and more—was the course I had to take. Forgive me if I meander at times, but I must follow the dictates of my mind. So because of these aims, and probably more that I am unaware of, and despite my failing eyesight and ears that turn everyone’s words into mumbles, I begin.
My name is Shmuel Keter. I began life as Shimshon Kolopsky, or Samson, in Odessa in 1862, which makes me ninety-nine years old—soon to be one hundred. Whoever thought, like Moses, I would live so long? I, however, have no beard. Ha! Ha! I used to answer to the name of Shimshon, but when I moved to Israel, such a long time ago, I took the name Shmuel, or Samuel. Those few who know me from old times sometimes call me Shimshon, or Samson. Confusing! I repudiated the name given me by my father—he who discarded me like a piece of drek because I could not, would not, accept his way of life—and so, I discarded him and the name he gave me. Still, I sometimes dream in that name, so it’s confusing even for me. I named myself, which makes me my own father. What a strange thought.
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