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Israel Independence Day and Invalids of Immigration
"Israel's Independence Day is just the right time to reiterate the fact that Israeli society - the independent one - is a wide sea of raging waves of immigration. The forefathers of the reborn Israel (like their predecessors, who paved the way for all the aliyot to follow) liked to see the immigration as an aliyah, literally, an ascent, implying that it is better to come and live in the Promised Land. "What goes up, must come down," sang "Blood Sweat and Tears." By default, leaving Israel was dubbed yerida, descent, tantamount to dissent if not to outright desertion.
States older than Israel, peopled by nations much younger and lesser than the Chosen People, were less judgmental about living in a country or leaving it. Faraway America, north or south, was a magnet for immigrants from time immemorial (well, at least for the last 300 years). In Europe you just crossed a border, with an Iron Curtain or without it, and nowadays it is even easier than in the past. This lightness of moving is no less deceptive than the value judgment implied by ascent and descent.
Those who have never immigrated can never understand what it means, and those who have find it hard to recover. In recent weeks, I have been rereading memoirs written by my mother when she was in her seventies, four years before her death (this month, 21 years ago). She left Warsaw, her hometown (in her memoirs she refers to it again and again as "my Warsaw") three times. The first time, in 1939, she was running away from a city occupied by the Nazis. In 1945, when she returned to Warsaw from Russia, she knew that none of her immediate family and very few of her close friends had survived. "My Warsaw as I knew it, practically ceased to exist." She did rebuild her personal and professional life, gave birth to my sister and me, and "in those days I was really happy," she writes.
My parents were not Communist Party members, and, according to her story, my mother was not shy about expressing her views about what was going on in Poland in those days. When in 1957 the Jews were allowed - not to say encouraged - to leave Poland, my parents decided on emigration to Israel. They did it, my mother writes, for the sake of their children's future.
"On September 15, 1957, at seven o'clock in the evening, we were seen off by more than 50 people at the Gdansk train station in Warsaw. We were all sad, as we realized that it was a last farewell. Most of us were around 40, approaching 50. Not old yet, but not young anymore. I still knew how to cry bitterly then, so I did, like many of my friends and colleagues who were there. I knew I was leaving my home. Even if bad parents throw a child out of the house, the child does not want to leave. Where will he or she go? Among strangers? It is bad at home, but it is still a family home. Even more so if the 'child' is 45-46 years old, and feels deeply attached to this home and this city. I was born in Warsaw, I finished school there (bad memories; my classmates did not like Jews) and studied there (bad memories; some of the students did not like Jews and pestered and hit them) but I feel attached to this town. I was young there, and hopeful. I travel at 46, to a foreign country, foreign culture, foreign language."
My father was more easily "absorbed" in the foreign country. He spoke Hebrew; he was a physician and started working almost immediately. My mother had it tougher. As always in those cases, it was a sad mixture of personal circumstances and objective difficulties. In 1965, after eight years of trying hard to come to terms with this new life, she went back to Poland for a two-month visit. There she saw that life in Poland was not as bad as she had feared it would become when she emigrated in 1957. She found Warsaw even more beautiful than the city she remembered leaving. "You love your family even when you are aware of their shortcomings. That is why I felt so good in Poland at the time of my visit."
I am well aware that my mother's story is not something special or outstanding. On the contrary, I'm pretty sure that tens or even hundreds of thousands of "olim" - even those who made aliyah because of Zionist fervor, and no doubt those who came here because they had no other option - felt that way about their hometowns and cultures. Israel was keen on absorbing aliyah. It was rather inept - possibly still is - in dealing with olim.
Now that some 50 years have passed since the huge immigration waves of Israel's first decade, most of us realize that the melting pot that aimed at creating a new and homogenous society left many people crippled, in soul if not in body. The Russian writer Marian Belenky told Lily Galili (Haaretz, February 9, 2005): "I'm an invalid of immigration. There is such a thing. There are invalids of wars, and there are invalids of immigration."
Jews who came here from Arab countries got at least some measure of recognition for their collective handicap, caused by cultural and social discrimination. They were railroaded by the dominant culture - in part intentionally; and looked down on as inferior to the seemingly Western Israeli society, but mostly simply because "that's how it was." Their pent-up feelings of being put down and kept down by their "absorbers" were transformed into a political force, although there is no way to heal wounded self-respect.
Olim from European countries, specifically from Eastern Europe, who were among those immigrating to Israel at a relatively advanced age, do not get the recognition of an "aliyah-handicapped ethnic group." After all, those who "absorbed" them were their kith and kin. The most they could do was point to the damage caused them by World War II and its aftermath, but what sort of a solace is that? Most of them are left with their own private story. Their aliyah handicap is a private matter."
Source: Pen Ultimate, Michael Handelzalts. Invalids of immigration. Haaretz.com (29 April 2006) [FullText]
States older than Israel, peopled by nations much younger and lesser than the Chosen People, were less judgmental about living in a country or leaving it. Faraway America, north or south, was a magnet for immigrants from time immemorial (well, at least for the last 300 years). In Europe you just crossed a border, with an Iron Curtain or without it, and nowadays it is even easier than in the past. This lightness of moving is no less deceptive than the value judgment implied by ascent and descent.
Those who have never immigrated can never understand what it means, and those who have find it hard to recover. In recent weeks, I have been rereading memoirs written by my mother when she was in her seventies, four years before her death (this month, 21 years ago). She left Warsaw, her hometown (in her memoirs she refers to it again and again as "my Warsaw") three times. The first time, in 1939, she was running away from a city occupied by the Nazis. In 1945, when she returned to Warsaw from Russia, she knew that none of her immediate family and very few of her close friends had survived. "My Warsaw as I knew it, practically ceased to exist." She did rebuild her personal and professional life, gave birth to my sister and me, and "in those days I was really happy," she writes.
My parents were not Communist Party members, and, according to her story, my mother was not shy about expressing her views about what was going on in Poland in those days. When in 1957 the Jews were allowed - not to say encouraged - to leave Poland, my parents decided on emigration to Israel. They did it, my mother writes, for the sake of their children's future.
"On September 15, 1957, at seven o'clock in the evening, we were seen off by more than 50 people at the Gdansk train station in Warsaw. We were all sad, as we realized that it was a last farewell. Most of us were around 40, approaching 50. Not old yet, but not young anymore. I still knew how to cry bitterly then, so I did, like many of my friends and colleagues who were there. I knew I was leaving my home. Even if bad parents throw a child out of the house, the child does not want to leave. Where will he or she go? Among strangers? It is bad at home, but it is still a family home. Even more so if the 'child' is 45-46 years old, and feels deeply attached to this home and this city. I was born in Warsaw, I finished school there (bad memories; my classmates did not like Jews) and studied there (bad memories; some of the students did not like Jews and pestered and hit them) but I feel attached to this town. I was young there, and hopeful. I travel at 46, to a foreign country, foreign culture, foreign language."
My father was more easily "absorbed" in the foreign country. He spoke Hebrew; he was a physician and started working almost immediately. My mother had it tougher. As always in those cases, it was a sad mixture of personal circumstances and objective difficulties. In 1965, after eight years of trying hard to come to terms with this new life, she went back to Poland for a two-month visit. There she saw that life in Poland was not as bad as she had feared it would become when she emigrated in 1957. She found Warsaw even more beautiful than the city she remembered leaving. "You love your family even when you are aware of their shortcomings. That is why I felt so good in Poland at the time of my visit."
I am well aware that my mother's story is not something special or outstanding. On the contrary, I'm pretty sure that tens or even hundreds of thousands of "olim" - even those who made aliyah because of Zionist fervor, and no doubt those who came here because they had no other option - felt that way about their hometowns and cultures. Israel was keen on absorbing aliyah. It was rather inept - possibly still is - in dealing with olim.
Now that some 50 years have passed since the huge immigration waves of Israel's first decade, most of us realize that the melting pot that aimed at creating a new and homogenous society left many people crippled, in soul if not in body. The Russian writer Marian Belenky told Lily Galili (Haaretz, February 9, 2005): "I'm an invalid of immigration. There is such a thing. There are invalids of wars, and there are invalids of immigration."
Jews who came here from Arab countries got at least some measure of recognition for their collective handicap, caused by cultural and social discrimination. They were railroaded by the dominant culture - in part intentionally; and looked down on as inferior to the seemingly Western Israeli society, but mostly simply because "that's how it was." Their pent-up feelings of being put down and kept down by their "absorbers" were transformed into a political force, although there is no way to heal wounded self-respect.
Olim from European countries, specifically from Eastern Europe, who were among those immigrating to Israel at a relatively advanced age, do not get the recognition of an "aliyah-handicapped ethnic group." After all, those who "absorbed" them were their kith and kin. The most they could do was point to the damage caused them by World War II and its aftermath, but what sort of a solace is that? Most of them are left with their own private story. Their aliyah handicap is a private matter."
Source: Pen Ultimate, Michael Handelzalts. Invalids of immigration. Haaretz.com (29 April 2006) [FullText]
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