Shabbat

Shabbat, literally meaning rest or cessation in Hebrew, is observed in Israel as a full day of rest beginning from sunday Friday until Saturday night. Stores shut down, restaurants close, and people celebrate this special day of the week differently in each family. For our Israeli hosts, this meant taking a day to visit older family members who they do not get to see everyday. So Saturday, Ruty and Ehud were going to spend the day visiting their parents and daughter and invited us to go with them. Wanting to see as much of the country and meet its people as we could, we of course said yes. They are able to visit their family members every week mostly, so we did not spend long in each place. Both Ehud's mother and Ruty's father proved to be incredibly interesting visits for us though!

I sometimes feel that many American people in their 20's often have grandparents in their 80's or 90's and many were soldiers in WWII (or were involved in some type of military service.) It is common for our grandfathers to have stories of his time at war either in Europe or the Pacific, and I think often we take that fact for granted. During the same period, citizens of a different population of people (Jews in Europe) were finding ways to escape the Nazis and move to the soon to be Israel (then Palestine.) In Israel, that same generation holds different stories of how they came to Israel before it was a state and how they took part in its creation.

Two people that belong to this group are the people we got to meet. Ehud's mother, now 97 years old, looks very healthy, is still walking, and even manages 2 languages still. We didn't find out much, but we know a little about how she came. Her family was originally from Austria and after she immigrated, she lived in a kibbutz back when they were really communal living areas. (We were told that nowadays they have changed drastically and the community ideal has disappeared basically.) Nevertheless, she now lives in another kibbutz south of Tel Aviv. One of the largest kibbutz with over 1,000 inhabitants, it was much larger than I imagined. To me it reminds me of summer camp, with different buildings where people live, the big dining hall, and of course the pool where everyone hangs out in the summer. I really enjoyed seeing this special part of Israeli life though. We took a walk around but it was pretty quiet because of Shabbat. We got to speak to Ehud's mother for just a few minutes, but she got to practice her English and we got to see the amazing shape of a 97 Israeli/Austrian woman.

Next we went a short distance to the neighboring city to visit Ruty's father. Only 94 , he has all the lovely charm and funny habits of a darling old man. Not speaking a word of English, he soon started speaking about how he first came to Palestine (Ruty translated for us.) Though he was only about 20 years old and over 70 more have now passed, he remembered the details as if it was yesterday. His family originally lived in Poland, and in 1939 the Zionist youth movement gave him a ticket to go to Palestine, yet only for him and not his family. He arrived, escaped from a British holding camp, and managed to start a kibbutz near the town where he currently lives. Nine years later the nation of Israel was created. Even though he had left his family in Poland, he was one of the first members and beginning founders of Israel.

Meeting him and hearing his story astounded me. Maybe it's just because I have learned about this period of history for so many years of my life and critically studied the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. So something like the youth movement brings me right back to my "History of the Modern Middle East" class from fall Senior year at GWU. It's an incredible feeling when a small piece of information you learned years ago comes to life! Of course I'm just a strong believer in the power of education, but still it was incredible to hear his story firsthand.

That afternoon after lunch and siesta, we went for a walk from their house to the beach in Herzliyya and watched the US/Ghana match, which sadly we lost (but deserved to win!)