Visit Israel-Now!
PERSPECTIVE Visit Israel—Now! For at least 15 years I have been going to Israel once, sometimes twice a year. I get inspiration there. I am enriched by its people. If I am away too long, I begin...
...The director and his family live in the stately mansion that houses the school...
...No alternative...
...For Israel is in anguish...
...raising a Jewish family in East Jerusalem is never easy, but now it must be especially difficult...
...Here I expected serenity, but here too it was disturbed, not by the Arab uprising but by the situation in Soviet Armenia...
...Talk with her people...
...I returned many times to East Jerusalem—to visit the Rockefeller Museum, to see people at the Mt...
...We gossiped...
...Will you gain a new perspective...
...Share with them...
...Although the disturbances are far away, however, the "situation" is not...
...H.S...
...In most places in Israel the "situation" creates no danger...
...You live with it...
...You can read it, from every angle, in the press...
...Many years ago an Israeli friend named Shlomo told me a story...
...I make a lot of telephone calls from my hotel...
...In Tel Aviv, as in most of Israel, the disturbances are far away...
...It is different sharing their anguish with them...
...You cope, he said...
...You know someone who has been stoned or spit on...
...Ein breira...
...A rabbi and scholar, Sy Gitin is director of the W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research...
...An Arab friend wanted me to go to Hebron with him in his car...
...It is, however, a time to share her anguish...
...The switchboard operator must have noticed...
...I didn't know whether I was likely to be stoned or not...
...Hagop was sending a telegram to Gorbachev urging him to return the disputed territory to Soviet Armenia...
...Be with them...
...I would have to drive through Arab areas...
...Your husband, your neighbor, your son has been serving in the territories...
...You learn to cope...
...Regardless of the contrariety of views, the matzav, the "situation," is on everyone's lips and hearts...
...It is in the air...
...This time it was different...
...Go to Israel—now...
...It is on everyone's mind...
...I went into the Old City through Jaffa Gate and saw a few European tourists straggling past the shuttered Arab shops...
...Immediately he flew back to Israel, where he was met by a friend...
...On the one hand, the "situation" touches all Israelis, whether they live in Haifa or on the West Bank...
...To the eye, nothing is different...
...Finally, safe and relieved, I drove through the wrought-iron gates of the Albright...
...I feel better as soon as I catch sight of it—Tel Aviv from the air, the highway to Jerusalem, the fields along the way, Jerusalem on the hill...
...When I arrived, the first thing I wanted to do was visit an old friend who lives with his wife and three young children in the midst of Arab Jerusalem...
...I turned left on Salah ed-Din Street...
...I was relieved to see him...
...The old Israel is still there, great things are still happening, but this is occurring only beneath the crust of the "situation...
...Life in Israel goes on, though...
...It is different hearing it from the people who are living it...
...I wondered whether 70 years after the founding of the state of Israel, the Arabs would still be calling Israel "occupied Palestine...
...We laughed...
...But I did drive to Beit Shean through Jericho and the Jordan Valley, even though two people told me they had encountered a roadblock of stones a few weeks earlier...
...Scopus campus of Hebrew University, even to have dessert at the American Colony Hotel—without fear or worry...
...Who knows how much...
...Go to Israel—now...
...That is what Sy said...
...Kasheh in Hebrew means heavy as well as difficult and hard...
...Ben-Gurion airport was bustling, crowded with Americans leaving, rushing to get out...
...Hagop's workshop is in an idyllic cranny of the spotless Armenian Quarter...
...I did not dawdle as I would have liked...
...We talked about the "situation...
...As I thought about driving over to see him, however, my first thought was for myself...
...It is kasheh in Israel now...
...In the middle of the day, however, the road was clear and we had no trouble...
...My fears were silly...
...Just a moment," she replied, then added, "By the way, how are you...
...Was I foolish to go there...
...But you must make judgments...
...I turned right toward the Armenian Quarter to see my daughter who is taking her junior year at Hebrew University and has apprenticed herself for 10 hours a week to an Armenian potter...
...Some Arab workers may not be reporting for work, but this is not much noticed...
...Will you learn anything new...
...On the other hand, it is not so dangerous as it might seem from reading the American newspapers...
...The friend remarked to Shlomo, "These too are Jews...
...It's not so bad, he said...
...It is a time to be there...
...If I am away too long, I begin to yearn for the land—literally for the ground...
...Not really...
...I drove past New Gate in mid-morning...
...I declined...
...Three days a week she walks into the Old City...
...Undoubtedly yes...
...The streets were nearly empty...
...It is a difficult time in Israel now...
...And everyone is close to it...
...the stores on both sides of the narrow street were all shuttered...
...It is not so easy to take inspiration from her...
...Toward the end of my stay I dialed the switchboard and asked the operator if she would look up a number for me in Tel Aviv...
...Hagop gave me a history lesson...
...During the past several months, I couldn't help thinking of Sy and his family...
...Some increased danger there undoubtedly was...
...He referred to Turkish Armenia (where Armenians lived before the terror of 1915) as "occupied Armenia...
...He was in Switzerland in 1967 when the Six-Day War broke out...
Vol. 13 • May 1988 • No. 3
