LEAVING ISRAEL
Datan, Nancy
NANCY DATAN LEAVING ISRAEL This is my second departure from the State of Israel in as many years, and it looks to be considerably simpler than the first, which required visits to the Ministries of...
...1 know...
...two and one-half hours of my carefully allotted four are consumed and I am less than half-way home...
...It's just a procedure...
...Either the captain's luggage or his conscience caught up with him at last, and he rumbled wifhont too much conviction that perhaps he had been a little brusque...
...the steward assured me, "It'll be all right," and we boarded at last for a very uneasy thirteen hours, and not until Abraham, as well as his cabinmate...
...Indeed, when the current trip became official, one of my American colleagues said wistfully, "I'd like to get over there sometime...
...There was some compensation to be found in the fact that the dog^^Bergy was ebbing slightly, and he had become rather more cosmopolitan by now as well, de-chamgwritoriality on the pftars and posts of the Port of Haifa with injured dignity instead c4 the disparate spurts of earlier^B years, m m The departure of 1973, with its impressive Variety of government ministries, seemed to have had the drama leached from it in advance by theflsraeli bureaucracy...
...The current departure is considerably simpler, concluding two weeks as a visiting American dignitary, a speaker at the 10th International Congress of Gerontology and at the Satellite Symposium of the International Society for the Study of Behavioral Develop- ^ ment...
...I didn't know you were in Israel...
...I'm not absolutely sure, but I think it's spite, because I'm leaving Israel...
...1 know, I haven't got an exit kvisa^ "Well, why don't you have an exit visa...
...fck "Oh, that guy doesn't know anything...
...on my last departure, if I had not been able to show grounds for exemption...
...You don't have an exit visa...
...Who ever told you that you wouldn't need an exit visa...
...No, generally speaking it is the departure from Israel which proves problematic...
...then young and vigorous and at the height of his strength, which he used ruthlessly in his efforts'to explore the whole of the Port of Haifa...
...al) my precautionary phonecalls notwithstanding, but I can only barely manage my luggage, and 1 enter the dining halt to what is still my colleagues' skepticism, swallowing as much coffee as time permits, seized at last by my imagination, which, as it turns out, is barely equal to the events in store...
...There^H| poor woman with kher three cnStbtn...
...Brusque is hardly the word for it," and with that we entered thel^^of New York, to seek fame and fortune in America...
...Can't they quarantine him ^hen he loses his luggage...
...were unloaded well and whole, were we at rest...
...L "I'm afraid Tm not going to get to fcaveJ^B L The next departure, in 1970, resembled the first, with the addition of another child and another dimension of bureaucracy: an Is-ra^kissport for myvvo sabras...
...Thus my colleague, as the farewell party breaks up...
...Yes, I'm a famous American psychologist now, and I've had Nancy Dalan, a contributing editor, is Associate Professor of Psychology at West Virginia University...
...Do you remember how to nil it out...
...crying by^^ ¦ow, "and the damn captain"— who didn't speak Hebrew, apparently, for he didn't wince at all— "won't load their dog, and they're standing down here under the wing, and the plane's not taking off.*' To me the steward added, "It hadn't got much to do with the poor dog: the bastard's luggage waffost in Zurich and he's in an awful temper...
...Well, let's see, I've got a book in press, another scheduled to go to the editor in autumn, a third next year...
...On our first departure, I stood in lines at the Port of Haifa with a briefcase, a Polaroid camera, a large bag of food sent by a neighbour to ward \ off starvation between Jerusalem and the ship's dining hall, an oversized traveling purse with all our necessary documents, and a leash, at the other end of which was the dog...
...Oi, however do you handle all that and the children too...
...At last she turns up something appropriate and a rubber stamp to match, and in short order I have my procedural form in triplicate, and I return to customs...
...I was told I didn't need one...
...The line is long to passport control but I get there all too soon, and at last my fears find fulfillment, the officer leafs through my American passport and says, "There seems to be a little problem here...
...I am now sufficiently aroused for the terror, which has been under control though mounting, to achieve control of me, and 1 can easily imagine a clerk refusing me permission to board at the last minute...
...What makes you think that...
...Well, let's see what wean do here.'\^^fl "Just tell me quickly: is it amenable to resolution...
...fc "Here, I'll take that"—a ^squiggle—"and I'll see you through the passport control point," and with my armed guard I proceed to the next way-station, customs...
...I'm rejoining my three children, whom I love and support, and who reside in the state of West Virginia...
...L M my ticket paid for...
...the first hijacking took a colleague to a Syrian jail ¦ for seven months, and more re- * cently a friend's TWA flight cleared Lod security, but touched down in Athens and then exploded over the Adriatic Sea...
...I spent the M first week in Israel buying them 1 gifts and the whole of the year 1 preceding our mass exodus debating the wisdom of the move...
...if 1 do reach forty at all, I shall certainly wish that I had once done something conservative...
...At last I reach the El AI Information Desk and explain my problem...
...I had had a few thousand extra dollars and saw these nice-looking kids in the street and figured I'd treat them to a trip to America, and...
...You can get the form at the El Al Information Desk...
...I would have been in the peculiar position of being unable to support my children in the State of Israel find unable to pay the taxes to bring them out...
...I've talked to the New York Consulate, the Washington Embassy, and the Interior Ministry in Jerusalem, and they all tell me I won't have any problems...
...But you're an American citizen, aren't you...
...on my way to the Congress: "Nancy...
...Then why in the world are you expecting trouble...
...Indeed, whenever the debate on the travel tax levied on the Jews of Russia is heard, I am quick to point out that it is only paid once, whereas every Israeli, every time he crosses his country's border, is subject to a punitively costly travel tax...
...El Al 001...
...and I am not only an advocate of, but a competent assistant to, the security check...
...On my way to this third destination, I cross the path of my colleague...
...What category does 'the purpose of my journey' fall under...
...The exit visa form will suffice...
...I know...
...I've been out of the^^ country for two years and I've only been hack two weeks...
...Lady, that isn't funny...
...but there is no chance at all that I will reach the age of forty and long to have done something adventurous...
...She looks troubled: "There's no question at all that you're exempt from the travel tax, but I'm not certain which paragraph of the law applies to you," and she reaches for what appears to be the telephone directory for Greater Manhattan and begins leafing through it...
...There seems to be a little problem here...
...And I too was dreading this visit: brief and traumatic, golden Jerusalem at the tops of the mountains, ghosts awakened, and as usual I was wrong...
...A parent can fill it out, then," and this task was completed, without the aid of carbon HOW TO GET TO THE AIRPORT FOUR HOURS EARLY AND ALMOST MISS YOUR PLANE ^ paper, and when at last we stood in line to board the ship^M| V were running downjny cfaefll...
...It's like red hair and left-handedness, you can't renounce it...
...I pay for it, of course, with the dual citizenship of my two Israel-born children, with the ambiguous status I and my firstborn daughter enjoy as permanent residents of Israel, with divided loyalties and multiple identities...
...P'l was told 1 didn't need one by the New York Consulate, the Washington Embassy, and the Ministry of the Interior in Jerusalem, but I promise you that the next time any clerk tells me a form is unnecessary I'll take his identity number and report bini to the border police^t...
...Upon my first arrival, I had been told by the customs clerk, "You can go home now," and...
...Don't exaggerate...
...fl "My dog's hcen to Israel and back six times, Cohen...
...and on the spot switched cages, moving a dazed, tranquilized terrier to our spaniel's cage, and with my assistance shoving old Abie—"the tranquilizer would be more dangerous for him, at his age, than the shock of the flight," the veterinarian had told me—into a veritable Cadillac of a cage, complete with toys, food, and water...
...I remark in passing that my fears were not groundless...
...from the control tower...
...It's just a procedure...
...There's no question at all that you're exempt from thorax...
...The clerk at the Information desk...
...The time ts now 8:00, one hour until flight time, but my panic has ebbed completely, and 1 watch her search through the records of the Sanhedrin with passive Levantine calm...
...What did they send you hen "Who knows, perhaps your turn came up in a table of random numbers "Well, we don't give the travel tax exemption, the cashier does...
...Ben-Gurion Airport is populous already at 5:00 in the morning, but I check in without delay...
...He certainly isn't much use on the ground," I replied, exercising the freedom of bilinguality under the British nose...
...1 already know where to expect the trouble, it shimmer^ in the air around the border police...
...it's amenable to resolution, but you'll have to pay (lie exit visa fee and fill out a form...
...on our last departure I was asked by the officer in charge whether these were my children, and I said no...
...I am exempt on three grounds: I have been out ot the country for two years, my ticket was bought abroad, and it was paid for by an international organization...
...V So I explain my problem, which IT beginning to sound commonplace, to the clerk at the cashier's desk...
...my bags have been with me at Kibbutz Kiryat Ana vim...
...f won't take the dog in that crate, and that's that...
...I know...
...Experience," and we head for our rooms and the brief hours of steep, and I waken to a kib-butznik's phonecall, and he tells g me, "You'll never guess what wonders and miracles we've wrought for you, hot coffee and fresh cakes waiting in the dining hall, the taxi will be here soon, and our good wishes for your flight," and I wonder whether my English-speaking colleagues have had so delightful an awakening, though mine, as it turnsV out, is only at the level of con-V scious thought and does not affect my locomotor functions, for I stumble into every item of furniture in the room...
...It has never been clear to me what tourists do at the customs checkpoint, but I know all too well what is required of Israelis...
...doesn't that make yon feel a little house* bound...
...NANCY DATAN LEAVING ISRAEL This is my second departure from the State of Israel in as many years, and it looks to be considerably simpler than the first, which required visits to the Ministries of the Interior, Foreign Affairs, Agriculture, Health, and Treasury, complexities matched only by the complexity of the leavetaking itself...
...Yes, but I'm a permanent resident of Israel too...
...this one was built by a pet store which claimed to know ib business, and I hardly think a dog as well traveled as this one can be considered ill-treated...
...my flight is called for boarding, we pass through the gates and onto the bus and out to the field and up the stairs and I am on the plane, and borne into the air on the wings of eagles...
...Where do I go to get this form, to Jerusalem...
...You'll have to go see the offi-eer in that office over there," and I gather my documents and try to still my panic, and present my papers and my case to this new official, who is of the next higher order of magnitude...
...I can't understand why they're doing this to you...
...I'm beginning to think it's the only way to see Israel...
...That doesn't make any difference at all...
...But just as this last and most painful departure looked like it ' might be brought off without complications, El Al came to the rescue in the form of its pilot, who...
...Look, don't worry, we'll take care of it," thus the steward, impatient with the captain, sympathetic to the sobbing children, and heartened by my brisk Levantine contempt...
...though not at all unmoved by his words— which I can hear today, a dozen years later—I could only reply, "The dog too...
...m "tjlbe happy to write you a book SO long as I get on the plane...
...I'm not subject to the travel tax...
...W "Lady...
...Yes, once more I found it easy to enter Israel, my Hebrew came back to me like a lover to his woman, the streets were known and beloved, but the hard-won freedom of an American income stood as a remorseless barrier between me and nostalgia, and my dual nationality looked as though it might be taking some sort of coherent form, as summers on kibbutzim...
...Well, what's the purpose of your trip abroad...
...The captain was mollified by action however irregular, and headed for the cockpit...
...after a year's effort to support three children and a dog singlehandedly I was taking leave of ten years' permanent residency in Israel and felt that the bureaucratic tangles surrounding my actions were hardly more than external equivalents of the internal confusion...
...1 neglect the children," which is not quite correct...
...No, it isn't here that the trouble will start...
...Oi, tell me, how do you manage with the three children, such a job...
...Which clerk at the Ministry of the Interior...
...three invited papers in Israel, two at the American Psychological Association meetings in August, two at the Gerontological Society meetings in October...
...My middle daughter is having her eleventh birthday in two days, and I want to know if 1*11 be taking off this morning...
...His direction was determined by a form of negative magnetism: that is, he ran off along tines orthogonal to those taken by the children...
...Have a safe flight," and 1 pass through to the security checkpoint, volunteer to remove my clothing and sing and dance, and reach the departure lounge in time to purchase a newspaper...
...I'm not one of these Middle Easterners," came the righteous British accent, "and I don't treat animals like they do...
...Oii...
...suddenly, face-to-face with the sympathy which bad suffocated me during that year, the debate is concluded, and I am privately enjoying my hard-won arrogance...
...Don't worrfr lady, youf be coming bacJt to Israel soon," the guard told me...
...You don't, but I do...
...It was with great relief that I came to the end of the last of the queues and reached the border police, who requested only that the sabra fill out a form that she had committed no crimes...
...British captains or no British captains, it's El Al again: and if they are strict about security they are gentle with excess baggage, and mine is taken without charge, perhaps because I am well under the limit for passengers myself...
...I'm going to have problems at the border...
...It's engraved on my heart...
...Indeed, I am brought to awareness of this dramatic transformation by an unexpected encounter on the^ Number 18 bus...
...The New York Consulate, the Washington Embassy, and the Ministry of the Interior in Jerusalem...
...Yes, the dog too," and thus my Brittany spaniel completed the first of half a dozen journeys back and forth between the United States and Israel...
...He who increases knowledge increases sorrow," Ecclesiastes warns us, and so when I had added my own small sum to the knowledge of adult developmental psychology and was awarded a travel grant for the Jerusalem meetings, I had to tell my children that it would be another year at least before the family finances would permit the summer in Israel 1 had hoped to manage by now...
...You see...
...L Getting into Israel has never presented any problem at all...
...happening by the dog, refused to accept him in the crate which had been built for him by a pet shop...
...but now the trip was drawing to a close, the second of the conferences, at Kibbutz Kir-yat Anavim, was concluding, and the prickling of the spine that had begun when I first called the New York Consulate to check on documents, received assurance that I needed none, had now become unease shading into panic...
...What's going on...
...I'm not'a Middle Easterner when it comes to dogs myself," 1 argued, in the remnants of my American accent, "and I'll be happy to pay to have a crate built to your specifications right now...
...We ^ust have to have the form...
...She's only /wo...
...I don't think he's safe in the air...
...The panic, which had subsided somewhat, L rises to my throat once more^B And sure enough: "Where's the form for the travel tax...
...and as an imported product, I reflect with mixed feelings, I am covered with foreign glory, quite an improvement over the permanent state of exhaustion which was mine when I held down two jobs in the uncompromising Israeli economy...
...Will you tell me why I have to get up at 4:15 in the morning for a 9:00 flight...
...Cold sober this morning for the border police...
Vol. 2 • April 1977 • No. 6
