New York and Israel: Same same, as we say in Tel Aviv and other parts of Asia

A travel article in Smithsonian magazine contains some perceptive points about what life in Israel is like. The article isn't about Israel, though. It discusses the behavior of New Yorkers.

The New York City described in this article is strikingly similar to Israel. In the following passage, wherever you see "New Yorkers," imagine that the author has written "Israelis."

[snip]
It is said that New Yorkers are rude, but I think what people mean by that is that New Yorkers are more familiar. The man who waits on you in the delicatessen is likely to call you sweetheart. (Feminists have gotten used to this.) People on the bus will say, "I have the same handbag as you. How much did you pay?" If they don't like the way you are treating your children, they will tell you. And should you try to cut in front of somebody in the grocery store checkout line, you will be swiftly corrected. My mother, who lives in California, doesn't like to be kept waiting, so when she goes into the bank, she says to the people in the line, "Oh, I have just one little thing to ask the teller. Do you mind?" Then she scoots to the front of the line, takes the next teller and transacts her business, which is typically no briefer than anyone else's. People let her do this because she is an old lady. In New York, she wouldn't get away with it for a second.

While New Yorkers don't mind correcting you, they also want to help you. In the subway or on the sidewalk, when someone asks a passerby for directions, other people, overhearing, may hover nearby, disappointed that they were not the ones asked, and waiting to see if maybe they can get a word in. New Yorkers like to be experts. Actually, all people like to be experts, but most of them satisfy this need with friends and children and employees. New Yorkers, once again, tend to behave with strangers the way they do with people they know.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/17669919.html
[snip]

Everything described above is something I have witnessed in Tel Aviv.

A comment about "sweetheart." In Israel, you may hear people calling one another "motek." This is a unisex term of familiarity, meaning "sweet one" in Hebrew. If you say "motek" to someone of the same or opposite sex, it doesn't necessarily convey flirtation or sexist overtones. You can hear "sweetheart" used the same way in New York.

Where do the similar behaviors in Israel and New York come from? Is it a Jewish thing? New York is sometimes seen, erroneously, as a city of Jews. It does have more Jewish residents than Tel Aviv. People who don't like Jews have long used the label "New York" as a pejorative synonym for things Jewish. The city has become a magnet for Israeli expatriates and Hebrew-speaking tourists. Sayed Kashua, a Haaretz columnist, was in Manhattan a few weeks ago and wrote, "I heard more Hebrew on the Upper West Side than I do in Jerusalem."

The Smithsonian piece does not even hint that there are Jews in New York. Its writer, Joan Acocella, a gifted essayist and critic, cites various factors to explain why New Yorkers behave as they do. She suggests that two reasons may be the difficulties of everyday life in the city, and the awareness of a shared plight. She writes, "When New Yorkers see a stranger, they don't think, 'I don't know you.' They think, 'I know you. I know your problems---they're the same as mine---and furthermore we have the same handbag.' So that's how they treat you." That observation could apply equally to Israelis.

Acocella points out: "The majority of people who live in New York City were not born here. Indeed, more than a third were not born in the United States." Thus, New Yorkers "are people who left another place and came here, looking for something, which suggests that the population is preselected for higher energy and ambition."

These New York data also bear a similarity to Tel Aviv, and to Israel in general. More than 30 percent of the Jews in Israel and also in the Tel Aviv area were born abroad. Tel Aviv, like New York, is a commercial and cultural center that attracts people loaded with energy and ambition. In 2006, the most recent year for which data are available, one of every 20 people in Tel Aviv had moved here less than 12 months earlier.

This raises another question: If the behavior of New Yorkers isn't particularly Jewish, what is it that causes Jews in Israel to behave like New Yorkers? The answer may lie in the old dictum that Jews are just like everyone else, only moreso.

---Joseph M. Hochstein, Tel Aviv

Continued (Permanent Link)

How some Israelis view the United States

[Here is some old material that remains pertinent. Three years ago my college alumni magazine produced a roundup of articles on how Americans are viewed in eight countries around the world. They asked me to write about Israel. -- J.M.H.]

“Don’t look at me like that,” a man’s voice rings out in American English. It resonates over the Hebrew buzz of a Tel Aviv shopping mall. “I’m not going to steal anything from you,” the American snaps at the manager of a newsstand that sells foreign magazines.

The newsstand manager replies in Israeli-accented English. “What’s the problem? Why must you talk this way? I didn’t say anything to you. We are brothers.” Brothers they may not be, but they are about the same age, in their late 20s or early 30s.

As people do in Israel, I butt in. I ask the American if he has been here long. He says he arrived only recently. He is on military duty. We talk for awhile. The American is black. I tell him he will find that people here don’t view skin color the way Americans do. He returns his attention to the magazine racks for a few minutes and then vanishes into the crowd.

“He thought you were staring at him,” I tell the shopkeeper, explaining that a white man staring at a black man in the United States might provoke some discomfort.

“In America, they’d think I’m white?” asks the magazine seller, whose olive skin marks him in Israel as of Mediterranean or Middle Eastern background — historically, a group that has suffered discrimination by fellow Jews of European origin. He tells me that he spent a couple of years in the States — in Seattle and California — and was not aware of racism. He was living there illegally and thought it best not to divulge his nationality. He told everyone he was Italian — which went over well with women, he adds. He loves America and would move there in a minute, he says, if he could get the immigration papers.

Elsewhere in Tel Aviv, friends and neighbors express various views of the United States and its people. Moshe, who owns a stationery store, says Americans are “freiers” — an evocative Israeli term of disapproval that is variously rendered as “suckers” or “pushovers” or “gullible victims.” Moshe explains: “They go to places where they don’t belong — Iraq, Afghanistan. They try to be the police force of the whole world. They should stay home and attend to their own problems.”

Hannah, a school administrator, finds fault with U.S. family life. Adult children move away and see their parents only once or twice a year, she says, and even college students leave home to study. Accustomed to a society where the generations are reunited every Sabbath, she sees the way Americans live as cold and fragmented.

Mazal, a beauty-shop operator and mother of a combat pilot, is impressed with the U.S. work ethic. Even the richest Americans insist that their children find jobs, she believes.

Some years ago an Israeli journalist wrote about U.S. supermarkets. What struck him was the impersonal way in which store clerks told him to have a nice day. Later, a book by a pair of cross-cultural consultants found that Israelis often see Americans as insincere, naive, superficial, too formal, lacking spontaneity, insistent on going by the book rather than improvising, and easily taken advantage of.

Mordechai, a jewelry designer who has visited 11 U.S. states, thinks differently. The first word that comes to mind when he is asked about Americans is “kind.” He adds that the Americans who visit his shop in Tel Aviv are not stingy the way French tourists are.

I tell Mordechai he is generalizing. “I know that,” he says, smiling.

--Joseph M. Hochstein, Tel Aviv

(Cross-posted at ZioNation: Progressive Zionism and Israel Web Log)

Continued (Permanent Link)

Arabic voices, and the faces of Ma'alot

It is memorial day, and we are waiting for the start of a ceremony for the war dead in Ma'alot, a small Israeli city near the Lebanon border. We already know more or less what the speakers will say. They talk every year about the heartrending loss of young soldiers' lives as the price of protecting the country.

While we wait, people sitting behind me are chatting in Arabic. Three of the four local people killed in the Second Lebanon War were young Arab civilians. They were Shanati Shanati, 18, Amir Naeem, 18, and Muhammed Fa'ur, 17. A direct hit by a Hezbollah katyusha rocket killed them Aug. 3, 2006. They had been riding together in a jeep and got out to take cover.

The fourth local victim was Sgt. Maj. Moti Abutbul, 28, a member of Flotilla 13, an elite unit that is sometimes likened to the U.S. Navy SEALS. A katyusha killed Abutbul and 11 other Israeli soldiers Aug. 7, 2006, near Kfar Giladi.

We saw the faces of the local dead last night. On every memorial eve Ma'alot shows the faces of its dozens of fallen soldiers and terror victims, displaying them one by one on a big outdoor projection screen. Brief narration accompanies each photograph, telling when and how the person died. As each face appears, a family representative mounts the stage and lights a memorial candle.

Arab family members showed up last night to light candles for the recent victims. They chose again today to take part in a program in memory of the Israel war dead. A Jewish high school put together the program today.

Whatever meaning you may read into this, it is something to set alongside current media reports which suggest that Arabs have nothing on their minds except the notion of the Nakba, the disaster which some say resulted from the birth of the state of Israel. In Ma'alot, life is much more complicated than that, and coexistence is a daily event.

---Joseph M. Hochstein, Tel Aviv

Continued (Permanent Link)

Threatening to leave the country

Complaining about Israel and threatening to leave the country are favorite local pastimes. People threaten to leave Israel for reasons ranging from wars or election results all the way down to real or imagined insults from shopkeepers or government clerks. Some actually leave, but mainly they stay here and complain. For example:

At the corner of Gordon and Ben-Yehuda streets, a man asks me how to get to Tel Aviv.

"We are in Tel Aviv," I tell him. "Where do you need to go?"

The Central Bus Station, he says. I point to the #4 bus stop and tell him he could also take a sherut, a 10-seat taxi which costs less and stops anywhere you want along the #4 line. He thanks me and heads across the street.

A moment later, he is back, apologizing for his confusion. "I spend all my time in Tel Aviv, but always only passing through," he says.

He has been in Israel since 1951, he says, and would leave in a minute, if he could. His Hebrew bears an accent which I don't recognize. I had taken him for a tourist or recent immigrant.

"Give me a passport that doesn't say 'Israel,' doesn't say 'Jew,' and I'll be gone," he says. "Okay, it could say 'Jew,' but not 'Israel.' But how could I ever get such a passport? It will not happen. But if it could happen, I would leave today."

"I could move to Australia," he continues. "They have interesting animals."

I tell him he can find desert animals here in Israel, too. And many grains of sand.

"Only scorpions and ants," he replies. "And crime and corruption and bribery."

I ask what work he does. He says he is a technician for textile machinery, but it turns out that this is not exactly the case. Israel's textile industry has been in decline for years, and the factory where he worked no longer exists. He now works as a security guard.

We introduce ourselves. Abraham (not his real name) tells me he is 63 years old and has just been to a job interview. In his line of work, employers force him to change jobs every 10 months or so, before he can acquire employment security and rights to benefits. He is making 19.90 shekels an hour (less than $6 at the current exchange of the falling U.S. dollar).

Abraham came to Israel at age 5. He fought in three wars and has three adult children. His mother, age 80, receives 1,120 shekels a month (about $325) in national insurance, Israel's counterpart of Social Security. When she still owned her apartment, she was ineligible for this aid. She sold the apartment, and her geriatric-care expenses ate up the proceeds. Abraham's father died at 87. Abraham had a grandfather who lived to be almost 100 here. He smoked, drank alcohol, ate spicy foods and met his end when an Israeli driver struck him down.

Abraham's family is from Shiraz, in Iran. After coming to Israel, they lived in an immigrant camp. Later the authorities sent them to become farmers. "We had no agricultural experience since the grandfather of my grandfather," Abraham says. In Iran, they owned a textile factory.

Abraham says his dream is to return to Shiraz. He still has family there.

"Look at it on the internet," he says. "You'll see beautiful gardens."

We do not discuss the recent student demonstrations in Shiraz, nor the arrests of Jews there in recent years, nor the blood-libel pogrom of 1910.

Life is good for Jews in Iran, Abraham says. To get along in Iran, he says, a Jew needs to observe three rules. He enumerates:

1) "Your shirt," he says. "You could not go on the street in something like this." I am wearing a short-sleeved black t-shirt imprinted with a big, flamboyant cartoon of a rapper. It was a birthday present from my family. Short sleeves and immodest dress aren't acceptable in Iran, Abraham says.

2) No talking about Zionism in Iran.

3) No talking politics of any kind.

Having said this, Abraham returns to complaining about Israel. He delivers a diatribe against the government, the Prime Minister, the police, the people who give traffic tickets, the city government, and especially the politicians. It does not seem to embarrass him to be expressing threats and dreams which we both know he won't fulfill.

If our conversation were taking place in Iran, Abraham would of course be in serious violation of his rule #3, the warning against talking politics. But we are in Israel, and Abraham shows no fear of proclaiming his political views to a stranger on a Tel Aviv street corner.

---Joseph M. Hochstein, Tel Aviv

Continued (Permanent Link)

An only-in-Israel bus ride past Jerusalem yeshiva

A friend forwarded the following item by Sharon Millendorf of Jerusalem. She writes about an only-in-Israel bus ride. --- J.M.H.

Every morning I take the 35 bus line to work. It's a quick ride and usually takes no more than 12 minutes. The third stop after I get on by the shuk is directly in front of Yeshivat Merkaz HaRav. This morning I found myself a bit anxious, unsure of what I was going to see as we passed by. As I looked around, I saw death notices pasted all over the street and flowers that had been brought lined the entrance to the Yeshiva.

When the bus pulled up to the stop, the driver shut off the engine and stood. With tears in his eyes he told everyone sitting on the bus that one of the boys killed on Thursday night was his nephew. He asked if everyone on the bus would mind if he spoke for a few minutes in memory of his nephew and the other boys that were killed. After seeing head nods all over the bus he began to speak. With a clear and proud voice, he spoke beautifully about his nephew and said that he was a person who was constantly on the lookout for how to help out anyone in need. He was always searching for a way to make things better. He loved learning, and had a passion for working out the intricacies of the Gemara. He was excited to join the army in a few years, and wanted to eventually work in informal education.

As he continued to speak, I noticed that the elderly woman sitting next to me was crying. I looked into my bag, reached for a tissue and passed it to her. She looked at me and told me that she too had lost someone she knew in the attack. Her neighbor's child was another one of the boys killed. As she held my hand tightly, she stood up and asked if she too could say a few words in memory of her neighbor. She spoke of a young man filled with a zest for life. Every friday he would visit her with a few flowers for shabbat and a short dvar torah that he had learned that week in Yeshiva. This past shabbat, she had no flowers.

When I got to work, one of my colleagues who lives in Efrat told me that her son was friends with two of the boys who had been killed. One of those boys was the stepson of a man who used to teach in Brovenders and comes to my shul in Riverdale every Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur to be a chazan for one of the minyanim.

We are all affected by what goes on in Israel . Whether you know someone who was killed or know someone who knows someone or even if you don't know anyone at all, you are affected. The eight boys who were killed will continue to impact us all individually and as a nation. Each one of us has the ability to make a profound impact on our world. This coming Wednesday morning, I will be at Ben Gurion airport at 7 am with Nefesh B'Nefesh welcoming 40 new olim to Israel . We will not deter. We can not give up. We will continue to live our lives and hope and work for change, understanding and peace.

Sharon Millendorf

Continued (Permanent Link)

Haim Yavin: 40 years of television news

The woman in the cartoon above is exclaiming, "Nostradamus was right! The end of the world is drawing near." She is watching Haim Yavin announce his departure after having delivered the evening news for the past four decades. The cartoon is by Amos Biderman, from the Feb. 6 Hebrew newspaper Haaretz.

***

Haim Yavin, the face on the television screen, is an Israeli institution, an iconic figure who has had a remarkable career presenting television news for 40 years. On Feb. 5 he said good night for the final time as news anchor of the government-run television channel.

Because Yavin anchored the news ever since television began in Israel, people are telling each other that we have come to the end of an era. That is not exactly the case.

Older Israelis know Yavin as the newscaster who brought the world into their homes when the government started the country's first television channel in 1968. Prime Minister Olmert told a farewell event for the veteran news anchor: "We went through all the experiences of our lives ... with one person," news presenter Yavin.

Younger Israelis, on the other hand, may be strangers to the government channel. Some know Yavin mainly as an object of jokes on satire programs of the commercial channels, which have long since surpassed the government channel in ratings. Yavin has been called a dinosaur, and even some of his admirers say he stayed too long.

Yavin is often likened to the U.S. newscaster Walter Cronkite, who was once voted the most trustworthy man in America. Cronkite's stint as CBS anchor lasted 19 years, which is not even one-half the length of Yavin's career at the anchor desk in Israel. Cronkite worked for a company with a mandatory retirement age of 65. Such restrictions do not apply to Yavin.

Now 75, Yavin is not leaving television work. Although he no longer will anchor the nightly news, he plans to continue making television documentaries. In 2005, his five-part series, "Land of the Settlers," shown on the commercial Channel 2, presented an unfavorable view of the Jewish presence in Yehuda, Shomron and Gaza. The series, Yavin has said, "annoyed them a lot, in just showing reality as it is." The Yesha Council tried to get the government channel to fire him.

Yavin shot much of that series himself with a camcorder over a two-year period. He has said he decided to make a documentary about the impact of settlements and occupation in the territories "so that I and those like me can’t say we didn’t see it, we didn’t hear it, we didn’t know.”

Now Yavin is working on "The Sector," a documentary series on Israeli Arabs to be broadcast later this year, also on commercial television. It, too, deals with material that is not ordinarily covered. Yavin told an interviewer last year that unequal treatment of Arabs in Israel "causes bitterness, second-class citizenship and creates talk of apartheid."

"Zionism needs redefining," Yavin said. "I'm not saying to give up on the Zionist state, but to find a fairer compromise for allocation of this land and its resources. And if not, things like the October 2000 riots will reemerge, but far worse."

Yavin's farewell to the "Mabat" news program was a media event. His final newscast attracted 9.6 percent of the Israel public, the highest rating which Channel 1 news has received in the past half-year. As Yavin signed off for the last time, the government channel segued into a live, 75-minute show in which he received tributes from colleagues, competitors, family and various public figures including the Prime Minister. This show drew the fourth highest rating of the evening, 14.6 percent, a rarity for the government channel. A game show had the highest rating that night (22 percent), followed by Channel 2 news (20.4 percent) and a mock-interview show (16.2 percent) starring Eli Yatzpan, a comedian whose impression of Hosni Mubarak brought a formal complaint from Egypt's foreign ministry a few years ago.

Although the tribute to Yavin had been publicized in newspapers' television schedules, the guest of honor seemed surprised to see the array of people who turned out. "Wow! What's happening here? What's happening here?" Yavin said as he spotted familiar faces. As the program got going, he reverted to his trademark reserved comportment, smiling in a restrained way and casting a quizzical look from time to time as ageism and cliches filled the air. Sometimes it seemed as if the guest of honor were being held captive by the very trivialization which he deplores in today's ratings-driven television.

Once, Yavin seemed to lose his cool briefly. This was when the master of ceremonies, Yigal Ravid, tried to ask an annoying personal question. Ravid wanted to inquire about Yavin's thick, dark hair. He accompanied his question with a little giggle. Yavin told Ravid to lay off. Yavin said the question annoyed him. Ravid kept asking anyway, until Yavin cut him off and changed the subject to the early days of television news in Israel.

Earlier in the show, Mordechai (Moti) Kirschenbaum, who was among the founders of television news in Israel, had commented on Yavin's role: "For 25 of those 40 years we were a monopoly, and you were the voice and face of television news. There were stormy events---not like in any other country---wars, intifadas, peace, you name it, politics of every type. Everyone saw and heard it through you."

Yavin, picking up on these comments, said Kirschenbaum, Dan Shilon and a few unnamed colleagues who were in at the start established the moral basis of Israel television: "It must report truth."

Yavin continued: "We didn't always report in a beautiful way, we didn't always report in an elegant way, there were others who surpassed us in the 'look' ...."

The master of ceremonies tried to interrupt: "Yes, and there were claims that we didn't always report the truth, you know."

Yavin ignored the interruption and kept talking: "And there were instances when we struggled for our right and our obligation to report the truth. These were not easy struggles. Some went to the High Court of Justice."

Yavin evidently was referring to Israel television's successful battle in the early 1980s to overturn official prohibitions against interviewing leaders of the outlawed Palestinian Liberation Organization. Instead of inviting Yavin to talk more about this journalistic issue, the master of ceremonies cut off the discussion and introduced a new segment in which Yavin received a facetious proposal from two politicians. They suggested he join the government as a representative of the pensioners' party. If Yavin took offense, he did not show it.

The next morning, a television review in Haaretz praised Yavin and heaped scorn on the televised tribute. The reviewer, Gideon Levy, referred to Yavin as "the last of the Zionists." Levy, himself a prominent voice from the left, wrote that Yavin was never a leftist but did have a world view and expressed it, "something that is so rare in today's television."

Yavin has said similar things about himself. He has said that he is of the center, not the left, and that he doesn't see himself as a prophet or historian. "I report as is," he has said. "In my blood, I'm a Zionist."

In interviews, Yavin has discussed differences between reporting news and voicing his own opinions. In 2005, after "Land of the Settlers" appeared, he stated: "It is now becoming acceptable to include personal opinions in the evening news. ... I'm against it. After all, everyone agrees there is no objectivity in news coverage; but there is an aspiration toward objectivity, and therefore when presenting the news there is no justification for taking a personal stand. I compare myself to a night editor who also writes editorials. In my opinion, it is legitimate to carry on a personal campaign that is subjective and balanced, and is written in the first person."

In 2007 he said, "There's no such thing as objectivity, but there is fairness. And you can seek to be objective. As an anchorman I always sought to be objective, but I've never hidden [in my documentary films] that this is my personal travelogue, in my name."

In the same interview, Yavin was quoted as saying that the media are naturally leftist because, "The press seeks out the irregularities and the distortions in the establishment. It is by definition anti-establishment."

In 2004, a foreign journalist asked Yavin whether he felt that government interference was a problem. Yavin responded: "The government cannot win. There's a constant battle between the government, the authorities, the establishment, and us, the media people, who consider ourselves free journalists. ... This country is a very free country, a very outspoken country. ... Everybody argues all the day about everything. So they cannot really stop us and all the efforts to do some sort of censorship against our broadcasts, against the press, fail because of this openness, because of the openness of the country."

The founders of Israel television expected to change the world for the better but didn't quite succeed, Yavin has said.

"Now TV is a jacuzzi," he told an interviewer last year, "an entertainment tool to titillate the viewers. One great porridge. People can't separate what matters from what doesn't. People want to be amused, to put their feet up and channel hop."

"The medium has become trivialized," he said. "It's all ratings. It's a competition for viewers. Multi-channels meant the end of the period of serious television. News today on Channels 2, 10 and 1 are ratings structured. Coverage isn't catastrophic, but there are whole shows, discussion shows, that are just shouting in the studio. They trivialize the debate."

Television came late to Israel, a full generation after it had become an influential medium elsewhere in the world. By the time Israel saw its first television broadcasts in 1968, the country had been through three wars and 20 years of intense nation-building including mass immigration amid economic shortages.

Yavin set a tone. Newscasters who came after him are influenced by standards he established---factual reporting, presented straightforwardly, in a calm manner, no shouting, no crying, no showing off. In this sense, younger Israeli newscasters are carrying on professional aspects of the Yavin era.

In a different sense, the Yavin era ended years ago. It was already on the way out as early as the 1991 Gulf War, when Israelis became aware that CNN was faster than their own media in reporting Scud missile attacks. The government channel still had its monopoly then, but its domination of the screen was breaking down. Commercial television received official approval in 1990, and by 1991 Channel 2 had begun experimental broadcasts. These included a satirical mock-news program, "The World Tonight," which brought comic relief into Israel homes on weeknights during the war. Its principal performers, Avri Gilad and Erez Tal, are now important personalities in commercial television.

***

As a news presenter, Yavin comes across as calm, measured, decent, friendly, even gentle. This can belie the toughness and sharpness of tongue he may reveal when going after a story.

Channel 1's Feb. 5 tribute to Yavin included excerpts of a confrontation five years earlier between Yavin and Olmert. The day after the 2003 elections, Yavin asked Olmert about the politics of forming a Likud-led government coalition. Olmert, who had managed the Likud campaign, didn't answer directly, and Yavin pressed him.

The following exchange took place, between two sharp-tongued adversaries.

YAVIN: [interrupting] Do you know what my lifelong dream is? Excuse me for interrupting you. Do you know what my dream is, Ehud Olmert? That once in my life when I put a simple question to a politician, to any politician---this isn't personally directed at you---that when I ask a question, I will get an answer to the question.

OLMERT: Haim, I will tell you something.

YAVIN: [interrupting] I asked why not...

OLMERT: Believe me...

YAVIN: [interrupting] Look...

OLMERT: Believe me...

YAVIN: [interrupting] I asked you a simple question:

OLMERT: Haim...

YAVIN: [interrupting] Why not a national government?

OLMERT: Haim, believe me---facing your biting wit, a person of ordinary intelligence is incapable of giving an answer as clever as your question. So I give up on the ability to compete with you on wit...

YAVIN: [interrupting] Well then...

OLMERT: ...and I will continue to respond to the question...

YAVIN: [interrupting] Nevertheless...

OLMERT: ...as I think I should respond...

YAVIN: [interrupting] Nevertheless...

OLMERT: ...and if you want to be sarcastic toward me...

YAVIN: [interrupting] I'm not being sarcastic.

OLMERT: I'll let you. It's okay. It's...

YAVIN: [interrupting] I asked you a question.

OLMERT: ...legitimate.

YAVIN: I asked you a question.

OLMERT: [trying a different tack] I imagine that since yesterday [election day] you aren't so happy. But I am.

Yavin did not let Olmert deflect him with this accusation of bias. Yavin continued to press Olmert, who recalled the other day that Yavin "was very aggressive to me."

In the Feb. 5 show, Olmert added, "The thought that Haim Yavin is leaving seems and sounds terribly strange, but at least it's possible to say one thing: how fortunate that you are doing this at an age when it's possible to begin everything anew."

Asked if he wanted to say anything to Olmert in return, Yavin echoed the Prime Minister's words. "Everything's already been said," Yavin replied for Olmert's benefit, "how fortunate that it's still possible to start again from scratch."

Yavin said nothing further on the subject, leaving others to wonder if he intended this improvised parting shot as a political barb. Various opponents have been calling for the Prime Minister to resign, and, unlike Yavin, Olmert has not agreed that it's time to give up his government job and do something else.

---Joseph M. Hochstein, Tel Aviv

Continued (Permanent Link)

The Jews of Demopolis Alabama

I had always heard that there were Jews throughout he deep south. It was only when I encountered it personally that I could really come to understand it. The kids and I were walking through Demopolis Alabama when we stumbled upon the Ben Jushran Synagogue. Turns that there was a thriving community for a long time there. Jews arrived with the French in the early 1800's and established a synagogue there. The original building was razed in 1954 to build the current one. It has since been named an Alabama Historic Site The old one was in the ancient "mosque" style. The new one is a simple brick building, rather plain and unadorned. It is no longer in use. In fact the care of the building has been turned over to the Episcopal Church, which is just across the street.

Curiosity overcoming my religious beliefs and aversions, we entered the church to inquire about the temple. The church was quite beautiful and we spent a few minutes admiring it and discussing the symbols. After a while the Reverend appeared. Rev. Dick was a very pleasant and jovial fellow. Well traveled, educated, and friendly he told us about his history, his church, and the temple. Seems that the local Jewish community had pretty much petered out and had given the Church the building for its use. In fact the next day, Wednesday, was the day that they distributed food to the local needy. I asked about the program, and told him I would like to participate in whatever little way I could. He said that they would be there at 8:00 am, and that I should find 'Rebecca'.

Eight o'clock Wednesday morning found me on my bicycle riding up to the old synagogue. There was a long line of people around the building and inside it as well. I took my backpack full of canned goods that Judy had dug out of the boat in to the people in the back to give away. I was stunned and amazed. There was food piled up in great mounds and a platoon of people packing bags, counting and carrying. I gave them my little bag of cans and rolled up my sleeves. We moved the donated food for about an hour to finish packing the over 200 bags of food that they give away weekly, then made room for the next 2 tons of food that was to be delivered later that week.

I told my story about why I was there and heard the tales of the locals. One of the volunteers told me he was good friends with Bert and Mary Louise Rosenbush, the last Jews living in Demopolis, and that he would like to hear from me. He gave me their number and address. I managed to make contact by telephone the next evening. Unfortunately, since we were scheduled to leave on Saturday we could not meet up due to our conflicting schedules. We did, however, have a long and interesting telephone conversation. The Rosenbush family were local merchants for 3 generations. Bert's granddad had started the furniture store in 1895. His daddy had run it for many years, and Bert had only closed it about 3 years previous. He also donated the building it had been in to the Demopolis Historical Society. They had been a long time and prominent members of Ben Jushran . As the congregation dwindled they took down the old building and built the one that stood now. Somehow as the remaining few members were unsure of what to do with the temple it was given to the Episcopal Church. Bert felt that it had been wrested unfairly from the hands of the rightful owners. "Railroaded" was the expression he used. I am sure there is a story there.

The people never had a rabbi as the leader of the temple, nor did any itinerant rabbis visit. The services were always led by a 'lay reader'. Since Judaism does not prescribe a clergy, any adult Jew can lead services. Still the meaning is greater if there is a very learned member of the congregation present. Someone with a great singing voice is a major bonus. Lacking these made the congregation look elsewhere for guidance. Today the Rosenbushs are members of a temple in Montgomery, Alabama. There was never anyone in Demopolis who could teach Hebrew, or give a Jewish education. Indeed when Bert, who is 79 now, went to Israel several years ago he wanted to read from the torah and become Bar-Mitzvah. Unfortunately he lacked the background to even do this.

Many people who wish to identify themselves as Jews seek community. Demopolis no longer has one. Though there was once a thriving population of Jews, and much evidence of their presence Bert and Mary Louise, who never had children, are the last Jews in town. All the others have moved to cities and towns where it was easier to surround themselves with members of their own faith.

During our visit to Demopolis I was struck by how pleasant the town was. Life was fairly easy, the people were very friendly, I had no problem getting things done. I found myself thinking about how it would be to live there. I could imagine having a very nice life in small-town America, a lifestyle that I had previously thought was long gone. Though I asked specifically, Bert said that he never felt bigotry directed at him. This in a part of the country long known for bigotry, and still obviously healing from the wounds inflicted by it.

I don't know whether or not to mourn the passing of the Jews of Demopolis. On the one hand there is the natural progression of things which includes migration of people of many groups. Usually from rural areas to more urban ones. The Jews tend to gather in larger cities where there is more community to share interests and understanding. On the other hand there is a simpler and older lifestyle that is past and can never be recovered nor can I ever achieve. Times change.......

Bill (Baruch) Mintz

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