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Heart to Heart

My Own Exodus


San Diego Jewish Times, Sept. 30, 2005, page 14.

By Gert Thaler

    Page 626 couldn’t have come at a better time.  As I closed the hardcover book I was still holding the piece of tissue, damp with  my tears, which I had been using for the past half hour until the last page was turned.  Because I am a slow reader and have difficulty putting aside time for reading, it takes me long to plow through a book.  It shouldn’t have been that way with this particular one, however, because my own personal life seemed to be so mixed in with the wonderful story. Some of it was written by the prolific author as he sat on the sand at San Diego’s South Mission Beach where he was a guest in my brother’s beach house. And, he was kind enough to include my brother’s name for one of his characters.  It all happened up to the time the book was actually published in 1958.

            Intrigued by the visit last May of Israeli Commander Yossie Harel who was in charge of the illegal immigration  operations for the transportation of Europe’s survivors into what was then called “Palestine," I bought a newly printed copy of Leon Uris’ Exodus and from the opening page 1 until page 626 I found myself reliving the blood and guts story of what it took to bring Israel to where it is today. From my early beginnings I had been raised in a home where “Zionism” was an oft used word. Had my mother not come to America as a young girl I am convinced that she would have been one of Israel’s pioneers.  Throughout her lifetime she was an inveterate fund raiser for Zionist causes.  We had no family connections in Palestine, and when I first journeyed there I knew only one person  my brother-in-law’s cousin, Yehuda Chamiel , who greeted me as I deplaned in 1968, ten years after Exodus was first published. 

            I know that I read the book those many years ago, but I know too that not until now, September, 2005, have I been so affected by its contents.

            Israel has become an important part of my life and my commitment to my Jewish cultural and religious involvements. 

            Now on the brink of paying my 82nd visit there next month I will have reached a point in that life when I will dedicate a kindergarten building in Tel Aviv along with my daughter and son-in-law, Linda and Harvey Neiman and my friend, Jaime Brener.  The structure will bear our names and the inscription from Proverbs:  “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it” which best depicts the path which Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai has led us on through The Tel Aviv Foundation to which my volunteer time is channeled.  Huldai, a former educator, invests municipal funds heavily in support of early educational advantages for children from all economic levels with emphasis on low income families.

            Most of the Jews I know today are well versed in Israel’s modern politics as I have been.  My mother’s crowd, most of whom have left us now, were the ardent Labor Zionists of San Diego (Poale Zion).  George Olsher’s  father, Joe, and Hadara Chemnick’s father, I. Domnitz, were both part of that group, as were so many others.

            I am not sure how much of the little country’s early beginnings are remembered by today’s activists.  While Uris used fictitious names for his characters I fitted his description to early pioneer leaders.  Included are actual people whose names are all familiar to us, which lent even more credence to the tale.  Interwoven was the fictitious story of the books’ main characters, Ari Ben Canaan, Kitty Fremont, Karen Clement, Dov  Landau, numerous British military and Arab friends and foes along with the compelling  Rabinsky brothers,  the two Russians who traveled by foot to reach The Promised Land in 1884..

            Following the early life of  Yakov (adopted Israeli name “Akiva”)  and Jossi (Barak Ben Canaan),  dropping the family name of Rabinsky,  they cleared swamplands in order to establish the first of the kibbutzim.  It reminded me of my friend, Amos Degani, former chairman of the Emek Hefer District.  I have an e mail now telling me that Amos wants to see me at his home in Kfar Vitkin during my visit.  An elder statesman, Amos served as a “right hand” to David Ben Gurion and  served in Israel’s Knesset for 12 years representing the Labor Party.

            Untold doors have been opened for me throughout the country by my association with numerous Israelis who held the keys to those doors either through personal friendships or government contacts.  In 2005 I am proud of the fact that I no longer say I know only one person in Israel and a lot of them will be on hand November 3rd when the kindergarten dedication is celebrated in one of Tel Aviv’s most disadvantaged areas.

            My heart is warmed by the new “Zionists” in our community who have assumed the mantle of responsibility in  promoting strong support between San Diego and various institutions in Israel.  Long ago the word “Zionist” was stretched out to describe even those of us who did not emigrate but who chose to remain within our own boundaries strongly supporting projects.  Past community leaders can look with pride on having become involved with Israel Tennis Centers, Technion, Tel Aviv, Ben Gurion and Hebrew Universities, Hadassah, Na’amat, Jewish National Fund, AIPAC, Magen David Adom, Friends of the IDF.  The mantle has been passed to younger leaders, with particular recognition to Gary and Gerri-Ann Jacobs and to Rod and Gloria Stone for establishing youth oriented exchanges between Israeli and San Diego children. 

            This is a wonderful period in which to be involved in various facets of Israeli life.  Were it not for the establishment of the State of Israel part of whatever it is that makes me a better Jewish woman would not have come into full blossom.

            This October’s journey will add another jewel in my crown, the invisible crown I place on my head because from the moment I land I am given such a royal welcome by some of the nearest and dearest friends I have.

            Though the thoughts are ever present we do not talk of fears of mothers of sons and daughters on army duty.  Nor of parental anxieties that are constant companions.  Unsaid words may fill our minds, but our days are filled with social visiting.

            This return will be somewhat different, however.  Now I will call upon those Israelis who will allow me to relive parts of their lives that are related to much of what Uris wrote about.  It will be an important part of this year’s journey “home” and probably a visit down memory lane recalling my first step on Israeli soil.

            The start of a New Year brings also a beginning of new adventure to me.

Shona tovah.