Tekes Time, Part 2

With the end of Yom ha Shoah, the city blossomed with Israeli flags---on apartment buildings, cars, shop windows, clothing, you name it—a plethora of blue and white banners. At Gordon Ulpan the building was bedecked with strings of small blue and white Israeli flags. Our market across the street was selling stacks of them and our toy/stationary store displayed all kinds of flag- themed paraphernalia, such as inflatable hammers (?) that seemed to be essential to the Independence Day celebration. On Independence Eve we trekked once again to Rabin Square for the festivities---youth dance groups, folk singers, rock bands and fireworks. The ambience was a cross between the Fourth of July and New Year’s Eve, with a dash of Halloween thrown in for good measure. The main activity of the children was spraying themselves, others, the streets, sidewalks and shop windows with white foam shot from cans. The papers carried warnings to avoid the eyes because apparently this stuff really stings. Another popular custom consisted of young and old adorning themselves with deely-boppers, necklaces, earrings or other accoutrements with flashing lights. I’m not sure what this has to do with independence but it does make for a lively party atmosphere.

The true highlight of Yom ha Zikaron and Yom haArzmaut for me was my teacher Edna’s one hour and fifteen minute rendition of the entire history of the Jews in Eretz Yisrael (the land of Israel) from King Solomon until the 1948 Declaration of the State. Obviously she omitted a few details and pretty much stuck to the official story but her enthusiasm and pride were apparent. Edna loves this country and is proud to have been part of the entire 61 years of modern nationhood. As a teacher, she is distressed that Israeli schoolchildren seem to know so little about their history. Even though a significant number of students in our class are not Jewish, she (and the ulpan staff in general) makes it a point to educate the students about Israeli history, holidays and culture. On Yom ha Shoah, for example, memorial candles glowed in the lobby and Edna explained the meaning of the day through a history lesson about Nazism and WWII. She concluded the lesson with a verse of the song “Eli, Eli” from the poem by Hannah Senesch, a murdered Partisan who lived in a kibbutz by the sea but returned to Europe to join the fight against the Nazis. The song reveals those things that the poet wishes would never end: the sand and the sea, the small sound of the water, the lightening in the sky and the prayer of humankind. Edna asked the class to share those things they hoped would never end. We came up with a long list: love, hope, peace, friendship, dreams, water, health, food, memory, the world, and so on. I added “music” and, thinking about the murder of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust, “the Jewish people”. Edna, sensitive to cultural differences among class members, added “people of all nations”. Many of the non-Jewish students in ulpan are in relationships with Jewish partners, while the Jewish olim (new immigrants) come from diverse countries of origin----a true melting pot but, unlike the U.S., the norm is Jewish.