Friends and Family in Israel

Well, my time in Israel is almost over. There have been so many amazing highlights, as well as deeply though-provoking conversations and experiences, that I doubt I will ever be able to write about all of them. And there has been hardly any time to write! The tour ended Thursday night with our return to Tel Aviv from Eilat (where we took a day trip into Jordan to see Petra).

Since Thursday, rather than being a “tourist,” I have been hanging out with close friends and, miraculously, distant family! Thursday evening my oldest friend Rachel came to TA from Netanya to stay with me in the hotel. We have been friends since kindergarten, though we haven’t seen each other much since she moved to Israel about 15 years ago. We had a good-old, old-fashioned sleepover, complete with staying up way too late. Then we had breakfast with our mutual friend Naomi and a brief walk and heated discussion about Arab/Israeli relations, and then Rachel and I headed up to Netanya to prepare for Shabbat.

Rachel is “Modern Orthodox,” and preparing for Shabbat is a major, whole-family activity, with the adults cooking and cleaning and the kids cleaning their rooms, doing laundry, etc. I pitched in with chopping vegetables. We had a lovely meal, with all 4 of her children home (two of them are college age, and I’ve mostly never met them, except two of them as toddlers) and two other house guests (we three guests were staying in an apartment upstairs owned by Rachel’s parents, who spend part of each year in Israel). I played a couple of games of chess with Rachel’s youngest daughter, Maayan, who is 9 and a pretty good match for my unpracticed chess skill level; and then went to bed early for a much-needed rest.

We went to shul in the morning (with one of my chemo hats and a batik shawl used as a wrap-around skirt, I blended in quite well!) and I found that if I concentrated as hard as I’m capable of and didn’t look up from the book at all, I could just barely follow the Torah reading (done very fast, in Hebrew, and heard from upstairs in the women’s section with a loud air handler and glass partition partly drowning it out). After another delicious meal with the family, some of us napped and Rachel, myself, and Rachel’s son Zev who is studying at Yeshiva had another intense discussion of politics, including discussion of some leftist Jewish American perspectives. Rachel and I worked together to explain to Zev the idea that things like ownership of land can be understood as social constructions rather than absolute truths. In their world, they and everyone they know are only one degree of separation from Jews who were killed this past week, so it is all “very close to home,” literally as well as figuratively.

Naomi and her two older daughters, who are similar in age to Rachel’s younger two daughters, came to pick me up at Rachel’s. The kids played for a bit, and then Naomi, Josephine, Amelia and I headed out (one of the things I’ve always appreciated about Rachel and being her friend is that, despite her own orthodox observance, she has always been very accepting of friends who are less observant, like, for instance, Naomi driving to pick me up before Shabbat is over).

We drove as directly as our mapping software would allow us to find the kibbutz where I was when I was 14. It was only about 15 miles from Rachel’s home, and we got there before dark. I had completely lost touch with the relatives there, and didn’t know how to find them again, or even if any of them would still be living there. I had asked our tour guide, Doron, who grew up on a kibbutz, for help, and he had looked up the one name I could remember in the kibbutz directory he had at home when we got to Jerusalem. Eliakim and Sarah Hiller were their names, but they were old back when I knew them, and there were no Hillers in the book. I was also not completely sure which kibbutz I’d been on, or whether the one I’d been on was even still there; Kibbutz Givat Haim had split into two in 1952 when there was a big political schism in the Kibbutz movement. Google maps showed Kibbutz Givat Haim Ichud, but across the road it just showed Givat Haim Meuchad Cemetary.

As my little Hebrew started to come back to me during the trip, I became more sure that it was Givat Haim Meuchad that I’d stayed at, and Wayz was more helpful than Google maps. As we approached the kibbutz, I was nervous and excited. I’d imagined this dozens of times, (usually with my relatives berating me for not keeping in touch), but as we entered the kibbutz, we weren’t at all sure where to go. There was a roundabout (they are EVERYWHERE in Israel) and we saw two women walking. We rolled down the window and asked them if they spoke English. “Yes,” one of them replied, “how can I help you?”

I explained that I had stayed here when I was 14 with Eliakim and Sarah Hiller. “They’re dead, but their son, Haggai, still lives here” she said. I immediately remembered the name. Haggai did not answer when she called him on her cell phone, but she said if we drove ahead to the parking lot she would walk there and show us his home. We drove past an empty swimming pool, presumably the same one I spent so much time in in 1981 (did you know there are insects that can survive in a chlorinated outdoor pool?)

By the time the women caught up with us, Haggai had called our helper (Judith) back, and though he didn’t remember me, he was expecting us. He didn’t speak English very well, but he reminded me that his generation had changed their name to Geva, the Hebrew word for Hill, which is why there were no Hillers at the kibbutz. It wasn’t until his wife Esther joined us, with a little more English knowledge, that we managed to communicate that I was actually a member of their family. With this breakthrough, and the fact that I remembered the names of my Tel Aviv cousins Na’ama and Liron, we were finally able to connect (I think they really started to believe me when I came up with those names). Haggai started showing me pictures, including some of Eliakim and Sarah, whom I definitely recognized (the first picture in this bunch). Esther turned out to be a ceramic artist – her work was all over the porch where we were sitting and I finally asked about it. She showed us some more inside, and some fabric art too, and then I showed her some pictures of my work. We exchanged email addresses, and contact information that will help me find other parts of the family, including a branch in Los Angeles.

When I suggested that part of the reason they might not remember me was that I’d had a lot more hair in 1981, and that I’d had cancer, the relationship deepened further. Esther wanted to know what kind of cancer, etc. (I had to make a motion indicating breasts in order to communicate it!) I told her that, although I was cancer free as far as I know, it was one of the reasons I had come back to Israel now, because you never know how much time you have.

They showed me the back porch of the home Eliakim and Sarah had shared with me, across the yard from them. By the time we left (about 45 minutes after arriving), we were hugging warmly, they were thanking me for coming and filling a plastic bag full of avocados, lemons, and clementines from their yard for Naomi. I in turn was telling them to tell all the relatives they can stay with me in the States if they ever come there (Haggai is nearly 80 and Esther doesn’t like long plane rides, so they are unlikely to come themselves).

It got dark shortly after we arrived and we didn’t try to tour the rest of the kibbutz, which would also have been nice, though like many other kibbutzim, theirs has changed a lot, including private ownership of homes, individual salaries, and no more collective dining hall. And roundabouts! Though I was disappointed they didn’t remember me, and would have liked to see more of the family, I was thrilled that I found them at all, and that we were as successful as we were at connecting.