Leivick in Eretz Yisroel 1937, Part 2
In Haifa, With my Sister
Part One can be found here.
In Haifa, With my Sister
— The first day in Israel. — The house on Mount Carmel. — My meeting with my sister after 31 years. — the first ‘linguistic-conflict’ between my and my little niece.
With my sister, in a house on beautiful Carmel, in Haifa. We went straight from the harbour to her home.
A fine, modern house with bright rooms, with a balcony to the sea. Representatives of the Hisdarut, of Davar, of the Yiddish literary club, of Naivelt, of Poale Zion, of Habima, of Ohel — all around a table set with honey cake, spirits and wine.
The first day, the first house in Eretz Yisroel. Festive, familiarly welcoming.
The day is full of sun, hot, burning, sun, and in my brain there beats repeatedly: You find yourself on Carmel, almost on the very peak of Carmel, Elijah the prophet once wandered over Carmel. It is his mountain. And — recall — Ahab! Ahab persecuted him, pursued him, and he, Elijah, hid himself in the crevasses in the mountain.
In the tumult of speech, of greeting, of clinking glasses, a second thought runs through: See that the Tanakh doesn’t follow you too much on your way through Eretz Yisroel, — because it can still obscure many truths with too many legends; the Tanakh-like names of most places in Eretz Yisroel can be misleading.
Good, I say to myself, I am agreed. I will guard myself. Now I immediately set a guard outside myself, my own watchman which none can see, I alone can see him. Only I alone know that he stands behind me. I set him apart from myself. My own good watchman — a command from conscience. Guard, watchman, my step and also my speech, do not let them falter from the path of truth.
So I tell myself; but nevertheless, I do not cease to thrill to the fact that this house, in which I now find myself, stands on Mount Carmel.
And when one goes out on the balcony of the house, one sees the harbour, the smooth mirror of the sea, a great portion of beautiful Haifa. It reminds me a bit of the beauty of Rio de Janeiro.
My sister pleases me very much.
And still more, therefore, that she chose this wonderful place to built her house. And it generally pleases me that she had her own house in Eretz Yisroel. And her industrious husband pleases me, a good and devoted one. A driver, a member of a bus cooperative. And pleasing to me are their two beautiful little girls, one eleven years old and the second — still a tiny thing. Both speak only Hebrew, soft and singingly.
My sister bustles about, serving refreshments and her thin face is flushed. She still appears young, although with many signs of the difficult experiences endured. Her eyes are filled with sorrows and joy.
The whole time, I do not cease to look at her. I want to see if there is a resemblance to that little girl which I left behind in the poor, small house in Ihumen thirty-one years ago.
And here is my brother.
Why do I look upon the sister more than at the brother? Let me indeed take my eyes from the sister and look upon the brother.
He is tall, thin, with labouring worker’s hands. He is a plasterer. A difficult work. Not for his strength.
It doesn’t go so well for him in Eretz Yisroel. He is unemployed of late. He has a wife and child now. His face is filled with worry, silent, restrained worry — and with still more restrained happiness and gladness. He looks upon me with penetrating eyes. He is a member of the Hisdarut. An Israeli Labourer. I sense in him quiet, concealed protests. His labourer’s hands are not satisfied with his fate. His hands and his reservedly-silent face say: Eretz Yisroel, brother, is a hard and stoney land, but don’t think that I complain about Eretz Yisroel. It’s a wonderful land, Eretz Yisroel, a home. My and Zlata’s home. And I have a wife now. And I have a child now. And I have worked the hardest labour since I arrived here, still a boy. And now I am unemployed. I am even a bit ill already. Too early in my years to be sick. But, you see, I am already a bit diminished in strength. Eretz Yisroel eats of our strength. And we give away our strength until the very end, because we love Eretz Yisroel.
— L’Chaim, l’chaim — Zerubavel, with his wide beard, raises a glass of wine, directly opposite me, as though he senses that I have, for a moment, innerly restrained myself from the celebration.
Zerubavel is full of joy over my coming to Eretz Yisroel. It streams from him with enthusiasm.
And likewise Chemerinsky from Habima.
And also Henia Yafe, the correspondent from Tog.
— Certainly, l’chaim — Chemerinsky joins in.
— Ima’leh — calls the little girl, my niece, in Hebrew. She is unwell and finds herself in bed. And she calls from bed. Mother, my sister, Ima’leh, it seems, answers in Hebrew:
— Ma yesh?
And goes to the summons.
The ‘Ma yesh’ interrupts me in the middle of the ‘L’chaim.’
‘Ma yesh’ means: what is it? What is the matter? What do you want? And so forth. It grates on the ear. I feel it a jargonisation of Hebrew.
(In a later shst with Isaac Dov Berkowitz, the fastidious Hebraist, Berkowitz had indeed complained about this, that Hebrew in Eretz Yisroel very often becomes inundated, and he informed me that ‘Ma yesh’ is not used, one ought not say it, but you cannot help yourself: Eretz Yisroel says ‘Ma yesh’ and cries chai v’kayam.)
The crowd around the table speaks Yiddish with me. Several forget themselves and begin to speak Hebrew, catch themselves and go back over into Yiddish. I understand Hebrew, but speak it, I cannot. And when one speaks in Sephardic pronunciation, I catch one word in ten. It makes an impression on me, as we sit and listen or exercise ourselves in Yiddish-Hebrew, as if we play a game of languages.
A good feeling surrounds me. I say to myself:
— See, it’s no conflict at all. It’s like a Pesach game of nuts. Yiddish and Hebrew jostling against one another, indeed like Pesach nuts.
And to the one who stands behind me, to my invisible conpanion, I say:
— See, it’s nothing tragic.
My sister comes back in. She positions herself opposite me and looks with still brighter eyes. She stands, unmoving. I suddenly give a shudder. I remember:
A deep autumn night, thirty-one years ago. Tsarist Russia. Failed first revolution. Gendarmes and policemen stalking, beating on doors in the depth of the night. They stalk, stalk until they succeed. They pound on my door, as well, at my parents’ house, two o’clock in the morning, a post-Sukkos night, a cold moonlit night. Pound, burst in, come in with rifles, with revolvers, searching, rummaging through everything in the house. Find — proclamations, seals from the Bund, illegal brochures.
‘Get dressed,’ they tell me. ‘Come!’ I get dressed. My lips are dry. And my eyes see jail cells, prisons, chains and Siberian highways. Mother, Father and all the children standing in the corners, watching as the gendarmes rummage, toss, fling and — then look at me. They look at me as though with a last look. I see it, but I make myself unseeing. I am all of eighteen years old. I’m already a little toughened, but not hardened enough to be able to bear their glances and their fear of my coming fate. But to one corner, I do look; there stands, I see, my little sister Zlata, a tiny child, in a nightdress. She was two or three years old then. She stands slipped into a corner, with eyes only just opened wide from sleep, and looks with such astonishment, with such bright wonder, with such a childish nighttime smile on her lips — looking at the unexpected show of movement and gestures from the gendarmes hovering about. Suddenly the smile on her lips extinguishes, her eyes full with ice and with terror, and her entire body begins to tremble beneath her short, transparent nightdress. I suddenly hear the word of the police: ‘Come!’
I go. I say to everyone: goodnight, and I do not turn my eyes from the corner where stands, frozen, my little sister Zlata. So she has remained in my memory — a small girl, in a corner, wondering and frozen — thirty-one years.
And now see — she only serves honey cake and spirits on Mount Carmel! Is this indeed true? Is this the selfsame girl? She does not remember that night at all. A shame that she doesn’t remember. A shame that only I, alone, must remember. A shame that Mother and Father are not here, with the honey cake and spirits. They are far, far away, in the Olam HaEmes. There, in the cemetery behind the mill in the shtetl of Ihumen, which is now called Chervyen, and where in the middle of the market there now stands a large tower with a hammer and sickle at the top…I live, Mother and Father need to be in attendance at the present honey cake and spirits. Perhaps one needs to go and call them? It’s not very far. It’s just there, behind the mill. A few strides from here, from the beautiful Carmel to the mill which is in the shtetl of Chervyen, Minsk region; on from there, beyond the great wood…
— We must not stop here long, we need to travel immediately to Tel Aviv — says comrade Yoskowitz, the dear Israeli man from Dalhamiyya, whom the Hisdarut entrusted to greet me and assist me on my journey across all the points of Eretz Yisroel. To be my escort.
(I am full of thanks to the Hisdarut and to Yoskowitz for his companionship and devotion, just as I am full of thanks to Zerubavel. Both, Yoskowitz and Zerubavel, gave much time and patience, travelling with me and helped with everything they could to reveal Eretz Yisroel for me.)
— How is the situation across the country today? There won’t be an Arab attack tonight?
— No, there won’t. Since they arrested the Mufti, it’s quiet in the country, peaceful.
Everyone’s eyes become bright, but behind the brightness, worry and uncertainty are sharply visibly.
— Let’s go before it gets dark. It’s simpler driving in the day.
— We’re putting on Chains tonight in your honour, says Chemerinsky. — Let’s go and be in Tel Aviv in time.
We all stand to go. I go to the littlest niece, who lies in bed with a cold. I want to part with her. I speak to her. She hides her face in the pillow, uncovers it suddenly, giving a glance with bashfully laughing eyes, and covers her face with the pillow again. I see that she doesn’t understand what I say to her, because I am speaking Yiddish to her. I want to say a couple words to her in Hebrew, but I immediately sense that I don’t pronounce them correctly and, most of all, I feel it’s unnatural, almost foolish. I break off and remain silent. It suddenly becomes sad to me. The girl’s eyes, I see, become cold to me, flee from me. She suddenly considers me like a stranger, with distant, surprised eyes. My sister’s little girl doesn’t understand what I say to her. And I speak to her in Yiddish, Yiddish, Yiddish…and suddenly, it strikes me in the heart: Here it is! The conflict!…
Now it isn’t a game like Pesach nuts, but silence, embarrassed, cold, silence between me, the fifty-year-old uncle, the celebrated guest, the Yiddish poet, and the lovely playful little girl, who doesn’t know how to look at me now, and hides her face deep in the pillow. Here it is — the generation, the young, beautiful generation, which does not know us and does not understand us and looks foreignly upon strange, bizarre uncles who come from somewhere beyond the mountains of darkness.
Those minutes of silence, which passed so unexpectedly between me and my smallest niece disturbed me.
The rest of the day afterwards, I could not soothe myself. Her strange, silent eyes pursued me. Sitting afterward in the car, which took us all over the new highway from Haifa to Tel Aviv, I fell into a silence myself. Everyone who travelled with me was in a very good mood, making noise, joking, marvelling and continuing in explaining to me the places and settlements — completely Jewish settlements — which we drove past. I was happy that they accepted my silence naturally and simply.
From all that I saw from the automobile and from all the explanations, my inner joy grew in me anyway, but my silence was not so quick to leave me.
And thrilling it was, above that. The vehicle passed over a newly-paved road, which undulated through entirely Jewish settlements, Jewish fields, Jewish gardens. This road from Haifa to Tel Aviv is only just completed, built by Jewish hands. The old road used to wend through many Arab places, and since the attacks on the part of the Arabs, the old road was more dangerous to travel.
The new road is both safer and shorter. With two hours of fast driving, one is in Tel Aviv. 1
I sat submerged in myself, submerged in the joy and also the sorrow which still had not ceased to wind itself around me.
— See, make no mistake — I heard a voice from behind me, the voice of my invisible escort. — Don’t make the language problem the chief problem of Eretz Yisroel. Remember, if you do it, it will be a sin, a great sin. Eretz Yisroel is presently wrestling in a bloody struggle. Life and death lie on the scales. Life and death. Look out more and see what Jewish hands, honest, labourers’ hands have done. Here, where you now drive and marvel, was bare desert before.
— Good, — I answered, — it is right and correct for you to say.
— Certainly one must not dismiss it lightly, — my escort continued to speak. — But remember, on the balances of life and death, of building and destruction — the linguistic conflict should be placed on the plate of life and building, and not on the plate of destruction and death.
The sorrow which had begun to oppress my heart, became scattered, vanished, the nearer we came to Tel Aviv, the deeper we were in the thick of Jewish fields and buildings.
The reckoning that was should arrive in Tel Aviv still in the afternoon had not borne out. We had set out too late, and the evening fell in the middle of the road, and was immediately transformed into night, into warm, bright and clear night.
H. Leivick, Tog, 8 December, 1937
Onward to Part 3
