TEKES KUMTA - BERET CEREMONY - PIKUD HA-OREF - PALCHATZ SHACHAR SHAVIT - ZIKIM

Some of what follows may seem like random musings.  You may think its an odd column.  In the days after my travels, I edited these notes so that they might read better, but much of this is simply what I was able to write between things during my last visit to Eretz Yisrael.

June 17 - 8pm

50 - it's just a number.  Of course the AARP membership card (bestowed half jokingly by my wife) is a ‘nice’ reminder in my wallet.  The funny comments from my kids who say,"Dad, you’re like half a century old now!" help me laugh at this milestone.

I wonder if it is possible for those in their 20’s and 30’s to truly believe it when people advise that they don’t feel any different at 50 something than they did at 20 something.

I don't mean physically.  I certainly have more and different aches and pains than I did at 20, and I notice grey hairs among the brown, especially in my beard.  Still, emotionally, mentally, psychologically even, I am the same - I feel the same. 

Tonight, on my 50th birthday, coinciding with the AJ Annual Meeting, I board a flight to Eretz Yisrael to be present for Rafi’sTekes Kumta - The beret ceremony that concludes  advanced training in his unit - Palchatz or Pikud HaOref - Combat Search and Rescue.  Until now, Rafi and his fellow trainees wear simple army green.  Soldiers in the Givati unit wear purple, the Tzanchanim - red, and in Palchatz they wear orange, so that as they joke, together, they look like a sea of traffic cones!

Our oldest child’s choice to enlist in the IDF didn't surprise Dayna. Maybe she listens better, maybe she has a better filter. I just know that I am lucky to have found a partner in life who complements me so well.  Without her, I know I would have much less of an understanding of myself, of life, and now, of our children.

June 18, 4pm

So after an unusually challenging experience finding my luggage and clearing customs, I visit a bit with good friend Talia Lidar who came to greet me in the airport.  Tali was our Shlicha (Israeli Representative to the community) during our earliest years at AJ.  We got to know her, her husband Omri and their daughters Cori and Naya quite well. We sip overpriced airport coffee before I am off to get my underpriced rental car.  Why underpriced?

Because in Israel, unless one chooses a particularly large or fancy car, the rate of rental itself is miniscule ($5-$15 a day) but the mandatory insurance?... not so cheap!

5:05pm - I'm starting to take it for granted though I prefer not.  Like a good piece of chocolate, I am savoring it and reliving its flavor while also looking forward to the next piece.  You see, for me, when in Israel, nearly every personal encounter is  different.  There are certainly exceptions, especially in more rushed areas like Tel Aviv, but everyday life in Israel is, ironically, more relaxed. 

6pm - driving from the airport in traffic I need a break, so I have stopped at the mall in Rishon L’Tzion - Before I pulled off the highway, the radio station was covering the Peres birthday celebration.  The Clintons, Streisand and so many others are noted by the announcer.  As a personal request of the 90 year old, Streisand will sing her lush rendition of Avinu Malkeinu, a choral work of Max Janowski (1912–1991).

AJers may know Janowski’s music best by the similar setting of Sim Shalom we include on the High Holidays.  As a side note, Janowski dedicated this composition to the American diplomat Ralph Bunche.  Its an interesting tidbit for which I digress.  In 1950, Bunche became the first African American to be honored with the Nobel Peace Prize.  It was awarded for his mediation in what was then Palestine.  And on that note, after stretching my legs in the mall,  I am heading back to my travels down Highway #4 towards Zikim, Rafi’s base on the northern tip of oceanside border with Gaza, Palestinian territory ruled by Hamas.

June 19, 4:30 am.  I'm giving up on trying to sleep and head out.  It's already light outside so I'll make sure I know where I'm supposed to be later.

5:30 am  - I'm so early and finding it was so simple that I went to the Zikim beach to sit awhile.  I don't miss the flies of israel.  Here the flies land on you and it seems the moment you swat at them, they come right back.  I guess I'll learn to stop swatting.

The guy who works at the cafe here on the beach is happy to have a visitor, a customer justifies him taking a break from his chores.  We chat a bit and he plays CD’s of Mizrachi music.  Mizrachi means eastern but it refers to music that either originates from or is influenced by the region from which so many Jews emigrated shortly after the establishment of the State of Israel.  “Should I change the music?” he asks.

To many Ashkenazi Jews like myself, these twangy sounds, that are so similar in feel to the music of our Arab neighbors, are like nails on a chalkboard. He doesn’t know of course, that I developed a taste for these sounds long ago, having heard them played often by my friend (really like a brother) Yigal Maimon. He belted out “Elinor” and "Mah Lakh, Yaldah?" ("What's With You, Girl") as the needle wore out the records of Zohar Argov, well before the pop star’s arrests and ultimate suicide.

7 am -  I leave the beach after visiting its cafe and drinking ‘shachor’.  Shachor literally means black, but in Israel it refers to Turkish coffee served usually in a glass similar in look to your zaydee’s ‘glaizeleh tea’.  A hefty tablespoon or two of this dark brown powder becomes black with boiling water and after a few minutes, the water cools a bit and the powder sinks to the bottom of the glass.  The sediment laying at the bottom gives this form of coffee its other well-known name, ‘botz’, literally - mud.

Now I head toward to the base (less than a mile away) where I am the first to arrive and am told by the guard that none of us will be able to enter until 8.  I put on my tallis and tefillin and daven from my iphone.  I feel an acute awareness (or perhaps hopefulness) that this moment, right now, will years from now, clearly stand out in my memory.

7:34 am.  More people are arriving.  It will surely be a cross section of Israeli society, but right now they all seem more chiloni (secular).

7:49. The sun is very hot already and I am starting to anticipate the emotion that will flow in the next few hours.

I watch every car arrive knowing full well that none of our frelatives will arrive until later when the actual tekes(ceremony) takes place.  You may recall from previous columns, but a frelative is our personal term for several friends who may not be blood related, but might as well be.  Our closeness has developed over the years and our commitment to one another, well..., my eyes well up as I describe it.

Of course, jet lag is at its worse right now but my lack of sleep pales in comparison to the 9 hours or so total combined that Rafi gets sometimes in 72!  So I remind myself to focus on something other than my fatigue and the annoying flies.

Several families have had T-shirts made with their soldiers' names on them and hold signs and banners of welcome and congrats. I have just my Eagles cap protecting my head from the increasingly sweltering heat.  My intention was that my wearing the cap will somehow help Rafi distinguish me in this mass of love and pride when I meet him during the last kilometer of his hike through the night.

I'm already getting sunburned at nearly 8 am. But my fatigue cannot compare to that of his unit.  They started out in the wee hours of the morning not being sure how long they would hike.  Rumors of anywhere from 30-65 kilometers were perhaps purposely bandied about. 

Parents have the option of meeting their soldier for the last kilometer of the hike and it's funny now that Rafi has been stressing in emails and texts the rigorousness of this last kilometer. In response, I added running to my gym schedule over the last few months.  And now, “It's just a halicha” one of the fellow parents said, “not a ratz(run) at all!”

8:01 am - Israelis have an actual printed invitation.  Despite what I wrote earlier, there hasn’t been the friendliness from folks here.   It seems they all have their family unit with whom they came and I am the only party of one that I have seen.

8:15am - Well forget what I just wrote because I now have a sprig of delicious grapes in hand to prove it isn’t so.

This large Israeli man engaged me in conversation and let me take a picture of the invitation that they received by mail.  We chatted awhile:  the usual "where do you live?", "who are you here for?".  A few minutes later, while I'm sitting in the car taking a break from the sun writing more in this journal, he comes over.

It isn't, “would you like some grapes?”, but rather, “Take these grapes! You will need them for koach(strength) on the walk!”  And said like this, he practically forced the grapes into my hand.  I am immediately back to my appreciation of this society as one that surpasses them all.

Still, this simply isn't enough for far too many here.  Their jobs don't allow them to live a life of comfort and rent a decent apartment.  They protest the decreasing middle class. Imagine the disappointment young folk feel when they cannot make it on their own. 

They are post army, about 21 years old, with insufficient prospects and abundant concern about a bleak future. They return to their rooms, more than likely shared with a younger sibling.  I imagine them moving back into that room. The walls still bear the posters of their favorite bands, heartthrobs and beach babes. 

9:55.  Well everything has changed again:  I am told we won't get to go with them at all.  We just get to see them as they pass and they are running late. Maybe 10:30 they'll arrive they say now.

10:09 am - The build up is considerable and the Israelis do not seem fazed by this at all.  The darker skinned simply stand there waiting.  Almost no one is complaining and the lighter ones including me, find areas under trees and we complain more.

6/20, 3:45 am.  When I was writing the last post I had moved about a kilometer away from the base with a group of hopeful parents.  Just after I was misinformed that we would not be meeting them for the last kilometer I was startled to hear one among us exclaim “Hinei heim ba’im - Here they come!” 

I was briskly walking and then running towards them. Not on the path that would be easier, rather through the brush that lies between us reminding me that the shortest distance between any two points or people in this case, is a straight line.

They are a mass of army green heading towards us.  Chanting phrases with which I am not familiar, they come closer.   One by one, I try to distinguish them through the camouflage paint they so proudly wear until the point at which I see him.

There is no time to be overwhelmed with emotion.

He can embrace me for a moment and does, but he must keep marching forward and it isn't even a minute more of plowing ahead through this unrelenting brush and it is his turn to carry a pole of the stretcher on which the largest officer lies.

The stretcher they carry fulfills their motto that no one, dead or alive, is left behind.  We come closer to the worn path that until now they refuse to further beat.  Why walk on the beaten path while your enemy watches they posit and I think, “instead its better to trample through prickly thorns and sprain your ankles on unpredictable rocks, holes and branches?”

Now we are back at their camp and the southern sun has worn me down, but I am just one of hundreds of parents, siblings, friends and various other relatives who have traveled from all over our tiny nation to see their one loved one.  The Martzianos have arrived with a delicious picnic and they are so happy to see their adopted son Rafi... so proud.

At 11:10 am pthe ceremony begins.  A blast of honor guard trumpets is heard but not seen (I assume a recording) followed by an orchestral rendition of the Naomi Shemer song ‘Machar” and I can only think of the final verse.

Tomorrow when soldiers put off uniforms,

Alerted to other things

Then each man will use his own two hands

To build that of which he dreamed today.

Next speeches, most of which I could follow, Hatikvah, and celebration! 

To us, our children are everything, carrying the torch for our name, our heritage, our evolving narrative. To themselves and to the army, they embody the message that together, their unit, working as a whole, is greater than the sum of their individual selves.

It isn't perfect I learn from Rafi later that day and evening.  This one fights a lot, that one is lazy.  But today it is all put aside, today they are all so proud of one another.  They seem equal in giving and receiving pats on the back congratulating one another.  They only know my son as a soldier, as a brother in the field who sleeps on a cot in a tent in the relentless heat of Zikim.

The hardest thing I've NEVER done

I've experienced challenge. So what!

I've not slept and endured fear regarding a child's illness. Big deal!

It occurred to me just now, several months into being the father of an oleh chadash recently sworn in to the IDF, this is the hardest thing I've never done.

When a little more conversation leads to a uniquely typical Israeli occurrence

On our last day in Israel before our overnight flight, we headed to Jerusalem for a little more fun knowing we still had plenty of packing to do.  We parked on the outskirts of the city and waited for the train, a new beautiful addition to the city which runs down Jaffa street, now closed to automobile traffic.  After purchasing the tickets we needed, we waited for the next train.

Not unusual at all,  a conversation began with a lovely stranger who inquired as to where we were from, what brought us to Israel, yadayadayda... and then it dawned on her... did we have all of our tickets?

It seems the person before her in line at the machine mentioned he got two tickets only having paid for one and commented - "hmm that's funny".  As she explained this to me, I counted them, finding that I was in fact short one ticket.  The young woman sprung into action, ran over to person she recalled got the extra ticket and returned it to me just as we were boarding the next train.

If I retell this occurance to many Israelis - they would be nonplussed,  important part of this story is that is not an extraordinary event here.  If i repeat the story to others here, they are not surprised but may think it is nice to hear.  Repeating he story in the US will receive amazement.

Now there are wonderful, honest and giving people the world over and there are certainly some less than pleasant Jewish Israelis.

Nonetheless, I think any objective observer would have a difficult time finding a country such as israel, under constant threat of its very survival and still, valuing its elders and looking out for each other day in and day out.

On the ElAl flight home I watched some of Tal Ben-Shahar's 2012 documentary "Israel Inside".  He explains that Israelis have an ownership in not just the land but also a feeling that we are all responsible for one another.  So when one sees parenting that they think needs improvement, they express it openly to strangers at the park. To our American ways, this quality can feel intrusive, uninvited and is not always welcome or met with pleasantries. Native born Israelis are called - Tzabras which translates directly to Cacti. Perhaps many of you know this already but consider it fully. The most common explanation is that a cactus is prickly or harsh on the outside but sweet on the inside.  It is equally if not even more significant that a cactus can thrive with very little if any nurturing. It survives sand storms and months without rain.

We are a Jewish people that has survived and thrived.  Adversity makes us stronger.  Not all of us are so prickly on the outside and certainly there are some who are less than sweet on the inside.  It is also important, before bathing in our accomplishments and Jewish ethnocentrism, to recognize that there are giants in all faiths and among the unfaithful.

Dan Gillerman, former israel UN ambassador 2002-8

Wonderful speaker - excellent communicator - warm and the right touch of humor, realism and hope.

The remainder of the day was free for us, we walked thought the tel aviv Shuk and bought chazerai as well as some good juices and foodstuff

We have packed up and will soon have a Wrapp up federation discussion and then It's off to closing ceremonies on an army base and to the airport. There we will say out goodbyes bc we will pick up a minivan and be off to the rose of castel B&b across the hwy from mevasserett tZion and we will have at least a few days with rfi to ourselves!! Yeah!! Unfortunately he twisted his ankle but I'm confident hell suck it up!

Atlit, Beit Sh'arim, Ceasarea

Today we awoke in our new location to which we arrived last night, the David intercontinental hotel on the tel Aviv shore of the Mediterranean. The breakfast here was a little weird - they explained they have many Asians who like Miso soup in the morning! There was no explanation for lasagna.

But I digress from the more important parts of the travelogue. We started off to Atlit which is what remains of a detention camp that held holocaust survivors and others during the British mandate. Seeing how similar they are to concentration camps - putting ourselves in their place - it must have been terrifying until they realized and understood that despite the similarities, they had food, rest and security.

The outdoor park like atmosphere included a ship they recreated to be most like the ships that transported Jews to the holy land. The innovation they used was amazing - the portholes suddenly turn Ed on which meant the window became a tv screen projecting the waves of the ocean flying by. The ground and walls shook and vibrated and like many an exhibit we experienced, one could identify with the immigrants and even feel the feelings they must have felt. After the ship tour, it would have been preferable to stop - the kids were on information overload and the adults were not doing much better.

Beit Shearim, a little further south of Atlit is a series of caves that were discovered that were filled with sarcophagi attributed to the rabbis of the Sanhedrin including Yedudah HaNasi who redacted the Mishnah. There had been

Movement mayamuna theatre

What an amazing show. All the performers have their specialties but they all dance, do acrobatics, sing, drum and play guitar!!

They utilize the sights motions and sounds from the audience and make sound loops, pictures and video on screen as accoutrements to their performance.

Independence Hall and Palmach museum

The imdepemdence hall is where Ben gurion declared Israel a state on Friday may 14, 1948 at 3pm. It was actually the jome of dissengoff who donated it
To tel aviv after his wides passing with the request that it be maintained as an art museum. It had been closed for renovations until recently and the most interesting part of this is that the renovation uncovered a wall that remained from the original dissengoff home.

This is a brief tour. It doesn't require more than 1/2 hr. but it's less interesting for kids generally.

The Palmach museum is great especially for kids 12 and up id say bc the members of the palmach were actually in their young teens when they began their resistance and missions

Walking through a recreation of the experience over the years approximately 1943-48. Sounds smells and touch of the period and experience. Some sitting but films usually brief none longer than 15 mins.

It adds greatly to the experience that it is run completely by young members of the army in uniform.