Aliyah
Sde Dov airport was a stretch of airfield next to the sea, the air transport service for Tel Aviv, a city that did not even exist a hundred years ago, and yet was the most important settlement of Jews in the Palestinian mandate -- it was a thriving, modern city. Flying in from Cyprus, he got a good view from the DC-3's doorway of the city itself -- the blocky, modern buildings and the strangely 1930's vintage architecture that was so out of place in such an ancient land. It was, however, a familiar sandy surrounding of scrub and sedimentary hills with the occasional palm to break up the view.
"Quite the paradox, isn't it?" the man next to him was not a sabra, born of the Holy Land and named for the prickly pear of the desert, but a formerly German Jew, going by his mannerisms, that emigrated before the War and the White Paper, when Chamberlain, the arch-conceder, forbade Jews return to their homeland on the eve of the war. It was one of the cruelties of the time, that a Jew had no where to flee to from Hitler, not even to the United States.
But Saul wasn't a sabra either, and it was his first time. They spoke in English, the older yekke and the young Englishman, so it was assumed by the passport.
"I just always thought that the Holy Land it would be..."
"Yes, older. But this is a modern state we're trying to build, and Tel Aviv is a new city. If you look off to the south, you will see the Arab city of Jaffa, it is more like what you imagined in your mind's eye perhaps."
The fellow had a professorial tone to him, and it made Saul give him a sidelong, amused glance, "You're very passionate about architecture." He didn't have nearly the educated tone in English that the other gentleman had -- he had more shades of East London to his accent than that.
"Ja, well I am an architect by trade. Trained in Germany, before...well, you know." The older gentleman shrugged and changed the subject, "So, are you here for business, or..." He glanced down at Saul's forearm, looking for a number. It was almost a typical thing these days, because there were so many trying to get into the Mandate, and the Brits were trying to keep them out.
"Aliyah."
"Ah," the man said in surprise, "Pardon me, but you seem so very British in your mannerisms, I thought you were a gentile..you have a passport?"
"That's right. British subject."
"Then you are very lucky. You saw the camps?" The tone was accusing; the Jews had little love for the British right now.
He couldn't forget the camp that the word 'camp' brought to mind, Belsen, but he never saw Belsen -- it was just as well, he'd been in Denmark at the end of the war.
"The DP camps? I saw my share, yes."
"There are uses for your passport, young man, if you are so inclined to help the Yishuv in this matter."
Saul grunted, "Of course. Once I've landed and once I'm out the gate, I don't need it anymore."
The older man nodded approvingly and stuck out his hand, "Moshe Meyer, at your service."
"Saul Mandelbaum." There was a firm handshake and a bit of measure there -- the younger man had steel-corded muscle on his forearms, good diet, exercise, but a bit of jagged scar tissue in a spot there, the irregularity of it telling its own story. The older man saw the scar and seemed to understand its meaning, and that's when Saul knew -- the old bastard was mart of the Mossad Aliyah Bet. He was am illegal immigration man, a spy.
But Jews didn't tell on Jews. Not anymore, and not ever again.
"So, Mr. Mandelbaum, how is it that you have a British passport, if I might ask?"
"It's a long story."
"It's going to be a long wait while the customs men interrogate us," he told him wryly.
Saul finally laughed a bit, "That's true. They aren't letting just any blokes in, are they?"
"No, they want us out -- the Arabs have oil and the Empire needs oil."
"And the Empire doesn't have much in the way of gratitude, it seems." Saul was personally acquainted with that already, but apparently it was an old story for the Jews of Palestine, who rallied to the Union Jack when called -- "We shall fight the war as if there is no White Paper, and fight the White Paper as if there is no war!" Ben-Gurion famously quipped.
"War's over and the White Paper remains, mein junge," old Moshe Meyer said sadly.
--
As it turned out, Moshe Meyer smoothed Saul's way through the customs inspection, though his own papers got him a glance from the customs man, as did the accent -- East London was not a common manner of speech among the Jews emigrating to Israel, and Saul's name was very Polish jew indeed. Of course, the man looked little like the types that came through, the beaten down, hard-faced graduates of Hitler's camps, burning with whatever kept them alive through the worst, and the will to see themselves into the Holy Land whether Lord Bevin willed it or not or the plumper more prosperous sorts that came from other countries infused with the Zionist ideal at long last.
Saul was tall and wiry-muscular, straight-backed and carefully groomed, wearing khakis and a button down with the sleeves rolled up -- no tattoo there -- but something hawkish, cold and hard behind the blue eyes. He was dark haired and angular features, which was normal among Polish jews of his age, though there was something more self-confident, and hard-shelled about the man to Moshe Meyer's eye-- not a camp survivor, but something different. The young Pole and the older German made a strange pair, but it wasn't too terribly strange in this place. Instead, there was a car waiting for Moshe Meyer, and thus Saul Mandelbaum was able to catch a ride to Jerusalem, though his destination, eventually, was supposed to be nearer to Nazareth; the driver, Gideon ben Lavi, a sabra with a moustache that outweighed Saul in muscle and stood of a height, wearing functional khaki shorts and a shirt that was unbuttoned at the collar, the first of his type that Saul ever met, turned out to be an acquaintance of his cousin. They had an old Bedford truck that carried a variety of items in the back, and a little cramped cab space which could fit three, barely. The heat was stifling, but the windows let some air in. Moshe was sweating the most of the three, being the heaviest and the oldest and least used to hot environments.
As it turned out, Gideon knew where he was going, and knew Dannny Mandelbaum as well.
"You're Danny Ilon's cousin? I thought the rest of the family died -- it was just him that survived, I thought." If this man was a representative of the native Jew here, it appeared that they were all blunt spoken, hard-skinned sorts, tough and tanned under the sun of the Holy Land. Nazareth was much more Arab than Tel Aviv, a place of winding streets and mosques, bazaars and men in robes and women in hoods. It looked ancient, and it was of course -- Christians tended to make more of the place than any.
"That's right. I escaped Warsaw in '39-- my gran put me in the trunk of a lorry and sent me off. She..."
"So you ended up in the UK?"
"That's right. I suppose the accent gives it away."
"Just a little. You sound like them. Serve?"
"Yes."
"I was Palestine Regiment, saw some action in Italy. What about you?"
"1st Parachute Brigade."
Gideon gave a whistle, "Arnhem?"
"Yes," though his tone was a bit strained.
Gideon nodded, "It's a good thing you're here then. We need figh--" he was cut off as the truck was flagged down by a fellow on the street. The rapid fire Hebrew was hard for Saul to follow, but he got the gist of it. The man didn't look Jewish-- he was dressed Arab, in robes. But Gideon threw the truck into a quick reverse and turn even before Moshe could object.
"What was that? Sounded tense."
"Change of route." Gideon said tensely, in a bristling sort of way that made it clear he wasn't interested in saying more.
Then, about two minutes later, there was a loud blast, and a plume of smoke.
"Irgun?" Moshe asked Gideon wryly, though there was no answer.
"Irgun?" Saul repeated.
"There are more than one Jewish army in Palestine, mein junge. Put three Jews in a room and you will have an argument, and so it goes with the manner of how to secure our statehood. Some are not content to wait out the British Empire, but feel the need to strike. That was a courtesy warning to get away so that no Jews would be caught up in it. I'm afraid the British lost a few today, though," he concluded sadly.
Welcome to Palestine, Saul, it's a war zone.
--
The detour set them back, so did questioning by tense British soldiers -- it was nearly nightfall when they got to Alon, and Gideon had gunned the engine to get them there, explaining that it wasn't safe by night.
After Nazareth, Saul Mandelbaum was deposited with his luggage, a tan duffel sack, at the community building of Kibbutz Alon in Northern Palestine, on the Lebanese border. It was farm fields and a fortified encampment with watchmen in a tower that did nothing to dispel the notion that he was in another warzone, but Danny was there, with his hair shaved down to nothing and looking a thousand years older than the last time they saw each other in 1939; both of them had changed so much. They'd never been close cousins, more like rivals for the affections of Danny's older brother, Dov, who'd been a charismatic man that others wanted to emulate even before he'd become a venerated leader within the ZOB. But the years, the childhood competition and scraps with each other were forgotten -- they were all they had in the world, and both were lucky, among many Jews, to have even that, another member of the family that survived the firestorm of six years and then some, to meet on the other side in Palestine, thousands of miles away from Warsaw.
They embraced and held each other tight -- it wasn't an unknown scene in Palestine, but it was always emotional. They'd made it when so many haven't.
And that's why Danny Ilon told his cousin, Saul Mandelbaum, "Mazel tov."
Danny was dressed as the other kibbutzim, in the blue shirt that seemed to be the uniform of the modern Israeli kibbutznik, arrival or longtime sabra resident, and the introductions were made quickly, handshakes and "Mazel tovs" and congratulations on making it. Most of it was in Yiddish, because Saul's Hebrew was rusty -- it was ironically the language he knew least, but there seemed to be plenty of Europeans here that spoke Yiddish perfectly well as a native tongue. But he knew that Hebrew was preferred. He knew he'd have to learn quickly.
It was evening falling quickly by the time they were done introducing Saul to others, when Danny said, "Saul, I have to take the watch out for tonight, they let me be in charge," he shrugged easily at the whole thing, explaining casually as if it were of no matter, "But my friend Adina here can show you to your quarters -- hope you don't mind a barracks, it's what they have here."
"Don't you mind me, Danny, I've been in a barracks before."
"I wish I had time to talk to you about that, and find out what you mean, but I suppose we'll have to do this come morning. Get sleep. Adina will help you out."
And then, Danny hustled off, rifle in hand, to man the watch with other men and women of the Kibbutz. Saul was left in the hands of a stranger.
Sde Dov airport was a stretch of airfield next to the sea, the air transport service for Tel Aviv, a city that did not even exist a hundred years ago, and yet was the most important settlement of Jews in the Palestinian mandate -- it was a thriving, modern city. Flying in from Cyprus, he got a good view from the DC-3's doorway of the city itself -- the blocky, modern buildings and the strangely 1930's vintage architecture that was so out of place in such an ancient land. It was, however, a familiar sandy surrounding of scrub and sedimentary hills with the occasional palm to break up the view.
"Quite the paradox, isn't it?" the man next to him was not a sabra, born of the Holy Land and named for the prickly pear of the desert, but a formerly German Jew, going by his mannerisms, that emigrated before the War and the White Paper, when Chamberlain, the arch-conceder, forbade Jews return to their homeland on the eve of the war. It was one of the cruelties of the time, that a Jew had no where to flee to from Hitler, not even to the United States.
But Saul wasn't a sabra either, and it was his first time. They spoke in English, the older yekke and the young Englishman, so it was assumed by the passport.
"I just always thought that the Holy Land it would be..."
"Yes, older. But this is a modern state we're trying to build, and Tel Aviv is a new city. If you look off to the south, you will see the Arab city of Jaffa, it is more like what you imagined in your mind's eye perhaps."
The fellow had a professorial tone to him, and it made Saul give him a sidelong, amused glance, "You're very passionate about architecture." He didn't have nearly the educated tone in English that the other gentleman had -- he had more shades of East London to his accent than that.
"Ja, well I am an architect by trade. Trained in Germany, before...well, you know." The older gentleman shrugged and changed the subject, "So, are you here for business, or..." He glanced down at Saul's forearm, looking for a number. It was almost a typical thing these days, because there were so many trying to get into the Mandate, and the Brits were trying to keep them out.
"Aliyah."
"Ah," the man said in surprise, "Pardon me, but you seem so very British in your mannerisms, I thought you were a gentile..you have a passport?"
"That's right. British subject."
"Then you are very lucky. You saw the camps?" The tone was accusing; the Jews had little love for the British right now.
He couldn't forget the camp that the word 'camp' brought to mind, Belsen, but he never saw Belsen -- it was just as well, he'd been in Denmark at the end of the war.
"The DP camps? I saw my share, yes."
"There are uses for your passport, young man, if you are so inclined to help the Yishuv in this matter."
Saul grunted, "Of course. Once I've landed and once I'm out the gate, I don't need it anymore."
The older man nodded approvingly and stuck out his hand, "Moshe Meyer, at your service."
"Saul Mandelbaum." There was a firm handshake and a bit of measure there -- the younger man had steel-corded muscle on his forearms, good diet, exercise, but a bit of jagged scar tissue in a spot there, the irregularity of it telling its own story. The older man saw the scar and seemed to understand its meaning, and that's when Saul knew -- the old bastard was mart of the Mossad Aliyah Bet. He was am illegal immigration man, a spy.
But Jews didn't tell on Jews. Not anymore, and not ever again.
"So, Mr. Mandelbaum, how is it that you have a British passport, if I might ask?"
"It's a long story."
"It's going to be a long wait while the customs men interrogate us," he told him wryly.
Saul finally laughed a bit, "That's true. They aren't letting just any blokes in, are they?"
"No, they want us out -- the Arabs have oil and the Empire needs oil."
"And the Empire doesn't have much in the way of gratitude, it seems." Saul was personally acquainted with that already, but apparently it was an old story for the Jews of Palestine, who rallied to the Union Jack when called -- "We shall fight the war as if there is no White Paper, and fight the White Paper as if there is no war!" Ben-Gurion famously quipped.
"War's over and the White Paper remains, mein junge," old Moshe Meyer said sadly.
--
As it turned out, Moshe Meyer smoothed Saul's way through the customs inspection, though his own papers got him a glance from the customs man, as did the accent -- East London was not a common manner of speech among the Jews emigrating to Israel, and Saul's name was very Polish jew indeed. Of course, the man looked little like the types that came through, the beaten down, hard-faced graduates of Hitler's camps, burning with whatever kept them alive through the worst, and the will to see themselves into the Holy Land whether Lord Bevin willed it or not or the plumper more prosperous sorts that came from other countries infused with the Zionist ideal at long last.
Saul was tall and wiry-muscular, straight-backed and carefully groomed, wearing khakis and a button down with the sleeves rolled up -- no tattoo there -- but something hawkish, cold and hard behind the blue eyes. He was dark haired and angular features, which was normal among Polish jews of his age, though there was something more self-confident, and hard-shelled about the man to Moshe Meyer's eye-- not a camp survivor, but something different. The young Pole and the older German made a strange pair, but it wasn't too terribly strange in this place. Instead, there was a car waiting for Moshe Meyer, and thus Saul Mandelbaum was able to catch a ride to Jerusalem, though his destination, eventually, was supposed to be nearer to Nazareth; the driver, Gideon ben Lavi, a sabra with a moustache that outweighed Saul in muscle and stood of a height, wearing functional khaki shorts and a shirt that was unbuttoned at the collar, the first of his type that Saul ever met, turned out to be an acquaintance of his cousin. They had an old Bedford truck that carried a variety of items in the back, and a little cramped cab space which could fit three, barely. The heat was stifling, but the windows let some air in. Moshe was sweating the most of the three, being the heaviest and the oldest and least used to hot environments.
As it turned out, Gideon knew where he was going, and knew Dannny Mandelbaum as well.
"You're Danny Ilon's cousin? I thought the rest of the family died -- it was just him that survived, I thought." If this man was a representative of the native Jew here, it appeared that they were all blunt spoken, hard-skinned sorts, tough and tanned under the sun of the Holy Land. Nazareth was much more Arab than Tel Aviv, a place of winding streets and mosques, bazaars and men in robes and women in hoods. It looked ancient, and it was of course -- Christians tended to make more of the place than any.
"That's right. I escaped Warsaw in '39-- my gran put me in the trunk of a lorry and sent me off. She..."
"So you ended up in the UK?"
"That's right. I suppose the accent gives it away."
"Just a little. You sound like them. Serve?"
"Yes."
"I was Palestine Regiment, saw some action in Italy. What about you?"
"1st Parachute Brigade."
Gideon gave a whistle, "Arnhem?"
"Yes," though his tone was a bit strained.
Gideon nodded, "It's a good thing you're here then. We need figh--" he was cut off as the truck was flagged down by a fellow on the street. The rapid fire Hebrew was hard for Saul to follow, but he got the gist of it. The man didn't look Jewish-- he was dressed Arab, in robes. But Gideon threw the truck into a quick reverse and turn even before Moshe could object.
"What was that? Sounded tense."
"Change of route." Gideon said tensely, in a bristling sort of way that made it clear he wasn't interested in saying more.
Then, about two minutes later, there was a loud blast, and a plume of smoke.
"Irgun?" Moshe asked Gideon wryly, though there was no answer.
"Irgun?" Saul repeated.
"There are more than one Jewish army in Palestine, mein junge. Put three Jews in a room and you will have an argument, and so it goes with the manner of how to secure our statehood. Some are not content to wait out the British Empire, but feel the need to strike. That was a courtesy warning to get away so that no Jews would be caught up in it. I'm afraid the British lost a few today, though," he concluded sadly.
Welcome to Palestine, Saul, it's a war zone.
--
The detour set them back, so did questioning by tense British soldiers -- it was nearly nightfall when they got to Alon, and Gideon had gunned the engine to get them there, explaining that it wasn't safe by night.
After Nazareth, Saul Mandelbaum was deposited with his luggage, a tan duffel sack, at the community building of Kibbutz Alon in Northern Palestine, on the Lebanese border. It was farm fields and a fortified encampment with watchmen in a tower that did nothing to dispel the notion that he was in another warzone, but Danny was there, with his hair shaved down to nothing and looking a thousand years older than the last time they saw each other in 1939; both of them had changed so much. They'd never been close cousins, more like rivals for the affections of Danny's older brother, Dov, who'd been a charismatic man that others wanted to emulate even before he'd become a venerated leader within the ZOB. But the years, the childhood competition and scraps with each other were forgotten -- they were all they had in the world, and both were lucky, among many Jews, to have even that, another member of the family that survived the firestorm of six years and then some, to meet on the other side in Palestine, thousands of miles away from Warsaw.
They embraced and held each other tight -- it wasn't an unknown scene in Palestine, but it was always emotional. They'd made it when so many haven't.
And that's why Danny Ilon told his cousin, Saul Mandelbaum, "Mazel tov."
Danny was dressed as the other kibbutzim, in the blue shirt that seemed to be the uniform of the modern Israeli kibbutznik, arrival or longtime sabra resident, and the introductions were made quickly, handshakes and "Mazel tovs" and congratulations on making it. Most of it was in Yiddish, because Saul's Hebrew was rusty -- it was ironically the language he knew least, but there seemed to be plenty of Europeans here that spoke Yiddish perfectly well as a native tongue. But he knew that Hebrew was preferred. He knew he'd have to learn quickly.
It was evening falling quickly by the time they were done introducing Saul to others, when Danny said, "Saul, I have to take the watch out for tonight, they let me be in charge," he shrugged easily at the whole thing, explaining casually as if it were of no matter, "But my friend Adina here can show you to your quarters -- hope you don't mind a barracks, it's what they have here."
"Don't you mind me, Danny, I've been in a barracks before."
"I wish I had time to talk to you about that, and find out what you mean, but I suppose we'll have to do this come morning. Get sleep. Adina will help you out."
And then, Danny hustled off, rifle in hand, to man the watch with other men and women of the Kibbutz. Saul was left in the hands of a stranger.
