“Going Up, Going Down ~ the Aliyah of an Ingénue”
Chapter 37 : The Judas Tree
I have been thinking lately about what it means to be Jewish and have come to the conclusion that the burden of being a member of God’s ‘chosen race’ resides in the definition of that concept. Its descendents through the Jewish birth mother who accept its qualitative implications must automatically find themselves uniquely separated from other races, other people. By the same definition Judaism does not inherently proselytize ~ is not seeking to convert outsiders, which would strictly be a contradiction in terms. You belong or you do not. The ‘club’ is theoretically exclusive and that can be culturally provocative. But one can see how that powerful belief in being God’s ‘chosen people’ was the strongest link in maintaining a cohesive sense of identity for displaced Jews of the diaspora across the world who had, for over 2500 years after the Babylonian exile until the birth of modern Israel, no permanent geographical sense of place to unite them. Historic Jerusalem and its Temple destroyed around 580 BCE was, until 1948, a magnetic vision not a physical home.
There must also be an extraordinary power and strength within an ancient monotheistic religion which can retain its ideological integrity after giving birth to Christianity and heralding Islam from its own religious roots. But this can only add to a deeper historical sense of isolation for Jews and Judaism. In opposition resides the inclusiveness of Christianity and Islam seeking and gaining converts across centuries, creating strength in numbers as well as religious faith, each stemming from the one and same Judaic base.
Whether the notion of being a ‘chosen people’ came from the mind of the Almighty, as the sacred texts suggest, or was developed mystically and intellectually from earliest times to shield a people from their own peculiar destiny, is a question of faith rather than debate. The fact remains that there is probably no other ‘race’ until today that has deliberately attempted to avoid, rather successfully over millennia, assimilation and integration into adopted cultures to the point of losing that singular identity.
A race of scattered people, however, who developed a self-sustaining, survival mode from systematic, concentrated learning while living in ghettos, instead of owning and accumulating land, a practice from which they were excluded, gave rise to a different kind of power which was not debilitated by constant warfare. It bred outstanding intellectual acumen, producing financiers, philosophers, intellectuals and artists of the highest calibre worldwide as well as ranks of ordinary folk. That kind of recognisable success may be widely admired but with its roots in a racial exclusiveness across history has also sadly bred, out of dependency even, envy and ultimately neurosis and fear leading to the worst genocide. The notional yet tangibly physical fact of being separate, the ‘chosen race’, over time and across geographical boundaries has resulted in constant persecution. That, to my mind, is the inescapable burden of being Jewish.
This suddenly brings to my mind two people in Ramat Yishai whom I may have subconsciously avoided mentioning but whom I must finally acknowledge out of love and sorrow.
Adella came regularly to our village. She was a lovely lady, kind but timid, fairly tall and slim and a little angular. Her hazel eyes smiled gently at you with care from a thin face, lined and sallow. Her hair had been brown but was now wispy and greying. Adella was probably in her early sixties and she wore quiet, nondescript clothes than had a post-war look to them. She was neither shabby nor elegant, just ordinary. Hebrew was obviously not the language with which she felt most comfortable. She spoke German to me, although my school German had largely been forgotten. I had to guess at some of what she said but somehow we understood one another. We laughed and chatted together. She spoke quietly, loved the children and had offered to come once a week on a Tuesday morning to give me a hand in the home from simple kindness, especially after the twins were born.
Adella knew how to make pasta. Did she have some Italian blood? I don’t know, but she was a wonderful cook and her pasta was out of this world. I had never seen pasta hand-made before and since I cannot claim any Italian connections, I was only familiar with the far inferior products you buy in packets from the shops. One day Adella gave me a lesson in making tagliatelle with eggs and flour. It seemed to me quite a complicated process before being rolled out super soft and cut evenly in long strips. When ready it was tossed into boiling, salted water. It took little time to cook and was delicious enough to eat while really hot simply coated in butter with a little seasoning. It needed no fiery tomato or other transforming sauces. Adella, quite rightly, was confident in her cooking although shy in most other aspects of her character.
My friend lived in Haifa but she had a friend whom she visited almost daily in Ramat Yishai and with whom she would sometimes stay overnight. I would see her trudging up our road in all weathers with a canvas bag full of shopping, having come by bus from Haifa. She walked the kilometre from the main road along our sparsely populated street to the last house overlooking the valley, one which had virtually disappeared behind a mass of undergrowth and mulberry trees. In fact her friend’s house was so shrouded in overgrown shrubs that you barely noticed it, and besides that it gave off a gloomy air of hopelessness by suggesting that no-one wanted to take care of it. The only redeeming feature on the plot was a tree that stood in the corner nearest to the road, rising a little above the other trees. This was the Judas Tree which every Spring would be ablaze with deepest pink flowers, a canopy of splendour over a dark corner.
So the old stone house went unnoticed and indeed that was largely the fate of its owner, due basically to his own choice in the matter. Very occasionally he would pass by our house with his thin Malacca cane tapping against the uneven asphalt. I had no idea where he was going, perhaps to get the bus to Haifa as I’d never seen him in the centre of the village. I would catch a glimpse of him briefly beyond our front garden in a white homburg style hat and white jacket that had seen better days, his head down, eyes scanning the road with a kind of intensity which forbade any social intervention, even a quick ‘Shalom’.
I do not know the name of the man, though surely it had been told to me. What I do remember is Adella’s explanation of her connection with him and why he lived there alone and unwilling to be part of the community. As far as I knew, only Adella was allowed into his space. I am not sure how they met but perhaps it went back a long way and I believe he not only trusted her but, in as much as he was emotionally able, cared for her. But truly, it was Adella who cared for her friend. She cooked and washed and cleaned for him and was simply there to tend his needs. She soothed him in the darkest hours when he was woken by ghastly nightmares. Without her, he would no doubt have deteriorated mentally as well as physically far quicker than he did. On the other hand it might have been a blessing if death had called sooner.
So this crumpled old man, a neighbour to whom I had never spoken, was left in peace because that is what he wanted. One day while Adella was helping me in the kitchen she sketched out his shocking story with great compassion and no drama. Briefly he had come from Germany, where he had been a married man with three lovely young girls. He had survived the concentration camps and arrived in Israel after the war and bought the house in Ramat Yishai. At some point during his incarceration in a camp he was made one night to witness the brutal killing of his three daughters. The camp guards had held him, bound, while they machine-gunned the three young girls before his eyes as they called out to their father in their innocence and terror before slumping to the ground in pools of blood.
The Judas tree never gave me the same joy after I heard that terrifying story. It carried with it an overwhelming sense of betrayal epitomised in man’s inhumanity to man. I would look at it and see only three lovely girls, falling softly like beautiful pink petals at Spring’s ending.
It was in Spring 1977, and towards the end of our few years in the village, that I realised Adella had not called for a month or so. I did not know then, until I made enquiries, that her friend across the way had died for no funeral had taken place in Ramat Yishai. It appeared he had left Adella the house but she did not want to live in it. She visited me once more after that and we embraced with tender farewells. It had been a privilege to know her.