“Going Up, Going Down ~ the Aliyah of an Ingénue”
Chapter 9 : The Mayors of Toytown
With so many men from the village working hard to earn a living in other towns or communities, it was necessary and seemed sensible that the job of being Mayor of Ramat Yishai for the four-year elected term should pass to the women. A man could hardly give up the requisite time from his normal job or indeed give up his job and expect to find it again four years later if he found himself voted out of the mayoral post at the next election. So the political office of Mayor in the seventies went to two suitable ladies of the two main parties, one of whom had been regularly elected in the past.
The long established Socialist Mayor, professionally a nurse in charge of our clinic, was Yudit and the difference between the two lady contenders was as between fresh and salt-sea water. Yudit was a real pioneer, a brave young woman from Yugoslavia who had come to Israel in her teens, some forty years earlier, and she knew what it was to live in an outpost of another nation’s empire. She was married to Alexander Shoshani, the retired horseback guard, and had experienced dangerous times and situations. Nothing could frighten Yudit. With her light grey hair and deep smoker’s voice she had the sharpest, brightest and most twinkling blue eyes I had ever come across and an engaging chuckle which shook her ample frame. The combination of kindness, caring and no nonsense ensured Yudit was formidable, respected and deeply loved. With the fulsome figure of her later years went an equally fulsome vocabulary which she used with acerbity, brevity and sardonic wit. Everyone enjoyed her imaginative and worldly-wise expressions as long as they were not critically on the end of them. When my mother-in-law was once relating in an affectedly coy but triumphant manner how she had given up the goy, non-jew, she was so much in love with in her youth, Yudit had retorted drily, “Well, be thankful Klara that your son had more courage.”
Yudit and Alexander had lived for many years in the village and she was very familiar with all the youngsters born and brought up in Ramat Yishai where she had been both nurse and midwife. If she saw such youth hanging around, up to no good, she would say, “I brought you into the world with my own two hands, so you behave yourself for without me you might not have made it … eh, and the country been spared an idle layabout.” Large in body and spirit Yudit knew what was right and what was wrong and most people took that on the chin, including her husband and his dogs. Among her great virtues was a deep-seated tolerance, never to be mistaken for weakness, and a woman’s wisdom that could more or less ignore her devoted husband’s weaker points: Alexander had a great liking for a drink, especially good vodka, and enjoyed the occasional stop-over in Haifa, meeting his drinking companions and flirting with the ‘young ladies of the night’. Yudit would be suitably busy when he returned, quietly commenting to herself on the frailties of men-folk maybe, with a humorous shrug of her ample shoulders. She was a good and practical Mayor for the left-wing Mapai, firmly in control of the council even though she could often sit at a meeting and say barely one word. But her presence was always felt, her views known and on most occasions everybody behaved well around her.
The newcomer to the mayoral post was Zelda and she stood for the right-wing Herut party, although she admitted early in our acquaintance that she didn’t know the difference between Herut and Mapai but her husband, Arie, was definitely Herut. Ignoring any party to which Arie was attached, he believed in getting things done his own way, for Arie was a big and burly guy who used his two hands and the roar of a lion to achieve his aims. He was a sunny Leo to his bones by not only name but nature. It came not as a surprise to us to learn that owing to his challenging way of expressing his views and doing what he thought was right, Arie had found himself at some time or another on a collision course with the law. As a result of such conflict, any chance of a career in local politics had been squashed.
Arie was thus unable to put himself forward for the mayoral election in Ramat Yishai. He saw no reason, however, why his wife Zelda could not be his spokesperson and run for Mayor in his place. In this way he no doubt hoped he would at least be able to load all the shots for Zelda to fire. This was a practical compromise solution for as long as his wife toed the marital and political line and he had no reason to imagine there would be any variation in those states. That being the case, Arie was neither required to believe in nor respect his wife’s personal views or ability to do the job. She was, after all, simply his ‘alter ego’.
Actually the quiet Zelda, who seemed to live at home in the shadow of the husband she obviously loved, was also a very successful and popular nurse. She was an attractive brunette with a trim figure and soft voice. Indeed it was under her running of our village clinic that a natural, democratic medical practice was taking place in Ramat Yishai. This was in attending to both the Jews from the village and the Bedouin from nearby settlements in the single surgery from a single waiting room where everyone sat waiting their turn to be seen. Occasional queue jumping took place, to which I can readily testify, since the Bedouin ladies would arrive at the earliest possible moment as a substantial group accompanied by numbers of children. They had more time, or a different notion of it one might assume, to wait around and in any case seemed to enjoy the opportunity for chatting and laughter which could reach quite a loud pitch. The Bedouin men, on the other hand, sitting separately from the women, were usually silent, no doubt concentrating as males will on their ailments and how to make the most of them when they got their turn to speak to the nurse.
As Israeli citizens, both Jews and Arabs were entitled to equal attention under the national health scheme and throughout the hospital network all were seen without differentiation. But we were told this was the first clinic operating in a strictly Jewish settlement in Israel on a ‘mixed client’ basis ~ a feather in the cap of our little community. It may equally have been the last to do so for many reasons apart from those of national security, sad as that may seem. This might appear strange in view of the fact that Arab Israeli citizens have the vote and representation in Israel’s Parliament, the Knesset ~ equality in some areas but not across the board. Cultural differences must inevitably affect politics and certainly Israeli Arabs have many more children than the Jews, swelling their numbers and therefore citizenship ratio at a considerable rate within this young Jewish State.
Zelda, as suggested, was an entirely different character from Yudit. I believe she came to Israel as a married woman with her husband and two young children from Rumania around 1967. Her Hebrew was by now excellent. The fact that her husband was such a rowdy creature gave her an air of strength. But she was quite a modest woman and when Arie decided she should stand for election she was at first totally bewildered. He simply informed her that the Herut party had chosen her to represent them in Ramat Yishai and he would personally ensure she was elected! Arie, our friendly, roaring lion, enjoyed going to town every now and then to meet his mates and indulge in a solid drinking binge after which he would often be as free with his fists as his tongue. He believed he would have no difficulty persuading the majority of voters in Ramat Yishai to elect his wife.
A couple of weeks before the election Arie let it be known that he would be throwing a party in his home with an open invitation to all comers including the vocal members of his own political party. The time came and the hardier males were pleased to match their drinking prowess with that of their host. A number of ladies, who found the big, blonde and macho Arie attractive, were equally pleased to have an opportunity to flirt with him. As you may imagine, it seemed unwise to rub Arie up the wrong way so that even relative strangers living along his street felt obliged to attend the party. There was always a huge variety of interesting food at parties in the village which in this case was matched only by the quantity of beer and spirits flowing from kegs and bottles.
The party came and went and the voting took place, following which Zelda found she had been duly elected by democratic majority vote for the Herut party… and the usual need to change the Mayor for a further term. So Zelda gave up her nursing job temporarily and Yudit, the erstwhile Mayor had to be pulled out of her semi-retirement from nursing to take Zelda’s place in running the clinic at the entrance to our village. In all fairness Yudit had hardly stopped nursing while she was Mayor as she was always on hand to back up her colleague Zelda whenever necessary.
The local Herut party membership in the village was jubilant for they were always deeply aggrieved at the sweeping victory of Mapai across the country and even in Ramat Yishai with Yudit at the helm, stating that the elections were rigged but that now at last the true voice of the people, like that of the turtle, was heard in the land.
We were very fortunate in having Yudit living next door to us for that way we not only heard all the latest scandals circulating through the corridors of power but rarely had to visit the surgery when a child was feeling unwell. We had been asked in such a case to simply pop in and see her any time of the day or night. She always kept a cupboard full of pills and potions at home and a few useful pieces of equipment, such as an enema and stethoscope. It was interesting to be living in a village where the leading figures dealing with the community’s well-being, both political and medical, were from the distaff side.
The council employed a full-time Secretary, Mr. Cohen, and there was a lady to do the typing for two hours daily and an accountant for two hours daily, the latter a somewhat exaggerated requirement. Once a fortnight would surely have sufficed for regulating the affairs of Ramat Yishai but the accountant popped in as and when, keeping a wary eye on the daily ‘ins and outs’ and giving the office a proper air of importance.
The Secretary who had come to the village a few months before us in 1973 was Betzalel Cohen. He was more or less on his uppers after being discreetly asked to resign, so we understood, from three previous and somewhat larger councils. In most cases he had apparently been unable to provide financial clarity concerning money received and receipts given in the pursuit of his office. To be fair to the man, he was cleared of any misdemeanours in those matters for lack of substantial evidence. He subsequently found himself applying for the advertised post of Secretary to the Council in the one horse village which was Ramat Yishai and being the only candidate he received the job. In addition, and in spite of the fact that his rank in the Israeli Reserves was corporal while other villagers held higher ranks, Betzalel was appointed to be Chief of the local guard or militia which had already been established but lacked an overlord. Betzalel immediately appointed a couple of officers from the Reserves as his deputies and ran the militia with great vigour and success. This body was composed of seven or eight men in total and mixed pickles they were indeed. Our exuberant neighbour Eliezer Maman would have liked to join the militia but could not because he was a policeman. Due to the respect this brought him Eli was able to offer ‘advice’ now and then to Betzalel regarding aspects of the law, probably more to do with road traffic than terrorist traffic, but who knows? ‘ In the land of the blind……’
The council office was one of the old shikunim built for immigrants with three rooms in total. There was one larger room, one smaller room with kitchenette and a shower/toilet. In the main room was the Mayor’s table, a table for the Secretary and a third table for the typist and accountant. There being little space, one table would be removed before a meeting leaving the Mayor and Secretary sharing a table, the typist and accountant at the other. This made room for a few chairs for the other council members and a member of the public or two. From this sound base near the entrance to the village the Mayor and Council operated the general and political business for the population of around six hundred souls that was the community of Ramat Yishai.