Next Year in Jerusalem

I am reminded of Passover season, many years ago.  Maybe there's something magical about just going to and being in Israel.  London was my switching point on this business trip.  My company, Rand, was installing a Spare Parts Inventory computer system for the Israeli Air Force.  In London, I was changing planes from United, coach to El Al, First Class.  They had me and three or four others seated up in the bubble of the 747, the way the airplane was designed, but hardly ever used.  I noticed the deference to Americans, especially ones wearing 10-gallon cowboy hats, as we boarded.  Everyone else was being strip searched by the El Al people, in little private, bomb-proofed booths.  As soon as I had walked over to the El Al counter and said I was connecting to Ben Gurion, a hostess attached herself to me.  I was pampered through check-in and individually golf-carted out to the airplane.  They knew who I was and, probably, what I was going to do in Israel.  I’m sure Mossad went through my bags.  The bags were delivered to the hotel about eight o'clock, the evening I arrived.  There were vague apologies, but there had been plenty of time to photocopy business secrets or documents. 

When I first arrived at Ben Gurion Airport, the smell of orange blossoms overwhelmed me.  I thought I had prepped by listening to a few Arabic language programs on the radio.  I also thought I was fairly well traveled, at least throughout Europe and the Mediterranean, but no.  It was like being dropped into a Star Wars scene, Tatooine.  We in California think of ourselves as "cosmopolitan," and racially intermixed.  There were no more foreign cultures represented at Ben Gurion, as at LAX, JFK, or SFO, but boy, they sure looked different from anything I had ever seen before.  I went through customs in a breeze, five minutes without my luggage, which would follow me later.  I had specifically purchased a classic Texas Stetson for this trip.  I thought of it as protection.  This was early March of 1980, twenty-five years ago as I write.  Strange as it may seem, these were the days, when it was wonderful, and one was respected, to be an American.  "They" might shoot the French, British, or Italians, but never the beneficent Americans.  The orange blossom smell was the pervasive influence until a taxi-driver found me and took me to Tel-Aviv.

Europe is not a foreign clime.  Toss us into France, Germany, or England, and we Americans bounce like tennis balls.  But this was a unique experience.  I had an office to go to, except that I worked Sunday to Friday, rather than Monday to Friday.  Like all short-term visitors, I was based in a posh, Tel Aviv Westernized hotel, though one that served a kosher menu leading up to Passover.  I am one who relishes exotic foods and in this gorgeous hotel, over-looking the Mediterranean, there were more new foods than I could handle.  The hotel had to cater to a wide variety of tastes and dietary requirements.  I only ate breakfast there but I looked forward to the pleasure and usually had something different each day.

I met up with my partner for this project, Ethan.  He and I had spent some time together in Mexico City the year before.  He was a runner.  He used to go out every morning in Mexico and run around Chapultepec Park.  Here in Tel Aviv, he would run down to Jaffa and back.  But that was only on the week-ends when he stayed at the hotel.  During the week, he stayed with a girlfriend, and yes, he was married.  I met his then ex wife by accident fifteen years later.  She was doing in-office massages where I worked at Hewlett-Packard in Palo Alto.  I didn't mention Ethan's peccadillos, figuring why rub salt in what appeared to be an old wound. 

We ran into a snag immediately with the Ministry of Defense.  There were budget and approval problems.  For three weeks, all we did, formally, was to attend meetings a few times a week with the Air Force brass.  Ethan had been there several times before, and thus the honey, but he rented a third floor walk-up for us in the heart of Tel Aviv.  He had outfitted it with a few pieces of office furniture, but it was just a large converted apartment.  There was a kitchen, two bathrooms, and several meeting rooms.  This was a separate operation from the Israeli Rand offices in Jerusalem. 

We had an office, but not much to do.  I spent most of my days lying on the hotel's private beach, walking, and exploring this busy city.  I was in a fantasy world.  This is what I had pictured Alexandria to be like after reading Lawrence Durrell's Quartet.  Then there was a meeting where we were told the work would go ahead, but nothing could start for at least three more weeks.  It was like a poker pot, "in for a dime, in for a dollar."  No sense going back to the States if we were going to start in three weeks, and Ethan had his honey.  We agreed to check in with each other weekly, but we never did.

Back in San Francisco, before I left, Sharona Caspi gave me a list of names and addresses for delivering packages, people to contact by telephone, mostly in Jerusalem.  Our "work" kept us busy the first few weeks.  This appeared to be my normal sort of business trip, where I stayed in the hotel, did my work, then returned to San Francisco.  This three-week interlude was a good time to take up my packages-and-presents list and start calling numbers.  Most of them didn't respond.  One Tel Aviv couple accepted a carton of cigarettes and some candy.  I got down on the list to an Aviva in Jerusalem.  On the telephone she seemed like my mother, or my sister, or my ex-wife.  She asked me to dinner on Friday night, the 14^th I think, to deliver whatever packages Sharona had prepared.

I had been in Israel for about two weeks.  I "got my feet wet" by renting a car.  I had driven before in Rome, Paris, and Athens.  These are considered hectic by Western standards, but Israel was different.  Sides of the road didn't matter.  There were no accepted rules of deference to first entrants to intersections.  It was complete anarchy on the road.  And this so far was in the city of Tel Aviv, where I started out.  I thought I was cool, driving in Israel, but no way!  I went over from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in a few minutes, but once I started trying to follow Aviva's directions, I got lost.  At every turn, I asked directions and then I got further lost because the Israelis could not admit that they didn't know where somewhere was.  In the end, I knew I was within a few hundred meters of Aviva's house, but I could not get clear directions.  I stopped at a hotel and called Aviva's number, explaining my predicament and my resolve not to move from this point.  They could either come pick me up, or I would begin my wayward trek homeward to Tel Aviv.

At this point, Aviva put on the phone, a totally beautiful sounding British voice who assured me that (1) she understood all, (2) Aviva was just setting down dinner (about 7:30pm) and (3) that she would be happy to come get me directly, and she did.  There is something calming about a British accent, well, the BBC accent.  My British wife Sue (many years later) would only travel on British Air, not for loyalty, food, or comfort; but to hear that re-assuring voice come over the speakers, "Good Afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen.  I am your Captain."

Julie calmed me down and then we fell in love over dinner.  Sometimes it goes that fast, and for no reason.  Aviva's small female child was precocious and entertained us that evening with renditions of Europe's leading singing stars like Dalida.  I became mesmerized with the Aviva family and with Julie.  Julie convinced me to take a Jerusalem apartment.  This was easy because Sharona Caspi had offered me hers.  From there, my life in Jerusalem started.  I also met Yona and Mindy.  Julie encouraged my having adventures with the local people, like Yona, a Sabra, who had this thing about lemons. 

Over the next few months, Julie and I traveled up and down Israel; Haifa to get bags, Jerico for some deliveries.  We also traveled to Hebron and Masada for the mad "date-palm-forest" mating ritual along side the Dead Sea.  Then up to the Golan Heights for horse back riding and camping out.  This was long ago and before the current day hostilities.  We enjoyed looking over the BeKaw Valley in the evening.  You could see hundreds of campfires circling the lake.  This was an idyllic vacation.

When I think of this period of my life, I get all excited.  To rationalize the move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and the apartment, for which I paid Sharona rent, I started "working" at the Jerusalem Rand office.  They were a struggling business, but it supported about twenty people doing mostly computer projects.  The Jerusalem Post became my newspaper.  The King David Hotel became my "date" dinner place.  There were bombings going on.  But being there it was more like, "a cable car jumped the track and killed 3 passengers yesterday."  "Okay, we're lucky it wasn't us.  Let's move on."  A pizza parlor I frequented was hit several times while I was in Jerusalem; I figured my Stetson saved me.  I wore it religiously.  It was better than a Red Cross.  I developed a taste for the local dates while food shopping in the old quarter markets.  It was a fresh food that I felt comfortable with and I have never lost the taste for them.  I still believe that I could subsist on Greek olives, Turkish figs, and Israeli lemons and dates.  I got the taste for lemon juice from Yona.  She insisted on a cold shower, hot water was at a great premium in Israel at that time, followed by half a dozen lemons, this all being well before I was awake, but she insisted it was textbook Israeli practice.

After I had been working there in Jerusalem for a few weeks, I established a bond with an American man, a Rand employee, originally from Pennsylvania.  Thinking back, he reminded me of "The Meathead," Archie Bunker's son-in-law from "All In The Family."  He invited me to join his family for a Passover dinner, my first Seder, and it was to be in Jerusalem.  It was our April Fool's Day, a Tuesday. 

I was not a foreigner to religious practices from other cultures.  This meal started around sunset.  Part of the ritual included wine and I hadn't had anything alcoholic to drink for several years, since I had become a born-again vegetarian, after my bout with cancer.  This history created added symbolic meaning to the wine for me.

There was considerable focus on all the pomp and circumstance of each item in the meal.  This was not a gourmet meal, but one where every dish represented a specific meaning.  Okay, I do get carried away with this stuff, but by the time we ended, I was on a spiritual plane.

We talked for hours after the meal about why they had emigrated and why they wanted to remain in Israel.  I walked out of their place at midnight.  As I approached my car, in inky blackness, I watched a shooting star, from overhead, blaze a trail to the South, over Bethlehem, and then disappear.  It was a big one and it spoke to me, but of Christianity.  Maybe all those Jesus stories were true.  I am still moved to tears thinking about it.  I would have converted on the spot if it were possible.  One of the incantations at the Seder is, "Next year in Jerusalem," and here I was, able to do what countless millions of Jews dreamed and prayed about.  I called my "in-process-of-converting" friend back in the States, but Marjorie was at work and couldn't share my revelation.

A few weeks later, Julie told a strange tale of being a Mafia girlfriend in New York for the past decade, after she had emigrated from Australia.  She had just taken a large sum of money.  She bought and packed up a container-load of expensive saleable items, like TVs and washing machines.  Then she immigrated to Israel.  She was always looking over her shoulder for someone to be coming after her.  After several months of a little work, but mostly visiting archaeological sites and meeting people all over Israel, the Israeli Air Force project ended.  When I told Julie I would have to be leaving soon, she threw a plate of food at me.  We were at Aviva's for dinner and everyone else left the room.  I told her it was the hardest decision of my life, but there was nothing for me to do there in Israel.  I said I would be back.

I did come back, in September for Jewish New Year's, Rosh Hashanah, 9/11 - 1980. 

She was living with a man by then.  He turned out to be a wonderful man.  I got along with him well.  He showed me around some places that Julie had never been able to do.  He took me to a Shiva where the young boys go to learn the Torah.  We walked the route that Jesus walked with his cross.  The biggest event was his taking me to the New Year's service at the main temple in Jerusalem.  There was all the formality and ritual of the Catholic Church.  Julie had to watch from the balcony, men only on the main floor.  As with the Passover Seder, I was moved, deeply and strongly.  There seemed to be many good reasons for religion.  They had the eldest man there come forward and speak.  I had no Hebrew, but what was being said transcended language.  I understood this man and I felt a part of this group of men, here to share their thoughts and feelings.  It was like a joyous Baptist meeting.

Another four months passed after I was back in San Francisco.  Then I got the message from the man in Jerusalem.  Julie had been rushed to the hospital in a coma and didn't live through the night.  She’d had a massive brain hemorrhage, dead at 37.  I experienced more sorrow than with my father, sacrilege!  Yes, it totally devastated me.  My father’s death was expected and monitored for the last few weeks through a hospice program.  I still think about my father often, and I play the University of Michigan Fight Song, “Hail to the Victor,” to assuage the pain.  With Julie, it is the pain of a path not taken, a relationship not fulfilled.  There is no pleasant memory of the final decades as there is with my father, and with my past three wives.