The Nation State and the Promised Land: An American Yiddish Writer in Israel, 1949, by Solomon Simon. English translation, 2024, by David R. Forman. All rights reserved.
Page numbers from Medines Yisroel un Erets Yisroel, 1950, Farlag Matones (NY), are included for those who wish to follow along with the original Yiddish, below.
p. 5
I spent eleven weeks and three days in the State of Israel. I did not visit the Knesset. I did not see any government ministers or editors of major newspapers, nor meet with officials in general. I did see young people who held important government posts a few times. But these young people were not well known in the wider world. I met with them, not in their offices but among my friends at their homes where I ate and slept. The young people were children or son-in-laws of my friends.
It was not for lack of opportunity that I didn’t meet with great dignitaries. Twice I was invited without asking. One government minister even invited me to meet with him at home. My wife was dying to see how a Jewish minister lived. But I very politely declined the honor. I purposely did not want to meet with dignitaries. I did not want to be influenced by their authority and prestige.
I did, however, read all of the daily press every day– ten or eleven newspapers a day, besides the weekly and monthly magazines– and I spent time with ordinary people. I believe that opinions expressed by the “kleyne menshelekh”[1] are more important than the opinions of the exceptional few. Especially important are the opinions that are…
p. 6
repeated by all of the ordinary people who by force of numbers comprise the decisive power in a country.
I spent time with ordinary anonymous people packed in buses, on busy streets, in restaurants, in the Kibbutzim, and in Moshavs[2]. I spent long hours on the coaches where the drivers and unemployed people were, in soda-shops in the evenings, and in bookstores during the day. I stood waiting at bus stations, with long lines of men, women and children. I spent days in cemeteries, stopped at children’s playgrounds, and gave up whole evenings to watch youth gatherings. I visited dozens of houses of people in Moshavs, and of simple Jews in the cities, towns and villages of Israel.
I often asked questions that were not particularly tactful. I pressed people to tell me about the smallest details and the most personal matters. Frequently, I was brutally frank and tactless with my critical observations. I did not do it to hurt anyone, but because I wanted to see and hear how the everyday overworked people reacted to my opinions.
Rarely was anyone impolite to me. I was never insulted. But their very direct answers frequently hurt me to the quick, because I saw how far-reaching they were.
I found that certain opinions are accepted among the people without regard to station. If the leaders and the press do not speak them openly, it is merely for tactical reasons. But the seeker can find hints in the speech of the dignitaries and in the writings of the most important journalists.
What is written here is a report of my impressions of the land and of the people. It is not a report concerning important events and political…
p. 7
and economic conditions. I refrain from polemicizing about tactics and avoid critique of temporary difficulties. The great suffering of certain strata are passing things. Here I am speaking of and reporting on fundamental matters, basic principles, that have become the heritage of the people.
The reader should understand that I am intentionally leaving out a lot of things that fill the newspapers. Scandals, disorder, want, economic difficulties, the great pain of the new world, immoral conduct, crime, the black market—these are merely the birth pangs of a young country. Israel has overcome greater difficulties and emerged stronger. For us, what is important is the intrinsic path of the state. Can the State of Israel solve the Jewish Question and the Question of the Jews? Is this current nation-state a continuation of Jewish history or a total break from the Jewish past and the Jewish path in the world? What is the relationship of the State of Israel to the diaspora? How should an American Jew react to this event and to the great accomplishments of the Yishuv?
I will try to provide an answer to these questions, not with speculation and opinions, but by describing what I have seen and felt. Then, let the reader supply the answer himself.
Brooklyn, Cheshvan 5710[3].
[1] The “little people”, or the poor masses, are both celebrated and caricatured in Yiddish literature, notably by both Mendele Moykher Sforim and Sholem Aleichem.
[2] Moshavs. Workers’ cooperatives. Intentional communities that held some collective property but, unlike the Kibbutzim, allowed residents to own their own houses.
[3] Late October – November, 1949
The Nation State and the Promised Land 