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.
To begin with the Introduction, click here.
p. 23
“It must be understood that this will be the decisive war, a war drenched in blood. Through it, the struggle between Jews and Arabs, which has matured to ripeness over the course of thirty years since the Balfour Declaration, will be decided.”
– Uri Avnery, In the Fields of Philistia: Combat Diary 1948, p. 11.
“On the banks of the Jordan and in Sharon, the Arab armies rest. This land will belong to us, and you will be among the builders.”
–S. Tshernikhovsky, Lullaby, 1897, translated into prose.
“We will go up into the land and we will take it as our inheritance.”
— Fifth principle of the Ten Principles adopted by the ‘Bilutsim’ [members of a student movement for agricultural settlement in Israel, late 19th century Russia].
—————–
I spent about a week in Ra’anana and soaked up the company of my brother, whom I had not seen for thirty-six years. Mind you, I did not sit in the house. There is enough to see in and around Ra’anana. Then, I was very eager to be in Tel-Aviv, but I did not want to stay in a hotel. First, I am not well-informed regarding hotels in general and I do not know how to pick a good hotel and, second, I preferred to stay with an ordinary Jew in his home: To see how he lives, what he eats, where he sleeps and what kind of newspaper he reads, and to familiarize myself with the typical daily life of a Jew in the largest city in Yidn-Land.
On Shabbes, a man from Tel-Aviv visited me, a relative of a friend of mine. My friend had sent him a small present, so he came out…
p. 24
to pick it up and, while he was there, invited me and my family to his house. He told us that he had a large apartment, that he could give us our own room, and that we could stay there as long as we liked. I accepted the invitation.
Later, I was dismayed that I had accepted his invitation. The people here are over-hospitable. Once when I was traveling with four people, I met a friend by chance and we stopped in. I wanted to arrange a time to come see him for a couple of days. But he would not let us go. We had to drink gazoz, a sweet soft drink, then beer, then have a bite to eat. Then the woman of the house made us lunch: a salad, eggs, meat; then, naturally, dessert, which meant cooked fruit or Jello, whichever you wanted; and finally, raw fruits and soft drinks again. Keep in mind that food, other than bread, is very expensive here, and you cannot always get it. You can only get meat twice a week, if that, and only in small amounts. Eggs are just not available—they dole out two eggs a week per person. So you can imagine how we felt. My friend is a teacher. His salary is modest. We ate, and we choked on it. We were sure that he had given us four days worth of food. But saying no did not help.
It was even worse with the man from Tel-Aviv. He had two children and his entire “large” apartment consisted of two and a half rooms for a family of four. He gave up the nicer room to my wife, my daughter and me. Oh well, I thought. We will just stay over here a couple of nights. There’s nothing to be done. I can’t just pick up and leave without an excuse. How do you insult someone like that? Apparently, it was a big apartment to him. But we had to eat there. The food stuck in my throat. I was afraid we were feasting before the fast, that there would not be enough left over for his household. Luckily, he was not as obstinately proud as other Israelis. He accepted gifts. We gave him two packages of food from the certificates we had brought with us, and we left presents for the children. Our consciences were clean – we felt we had more or less paid for our food. Later we found out we had underpaid after all.
p. 25
Still, it was good that we stayed with him. He was a talkative man and the house was always filled with visitors. All of them, each in their own way, extoled the country and told us about the miracles of the recent war. All of Israel is like that: At their first opportunity, every Jew is ready to tell you about the wonders the young people accomplished, about the heroism that the Sabras showed, and about how wild, depraved, and brutal the Arabs are.
This man was no exception. As soon as he felt a little bit comfortable with us, he began talking about the war, in Yiddish of course.
“You see how quiet and peaceful it is in Tel-Aviv now. Taxis ride around looking for customers, women go shopping, and children are playing in the streets. But a year ago it was hell. Bombs fell right here where you are sitting, right under this window. And not just bombs. You think they couldn’t reach here from Jaffa to here with ordinary rifles, too?”
His wife joined in:
“Never trust an Arab. It may seem like he’s your friend. You’ve known him for years. But he’ll stick a knife in your back the first chance he gets.”
“But our Palmachniks[1] gave it to them. The savages will remember us.”
“You can see, it’s a fine and peaceful city, Tel-Aviv. But as long as the Arabs held Jaffa we were in danger. Arab Jaffa was a spear pointed at the heart of Jewish Tel-Aviv.”
“Those who were not living here when those savages were here cannot understand the pleasure of the current tranquility.”
A man who had come by to have a look at the American joined in with the conversation.
“So, we have no meat! We have no butter! There are too few eggs! There’s barely enough milk for the babies! So what? Everything is better than it was at this time last year. We are rid of the English. The Arabs are gone. We are our own bosses, and our lives are secure. What more can we ask for?”
“We have it good and it is going to get even better. We will show the world what we can accomplish.”
p. 26
The man who came to see us chuckled and began:
“Listen to this, it’s a good one. In Jaffa there was an Arab, a businessman, well-known all over the country, a big deal, a ***! So, he ran away. He is sitting in Beirut with his bundle of keys, and he guards those keys like the apple of his eye. He ought to see his granaries, his shops, his house and his great big factory now! There’s not a trace left. The fool thinks that locks could keep us out.”
I didn’t join the conversation or ask questions, but listened and said nothing.
My host continued explaining the situation to me:
“We wanted to reach a compromise with the Arabs all along. They didn’t want to. They felt we had come as invaders. The truth is, we never wanted to take the whole country. We only wanted to settle here. When the English left, the Arabs thought, Now is the time to drive the Jews into the ocean. It was lucky for us. We could openly battle with them. If you want a war, go ahead!”
His wife joined in. “People told them, Run away!”
“Who told them?” I asked.
“The stupid Arab leaders and the English, kept on yelling to the Arabs, Run away! What was their calculation? That it would be easier to drive the Jews into the ocean. And we said, Don’t run, fools, we will not harm you. But they did not listen. So, we thought, Fine. You want to run? Run! We’ll help you. We’ll scare you a little. Let the savages believe that we won’t be any better than they are. And the Etzelniks[2] goaded them with bayonets.”
Now, his son joined in, speaking in Hebrew:
“The Arabs spread a rumor that we had some kind of an atomic bomb. We did not deny it. Let them think so. After “Deir Yassin” they spread a rumor that we had murdered…
p. 27
…women, children and old people[3]. We did not deny it. On the contrary, the Etzelniks bragged about it and threatened more.”
“You and your Etzelniks and Kherutniks[4],” spat out his father. “Big achievers.”
“It helped,” answered his son. “The Arabs comprehend the language of Revisionism a lot better than all your old people’s blather about justice and understanding. Why don’t you go ahead and show our guest how we conquered Jaffa. Let him see. Then he’ll understand for himself why they ran away.”
“You know, that’s an idea. At dusk, when it gets a little cooler, we’ll take a walk from Tel-Aviv to Jaffa.”
**
*
At dusk, the apartment owner took us for a walk. We walked via the beach from Tel-Aviv to Jaffa. The man strolled on the asphalt sidewalks boasting on and on about the beauty of the beach. In fact, it’s something to brag about. The sidewalk is entirely paved and twice the width of the sidewalk at Coney Island, three or four times as wide in places. Fine, bright-colored benches have been installed everywhere. On the side towards land, there are magnificent hotels three and four stories high. The hotels have large, eye-catching patios with cafés for the beachgoers. The sandy beach is clean and tidy, with rows of chairs and umbrellas to block the sun. Here and there the walkway is so broad that there is a café or a flower bed in the middle.
The man talked the whole time, telling us the history of every hotel and building. Take a look at the wall of that brown hotel. Do you see a hole? That’s where a bomb fell and killed an old Jewish woman.
We were approaching Jaffa. My companion grew more talkative:
p. 28
“No Jew could show himself in this area. The savages stood on the roofs of Jaffa and shot and killed people. Nu? Our guys did not take it quietly. But after weeks of exchanging fire, we realized that it could go on like that forever. Our boys and girls came, some Etzelniks, but mostly Palmachniks [regular army], and they thought up something useful: Blow up the bandits’ houses. We did not have any cannons, but we had more than enough dynamite. Hand grenades, too. So, we snuck up to the houses at the risk of our lives, and blew up whole streets. Tel-Aviv was saved. You will soon see.
I saw. At first individual demolished houses, and then whole streets in ruins. There were heaps of cement on both sides of the road. Here and there was a partly collapsed wall, an iron balcony, or stairs from the inside of a house. The street was cleared for automobile traffic, but on both sides were ruins on top of ruins.
“You see this fine piece of work? Lives were sacrificed, but Tel-Aviv was saved. Here, do you see this nice floor made of beautiful colored ceramic tiles? This was the Arab army headquarters. Our boys swam here at night. The only way to get here was through the ocean. They swam up, set up some explosives and – bam – no more building and no more of the bandits’ staff.
We walked a fair number of blocks. Half-intact houses began to appear, occupied by immigrants. I stopped at a house where a man stood over an oven, cooking “falafal”—a kind of food that looks like chopped meat cutlets, but in fact is made from vegetables and spices. He called out his merchandise to the tune of Goldfaden’s operetta, in Yiddish of course:
“Falafel for sale, Jews, sweet as sugar! Melts in your mouth! Spices to treat your nose!”
I spoke to him:
“What kind of work is that for a Jew in Israel? Workers are needed in the fields and on the roadways, and a broad-shouldered man like you has taken up selling falafel!”
He answered me in a fine, rich, Besarabian Yiddish:
p. 29
“I have only been here for six months. I work off the books, building houses. I stayed in the immigrant transit camp for just two months. I don’t like taking welfare. But one has to have a goal. So, I sell falafel in the evening and take in a couple of more piasters. They will come in handy. After all, I came here without shoes, clothing, or household goods; my family naked and without a stick of furniture. There is need and more need. Go ahead, take a look at my apartment, and you’ll see what we need.”
I went into his rooms. There was bed, a pair of crates to sit on, and a barrel covered with a board to use as a table. The walls were half shot out. Half of one wall was newly bricked.
His wife proudly showed me the wall:
“You see this? My husband, may he be well, repaired it himself. He has two golden hands, and no work is too hard for him. He mixed the cement and laid the bricks late at night after work. Here in the corner we’ve scrounged up bedding for our little girl. But life is hard.” She sighed.
My companion who lived in Tel-Aviv blurted out in distress:
“For us, it was harder to live. When we got a tserif (a room slapped together with boards), we were lucky. You have two big rooms. Once you’re set up, you will live like royalty.”
His wife answered:
“Of course we have it better than in the camps. And, thank God, we are in Yidn-Land now. We don’t have to live in fear of the Goyim. But when I remember the years before the war, when we lived like human beings, well, a sigh comes out.”
“No matter, we’re going to have it good!” the man answered. “We have overcome worse problems.”
“Amen,” she answered and went back to her ‘business’. We left them, and went on.
The houses along the road were no longer as ruined. Now, only a window or a door was missing here and there, or maybe half a roof was torn off. But the houses were occupied. Not a room was…
p. 30
empty. There was feverish activity everywhere. Nearly every store had someone hammering nails, installing a door, patching a ceiling, or repairing the sidewalk.
My companion told me, “As soon as the battles were over, people starting schlepping. People dragged over whatever they could find. Afterwards, people began carrying doors and windows. They even tore off roofs.”
The city became more and more lively and the houses more intact. In the center, the city was untouched. Display windows were lit up, the stores decorated, the cafés full and the buses packed. People spoke all sorts of languages, but mostly Yiddish and Hebrew. People were boisterous, yelling, joking, and debating.
We walked on and on. The city bubbled in happy commotion. I said to my companion: “They could have fought and fought. It could have taken months to clear the streets.”
“That is actually the miracle,” he answered.
We rode back. The bus was packed with young people singing and teasing each other. I sat on the back seat with my eyes closed, thinking:
We took a country and conquered it by force. The enemy ran away. And, right then, a passage came to mind. In Israel, scriptural passages are often on the tip of the tongue. I remembered a verse from Deuteronomy:
God will deliver to you the enemy who opposes you. They will be driven from you. They will come against you from one direction and will scatter from you in seven directions. [Deut 28:7]
It was good and dark when we got back to Tel-Aviv. The streets were lit and filled with the happy populace. I got out of the bus. Children were singing and dancing in an empty lot.
If you have not seen Jewish children dancing on the streets of Israel you have not seen happiness. Their dance was rhythmic and organized, and the singing was powerful and harmonious. The children stood in a…
p. 31
…circle and sang and clapped their hands. A boy and a girl waltzed into the middle of the circle. After a while the boy danced away from the girl and touched a girl who stood singing. They danced for a while, and the girl picked out a new boy. So, the dancers traded off until every child had danced.
Again, a verse landed in my mouth, this time from Zachariah [8:5]:
And the streets of the city will be full of girls and boys, playing out in the streets.
I looked at the children and thought with terror, It could have gone the other way!
After getting used to the tune, I began to pick out the words. The children were singing a war song:
“Go out and see, daughters, soldiers are in the settlement! Go out, go out and see, daughters, every brave boy is a soldier!”
I thought some more. Jewish children are singing war songs again, just as in the time of Saul. Back to the sword! Can we deny the last couple of thousand years and return to those olden days? We, the bearers of justice, righteousness and compassion; can we go back to that condition and once again be among those whom people can bring complaints against and demands for damages?
Apparently I had voiced my thoughts out loud, because I heard my companion answer me:
“No matter. We don’t always need to be the ones who have cause for complaint against the world. Let them have complaints against us once in a while.”
That night I read Uri Avneri’s book On the Fields of Philistia, which is written in the style of a war journal. He, like all the young people of Israel, understood the logic of the war, but he made a mistake when he said that the war began soon after the Balfour Declaration. The war began a lot earlier than that, with the arrival of the Bilu׳im [in the 1880s], and maybe even earlier.
The Jews have won this war, and they have set out onto a new path, the path of all the nations of the world.
Few of us grasp this. Even fewer want to admit it. But it is important for us to take in and understand.
[1]Palmach– “The elite fighting force of the Haganah, the underground army of the Yishuv [Jewish community] during the period of the British Mandate for Palestine.” –Wikipedia
[2] Etzel [also called Irgun] An extreme paramilitary group that separated from the Haganah, itself a paramilitary group that would later become the Israeli army.
[3] [translator’s note: In fact, they had.]
[4] Herut. The political arm of the Etzel/Irgun.
The Nation State and the Promised Land 