The Nation State and the Promised Land

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.

I was walking the streets of Tel-Aviv without any particular purpose or goal. I wanted to soak up the commotion, the noise, the pleasure and sound of this exclusively Jewish city. I counted the cafés, the newspaper kiosks (which also sold magazines and light reading), and the bookstores. I read the posters on the round poles that had been specially installed for the purpose. I looked everywhere for a ‘bar’, as we call them in America, and did not find one. I counted and tallied how many Jews spoke Hebrew, how many spoke Yiddish, and how many other languages.

It was a hot day, but the streets were full and noisy, and I strolled with my hands in my pockets, walking slowly, taking my time and trying not to miss the slightest detail.

Suddenly, I felt a hand on my shoulder and heard a happy voice calling out: “Would you believe it! I was getting ready to go see you in Ra’Anana and here you are! Walking around with you hands in your pockets just like that in Tel-Aviv.”

I turned and saw Chaim from Afikim, the procurer from the kibbutz where I had spent a weekend. I embraced him and asked:

“Why did you want to come to Ra’Anana?”

“Yes, you forgot already,” he gestured,…

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“we agreed in Afikim that you would take back a present for my mother-in-law in America. I bought a Hannukah menorah, a really special one, I tell you. So, I was thinking I would go to Ra’Anana and give you the present. And now, here you are. You have spared me the effort.”

“Where is the menorah?”

“In the Shuk Tnuva (in the market of the cooperative),” he answered. “Come with me and you can see the main produce market and the other wholesale markets. They are actually not as big as your Fulton Street Market in New York. But still, you cannot simply dismiss what we do possess. Meanwhile, you can see the representatives of all the kibbutzim in the Galilee, Jordan Valley and Jezereel Valley. Then, when we are done we can go into a misada, a restaurant, to grab a bite and talk.”

I went with him. Chaim was loaded with packages and bags. He held a long, rubber garden hose under his right arm. Over his shoulder, he had thrown a package of wire wound into a hoop. He held a flat package in his right hand, apparently some kind of fabric, chintz or cotton cloth. He held a large doll under his armpit.

I tried to take one of his packages, but he would not let anything out of his hands.

“No matter, I am used to carrying packages,” he told me.

We came to a street consisting solely of wholesale markets. The largest of them was Tnuva. We went inside. There was a table with a telephone near me. A young, dark black man sat at the table. He greeted Chaim and me, and Chaim joked:

“He is the only Jew here who does not speak Yiddish, and if we want to say something that he does not understand, we should speak Yiddish to each other.”

The young man smiled with a full mouth of white teeth, and said:

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“I meyvin Yiddish now. Not like a goles Yehudi, but meyvin good.”

Chaim gave him a slap on the shoulder:

“You are going to make something of yourself, and speak Yiddish like an American boytchikl.” Then, in Hebrew, “Has the kibbutz phoned?”

“Lo (no),” the young Yemini answered.

“If so, we have it good,” Chaim turned to me. “I have the whole half-day free.”

He went into a corner of the market and set out his bundles. There was a stiff piece of cardboard on each package with the name of the kibbutz. The truck driver who would be driving to the kibbutz that afternoon took the packages.

The representatives of the kibbutzim began to arrive, each of them laden with packages. The young man at the door greeted each one by his first name, and gave many of them instructions from their kibbutzim.

A good number of people gathered together. Chaim took out a small package, and showed the crowd the menorah that he was sending to his mother-in-law in America with this American right here.

It was a truly fine menorah-lamp. I asked Chaim:

“So, tell me. It looks to me like this menorah is worth at least six pounds. A good sum for a present. So, Reb Chaim, where does a kibbutznik get so much money for a present?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“It never ends with you. No matter how much I talked with you in Afikim, you cannot grasp that the kibbutz is not a boss over its workers, that it does not try to squeeze as much as it can out of them, the way an employer does.

“The kibbutz is a family. A family takes care of its members. My wife and I were in America for a full year. My mother-in-law and brothers-in-law provided us with the best of everything. Now we have an opportunity to send them a present. So, we came to the kibbutz, to the committee that deals with such matters, and explained it to them. We got…

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enough money for a lovely present. It is the kibbutz’s responsibility to provide for such things, just as it is responsible to support guests when they come to stay on a kibbutz.

I had some more questions. For example, I was very curious to know if a less important member than Chaim would have gotten six pounds for a present. But I controlled myself, because the group was absorbed in looking at the beautiful menorah, and I did not want to disturb them. A kibbutznik with a large lock of black hair and a pair of big, blue eyes remarked:

“Poor Channukah menorah. It will not hear a blessingover the candles.”

Chaim answered him sharply. “Well look at him! Suddenly he is a holy man, who needs a blessing over Channukah candles.”

People laughed, and began hurrying Chaim up.

“Enough dilly-dallying. Let’s go eat.”

Chaim turned to me as he began packing away the Channukah menorah:

“You are my guest. Come eat with us. The kibbutz will pay.

We went out into the bright outdoors. I stopped on the steps of the wholesale market and watched them walk. Calm, heavy, measured steps. There was no hint of any anxious, urban pace. I walked behind them and listened to their conversation. They spoke about the price of grapes, tomatoes, green peppers and cucumbers. Then they talked about water, about plows, trucks, livestock and chicken coops.

We went past several fine cafés. I was dying to go into a cool, roomy café, but they did not stop until we arrived at a restaurant in a long, narrow space. The large picture window was not covered with any curtain, and it looked hot and stuffy inside. It was a misada sug aleph, a “one-star” restaurant.

The host put three tables together to make one long table and we sat down around it. They looked the menu over thoroughly, talked about each dish, and then ordered…

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the meal. I ordered a sandwich and an iced coffee. A kibbutznik joked:

“Are you trying to save Afikim a few pennies?”

I told them that in America the main meal is eaten in the evening and, anyway, how can anyone eat such a heavy meal in this heat? They laughed.

“It’s fine. Just serve the meal. We can handle it. Do you think our hands are too dainty for such work?”

We ate without talking. When we were done eating, the host came to the table and asked:

“What do you think about dessert?“

The group answered that they were full.

“But it comes with the meal today,” said the host.

“OK, if it’s coming to us, then bring it. We won’t leave it unfinished.”

When the meal was done, the host brought us the bill. Each of them carefully looked it over the numbers on his slip of paper, comparing the prices on the bill to the government prices that were printed on a poster that hung on the wall. After everyone had calculated the bill for himself and determined that there was no mistake, they paid.

The host was distressed. He shook his head and said to them:

“OK, suppose you do not trust me. I am, after all, a capitalist, an exploiter. But at least admit that I have some sense. I know that one doesn’t start up with kibbutzniks. You keep a watchful eye on the whole world. Everyone knows about your conscience.”

One of the kibbutzniks grumbled to himself:

“Someone has to keep watch. I will not hurt anyone to know that the world is not a free-for-all.”

I said good-bye to the group and Chaim and I went off for a walk. We visited old acquaintances from back home, and then late in the afternoon we went out to a café, sat over a cup of tea and talked.

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Before we parted, he asked me, “So, how do you like our kibbutzniks?”

I answered him. “You know, Chaim, our history tells us that in the time of Caligula, shortly before the destruction of the Second Temple, the crazy emperor ordered his procurator in Israel to erect his statue, a marble figure of the emperor, in the Temple. Caligula considered himself to be a God. Peasants from the Galilee and from every corner of the land of Israel headed off to the procurator in Akko [Acre]. Thousands and thousands of peasants left their fields in the middle of harvest time and besieged the Roman delegate’s palace, and they called out:

“Do what you want with us. Kill us all, but do not desecrate the Temple!

“And so, I see, maybe in the not-so-distant future, when it comes to a turning point, you, the Jewish peasants from the Galilee, from the Jordan Valley, and the Jezreel Valley will show yourselves. You will come with your steady tread and immovable calm, and you will not allow an injustice to be done. Like our ancestors, you too will leave your mark on world history. I see the first signs and indicators in the kibbutzim now: You have practically taken on an ascetic lifestyle, or at least a life without luxuries. You have also succeeded as a family of human beings, liberating yourselves to a fair degree from the daily routine of merely providing for your own family. You have placed the people as a whole in the center of your own lives. Now that the people has transformed itself into a nation-state, you want a nation-state that embodies your principles. Ve’al kulem, above all, you have adopted the justice of the prophets. It’s true, in the meantime you are aiming it at yourselves… but still, you have barred exploitation from your economic life. I believe that everything you have done is a consequence of a greater social reform movement. You did not come to the Land of Israel merely to find personal happiness and security; I believe that you wanted even more than to found an independent Jewish state. You came to realize God’s Kingdom on Earth, to bring redemption to the whole world, as our fathers and grandfathers dreamed of in the time of the ingathering of the People Israel.

“Yes,” I did not allow him to interrupt me, “I know that you deny it. You think of yourselves as secularists, as kosher Marxists. But I am telling…

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you, you are fooling yourselves. Your heart does not reveal to your own mouth what it is about. It is a secret from yourself. But your deeds give you away.”

He looked at me intently for a while, then laughed. He answered me:

“If I told people in the kibbutz what you said, they would also laugh at you as a romantic Goles-Yid. But in our hearts we agree with you. If not, then why is the whole business worth the trouble? Wandering the world for two thousand years, and then coming here and going through all the tortures of hell in order to be peasants? But it would be worth all of it to save the world. So, how did you say it? The heart does not reveal itself even to the mouth. You as a guest noticed it right away.”

Chaim and your fellow peasants from the Galilee and the Valley, I hope we are not disappointed by your deeds!