I learned to read Hebrew in Winnipeg in the first grade from a Canadian born male librarian. I learned to speak Hebrew from an Israeli woman (born in Czechoslovakia) in the second grade. My third grade and fifth grade Hebrew teachers were Israelis as well.
Israeli students were added to my class in the third and fourth grade.
Before I ever went to Camp Moshava I was sent one Sunday to attend a meeting of Bnei Akiva. A map of tiny Israel was placed on the blackboard. The fact that they spoke Hebrew there did not scare me. But the fact that they only had a few hours of television every day on only one channel I found truly frightening.
In 1964 I attended Camp Moshava for the first time. Singing Hatikva was already familiar to me as was the Israeli flag. Now there were new nuances- kibbutz, a motto of Torah and labor, and the Bnei Akiva (Sons of Akiva) youth group anthem.
“A brotherly hand is extended to you,
O’ beloved youth
Around our flag all of us
Will encamp ourselves.”
I had started reading the newspaper in the aftermath of the JFK assassination. When we moved to Chicago in 66 after the fifth grade the newspaper changed from the Winnipeg Free Press to the Chicago Sun Times.
Soon after Passover of ‘67 saber rattling was heard from the Middle East. The chanting of Psalms now joined the regular prayers as a constant feature. “From the depths we cry to you, o’ Lord.”
On the first Monday in June the war broke out and by Wednesday the political cartoon in one of the papers featured the God of the Jews beating the Arabs. On Thursday the report of the attack on the U.S.S. Liberty interrupted the celebration of my class. On Friday when a report of Nasser’s resignation caused joy from my classmates, I demurred. I was politically sophisticated enough to anticipate that the resignation was just a ploy.
Reading the magazines after the war I discovered the Arab refugee problem. Arab families were shown in a photo crossing the barely usable Allenby Bridge in the direction of Jordan. New refugees were being created and the older refugee problem was for the first time revealed to me.
In the eighth grade debates were one mode of teaching us English and history. My subject was school busing. Among the other topics was the war in Vietnam and the concept of trading land for peace. We got to vote after the debates. The boys class voted against trading land for peace and the girls class voted in favor.
In the ninth grade we moved again this time to Queens New York. In Social Studies class (1969) for extra credit we held a debate regarding what to do regarding the Israeli Arab conflict. My side was in favor of returning territory for peace. Although my partner emphasized the beauty of peace, I emphasized the demographic problem. If Israel held on to the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinians would be 40% of the population by 1990 was the key quote from Time Magazine.
In my sophomore year for Jewish history class (1970) I wrote a report on the Palestinian refugee problem . That was when I first heard of Deir Yassin. I reported various possibilities for what caused the flight of the refugees. I came out in favor of compensation as the cure for the refugee problem, no matter what the cause.
In September of 1970 Palestinian fedayeen (guerillas, terrorists, choose one) hijacked a bunch of airplanes headed out of Israel on one day. I had relatives on the flight that avoided getting hijacked through the maneuvers of the pilot putting the jet into a deep dive in order to throw the hijackers off their feet. My great uncle Favish was interviewed on the national news, “I wasn’t feeling so well and I had just asked the stewardess for an aspirin, when all of a sudden…”
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