Fields of Exile. Nora Gold
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Israel. The summer she was twelve she went to a Zionist summer camp, and after that she never felt that loneliness again. She was part of something larger than herself. Her life had meaning and purpose. But not in just a dutiful way. Rather in the way that life has meaning and purpose when you’re in love. She fell in love with Israel. With its soul, but also — a few years later, on her first visit — with its body. She loved this country’s red earth, its mountain-deserts, streams, forests, birds, fish, and flowers. She loved the star-studded night sky, with its sliver of moon lying horizontally on the bottom like a cradle, instead of standing vertically, like in Canada. She even loved the air in Israel and the water — including the salt-heavy water of the Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth. In Canada she’d always found geography and history boring, scoring low on her high-school leaving exams in both these subjects. But in Israel she was fascinated by every mountain range, by every excavated tell or Biblical battlefield. Because it was hers. It was about her people, and it told the story of what had happened to them, and therefore to her.
One morning, on one of the many nature-and-archaeology trips she took with the Israeli Nature Protection Society, she awakened in her sleeping bag on the cold desert sand near Timna, the location of King Solomon’s mines, and also a modern reconstruction of the Israelites’ tabernacle during their forty-year desert journey. Everyone else in the group was still asleep, their sleeping bags dotting the desert floor like multicoloured rocks, and she watched the mountains gradually turn visible in the early morning light, until the whole valley was bathed in a strange grey-yellow haze. Nothing else seemed awake, or even alive, except her and an ibex, its horn arced backwards, staring at her. She followed it. After ten minutes, she abruptly stopped walking. The sun, a brilliant orange, illuminated the mountain before her, making it radiate in the sun, and the whole world was perfectly silent and still. Suspended, as if waiting for something. Feeling rather foolish, she said, “I promise.” She didn’t know exactly what she was promising, she couldn’t have articulated it if you’d asked her. But she had promised herself to this land.
Of course, she’s never told anyone about this. It would have sounded too corny — ridiculous even. Who wouldn’t laugh at a too-earnest pretty young woman swearing herself to a desert at dawn? No one, she thinks now as she drives. But from that point on, her life — as if with a will of its own — bent in a new direction. That glowing throbbing orange of a vow sat in the centre of her like a hot coal she had swallowed, burning and transforming her all the way down. Nothing mattered to her anymore except taking her place in Jewish history and on Jewish geography. Coincidentally, her cousin wrote her around then that history and geography were now being taught together in Canadian high schools under the heading Social Sciences, which felt exactly right to Judith. All she wanted to do at this point was to help realize the Zionist dream. To come home again after two thousand years of exile — of galut, which she noticed laughingly back then, rhymed with dissolute and pollute. To rebuild the land, and on it to reunite all the Jews scattered and in exile from every corner of the globe. As soon as she knew this was what she wanted, she found herself in a circle of young people like herself — Zionist dreamers, new immigrants from everywhere: the United States, England, Australia, Argentina, Chile, Russia, France, Switzerland, Italy, Finland, Holland, Algeria, Morocco, India, Ethiopia, even China. She learned scraps of a dozen new languages, heard music and tasted foods she’d never encountered in Canada. It’s ironic, she wrote then to her father, newly a widower. I was afraid living in a Jewish state would seem culturally narrow and parochial after Canada. But here I’m for the first time living a truly multicultural life.
She swerves — something dark and furry darted onto the highway — a cat? a groundhog? — and she’s missed running over it by mere inches. Lucky there were no cars near her on the road. She looks around and gets her bearings: she’s only about fifteen minutes away from Bobby’s house. The traffic is thickening again now, but so far so good. That’s Bruria’s expression, “so far so good,” and Judith smiles thinking of her. But quickly the smile fades. Yesterday she got a long email from Bruria, and things in Israel are terrible now. Economically, politically, every way. At least, though, all their mutual friends are okay — “okay” meaning none of them were hurt in the latest suicide bombing three days ago at a café where some of them hang out. Five people were blown to bits and eight more lost arms, legs, parts of their faces. But her friends, who that day chose to meet elsewhere, were mercifully untouched.
Bruria’s email also gave Judith an update on their friends. Yechiel and Miri, she wrote, are doing all right, still demonstrating against the occupation every Friday afternoon in front of the prime minister’s residence, as Judith sometimes used to do with them. Usually they’d get a turnout of about forty people, but last week there were just fifteen because of the nearby bombing that morning. Still, that’s not too bad, wrote Bruria, for a moribund peace movement gasping its final breaths. Rina and Michel were there, too, and so was Yaacov, who’s starting his Ph.D. in archaeology next month, and is excited but nervous. Sammy didn’t come — he had pneumonia but is feeling better now. Then on Saturday Tamar and Benny went with some friends in their broken-down van to visit a Palestinian family whose house had been demolished by the army, to help them rebuild it. Yonina usually goes with them, but this time she declined. She’s fed up with politics, and says she doesn’t believe anymore that these little gestures make any difference. Besides, she’s working very hard — her art show opens in two weeks at the Artists’ House. Miki, Bruria’s brother, has started going out with Miri’s neighbour’s sister-in-law, Hedva. They came for cake and coffee on Saturday — she’s nice, and the two of them seem to get along well. “So far so good.”
Last but not least, Bruria writes, Noah has just finished his first six weeks of army service. Judith remembers the first time she met Noah. He was home from school with a fever, and Bruria, whom she’d met only a few months before, was spoon-feeding him warm milk with honey. He was an angelic-looking seven-year-old with silky blond curls, blue eyes, round flushed cheeks, and a heart-shaped mouth. More recently, for the two years before he went into the army, Noah was head of Youth for Peace Now, Jerusalem branch. About six months ago he had his four seconds of fame on CNN: they filmed him at a peace rally, holding a huge placard saying in English, Hebrew, and Arabic: END THE OCCUPATION — NOW! Now, though, he’s in the Tank Corps in the occupied territories — terrified of being shot at, and only slightly less terrified of shooting at others. Bruria wrote that a few weeks ago, on his first day on patrol, Noah was confronted by a group of what the Canadian media calls Palestinian “children,” but in fact were teenage boys his own age, some just a year or two younger than him — sixteen or seventeen. They were throwing rocks and rusty metal pipes at him and his friend Doron, and they were both terrified, but Doron actually shat his pants. When Noah came home a few days later for Shabbat, he just locked himself in his room and wouldn’t come out. The next day he joined them for lunch, but hardly said a word. Now, after a few weeks, he seems to be getting used to it.
But what does that mean,“getting used to it”? wrote Bruria. Getting used to being shot at, and to shooting other people? This is insane. Aside from all the obvious things, which I won’t — can’t — even name, I worry about what this is doing to him inside. To his heart and soul.
Anyway, she concluded her email, we hope for the best. Shana tova, Judith — a good, sweet year. I hope it’s much better than the last one for you, and for all of Israel. Love, Bruria
Music is blaring in the car. Judith forgot the tape was even on — it just drifted into background music. But now she hears “Hallelujah,” the song that made Israel the winner of the Eurovision song competition in 1979. Back then, when the Europeans still liked us.
Again the traffic has stopped moving. This sure is Canada, she thinks: everyone just sitting in their stalled cars in polite silence. If this were Israel, there’d be dozens of horns honking, louder than a hundred Canada geese. She gives a tiny honk, just something symbolic, which doesn’t make any difference to the traffic, but makes her feel better. The traffic begins moving, and soon she arrives at Bobby’s house. He’s standing on the porch, suntanned and handsome in a golf shirt, neatly pressed shorts with two perfect creases, and deck shoes. A bit preppy for her taste, but she can’t help noticing how good-looking he is: she always forgets this when they’re apart.
“Sorry I’m late,” she says,