Being a Zionist in Zionsville

My Israel

                                                                                                       January 1993

Dear GUCI Staff:


Twenty-four years ago this month I began a short, but illustrious career as a schoolteacher in an inner city Chicago school.  I had just graduated from the University of Illinois and faced the jungles of either Vietnam or Chicago.  I taught (refereed, de-armed, self-protected etc.) and learned to love some of the poorest Black and Hispanic and Greek kids on Chicago’s West Side.  Emmet School, once almost completely Jewish, now a crockpot of minorities, was a typical three-story, red brick, Chicago elementary school, K through 8.  I taught everything from Kindergarten to Library to Gym to eighth grade and used every camp technique I could possibly conjure up.  It was an experience!  In any event, I left in June for camp (the Oconomowoc, Wisconsin variety) and this is where my story really begins.

That summer of 1969 I was both a Unit Head and Waterfront Director; we often had to double up on jobs in those days as we were always short staffed.  I didn’t care about doing two jobs.  If there had been 30 hours in a day, I would have worked 25 of them for camp and been happy as a pig in ----.  This was the summer before Jerry Kaye, the present Director of Olin-Sang-Ruby, came on to the picture.  Rabbi Allan Smith was the acting Director.  That was the summer that I decided to become a camp director, and based on that thought Smitty convinced me to go and study in Israel at Machon Hayim Greenberg at the end of camp.  Incorrectly thinking that my teaching contract would not be renewed, I went.  Three days after saying “Yes” I was on a Greyhound bus bound for NYC and a date with El Al.  What freedom! 

That year in Israel was the start of many things for me.  I learned a lot of Hebrew, began a love/not-love relationship with the land of our ancestors, and met a Brazilian girl named Juelci Zeltzer – the infamous Juca.  We were young, Israel was young, and it was a hell of a year.  I also had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.  I spent an afternoon with David Ben Gurion, on his kibbutz, Sde Boker.  We drank coffee together (he drank tea) and talked about Israel and Aliyah.  I never understood why he smiled so when I told him I was from Chicago, some warm memory came to his mind, I guess. 

 I returned in June, an engaged man, about to become the Assistant Director of Olin-Sang-Ruby Union Institute, on my way to family and career.

Three years later, Juca and I spent another year in Israel, this time as a rabbinic student studying at the Hebrew Union College.  We once again returned in June, went straight to camp for the summer, and anticipated another monumental adventure; Juca was six months pregnant.  Jeremy made his debut in Cincinnati the following October, during the Yom Kippur war. 

Since those days I’ve been to Israel two more times.  In December 1979 I led a group of 36 college kids on a one-month trip of touring and kibbutz living.  Jim Bennett and Joel Block were first year HUC students that year and we spent much time together.  My last time in Israel was in 1987, for just a week to interview Israelis for our camps’ staffs.  Sandford was a first year rabbinic student then and hosted me around the city of Jerusalem.

In all these years, Jerusalem has had its own particular kind of tug at my heart.  So many important events in my life and so many important people in my life are intimately connected with the times I spent there.  Why am I telling you all this?  Well tomorrow I embark on a ten day UAHC staff trip to Israel, and I am filled with feelings of nostalgia, excitement, and anticipation.  I feel like I am going home, but to a strange place, if you can understand that.  My first time there I turned 24, this time I’ll celebrate number 47.  Then I was a kid, now I’m not.  But still, I feel a rush, a sense of butterflies, an anticipation of the familiar and unknown all rolled up in one.  It’s about the way I feel each year in the beginning of June, as I approach another camp season.  I’m going back to the future to touch base with my identity.  It is sure to be an exhausting and emotional trip.  I’ll be traveling with Josh Bennett, Jim’s younger brother.  That somehow seems most appropriate to me.

I wish you all the best for a wonderful 1993.  I’ll let you know how the hummus is on Rehov Ben Yehudah.

Ron

Israel = Family

                                                                                                              

                               
                                                                                         January, 1990


Dear G.U.C.I. Staff:

As you may know I recently returned from the annual meeting of the Union of
American Hebrew Congregations' Youth Division.  It is always exciting to get
together with the forty or so people who are responsible for all of our
U.A.H.C. Camp Institutes, N.F.T.Y., the College Education Department, and The
International Education Department.  These are forty dedicated, creative, and
energetic people who love what they do, and are devoted to our kids and the
Reform Movement.  Each year these meetings recharge my batteries and help me
feel more a part of a national movement staff.

One of the programs in which we participated consisted of a panel of Israelis
and American Israelis discussing and answering questions about the current
state of affairs in Israel.  It was a great debate presenting many sides to the
Palestinian conflict.  But a most disturbing realization came to light.  No
position offered an acceptable solution.  There seem to be no clear answers. 
The Israelis are completely divided on the issues, and many have lost faith in
their own government.  As American Jews, hearing how divided Israelis are on
the issues only adds to the uncertainties already implanted in our minds by the
media coverage and world criticism of Israel.  We cringe when we hear Israel
likened to South Africa, feel an erosion of pride when we think of Israel as
conquerors rather than victorious underdogs.  These are indeed very difficult
times.

For me, the most signicant moment during this program occured when one of our
N.F.T.Y. staff members asked a non-political question.  She asked, "Given the
uncertainties and doubts we all have about Israel, how do we teach Israel to
our kids?"  I think the implied question is, are we being hypocrites if we
teach our kids to love Israel in light of our own personal doubts?  For me the
answer is a resounding NO. Without denying the state of turmoil that now exists
in Israel, without burying our heads in the sand and closing our eyes to the
violence and hatred exhibited by Palestinians and Israelis alike, we must stand
by our committment to Israel.  We must remember the feelings of friendship we
have with those Israelis we have come to know and love here at camp over the
years.  Iti, Sharon, Sigal, Yigal, Roni, Ari, aren't just Israeli names, they
are people who have had a profound influence on various G.U.C.I. staffs; people
we have worked with and formed relationships with.  They represent our Israeli
family.  And as in our own immediate families, Israel, for better or for worse,
is a part of us.

The problems Israel faces today do not diminish its magnificent history, both
ancient and modern.  The Palestinian crisis does nothing to lessen the
centuries-old longing our people have felt for a homeland, nor does it diminish
the realization of that dream in Eretz Yisrael.  When we teach Israel we must
explore her modern-day traumas, but in the context of all that Israel has been
and remains to be in the unfolding story of the Jewish People.

I vividly remember running from police teargas bombs in an anti-war
demonstration in 1968 in Madison, Wisconsin.  The counter protesters chanted at
us, "America, love it or leave it!"  We believed with all our hearts, "America,
love it and change it!"  Although we may not like what we see and hear about
Israel, the bottom line is we cannot stop loving it.  Israel is family.
That's the way I see it.

Ron