My Israel - Letter to The Editor
Updated: 3 days ago
Raymond Ellis
After reading Professor Gideon Shimoni’s article in the Kaleidoscope Magazine. I am taking up his invitation to others who wish to give their feelings regarding the Israel they envisaged then and where they are at now regarding Israel.
I joined Habonim in the Hashtilim age group in 1959 inKimberley and signed up mentally for Israel at my first Habonim camp at Onrust near Cape Town in 1962. After nearly fifty years in Israel, I can honestly say I didn’t sign up for the Israel I see today. We were taught values at school and at Habonim. At Christian Brothers College Saint Patrick’s in Kimberley all the twelve years there we were taught values and respect for one another. Although I was the only Jew in my class every one of those twelve years, I didn’t feel that I shouldn’t be there or didn’t belong. The Christian Brothers made sure that I was treated equally. They even came to my Barmitzvah and sat in the first row when I was reading from the Torah and singing my Maftir and Haftorah.
At my other school, my Cheder, which was a few hours a week with the Rabbi and his wife learning to read Hebrew and what the Torah and Shul was all about and about Kashrut, there was an aura of respect for one another. My parents taught me about our festivals and my father took me to Shul on Jewish holidays. I didn’t hear Yiddish in my home because only my mother knew the language. My father’s mother was of Moroccan descent. My mother lit the candles on Shabbat and used dishes and cutlery only used on Pesach for that festival when we ate only Matza. That was the respect I learnt for our Jewish traditions.
That respect continued also when I became the Junior Gabbai of the Orthodox Synagogue. The Christian Brothers had an arrangement with the Rabbi that I would be allowed off Saturday school as long as I was at Shul on Saturdays. They checked with the Rabbi to make sure I went to Shul on Saturdays.
Habonim was a wonderful experience and also a strong feeling of belonging to something I believed in, that is the State of Israel. The set up and way of living at Habonim camps were very much like our kibbutz was when I joined the kibbutz. On the last day of every camp there was a big celebration for some of our Madrichim who were making Aliyah after each camp and that had a big impact on me.
My country was also South Africa and I was quite involved with the fabric of society there. I couldn’t come to terms with Apartheid so I decided to become a member of the South African Institute of Race Relations. That organisation was closely monitored by the South African Secret Police. I learned to just stay on the edge and not cross the line which would land me in jail. In that anti-South African government organisation I could interact with all races at a certain level as long as politics was not involved. Also, as joint entertainment was not allowed, I had to be careful with that too. We established some under-the-radar places where we could meet and even listen to music together. We needed to have our people watching and observing the Secret Police and giving us sufficient warning to split when necessary.
My compulsory service in the SADF was a nightmare for me because they were sadists to all people including us. Many years later, I did my compulsory service in the IDF where the atmosphere was different and much more positive and much more normal and they treated everyone the same. My commanding officer was a Druze Arab. Eighty-seven percent of Druze Arabs serve in the IDF, a much larger percentage than Jews. In our Battalion there was the usual mix of Jewish men, Jewish women, Arab men including Muslims, Arab women, and some Haredi men. Usually only about 5% of eligible Haredi men enlisted because their Rabbis refused to allow much larger numbers to enlist. These days there are huge percentages of Jewish women in the IDF but still only about 5% of Haredi men.
The IDF is a great melting pot for Israeli Society. In work places in Israel too, it is a great melting pot of Israeli society. That is all great for Israel, but in recent years Israel has politically moved away from encouraging the melting pot to flourish although it continues even with the incompetent government we have had over the last four years, a government that has disturbed this nice balance and even driven a wedge between the different Jews.
Although Conservative, Reform, Liberal and Progressive Jews are a very high percentage of Jews worldwide this government has shattered the harmony and brotherhood and sisterhood of world Jewry. This government has demonized Israel which has become a country without any vision and with utter disregard for all its citizens and with utter disregard for our fellow Canaanites who reside in Nablus, Jericho, Ramallah, Bethlehem, Tulkarm, Kalkilya, and Gaza.
There is no plan, no end game except to bury Israel’s main problem, hoping it will go away.
Actually, I didn’t come on South African Aliyah because I first wanted to see a bit of the world.
I visited Israel before the Yom Kippur War and I liked what I saw but I wasn’t ready yet to take the plunge and make Israel my home. I left Israel for London, England to have a look around Britain and also Europe. After that trip I knew I wanted to eventually settle in Israel, but first I wanted to have deeper look at Britain and Europe and returned to South Africa. Eventually I bought a return ticket to Europe and I believed I just needed about a month to make up my mind. However, after that month I decided to stay longer and, only after five years in Europe, I finally decided I am going to make Israel my home. The international company in London tried to persuade me to stay with them. They went out of their way to offer me a senior position to make me stay.
Even with all my successes in Britain, my British qualification which placed me on level 7 for salaries (that is Masters Degree level), the book I was asked to write for the British Business Educational Council on the working of the British Economy, in my heart I knew I wanted to be in Israel and make a contribution to Israel.
It wasn’t easy in Israel at first and it is not that easy now. It was hard to find a job because they all said my Hebrew was poor and I hadn’t done my bit yet by serving in the IDF. In order to solve the Hebrew problem, I decided to first sharpen up my Hebrew so I broke from my group of British and South African new immigrants and went to live and work in Bet Shean where no one spoke English. It was a wonderful feeling to become quite fluent in Hebrew.
Now let’s have a look at another aspect of the equation in Israel.
When I discovered the new science of Paleogenomics, which analyses ancient DNA, I felt comfortable in the knowledge that we were always Caananites and just broke away from the other Canaanites about four thousand years ago. Paleogenomics has taught us that even with all the upheavals and wars along the way, one thing hasn’t changed in the area which was Canaan, and that is the DNA of those in Israel, Southern Lebanon, Southern Syria, Western Jordan and the area currently under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority. We were and are now still all Caananites from a DNA point of view. When the second Temple was destroyed and we were barred from being in Jerusalem, we moved to the Galilee and to areas near Haifa. The Sanhedrin moved from Jerusalem to Bet Shearim which is walking distance from our kibbutz. The Mishnah was compiled in Beit Shearim.
There were many other places of learning, like Tiberias and Zippori.
When the Muslims took over the area from the Christians about one thousand five hundred years ago, we were allowed back in Jerusalem. From that period on, some of our ancestors came back to the Holy Land especially from all those Europe countries that expelled us. First, we were expelled from England and only allowed back after about four hundred years. We were expelled from France three times and then followed the expulsions from Spain and Portugal.
Our family did research into our family history on our Sephardi side and our Ashkenazi side. On the Sephardi side were able to trace our history back to a printing press in Oporto in 1492. Our family moved to Morocco after the expulsion from Portugal, then Gibraltar, and then England, and after that to South Africa. In 1497, there was a big Aliyah to the Holyland from Spain
and Portugal and they settled mainly in Safed in the Galilee. The big Aliyahs in modern times started in 1882 when pioneers from all over Europe established several cities in our beloved country.
Our beloved country is only the same size in area as the Kruger National Park or Wales or New Jersey. It is so small that the whole population is affected by our endless wars. Yitshak Rabin, that stalwart of Israeli society, in all his roles saw the reality of where Israel should go and that is why he invited the Palestinian Authority to take over the administration of areas A and B in the West Bank and also Gaza. We cannot be torn apart by war forever. Wars by themselves usually don’t solve problems. Only diplomacy with negotiations and finally written signed agreements solve problems.
We do however have to hold on to most of Area C for our own security because Israel is only nine miles wide from the sea at Netanya to Tulkarm in the Palestinian Authority. The most sensible action to take is to retain that area or most of it and offer a similar size area in the Negev next to southern Gaza as a trade off.
We suffered a major blow on 7th October 2023. We still have not recovered from that attack when more than a thousand Israelis were murdered in one day, many of them kibbutz members who actually assisted the Gazans over the years with medical care in Israel and helped them in as many ways as possible. As a member of a kibbutz that was a major shock for me and even a bigger shock when two members of my family were killed on that day in their kibbutz. Nevertheless, I was very disturbed by the current Israeli government asking at least a million Gazans each time to leave their homes because their buildings were about to be bombed. It was very disturbing seeing those long lines of people on the move with personal belongings. However, there is no doubt that we needed to fight back after the disaster of 7 October 2023. But to keep fighting for two years without any plans for the end game and with loss of life and severe trauma on both sides. Thank God an American President managed to knock some sense into what has become a Prime Minister and a government that has lost all sense of direction and humanity. As a Jew, I found it appalling how the war went on for us Israelis. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis were and still are traumatized and, on the other side in Gaza, there also hundreds of thousands are traumatized by a war that offered no real solution to a lingering problem. We can live in a certain harmony in the country and with our neighbors.
Because the Kibbutz was Socialist for a very long time, I was able to have several professions and types of jobs. It didn’t make any difference what I did financially because very little money was involved. We were all equal financially. In my various jobs inside and outside the kibbutz the kibbutz received our salaries and we were just handed out goods and services and some pocket money. The CEO of companies received the same goods, services, and pocket money as those working in the central kitchen. laundry or milking the cows.
I worked as a Financial Controller. Finance Manager, Overseas Marketing Representative, Business and General English lecturer and teacher for adults, English teacher for children and youth, Assistant Social Worker for Post Trauma soldiers and citizens and Holocaust survivors and general Schizophrenic cases. I was also on Boards of Directors and Finance Committees.
Relative to our conversation, there was a very interesting English class for Rabbis, Imams and Priests who had to take an English class as a salary incentive from the Ministry of the Interior who paid their salaries. In my class everyone was respectful of one another and of me. Another class included only Haredi men drafted into the IDF Computer Division. The IDF required them to study English and, in the class, there was respect for one another and for me. In one job, I shared an office with a Muslim and a Christian who were constantly arguing with one another. I finally managed to teach them to have respect for one another.
We live in hope that a completely new government with solid plans will come to power in Israel this year so all this suffering can come to an end and the Israel I signed onto can again come into being.
