The Masada Faktor (4 page)

CHAPTER FIVE

I
tried to power up the laptop but it wouldn’t work. It was new, purchased immediately before leaving the United States. I phoned the manufacturer’s help line to find out about service. I was assured that my laptop would be picked up by a messenger service and promptly fixed, not knowing then that I’d be without a computer for two months in Haifa.

I didn’t know what I was in for and due to my stubbornness of wanting the laptop fixed under the warranty, I didn’t expect to have to buy a new one. It was a living hell not having my laptop, the main tool that I needed.

It became more important than ever to document my travels with photographs. I told myself that I would forget details, and if I could refer back to photos then at least I’d be able to refresh my memory. I snapped endless photos with my camera, which I had dropped prior to leaving California for Israel, breaking the viewing screen. I would need a few SIM cards due to not being able to do a nightly download to a computer.

My spiral notebook began to get filled up with notes. I needed to guard this notebook with my life. No electronic backups, at least for the time being.

One night soon after, I heard gunfire. I was on edge anyway, thinking that someone had been in my home. Well, I thought it was guns. It turned out to be firecrackers.

I knew that I had moved into a mixed Arab and Jewish neighborhood but wasn’t exactly familiar with the practice of Arab celebrations. Every happy day involved gunfire, firecrackers, or fireworks of some sort. It was unnerving for me.

When I asked the other expatriates that I knew in town, they just shrugged it off. When in Rome? I didn’t like it. After all, what goes up must come down.

I was hanging out on Masada Street a lot. I would put my laundry in at the hip Washomatic, then drink coffee or beer at the trendy Arabic Elika Café and groove to the interesting Middle Eastern music that gave the place a beat. Coming home I didn’t want to happen upon an Arab celebration as I was getting back to Gid’on Street after dark.

At about the same time I noticed all the foot traffic at my next door neighbor’s house. They were Arabs and seemed religious and friendly enough, having a lot of family gatherings.

An older man, possibly the grandfather, was coming over to their place every day. I saw that he was always digging in the large steel garbage container on the street. I started thinking of him as the dumpster diver. It is no wonder that he often wore a neck brace. Was I surprised to see him driving a brand new BMW? Slightly.

I started dumping my garbage late at night so that he couldn’t go through the intimate details of my life. Luckily, in Israel the garbage trucks come every day, excluding
Shabbat
.

But the most intriguing thing on this street wasn’t the dumpster diver. It was the big house up on the hill, across the street from me. A
beware of dog
sign in Hebrew on the wrought iron gate warned you but during the day you didn’t see the dog.

It was at night that I became aware of him. The sound of that dog’s vicious barking echoed through my place as if it was a gigantic beast. And when he started you just knew that it’d continue and the ear plugs had to be inserted.

I was told by a Jewish Israeli friend, a Haifa native, that the house belonged to the Gid’on family, a very wealthy Arab Christian clan who had some sort of power or authority in this section of Hadar for many years.

The street in English is Gideon, in Hebrew
Gid’on,
and in Arabic pronounced with a J sound. My friend told me that the woman of the house died in recent years quite unexpectedly under suspicious circumstances.

Since jackals and wild pigs are known to roam the streets and valleys in Haifa and the surrounding areas, the guard dog from the house on the hill was probably barking at them, too.

Pedestrians using Gid’on Street as a thoroughfare to Masada Street also made some noise. The ones that were drunk woke me up at night, or caused car alarms to go off. I could hear animals baying, crying, mating or they could be human. At night my imagination could go crazy.

In 1948 when the British left Israel, there were some battles going on right on the streets of Hadar and the stories evoked in me what it might have felt like living in Haifa then. I had read that there was a particularly bloody battle right on Gid’on Street.

Perhaps what I was hearing were ghosts. Haifa’s past and my destiny howled in the night.

CHAPTER SIX

I
was interested in writing a book and thought that Mother’s conspiracy might make the basis of it. I was telling anyone that asked why I was here that I was writing a book. I always said that I was a Zionist but it was never enough of an explanation for Israelis. But I wasn’t speaking about Mother’s request.

If I told the truth, that my dying mother asked me to stop the annihilation of the Jews on the seventieth anniversary of the end of World War II, what would they think? Not that I gave a damn what anyone thought of me at this point but I didn’t want to land in a padded cell.

Maybe the lie had become the truth. If I couldn’t find a conspiracy, the least I could do was try to write a book. This would give my wanderings a purpose. And isn’t a purpose what I was conditioned for? Born for? Yes, a purpose was what I needed.

I became tired of
Ulpan
. The teacher seemed to be pandering to the Russian students. Half the time I didn’t know if the words were Hebrew or Russian. I became distracted and lazy in my homework.

My friendship with Monique seemed to be a little strained. I wasn’t sure if it was due to our experimentation or if she was worried about her fiancé finding out.

We hadn’t talked about what happened between us, but when our eyes met, the connection between us was still definitely there. At least I thought so. She said she was very busy and would tell me later what she was up to. We didn’t go to the beach again.

I kept busy, too, looking for household items and furniture. There was a good flea market once a week down by the end of the vegetable
Shuk
and I was able to pick up some stuff. Also, people were always throwing out usable furniture on the street, and I wasn’t the only one who went looking before the garbage men picked up.

I was interested in the ruined architecture and the coastline. I wandered the streets every day, although the hills were starting to affect my knees. And the grocery shopping was not easy. I bought a shopping bag on wheels which helped, but the shortest route going to and from the grocery was disgusting. It looked like the insides of humans and animals had been regurgitated on the streets. Haifa was not as clean as Tel Aviv, not from what I had seen.

I still had no luck powering up my laptop and then the computer manufacturer had it picked up via a delivery service, but had not returned it. Many phone calls and complaints later I learned that a computer shop in Tel Aviv had it. I went running to Tel Aviv to see about my machine.

I took the train from HaShmona Station next to Haifa Port to Tel Aviv University Station and walked to the address of the shop. It was a good thing that I went as the people there had the laptop but they were waiting for a part to be shipped from Germany which was expected any day.

The girl at the desk promised to phone me as soon as the laptop was ready to be shipped back to me. I wanted to pick it up, not have it delivered. I was already without the computer going on three weeks, at that point. And why did the part have to come from Germany?

I went back to Haifa feeling disgruntled. I hadn’t reported that my place was broken into as I wasn’t sure that it had been, although if not, what could explain my laptop being on the floor and broken?

Lost in thought in the crowded train, a big guy with a large cardboard box balanced on one shoulder was coming through yelling in a booming voice, “
Bagela, Bagela, Bagela
” and I guessed that he was selling bagels except they were huge and looked more like pretzels. People were buying up what he had, even though his hands were dirty.

CHAPTER SEVEN

I
continually asked myself what the hell I was doing but had no answers. Merely following my instincts, I told myself, and if I found some answers to Mother’s mysterious last wish, then I’d include it in the book that I supposedly came to Israel to write.

Something strange was happening to me in the Holy Land. Someone or something had a plan for me, I just knew it. Even though I wanted to be in control of my destiny, I sensed a power greater than myself. I tried very hard to adapt to the popular Hebrew saying,
hacol beseder
, everything will be all right.

My other new friends in Haifa were a bit quirky as I am sure I was to them. I was bored when I hung out with them and felt that I was wasting time. I wanted to be alone with my thoughts and my camera. I just walked alone and fantasized about what the conspiracy meant. My thoughts began to take shape as I started to believe that there could be some truth to it.

It was especially quiet on Saturdays as typical of
Shabbat
anywhere in Israel. I was told the buses ran on Saturday but it could be a long wait at bus stops. I wandered endlessly, looking and thinking. Were the terrorists holed up in abandoned stone buildings? Did they use low tech means to communicate such as carrier pigeons?

Would I stumble upon evidence of the conspiracy while shooting architectural and scenic photographs? I had no idea. All I could do was keep moving. It was quiet, and I was living day to day.

During the week I often walked passed the Hadar Nursing Home on Herziliya Street. Each day I saw the elders lined up in wheelchairs on the veranda, called
mirpesset,
in Hebrew. One very old woman was always dressed up like a queen or princess with full make up, including magenta colored lipstick. Her dyed platinum hair was always done perfectly.

One morning I was compelled to stop and say hello to her. Surprised to hear her answer in perfect English, I asked her if I could come visit her in the afternoon. She agreed and that day I returned. I didn’t know what I’d discuss with her.

When I returned she had already been taken back inside the home and was waiting for me in the salon where it was cool. She offered to have coffee and cookies brought to us and I accepted.

I introduced myself as Natasha, a new immigrant,
Oleh Hadesha
. She introduced herself as Adriana and said she was originally from Romania and she had learned English in school before immigrating to Israel.

Adriana told me she had been lucky to have relatives here in Haifa, descendants of the first European Jews that had arrived in the 19
th
century from Romania. At that time, the Central Jewish Colonization Society of Romania had bought approximately 1,000 acres near Haifa.

As our coffee and cookies were served by a kind nursing home employee, Adriana went on to explain, in a clear and precise manner, “In 1941, I had been deported to Transnistria in the Ukraine, with my family, earlier in the year. This place was 16,000 square miles, the largest area designated for killing Jews in the entire war.”

As I stared into her eyes I felt transported into the past with her as she continued to reveal her story to me. “Please go on Adriana.”

“And during 1941, half of the Jews that lived in Bessarabia, Bukovina, and Dorohoi District of Old Romania were butchered by Germans and Romanians. Almost 200,000 were dead, murdered in horrible ways. We, in the towns, were already in ghettos and were trying to figure out how to avoid the mobile killing squads that we knew were murdering all the Jews in the countryside.”

“It was around December of 1942 when our government in Romania let us know that we had the right to emigrate to Palestine. And then I was lucky, as a fourteen year old girl, to get on one of the boats with my family that left Romania.”

“They got 13,000 of us out of German hands. And soon after we left, we found out that they had stopped allowing the Jews to leave. And two out of the thirteen boats sank on the way! Over 1,000 Jews drowned!”

“It was a miracle that we got out. And another miracle that we made it to Palestine.” Adriana was getting visibly upset, as a tear flowed down one cheek.

I decided to change the subject and started asking about her life in Israel and her family. She told me of a happy life living in the Jewish homeland raising a large family. There were many problems and terrorist attacks.

“Are you tired Adriana? May I visit again?” I asked.

“Of course you may visit again. But before you go Natasha, in case I am not here, I want to tell you what really happened in 1948 in Haifa.” Adriana seemed intent on telling me more.

“What do you mean, in case you are not here?” I knew what she meant but at that point I couldn’t bear to think of Adriana dying.

“I am a very old woman, and I feel the end is near. I want to tell you something now, before you go. You must know that Golda Meir was my friend. After the Battle of Haifa, she came here on that day in April in 1948 when the Arabs began to run away. I was with her when she stood on the beach for hours begging them not to go. At that point the Haganah was in control of Haifa and the Arabs were running because their leaders had convinced them not to stay.”

“The British brought many, many transport trucks to take them away. We had the loud speakers mounted on vans and the leaflets dropped by the Jewish Workers’ Council, printed in Arabic and Hebrew, which were released in the Arab sections to tell them not to be afraid.”

“We wanted to prove that we could live with them together. But they were frightened. They were pressured and brainwashed by their leaders. Also, they went on boats.”

“We were under direct orders from Ben Gurion to see that the Arabs that stayed in Haifa were well treated. It was a disaster how the Arab leaders tricked their people into leaving. They used them for propaganda purposes.”

“Thank you very much, Adriana,
Todah Raba
.” I hugged her very tightly and a little bit too long. She was warm and smelled sweet and I didn’t want to leave. She kissed me, leaving a little magenta lipstick mark on my cheek that I didn’t notice till later in the day.

Preoccupied with my thoughts, I walked over to Herzl Street where there was a large concentration of Russians. The Russian shop women wore garish make-up, outlandish outfits. They stood outside their stores chain smoking. They looked like hookers. Some wore crucifix necklaces, I wondered if they were Jewish.

Over three million Russian and former Soviet Union people immigrated to Israel since 1948. Not all of them are Jewish.
Aliyah,
which means ascending, the term used for immigrating to Israel, requires that one grandparent must be Jewish or you must be married to someone with one Jewish grandparent. What is strange about this definition is that it was Hitler’s Nuremberg Law definition, also. According to Orthodox Jews, being Jewish is determined by your matrilineal line.

Herzl Street has an abundance of cheap clothing stores and shops with products that former Russians enjoy, enough shoe stores to shoe the entire population of Israel, and deterioration everywhere. I saw a few junkies hanging out in bus stop shelters. What had the area looked like before all the Jews moved up the hill to Mount Carmel?

The religious Jewish neighborhood began at the east end of Herzl Street near the Great Synagogue and many young mothers were walking baby strollers and were thronged by the rest of their older children. Fabric and sewing machine stores abound in Haifa, as all over Israel textiles have always thrived.

Haifa sometimes felt like what I imagined Eastern Europe would look like a long time ago. Ah, the smells of Hadar: fish rotting, sewage, garbage, and cigarette smoke. The sounds and the filth permeates as you walk up and down certain streets in Haifa. But then there was undeniable charm in between the dirt.

I entered a Judaica store to look for a
mezuzah
as I needed to put one on my doorpost to fulfil the commandment to keep God’s presence and commandments in my home. I couldn’t decide which case I wanted and the price of the scroll to put inside was too expensive. The old man seemed amused by me.

“Would you take a little less for both the
mezuzah
and the scroll?” My bargaining skills weren’t so good at that time.

“No,” the old man said with a somewhat snide, crooked smile. “This is a very
special
mezuzah.
Don’t you want to take a special
mezuzah
home to America?”

“I am Israeli,” I protested. “Can I please have a discount for being
Oleh Hadesha
?” I had been told by more than one person that some merchants would give a price reduction for new immigrants.

“We were all
Oleh Hadesha
at one time,” he was trying to be funny. “Do you think anyone gave us a price cut?”

“I don’t know about that. I will come again another time,” and I left the shop to continue my sauntering toward the Arab section.

I did love to walk through Wadi Nisnas, a short way down the steps from my place and which I considered the best Arab neighborhood for coffee and spices. The richest and cheapest ground coffee was one where the owner would always throw in some cardamom for free. That was an acquired taste, and I’d ask for mine on the side so that I could use the tiniest bit in my brew.

I had been warned not to shop in the further eastern Arab neighborhoods. I shopped mostly at Russian groceries avoiding the meat department.