“You have to start from the beginning. And the beginning of everything is courage,” the French philosopher wrote Vladimir Jankelevitch (1903-1985) in ‘The Study of Virtue’ (1949). Well, 1949.
Almost a year has passed since May 14, 1948, when the State of Israel was declared in Tel Aviv and my uncle set off. Bernardo EkaizerBorn in Warsaw, he spent his childhood and adolescence in Argentina and decided to ‘allyá’ (literally climb there or return there) to Israel, the so-called migration of diaspora Jews. He aims to study medicine at the University of Jerusalem. And as soon as he arrived, he signed up with the IDF, which stands for Israel Defense Forces. A few months later, my parents welcomed a baby into the world in February 1949. This is mine.
My father, Israel Ekaizer‘Srul’ in Yiddish, the eldest of six siblings, three boys and three girls, a man who has been a Zionist-socialist since his adolescence. He came to Argentina in the early 1930s from Warsaw during the Marshal’s dictatorship. pilsudski (1926-1935).
Around December 1949, the Israel National Housing Corporation – Amidar – gave my family a house in a small neighborhood called Ramat Itzhak, in what was then the Ramat Gan suburb of Tel Aviv. A modest, small, two-storey house known as ‘shikunim’ (dwellings or dwellings). Built of Jerusalem stone, these cheap houses housed huge waves of working and middle-class people from North Africa and everywhere else in the 1950s.
Father and mother, TeresaThey established their leather workshop in Shikun Amidar. This is apparently my mother’s preferred alternative to living on the kibbutz, the mushrooming Israeli agricultural commune that was the star of Zionist-socialist colonialism. We lived isolated in front of an orange tree farm (‘pardess’ in Hebrew, ‘balaya’ in Arabic), whose fruit we picked with other settlers. At the time, the Jaffa orange (‘Yafo’ in Hebrew) was a favorite in England and dominated world trade. Jaffa and Tel Aviv are very close, just a stone’s throw away: four kilometers. This whole area exudes the intoxicating aroma of orange and its flowers.
My uncle around December 24, 1950 bernard He was injured on one of the Israeli borders. He returns disguised as an Arab from gathering information on the Palestinian side and gives his password to the Israeli soldier guarding the entrance to Jewish territory, and the soldier shoots him, causing serious injuries. Apparently the password has changed. In the letter my father sent to his brother JamesIn Buenos Aires, on the day of his death, December 27, 1950, he describes the events to himself in ‘Ydish’. He is with her in the hospital and tells her that he died like a great soldier at the age of 20 so that he could inform his parents, ‘zeide’ (grandfather) Aaron and ‘bobe’ (grandmother). Rebecca. grave Bernardo Ekaizer He lies in the Nachlat Itzhak military cemetery in Givatayim in Ramat Gan, not far from where we live.
Around 1954 my family returned to Argentina. My mother tongue is Hebrew, and my ear is ‘Yiddish’, which my family speaks among themselves. My education is twofold: on the one hand, through the Jewish school, and on the other hand, through the non-Jewish (gentle or ‘goy’ in Yiddish). The ‘bialik shule’ (school) in Buenos Aires, which has housed a kindergarten, primary school and secondary school or Tijon since 1951, was created by progressive Zionists who were sympathizers of movements such as Hashomer Hatzair (Youth). guard) with a large figure Mordechai AnilevitchLeader of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, suppressed by the SS with blood and fire Heinrich Himmler. (19 April – 16 May 1943).
I remember the wonderful school with its Friday theater. And according to his figure the poet Chaim Najman Bialik (Ukraine 1873-Vienna 1934) and the face on the 1959 stamp will later resemble his face. Frank Sinatra. Young man Bialik In 1904 he was appointed by the Odessa commission to investigate the circumstances of the pogrom against Jews in Chisinau and to investigate the survivors of the massacre. At school they taught us about his poem ‘After the Massacre’, which spread throughout the Tsarist empire.
Arise and go to the murdered city/And you will see with your own eyes/And with your hands you will feel/The dried blood/On the fences and trees and walls. And the hard minds of the dead/ they/ Go to the ruins, to the open gaps.
Along with Jewish school, I joined the moderate socialist Zionist movement Freedom (‘Dror’) in the early 60s, where comrades (‘chaverim’) wore bright blue shirts and semel, spike and spike as ‘scouts’. Star of David.
In those years, a best-selling book fascinated the Zionist youth: ‘Exodus’. Writer Leon Uris (United States 1924-2003) He went to Israel and turned some true events of 1947 into a novel. Otto Preminger (Ukraine 1905 – United States 1986) was made into a film in 1960 after firing its screenwriter. It was nothing but him Leon Uris. Austrian director saves anti-communist crusader from blacklists Joseph McCarthy To the great progressive writer and screenwriter in Hollywood Dalton Trumbo.
The film is about an old American ship carrying 600 passengers rescued from the Holocaust, setting out for Palestine under British mandate. There was also the famous attack on the King David Hotel in Jerusalem by commandos of the Irgun, a Zionist military organization that was very active between 1931 and 1948, and on many occasions, confrontations with the Haganah, the official military self-defense organization of the Yshuv. (Jewish community in Palestine).
In 1947, there were 1,300,000 Palestinian Arabs and 630,000 Zionist Jewish settlers in Palestine. Even though England promised the Jews a (national home) in the abstract on November 2, 1917 (today is the 106th anniversary of the famous 67-word letter of the British Foreign Secretary). Arthur BalfourThe UN General Assembly would decide on 29 November 1947. The famous resolution 181 or the Partition of Palestine. 56% of Palestinian land belongs to Jews, and 44% belongs to Palestinians, whose population is twice that of Jews.
The film tells about a sensitive moment before the partition decision. The Haganah is trying to control its own ranks, including the radical extremist group Irgun. A messenger (Paul Newman or Ari Ben Canaan) meets his uncle Akivahead of the Irgun [entonces era su jefe máximo quien sería años después primer ministro, Menahem Begin).
–“Luchamos para ocupar posiciones que podemos mantener. Vosotros atacáis para sembrar el terror. Estas bombas y muertes nos hacen daño en la ONU”, señaló Ben Canaan.
–No es la primera vez que pasa en la historia. No conozco ninguna nación ni antigua ni actual que no naciese violentamente. Terror, violencia y muerte. Son las tres comadronas que trajeron a las naciones libres al mundo. Que el Comité Nacional intente sacar a los ingleses con palabras. No tenemos ningún problema. Seguiremos intentándolo con las bombas –replicó Akiva.