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A Letter from My Mother
My Mother had been in Israel to attend Jerusalem University since June 23, 1959. She never mailed this letter, I found it in a box of her papers as I’m packing up to vacate my apartment for renovations. At this time she is living in a dorm on campus (Hebrew University in Jerusalem).
Thursday, December 1, 1959
Yom Sheeshe,
Too many people had the same idea as I did tonight – get a good hot bath and go to bed to keep warm. As a result, students began using the water as soon as it was lukewarm, so that it never got hot, so everyone had cool showers. “Ah, my dear little hot water bottle, I never dreamed I would become so fond of you.” I might tell you here, that in addition to flannel pajamas, I sleep in the part wool pink long johns I bought you in Rochester, to wear under your ski pants, though you seldom did. And a heavy wool sweater and my wool bathrobe. Okay, occasionally I do think of something other than the temperature of my hands and feet. Today was my “short” day at school. My first class was at 10 a.m. so I stayed in bed until 9 to keep warm.
My class was “Introduction to Archeology” with Professor Yadin. Next class is in “Prehistoric Archeology” with Professor Stekelis, which I think I am going to drop because of language difficulty. Professor Stekelis is a brilliant man and one of the world’s best in his field. He was in charge of the excavation at Beit Oren on Mt. Carmel near Haifa which I visited last month when I went to Nazareth. The skeleton of the man buried 10,000 years ago, which I watched him uncover then, is now on display in the Archeological Museum in Jerusalem. He told us today (translated to me of course) that some of his more religious diggers became angry and quit the excavation before the job was finished. “You don’t know what you’re doing,” they stormed at him, “How can you say this man was buried 10,000 years ago when God hadn’t even created the world then?”
After class I rushed into town to visit the hair dresser. You don’t dare be late for an appointment or someone will take your place. The beauty salons are crowded, which seems a little amazing at times when I think of the low standard of wages and the high cost of living here. But women with hardly a change of dress will keep regular appointments at the beauty shop. It’s due partly, I suppose, to the fact that hot water in the home is a luxury few can afford. But more than this, a woman who shampoos her own hair loses prestige just as does the woman who washes her own clothes or mops her own floors. In comparison to American prices, those in the Israeli beauty salon are very low, and the quality of work is excellent. David, my operator, received his training in Paris and I must admit he does more for my hair than any operator I ever had in the states.
So here I am tonight with my Parisian hairdo, bundled in bed with a hot water bottle. If I were in Tel Aviv perhaps I’d be sipping Espresso with friends in one of the smart sidewalk cafes. But I’m in Jerusalem where most people are in bed by 10. The highlight of my social life is going to tea with Mr. Cohana, the director of the museum. All the stores, shops and offices close here from 1-3 every day, and everyone takes a siesta. About 4:30-5:30 the English custom of “tea time” prevails. After my hair was done I spent another grueling two hours with my Hebrew tutor, then went by the museum to take a look at the skeleton from Beit Oren, and Mr. Cohana as usual, took me to tea.
Liala tov,
Mom
Kay, that is fascinating! Your mother must have been a very interesting woman.
I don’t believe I’ve ever heard that the Israelis took siestas. Makes perfect sense.
I felt like I was *there*, Kay…Now, I know where you get your élan – and irrepressible sense of adventure. Thanks for sharing this!
She was a interesting woman. I found her diaries from her entire time in Israel, but this letter I had missed. The second part of it is her introduction to a Jewish Sabbath. I will try to post tomorrow.
I had never heard that either, this is the first I found about it in her papers.
The stores were closing in the afternoon when I was there even later, 1969-1970. They work six day weeks, too.
Your mom sounds like she was a real trooper, Kay. People sometimes think that Israel is warm all the time, but it gets quite cold. And especially at night in the winter. Thanks so much for sharing this letter!
You are more than welcome, and there is more to come. The rest of the letter for Dec. 2nd is 4 pages long so will have to post it in two sections. Then there was her trips into Trans-Jordan for the Christmas and Easter services.
What a great find! I can see where you get your spirit.
When she first arrived she was complaining about the money exchange. They took all her US dollars from her, and gave her Israeli money which didn’t purchase as much as US money. When she went to leave Israel, she tried to get some of her US money back in exchange for the Israeli money she still had, and they wouldn’t exchange it back.
I thought I would help her out by sending her a care package, of cans of tuna, peanut butter, etc. and she about shot me. “Don’t ever do that again” she wrote, it cost her almost as much in import fees as if she had bought the stuff in Israel.
Kay, I loved this. Thank you.
Mom’s arrival in Israel:
June 23, Haifa, Israel,
I’m in Israel! This has been an evening I’ll never forget – I’ve spent hours up on Mt. Carmel, Panorama Drive overlooking Haifa. The City, the bay, the bright moonlight on the clean white buildings. Beautiful!
And I had a nice person to talk with, John the Baptist (really Yohanan Margolin, attorney.)
This morning I met the Carrs. Mr. Carr has been in Rome for a few years as foreign correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, now he is back to be in Jerusalem for a year. He’ll be in the same Ulpan* as I. A friend of his met them at the port and they gave me a lift to the Nesher (Eagle) Hotel where I have a nice room.
I’ll go on to Jerusalem tomorrow.
*Ulpan – An orientation program that all new comers to Israel attend. I’ve forgotten how long she was in the program.
Kay, what a treasure. Did you learn things you’d not known about her life there? I’ve not read the other comments yet, nor your responses. Did you find it a little emotionally haunting? I’ve recently been opening boxes of the past also. Today, one containing my mother’s graduation note to my son more than thirty years ago. Oh my.
The store closing and mid day naps were standard when I was in Saudi in the 80’s. I’ve come to the conclusion that the Spanish siesta is an adopted custom from the Moorish occupation pre Ferdinand and Isabella.
Wait, wait. Is that Dr. Stekelis as in the Dr. Moshe Stekelis?!?
If so, Oi what a tsufal as I’m reading his book on his excavation of Yarmukian culture at Sha’ar HaGolan at this very moment!
Not really, because I have read all her diaries, and I have most of the letters she wrote to me and her mother. My brother and sister are not sentimental as I and threw away all the letters she sent them. But my gram and I kept ours and mother kept all the letters we sent her. She has 4 reel to reel tapes of dialog that I would like to put on CDS. Two of them 1800 feet, one of them 1200 feet, and one that is 600 feet.
Keep your keepsakes. Being a genealogist, I have about 12 binder albums of documents and her high school album. My daughters don’t seem to be interested or my grandchildren, but maybe some of my great grandchildren will find them a treasure trove.
Yes it is. He died in 1967
http://www.jta.org/1967/03/15/archive/prof-moshe-stekelis-noted-archeologist-dies-in-israel-was-69
What a wonderful time capsule.
My mother was very interested in archeology, and went on several digs while she was in Israel. They allowed her to bring home some pottery shards, and a beautiful, intact, small vase that is about 2000 years old. She died of dementia at age 82, but she remembered that “Cleopatra” gave her a vase.
Any family that has someone like you who sees forward to the next generation and saves these important mementos is a lucky family.
I still have the newspapers she brought home from Israel. Some of them in English and others in Hebrew. So many booklets and other info things. I donated almost all of her books and papers in Hebrew to an Orthodox synagogue in Sacramento.
At the moment they don’t think so, I just have a houseful of clutter that needs to be moved to storage.
So, strangely (or for me, extremely normal and right on time) his work plays into how I’m concocting an essay on the very shaky History which the Christian/Judaic divide was predicated on. One where the gospel of Peter goes to great length to exonerate Pontius Pilate of the guilt over Jesus’ death. One where the actual lesson, the condemnation of vengeance and caveat against the intoxicating violence of mob rule turned into the hateful schism Christians place upon the Jewish due to the hate/fear mongering of two millenniums of ignoble leaders’ opportunism.
But that’s just my theory.
Some day someone will be grateful! Yesterday, my sister brought me an old diary of my mom’s that I never knew about. I’ve been reading it today Your post really struck a chord with me.
Every body is free to have their own theory, just be careful not to change Israeli history and facts to fit your theory. My mother’s Thesis towards her Doctorate is on the book of Mark.
The Reconstruction from Mark and Q of a Hypothetical Primary Source Document. Based on the dramatic plot structure.
Her mentor gave her an A+ on her Thesis and wrote on the document: In view of our conferences I omit written comments.
Her Index:
Introduction
The dramatic plot structure within the synoptics
The dramatic sequence of scripture (by sections)
Index of scripture used
The document and exegesis
Conclusions
Footnotes
Bibliography
Total of 93 pages.
She became ill and never made it to the Union Theological Seminary to obtain her doctorate.
Please! Send it! Questioning origin is by no means to be done in a flippant manner or by anyone who doesn’t have a deep appreciation of the faiths they are writing about. I spent a year, fleeing my home of painful conditions I won’t get into and spent it in the loving embrace of a a very traditional Jewish friend’s household. I attended Yom Kippur services with them at Temple Israel in Hollywood (saw Steven Spielberg). I have tremendous respect and love for not only the faith but the healing power of Rabbinical meditations.
People argue that Peter, not of the three Synoptic Gospels wrote it in Greek for a Roman audience. But they were all evangelical to a degree and in Matthew, arguably the most “apolegetic” Pontius Pilate’s recused himself of the process by “washing his hands of it”. Those people who still look to the Passion scene where Barabbas is spared but Jesus condemned to hold contempt for the Jewish because of these words screamed by a mob 2 thousand years ago; It blows my mind.
And the thing is, with the context of Jewish-Roman wars, its understandable why these people are furious. They;ve seen nothing but the ruination visited upon them by the Roman state after their uprising in Jerusalem — where their precious and holy writings and sacred treasures were defiled. Which is why it bewilders me these people see Matthew’s Gospel, after Pilate washes his hands of Jesus’ innocence, what the Crowd says as some infernal curse rather than: “Hey, these revolutionaries are super dangerous and kinda have made our lives terrible for 2 centuries”
“‘His blood is on us and on our children!’
Perhaps the reason is the question: Are you King of the Jews — which actually translates to Are you the King of Israel in some Semitic and Aramaic — a whole other ball of wax as far as the Romans and the Sanhedrin present were concerned.
In the end, to me it reads in all Gospels as a scathing indictment of mob tempers, not the nonsense of antisemitism and the “bloodcurse”.
Plus, we Diasporas have to stick together:
I posted a story some time back about finding a cousin on a genealogical hunt, and we agreed to meet for lunch in a city near her home. As I walked out of the house, I saw my mother’s high school scrap book and picked it up. Ina’s mother had died very young and Ina didn’t know her much. I handed the book to her, saying that “You said your mom was raised in Amity AR, so was mine.”
She opened the scrap book and burst into tears, as a photo of her mother was right there on the first page. There was also an extra graduation invite from Ina’s mom and an extra calling card. Everyone will say it was just a coincident, but Ina’s grandparents were related to my great grandparents, no idea of any closer connection. According to the scrapbook Ina’s mom, my mother, and my father’s first cousin, Liz were like 3 peas in a pod.
Now, someone give me a logical explanation for an extra invite to the graduation, an extra calling card, and Margaret’s photo on the front page of my mother’s scrap book. Cousin Liz was ecstatic when I told her I had found Margaret’s girls and their brother.
This is a bit strange. Are you referring to a gnostic writing?
There are 4 gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
The first three are the Synoptics.
Mark was probably largely influenced by Peter, Luke by Paul.
All were written in Greek. Matthew seemed to be aimed more toward a Jewish audience than the others.
What’s the hang up on the mob? Are you concerned that their guilt is being assigned to modern Jews? I’m not aware of anyone teaching that.
Kay, thanks so much for letting us read your mother’s 1959 letter to you. It sure brings a time and a place to life.
Good for you not only for saving all the things, but also for finding that place in Sacramento to which to donate the Hebrew-language items.
To me it’s understandable that at a certain stage of life – such as establishing yourself in your profession, or raising little children – a person would not have the time or energy for interest in family historical matters. But it is astounding, every time, to run across someone who never cares about it, ever. One of my relatives told me of a buddy of his who survived war in the South Pacific and guess what? He had been an Army photographer storming the beaches. His widow threw out all those dusty old photographs.
My own grandfather was born in Poland, in I think 1898, and came over on the boat at age three. When he died, my uncle came into possession of my grandfather’s birth certificate. My trusting uncle mailed it to his brother, my other uncle, so he could see it. My aunt threw it out.
So, Kay, you are fighting the good fight here. We have to keep testing our descendants for worthiness, and maybe sealing cartons of papers and artifacts with curses as on the tombs of the Pharaohs.
@jzdro, I liked your entire comment, and it is true about some people not caring at all about their ancestors. The genes of our ancestors make us what we are today to a certain extent. I made an ancestry chart for my brother once for his birthday that went back for 15 generations, earliest ancestor in the 1500s, and his remark? Kay, I don’t give a crap about all this stuff and he tossed the chart. He didn’t even appreciate the art work, as it was lettered on a large poster board.
Thanks so much for sharing your mother’s letter – it was fascinating! Relatively late in their lives, I made a feeble attempt to videotape a great aunt, one of my grandmothers, an uncle, and my father. I asked them questions about their earlier lives, etc. Later I was kicking myself for not pursuing this further (and starting earlier). If provides a fascinating insight into family history and, with regard to my uncle and father, into general history as well. I’m going to have to do some real hunting, though, to see if I can come up with letters and journals.