Filling time

Well, nothing much has happened lately.
That is not really true. It is just that nothing magnificent has accrued.
I try hard to fill my day- to- day routine and to find something to do every day.
Sometimes it is like filling time, more often like killing time.
The more one gets involved in reading about aging, the more depressed one can get.

Body and Mind – are they two entities or do they belong together, or should they compensate the other according to need?
Philosophies seem to differ vastly on this aspect. A few citations from a book, ed. by Yitzhak Brink (2005) Poverty and Aging.
Ruthenberg points out in his essay: If the body fails does that mean that the mind fails?
Freud, Darwin and Marx put forward theories that the strong young have to get rid of the weak old.
The culture of the poor sees old as belonging to the poor.
Israel Doron sees poverty as a threat to Justice and decency.

One can see poverty among the old not only as materiel poverty, but also as poverty of the mind, that is, unless the old take matters into their own hands.
If you have a mind of your own use it, even in old age or better said especially in old age.
Don’t rely on society to do something for you when you grow old. The older you get the more important it is to become the master of your own destiny.

Filling time (using the mind) is always better than killing time (poverty of mind).

Within the last couple of weeks I have taken part at a number of events. Some 2000 people from all over the country came to Binyane Hauma in Jerusalem to participated and share “20 Years Amcha”.

Amcha is taking psycho-social care of over 10 000 Shoa Survivors and Second Generation, in the various branches all over the country.
Harav Israel Lau, one of the speakers told among other things about his arriving on the "Mataror", the first boat that sailed after the war in June 1945. After having spent years in the KZ Buchenwald, he was amazed to be greeted in Haifa by soldiers, pointing their rifles at people.
To him, a 7 year old at the time, a soldier was a soldier, no matter what color his uniform. He thought that that was behind him.

He and his comrades and everybody else that had arrived on the boat, were shoved into open railway cars, just like those that took people away towards the camps in East.

This time they were transported to the detention camp in Atlith. A camp with barbed wire around it and armed soldiers watching, just like the camp he left behind.
Not only that. After awhile when his aunt and uncle came from Kiryat Motzkin to take him to their home to look after him, they were advised not to talk Polish or Jiddish to him, only Hebrew. That would help him forget the past.
He said that he did forget the Polish language, but he never forgot the past. For you can’t forget the past. It will always be part of you.

I arrived on the same boat, although a bit older, I was also amazed at the reception we got on our arrival in the detention camp. Men and women separated, our clothes disinfected, DDT powder shaken all over us. Being locked up in a camp was the last thing that I had expected after waiting for years and longing to come to our Homeland.

A couple of days later, it was the annual Open House Day in Jerusalem. One could visit Private Homes and Institutions. Across from my home was a long line of people waiting to be let into the flat in one of the famous Bauhaus building from the 1930th, 6 or 7 rooms packed full with books and furniture, a couple of large balconies and a huge garden with lawn and flowerbeds, very spacious and gracious living indeed.
When we came out again, a friend of mine together with her daughter accompanied me back to my place.
Although my flat is much smaller, it is a friendly looking place full of sunshine. They admired my paintings that cover the walls in all the rooms, and in their words my place is everything as gracious and inviting as the big flat across the street.

Today my granddaughter called and asked if she can came by. We had a light lunch together before she was off again to meet some of her friends before going back to Tel Aviv. Most of her time is taken up with her dancing carrier.

She is a good listener. I showed her some of what I am busy with and talked with her about a paper that I am going to present next week at an international conference on Women and the Shoa, for which I have prepared a power point presentation.

To keep going, in spite of the aging body and the restriction that come with that, I have to be constantly on the outlook to keep my mind occupied. Mostly, but not always, I manage to fill my time.

Youth Aliya and Kinder Transport

I have just returned from Natanya from the annual meeting of former refugee children who came with Kinder Transport to England in 1938-39. For decades the word did not ring a bell.

Hardly anybody who did not come with a Kinder Transport knew what was meant by that word. Even many of the refugee children themselves could only remember their own personal experience, but little else about the wider aspect of it and how it all came about.

The great change came when in 1989 there was a reunion in London organized by Bertha Leverton. In 1990 a pictorial exhibition about Kinder Transport by Paula Hill was put up in Bergen Belsen, which I happened to see it on one of my visits to Germany and it was reported about in a newspaper article.

A number of personal narratives were published, the play by Samuel was preformed, a couple of films produced.

There started to be talk about Kinder Transport.

As a general background, by the turn of the century in Germany and Austria Jews had reached a relative high standard of living. Anti-Semitism was rampant in most of the European countries. In Germany it took on new forms especially after the First World War. Jews were blamed for the loss of the war, for the inflation in 1923 and the great economic crisis in 1929. Unemployment hit the Jews very hard. They were the first to loose their jobs, many small shops had to close down.

By 1932 in Berlin some young unemployed Jews in their great desperation turned to Recha Freier a Rabbis wife for help. She could not help them either, but she did have a vision, she did have a dream, if only these youngsters could go to Palestine, work half day and study half day, surely that would be a solution for them.

She ran up against strong opposition, people could not understand that she suggested for children to leave home. Who would take on responsibility for them and for the children’s education.

There were a few exceptions, like Winfried Israel, Enzo Serini from Hechalutz, and Lehmann from Beth Shemen, who took a dozen of the youngsters on Students Certificates to his school. These people supported her ideas from the beginning. Recha founded Youth Aliya right then and there and by January 1933 it was a registered Verein.

But it was only after Hitler rose to power that Herietta Szold, as a member of the Jewish Agency in Palestine, at long last saw the necessity to allow young people to build a new life for themselves. She was appointed to head the Jerusalem office. In 1934 the first group organized by Youth Aliya came to Ejn Charod with the Madrich Rinot.

By now there were more candidates than that there were certificates available. It became a very selective procedure.

Certificate for Palestine were given to people who had 1000 Lirot, (see the Havara arrangement) or to agricultural workers, or students.

For Youth Aliya one had to specially apply, go for a month on a preparation camp and pass a reception committee. 5- 6 000 children made it to Kibbutzim in Erez Israel before war started.

The situation in Germany for Jews became more and more difficult. The Nuernberg Laws restricted Jews in many ways and excluded them from the economic, cultural and social life. “Juden Raus” was the cry. The only question was where too. Immigration laws in all countries were restrictive and strictly observed everywhere.

To get to America one needed to have an Affidavit, have a special needed profession or a close relative who would give a Guaranty in order to get unto the waiting list to receive a visa.

In other words to emigrate was one thing and to find a country that would allow you in, was another. It was easier if you were single and young and nobody depended on you.

But for a family without financial means, or a family with infants or old people who dependent on them, the chances to get out were more than slim.

1938 brought more distress.

The annexation of Austria to Germany, with Eichmann in charge, who with great cruelty wanted to make sure that Jews should leave a bit quicker, than they had done from Germany. At the conference in Evian most of the countries explained that their gates were closed for Jewish immigrants. This was followed in October 1938 with the expulsion to Yaboshin of the Stateless Jews from Germany. Poland would not let them in and Germany did not allow them to return.

The 10th of November Pogrom when well over a thousand Synagogues were burned, the shops looted, the men taken to KZ, Jewish schools closed, people were desperate to leave, but nowhere to go too. Who ever could, emigrated or escaped by any means be they legal or illegal. People were desperate to get away, but not everybody managed to.

There was little help forthcoming. It was a handful of prominent Anglo Jewry who got together to try at least to save the children. They got in touch with Trudie Wiessmiller who went to confront Eichmann and asked him to let Jewish children go. (see some of the available literature)

The first organized Kinder Transport left from Austria and Germany in the last days of November 1938. As soon as the first Kinder Transport got under way, it was mainly the mothers who pleaded to have their children included in one of the next transports. Their husbands were in a KZ, they had no savings left, no chance what so ever to get out by themselves, but wanted to see their children spared what was ahead of them. They knew that it would only get worse. It certainly was not an easy decision to make.

In Vienna they turned to the Kultus Gemeinde, in Germany to the department for child emigration in Berlin, which was part of the Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland, or to their local Jewish community, who passed it on to the appropriate authorities.

The women from the Frauen Bund were greatly involved in helping the families and shuttling the children to where ever they had to get too. Forms had to be filled out, emigration papers needed to be prepared for each child, guarantors had to be found, or alternative places of accommodation in England. Some Jewish schools managed en block to transfer to England.

As far as possible priority was given to hardship cases. There were many more applicants than that places could be found. Some families managed to find a private sponsor for their child by their own efforts, while other children were taken first to a reception center in Dovercourt, until a sponsor could be found. It was easier to find foster homes for the younger age group. Hostels were hastily put up such as Willesdan Lane in London or others in Glasgow and Birmingham and elsewhere.

Recha Freier got into the picture and made arrangements for the 12 – 15 year olds to go on Middle Hachshara in England as candidates for Youth Aliya, which involved a great lot of negotiations, before it came about. Many youngsters from the different Zionist Youth movements made it that way with a Kinder Transport to big houses, such as Grych Castle in Wales or Whittingehame the Estate of Lord Balfour in Scotland.

The children themselves fared very different one from the other. A small number of parents survived, while most perished in the camps. The majority of the refugee children were soon orphaned. While some of the children had pleasant experiences others did not. A few converted and were lost to the Jewish faith. When the war was over some remained in England, while others came to Israel, America or elsewhere.

Did the children know at the time that the parting was for good?
Did the parents hope to see their children again? Some did some did not. In any case their effort to save the children and their willingness to part from their children was a heroic act on their part.

Considering that 10 000 children found refuge in England, there are 10 000 different answers. All depended on the age of the child, on the individual circumstances, on the background of the family, where and with whom the child was placed in England or to a great extent it simply depended on fate.

Memory can be tricky, what some remember, others do not.

Literature on the subject is very sparse and scattered, but the whole story has so far been little researched academically .

Whose idea was it, how was it set up, who made all the arrangements, who paid the fares, who was influenced by whom. Question upon question are unanswered and the background story is still shrouded in mystery.

For sure a Tribute to Anglo-Jewry for the part they played in story is long overdue.

Reading in Parallel

Somebody lent me the book

The Children of Willeden Lane, Beyond the Kinder Transport:

A memoir of Music, Love, and survival.
It is about the prewar years 1938-1939 in Vienna and the War years 1939 -1945 in England. For the parents it was a difficult decision to make, just being able to send one of their daughters to safety.

Lisa, a musically gifted young girl of 14 from Vienna, was on one the many Kinder Transports and found refuge in the hostel in Willesden Lane. Her mothers parting words were: “Music will give you strength”, she reassured her “It will be your best friend in life”.
It is a heart-rendering story of the courage of a young refugee girl who turned her love of music to help her overcome many hardships in life.
Willesden Lane was a hostel in London for refugee children from Austria and Germany. The matron, a refugee woman herself, whose son became blind as the result of being injured by the Nazis, did all within her power to encourage the refugee children to get on with life. In spite of war-time conditions and rationing, the Blitz in London with regular air raids, Lisa was working hard in a factory to earn her living while practicing and practicing to play the piano, until she finally managed to get a scholarship to the Academy of Music in London. She made it to her Musical Début and became a Concert Pianist.
In parallel I read a blogspot.com of my son Danny.
It is an unusual and fascinating rendering about the history of a region in the hills of Jerusalem. Among many other stories there is an interview with an elderly Arab man from Amman in Jordan, who fled during the fighting of the Israeli War of Independence 1947 –1949 from one of the villages in that region.
He describes the village life prior to that war. Chirbet-El-Lus was a small village of some 400 inhabitants, belonging to different clans, in a hilly region near Jerusalem. There were no paved roads, one walked from one village to another or used a donkey to transport wares. Several villages together shared a one-room school for the first four grades for boys. Girls did not go to school in those regions in those days. Some of the boys continued on for a couple of years in a village school in nearby Ein Kerem. Being a hilly region, agriculture was greatly reduced to growing fruit trees, mainly olive trees, grapes and Almond trees. It is the Almond trees that gave the village its name.
Part of his story is of how after November 1947 when the Partition-Plan for Palestine was announced by the UN, heavy fighting took place in that region.
During the battles taking place between Arabs and Jews, stories of atrocities in another village spread from mouth to mouth and his whole village decided to flee. Packing up their belongings they walked over the hills from village to village, reaching Bethlehem, moving on to Jericho and finally putting up a tent and later building a mud-hut. In 1950 most of his family moved over to Amman in Jordan. His father remained in the refugee camp near Jericho till the year 1967 when he joined his family in Amman.

Refugees are refugees. Both stories are about refugees.

Most refugees try to preserve their old culture while moving from place to place. Time wise, there is only a few years difference between them, but the stories are worlds apart.

Being a refugee is something that is difficult to reconstruct in words.

One story differs from the next until there is no resemblance left between them.

Kinder Transport

Yad Vashem is one of the places young girls aged 18, who for religious reasons do not join the Army, can do their National Service.

They get intensive training preparing them to be guides. As part of the course the girls are given assignments to give a workshop on various subjects.
One day I get a phone call from my friend in Tel Aviv, whom I am working with on preparing a paper about Jews who helped Jews before and during the Holocaust, telling me that she gave my phone number to a young girl who is in need of help to prepare a workshop about Kinder Transport, that I am considered an expert on.

Many days past before the girl called me. Very hesitatingly she enquired if I knew something about Kinder Transport. In turn I asked her what she wanted to know and what she already knew about the subject. Actually nothing she said, she was just given the assignment. She needed it for the next week. The long New Year holiday ahead of us we fixed a date for the following day in afternoon after her lectures.

That same day in the morning I had an appointment in Yad Vashem, introducing Digne Marcowicz, the author of “Massel” a new picture book about the Shoa. She had interviewed and photographed 12 survivors (one of them being myself) and told their stories laced with pictures from than and now. We also showed the book in the pedagogic center.
Just as we were through the young girls workshop came out on a break. I asked for the girl who had phoned me and introduced myself to her. She was pretty astounded but pleased to know whom she will go to in the afternoon. I told her that she could bring a friend along, knowing that it would ease the situation.

About 5 o’clock two girls turned up at my house, one just under 18, the other just turned 18 years of age. We immediately set to work.
Together we checked what they did know about the Jewish situation in Germany and Austria in the prewar period 1938-1939 and putting that into perspective within the boundary of their knowledge. I had prepared a few pictures showing refugee children on their way to England.
The Kinder Transport being the biggest prewar saving action of Jewish children, some 10 000 children, most of them Jewish, having found refuge in England
We went to my computer and together looked at my Power Point Presentation, The Connecting Path, The Story of my Family, that I use when giving testimony to pupils, students or soldiers.

She asked for the printout of it, which has not only the pictures but also the text to each picture and she promised to return it to me. I also gave to her the Hebrew translations of my mother’s letters, which she send to me after I left home with a Kinder Transport at the age of 15.
There is little academic literature available on the subject. To her the whole subject was new.

I wonder how she is geting on with the preparation of her assignment.

To Be or Not To Be Senior Citizen

A recent article in Haarez by Arye Dayan talks about a new book by Dr. Israel Doron. He mentions how Israel Law discriminates against the old.
It made me curious to find out more about the author and going to Google I found another interesting article by Israel Doron about the Failure of the Senior Citizen Law. In spite of many attempts to get it going, it main problem seems to have to do with finding the necessary budget.

To Be or Not to Be a Senior Citizen, that is my question.

There are other aspects that are no less essential and are less budget bound.

To show respect towards old people, to acknowledge their mere existence, to have open intergenerational communication and joint activities does not require huge budgets, but would make us feel a lot better.

To get to know the old people, a large and ever growing sector of the general society in Israel, is essential.
There is no role model in the Israeli society to go by, on how to keep the old as an integral part of the whole.

At the beginning of Statehood we were essentially a young society with few old people. Meanwhile those that were young then, have grown old and in addition, advancement in medicine allows us to grow older and older.

We have a long period of our life, from 60 plus to 90 plus, a period of over 30 years of being considered old and older. The later part becomes increasingly more and more difficult. The feeling of no longer being needed allows the feeling of loneliness to get hold of us.

Unfortunately we are often judged by the exceptions.
Those that are supposed to deal with us old people are used to look for what is the problem and then try and solve it. That seems to be the way social workers are taught during their studies.
They talk about us old people, but do not talk with us.
The same at the decision making level.
Who ever talked with us, but rather they decide for us.
What about our autonomy? Do we have to forego that just because we grow old?

There are other alternative ways at looking at aging, rather than only trouble- shooting. For example, what are the needs of old people and how can they be met.

Our emotional and psychological needs remain the same as in other age groups. Our need for respect remains and we need recognition of our special needs.
We may need help in keeping up with new modern methods, such as “Caspomat” or other new devices unfamiliar to us.
Keeping up with time is an art, which needs to be mastered. Some of the older people may need more help than others.

It is difficult to maintain self-respect when society downgrades us as being useless, as a burden unto them, as extra mouths to be fed.

The study of ageism has to take on a new look, no longer just based on old-fashioned Gerontology. It is not enough to know that we old people do not see so well any more, do not hear so well, do not walk so well. That is old and well- known stuff.

It is more important to know how to help us cope better with what we still can do for ourselves, how to balance between dependency and autonomy.
To respect us the way we are, in order for us to preserve our self-respect and self-esteem, which are essential ingredient for coping.

Liora Bar-Tur, Phd. in her book Metal Health and Aging, The Challenge, evaluation and Treatment, mentions the lack of interest on the part of student in any subject dealing with the old.
On the other hand, if they take the offered class in Psychology of the Old, sometimes for no other reason then that it happens to fit into their time schedule, the more they get into the subject the more interesting they find it.

In the book edited by Prof. Arnold Rosin, Aging and Old Age - Eshel 2003, as against the well-researched medical aspects, the psychological, sociological and Anthropology aspect of Aging and Old Age are less developed and often are pretty well neglected.

According to many of those that contributed to the book, more research is needed in these fields, in order to better cope with the ever- growing sector of society.

To Be (old) or Not to Be (old) is not a question.
In spite of it all, we all hope to grow old gracefully.

The big question is how to keep up, and if possible, improve the quality of life of old people, an ever-growing part of our society.


Signed:
An eighty-four year old great-grandmother

The young and the old

What is it that differentiates the old from the young?

The young are merry and happy and live in the here and now and are looking forward to the future.

The old live in the past. The future is not something old people like to consider or look forward too. Future for them is increased weakness, death of friends and end of life for themselves.

The young generation of today is on the whole much better of, then the present old generation ever was, when they were young themselves.

Take a wedding for example.
At my own wedding 1941 during the war the cleaning ladies were the sole witnesses at the Magistrate who married us.

At my granddaughters wedding there were 700 invited guests.
I got married one afternoon after work and the next day was an ordinary working day. My granddaughter is leaving for a month trip abroad.

I sat among the 700 invited guests and came home to my four empty walls.

I enjoyed the fact that my granddaughter got married, I enjoyed watching the young crowd sing and dance and make merry, but I felt out of it, as not belonging. I sat at the side and just watched.
If I try to tell somebody how I feel, they tell me not to be foolish. They say how wonderful that your granddaughter is getting married and how wonderful to be at the wedding.

Let me be honest and not pretend and to acknowledge truthfully my own feelings. It is not that I am not happy for my granddaughter to dance all night at her wedding and be merry.

But my own feelings include the fact that I am no longer independent, I need to be picked up, to be helped to get in and out of the car. Somebody has to hold my hand when walking on un-chartered territory, up some steps and down a path. I cannot walk while balancing a plate full of food in my hand. I am constantly depending on somebody to give me a hand.
I know I should be grateful, for there are others who are a lot worse of than myself. But that is hardly a compensation for my own feelings of aloneness and of loneliness that simply hits me in the face.

There is no point in telling me go and do some volunteer work and help others and that will make you feel better. I volunteer in many different ways and help others. I enjoy doing that and get a lot of satisfaction from my volunteer work.

But my feelings are my feelings and should be accepted and I should be allowed to express them as they are. Even if they might sound to others as being unrealistic, to me they are real.

May be therein lies the difference between young and old. Being at the same time at the same event, we feel different about what is going on.

Old peoples thoughts are more likely to turn inwards, to olden times and provoke a different set of feelings.

The young enjoy the here and now, they see the future ahead of them. And it is good that they do so.

A lot of water will flow down the river before they will be old.

Listening - Trusting - Listening

My interests are widespread.

Oh good for you, some might say. But sometimes that can be very exhausting. The turn side of it is that I always have to be careful what to mention to somebody belonging to a diverse group. Not everybody is skilled in listening.
To give you an example: I belong to a group called Trust, which last Monday visited the home of the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information in Beth Hanina/ East Jerusalem. We were about 30 people, half of them Jewish Israelis and the others residents of East Jerusalem. For many it was the first encounter with the “Other”. To help us get acquainted we paired of with somebody we did not know from before, each given for 3-5 minutes to tell the other about a person he does trust and why he trusts him. As it happens I paired of with the host. While I talked about trusting my son, mainly because he is a good listener and I can trust him to be there for me when ever I need him. My partner has a similar relationship with his brother. He considers him more as a friend then just a brother. They often travel together, share their thoughts and have total trust in each other.

We both of us also had a very trustworthy relationship with our mother. He said that his mother was an outstanding person, the same as I often talk about my own mother. On exploring further, we talked about similar relationships within families and among siblings that we find in the Bible as well in the Koran.

Trust is something one has to work on and build up over time. Being able to listen to the “Other” is an essential ingredient for building mutual trust, which is one of the basic needs of mankind.
The evening turned out to be a fascinating one and although it got late, it was difficult to part as there was so much we wanted to talk about.
Out side of this particular group, there is nobody among the rest of my acquaintances that I can talk about my experience of that evening, with the exception of my son.
The only solution is to put it on my “blog”.

The next day I gave a talk about the Shoa to a small group of young people from Germany and America who have come to Jerusalem for a short Ulpan to learn basic Hebrew, before they go on with their study or start work in Israel, including with Holocaust survivors. I told them the story of my family, my parents having perished during the Holocaust. On of the young men asked me, if I have suffered so much at the hands of the Germans if I did not hate all of them even today.
My reply was:” Did it sounded like that?” He said: “No, but he certainly would expect me to react like that”. I asked him if he had done me any wrong so that I should hate him. He said, no not himself, but perhaps his grandfather.
I tried to explain to these young people, that what was done to us Jews in those days is unforgivable, but that I could not hold them responsible for the behavior of their grandparents.
These young people have to take upon themselves the responsibility for what is happening today in the here and now.

I have just come back from a Rosh Hodesh, (New Moon) meeting with a few American women from the Synagogue. They are all so rooted in their Americanism, where they had lived, what they had done, whom they knew and which Rabbi, that I feel totally out of it. They simply have not yet put their roots down in the here and now. I tried to tell them something about the meeting in East Jerusalem. They looked at me in utter disbelief, what they don’t know about, does not seem to exist for them.

Sometimes I long to share with somebody and convey my feelings about a certain meeting or a subject to somebody who can be a passionate listener, who can listen without judging, just listen.

To build up mutual trust, it is essential to be able to listen to the other, you just have to listen and wait till your turn come to talk. Hopefully the other will be able to listen just as compassionately to you and what you have to say.

Listening is a skill. It has to be practiced again and again. But it is a useful tool in getting on with each other, in being able to trust each other.

Finding a friend

Daily I receive different e.mails. Recently I received the following:

I am writing on behalf of Henni Pollack, who now lives in Portland, Maine. She is a friend of Esther Dubester (from Israel) and she was trying to get in touch with her. Do you know if she is still living and if so, how Henni can get in touch with her. I appreciate your time and your attention.
Thank you very much,
Susan Berkman


Esther Dubester aged 87 is an old friend of mine. I phoned her and asked her permission to pass on her phone number. She was very pleased to hear that Henni is still around. They are friends from early childhood but had lost touch with each other.
I was curious to find out how Susan had got unto me of all people. So I asked her and that is her reply:

Thank you so much for writing to me. I spoke to Henni last night and she too was so excited to that her friend was 'found'. She was going to try to call her today. It's amazing how this came to be. Henni lives in an Independent Living Residence in Maine. A friend of mine and I volunteer and do Shabbat services there Friday evenings. She saw I was looking up some information for another resident there so she asked if I could try to find her friend. I was not having any luck trying to look on the computer under Israel White pages. So I 'googled' the name Ester Dubester and got a match. That's because you mentioned her in the story you wrote. Computers are not always good but they are fascinating how they work. I then saw she was a friend of yours. So next I 'googled' you. Some stuff came up and said how you were involved with the Interfaith Encounter Organization. Next, I e-mailed them to see if they knew how to get in touch with you. They e-mailed me back with your e-mail, so then I e-mailed you and now here we are! All because you mentioned Esther in your writing, my friend Henni can now make contact with her friend Esther. It's a wonderful thing. Thanks again for your time and responding to me.
I think we both did a Mitzva (spelling?).
Susan


The story I mentioned Esther Dubester in, is my unpublished manuscript “Please to meet you”, which really is the story of my life. Esther Dubester lives in Tel Aviv. While I still lived in Haifa, I participated at a two day a week University course. Esther kindly put me up over night week after week until I finished the course. That was the beginning of my academic studies. Thanks to that I later got my B.A. in Sociology and educational counseling at the Haifa University. By then I was already a grandmother. Soon after I started to use the computer.
By now I am a great-grandmother live in Jerusalem and enjoy keeping in touch with people the world over and also prepare power point projections for my talks about the Holocaust and other subjects.
As Susan said, computers are not always good but what would we do without them. At least Esther Dubester and Henni , who is almost 90, could once more talk to each other.

To be old in a young society

That was the name of a three-day seminar, a sort of in service training.
I registered just for the first day.
Arnold Rosin, the expert in Gerontology gave a good rendering of mobility in old age, demonstrating how when starting to loose the feeling of balance, walking gets restricted with age. In the end we are inclined to stay put and not go out any more.
It was followed by a talk on feeding difficulties in old age and another talk about becoming grandparents. Neither of them brought new light to the subject for me, nor were they very informative
During a pretty long lunch break participants got a chance to get to know each other. That was the best part of the day.
The majority of women were from Kibbutzim. Most of them being caretakers of old people with Parkingson, Alzheimer and other severe handicaps, their general opinion of old people, being colored by that.
They were amazed to meet somebody my age, having an opinion of my own, using the computer and inter-net, participating actively in the seminar.

Repeatedly I mentioned the fact that they always talk about us old people, but not with us.

In the evening we had a workshop on Psychodrama.
A young girl who has studied the subject, gave first an introduction, telling us that it is based on the theory by Moreno, and after that she did a few exercises with us.
A young woman from Kibbutz Ruchama chose me as her partner. We were asked, each to talk for two minutes, telling an episode from our childhood. We then had to chance places and retell the other person’s story in her own words to the group.

It was at that exercise that I realized once more how important positive early childhood memories are. They stay with one for a lifetime.
Even in old age I can build on it when reconstructing my narrative.
The seminar day was long and at the end I was dead tired.

Next morning, I opened Google and looked up under Moreno to make sure that I had correctly understood what psychodrama is all about.

Moreno demonstrates basic techniques such as self-realization, doubling, and role-reversal, using actual students from his Beacon training school. We see Moreno’s powerful and unique style as his concepts come to life.

I had gained greater insight into what I had learned many years ago.

On Tuesday I shall give a talk about how to grow old and keep the balance between what I would like to do and what I am able to do.
I shall stress the importance of formulating our special needs as old people and have prepared a couple of folk tales to demonstrate my point.
I wonder how it will come across.

Narrative or Interview ?

Yesterday I received a phone call from the director of “Trust” who asked me if I was willing to be interviewed by the director of Peace X Peace.

A short while ago I have come back from the American Colony Hotel where it took place.

Two women from the States, they are friends and both also have a home in France, both having frequently visited Israel and Palestine Authority, said that they are interviewing women from across the board, different religions, different cultures, different in all sorts of ways.
Although I had agreed to be interviewed I felt pretty uncomfortable having let myself in for something I did not know what it is all about, or what this interview would be used for.
The atmosphere in the American Colony in East Jerusalem is a strange one. It is the hangout for foreign correspondents, all of who come to Israel, to report on the conflict.
Dozens of waiters were moving around, bringing drinks, clearing tables, people coming and going, talking, there was a constant bubble.
My interviewer came in late having got stuck in the traffic, in the end she asked permission to retreat to a conference room, a cold sterile and to me an unfriendly looking room.
I still could not make out what the purpose of the interview would be.
I made it quite clear that I was not going to talk about politics, who is right or wrong, who should be doing what or not do what to the other.

While the one set up the microphone and video camera, the other tried to explain to me that they hope to interview as many women, Palestinian and Israeli as possible and put their story on the inter-net. I asked what they wanted to know from me. She simply said:"Tell us who you are".
Well, I presented them with my narrative. My mother having sent me and my brother and my sister away from home, in order to spare us from the worst of what was happening to us Jews in Germany. My parents perished in Theresienstadt and Auschwitz.
I spend the war years as a refugee child in England and shortly after the end of WW II in June 1945 came to Palestine as Israel was then called .

I tried to convey to them that since early childhood, my being a Zionist, being Jewish, being an Israeli and the Shoa / Holocaust, are the main components of my identity.
Although both of them have been on repeated visits to Israel neither of them have ever been to Yad Vashem.
Because their time ran out, the interview came to an end. There was no time for questions, or verification. What they got out of it or to what extend it fits into what they intent to portray, I do not know.
As the next woman was expected to turn up, they called a Taxi for me.
I was glad to be home again.
The next day I had a full schedule, giving a talk to Jewish students from USA in Yad Vashem and to attend a meeting on growing old in a young society.