Israel and my father

The man next to me on the plane was easy on the eyes, but not so good looking as to render me speechless. He was older than me, in his thirties, with black hair and a business suit. I was on my way to Israel for the first time and I was burning with questions. Here I was, a Jew, sent to Israel on a business trip and finding unexpected stirrings in my soul.

Growing up, I had wanted to be many things: a veterinarian, a politician, even, of all things, an Anglican minister. But I had never thought of being what I was: Jewish. My mother, a hippy, had raised me on new-age religion and we had never gone to a church or a temple. I knew nothing about Judaism expect for the fact that Jews didn’t believe in Jesus. I had, however, been wearing a ring with a Star of David on it since I was about twelve; a fact that was to take on new significance for me during that spring of 1995, when I traveled to Israel.

The seeds of what was to come were sown when I received my Opa’s death announcement. On it I read that my father, whom I had not seen in ten years, was living in Tel Aviv. I remember at the time thinking how nice it was to know where he and my two half-brothers were, and I also remember thinking back with a touch of misplaced superiority to a comment my aunt (my father’s sister) had made to me some time before, that my father had become very intensely involved with Judaism and Israel. The reason I say misplaced superiority I because I guess I somehow felt that if our Jewish identity had not been of interest to me, then it shouldn’t be to him. Or maybe I felt somehow humiliated, as if I should have been one step ahead of him.

I didn’t do anything with the information of my father’s whereabouts, but when the Spanish cosmetics firm I worked for sent me to Israel six months later, in May of 1995, I was filled with excitement. I was going to visit the country where my father was living! Even though I was almost 28 at the time, I was as excited as a little girl. Looking back, I’m actually quite surprised that I could even be excited at the prospect of seeing my biological father. He had been almost completely absent from my life since my mother left him to travel across country from The Netherlands to India when I was two, and the last time I had spoken to him, when I was about 21, the conversation had gone something like this.

“Hey, it’s me,” I said, calling from my maternal grandmother’s telephone. “I’m in Holland and I would love to see you.”

Pause.

“Well, you see, it’s like this,” my father answered, “I don’t really have time to see you right now. Frankly, although it’s nice to hear from you, when I don’t, well…you actually don’t even cross my mind.”

Now I was on an airplane bound for Ben-Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, sandwiched between the charming Israeli and my company’s gorgeous (and sleeping) esthetician, Marisa. My Israeli friend feasted his eyes on her while answering my barrage of questions. Although the conversation I had with him on the five- hour flight was to change my life forever, I cannot remember a single word of what he told me. Actually, that’s not true. I do remember one thing. I remember him telling me about the boats of European Jews that started arriving in the ports of Israel before and during WWII. He told me of the anguish of boats being turned back, of detention camps in Cyprus, of hundreds drowned.

When I think back on landing at Ben-Gurion , the scene plays out in my mind in slow motion. I make my way down the steps, my mind filled with the history of this young and tumultuous country, and when my feet touch the tarmac I am overcome by such a profound and intense wave of emotion that my body trembles and the tears streak in floods down my cheeks. I have never been more surprised by my own reaction to something. Nothing had prepared me for the passion I felt for this country which I had never before given a moment’s thought. I can quite frankly say that it was love at first sight. And like a lover, I took delight in everything about the country I was discovering. The breakfast of herring, sour cream, hummus, yogurt and pita bread; the Egged buses that took Marisa and me to Masada, Ein Gedi and Jerusalem; the extremely handsome young soldiers that were everywhere, their M16s slung casually on their backs. One day, a Palestinian taxi driver took us to Bethlehem so that I could accompany Marisa to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where a smooth hole had been worn into the ground by centuries of loving hands touching the spot where Jesus had supposedly been born.

I was lucky to visit Israel during what was probably the most peaceful time in its brief history as a modern country. I was so in love it felt as if the warm Mediterranean breeze were enveloping me in a tender embrace. I wanted time to stand still and I wanted to stay there forever. A few years ago I was surprised to read my feelings echoed by Melvin Konner in “Unsettled”:

“The six months after the trip were a daze of admiration and affection very much like being in love. I woke up and went to sleep thinking about Israel, feeling the pain of separation from the beloved, steeped in fantasies about moving there to be with her.”

Amidst this blissful assault on my senses was the added joy of having reunited with my father and brothers. It had been as simple as finding “Spiero, Tom W.” in the phone book. My hands had trembled as I dialed the numbers. The phone had been answered almost immediately by that strange yet familiar voice that I had heard at various intervals of my life.

“I’m in Israel,” I said, his words of eight years ago still squeezing my heart in their cold grip.

“That’s wonderful! Incredible!” My father sounded genuinely thrilled and the grip on my heart eased somewhat.

I know that Marisa lent me a skirt and jacket so that I would look my best for my reunion with my family, but to this day I can’t figure out why I hadn’t brought something appropriate myself. Was it that I needed to wear something I had never worn before for this momentous occasion? Did I feel that none of my own clothes did this event justice? In any case, I dressed in the borrowed outfit and met up with my father and his wife, and my two brothers, Bram and Job, at the café where Bram was bartending. I savored every moment – my love for my family intermingling with my love for my heart’s new home. I took a photo that day of Bram in front of a Coke sign in Hebrew. On top of everything else I was completely in awe of the rebirth of this biblical language into a modern one.

The contrast of Tel Aviv to the city I was living in at the time, Madrid, could not have been more marked. Madrid had 5 million inhabitants; Tel Aviv had a good deal fewer than 500,000. Madrid was full of enormous, austere buildings of grey stone with claustrophobic alley-ways in between; Tel Aviv was built of low, white Bauhaus buildings on golden sand dunes. The contrasts between these two cities perfectly mirrored the two different sides of my own personality at that time. On the one hand I was the export manager of a successful Spanish cosmetics firm, so tightly wound I was on the point of snapping any time anyone addressed me; on the other I was an insecure little girl who went out every weekend with my friends to see if I would meet the man of my dreams (or maybe my father?), tucked into some corner of a smoky night club.

Finding out how I felt about Israel and Judaism changed my life in a very profound way. When I got back to Madrid I went to the synagogue there and spent the next few years studying Hebrew, Torah and everything there was to know about Judaism. Each Saturday I had lunch at the Rabbi’s house with his family. I was like a sponge. Gone were the days of drinking and sleeping around. I worked and I studied. When I finally did go out one night, almost three years later, I met my husband. We have been together ever since and now have a daughter who attends a Jewish preschool. I know without a doubt that what has provided with the anchor that I was searching for was reuniting with my family and falling in love with them and with our mutual homeland.