My Journey to Israel: 1972

One year ago, my niece and nephew took their first overseas trip on the 10-day Birthright tour to Israel. 36 years earlier, their mother went on the Des Moines Jewish Federation-subsidized 7-week high school summer tour in Israel. Over 40 years ago, I used a Federation scholarship to join the B'nai B'rith Youth Organization (BBYO) summer tour.

Our first tourist site that summer of 1972 was the entry hall of Lod Airport, whose walls bore the pock marks from a bloody terror attack about a month earlier. Luckily, that was my closest encounter with violence.

We stayed much of the time in Arab hotels in East Jerusalem. When there was free time, we walked through the Arab neighborhoods to go either to West Jerusalem or to the Old City.  If children were playing in the street, I stopped to kick a soccer ball with them.

On the left, my friend Samir,
working the family stall in the
Old City of Jerusalem

This was just five years after Israel reunited East and West Jerusalem in the 1967 Six Day War.

One of the hotel owners had a son, about 14, who mixed with our group whenever we returned from a tour. He called himself Moshe, but we called him Freddy Felafel. When he and I became close over the summer, he confessed his real name was Nasser. He hid his name so the American Jewish kids would accept him.

This hotel was a 15-minute walk to the Damascus Gate of the Old City. Inspired by a recent sermon by my congregational rabbi, I snuck off to visit the Western Wall at midnight on Shabbat. Hopelessly lost in the maze of dark, deserted alleys, a friendly Arab, arm wrapped tightly around my shoulder, showed me the way back to the gate.

Our trip included an extensive tour of Jewish sites in the West Bank. Our bus wandered freely through the occupied West Bank. There were no separate roads for Jews, and almost no Jewish settlements for them to lead to.

There also were no superhighways linking Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa. Buses going uphill to Jerusalem

Tel Aviv as seen from Jaffa in 1972

were very, very slow.

We visited some kibbutzim, but our main agricultural experience was on a moshav up north called Nahalal. It was the home of Moshe Dayan, the eye-patch wearing iconic Defense Minister of the 1967 war.

It was also the home of Israeli pop star Shula Chen (pronounced khen). It was to the Chen family that Maureen Gurner and I were assigned to clean the chicken coop. That week was also an opportunity to observe closely as a teenage boy worked the community milking machine.

Yoav Yosilevich with his par-
ents and little brother outside
their house in Yehud

One Shabbat I was assigned to an Israeli family with a son my age named Yoav. The Yosilevitch family lived in a small ranch house on a quiet street in Yehud, a town north of the airport. On Friday night, the mother lit candles inside the front door and served us peanut butter sandwiches. In those days,  Israelis had their main meal at midday.

Later we drove with his friends to a roadside snack bar.  It was Arab-owned, so it did not have to close for Shabbat. In the afternoon I played frisbee with the kids in the street.

Yoav practiced English speaking to me, and I practiced Hebrew speaking to him.  14 months later I would study the casualty list from the Yom Kippur War hoping to not see his name.