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How I Discovered Israel
Marianne Becache
My first visit to Israel shook me to the very core of my being, enabling me as it did to discover who I really am. Until that time I could not even have imagined what it would be like to feel so completely Jewish, so much was I conditioned by the difficulties which result from one's belonging to a minority — difficulties more internal than external, be it said — which was how I lived in my native France.
At that time I was nineteen and setting out for a summer holiday on an organized tour. I was very excited at the prospect, it is true, but this was due primarily to the anticipation of travelling in another country as a tourist and as a foreigner. Strange to say the land of Israel was something abstract for me, and I was living my life on a different level. I knew Judaism only as a diaspora Jewess, in a fairly assimilated environment. The only part of my religion which I observed was its moral, humanitarian and spiritual ideal whose purity and breadth of vision never ceased to fill me with admiration. If I thought about Jerusalem at all, it was more in the nature of a distant love which had poetic overtones, it is true, but which did not really touch my life. I had never really reflected on what it could mean for us and for the world that a Jewish state should exist anew as it once did in biblical times.
Deep-felt Experiences
This then was the shock that awaited me in Israel. Although I had never been there before I can truly say that, not only did I find myself again, but that I found Israel again. This experience began for me just as the plane was landing. Suddenly through the window I glimpsed the coastline, white against the blue sea, and the city of Tel Aviv with its flat roofs. The ground was coming up to meet me, the dolls' houses were growing larger, I saw the streets and the trees, and then I could not see anything clearly anymore because I found that I was crying. Why these tears? I felt that the wheels of the plane hitting the Lod airstrip were going right through my heart with a joy that is as poignant as suffering. At long last a promise had been kept! I knew at that moment that Israel was more than an international problem, more too than a political game on a world-wide scale — I recognized rather that it was a mystery which could not be explained in human terms. After two thousand years of suffering and fidelity I saw that it was the sign of the Covenant between God and ourselves which has not been broken, which has resurged after having been kept underground in the silence of night, in abandonment and the general contempt of so many around us. I knew then, at that moment, that I was not alone.
With me, in me, were all my ancestors who, from the destruction of the Second Temple to the time of the Second World War have paid the price of belonging to the Jewish people in their tears and blood which, in consequence, are my tears and blood also. I dedicated to them the joy I felt in taking my first steps on the soil of the Promised Land.
An Integrated Life
It would be impossible to enumerate my other joys: the Israeli visa in my passport; listening to Hebrew being spoken and seeing it written everywhere; respect for the sabbath, the day of complete rest with the traffic silenced; the spirit of comradeship with which the people greeted one another on leaving the synagogue as they went off in little groups, still wearing their prayer shawls.
It was by these facts, which could seem to be simply details in the realm of folklore, that I was touched first of all. In fact, however, I found that these joys went much deeper and that they belonged to that order of things which encompasses all aspects of our existence from the material to the most spiritual. I discovered that I wanted this mode of existence to become operative within me and to develop more and more, simply and naturally, in a way that I could never have conceived possible before — a way of living that is at the root of Jewish identity and which, since that time, has always filled me with wonder.
A Difficult Decision
I realized then that there was only one choice for me to make, one that I found impossible to escape and which, I have to admit, did not really fill me with joy because at that time, I was completely unprepared for such a serious decision.
Sentimental considerations were not the dominant ones because love of the country of my birth which gave me my language, its countryside, the friendship of its inhabitants and nineteen years of happy life, outweighed my feelings for a country I had known for three weeks only. The reason for my decision to go and live in Israel was much more in the realm of the rational and the logical. Either I could go on living in the diaspora (a Greek word meaning dispersion) and constantly struggle with the contradictions inherent in Judaism, thus separating myself from the majority on the level of lifestyle and ways of thinking — not an easy thing to do — or else I could opt for assimilation, not necessarily losing, but at least watering down my Judaism, which could result in an uneasy situation. On the other hand, I could go and live in Israel where, in spite of the great difficulties I would have in adapting, I could find my own roots again in the unity of a people and go forward, living an adventure which would take up again and continue the biblical adventure.
This, I must stress, is my own personal opinion and refers only to myself. Many people, even among Jews, do not see things this way. Yet certain prophecies, including those read at the time of the Jewish New Year, seem to refer to the times in which we live, as for example, the following words from Jeremiah which have gripped me:
"Behold I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth ...
With weeping they shall come,
and with consolations I will lead them back ... He who scattered Israel will gather gather him, and will keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock ... They shall come and sing aloud on the heights of Zion,
and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord,
over the grain, the wine, and the oil,
and over the young of the flock and the herd; their life shall be like a watered garden, and they shall languish no more ...
I will turn their mourning into joy,
I will comfort them and give them gladness for sorrow."
(Jeremiah 31:8-13).
Reprinted with kind permission from L'Unite des Chretiens, No. 30, April 1978.
