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1952: 1 - The First Sydney Camp - Getting There
When Phillip Mirjam said, “There’ll be girls!” I
became interested. It was 1952 and we were just finishing Fifth Form
(Year 11).
The choices for the summer vacation were,
1. A job at one of the big department
stores,
2. Doing nothing,
3. Betar Camp.
“It’s in New South Wales – the Blue Mountains –
Mount Victoria – and… There’ll be girls!” I didn’t need telling twice
– well I did – but you know what I mean.
We boarded the train at 5.30 pm ready for departure
at 6.00 pm. It was “The Spirit of Progress,” Division 5. We weren’t
fools. We knew that Division 5 meant that there were four versions of
“The Spirit of Progress,” ahead of us. This, no doubt, accounted for
the fact that we didn’t leave until 8.30 pm.
I felt fairly certain that the train had been
requisitioned from the train museum and, in fact, nowadays, people
would pay big money for a trip on a train such as this. We were on it
because the fares to Sydney were the cheapest that could be had.
Yes! There was a girl. One girl, named Leah
Feder, Shim’s sister. She was quite attractive and very friendly, so
that was O.K. I understand that there were other girls, too, but they
must have been in a different carriage.
Now teenagers of those days were quite different to
teenagers of today. By midnight, we were asleep! I had made a
wonderful place up on the luggage rack by depositing the luggage on
the floor. I was sleeping soundly when the train lurched to a stop and
an announcement was made. ”Everybody change! Take your luggage to the
train on the other side of the platform!”
It was 2.00 am. and we were in Albury. The trains
in Victoria could not run on the tracks in New South Wales, so we had
to change trains. Years later another set of tracks was built from
Albury to Melbourne to match the New South Wales size. This means that
nowadays, a trip to Sydney can be made without the middle-of-the-night
changeover.
The NSW train was, if anything, older than the
Victorian train. It was a genuine steam train. It had black smoke
coming out of the chimney at the front. We wanted to know why steam
was black and were told that the black smoke was from the coal that
was used to boil the water which made the steam which made the train
go.
When you see pictures of steam trains, the black
smoke is always blowing towards the back of the train but upwards. On
our train, the smoke blew straight back into the carriages. As it was
hot, we had the windows open and the black smoke came right in. It
consisted of rather large particles of coal soot which, having nowhere
else to go, deposited itself on us, our luggage and over every other
visible surface as well as quite a few non-visible ones. Worst of all
some soot got into our eyes and we all developed considerable skills
in removing these particles.
By the
time we reached Sydney we looked more like the miners who had dug out
the coal rather than a bunch of eager Melbournites looking forward to
a good time.
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1952: 2 - The First Sydney Camp - The Rain
When
we reached the campsite all we saw was a paddock on the side of a
slope. There hadn’t been Prep Camp or so it seemed but as this was my
first camp I didn’t know that this was unusual.
We were quickly shown how to erect a tent
and assemble our stretcher. The stretcher turned out to be harder to
assemble than the tent and many were damaged in the process.
Then we were given tomato soup to eat. It
tasted of kerosene. I understand that this became somewhat of a
tradition at future Betar camps.
That night it rained. Not like Melbourne
rain which has a tendency to stop after a while or at least subside
into a desultory drizzle. Not this rain. It RAINED. And kept on
raining and it became so heavy that it was like standing underneath a
giant tap.
In a short space of time it was coming
straight through our tent as if there were no tent there. We were told
that we should have installed a fly. We didn’t know what a fly was but
it was explained that a fly was an extra piece of material that was
placed above the tent for added protection. We tried to erect one in
the rain. We didn’t know that to erect a fly we needed more room at
the side of the tents. All our tents had been erected too close
together and there was not enough room for a fly.
Next day, the rain stopped. We moved our
tents further apart, dug ditches to divert the ground water and
erected a fly. We were ready!
That night it rained again. We were snug
and dry. For the first ten minutes. The Mount Victoria rain said,
“Pah!” and came on through the fly as well as the tent. At that point
we found out that neither the tents nor the flys which were supposed
to be waterproof, weren’t.
We considered the possibility of
erecting a second fly but our attention was diverted by the water
swirling around our feet. The ditches we had dug were not deep enough!
We had to do some rather hurried diverting ourselves with shovels and
spades.
In the morning the rain stopped. We had
survived two nights with very little sleep and we were satisfied that
we had managed quite well.
Then it started to rain again. We had
more tomato soup which tasted like kerosene and later, just for
variety, we had kerosene which tasted like tomato soup.
The rain stopped again, our tents dried
out, we installed super flies which were waterproof and which, we felt
sure, would defeat even the Blue Mountains rain. We made the ditches
deeper and better designed and then…
The hailstones came. One of the
Sydneysiders said that hailstones in the Blue Mountains could be as
big as cricket balls. These weren’t. They were only as big as golf
balls.
At that point, I think the camp
administration made some quick decisions. Before long we were moved to
the local town hall where we all had to sleep in one big room.
Actually, it was fun. We had jokes and
activities. On some nights there were movies because the town hall
doubled as a picture theatre. I really enjoyed it and so did everybody
else. I thought the camp administration had planned it that way
deliberately. Not the rain or the hailstones but how to make the best
of any situation. A lesson I bore in mind years later when I was
involved in camp administration.
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1953 - Woori Yallock Prep Camp - Phillip Mirjam
Yosef
Steiner was very persuasive. “There will be lots of people at the Prep
Camp, almost as many as at the full camp. It is free, it will be fun
and there will only be a little bit of work to do. Besides, Phillip
Mirjam will be going.” Phillip Mirjam was my best friend. Actually, he
was many people’s best friend but that didn’t seem to worry any of us.
It was just after the camp in the Blue
Mountains and I was interested to see how a camp was made ready in
Victoria. That’s how I got to go to the Prep Camp.
The truck was loaded, numerous people
clambered aboard and off we went. The site had been chosen and
everything had been mapped out. The numerous people unloaded the
truck, dug holes for the latrines (sort of like toilets) and for the
grease-pit to bury the kitchen waste, put up a marquee to use as a
place to eat and assemble, got back on the truck and left.
So Yosef had been right. There HAD been
lots of people at the Prep Camp. What he didn’t say was that they
would be there for only a few hours and then leave. It was now Sunday
evening and the camp was due to start the following Sunday.
Phillip Mirjam was there and I was there
and a pile of supplies was there and darkness was gathering and I was
getting nervous. If Phillip had been a jittery type of person I
probably would have panicked. He wasn’t, so I didn’t.
Phillip immediately took charge, “Let’s
organize a place for us to sleep before it gets dark. Why don’t you
put up a couple of stretchers and I’ll make sure some of the lanterns
work. Then we have a large selection of food to choose from,” he said.
In no time at all, I had a couple of stretchers assembled and a fire
going and Phillip had some lanterns lit and a small feast on the go.
Things were beginning to feel quite comfortable.
We slept well and next day Phillip laid
out a course of action. It was so well planned that by mid-afternoon
we were finished! We had all the tents put up, fixed up walls around
the latrines, assembled trestle tables, arranged benches and even put
up two flag poles. It looked like a campsite!
All we had left to do was to put together
the rest of the stretchers and we had a whole week to do that. A whole
week! It was now Monday evening and the camp was due to start the
following Sunday. What were we going to do, especially at night?
Now Phillip was an amazing person. He
didn’t boast but wasn’t shy. He talked about the right amount, enjoyed
a joke and could tell one from time to time and was unassumingly
brilliant.
I told him the two jokes that I knew and
he responded with two. I thought of another one and he told another
one. I developed this theory about jokes. I said, “All the jokes we
have been telling have all been funny because somebody gets hurt. I
maintain that ALL jokes are like that!”
“Not true,” he said, and told some jokes
which were plays on words. So I expanded my joke theory to include
these. Then he told some more jokes. These were not about somebody
getting hurt nor were they plays on words. So, I modified my theory to
include these. For the next five days, Phillip Mirjam kept telling
jokes and each time I kept adapting my theory, hoping to catch him out
and each time he would tell a joke that fell outside the scope of my
theory.
Now,
while the jokes were amusing without being particularly funny, Phillip
did not have a reputation as a joke teller. However, he was able to
come up with hundreds of jokes. Like I said, he was an amazing person.
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1954 – Nudnik the Shmendrick Camper
Yosef Steiner, Natziv (head) of Betar at
the time, was the producer, director, script writer, camera man,
editor and distributor. He bought the camera and the film, the
projector and the screen and organised the screenings. He had
everything to do with the production of the film except for two
things. First, he wasn’t the sound man, because it was a silent movie
and second he wasn’t “Nudnik,” because that was me. He did, however,
choose me and he chose my nickname.
Even today, almost fifty years later, some
friends still call me “Nud.” “Nud,” which rhymes with “could,” is
short for Nudnik which means a nuisance or an irritating person. It is
easy to see how Yosef was able to get from my surname, Ninedek, to
Nudnik.
It all happened when he took up using a
movie camera as a hobby. He thought it would be a good idea to make a
film to publicise future camps. The film, he decided, should be about
an ineffectual camper coming to his first camp. It was to be called,
“The Shmendrick Camper.” To play the leading role he chose Phillip
Mirjam. This was an excellent choice because Phillip was very talented
and creative and it was certain that he would do a wonderful job.
The filming was to be done at the next
camp which was at Kinglake West in 1954. Unfortunately, Phillip was
not always in the best of health. Just before the camp started Phillip
got sick and a different person had to be chosen. That person was me
and the film’s title was changed to, “Nudnik, the Shmendrick Camper.”
The making of the film turned out to be a
lot of fun for me because I was able to behave in my usual foolish
manner and this was going to be appropriate for the film. The hardest
part was when everybody had to perform a task in unison and Nudnik
would be the one doing it wrong. Getting a whole group of people to do
marching or gymnastics in unison proved to be a formidable task. Time
and again, so many people messed it up that it was just not funny when
Nudnik messed it up. We could not afford to film the same sequence
several times and later choose the best version. We had to rehearse it
over and over and then hope that the filmed version would be O.K.
As there was no sound in the film all our
movements had to clearly indicate what was happening. Many of Nudnik’s
actions had to be grossly exaggerated in a silent movie manner. There
was no script. Everything was made up as we went along. Often, other
amusing events that happened at the camp were incorporated into the
movie. One such event was during a sicha. One of the people found a
comfortable position against a tree. The weather was very pleasant,
the madrich’s voice was very soothing and very soon the person fell
asleep. The madrich solved this problem by feeding a biscuit to the
person who woke up, much chagrined.
The part I enjoyed most was the final
sequence which involved swinging across a creek on a rope. It didn’t
take a genius to work out that Nudnik was going to get wet and that
there was a high probability that others would, too. We had hoped that
these others would be fully clothed when they went in and we hoped to
achieve this by persuading them that there was no chance of them
getting wet.
However, they were suspicious and they
decided to be on the safe side by wearing swimming trunks. Nudnik made
sure that all these people were justified in thinking they were going
to get wet by pulling them in several times while they were “rescuing”
him. We reasoned that as long as they wore trunks they may as well get
wet.
After the camp, the film had to be put
together. This was a time consuming task as well as being quite
expensive. First of all the film had to be developed. Each piece of
film lasted for only a few minutes. Bad bits had to be cut out and
good bits had to be arranged in the correct order. Finally, the all
the pieces had to be glued together. Yosef spent many hours at this
task, urged on by an anxious Nudnik who was living up to his name and
was a frequent, uninvited visitor to Yosef’s house.
When the film was finished it was shown
many times. As its purpose was to promote future camps it was taken to
many venues. I was almost always present to give voice overs.
The film was surprisingly well-liked. It
must be remembered that there was no television in Australia until the
Melbourne Olympic Games in late 1956. Going to the “pictures,” as we
used to say in those days, was a popular form of entertainment. Early
television was not good but it was all the rage because of its novelty
value. It was in black and white, the quality of the picture was poor
and the quality of the programs even worse. “Nudnik, the Shmendrick
Camper,” came out almost two years before television and it was not so
bad. It would not be fair to judge it by today’s standards.
It must have been effective, however,
because the following year, in 1955, the camp was again held at
Kinglake West and it was the biggest camp Betar had had up to that
time. It was the camp with 162 happy, smiling faces. I like to think
that, “Nudnik,” helped get some of those people there.
There was only one copy of the film and
after we had seen it many times it was borrowed by someone in Sydney
where it stayed for a number of years. A few years later, when enough
time had passed for people to want to see it again for nostalgic
reasons, we couldn’t find it. I’m not sure who tracked it down but
when we found it again it was missing bits at both ends. Twenty two
minutes of film remains.
Raphy
Lehrer, who now lives in Canberra, kindly offered to get the film put
onto video. The original film was then sent to Israel where, I
understand, more video copies were made. “Nudnik, the Shmendrick
Camper,” will live on in posterity.
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1956: 1 - Machon – The Ship
I dropped a spoon at breakfast one day and bent down
to pick it up. When I straightened up, a waiter had already replaced
the spoon. Then he took back the one I had dropped.
Out of 500 passengers on board the “Oceania”, I was the
only person at breakfast that morning. It was January, 1956, and we
had just left Adelaide. We were passing through the Great Australian
Bight and it was very rough. There were three of us from Australian
Zionist Youth movements going on Machon, a youth leadership course in
Israel. Apart from myself from Melbourne Betar, there was Leah Feder,
also from Melbourne Betar and Sam Lipski from Melbourne B’nei Akiva.
Later, we were joined by Pearl Wende from Perth Habonim.
In those days all our fares and expenses were paid for
by the Zionist Federation. We only needed to have pocket money.
Nowadays, dozens of people go but they have to pay quite a lot of
money. When my daughter, Alana, went
in 1994, it cost thousands.
We went by ship. Imagine! In 1956 it was cheaper to
travel by ship than by aeroplane. It was like being on a cruise for
four weeks, which was the time that it took to get from Melbourne to
Italy. We went through the Suez Canal but could not go straight to
Israel. We had to go on to Naples where we stayed for one week until
another ship took us from there to Israel. The total journey took six
weeks.
Our ship, the “Oceania,” was used as a migrant ship
bringing immigrants from Italy to Australia. The Italians came mainly
from Southern Italy. They were known as New Australians. When we got
to Naples, we wondered at the way everybody looked like New
Australians. Migrants were made very welcome in Australia in those
days. Times seem to have changed somewhat.
On the way from Italy, the ship was packed. There were
even dormitories where dozens of men slept in hammocks. Our tickets to
Italy were also for dormitory accommodation but as there were far
fewer people going towards Italy there was much more room. Sam Lipski
and I were moved into better accommodation and we finished up in a
four-berth cabin sharing with a couple of very nice Dutch tourists.
We even had a porthole, which meant we were well above
the water line. There were cheaper cabins lower down but they weren’t
being used this trip. It was also interesting to note that there was
one crew member for every two passengers.
Parts of the journey were quite rough. One would often
find people leaning over the side. In my innocence, I wandered over to
see what they were all looking at and found out they were not looking
at anything in particular, they were just being sick.
I seemed to have a caste-iron stomach in those days,
hence the episode of being at breakfast by myself. A year in Israel
soon changed my ability to hold down food.
On the way back to Australia we flew. The reason was
because the Suez Canal was closed. The Egyptians had sunk a large
number of ships in it during the 1956 Sinai War.
The aeroplane we were in was not a jet. It had
propellers. It flew out of Israel over the Mediterranean, then across
Turkey and landed in Teheran to refuel. Then it went via India to
Manilla where we changed to Qantas for the final leg.
Sam Offman, who was in the next Machon group, went by
ship around South Africa and past Gibraltar.
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1956: 2 - Machon – Lieutenant Max Falek
“Let’s
go to Shul,” said Sam Lipski. He could have said let’s walk to Rome,
(we were in Naples at the time), it would have been just as appealing
to me – maybe more.
It was approaching evening on Friday night
and Sam was interested to see what sort of service there would be,
Ashkenazi or Sephardi. As it was very cold and our pensione was not
heated, a walk to shul seemed a reasonable thing to do, especially as
Sam had a spare yarmulke.
While Sam was paying attention to the
service, which, he told me later, was Sephardi style, I passed the
time by checking out the other attendees. Most were dressed in a way
which was not quite Western and not quite Middle-Eastern. There was,
however, another person dressed in a distinctively Western manner. I
was going to say, just like us, but our dress was of the
semi-impoverished variety whereas he was well dressed. He was in his
early thirties, tall and very handsome. He seemed about as bemused by
the service as I was. After it finished he came over to us and
introduced himself as, “Lootenant Max Falek.”
It transpired that Lieutenant Max Falek
was with the Seventh Fleet which was currently stationed in Naples
Harbour. Max’s job was to make sure that all the young sailors in the
fleet had a chance to see something of Italy. He organised the tours,
admissions, accommodations, entertainments and so on.
When Max heard that there were two others
in our group, he wanted to meet them. He met Pearl Wende and Leah
Feder and when he heard that we were stuck in Naples for a week
waiting for a ship to take us to Israel, he offered to get us onto one
of the sightseeing tours to Rome courtesy of the United States navy.
We went by bus and all the other
passengers were sailors about our age. They were saying fascinating
things like, “See you later alligator,” “In a while crocodile.” It was
the beginning of 1956 and we knew nothing about Bill Haley and the
Comets or the musical revolution that was descending on the world. We
had a wonderful trip and did all the sightseeing things.
Two incidents stuck clearly in my mind
from the trip. Although they were minor I have never forgotten them.
The first was when we were walking down a
street in Rome in an elegant shopping precinct. Leah was walking and
chatting in a friendly manner with a sailor whom we would now describe
as an African American. Max and I were walking not far behind and he
remarked that that for the sailor this was probably the only time in
his life that that he had ever walked down the street with a white
woman. This was 1956.
The other incident was on the evening
when we came back. Max had taken us to a USO, which was a sort of club
for the U.S. services. Everybody was in uniform except for us. Max had
told us that if anybody queried why we were there we were to say we
were with him. Evidently, many people tried to get in without
permission.
After we were there for a while an
official looking gentleman came up to me and brayed at me. He was,
apparently, asking me a question because at the end of the braying his
voice went up in tone slightly. I asked him to repeat what he was
saying and he brayed at me again. I still didn’t understand and after
two more repeats the situation was getting out of hand. Fortunately,
Max arrived at that point and rescued me. I asked Max what the man had
been saying and Max said the man wanted to know if I was entitled to
be there.
Then Max said it in the same way the man
had said it but slower and clearer.
“Ahhh yoo-awl fra-arm the mee-lee-tair-y?”
The penny dropped. “You-all” is the
Southern American way of saying “you.” I translated it then as, “Are
you from the military?” I was so pleased!
By then I had heard it about ten times and
I finally understood.
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1956: 3 - Machon – The Red City
“Let’s
see how far we can go!” I was talking to a Betaria from Rhodesia
called Micky. She was a little taken aback, not sure what I was trying
to say. “David will come with us!” Micky was a little relieved but
still puzzled.
We had a few days off from the Machon and
my plan was to hitch hike around Israel to see how far we could get in
one day. In 1956, hitchhiking was a normal mode of transportation and
was quite safe. There were even designated stops where you could wait
and trucks would stop to give lifts. However, there were places where
a wait for a lift could take a few hours as soldiers were given
preference.
We started off in Jerusalem early in the
morning and had no trouble getting to Tel-Aviv. We waited for the next
lift with our options open. We could go North towards Haifa or swing
around East towards Kinneret. In 1956, what is now the West Bank was a
no-go area for people from Israel. It was under the control of the
Jordanians and we were not permitted to enter. I have always wondered
why a Palestinian state wasn’t set up at that time – before 1967.
The lift we got took us towards Kinneret
and then we worked our way to Tsfat (Safed). Finally, we managed to
get a lift to Haifa where we arrived after dark.
We had no place to sleep. We knew nobody
in Haifa but we had heard that if one was stuck one could go to the
police station and they would let us sleep in a cell for the night. So
we tried that and it worked. We came into the police station,
explained our predicament and waited to see what would happen.
We were made very welcome. One of the
policemen was sent out to get us something to eat and another was sent
to arrange places for us to sleep. “Don’t worry,” said the sergeant,
“We won’t lock the cell door!” Then we were left on our own for a
short while.
Now we had heard that Haifa was known as
the Red City because of its strong left wing orientation. We had also
heard that they were antagonistic towards anything belonging to the
politics of the right in general and to Betar in particular.
We decided, foolishly as it turned out,
to put it to the test. Before we went into the police station we had
taken off our Betar badges but now, while we were left alone we
decided to put them on again.
When the sergeant in charge came back in
he was smiling. Then he saw the Betar badges and the smile was
replaced with a scowl. He immediately ordered us out.
By now it was quite late and we were
wandering about without much idea of what to do. We heard footsteps
running behind us and we turned around nervously to see who it might
be. It turned out to be one of the policemen.
Maybe they were going to invite us again to spend the night in a cell
but this time, with the door locked.
The policeman told us that he was secretly
a member of Herut, a political party that has since been absorbed by
the Likud. He took us to the Herut offices and said that we could stay
there that night.
Herut offices in Haifa were far from
luxurious, just one small room with hardly any furniture. We slept on
the bare floorboards that night and were able to tell everyone that
the stories of the Red City were accurate as far as we were
concerned.
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1956: 4 - Machon – Bool Sheet
“Boool
Sheeet!!”
This is the way Spanish speaking people
in Israel refer to matters of dubious veracity. Its origin can be
determined precisely and with great accuracy. It began in Israel in
1955 and was introduced there by an Australian called Yaacov Miriam.
It is now known that Yaacov Miriam is a
pseudonym for none other than our very own Jack Mirjam, sometime
leader of Betar. Jack was the third member of Betar to attend the
Machon le Madrichei Chutz laAretz, a youth leadership program in
Israel lasting one year and more commonly referred to as the Machon.
Previous Betar participants were Yosef
Steiner and Shimshon Feder. Shimshon’s sister, Leah, and I followed
Jack Mirjam in 1956 as the fourth and fifth Betar participants.
Jack was an autodidact, a self educated
person, and as such was prone to treat any unsubstantiated assertions
or proclamations with scepticism. In Israel there was no shortage of
people making unsubstantiated assertions and proclamations not to
mention contentions, claims, allegations and declarations.
Wherever Jack went in Israel he found
many of these statements, unsupported by reason or logic. Whenever he
doubted their validity he would respond with equally incontestable
authority which would demolish the arguments like a house of cards.
Who could argue against the insight, intelligence and perception of a
response as forceful as,
“Bullshit!!”
Certainly not the predominantly Spanish
speaking inhabitants who populated the Betar settlements of the time.
When I travelled in Jack’s footsteps the
following year in 1956, people would ask me in Spanish-accented
Hebrew,
“You are from Australia?”
“Do you know Yaacov Miriam?”
“Boool Sheeet!!”
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1956: 5 - Machon – The Perfect Shower
Brilliant!
I had worked it out! The answer was 11.00 am. It was perfect and such
a pleasure.
The water supply at Mevuot Betar was
always too hot or too cold. If one took a shower in the morning before
going out into the fields to work, the water was too cold. If one
waited until after one came back from work in the afternoon it was way
too hot. The reason was that the water pipes were placed on top of the
ground and were exposed to the elements. So when one took a shower it
was never pleasant.
One day, I had reason to come back from
work for lunch a little early at 11.00 am. I hadn’t showered yet and
so off I went to do so. The temperature of the water was perfect and
over the next few days, whenever I was able to get away at the right
time, I would indulge in a beautiful, warm shower.
A few days later, the Ktzin Avodah, or
person in charge of arranging the work schedules, came to me and said
that it was my turn to fill the kerosene tins. This was not with
kerosene but with cow manure. We only had a few cows for milk and the
small mountain of cow dung had to be purchased from elsewhere.
We used the manure to put around the
apple trees which had been planted by the hundreds. I had done this
job on many occasions and it wasn’t all that pleasant, not because of
the smell which was tolerable but because the manure had dried quite a
bit and tended to deposit itself in your hair, fingernails and any
available crevices.
Now it was my job to fill the tins with
cow dung. This job was for half a day only and then I was to get half
a day off as a reward. I had a morning shift and I worked away quite
steadily because I knew that if I could finish by 11.00 am I would be
able to have the wonderful shower that I knew about. I only had to
shovel away some of the pile of manure because the next few shifts
would do the rest.
At 10.50 am I had finished. I went to get
my towel, soap and a change of clothes, turned on the water and …
nothing. I went away for an hour and came back … still nothing. I was
then told that the water had gone off and would not be on again until
tomorrow.
The Ktzin Avodah came to me and said
apologetically that I should do the afternoon shift as well because it
was no use two people being smelly and dirty. I would then get a whole
day off the next day.
There was nothing I could do so, with
great reluctance, I agreed. That night I had to go to bed in a foul
state and even fouler mood. The other occupants of my hut found other
places to sleep. I wasn’t sure whether it was because of my foul state
or my even fouler mood, perhaps both.
When the water still didn’t come on the
next day, I was persuaded to shovel manure for another day. It’s a
rather lonely job. The tractor pulling a trailer came by every so
often to deliver the empty tins and pick up the full ones. Even they
kept their distance.
The water came back on later that morning
and I finished about 10.00 am. I had a most wonderful shower and the
rest of that day off and all the next day. As it was Friday morning,
everyone else had the rest of that day and all the next day off as
well.
I am sure that there was a valuable lesson
to be learned from this story but I am afraid that I never quite
worked out what it was.
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1956:
6 - Machon – The Chicken House
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I had mixed feelings
about the lul – chicken house; some good memories and some bad ones.
The chicken house was one of those dreadful places where chickens
were kept in cages for the whole of their lives. |
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One of the worst
memories was of the time when I had to clean out the run at the back
where all the waste overflow went. It was smelly, slimy and
extremely unpleasant. Fortunately, it was only a morning’s work so I
suppose it wasn’t all that bad. |
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An even worse memory
was of the time when it was decided to build a second level on top
of the first. An outside contractor had been brought in to do the
job and his quote took account of the fact that there was an
unlimited supply of cheap labour, i.e. free, i.e. me. |
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There was no nonsense
about expensive machinery. The only piece of modern technology was a
wooden plank that went from the side of the building which was on a
slight hill to the top of the existing building. On the ground there
was a large metal tray where two of the people he had brought in
mixed cement by hand. Previously, somebody else had carried to the
top a whole lot of the large concrete building blocks. |
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The cement mixer
guys filled two metal buckets with cement mix and my job was to
carry them up the sloping plank to the brick layer. The full buckets
weighed maybe 20kg each. Then I would carry two empty buckets down
to be refilled. I did this for eight hours and I wasn’t allowed to
stop as the cement would harden and the brick layer was being paid a
large amount of money and had to be kept busy. |
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At the end of the
day when I left work I felt as if my knuckles were dragging on the
ground while I was walking upright. |
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A more interesting
memory happened one Friday morning. I had an easy job of cleaning up
around the entrance to the chicken house. The entrance area had a
small yard which was enclosed by a low fence. |
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Mevuot Betar was at
the end of the bus line and the turn-around place was just near the
entrance to the chicken house. The bus usually waited there for
about ten minutes then started its return journey. |
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The bus arrived and
out got an old man wearing a hat, old clothes and a beard. He had
tsitsit hanging out and a general religious look about him. |
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One of the people of
the Meshek had let about a hundred chickens into the small yard and
they were scrabbling around as chickens do. The old man turned out
to be a shochet who came every week to kill chickens.
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He started! With his
left hand he picked up a chicken with one grab. I stared in
amazement. He had both wings, one leg and the head in his grasp. His
forefinger was behind the neck and his middle finger held back the
head exposing the neck. His thumb and ring fingers held the wings
and the little finger had one leg. Only the other leg remained free. |
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In his right hand he
held the knife. A quick slit and blessing and that was number one
finished! It took seconds! He threw the first one aside and picked
up the next one. One grab, slit, blessing (maybe it was blessing
then slit, or both at the same time, it was too quick to notice.) |
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He climbed aboard
the bus just before it left on its return journey. Some women came
around and collected the hundred dead chickens. I was told that the
bus usually waited only ten minutes but on Fridays it waited fifteen
minutes. |
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A couple of years
later it snowed in the hills around Jerusalem. This only happens
about once every five years. When Betty Brisson returned from Machon
a little later she told me that the weight of snow on the chicken
house had caused it to collapse. I was so pleased as the poor
battery hens that were living in rows of small cages were only let
out at the end of their useful laying life when they were due to
meet the shochet. |
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There
were several loud explosions and then machine-gun fire. Not
surprisingly it woke me up. In those days I was a sound sleeper and
it would take several loud explosions and machine-gun fire to wake
me up. “It’s only the army doing manoeuvres,” somebody who just came
in said, “Go back to sleep.” For the rest of that night there were
more explosions and more gunfire plus lots of shouting and engines
roaring. |
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In the morning they
were still at it. One could see jeeps driving along with large
cut-out shapes looking like tanks stuck on their sides. The bullets
were rubber and went through the air so slowly that one could see
them moving and also see them bounce harmlessly off whatever they
hit. |
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A couple of weeks
later it was Yom Kippur. The dining room at Mevuot Betar was closed
and each of us who normally ate there was invited to eat with one of
the married permanent residents who usually ate in their own house.
The only time any of us Machoniks were invited to someone’s house
for a meal was on Yom Kippur. |
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But there was
something that we had to do first. It was feared that the Arabs
could attack on Yom Kippur so we had to make preparations. Everyone
was given a job and I was in a group which involved a great deal of
walking. |
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The way the Meshek
was situated was important. Being in the hills near Jerusalem it was
placed so that a hill obscured the Arab’s view of the Meshek. On top
of the hill was the water tower which could be seen by them and the
road into the Meshek which also could be seen. |
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My group’s job was
to walk out of the Meshek down into the valley. At no point could we
be seen while we were walking out. We joined the road behind another
hill where we also could not be seen. Then we marched back into the
Meshek carrying ammunition and weapons. As machoniks we were not
allowed to have weapons so we carried ammunition boxes. On the road
back in we COULD be seen. It looked like the Meshek was getting
reinforcements. We did the whole procedure several times. |
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Nothing happened
that Yom Kippur. Some said that our ruse was the reason. Others said
there was not going to be an attack anyway. |
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A few nights later we
were woken up by the sound of a large explosion followed by several
smaller explosions and gunfire. Here we go again, I thought. |
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Some people came in
and yelled, “It’s for real this time, get down to the bunkers!” We
took no notice of these practical jokers. After a couple of other
people came in with the same message my room mates decided to go. I
was left alone, so grumbling, I put on my boots and staggered out.
It was absolutely quiet and very, very dark. I had no idea
whatsoever where the bunkers were. There was nobody around to ask. |
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I went back to bed
and lay down to wait for dawn which came in a little while. I heard
voices and investigated. I found out that the first big explosion
landed on our water tower. A foolish officer had taken his men up
there and was himself killed when the mortar shell hit. Several of
his men were wounded. The water tower was less than fifty metres
from where I had been sleeping. |
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Two more mortar
shells had landed to one side of the Meshek (away from where I was).
By that time the Israelis had pinpointed where the mortar was and
destroyed it. |
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That was not all
they destroyed. There had been a large fortified Arab police station
on the hill opposite ours. It was totally destroyed. |
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This action was one
of several escalating actions that led up to the Sinai War. |
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“Kum,
Zitz, Ess a Bissel!” I sometimes thought that this must have been
another way of saying, “Hello! How are you?” in Yiddish because it
was the way elderly Jewish ladies greeted you when you visited them.
When I would reply, “Fine, thank you!” they would make me sit down
and they would start to feed me. |
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I could speak
Yiddish, so I knew that, “Kum, Zitz, Ess a Bissel!” actually meant,
“Come, Sit, Eat a Little!” Of course, “Eat a little,” in Yiddish,
means keep eating until you burst. |
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At the Machon, when
we heard that there was to be a Kumzitz, it had nothing to do with
elderly Jewish ladies but could be relied upon to include a number
of young, attractive ones. A Kumzitz generally came soon after food
parcels arrived from home, because these always included real
Nescafe. |
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Food at the Machon
was O.K. so long as you didn’t mind eating eggplant fried, eggplant
boiled, eggplant stewed, eggplant baked, eggplant grilled or
eggplant in salads. But the coffee and the tea! They didn’t taste of
eggplant, they had no taste at all. The coffee was a slightly darker
colour than the tea but when we tried blind taste tests nobody could
tell the difference. |
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It was my turn! I
had a parcel from home with NESCAFE!!! We had devised this special
method of making Nescafe taste even better. Put a spoonful in a cup,
add two spoons of sugar and the tiniest amount of water. Then stir
this paste with some vigour until it became whitish and a little
frothy. Add hot water, and HEAVEN!! |
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“Let’s have a
Kumzitz,” I said to my friend Johnny from Capetown Habonim. “O.K.
but let’s make it special,” said Johnny. I can get some pans and oil
from the kitchen when they are not looking and we can borrow enough
hotplates. All we need is potatoes and then we can make hot chips.”
This sounded good because hot chips were guaranteed to attract
plenty of guests, especially of the young, female variety.
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The potatoes were
kept locked up. Brown gold. It was impossible to get them. Buying
them was not even considered because we had no money.
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A delivery was being
made to the Machon. The truck driver stood guard at the back of the
truck while Yaacov, the Machon roustabout carried the bags of
vegetables to the kitchen. |
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Yaacov was enormous.
As tall lying down as he was standing up. As strong as a horse and
all muscle, quite a bit of which was between the ears. His enormous
girth was completely surrounded with keys. This was in itself
fascinating because the only place we could never break into was the
kitchen. |
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He spoke no Hebrew
and no English, just Yiddish. As I was one of the few Machoniks who
could speak Yiddish, I often had a chat with him. We devised a plan.
We waited until he was carrying this great sack of potatoes which
weighed more than Johnny and I put together. As soon as he was out
of sight of the truck driver I would engage him in conversation.
Meanwhile, Johnny, using a sharp knife, would cut a hole in the back
of the bag and begin extracting potatoes. |
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Yaacov enjoyed the
chat, not noticing that the bag was getting ever so slightly
lighter. He did not seem to notice that I kept asking Johnny if he
had enough yet. |
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We had a great
Kumzitz. Our hut was overflowing with all sorts of desirables, some
of which were Nescafe and hot chips. Johnny kept the chips coming
and we all kept eating until we burst. Those elderly Jewish ladies
knew a thing or two about a Kumzitz, but we had made a few
improvements on the guest list. |
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I
didn’t know that I was a Litvak. I didn’t even know what a Litvak
was. All I knew was that whenever I spoke Yiddish I spoke in my way.
There were other people who spoke Yiddish who pronounced some words
differently. For example,
if I said, “Voss?” meaning, “What?” others would say, “Voos?”
meaning the same. Very odd. |
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Speaking Yiddish was
an advantage in Israel in 1956. I estimated that by using English or
Yiddish I could speak to three quarters of the population. This,
however, did not help me learn to speak Hebrew. The trouble was, if
I took the time to work out how to ask a question in Hebrew, I could
never understand the answer. |
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One day, I was on my
way to the Youth Farm at Herzlia where we were going to be staying
for the Course Shiltoni, or Betar Course. I couldn’t go with the
others for some reason which I can’t remember, so I went a few hours
later. I hitch-hiked and got as far as the township. I then had to
walk the rest of the way. |
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I asked directions,
in Hebrew, and I understood the bit where the guy pointed. He might
have been saying not to go that way because that was Jordan, which
wasn’t all that far away, but I hoped he was telling me the right
way. |
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As I walked along the
road, with orange groves on one side and farms on the other, I
spied, in the distance, a man working in a field near the road. It
was about ten minutes away so I resolved to speak to him in Hebrew.
I not only worked out what to say but I also worked out, in Hebrew,
all the possible answers he might give me. |
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“Yes! Go this way!”
“No! Go that way!” “What Youth Village!” “Have you got any money?”
“Give me some money!” “Get stuffed!” |
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I even had time to
rehearse and practise. I got close and asked him, in my very best
Hebrew, if this was the way to the Youth Village. |
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He turned around to
me and said, |
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“VOOS?” |
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Woronora
campsite was on the other side of the river. This side there was
civilization. There was a bus to the railway line, a jetty and some
buildings. Some people who lived down the river commuted to the
city of Sydney every day. They would take their power boat from
their home, park it at the jetty, catch the bus, then the train. The
whole trip took in excess of an hour. When asked about it they would
explain that their lifestyle made the commute worthwhile. |
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When we Melbournites
arrived all the hard work preparing the camp had been done.
Everything had been transported across the river by rowboat and the
campsite had been set up properly. |
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It was a wonderful
campsite except for two problems. As the river was fairly close to
the ocean the water was salty and the denizens of the river were of
the marine variety. The worst of these were giant jellyfish known as
box jellyfish. They trailed tentacles which could cause painful, and
perhaps dangerous, stings. Whenever anyone wanted to swim in the
river it had to have all these jellyfish cleaned out. Eventually,
swimming was banned because the river simply could not be cleared
quickly enough or often enough. |
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The other problem,
with which we Victorians were unfamiliar, was ticks. These tiny
creatures with even tinier heads would bite. But they didn’t bite
and go away, they bit, buried their head in your skin and stayed. If
one tried to remove them inexpertly the body would break off and the
head remain. The head carried the poison which was strong enough to
kill small animals and harmful enough to cause considerable pain for
humans. |
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One Victorian,
presumably unfamiliar with ticks, knew exactly how to remove them
properly, head and all. His name was Michael Neiger and he was kept
busy for the whole of the camp extracting ticks from people. I am
guilty of perpetrating a terrible practical joke on him.
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On the last day of
camp everything was packed up and had to be transported back across
the river to the waiting truck. This entailed many trips by rowboat
and took several hours with everyone pitching in. Everyone, that is,
except Michael Neiger. He maintained that he had done more than his
fair share for the camp and refused to get involved with the packing
up. This attitude annoyed quite a few of us and we hatched a plot to
push him into the river. |
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After the last load
had been transported across, we all went to the edge of the jetty to
have our last look at the camp. We had somehow managed to get
Michael to leave his camera and wallet with others for safe keeping.
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As soon as Michael
got to the edge of the jetty, I stood behind him and pushed. Over he
went. I had the presence of mind to step well back afterwards.
Others stepped forward to have a look. The first of these was Sam
Offman. As Michael fell, he tumbled over. He could see Sam leaning
over the edge, laughing. Naturally, Michael presumed that it was Sam
who had pushed him in and after he got out began chasing Sam with a
view to doing him some harm. It took Michael some years to find out
the truth of what happened. |
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It is now some forty
years after the event and I haven’t seen Michael for most of that
time. I am still nervous about meeting him. |
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For the record
Michael, I am sorry.
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There were many
traditions at Betar camps. One of these was that on the second last
day of camp everything would be packed up except for the large
marquee where we usually had activities. On the last night of camp
we all brought in our sleeping bags and the whole camp would sleep
there. |
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Another tradition
was the telling of shaggy dog and ghost stories. This was a
tradition started by Jack Mirjam and there was no better teller of
stories than he. Jack was not always at our camps. When he was and
was telling stories he sometimes needed to have a breather and
somebody had to take over for a while. I decided to be that someone
and, with Jack’s help, developed a repertoire and technique of my
own. |
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On the last night of
the Woronora camp there was a commotion going on as usual. Somebody
suggested we have some stories to keep us entertained and in a
little while it was my turn. People were in a quieter mood by now
but there was absolutely no chance of anybody getting any sleep that
night. |
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I started telling a
couple of the shorter stories and while everyone was listening it
was obvious that it was going to be an all night session. |
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I had run out of
stories so I decided to make one up. Adopting my most menacing, dry,
ghost story voice I began the story of, “The Brain.” I continued on
like this for about ten minutes, making it up as I went. A couple of
snores and some heavy breathing could soon be heard but best of all,
no chatter. I had everyone’s attention – at least, those who were
still awake! |
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After another five
minutes there were more snores and heavy breathing and I asked
whether anybody was still awake so that I could continue the story.
About three or four very sleepy voices answered and I knew that in a
very short while I would have them too. A few minutes later when I
asked there were no replies. I had successfully put the whole camp
to sleep! I still didn’t know how to end the story so I decided to
save it up for a future occasion. |
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My experiences in
Betar were a tremendous help to me in my chosen profession of
teaching. One time, when I was teaching part-time, I had to go to a
school camp, which had been organized by some of the other teachers
at the school. One night they had planned a camp fire but hadn’t
prepared any activities and the kids were getting restless. “Leave
it to me,” I said. |
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I told a few short
ghost stories and began , “The Brain.” Before long, all the children
were asleep around the campfire. They had to be carried to bed but
they didn’t wake. I had done my job well. |
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My reputation as a
person who can put others to sleep has endured but nowadays, it
seems, any story I tell seems to work just as well as “The Brain,”
once did. |
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Several Betar camps
later, Gary Rudzki told me that he had heard the start of, “The
Brain,” six times and had never heard the ending because he fell
asleep every time. It’s just as well, of course, because I never did
get around to making up the ending. After all these years I have
forgotten how the story even started so there is never likely to be
an ending.
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The Bell for recess
rang and a message came over the public address system saying that I
was wanted on the phone. I was teaching at Geelong West Technical
School which is about 70 km from Melbourne. It was my second year
out as a teacher and I had spent all the time at country schools
well away from Melbourne and Betar. |
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I was rather nervous
about the phone call because I usually didn’t get them at school. In
fact, the only other time that I got a call was when I was in
Teachers College. It was on 27th March 1957 and it was
from Jack Mirjam who told me that his brother, Phillip, my best
friend, had died. |
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This call was from
Betty Brisson who was Mefakedet of Melbourne. She wanted to know if
I would be willing to be the Mefaked of the Junior Camp which was at
Anglesea. Anglesea is a beach resort and while I was not averse to
the idea of camping at Anglesea I had been out of Betar for a couple
of years. In any case, I would not be able to be involved in any of
the preparations. Furthermore, why wasn’t she going to do it and
weren’t there any other possibilities? |
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To cut a long story
short, or to be perfectly honest, I don’t recall the reasons, nobody
else was able or willing to do it. |
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It was a lovely
campsite. It was close to the beach and was in a wonderful bushland
setting. The only negative was the mosquitoes but they weren’t too
bad. Betty, herself was there and she took over the control of the
hashmonaim. Eric Aufgang was also there and he was happy to take on
the role of K’Tzin Toran. I was happy about that, too, because he
turned out to be a terrific K’Tzin Toran. |
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Also there was Eve
Tauber with whom I became very friendly but as she was 16 and I was
24 it did not seem to have a future as a relationship. The eight
year age difference was a little too much. We came together again
years later after we had been in other relationships. We got married
in 1993 and even though the age difference was still eight years at
that time she was 49 and I was 57. Somehow the age difference did
not seem to matter any more. |
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I still had another
year to serve in Geelong but I started to become more active again
in Betar. Six months later, I became Natziv. This means the head of
Betar in Australia. I have to explain this because at a recent
celebration of Betar’s 60th anniversary in Australia I
mentioned to some of the current senior madrichim that I had been
Natziv once. None of them knew what it was! For their benefit this
position is now known as Rosh Hanhagat Artzit.
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