{"id":34154,"date":"2020-02-07T03:53:06","date_gmt":"2020-02-07T11:53:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=34154"},"modified":"2020-02-06T09:43:57","modified_gmt":"2020-02-06T17:43:57","slug":"israels-early-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2020\/02\/07\/israels-early-days\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel\u2019s early days"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gloria Levi launches her most recent memoir at the Jewish Book Festival Feb. 12. (photo from Jewish Book Festival)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

When local activist and writer Gloria Levi was a teenager, she was immersed in the Labour Zionist movement and \u201cdreamed of becoming a pioneer in Israel.\u201d In 1950, at age 19, she spent several months there. In 1957, with then-husband Norman (whom she had met on the previous trip) and two young children, she made aliyah. Her recently published memoir, Kissing An Old Dream Goodbye<\/em>, honestly and succinctly relates what took her to Israel \u2013 and what brought her back just under two years later.<\/p>\n

Levi launches her new book at the Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival on Feb. 12, 2 p.m., in the Waldman Library. Levi, who worked as a gerontologist for 30-plus years, has written a series of booklets, Challenges of Later Life<\/em>, and co-wrote Dealing with Memory Changes as You Grow Older<\/em> with Kathleen Gose. A lifelong student of Jewish texts and language, she translated The Life and Times of Simcha Bunim of P\u2019shischa<\/em> from Hebrew into English. She published her first memoir, My Dance with Schechina<\/em>, in 2012.<\/p>\n

Kissing An Old Dream Goodbye<\/em> starts with Levi standing on the Marseilles pier, \u201cimpatient to set sail for Israel, the land of my dreams.\u201d It was there that Norman noticed her, and the two became close over the subsequent months.<\/p>\n

\"image<\/a>Growing up in Brooklyn, Levi had just finished her first year at New York University \u2013 \u201cEmotionally, socially and culturally, I was surrounded by Jews and rarely met non-Jews,\u201d she writes. \u201cI was fiercely independent and a bit of a rebel, and had a stormy relationship with my mother. My father had died when I was eleven. I paid my own way through university and had recently been living independently in Greenwich Village.\u201d<\/p>\n

Norman, then 23, had joined the British Army in 1944 and \u201chad been with the British troops who liberated Buchenwald concentration camp. In 1947, he was \u201cdeployed to India during the bloody time of Partition.\u201d He was traveling to Israel in 1950, intending to settle there.<\/p>\n

While she stayed longer than the summer, Levi did return to the United States to finish her undergraduate degree, at the University of Iowa, \u201crenowned for its child psychology department,\u201d and Norman eventually returned to England. When a visit to Iowa City was about to extend past the deadline of his transit visa, the two decided to get married, as Levi\u2019s career would have been jeopardized if they lived together without being married. \u201cSo much for romantic proposals!\u201d writes Levi.<\/p>\n

The couple ended up getting married in Canada, for various reasons, and then moved to Toronto, to Montreal and, finally, Vancouver. There, newlywed life was challenging, as they got to know each other, struggled with money and started their family. Levi writes with openness about the good and the difficult \u2013 a recurring theme is communication troubles between Norman and her. A prime example is that, when things finally began to look good for them, with secure jobs, a reasonable income, Norman suggested they move to Israel. Initially startled, Levi admits that she, too, still wanted to make aliyah, but \u201cdidn\u2019t want to say much.\u201d<\/p>\n

They arrived in Israel, kids in tow, in late September 1957, heading to Kfar Daniel, a modified kibbutz. There, they adapted to yet another completely new way of life, making friends, learning the jobs they are given \u2013 Levi\u2019s first work is cleaning outhouses \u2013 and figuring out how to live in a place with snakes, scorpions and other dangers, including possible imprisonment if you accidentally wandered into Jordan, and military service for Norman.<\/p>\n

While they loved so many aspects of living in Israel \u2013 \u201cthe physicality of the land,\u201d feeling like \u201ca link to 2,000 years of history,\u201d connecting \u201cwith the guttural, nuanced ancient mystical language of Hebrew\u201d and feeling \u201cthat this truly was our home\u201d \u2013 other parts of the experience, both on the kibbutz and in Akko, where they moved in 1959, were impossible to reconcile with their beliefs and moral code. Among Levi\u2019s doubts about staying in Israel were \u201ccertain negative societal attitudes, my children\u2019s potential education system, political injustices, corruption in the form of \u2018protexia<\/em>,\u2019 and the top-heavy bureaucracy.\u201d It is with regret and ambivalence, as well as some shame that they couldn\u2019t make it work, that Levi and her family returned to Vancouver.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never felt concerned about going public,\u201d she told the Independent<\/em> of the personal nature of the book, \u201cbecause I was describing my truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

And part of her truth is the love for the country that remains, despite the disillusion, especially regarding social justice \u2013 how kibbutz members interacted with one another at times, how citizens were treated by the state in certain instances and how Arabs were viewed. An epilogue takes readers briefly through Levi\u2019s views of the political situation in 1964, 1967 and 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven today\u2019s controversies regarding Israel-Palestine, I wanted to describe the profound needs, emotions and idealism surrounding the early days of the state,\u201d said Levi. \u201cI wanted to convey my own journey of love and doubt, joy and conflict, idealism and human ego \u2013 the controversies inherent in communal living and the clashes of two peoples living and loving one land.\u201d<\/p>\n

In writing Kissing An Old Dream Goodbye<\/em>, Levi said, \u201cI hope I\u2019m able convey the colour and beauty of the land, the strengths and limitations of people in an authentic, compassionate way.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Levi continues to write. Her current project is a novel called The Hotelkeeper\u2019s Daughter<\/em>, a \u201cstory about an immigrant Jewish religious family, taking place from 1938 to 1948,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is the most exciting writing I\u2019ve ever undertaken.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the book festival schedule, visit jewishbookfestival.ca<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gloria Levi launches her most recent memoir at the Jewish Book Festival Feb. 12. (photo from Jewish Book Festival) When local activist and writer Gloria Levi was a teenager, she was immersed in the Labour Zionist movement and \u201cdreamed of becoming a pioneer in Israel.\u201d In 1950, at age 19, she spent several months there. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34155,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[784],"tags":[724,4041,1140,4330,4526],"class_list":["post-34154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","tag-aliyah","tag-cherie-smith-jcc-jewish-book-festival","tag-gloria-levi","tag-israel","tag-memoir"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}