A Case of Identities

By HAIM WATZMAN
Story in Issue 10, September 1, 2008 of The Jerusalem Report. To subscribe to The Jerusalem Report click here. All year I work hard to reinforce my Jewish-Zionist-Israeli conception of myself and to instill it in my children. I talk to them about the importance of serving their country, by serving in the army or by going to college in Sderot; about how we must preserve our heritage and traditions. And about why you need to know who you are as an Israeli and a Jew. And then family and friends send their kids to Israel for the summer on Birthright and other youth group trips and the boundaries fade and the walls of identity tumble. My niece from Atlanta came with a program from the Reform movement. My best friend from high school's daughter came with a National Conference of Synagogue Youth (Orthodox) group, in which almost no one was observant. And then my wife's nephew, Alexander Levy, who's not even Jewish, arrived for a visit. Alexander is a dark-haired, fine-featured, 19-year old French rugby player and aspiring entrepreneur. He wears a Star of David pendant, has a great-uncle who is a Shas teshuva (return to religion) preacher, and is the son of Momi, a Yom Kippur War tank commander. His mother is Veronique, nominally Catholic, born in a small town in southeastern France to not particularly church-minded parents. Along with his sister and his father (Veronique was kept at home by her job), Alexander spent the weekend at our apartment. He hung out with my younger son and his friends, kicked a soccer ball around, slept a lot. On previous visits, I've itched to talk to Alexander about what it means to him that he has family like us in Israel and how that fits into his conception of himself. Until now he was too young for such a conversation and the visits were too compressed. But now he's out of high school and here for a whole month, so I asked him on Shabbat if he'd be open to a serious chat with me about his identity. He readily agreed, so Sunday morning he and his father, who served as interpreter, settled into a pair of blue plastic folding chairs in my tiny basement work room. Momi, like many veterans of the battles of 1973, came out of the war in deep crisis. He spent his adolescence on a kibbutz and absorbed patriotic labor Zionist values but the death and destruction he'd seen seemed to call that into question. After a few months of bumming on a beach in Sinai, he left the kibbutz and his country and set off on a long period of travel around the world. He eventually ended up in France, where he married and established his family. Building himself up from nothing, he worked hard at running a series of small and modest but successful restaurants and shwarma joints, first in Paris and then in Montpellier. He recently sold his business and, at the age of 56, he has gone into semi-retirement. So, for the first time in many years, he has the time for a summer-long visit to his native country, along with his children. Although many boys of his age might well have chosen to opt out of a month-long family trip, Alexander says it's important for him to see where his father came from and to get to know his family. "So you're the son of an Israeli? Is that how you define yourself?" "I really don't feel like the son of an Israeli," Alexander says earnestly. "More like the son of a Jew. But first of all I feel that I'm French inside." "We hear a lot about anti-Semitism in France. You've got a Jewish name. Have you gotten any flak about being a Jew?" Alexander thinks hard and makes a reply to Momi. Despite his graying curls, Momi has the smile and the energy of a 20-year-old. In high school, he twice won the trophy in the annual race up Mt. Gilboa and he's never been one to delegate hard work in his restaurants - he does renovations on his own, hauls sacks of flour on his own back. "He says that once in school someone called him a Jew and said he hated Alexander because he studies the Koran," Momi translates. "You've got to understand that in France most people don't believe in any religion. So they don't have any knowledge of religion at all. If anything, he gets more empathy for his Jewish background. There are people who feel closer to him because they think he's Jewish, and they have a good opinion of Jews." About a fifth of the kids in his high school class are of Arab descent, Alexander estimates, and there are one or two others who have Jewish names - he doesn't know whether they're really Jews or the children of mixed families like his own. He's never thought to ask. "I've always wanted to ask this but I was too embarrassed," I say to Momi. "What holidays do you observe at home? Do you celebrate Christmas?" "The holidays we celebrate at home are the Jewish ones," Alexander says. Rosh Hashana, Pesah. We have a festive meal with the family and friends and read a little about the Exodus from Egypt." "I explain about the holiday," Momi says. "On Christmas the only important thing is giving presents. But Alexander likes the Jewish holidays. We invite over other Israelis like us." "But I'm not religious. I don't believe in religion," Alexander says. Alexander, like his father and sister, sat attentively at our Shabbat table. He drank wine for Kiddush, washed his hands and said - of his own volition, without any prompting from us - the appropriate blessing. He ate challa. He says he likes coming to us - his religious aunt and uncle - for Sabbath and holidays and enjoys the calm and the quiet. "To know what it's like, the best thing is to do it just like you do it," he says about Shabbat. Alexander's not going into the restaurant business. His priority over the last three years has been to pass his high-school graduation examinations, which he's done, with excellence. He plans to go to engineering school and found a company that will work on alternative energy. "I think in universal terms," he says. "I want to make the world a better place, a more beautiful place for my children and grandchildren." "I'm trying to figure out if he's more like me or like you," I say to Momi. "He's got very solid plans - he doesn't sound like the type to go wandering around the world for years and years, like you did. I've always pictured you as someone who never really put down roots anywhere, even in France. I remember that just a couple years ago you were talking about picking up everything and moving to Brazil. But Alexander sounds like he has his feet on the ground." Momi translates for Alexander and they have a brief exchange. "He says he thinks he's taking the best aspects from both of us," Momi replies. "And remember that you weren't exactly settled when you were young. You left everything behind in America and came to Israel." "When you say that you have a universal point of view," I tell him, "it sounds different from my own kids. Your cousin, my older son, is in the army now. I think if I were to ask him what he's doing there he'd say first and foremost defending his country and his people. Universal thoughts would come only after that." "He lives in a country that's in the midst of conflicts," Alexander shrugs. "I don't have problems like that in my head that I have to deal with. France isn't in conflict with the countries around it. If it were, I'd probably feel the same way about France that he does about Israel." He cast his first vote last year, for Nicolas Sarkozy. "He seemed to have a lot more of a realistic view of the world than the Socialist candidate did," he explains. "But I feel like the world is a very unclear place today. Nothing is clear. There could be lots of changes." "What I know, though, is that whoever is lazy ends up on the bottom of the heap and whoever wants to achieve something and works hard can achieve it," he adds. "That's you all over," I say to Momi. Alexander is getting fidgety. He and my younger son were out until all hours last night, and he didn't wake up until after 10 a.m. The day is running out and Alexander Levy, my nephew who thinks of himself as a citizen of the world, along with a good measure of French patriotism mixed with a bit of Jewish stuff and some warm feelings for Israel, is anxious to get out and do something.• Haim Watzman is the author of "Company C: An American's Life as a Citizen-Soldier in Israel" and "A Crack in the Earth: A Journey Up Israel's Rift Valley." He blogs at South Jerusalem [http://southjerusalem.com]. Story in Issue 10, September 1, 2008 of The Jerusalem Report. To subscribe to The Jerusalem Report click here.