A tour of a central Jerusalem square with its namesake's niece, writer Michal Govrin.
By DAVID STROMBERGKikar Govrin 88 224(photo credit: David Stromberg )
If you live in Jerusalem, chances are you pass Kikar Govrin several times a week without necessarily knowing it. Just below the Bezalel Cafe, a block above the old Knesset building on King George Avenue, at the corner where Shmuel Hanagid and the pedestrian section of Rehov Bezalel meet, is a plaque bearing the name Akiva Govrin. Noticing it, I wondered: Could Akiva Govrin, the country's first tourism minister, be related to writer, poet and playwright Michal Govrin?
It turned out he was her father's brother: "Uncle Akiva."
Born in the shtetl of Shpikov in Ukraine, Govrin (1902-1980) was labeled a Zionist leader by the age of 16, when after training himself to be an orator from a book of famous speeches, he got up on a barrel and started giving his own public speeches. Along with Michal's father, Pinhas, Akiva was active both in Ukraine and later in Romania in negotiating permits for pioneers to travel to Eretz Yisrael.
They came from a strictly observant family. Their grandfather, Rabbi Yitzhak Hayut-Globman, born in Rerid, Ukraine, would eventually come to Palestine and live in Mea She'arim. Their father, Rabbi Mordechai Asher Hayut-Globman, was the one to introduce Zionist literature into the house, and taught modern Hebrew at a school in Breslav. He was proud of his children's dedication to settling and developing Eretz Yisrael as a Jewish state.
The family's aliya was long and complicated, and from the time they left Ukraine it took the family's four living generations four years to reconvene in Palestine. Just crossing the border from Bessarabia (present-day Moldova) was a year-long saga. Pinhas was the first to reach Palestine. He arrived in the Jezreel Valley, where, pretending to be older than he was, he became one of the founders of Kibbutz Tel Yosef. A rumor had reached the rest of the family that he had been killed, and when when eventually the family started arriving in Palestine, Pinhas's two brothers, Akiva and Shlomo, walked from Haifa to Nahalal to learn more about the circumstances of his death from Haim Shurer, founder of the Davar newspaper. That morning Pinhas, too, made his way by foot to Nahalal.
As Michal narrates the nearly biblical scene: "After marching since dawn, Pinhas arrived at Shurer's, who was amazed to see him alive. 'Your brothers have just left for Tel Yosef,' he said, and pointed to two palm trees on the horizon near the train station next to Tzemah, under which he saw the silhouettes of two young men. Pinhas walked toward them, ran, called out their names. They hastened to him, and fell into each other arms, kissed and wept."
This was in 1923; the family wouldn't be completely reunited in Palestine for another two years.
At that time, Akiva lived with his mother in an annex of Beit Shatz, where Bezalel Academy of Art and Design founder Boris Shatz, lived. The house is just up the way from what is now Kikar Govrin.
When the square was first dedicated to Akiva in 1993, it was not much more than the corner of a little pedestrian road. Now it has become a small center linking the King George Avenue area with Nahlaot, with cafes flanking it on all sides, adjoining the original Bezalel Academy building, with the Artists House just down the street and the Rehov Ben-Yehuda pedestrian mall within eyeshot. The old Knesset building just a block away has been turned into the Tourism Ministry.
The neighborhood's constant state of new construction befits Govrin's legacy. During his sojourn in Bessarabia, he had learned to be a carpenter. When he moved to Jerusalem, he joined the labor battalion that constructed King George Avenue. He worked for an Arab contractor whose entire workforce was Jewish. But he soon returned to leadership positions, including a prominent role in a large Histadrut strike at the Haifa Port. But whatever his involvement in the newly created State of Israel, Govrin often joked about his shtetl roots.
Michal relates that, while among the Tel Aviv intelligentsia in which Govrin lived, people would mention their origins in Paris, Frankfurt or Moscow, he would proudly pronounce "Shpikov." She remembers him calling her father from the Knesset and asking in his low bass, "Pinhas, what was the tune of Herschel Yoskel the Limper?" Her father would answer, "Nai, nai, nai..." and Akiva would say, "Thank you," and hang up.
"In joking about the shtetl, they resurrected it," explains Michal, whose doctorate focused on Hassidism. As part of her research, she made a recording of her father and uncle in 1973 singing hassidic tunes. The recording is now part of the National Sound Archive.
AKIVA GOVRIN was a great collector of archeological artifacts. Michal says his house was like a museum. At the entrance there was the capital of a Greek column. He had Syrian and Etruscan items, a 5,000-year-old jar from Hatzor, masks from Egypt, a mummified doll from an Incan grave. He loved to create flower arrangements, which he did in his ancient Chinese vases. He had all kinds of Judaica, including hanukkiot and a breastplate from a Sefer Torah. She also remembers a giant goblin the size of an entire wall.
"Archeology was the Labor Party's religion," explains Michal. At that time, Israel was building its image as the cradle of civilization through archeological research, and the idea was to export it as an icon for tourism. In addition to his experience working with former mayor Teddy Kollek at the Tourism Bureau, his devotion to archeology was an important part of his being named tourism minister in 1964.
The shtetl-boy-turned-Zionist-leader became a minister "with an official car and everything," says Michal. She remembers once coming from Tel Aviv on a school trip to Jerusalem. She told her teachers she had an uncle in the Knesset, and they took her to the lobby, everyone waiting while he was called down from his office. Then came Uncle Akiva, "with his large bald head and Roman senator's face," calling to her, "Oy! Michali."
As a diplomat he traveled abroad, and would come back with stories that accented the humor with which he approached his work. As Michal remembers: "He'd say, 'Oy! I just came from Burma, I ate this thing, you know, you take the leaves and you eat it.' It was an artichoke, which he'd never eaten. Then they gave him a little jar with water, so he drank it. But everyone was washing their hands with it."
Uncle Akiva was such a storyteller that it wasn't always clear whether he was telling the complete truth or spinning his own legend. For example, there was one famous story that he said took place during his years as part of an armed group called Hagana Atzmit, which defended Jews against Symon Petlura's pogroms during the Russian Revolution and the ensuing civil war. Akiva recounted that while he was standing in uniform at the Shpikov train station, a train pulled up and out came an officer. He had little round glasses and spoke to Akiva in Yiddish, saying that he'd heard that the rebbe of Skver-Chernobyl was in the town, and asking whether he could tell him where the tzadik was. The man never mentioned his name, but everyone was meant to understand that this was Akiva's meeting with Isaac Babel.
Michal relates these memories mixed with fantasies about her beloved Uncle Akiva at Cafe Bezalel, on a summer evening. The city is about to switch from the end of the day to the beginning of the night. And at the center of this constantly busy city, without even knowing it, the spirit of Akiva Govrin presides over a Jerusalem refuge.
if(catID != 151){
var cont = `Take Israel home with the new Jerusalem Post Store
