Israelis In America
I
Leeat (left), Yaffa and Zvi Shevach in their West Bloomfield home.
ZVI SHEVACH: "If I wanted to
live in Israel I would live there.
I'm here by choice."
America). At this point we don't
make any practical plans, but I could
never say that we're not going back."
Lev, like many Israelis in the
Detroit area, is now a U.S. citizen, a
move which did not involve renounc-
ing her Israeli citizenship or giving
up her Israeli passport.
"What America offers in per-
sonal freedom, anonymity, which can
be very therapeutic for a short time,"
explains Micha Lev (no relation to
Nira) whose novel, Yordim, Leaving
the Promised Land for the Land of
Promise, traces the fortunes of two
Israeli brothers in America. "The
danger is that you can be so anonym-
ous that you can disappear and lose
yourself.
"You have a choice — time or
money," he adds. "If you have more
personal time, you have less income
and vice versa. In America, at least at
first, it seems that you're in control of
your time. Israelis come to America
as much for time as for money, prob-
ably more."
After awhile, though, the pur-
suit inevitably becomes material, the
measure of all things in America.
Tuvia Gross has been in Detroit-only
since August, long enough to watch
the money game in action.
"Here you work twice as hard (as
in Israel) for four times the money
and you can't save anything. And ev-
erything is cheaper. Where's the
miracle?" he wonders aloud.
Abe Shepes, a pharmacist who
has lived in Detroit since 1969, com-
pares America to a narcotic. "You get
tranquilized or addicted to the peace-
ful . . . the cold people, cold relation-
ships."
He considers this "addiction to a
peaceful way of life" an advantage
America has over Israel. "That's be-
cause nobody wants to get involved.
You get peace of mind. You know no-
body's going to bother you. Nobody's
going to drop in on you at 11 at
night."
Although small now, Detroit's
Israeli community may begin to act
as a magnet, attracting other Israelis
seeking opportunities.
Says Banich Cahlon: "When the
community reaches a critical mass
the Israelis will come. If you're Is-
raeli and you know an Israeli with a
(mechanic's) garage, then maybe you
can find work. In the future you will
probably see more Israeli young men
who will come to Detroit to find
work."
Here is where Cahlon's beliefs
and reality come crashing together.
Unfortunately it is a growing trend,
he says. Israel's pool of reserve
soldiers is diminishing. "In principle
we would like to see ten million
people in Israel. It's a contradiction,
because what are we doing here?
Sometimes you have to live with con-
tradictions."
he Zionist pioneers who
founded Israel were out to
create a new Jew more than
they sought to create a
Jewish state. The new Jew
was to be free of Galut, exile, free of
the contradictions inherent in being
a small minority wherever Jews
lived. In a mystical way, those who
returned to the Land of Israel were
o/im, literally, "those who go up."
Israelis who left Israel have
seemingly turned their back on
Zionism's proud nationalism and re-
jection of exile. More importantly,
they have traded the "normalcy" of
living in their own state for the con-
tradictions of being a minority in the
Diaspora. In common Hebrew par-
lance they are known as yordim, a
pejorative term meaning "ones who
go down."
Herein lies the guilt of the yor-
dim. "It's a guilt toward our parents,
the chalutz (pioneer) generation,"
Nira Lev explains. "You don't just
leave, you stick it in their faces."
"I believe Israelis in America
feel a very deep sense of guilt for
being here and not there," observes
Micha Lev. "Guilt is a positive emo-
tion in my judgement. You can't feel
guilty about something unless you
feel connected to it. It's a gut-level
guilt that over time increases rather
than lessens."
"There's nothing you can say to
justify being here," insists Shalom
Lev (no relation to Micha or Nira
Lev). "Somewhere down deep you
know that's not how I was brought
up."
Lev and his wife, Mira„ came to
Detroit in 1979. He obtained his
bachelor's and master's degrees in
engineering in Detroit and now
works for EDS-Saturn. Mira is a
teacher at Hillel Day School. They
have two young sons, born in the U.S.
Each of the Israelis interviewed
for this article described this sense of
guilt. Few, including Shalom Lev,
said they personally felt guilty.
Many tried to intellectualize the
phenomenon. Some offered what may
have been rationalizations.
"When you grow up you realize
that nothing is permanent. Life is
dynamic." says Baruch Cahlon.
"I'm not really torn because if I
wanted to live there, I would live
there. I'm here by choice," Zvi
Shevach asserts.
"If you have this complicated
feeling, you're not going to be able to
make it anywhere," says Yaffa
Shevach.
"We're so involved with what
we're doing (day to day) that we don't
want to tackle the problem," Shalom
Lev says thoughtfully.
It is a difficult problem to .tackle.
To turn his back on Israel while still
carrying his Zionist patrimony, the
Israeli finds himself facing an exis-
tential dead end, albeit a materially
comfortable one.
The Israeli expatriates are
treated like the secret shame of
American Jews, Israel, and the ex-
patriates themselves. The very real
presence of hundreds of thousands of
Israelis in the_United States is rarely
discussed in American Jewish
forums. Many Israelis feel the stigma
and declined to be interviewed. Dis-
cussing their presence here clearly
embarasses them. Some spoke of a
backlash from other local Israelis if
they were to speak too candidly.
There are some changes in the air.
American Jews are beginning to
realize that the Israelis are here to
....• ■•■•••■•■••
NIRA LEV: "At this point we
don't make any practical plans,
but I could never say that
we're not going back."
Nira Lev teaches her advanced Hebrew class, from left, Marci Brown, Ellen Dannin
and Oren Levine.