Opinion

Editor's Notebook

OurCurrent Fear:
Bangs And Whispers

When Your Child
Leaves For Camp

ERICA MEYER RAUZIN SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

PHIL JACOBS ED TOR

I

lock all my doors, all the time.
I look inside my car before I
open it. I never enter an ele-
vator with a lone man in it. I
walk with my keys grasped in my
hand, my purse clutched, my
stride deliberately purposeful.
None of these actions takes
any extra thought. They are au-
tomatic. I have become instinc-
tively, intrinsically watchful.
I have lived in Miami 22 years.
I love it here. I cherish my com-
munity and the balmy tropical
climate and the exciting city am-
biance.
I have never been the victim of
a crime, but I still watch. This
watchfulness is a little clock that
ticks in the back of my mind all
the time. It is relentless. I do not
know how to turn it off. Once,
long ago, a woman I used to know

was raped in an elevator, and the
built-in margin of safety in my
psyche went away.
I believe the bombing in Okla-
homa City blasted away that in-
nate sense of safety from millions
of people in the United States and
perhaps in Canada as well, par-
ticularly in the heartlands of both
countries. Things are different
here, we tell ourselves. And now
we see they are not.
Perhaps we Jews should be in-
ured. Our brothers and sisters in
Israel have been victims of cars
packed with explosives, of ran-
dom bombings, so often we have
to look up newspaper clippings
to get an accurate count.

Erica Rauzin is a columnist in
Florida.

Israelis are accustomed to in-
stinctive wariness, to keeping an
eye out all the time for the aban-
doned briefcase or pocketbook
that might contain instant ex-
plosive death. But we are not in-
ured. This is not less awful; it is
as awful; it is more awful because
it means the cancer of death-
bearing hatred is spreading.
I am not the only one who had
the instant, unwelcome thought
that Arab fanatics might have
been behind this blast. I am
ashamed that I made even mo-
mentary assumptions, although
recent history of violence by ter-
rorists who were Arabs offered
precedent. I know as a Jew that
the kind of thinking that auto-
matically blames another ethnic
group when there is trouble is
even more dangerous than

crime, I have been the victim, the
recipient — as a little girl — of
moistly breathed, whispered tele-
phone threats, nasty nighttime
voices that called me a dirty Jew
and threatened to come get my
daddy.
My father did not let on that
such people might be seriously
dangerous. He must have figured
that fear was none of my busi-
ness. But he taught me to answer
them calmly, to ask them extra
sweetly, "Do you want to leave
a message?" And when I did that,
they always hung up, leaving a
buzz in my ears and sweat on my
palms.
I had set those memories
aside, with time. I send donations
to the Southern Poverty Law
Center and the Anti-Defamation
League, and they combat those
ghosts. I think this
week I'll send
them more. They
may be our front
line for fighting
back.
I know the
whisperers are
still out there. I
knew it before
they blew up Ok-
lahoma's federal
building. I know
the rural out-
reaches, no less
than the city
streets, conceal
squads of self-
sanctified haters
— bitter, hard-bit-
ten people with
car trunks full of
assault guns and
heads full of lethal
nonsense.
But all this
knowledge, as a
child of the South-
ern struggles, as a
sister of Israel, has
not made my hide
any tougher than
any other Ameri-
can's; my shock
and fear are no
bombs. Jews have far too often less. I have no greater ability to
been on the receiving end of that watch the unfolding newscasts,
kind of assumption, and its path to read the dreadful newspaper
is destruction.
accounts, without tears. I, too,
I am visited by another mem- now release my children into
ory, too, one even more buried their school with extra hugs and
than the secondhand vision of the extra reluctance. I am reawak-
rapist in the elevator. As a child ened to cherishing each minute.
of the American rural mountains,
Everyone I have spoken to,
as well as a child of the Jewish Jew and non-Jew, has taken the
people, I once learned that fa- Oklahoma City attack personal-
naticism knows no boundary of ly. We all identify so closely with
nationhood or ethnicity. But, for the victims because they were do-
a while, I guess I forgot.
ing what we do: going about their
My hometown was a scenic, lit- daily business in a routine way
tle mountain community. When in a safe place.
I was a child, my father was the
And if their place wasn't safe,
editor of the local newspaper, a neither is ours. Now we must all
liberal spokesman for integration be watchful. And we no longer
and civil rights. Although I have need whispers at midnight to tell
never been the victim of big-city us so. El

Got a bad case of
separation anxi-
ety already.
Started when it
came in the
mail. The list.
You know the
one. Two hun-
dred pairs of un-
derwear that
you never want to see again; 200
Camp Willbegone T-shirts; 29
bathing suits and enough insect
repellent to stop Jurassic Park.
My oldest daughter is going
away to camp for the first time.
No, the separation anxiety has
nothing to do with the funds
about to leave my checkbook. It
sounded far off enough last sum-
mer when she asked to go. I kind
of waved it away. But when the
snow was on the ground, an ado-
lescent's mind turns to overnight
in a dusty bunkhouse some-
where.
I remember that list, espe-
cially the first occasion it came
in the mail, back in 1966. My
parents were sending me to a
place called Camp Moshava.
Unlike my daughter, I didn't
want to go to overnight camp. I
was content to stay on the sand-
lot all summer, but neither par-
ent would hear of it.
Still, there was anxiety. The
thought of being away from
home, the thought of a Jewish
camp where the counselors were
called madrichim and where He-
brew was the primary language,
English the secondary means of
communication. On the first day
of camp, our rosh hamachene
(head of camp) told the assem-
bled masses, of whom I knew no-
body, that unless there was an
emergency, all announcements
and public directives would be
said in Hebrew. Like, tell me
where the boys room is first.
Where were the beautiful
green playing fields pictured in
the brochure? The bunks were
cramped and dusty, and many
bunks were simply large tents
(ohelim I learned real quick).
The big assembly tent was the
ohel hagadol. But at no time did
I learn the Hebrew for how I
was feeling, homesick.
This was at a time just fol-
lowing the miraculous Six-Day
War. My counselor was late
coming to camp because he was
an American volunteer in the Is-
raeli military. His name was
Jackie, and he was from Central
Casting if you needed a dirty-
blond, well-tanned military guy.
He taught us how to speak some
Hebrew, camp outside in the
woods, understand some real
history about Israel and about
Jerusalem. He was there dur-
ing Jerusalem's liberation from
Jordan. He would have our un-
divided attention at bedtime,

telling us stories of the Six-Day
War, friends of his who died,
what the Wall meant, what it
cost.
I didn't know from any of this.
Jackie could hit a softball , and
he also knew how to make a
homesick kid feel OK. We would
say Kiddush for Shabbat watch-
ing the sun set over the bay.
We'd wear white and sing and
listen to gorgeous Israeli songs.
The next year, there was no
drama of a Six-Day War, but
camp was easier, even more fun.
The years following were even
better. There were friendships
that lasted beyond college. How
I missed my parents, especially
the first year. But camp's place
in my Jewish life became more
and more important.
These were the learning ex-
periences many of us as adults
remember. They are part of our
fabric, and for those of us for-
tunate enough to go, it became
part of our Jewish foundation.
I met my first Israelis my age
at camp. I learned how to make
a tent out of blankets and sleep
under the stars. And I learned
good, Jewish values of right and
wrong and working together as
a people.

Separation anxiety
for Dad.

I still didn't learn to clean my
room (to this day).
No, the anxiety is not for my
daughter. It's more a combina-
tion of seeing her grow a little
older, and the realization that
she's about to have a time in her
life shell always remember. Sep-
arating from her is my chal-
lenge. She's at the same age I
was when I "left" home for the
first time. All parents know
what that feeling is like.
I've already started the time-
honored tradition of brain-wash-
ing. You know the one, "I
remember writing home to my
parents every day."
A friend told me that when
her two kids return home from
camp, they were taller than
when they left.
Wonderful.
What am I going to do with
200 pairs of underwear that are
too small by the end of camp?
Don't worry, my friend said,
they don't return with a great
deal of their stuff. Their duffel
bags are much lighter. Things
get lost in the camp laundry or
who knows where.
Jewish identity, friends, ex-
periences. It's not a question of
laundry markers. What they
learn is indelible.
They'll come home with so
much more. None of it to be out-
grown. El

