This Old New Land

Bialik, Ben Gurion and Beyond--This Old- New Land

Herzl's two great works were The Jewish State and Altneuland.  The latter title was so brilliantly selected-- its theme reverberates everywhere in the country.

Our last two days in Israel.  Yesterday we went to visit the first Tel Aviv City Hall, now a museum of the history of the city with a great deal of emphasis on the first mayor, Meir Diezengoff and then to the home, two houses away of Haim Nahman Bialik, the poet laureate of the Jewish people.  Before that we had stopped by the home of David Ben Gurion--now a museum.

Bialik-- I think it is impossible to overestimate Bialik's importance in the revival of modern Hebrew in Israel (Palestine) in the early part of the 20th century.  I remember as a youngster in my Jewish day school in Chicago being required to memorize his poems.  His writings are vast--poetry, short stories, essays, children's stories and poems.

What struck me in his house was his vast Hebrew library--his deep learning in traditional Jewish writings was apparent.  His collection of midrashim was enormous Mekilta, sifre, sifra-- Midrash Rabbah, yalkutim of every variety.  His library also had Maimonides, Judah Ha-Levi, YD Eisenstein--collections of Medieval Hebrew poetry.  Bialik was steeped in the ancient and medieval literature of our people.  From the old--he is the symbol of the creation of a new Hebrew literature. 

Ben Gurion's house is essentially a few rooms built around a huge library--about ten thousand volumes.  Ben Gurion is reputed to have read every book in the collection and to know where each book was shelved.  (Aside-- we went there specifically to see two books by my Grandpa Goldman in the collection.  The librarians took them off the shelves for us--quite a thrill)  Ben Gurion was a keen student of philosophy, Bible and history.   We need his ilk today.

The people who built this place-- those Zionist patriarchs were so deeply learned, so cultured--wondrous by any standard.   They were living embodiments of an ancient culture that they were sifting through and refashioning to create a Jewish future. 

I am so blown away by this.  It's not that they decided one day to create a homeland .   They were building on a foundation of learning and sophistication-- they were giants.

We are the heirs to what they fashioned-- a nation among the nations.

We ended our final days visit with a walk through the Trumpeldor Cemetery-- the first cemetery in Tel Aviv.  Ahad Haam is buried here.  Bialik, Diezengoff, Tchernikovsky, Moshe Sharrett--and so many of the early luminaries all buried here.  The cemetery is beautiful and old and fragile sitting in the middle of vibrant, bustling, noisy Tel Aviv.

As we were leaving the cemetery, we stopped at a very large monument of 47 gravesites-- the memorial to the Jews killed in the Arab riots in Jaffa against the Jewish settlement in 1920.  It was so sad to see.

Again, we are the heirs to what they fashioned--many have died just so we can live here--"to be a free people in our home land..."

Herzl got it right-- Altneuland.  This is our old new land.  Whenever I leave Israel, it is with such sadness.  The problems here are enormous.  This place can confound my soul but I love it like no place else.