Don't Tell Me I Can't Do It! (2 page)

Let destiny have its way. My mantra is and always will be, “Don’t tell me I can’t do it,” whether because I’m a Jew, a woman, a wife, a mother, a grandmother, plain or gorgeous, short or tall. There may be things that don’t go my way, and there may be obstacles to overcome from time to time, but whether I experience adversity or prosperity, I expect to cherish life with all its challenges.

That said, one of the things I’ve come to realize is that life is never quite as complete as when it is shared in community with others—whether that be with family and friends we’ve known our whole lives or the brothers and sisters who, as yet, remain strangers to us. I firmly believe that we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. Perhaps it’s because I’ve seen and experienced
the utter depravity of human potential that I’ve also become especially sensitive to, and appreciative of, the soaring heights to which human generosity can reach when people embrace one another as fellow travelers in a sometimes difficult but always exhilarating journey toward a glorious tomorrow. Life is most satisfying when our lives touch others’ lives as well, when we reach out beyond ourselves to do our part in making the world we’ve inherited a better, more harmonious place for all to live and to thrive.

That’s why I’ve decided to write this little book. It’s my gift to those who, like me, thirst to live their lives with passion and with purpose. In these pages I hope to inspire others to share the resolute optimism that allowed me to rise from the ashes of the camps, not merely to survive as a “marked person” in an unaccommodating world, but to genuinely thrive as one who cherishes life and determines to make the very most of the hand she has been dealt. I’m going to describe five core beliefs that frame the way I choose to live each day. Along the way, I hope my readers will come to appreciate how my life, though not always easy, has been
blessedly beshert. Never mind the past. My here and now is good, very good, and I want others to see that theirs can be, too.

I
have always been intrigued by the paranormal, by psychic phenomena. My mother possessed the gift of premonition, and I was impressed by a psychic my sister visited when she first immigrated to Israel. Some of those predictions actually came true—including the death of one of my sister’s close friends, a young man named Yidale. Needless to say, when my friends and I learned that a famous traveling psychic from Haifa would be coming to Tel Aviv, we booked appointments well in advance.

It was 1958. I was twenty-four and still single. Most of my companions were getting married and settling
down, something my parents would have loved for me to do as well. But I was determined to see more of the world first. My sister had left Israel to live with her husband in Los Angeles, and I had decided to pay them a visit, with stops in Europe along the way. It was unheard of for a woman to travel alone in those days, but I had saved some money and felt more than capable of handling myself abroad.

The psychic arrived in town about two months before my departure. Seven of us went for readings, and we got together afterward to share what we had been told.

“You really want to live in this country,” the psychic told me. “This is where your heart is, but this is not where you are going to end up. You are going to live somewhere far away, over a long, long ocean. Before the end of this year, you will be on a boat sailing toward your destiny. You are going to marry a widower and you are going to have two children. Your future is not in Israel. It is over the ocean.”

I came out of my session and cried like a baby. The psychic’s predictions were so far off the mark of my desires, yet a part of me that I didn’t know or understand,
something deep within, was touched. My devout Zionist instincts protested vehemently, but somehow I knew she was right.

It was difficult for me to get my travel visa because Israel was reluctant to issue them to single women. They tended to leave and never return. “Look at them, the traitors,” I thought. In those days I was firmly convinced that all Jews everywhere were duty-bound to settle in Israel. The thought of me leaving and never coming back was unfathomable. I told the American consul as much when he challenged my motives for leaving.

“You speak English,” he said, making it sound like a criticism. “If you leave, what’s the guarantee that you will come back? You could teach Hebrew school. You could work for American Jewish agencies. You could get married, and you may never come back.”

“Why wouldn’t I want to come back?” I retorted, looking the man straight in the eye. “Remember, I’m single. I’m working for the government tourist office. I meet a lot of American men visiting here. I could have my pick. If I just wanted to leave the country and live in America, I could have been married by now.” I maintained eye contact. “I believe very strongly that all Jews
should live in Israel. I’m positive that my life is here in this country.”

I must have sounded confident. The consul signed my papers on the spot, which was unprecedented, especially under my circumstances. At last, I was free to spread my wings and to explore the mystery of my new adventurous life journey.

I suppose I was unprepared for the wealth of opportunities I would encounter in Los Angeles—opportunities to fulfill lifelong dreams and to realize my full potential. I certainly never anticipated that I would have to leave Israel to do those things. Yet looking back, I also realize that it was an equally unanticipated set of circumstances that brought me to my Jewish homeland in the first place.

Liberation by the Russians brought an end to Nazi occupation, but it hadn’t put an end to Jewish persecution in Romania. In those days my family had hoped to relocate to Palestine for safety and a better shot at
prosperity, but Romanian emigration policy made it very difficult for Jews to leave. My sister Dita was the first, having completed her studies at the
hachsara
(a preparatory school for young adults preparing to enter Palestine). She was sixteen years old, one of the famous
Exodus
Jews whose boat was intercepted by the British, sent to Cyprus, and finally secreted into Palestine in 1948. Dita married a handsome Sabra (an Israeli native) and began inquiring when we would join her. We were ecstatic when, only a year later, a change in Romanian policy enabled us to do so.

Had it not been for the terrors of war, I might never have left the land of my birth. Had it not been for the persecution my family faced during those agonizing years, I might never have known the unimaginable joy of freely stepping foot upon Israeli soil. Equally truly, had destiny not “lured me” to LA, I might never have gained the life I’ve come to cherish in all my years since then. I can’t say that mine is necessarily the life I would have planned for myself from start to finish, but today I can say with absolute confidence that it is the best life for me, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. My sojourn in this world
has taught me an axiomatic lesson:
Life is a gift, a journey, both smooth and rocky.
We don’t always get to plot the course, and there are times when our paths will take us through turbulent waters, but all of it is precious, if we choose to receive it. I’ve found that the joy of living— really living—is discovering the surprises that destiny has in store for us, delighting in the unexpected twists and turns of our fate and claiming them as opportunities to become something more than we previously imagined.

When I first moved to Israel, my parents sent me off to a girls’ agricultural academy called Ayanot in a small town southeast of Tel Aviv. I earned the balance of my tuition by working in the school and on the grounds. I remember delighting so much in that experience. Up to that point in my life, it was the most wonderful thing I could ever have imagined for myself. Milking the cows, picking oranges, cleaning out the horse stalls, working hard by the sweat of our brows in the hot Israeli sun, then singing poignant Israeli songs around the bonfire at night—it was all so intoxicating. I was an enthusiastic pioneer, throwing myself recklessly into my new existence, horse manure and all.

As a young Jewish immigrant plucked like a brand from the fires of the Holocaust, I had already learned to revel in the simplest things in life as profound gifts to be prized and savored. Like the time back in Romania, before we had been permitted to immigrate to Israel, when I stayed overnight at my friend Suri’s house. While I slept, Suri’s mother had my torn shoes repaired, and I remember proudly rushing home the
next morning to share the news with my mother. In those days I still had very few material possessions, and though I might not have opted for that kind of life if I had had the choice, it certainly enabled me to experience the smallest gestures of kindness with authentic gratitude and to partake of simple things like shoes and a slice of fresh bread as though they were jewels from heaven. I hope I never lose that. I owe my ability to savor the little things in life to my war experience.

Ayanot brought the same kind of joy for me. I became convinced that the kibbutzim (communal farms) were the way forward for a strong Jewish nation, and I threw myself wholeheartedly into the endeavor. Unfortunately, my parents were not keen on the idea of me moving away from them permanently like that. They attempted to rein in my passion by forbidding me to join the kibbutz and discontinuing their payments toward my tuition. Forced to abandon my education and return to Tel Aviv, I was miserable and angry, very angry.

I could have impetuously rebelled against my parents, of course. I could have run away in the night,
married some young man, and lived happily ever after in an agricultural commune my parents didn’t even know about. Or I could have gone the opposite direction, succumbing to despair and giving up my dreams altogether. But I didn’t. Somehow, even when it seemed that the odds were stacked against me, I was convinced that the way forward began with taking ownership of my here and now. And as it turns out, though life on a kibbutz was at that time the best thing I could imagine for myself, I had a better future yet to be revealed. But claiming that part of my destiny would mean having to do the unthinkable.