Rinna Samuel - In the Fiftieth Year- A Collage of Faces and Places

To the extent that people and places can ever be reasonably matched, the real-life fit between Irit Shahar and Rishon West a sprawling suburb of the city of Rishon Lezion in which she lives and goes to school, is just about perfect. Both are in the early spring of their existence: Irit recently turned 15; most of Rishon West is still to celebrate its first decade, some of it is yet to be built. both young, good-looking, wearing a shared yet weighty heritage lightly, they are apt metaphors of Israel at 50, serving, among other things, as measures of the degree to which Israeli society in general and this vintage in particular has become part and parcel of the international community. Irits flowing hair, jeans, message-bearing
T-shirts, high-decibel MTV music, and addiction to Coca-Cola and McDonalds immediately mark her as a card-carrying member of a global sisterhood, her nationality difficult if not impossible to identify at first, or even second, glance. On a trip to London with her family earlier this year, her total rapport with her foreign cousins was instantaneous despite her halting English

Rishon West too could as easily be an outcropping of Rotterdam, Manchester, or Albany. Stretching over some 20,000 square metres, the new suburb boasts a population of more than 60,000 people. Only the sand, intruding here and there, serves as a reminder that this townlet has risen entirely from the dunes. Like Irit herself, it represents something new on the Israeli scene. Planned down to the last detail of maintenance, present and future, user-friendly in the extreme, Rishon West has its own private parking places, community facilities (designed to meet the growing needs of a population 40% of which is still under 30) and palm-lined boulevards, playgrounds and pocket gardens.

Appearances notwithstanding, Irit and Rishon West are more deeply rooted in the past than most people and many places in Israel. Rishon Lezion ("First in Zion"), a coastal city some 11 kilometres from Tel Aviv, is one of the oldest towns in Israel. Established by pioneers from Russia in 1882, at the start of Zionist immigration to what was then a neglected province of a crumbling Ottoman Empire, it soon became and remains a symbol of early settlement.

What the Founding Fathers and Mothers of Rishon Lezion would make of Rishon West and Irit one will never know but Irit is not particularly interested in the past. "I dont really feel connected to things that happened so long ago," she says. Nor does she pretend huge concern with current events. "I dont read the paper every day and I certainly dont listen to the news all the time the way my parents do. What do I think will happen over the next 50 years? Let me think. Well, first of all, I hope theres peace. I cant work up any interest in politics, but peace, that really matters a lot to me."

She didnt go with her parents and her brother Shaul, just turned 19, to any of the memorial ceremonies to slain prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, but she wept whenever she watched them on television or at school. As for the Arabs, she doesnt know any. "I expect theyll come to terms with us sooner or later. In the meantime I wish the fighting would stop. Shaul has been in the army for a year; he serves somewhere on the Lebanese border; a classmate of his was killed last month. I worry terribly about him."

What lies ahead for her? "Graduating school. The army. Im very nervous about that; the discipline and the physical effort." A charming laugh, somewhat embarrassed. "Then I expect Ill study. You know, university. All my friends are going to study. Yes, and after the army, I want to go abroad for a while. Thats what everyone does."

Irits parents, Anat and Nimrod, live in a roomy well-appointed apartment. They are both 50, born in the first year of Israels existence, in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem respectively, to professional families. One of Irits grandfathers was a lawyer, the other became a civil servant when the state was created; one grandmother was a teacher, the other ran a nursery school. All four came from European backgrounds, were raised in liberal homes, were unswervingly committed to the struggle for Jewish independence in Palestine and to the belief that this would only be achieved if everyone rallied to the banner of the reigning Labour Party, not because they were socialists but because they were opposed to any break in the ranks.

One way or another, either on behalf of Haganah (the Jewish self-defense underground) or via the British Army, the grandparents all participated in the shaping events of 1948, later bringing up their children on stories and songs about the price paid for Israels existence.

"Our parents are very nice people," Irits mother says. "They have no axe to grind; even now when everyones so critical about everything, my parents still feel that a miracle took place in their lifetime and that it was their privilege to be part of it. They and their friends talk about the War of Independence as if it was yesterday. Were different; we talk endlessly about politics, complain about the government, are very concerned about the future and the kind of country this is becoming. I dont really believe anymore that what my parents told me was, strictly speaking, true."

She leans forward, emphatic, "Look, there used to be no generation gap between parents and children. We didnt rush to tell them everything but we felt the same way about the country. Not any more. When Rabin was assassinated, my parents were very unhappy; they cried as though someone in the family had died. They tried to explain what had happened to their grandchildren, how it could happen here and that it happened elsewhere as well and that the world hadnt come to an end. But it wasnt a watershed event for them as it was for us. Nimrod and I felt we still feel that there was one Israel, at last on the brink of peace before the murder; but that Rabins death changed everything."

The coffee has grown cold; Anat switches on the light; painful topics have been touched upon; its a relief when Nimrod comes in and the discussion moves to privatization and the latest local scandal. The "in" diagnosis of Anats feelings is "post-Zionism," a buzz word promoted by Israels "new" historians in their efforts to cast a different and harsh light on what were, only the other day, unanimously regarded in Israel as eternal verities. An obvious target of this scholarly debunking to the dismay of Irits grandparents and the confusion of her parents is the War of Independence: who did what to whom and why, during and after it.

Irit doesnt care, at this stage of her life. Maybe she never will. What matters to her, she says, perched on the railings of her spanking new school yard in Rishon West, is that the state came into being, survived, and as far as she can see, is doing fine: Meah ahuz ("a hundred percent") she says, which is what young Israelis, unexpectedly laconic, say nowadays when they want to express their satisfaction.

What Rishon West and Kiryat Shemona, now entering its 50th year, have in common remains the excitement that in each case accompanied their planning. Kiryat Shemona in Upper Galilee was by far the more daunting enterprise: it was to be a model town, representative of a model state. Picturesquely situated in the windblown hills north of the Huleh Valley, it was intended to serve as a metropolis for the entire region, an ideal provincial capital to which the farmers of the cooperative villages and kibbutzim scattered throughout Galilee would throng to shop, set up joint industries and generally benefit from its services and divertissements. Most importantly, Kiryat Shemona was to be the first of a series of towns to be built for and by Israels new citizens. Here, and not in the countrys teeming cities in the centre, a New Israeli would emerge; here would be created the ultimate expression of the Ingathering of the Exiles, an amalgamation of the cultures of a score of dispersions.

As for the towns name, it was inevitable. What more fitting than that the new centre of Jewish settlement in the north be named The "City of Eight" which is what Kiryat Shemona means in Hebrew? It commemorates Joseph Trumpeldor and his seven comrades killed in an Arab attack in 1920, defending the minute Jewish settlement of Tel Hai, only a few kilometres away. But in the Kiryat Shemona of the 1950s, the story of Tel-Hai however stirring, was not supplying much inspiration.

Things were going seriously wrong. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Yemen, Iraq, Morocco, Tunisia and Romania, etc., were plunked down in Kiryat Shemona and towns like it, straight from the ships and planes that brought them to Israel. There wasnt enough of anything except for hundreds upon hundreds of corrugated huts, often housing people who couldnt speak each others language or wouldnt eat each others food and who were sweltering in the summer heat or damply floating in seas of mud in the winter. The surrounding scenery was stunning but Kiryat Shemona, though so young, quickly became unkempt and unbeautiful. By the 1970s, the 15,000 people in the town understood that the term "Second Israel" just entering common usage suggested failure, under-achievement, listless expectations and low self-esteem. That it meant them.

"It was very difficult in the beginning." Yossi Maloul, 47, the principal of Meginim ("The Defenders") Elementary School, has lived in Kiryat Shemona since his parents came from Tunisia in 1955, an illegal immigrant aged four and a half. Until 1973 there were eleven Maloul brothers, then one was killed on the Golan Heights in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. "Still we all grew up and six of us still live in Kiryat Shemona. Today the population numbers about 20,000 but at least 200,000 people have come and gone in the course of the 50 years. I wish more had stayed."

"There were no jobs for men who couldnt or wouldnt clear stones, dig ditches or do manual labour in the kibbutzim whenever they were given a chance, which wasnt often enough. Fathers, demoralized by the pressures of a society that wanted their presence in the country but found itself unable to cope with it, came to depend on their children to support the family instead of going to school. And bewildered wives and mothers longed for the warm family environment in which they had grown up. So people were bitter and unhappy and for many of the children, education was a battle lost before it began."

Yossis family was different. His father was highly motivated; an ardent socialist who believed life could be made better for everyone and ready to work his fingers to the bone. "Not that the years here didnt take it out of him. The back-breaking work; all 11 of us served in combat units in the army with one or more always in danger."

Yossi is a mild-mannered man, light on his feet, with cropped salt and pepper hair and blue eyes that now and then glint with surprising sharpness. He got to be principal of the school in which he himself had been a pupil by popular request. One day, hed like to do something else; the father of three, he thinks he might enjoy opening a zoo for the children of Kiryat Shemona. In the meantime, a tank of tropical fish lights up his office. Yossi uses it to relax children who ask to see him or whom he has summoned because of disciplinary infractions.

A boy explodes into the room without knocking; Yossi says something softly but sternly; chastised, the boy disappears into thin air. Although there are nearly 500 children at this school, Yossi and the small intruder have used each others first names as is, by and large, accepted throughout Israel. But first name or not, at Meginim theres no question of who is boss. "We have no violence, no knives, no drugs, no smoking, no dyed hair for the boys, or earrings either." Yossi points to a box of confiscated metal hoops and smiles. "I let the girls wear earrings" he says, "but not the boys. I set stiff limits; this isnt some fancy school in Tel Aviv; no ones going to push anything here."

It makes sense; Kiryat Shemona is a frontier town; those who have stayed have endured decades of Katyusha rocket attacks, even terrorist infiltration from across the nearby Lebanese border. The perpetual peril demands not only vigilance but also discipline and toughness. Reminders are everywhere; the school is entered via a barred gate; on the wall at the back of Yossis desk, three brightly coloured lists spell out in large letters: "What To Do If Terrorists Invade," "What To Do In Case Of Chemical Warfare" and "What To Do In a Katyusha Attack." On the door of his office, together with his beat-up umbrella, he has casually hung a gas mask ("I want the children to get used to seeing gas masks; not to be terrified if they actually have to be used").

Kiryat Shemona has a long way to go before, freed of the "Second Israel" syndrome, it realizes its architects shining vision, but Yossi Maloul for one believes that it will make it. Not that he has any illusions regarding the future. "I would give a lot for our sons not to have to serve in the army, one way or another, for most of their adult lives, and for us not to have to go on building air raid shelters. There must be peace with the Arabs but it will take more than the next 50 years. I think they do not yet understand that we are here for good. But they will; that day will come."

And in the interim? "Well, in the interim, life goes on. For most Israelis, including here, it gets better. On a personal level, I have everything I need; I live in a place I love, I have a good job working with children, which is what most matters to me right now. I only hope that none of those lists on my wall have to be looked at."

As the crow flies, only some 200 kilometres separate Kiryat Shemona in the north from Negba in the south, but the distance between them in terms of landscape, climate, history and self-image could be measured in light years. Negba embodies the archetypal Israeli kibbutz though time was when significant differences of ideology and political orientation led to bitter dissension and splits within the kibbutz movement. Mashka Litvak, the woman who runs Negbas all-important cotton and field crop operations, who was born and has lived there all of her 50 years, personifies what Negba was and still is about.

Its beginnings go back to the summer of 1939. A group of young Zionist-Socialist pioneers, mostly from Poland, defying the British governments ban on further Zionist settlement push into place on the Negev sands a prefabricated stockade and watchtower that becomes the heart of the southernmost Jewish foothold in the country. But the British are not alone in their determination to restrict Zionist growth and development in Palestine. For years, from its very first day, Negba has to repulse Arab attacks; Mashkas young father becomes the kibbutzs first casualty.

"During the War of Independence, the Egyptians made enormous efforts to take Negba. The kibbutz evacuated the children I was just a baby and for six months held out in entrenchments while the Egyptians hurled everything they had at it: shells, bombs, even tanks. Nothing above ground survived except the water tower. The kibbutz was cut off. There were many casualties but as long as it stood, as long as we didnt abandon it, the Egyptians couldnt advance; Negba blocked their route north."

A full-bodied, deep-voiced, sun-streaked blonde in wrinkled farm clothes, Mashka looks more like the working farmer she is than a CEO, though shes that too. Her office, not much by way of furnishing, includes an array of computers equipped with specially designed state-of-the-art programmes, an intercom crackling incessantly with questions about equipment, fertilizers, irrigation and seeds. In a dim corner, reticently framed, hang a row of certificates attesting to prizes awarded her for distinction in the agricultural world.

Mashka is reluctant to talk about personal achievements. "The cotton fields out there once yielded 350 kilos per quarter of an acre; today they yield 600-odd kilos on the same acreage." Apart from cotton, her special baby, she sows Negbas crops, directs its pest control, leads the tireless battle against weeds and, as a much sought-after consultant, sits on a dozen policy-making committees in Negba and beyond.

Although she has been twice bereaved by the "Palestine problem" her brother Arnon was killed in the War of Attrition following the Yom Kippur War Mashka remains loyal to a basic tenet of the credo in which she was raised: Jewish- Arab cooperation is essential for Israel. Given the choice, she would opt for a bi-national state. "We didnt come to an empty country," she says. "We should share it with those who were here before rather than create obstacles to peace in the shape of new settlements on land that isnt only ours."

Nonetheless there have been far-reaching changes at Negba since Mashka grew up. In common with the more than 70 other kibbutzim with which it is federated, Negba adhered rigidly to the principle that though labour is an end unto itself, the kibbutz is unique in its ability to realize Zionism, the class struggle and socialism; and that it is incumbent therefore on its members to strive to develop a common outlook, known grandly as "ideological collectivism." All of which made it logical that children in these kibbutzim be brought up communally, i.e. eat, sleep, study and play together with what amounted to minimal contact with their parents.

Mashka remembers her childhood, this continuing closeness with her age group right up to the time when they all went into the army together as wonderful. But that was then, this is now, she says. If the kibbutz had not changed, it very well might not have survived.

"In the course of time, after much discussion, many characteristics of kibbutz life were eliminated. Even to us, they had begun to seem irrelevant. We still dont get wages, or use hired outside help unless we absolutely have to but we do get personal allocations of money which we can use as we wish. Last year, for instance, I took six months off to backpack in South America. I asked for leave, I got it, and I went."

So now members of Negba have mostly two-room flats of their own; private bathrooms taking the place of the communal showers that initially so fascinated psychologists and tourists; everyone has the standard electrical appliances, eats breakfast and supper at home; and buys clothes wherever they want, having ditched the unflattering practice of wearing whatever was handed out from the communal store. But what was most difficult because it went to the very heart of the ideals upon which Negba was founded was the decision to "privatize" the children, to abandon the all-important principle of the collective rearing of the next generation.

Today, only Negbas teenagers still live pretty much together, attending a federation-run regional high school-cum-boarding school. The kibbutzs younger children go home at the end of the day like children everywhere else. It is not surprising that the revolutionary, (or counter-revolutionary) decision was so tough: it is literally upon the children that Negbas future depends. Only some three to four percent of Israels population live on kibbutzim, a remarkably modest figure compared to the great influence the kibbutz movement had and still has on settlement and security, and to the disproportionate number of kibbutz members in the Knesset and among officers.

Mashka worries about the erosion of kibbutz members. She believes as many as half of the children may not return after their army service to become members in their own right. "It would have been different had the Negev been properly developed as Ben-Gurion dreamed it would be. It is still empty; still full of potential. But Mashka, who has no use for idle memories, isnt about to waste time on regrets. She has to see a man from another kibbutz with a problem concerning industrial peas. "At least I can do something about that," she says.

In 1902, Theodor Herzl, founder of the Zionist movement, wrote a futuristic novel. He called it Altneuland ("Old-New Land") and in it he set down his vision of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. One of the topics he described, with startling prescience, was immigration. "... Soon every day saw from a hundred to two thousand immigrants arriving ... the people whom we had to feed at the beginning soon created the means of feeding themselves and those who came later," he wrote.

Herzl was to die two years later, at the age of 44, of heart disease, overwork and heartwrenching disappointment that his dream had not come true, though he believed that "certainly in fifty years it will be seen that I was right." But it took even less; only 44 years later, a Jewish state came into being; immigration, its raison dêtre, enshrined in its Proclamation of Independence. At no time since than has the flow of Jews to Israel ceased, though there have been high and low tides.

Viktor Malenkov is one of the 750,000 Russian Jews whose arrival in Israel since 1989 may fairly be said to have constituted a flood, increasing Israels population, in addition to natural growth, by ten percent in just five years. Today, although immigration from the former Soviet Union continues, the huge wave has become a wavelet, its size depending on the fluctuation of conditions there. Viktor, his wife Zena, their daughter Shura (her twin brother Yuri preceded them to Israel), and three elderly grandparents arrived from Moscow at Lod Airport on May 4, 1991. That same day, thanks to Israels 1950 Law of Return and 1952 Citizenship Law, they automatically acquired fully-fledged unconditional Israeli citizenship, and were instantly entitled to the rights and benefits of all other citizens, plus those of new immigrants.

At first sight, Moscow suit and tie long abandoned for casual clothing, shopping bag crammed with provisions, newspaper in one hand, car keys in the other Viktor, 61, tall, and burly, with an impressive shock of greying hair seems to be just another middle-aged Israeli returning from work in Rehovot, some 30 kilometres south of Tel Aviv. Closer examination however reveals that the newspaper is one of Israels Russian dailies, that the building in which he lives is almost totally occupied by ex-Russians and that, although he perseveres with his Hebrew, he has little chance to use it because even at work his contacts with what he still calls "the Israelis," i.e. veteran residents, are limited.

Much of this insulation is due to the nature of the Russian immigration. The initial torrent brought with it a treasure trove of talent; hundreds of thousands of highly-educated, highly-skilled academics, scientists (9,000 doctors alone), engineers and technologists, as well as teachers, nurses, artists, and musicians who have already notably enriched Israels economy and contributed to its culture and artistic life. And among whom Viktor, Zena, Shura and Yuri have no trouble finding familiar companionship in a familiar tongue.

Victor is an eminent geographer, an academic catch able to continue his research at a scientific centre that considers itself lucky to have him. But not all the Russian immigrants have been so fortunate; a great many, unable to find work in their former professions, or inadequately qualified to do so by Israeli standards, unwilling to undergo retraining, or simply too old to make it feasible, feel declassed, uprooted and discriminated against in their new home. Viktor believes that this is partly because at first, Russian immigrants were not represented in the Knesset. "I supported (Anatoly) Sharanskys party (overwhelmingly made up of Russian immigrants) chiefly to enhance our status in this country," he says. By the year 2000 there may be a million of us in Israel. We have special problems that demand special solutions."

His list includes the need to deal with the dearth of housing, the difficult situation of non-Jewish spouses who may account for some 25% of the whole and, apart from anything else, indicates the healthy appetite he has developed for the democratic process and for getting his due.

He uses the word "Jew" sparingly when he explains why his family decided to immigrate, although being Jewish had everything to do with it. "It was like this," Viktor says. "Yuri went to Israel of his own accord in 1989. As for the rest of us, well, the climate changed after Perestroika. We had a good life in Moscow; my research took me abroad quite often; we had a nice apartment; Zena was a senior technician in one of the countrys best biochemical laboratories. But two things happened that altered that life: first, the situation of the Jews became bad; the fascist movement Pamyat grew and in the park near us antisemites held threatening meetings."

"Later, when the economy fell apart, there was muttering against the Jews. We started to feel that the children might have no future in Russia." Perhaps what he really meant was that they had seen the future and knew just how grimly it worked.

Surprisingly he says nothing about the saga of the struggle of Soviet Jews for religious and cultural freedom or the worldwide campaign to force the Soviets to let Jews go. "Our only chance of coping with everything seemed to lie in going to Israel and suddenly that became possible."

What did the Malenkovs know about Israel before they came? Zena, as slender and silent as her daughter, pouring tea into glasses, smiles ruefully. Viktor is spokesman. "Not very much," he says. "There were people who went to synagogue, had Passover seders, fasted on Yom Kippur and knew something about Jewish history but people like us, in the big cities, mostly know nothing. We didnt celebrate any of the Jewish holidays or rituals, nor did my parents, though I remember once eating a piece of matza when I was small. Oh and Zenas parents spoke Yiddish."

A recent Israeli poll discloses that while 53% of recent immigrants from the former Soviet Union identify themselves as Jews, only ten percent define themselves as Israelis. Shura nods agreement. A biologist, she is currently working towards a masters degree in plant genetics at the nearby Agricultural Faculty of the Hebrew University. The transition was hard. "I cried every night for months after we got here."

And now? "Formally, of course, Im an Israeli," she answers, flushing a bit. "And I have an Israeli boyfriend and many Israeli friends. But inside me I dont feel like an Israeli yet; Im not sure I ever will; Im different; less direct, more inhibited, more emotional. I approach things differently and think differently." Maybe if she had gone into the army, she wouldnt feel herself to be so different. The IDF does not call up girls who immigrate after the age of 18; men under 24 do regular service; those who served in the Soviet armed forces are exempt.

Does she think shell always live here? Shura shrugs slim shoulders. "Who knows? Yuri will probably never leave. Last year he married an Israeli girl; theyre expecting a baby; they speak Hebrew with each other and hes totally at home here. They have very few Russian friends. Everyone calls him Uri now."

A great deal has happened in this family since it immigrated: Viktor underwent surgery; Zena eventually got a job as a lab technician in a pharmaceutical company; the old people died in state-maintained nursing homes. Viktor is full of praise for the care given them and him. "We were lucky to be here." He has no desire, he says, even to visit Russia. "I have everything I need here. Sun, work, the family."

Nonetheless there is a sense of something tentative, even transient in the air; in the living room, there are a few reminders of the Malenkovs former existence, one or two paintings and a coffee-table book about Russian landscapes.

But this is not a real home yet, let alone an Israeli home. Experience teaches that mixing and kneading are never enough in themselves; it is the leavening that really transforms even though it takes longer to work. This has been true for all of the past immigrations to Israel. It will eventually be true for this family too. Perhaps when Viktors sabra grandchild is born.

December 6, 1984. A year before Perestroika; in Moscow, the Malenkovs live their lives with no thought of leaving: Viktor is writing a book, Zena makes headway at work, Yuri has begun university, Shura is still at school. But thousands of miles away, at Ben Gurion Airport, an immigration to Israel no less extraordinary though infinitely smaller than the exodus of the Russian Jews is nearing its halfway point: the airlifts known collectively as "Operation Moses," that deliver some 8,000 Ethiopian Jews from war and famine, and centuries of isolation and oppression. The exodus is to continue in 1991, when "Operation Solomon" flies another 14,000 Ethiopians to the Jewish state, non-stop in 36 hours.

Dazed, exhausted, the new Israelis move in unbroken silence from the huge Boeings that have swept them in a matter of hours from the conditions in which Ethiopian Jews have lived since antiquity, abruptly into the end of the 20th century. No other immigration (by now, some 65,000 Ethiopians are in Israel) has faced so daunting a challenge. For some, life in Israel will indeed prove too much; for others, the struggle will be worth the result. But none will forget the day they arrived.

David Dasta, then 14, looked down from the plane and all he could think of was that all the faces were white. "How would I ever fit in?" he recalls, "It was very frightening. The journey had been hard; only the fact that we were coming to Israel made it possible for the old people to keep going; and not all of them could. We walked for a month till we got to Sudan and the planes. Slept on the ground: it was so dangerous that my family of about 50 people bribed brigands with money and horses to guard us against other brigands who might rob or kill us. When the doors of the plane opened, I didnt know where or who I was."

But he knows now. In the neat little living room of the family apartment in Herzliya, David says of himself, "I think I am 90 percent Israeli;" modesty preventing him from claiming perfection. And he counts the ways: "I speak like an Israeli, I dress like an Israeli, I eat like an Israeli, and I have an Israeli son." Also, he has the most Israeli job possible: a bus driver, the first Ethiopian employed in this capacity by Israels most powerful bus company, he is liked and admired by his bosses, his colleagues and his passengers. Furthermore, "like an Israeli," he staggers a bit under the burden of a mortgage. Fortunately, his wife, Yafit a gorgeous girl who left Ethiopia the year he did also works, in a nursery school.

Admittedly, David was lucky. A city boy from Gondar, both his parents worked in a health centre set up by an international organization. Of course there were illusions that had to be ditched en route. "I had imagined that everyone here loved the Bible; that Israel was a paradise. No crooks, no liars." More seriously, he regrets the almost unbridgeable generation gap that makes it impossible, try as they do, for Yafit and Davids parents to keep up with the sea-change their children are undergoing or enforce the traditions that, for two millennia, kept the remote Ethiopian community intact. "But thats how it must be, says David Dasta. "Omri is a sabra; I want him to be like everyone else." As a matter of fact, it may be that the small person of three-year old Omri is the leavening for which the national recipe calls.

As it enters the new millennium, in one major respect, Israel remains what it has been for thousands of years; a central stage for great dramas involving religious faith. Religious beliefs and practices, separation of synagogue and state, the relationship between national and religious identity, are issues as fiercely debated and as crucial in this country today as they were when the First and Second Temples stood, and long after.

Although modern Israel is nominally a secular republic with no state religion, because clerical parties have so often held the balance of power in its coalition governments, rabbinical law and its Orthodox interpretation influence daily life, one way or another, of all Israelis, whether they like it or not. Despite broad secular resentment of the increasing encroachment of this Orthodoxy which represents less than 25% of the population uneasy compromise has ruled since 1948.

All matters of personal status (marriage, divorce, burial, etc.) are under rabbinical control; there is no public transport on the Sabbath or any newspapers, and El Al planes are not permitted to take off or ships to unload their cargo. Least acceptable to most Israelis is the exemption of rabbinical students from army service.

On the top floor of a narrow walk-up on a small street in the Ramat Eshkol neighbourhood of Jerusalem, a young woman in a long-sleeved ankle-length dress, her head covered, a baby in her arms, leads the way to the living room. An earlocked six-year old peers into the room; home from school, sick, he explains politely. All told, there are six children, ranging from 16 to eight months; their mother is obviously pregnant again. "I was one of six myself," she says happily. "Theres always one on the way." On the surface, nothing is unfamiliar; it could be the home of any Orthodox Jew anywhere in Israel. but, in fact, it is the home-cum-office of the high-profile spokesman of the ultra-Orthodox haredi (the "God-fearing ones") community, many adherents of which refuse to acknowledge the State of Israel on the grounds that the real Return of the Jews to the Promised Land will take place only when Redemption is nigh and the Messiah finally here.

Little of the fanaticism of this community in Israel, it accounts for some 500,000 people, each family blessed by a minimum of six children is apparent in the person and manner of Yehuda Meshi-Zahav. Coatless, hatless (save, of course for his skullcap) and in shirtsleeves, he looks fit and young, his beard short, his ginger hair a bit disheveled from a perpetual race against the clock. He has just come off his shift in the soup kitchen he helps run for needy Russian immigrant children in the neighbourhood. Otherwise, like every other haredi, he would be wearing the black 17th century East European garb which distinguishes this community.

Ultra-Orthodoxy demands of its adherents unflagging surveillance so that the minutest detail of everyday life accords with the dictates of the Law, the Torah, and its Talmudic commentaries. Meshi-Zahav earns his living as a consultant for companies interested in acquiring haredi trade. He is an expert communicator, familiar with the most subtle nuances of an intricate code and aware of the value of demonstration.

But his real skills lie elsewhere: in his persuasive representation of ultra-Orthodoxy to the world outside. In this capacity, he acts as a masterly guide lecturing to secular audiences, showing tourists around the haredi quarters of Jerusalem, giving them a birds eye view of what he calls "a parallel entity." Never aggressive or shrill, in the final analysis what "others" think does not matter to him. His faith is immutable, his verities eternal, his obedience to the Law complete.

"We have as little contact as possible with the state," he says, affably. We dont participate in the government, we dont take its money; we dont vote, we dont serve in the army; and we dont fly the flag. I believe that God gave us this Land conditionally; there is a covenant: if we obey His laws, we will not be dispossessed."

As for who rules, Meshi-Zahav doesnt care. "Netanyahu or Arafat, whats the difference? The Messiah will come whether or not He gets a Knesset majority. And we will be here in this Land whatever happens. We were here long before Herzl; in Jerusalem, in Hebron, in Safed; my own family has been here for 11 generations and we will be here after the state."

And what of the growing tension with the secular majority? Meshi-Zahav believes that fears of looming civil strife are unwarranted. "There are many levels of coexistence," he says. "For instance, I dont serve in the army but I am not idle in times of disaster." He takes a card from his wallet; a police pass certifying his membership in a revered volunteer organization of ultra-Orthodox men, always first on the scene after terrorist explosions, gloved and aproned, gathering human remains for decent burial.

"Thats how it is. We are realistic; we know we cant force anyone to live as we do. But we cannot compromise. We try to distance ourselves, to live insulated lives, to be left alone to guard the flame. Thats our mission. It is we who represent the continuity of the Jewish people, and it is that which makes us different, and allows us to endure."

The path to Miriam and Hayyim Levis house in Efrat, across the "green line," the pre- 1967 Six Day War frontier between Israel and Jordan, is aglow with flowers. So is much of the rest of this attractive comfortably-off urban community roughly 15 minutes drive south of Jerusalem, 32 kilometers from Hebron that looks as though it were sitting for its portrait, advertising itself as a perfect location for the good life.

The founding of Efrat, in 1980, came in the wake of soul-searching that followed the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Foremost among the voices urging the creation of pioneer settlements in Judea and Samaria were those of the observant Jews Israelis call "knitted skullcap" people (as opposed to the wide black hat of Yehuda Meshi-Zahav), who are full participants in the countrys contemporary life while remaining faithful to traditional Judaism.

Hayyim deftly summarizes Efrats brief history. "In October 1977, only weeks before President Anwar el-Sadats visit to Jerusalem, the new government decided to build six townships, picking rocky ground with no large Arab population nearby as satellites of Jerusalem. Efrat was one of these. Now about 6,000 people live here, on what I suppose must be some of the most continuously disputed territory in the world."

Under 40, the Levis are university-educated, professionally successful, articulate, personable and, above all, busy acquiring experience in creating the kind of synthesis that may lead to harmony. Hayyim, a graduate of an elite yeshiva (religious seminary) in which military training and service alternate with periods of study over four to five years, does his reserve duty as an officer in the Armoured Corps.

He was born, 38 years ago, in Casablanca, to a well-connected merchant family that immigrated to Israel in 1962. "Not because of any persecution or deprivation, but because my parents and grandparents wanted to live here. They worked hard, doing manual labour to feed their children. He is clean-shaven, dark-haired, dark-eyed, bespectacled, knitted skullcap firmly in place; the sort of man likely to look much the same in 20 years.

Miriam hair tucked under a bright beret, well-dressed in skirt and blouse squeezes lemons for lemonade in the open kitchen and easily joins in. Born in the USA, she is the child of Jews who lived entirely secular lives. "Then my parents underwent a spiritual transformation. Already in the States, they became very observant." The mother of two, she teaches English in Kiryat Arba, adjacent to Hebron, the overwhelming majority of whose residents are also religious. And keeps house and a tiny garden in a labour-efficient two-storey home filled with books, toys and computers.

State-of-the-art teaching runs in the family: Hayyim, a past school deputy principal, lectures in a variety of colleges mostly in townships beyond the Green Line but has acquired a reputation in the furthering of the use of computers in teaching Talmud. He explains: "As a teacher I came to understand that kids have a very hard time learning Talmud. The thinking in the Talmud is very logical, it rests on a step-by-step principle, very organized, very suitable for the computer."

One serious concern he shares with Miriam has to do with the possibility of a growing rift between the secular and the religious elements of Israeli society. Unlike Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, they feel a solution must be found, and acted upon as soon as possible.

"The situation gets worse all the time," says Miriam. "The religious establishment was so scared that it wouldnt be able to influence the secular population that it turned to politics, to get its way. Politicizing religion has only made the secular population more resentful and hostile. Its people like Hayyim and me who must make the critical moves, people who are ready to try to create new social infrastructures based on what is common to us and to the non-observant Israelis, not what is different. One of the problems is that the secular population doesnt know nearly enough about us and is much too wary."

Hayyim looks at his watch; he has an appointment at one of the companies helping to account for Israels significant hi-tech success. Assembling his gear (a sheaf of papers, cell phone, laptop, car keys) , his mind lingers on what Miriam has been saying. "Yes, and there are ways to do this," he says, at the door. "There are what we call Torah groups, observant young people willing to become part of a secular environment without renouncing anything or demanding renunciation of anything from others. Or theres the model of the open school like one I started in Jerusalem: religious children and secular children, wearing whatever they want, no one forced to do anything. It isnt easy or simple for an observant family to do this but its worth it. Its a direction, at least."

Three times a week, Dr. Muhammad Amara, 38, leaves his home in the village of Zelafa near the town of Umm el-Fahm to drive southward for slightly over an hour to the campus of Israels only "Jewish" university, Bar-Ilan, near Tel Aviv. Bar-Ilan describes itself as embodying "an integrative approach which combines the spiritual values of Judaism with a modern liberal education ... particularly in the social sciences."

It is not only where Dr. Amara teaches: in the political science department, where he himself earned his degrees in English, developed an expertise in English linguistics and went on to study the influence of politics on language change. It is the chosen university of many Arab students. "I think it is natural," he says, "that many Arabs feel more comfortable in Bar-Ilan than in other Israeli institutions of higher learning. In the main, I find religious Jews to be more tolerant of non-Jews, more liberal. I am an admirer of Jewish culture and know it well, though when I first came here, I had no idea that this was an Orthodox institution; only that it was well-thought of, had a good English department and a number of Arab students."

Fair-skinned, round-faced, quick to smile, he looks and sounds like any young Israeli academic on his way up; substitute one fact for another here and there in his curriculum vitae and the progression of his life is entirely familiar. Born in a village near Megiddo in the Jezreel Valley to what he calls a "working class family," Amara is the beneficiary of changing times. So are his brothers, one with a BA in Arabic and Hebrew, the other completing an MSc in mathematics. "But not yet the girls. Only the youngest of my three sisters finished high school." That too will change and Amara knows it; he also knows that the rate of change for Israels 1,455,000 Arab citizens is higher than in any neighbouring country.

In the event, what he thinks, and knows, and wants is important not only to him. By definition, Muhammad Amara is not simply an Israeli Arab, born and living in the country in which his forefathers were born and lived. He is a member in good standing of a restless, articulate and growing sector of Israels population: an Arab intellectual, compelled by quirks of history through no fault of his own to perceive Israel at one and the same time as motherland (perhaps more accurately step-motherland), and as foe...

At his desk it almost fills the small office playing with an unlit pipe, he expresses some of his deep uncertainties. "You see, there is a dilemma," he says, at first hesitantly. I have no problem with Israel as such. The past is done with; the Arabs in Israel have reached the point of no return. We cant go back in time: once we were the majority, today we are the minority. We have adjusted to the situation, despite the discrimination against us. But we are disappointed; we had thought that life would be better for us. This has not happened."

He raises a palm to halt anticipated argument. "I know," he says, "in law, we have full equality but the law is one thing, reality another. On this 50th anniversary, Israelis think of their state; I think of a problem that seems to have no solution, even after 50 years."

A seconds silence; then he says, in a somewhat different tone of voice, using rather more combative vocabulary. "My primary identification is, of course, as a Palestinian: a Palestinian living in Israel. What else could I be? If I were in France, I could be both French and Moslem; there would be no contradiction. But there is no Israeli nation yet, is there?" He answers his own question. "When Israelis talk about a nation, they mean a Jewish nation by definition. When a real Israeli nation comes into being, I shall gladly join it. Until then, where do the Arabs fit in? Where do I fit in? How can my identity be reflected here, or that of my children? I dont want them to lose their Palestinian identity." For the future, Muhammad Amara offers the outline of two scenarios, both very concise.

"I would like to see Israel properly integrated into the region. At peace with all of its neighbours, especially with a prospering Palestinian state and its capital; with Jews learning Arabic and studying Arab culture, not for purposes of security but because they belong to this part of this world. That is what Rabin started to do but couldnt finish. Still I believe it is not too late if the leaders really desire peace. You might say that that is my prayer for the next 50 years."

And the other scenario? "Im afraid if the leaders arent wise, therell surely be war, and this time it will destroy the resources of the region. It will be terrible, but inevitable. We must learn to live with each other."

If and when a Palestinian state comes into existence, would Dr. Amara, take his wife Khitam (she teaches English at Umm el-Fahm high school), and six-year old Hassan and four-year old Amr, and move there? Would they emulate those Jews who believed it was their duty and privilege to build the Jewish state? "No, of course not," Dr. Amara disposes of the question. "Why would I do that? Why should I move? This is my country."

The suggestion has astonished, and possibly offended him; perhaps it was one more indication of the complexity of his struggle to define himself, one more proof of his vulnerable status in a world that not only did he not make but that has little tolerance of ambivalence.

Amar Gadban, 40, has no difficulty with his identity. "Who am I? A Druze, an Israeli, a policeman," he says. "All my life Ive been involved with my countrys security, and given my best to it as my father did before me. That is our way." No one knows exactly the origins of the one and a half million Druze (though they speak Arabic they are not Moslem) who live in south Lebanon and Syria, and the 80,000 or so who live in some 20 Israeli villages. The tenets of their religion are shrouded in mystery; its rites and practices never revealed to outsiders. What is known is that recorded Druze history goes back to the 11th century; that the Druze are bound by the concept of taqiyya undivided loyalty to the government of the country in which they live, and that their valour is legendary.

Something about Amar, perhaps the searching grey eyes or the agility of his stocky body, suggests the central themes of his life. In 21 years as a member of the Israel Police Force, he has been a detective, an investigator and now a prosecutor, appearing for the state in the Haifa criminal court. Not unexpectedly, he is also an expert in the martial arts. And before that? The army of course, always in combat units, in capacities he declines to discuss. Reluctant to talk about himself, he is forthcoming regarding his feelings for Israel.

"We are partners, blood brothers, of the Jews. We have fought together from the beginning, from before 1948. There are Druze in all ranks of the IDF including the highest; we were the first minority to ask that our young men be drafted. This is my state, and my childrens and it will be that of their children. The celebration of Israels 50th year is our celebration. And, he adds softly "...Israels Memorial Day is ours too."

Many of the nearly 300 Druze who have fallen in defense of the State of Israel came from the Druze village of Daliat el-Carmel, 13 kilometres south of Haifa, where Amar was born. His daughter (Jumanah, 10; Hazar, 8; and Hanan, two and a half) may eventually study elsewhere but they will probably return to Daliat to live as Amar himself did. True, Daliat has changed since he was small but it remains a bastion of Druze tradition; village girls make do without miniskirts, their elders still wear the long dark robes and whiter-than-snow headscarves that distinguish the sect. Since conversion, either way, is forbidden, there is virtually no intermarriage with other Israelis.

And peace? His eyes narrow and he shakes his head. "Itll take a very long time. Moslem fundamentalism is on the rise all around; the Hizbullah gets stronger each day. Years from now, there may be changes in the region and maybe a chance for peace. But its not around the corner. Meantime our job is to stay on guard, be alert, be ready for anything." A tough prognosis from a tough cop. But the Druze are realists; in effect taqiyya which shapes Amars life means where you are is what you are; facts are to be faced. And despite the facts the troops need to relax. So whenever he can, Amar Gadban takes off for the wooded slopes of Mount Carmel to roam for hours, listen to birdsong and dream of a day when he can retire from the battle, maybe to breed sheep instead. "Thats how to deal with the tensions of our life," he says. "We have such a beautiful land."

Lacking Jerusalems fabulous history, devoid of Haifas physical beauty and order, Tel Aviv, without question, is where, in Israel, the action is to be found; proclaiming itself the city that never sleeps, older than the state by 39 years, it is confusing, noisy and restless, the nations cultural and commercial centre. It is where most of the newspapers are published, paintings shown, plays premiered, people queue up for concerts, cafés abound, tall new buildings compete for space with the citys famous Bauhaus boxes, and supermarkets tend increasingly to stay open all night. It is also the home of close to 400,000 Israelis and work place for as many as another two million in the peripheral cities.

Exactly a decade ago, two of the 4,500 babies born in Tel Aviv in 1988, Carmel and Shani Dafni, arrived each non-identical twin firmly tucked under the maternal arm in the two-room home in which the Dafnis live, three blocks from the sea. "One day well move to larger quarters, maybe out of Tel Aviv," says Tali Dafni, "but for us this city is ideal: everything within reach though I dont drive; the girls go to a wonderful school; the city facilities are great. And I am delighted to be able to walk to work." "Work" is her successful private psychotherapeutic practice.

Being a single mother has never presented a problem. "Not for me, not for the girls," she says. "For all of its polarizations, in many regards this is a tolerant society; even the very religious Jews I have met never raised eyebrows." Although neither were born in Israel, both Talis parents have spent most of their lives here: her father, a Yugoslavian-born war hero-turned-diplomat, recently retired from Yad VaShem, the national institution of research and documentation dedicated to the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust; her British-born mother, a writer and editor. English is literally Talis mother tongue; like her siblings (a brother who makes documentary films, a sister who practices law), she is completely bi-lingual.

"I speak Hebrew with virtually everyone other than my mother but the four or five years I lived in the States, plus the way I was reared are certainly responsible for those." She points to the wall of floor-to-ceiling shelves on which crowd hundreds of English-language volumes ranging from recent fiction and poetry to an impressive collection of professional classics, among them all of Freuds works. One section relates to eastern philosophies. Tali smiles and nods. "Yes, everything gets here and everybody turns up here, sooner or later. The New Age stream is no exception. You name it, we have it. Tai-chi, yoga, meditation, Shiatsu, acupuncture, acupressure, reflexology. Israelis want to taste everything but this other way of thinking and feeling is taking hold."

The Dafni household itself is a good example. Tali regularly finds time, in a day that starts pre-dawn, for meditation (occasionally joined by one or both twins) and yoga, often also Tai-chi. Carmel and Shani make their appearance. Satchels and sweaters flung into their room, as crowded with toys and games as is the hospitable living room, with its generous table and chairs, welcoming couch, computer, and all those books. Hands washed, they sit down for their strictly, carefully balanced vegetarian lunch; lively girls, still young enough so that hunger has to battle their need to report to Tali on the salient events of their day.

"What makes them Israelis?" In the relative silence that ensues as they finally eat, Tali sips the remains of her lunchtime wine and reflects. "Well, to begin with, I think, a certain freedom from constraint," she says. "This is a very child-oriented society; it pampers its children but it also respects and cares for them and lavishly provides for them. These little girls have an exceedingly rich cultural diet. We use whatever the city offers, go to all the museums and plays and concerts specially put on for children. They read voraciously because, in addition to good Hebrew literature for young people, everything is so quickly and well translated into Hebrew, whether its Disney, Nancy Drew and Jules Verne or Grisham, Allende and Ishiguro. And of course they are very much into the electronic age: TV, video, compact discs, cassettes and, above all, needless to say, the computer.

"And something else: what you have in Israel right now, as far as bringing up children is concerned, is a possibly unique combination of the traditional Jewish mother syndrome side by side with the conscious encouragement of the free spirit. The outcome isnt easy to deal with but its very alive and responsive."

She looks thoughtfully at her progeny, now absorbed in their dessert. "As a result, I believe there already exists a distinct Israeli personality. Fledgling perhaps but there to be counted; intelligent, alert, interested in what goes on everywhere else and bringing to everything an incomparable wealth of background, history, and association. Everything has resonance here, an echo. Take Rwanda, take any disaster. Everyone here, one way or another, senses in their bones something of how it feels. Even Shani and Carmel know about Pharoah, and the expulsion from Spain, and the Holocaust, and that wars are wars for survival."

The twins vanish into their own room, their own world. The flat is tiny but privacies are observed. Soon Tali will take them to a swimming lesson; on the way back, shopping for food and sandals, then theres homework to be done. They are in their fourth year of English, the first of Arabic, both are veteran hackers by now, having started on computers in nursery school. In between, laundry needs folding, phone calls need returning and theres e-mail to deal with. But first a glance at the future. "I think there will be peace," Tali says. "People in Israel want it so badly; they are tired, and frightened of what new wars may bring. When it comes because of our population and history I think Israel will have a great deal to contribute. So, I hope, will the twins.

"As for now, at 50, we are still adolescent, a bit too sensitive, not always amenable to reason, far too eager to be like everyone else, and driven to wasting energy on the public execution of sacred cows. But thats what adolescence is like; thats the way nations and people develop, and how Carmel and Shani, and Israel, will grow up, together, past adolescence, into the peace and maturity for which we have all prayed and which Israel deserves."