My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel (3 page)

In his physical appearance Bentwich resembles the Prince of Wales. He has steely blue eyes, a full, well-trimmed beard, a strong jaw. His manner is also that of a nobleman. Although poor at birth, Herbert Bentwich vigorously embraced the values and customs of the empire that ruled the seas. Like a true gentleman he loves travel, poetry, and theater. He knows his Shakespeare and he is at home in the Lake District. Yet he does not compromise his Judaism. With his wife, Susan, he nurtures a family home that is all Anglo-Jewish harmony: morning prayers and chamber music, Tennyson and Maimonides, Shabbat rituals and an Oxbridge education. Bentwich believes that just as imperial Britain has a mission in this world, so do the Jewish people. He feels it is the duty of the emancipated Jews of the West to look after the persecuted Jews of the East. My great-grandfather is absolutely certain that just as the British Empire saved him, it will save his brethren. His loyalty to the Crown and his loyalty to the Jewish vocation are intertwined. They push him toward Palestine. They lead him to head this unique Anglo-Jewish delegation traveling to the shores of the Holy Land.

Had I met Herbert Bentwich, I probably wouldn’t have liked him. If I were his son, I am sure I would have rebelled against him. His world—royalist, religious, patriarchal, and imperial—is eras away from my world. But as I study him from a distance—more than a century of distance—I cannot deny the similarities between us. I am surprised to find how much I identify with my eccentric great-grandfather.

So I ask again: Why is he here? Why does he find himself on this steamer? He is in no personal danger. His life in London is prosperous, fulfilling. Why sail all the way to Jaffa?

One answer is romanticism. In 1897, Palestine is not yet British, but it is on the British horizon. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the yearning for Zion is as English as it is Jewish. George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda has paved the way; Laurence Oliphant has taken it further. The fascination with Zion is now at the heart of the English Romanticism of the colonial era. For my great-grandfather, a romantic, a Jew,
and a Victorian gentleman, the temptation is irresistible. The yearning for Zion has become an integral part of his constitution. It defines his identity.

The second answer is more important and more relevant. Herbert Bentwich is way ahead of his time. The journey he took from Whitechapel to St. John’s Wood in the late nineteenth century is analogous to the journey taken by many Jews from the Lower East Side to the Upper West Side in the twentieth century. As 1900 approaches, my great-grandfather is faced with the challenge that will face American Jewry in the twenty-first century: how to maintain a Jewish identity in an open world, how to preserve a Judaism not shielded by the walls of a ghetto, how to prevent the dispersion of the Jews into the liberty and prosperity of the modern West.

Yes, Herbert Bentwich takes the trip from Charing Cross to Jaffa because he is committed to ending Jewish misery in the East, but his main reason for taking this journey is his understanding of the futility of Jewish life in the West. Because he was blessed with a privileged life, he already sees the challenge that will follow the challenge of anti-Semitism. He sees the calamity that will follow the Holocaust. He realizes that his own world of Anglo-Jewish harmony is a world in eclipse. That’s why he crosses the Mediterranean.

He arrives on April 16 at the mouth of the ancient port of Jaffa. I watch him as he awakens at 5:00
A.M
. in his first-class compartment. I watch him as he walks up the stairs to the
Oxus
’s wooden deck in a light suit and a cork hat. I watch him as he looks from the deck. The sun is about to rise over the archways and turrets of Jaffa. And the land my great-grandfather sees is just as he hoped it would appear: illuminated by the gentle dawn and shrouded by the frail light of promise.

Do I want him to disembark? I don’t yet know.

I have an obsession with all things British. Like Bentwich, I love Land’s End and Snowdon and the Lake District. I love the English cottage and the English pub and the English countryside. I love the breakfast ritual and the tea ritual and Devon’s clotted cream. I am mesmerized by the Hebrides and the Scottish Highlands and the soft green hills of Dorset. I admire the deep certainty of English identity. I am
drawn to the quiet of an island that has not been conquered for eight hundred years, to the continuity of its way of life. To the civilized manner in which it conducts its affairs.

If Herbert Bentwich disembarks, he will bid farewell to all that. He will uproot himself and his children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren from the deep English green in order to settle us all—for generations—in the wild Middle East. Isn’t it foolish to do so? Isn’t it mad?

But it’s not that simple. The British Isles are not really ours. We are only passersby, for the road we travel is much longer and far more tormented. The English green provided us with only an elegant and temporary refuge, a respite along the way. The demography tells a clear story: In the second half of the twentieth century, which Herbert Bentwich will not live to see, the Anglo-Jewish community will shrink by a third. Between 1950 and 2000 the number of Jews in the British Isles will drop from over 400,000 to approximately 300,000. Jewish schools and synagogues will close. The communities of such cities as Brighton and Bournemouth will dwindle. The rate of intermarriage will increase to well over 50 percent. Young non-Orthodox Jews will wonder why they should be Jewish. What’s the point?

A similar process will take place in other Western European countries. The non-Orthodox Jewish communities of Denmark, Holland, and Belgium will almost disappear. After playing a crucial role in the shaping of modern Europe for more than two hundred years—think of Mendelssohn, Marx, Freud, Mahler, Kafka, Einstein—Jews will gradually leave center stage. The golden era of European Jewry will be over. The very existence of a viable, vital, and creative European Jewry will be questioned. What was shall not be again.

Fifty years later, this same malaise will hit even the powerful and prosperous American-Jewish community. The ratio of Jews to non-Jews in American society will shrink dramatically. Intermarriage will be rampant. The old Jewish establishment will fossilize, and fewer non-Orthodox Jews will be affiliated or active in Jewish life. American Jewry will still be far more vibrant than Europe’s. But looking across the ocean at their European and British cousins, American Jews will be able to see what the twenty-first century holds, and it is not a pretty sight.

So should my great-grandfather disembark? If he doesn’t, my personal
life in England will be rich and rewarding. I won’t have to do military services; I’ll face no immediate danger and no gnawing moral dilemmas. Weekends will be spent at the family’s thatched-roof cottage in Dorset, summers in the Scottish Highlands.

Yet if my great-grandfather does not disembark, chances are that my children will be only half Jewish. Perhaps they will not be Jewish at all. Britain will muffle our Jewish identity. In the green meadows of Old England, and in the thick woods of New England, secular Jewish civilization might evaporate. On both coasts of the Atlantic, the non-Orthodox Jewish people might gradually disappear.

So smooth is the Mediterranean as the Bentwich delegation disembarks that it appears to be a lake. Arab stevedores ferry the
Oxus
passengers ashore in rough wooden boats. The Jaffa port proves to be less traumatic than expected. But in the city of Jaffa it is market day. Some of the European travelers are shocked by the hanging animal carcasses, the smelly fish, the rotting vegetables. They notice the infected eyes of the village women, the scrawny children. And the hustling, the noise, the filth. The sixteen gentlemen, four ladies, and one maid make their way to the downtown hotel, and the elegant Thomas Cook carriages arrive promptly. As soon as they are out of the chaos of Arab Jaffa, the Europeans are in good spirits once again. They smell the sweet scent of the April orange groves and are uplifted by the sight of the blazing red and timid purple fields of wildflowers.

The twenty-one travelers are greeted by my other great-grandfather, Dr. Hillel Yoffe, who makes a positive impression on them. In the six years since he, too, disembarked at the Jaffa port, carried ashore by the very same Arab stevedores, he has accomplished a great deal. His medical work—trying to eradicate malaria—is now well known. His public work—as chairman of the Zionist Committee in Palestine—is outstanding. Like the British pilgrims, he is committed to the idea that the privileged Jews of the West must assist the impoverished Jews of the East. It’s not only a matter of saving them from benighted Cossacks but a moral duty to introduce them to science and the Enlightenment. In the harsh conditions of this remote Ottoman province, Dr. Yoffe is the
champion of progress. His mission is to heal both his patients and his people.

Led by Dr. Yoffe, the Bentwich convoy reaches the French agricultural school of Mikveh Yisrael. The students are away for the Passover holiday, but the teachers and staff are impressive. Mikveh Yisrael is an oasis of progress. Its fine staff trains the young Jews of Palestine to toil the land in modern ways; its mission is to produce the agronomists and vine growers of the next century. The French-style agriculture it teaches will eventually spread throughout Palestine and make its deserts bloom. The visitors are ecstatic. They feel they are watching the seeds of the future sprouting. And it is indeed the very future they want to see.

From the Mikveh Yisrael school they travel to the colony of Rishon LeZion. Baron Edmond de Rothschild is the colony’s sponsor and benefactor. The local governor, representing the baron, hosts the esteemed pilgrims in his colonial home. The Brits take to the Frenchman. They are relieved to find such architecture and such a household and such fine food in this backwater. Yet what delights the European travelers most is the formidable, advanced winery established by the baron at the center of the fifteen-year-old colony. They are amazed at the notion of turning Palestine into the Provence of the Orient. They can hardly believe the sight of the red-roofed colonial houses, the deep-green vineyards, or the heady smell of the first Hebrew wine in the Jewish homeland after eighteen hundred years.

By noon, when they arrive in Ramleh, it is clear to them. Seven hours after landing in Palestine, most of the Bentwich pilgrims have no doubts: Judea is the place where the persecuted Jewish masses of Russia, Poland, and Romania should be settled. Palestine is to be a Jewish home that will ensure Jewish salvation. Soon the delegation will get on the train from Lydda to Jerusalem. But a man like Herbert Bentwich will not waste a valuable half hour. His fellow travelers are exhausted. They rest, mulling over their many impressions and emotions. But my great-grandfather is restless. In his white suit and his white cork hat he climbs up the white tower rising like a beacon from the center of Ramleh. And from the grand white tower my great-grandfather sees the Land.

Looking out over the vacant territory of 1897, Bentwich sees the quiet, the emptiness, the promise. Here is the stage upon which the drama will play out, all that was and all that shall be: the carpets of wildflowers, the groves of ancient olive trees, the light purple silhouette of the Judean hills. And over there, Jerusalem. By pure chance, my great-grandfather is at the epicenter of the drama. And at this juncture a choice must be made: This way or the other. Move forward or pull back. Choose Palestine or reject it.

My great-grandfather is not really fit to make such a decision. He does not see the Land as it is. Riding in the elegant carriage from Jaffa to Mikveh Yisrael, he did not see the Palestinian village of Abu Kabir. Traveling from Mikveh Yisrael to Rishon LeZion, he did not see the Palestinian village of Yazur. On his way from Rishon LeZion to Ramleh he did not see the Palestinian village of Sarafand. And in Ramleh he does not really see that Ramleh is a Palestinian town. Now, standing atop the white tower, he does not see the nearby Palestinian town of Lydda. He does not see the Palestinian village of Haditha, the Palestinian village of Gimzu, or the Palestinian village of El-Kubbab. My great-grandfather does not see, on the shoulder of Mount Gezer, the Palestinian village of Abu Shusha.

How can this be, I ask myself in another millennium. How is it possible that my great-grandfather does not see?

There are more than half a million Arabs, Bedouins, and Druze in Palestine in 1897. There are twenty cities and towns, and hundreds of villages. So how can the pedantic Bentwich not notice them? How can the hawkeyed Bentwich not see from the tower of Ramleh that the Land is taken? That there is another people now occupying the land of his ancestors?

I am not critical or judgmental. On the contrary, I realize that the Land of Israel on his mind is a vast hundred thousand square kilometers, which includes today’s Kingdom of Jordan. And in this vast land there are fewer than a million inhabitants. There is enough room there for the Jewish survivors of anti-Semitic Europe. Greater Palestine can be home to both Jew and Arab.

I also realize that the land Bentwich observes is populated by many
Bedouin nomads. Most of the others who live there are serfs with no property rights. The vast majority of the Palestinians of 1897 live in humble villages and hamlets. Their houses are nothing but dirt huts. Bowed by poverty and disease, they are hardly noticeable to a Victorian gentleman.

It is also likely that Herbert Bentwich, a white man of the Victorian era, cannot see nonwhites as equals. He might easily persuade himself that the Jews who will come from Europe will only better the lives of the local population, that European Jews will cure the natives, educate them, cultivate them. That they will live side by side with them in an honorable and dignified manner.

But there is a far stronger argument: In April 1897 there is no Palestinian people. There is no real sense of Palestinian self-determination, and there is no Palestinian national movement to speak of. Arab nationalism is awakening at a distance: in Damascus, in Beirut, in the Arabian Peninsula. But in Palestine there is no cogent national identity. There is no mature political culture. In these distant parts of the Ottoman Empire, there is no self-rule and no Palestinian autonomy. If one is a proud subject of the British Empire, it is quite understandable that one would see the land as a no-man’s-land. As a land the Jews may legitimately inherit.