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Friday, June 8, 1956
Page Seven
THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE
AT HOME IN ISRAEL WITH ANITA ENGLE
A Date for Ron and Mike
At 8 o’clock, a couple of nights
before the end of the recent In
dustrial Exhibition in Haifa, I
made my way into the slums of
the Old City, where the Munici
pality had turned an expanse of
ruined houses into an exhibition
area. Lights shone brighthly over
the high enclosure, and crowds
of people came and went.
In an empty plot, opposite the
entrance, a group of young men
and women in army uniform stood
in a circle
They were
clapping their
hands and
singing kinder
garten songs!
Gleefully mill
ing about be
tween legs were
the stunted
youngsters of the neighborhood.
Postponing the exhibition, I
joined the spectators around the
singing soldiers. What were they
doing? Making music for the
children to dance Israeli square
dances to. When a child lagged,
through shyness, one of the pret
ty young soldierettes would take
his arm, and go dancing off with
him herself.
This, I learned, had been going
on every night since the exhi
bition had opened. The young
men and women were from the
Army camps around Haifa. After
they had seen the exhibition, they
spent the rest of their evening’s
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leave entertaining the children
who swarmed to the crowds and
bright lights.
Among the spectators I noticed
two white-clad young American
sailors from the battleship “Al
bany” just completing a three-day
visit in Port. Their round little
hats were tilted precariously on
the bridge of their snub noses.
Their adolescent faces had such
a forlorn, very-far-from home
look, my old mother’s heart led
me right to them.
In five minutes I found out
that they were 18 and 19 years
old; Ron from Seattle and Mike
from Kansas; they hadn’t seen
their parents for almost a year;
they were thoroughly browned
off with their particular section
of the Navy; and in addition,
they were feeling very sorry for
themselves. This type of thing
always happened to them.
What type of thing? It seemed
that the ship was making a re
creation call in Haifa, just to give
its personnel a break after 21
days at sea. Only 1/3 of the per
sonnel could come ashore at a
time. On each of the previous
two nights, entertainments had
been arranged by Haifa hostesses.
This, the last night of the ship’s
stay, was Ron and Mike’s first
time ashore. And just this night,
the entertainments had been can
celled.
There they were, with four
more hours leave, and another
five dreary weeks at sea head of
them. They’d seen the exhibition.
They take a bus ride to Pano
rama Road. New they were ob
viously longing for some human
contact. I cast a final look at
the bright lights of the exhibi
tion, and stepped into the breach.
“Would you like to meet some
young people?” I asked them.
Would they! “Well, come along
then, ” I said, stepping out con
fidently. I don’t live in Haifa
anymore, but I knew dozens of
families with boys and girls their
age.
We went to a telephone booth,
and I began telephoning. It was
no good. I couldn’t track down
a single young person. It was
Haifa’s turn to help build forti
fications in border settlements,
so they were either all digging
trenches, or else they were in the
Army!
In a moment of inspiration I
remembered my friends, Dr. and
Mrs. Ferber. Their daughter El-
ana was only 14, but she was a
lovely big girl, and - most Im
portant - was likely to be home.
The two sailors and I were
overjoyed when Elana, tall and
dignified as a ceder, opened the
door to us. Although her round
face, with freckled nose and curly
brown hair, was as innocent and
pretty as a doll’s, she looked as
old as Ron, who didn’t look more
than 16, anyway.
“We’re so glad to find you in,”
I told her.
“I’m almost always in at night,”
she replied, rather primly.
Ellana’s parents were out, but
with a matter-of-factness of a
Sabra, she undertook to entertain
us. The boys had already heard
that girls served in the Army in
Israel, and wanted to know if
they didn’t resent it.
“Why?” asked Elana, surprised.
“Doesn’t everyone in America
want to defend their country?”
Beside speaking English and
Hebrew, Elana also knew Polish,
Italian, and some Arabic.
“How many languages do you
know?” she asked the sailors.
Ron was able to muster Ger
man, „ from his childhood. His
grandparents had come from Vi
enna, and they spoke German to
him.
“Is Elana different from Ameri
can girls?” I asked the boys.
“Gosh, yes!” they said. “She’s
bigger than most girls of 14 in
the States, and she’s much more
grown up!”
But only in social conscious
ness. Elana’s parents arrived
home in time to give us coffee,
and at 10 o’clock I got up to go.
“You’ll be wanting to go to bed,
Elana, I told her.
“But why should you go?” she
asked. “I’m not the center of at
traction, am I?”
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