I was born and grew up in a small and low room on the bottom floor of the building.The parents sleep on the sofa bed, and the bed is pulled out from one wall to the other at night, almost occupying their entire room.When they wake up in the morning, they always hide the bedding in the lower bed drawer, turn the mattress over, fold it up, cover it tightly with a light gray coverlet, put a few embroidered cushions on it, and all traces of the night's sleep are gone. live.This is how they use their rooms as bedroom, study, reading room, dining room and drawing room.Opposite is my little green room, half of which is taken up by a potbellied wardrobe.The corridor was dark, narrow and low, a little curved, like an escape tunnel in a prison, connecting the simple kitchen and toilet between two small rooms.A dim light bulb imprisoned in an iron cage casts a gloomy gleam in the hallway even by day.There was only one window at the front of both rooms, and the window was guarded by a metal shade. I squinted and tried to see the view to the east, but all I could see was a dusty cypress tree and a pile of rough stones. low wall.Through the small window on the back wall of the kitchen and toilet, one can glimpse the courtyard of a small prison, surrounded by high walls, with a concrete floor, and a dull geranium planted in a rusty olive jar. To a ray of sunshine, is slowly dying.On all the little window sills were sealed jars of pickled cucumbers that had been kept for years, and a cracked pot that was used as a vase contained a stubborn cactus.In fact, it was a basement dwelling dug out of the rocky hillside, and it was the first floor of a building.The hill is our immediate neighbor, a heavy, introverted, quiet neighbor, an old, melancholy hill, with the habits of a single man, always silent, a drowsy, aloof hill, who never speaks Squeaking furniture, not entertaining, not making noise, not bothering us, but always seeping into us from it and our shared walls, like the slight, persistent musty, bleak bleakness of our poor neighbourhood. silence and dampness.In this way, even in the height of summer, our family will have a hint of winter.The guests will say, in the heat wave, you are always quite comfortable here, so cool, fresh and really chilly, but how can you bear it in winter?

Won't moisture seep through the walls?Don't you feel a bit depressing here in winter? There are books all over the house.My father can read in sixteen or seventeen languages ​​and speak eleven (all with a Russian accent).My mother speaks four or five languages ​​and understands seven or eight.When they don't want me to understand their conversation, they talk in Russian or Polish. (Doesn't want me to understand most of the time. When my mother occasionally mentioned the big stallion in Hebrew to my face, my father would yell at her angrily in Russian: What's the matter with you? Didn't see the baby Is that right there?) For cultural reasons, they basically read German and Hebrew, presumably dreaming in Yiddish.But they only taught me Hebrew.Perhaps they were afraid that multilingualism would lead me to be seduced by the wondrous and murderous continent of Europe.According to the value standard of parents, the more western things are, the more cultured they are.Although Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky were very close to their Russian hearts, I think that the Germans - despite Hitler - seemed to them more cultured than the Russians and Poles; the French - — more cultured than the Germans.The British occupy a higher position than the French in their eyes.As for the Americans—they're not sure yet, after all there's killing Indians, robbing postal trains, panning for gold, molesting girls.

Europe was to them a promised land forbidden, a place of yearning, with its bell towers, its squares paved with old stone slabs, its tramways, its bridges, its steeples, its remote villages, its spas, its lands. Forests, snow, and pastures Throughout my childhood, words such as "cottage," "meadow," and "goose girl" had always fascinated and excited me. They had the sensuality of a truly comfortable world, far from the cluttered Dusty tin roofs, far from the urban wasteland of scrap metal and thistles, far from the thirsty hillsides of Jerusalem under the weight of a hot summer day. I muttered “pasture” so many times—I could hear the I can hear the mooing of the cows with little bells on my roof, and hear the gurgling of the brook; I close my eyes, and I can see the barefoot goose girl, her sex appeal when I don't understand anything. Just brought me to tears. As the years went by, I gradually realized that Jerusalem under British rule in the 1930s and 1940s was a fascinating cultural city with great merchants, musicians, scholars and writers such as Martin Buber, Gershom Scholem, and Agnon, and many, many great researchers and artists. Sometimes, when we passed Ben Yehuda Street or Ben Memon Avenue, Dad would whisper to me : "Look, that's an internationally renowned university scholar. "I don't know what he means. I think international fame has something to do with the two skinny legs, because most of the people being talked about are elderly, use crutches to find their way, two feet stagger, and wear thick sweaters and wool pants even in summer The Jerusalem that my parents look up to is very far away from our residential area. It is in the verdant and verdant Rejavea, where there are many flowers and the music of the piano is melodious; it is three or four cafes on Jaffa or Ben Yehuda Street. where the gilded chandeliers hang; the halls in Jamaica or the King David Hotel, where cultured Jews and Arabs behave well with cultured Englishmen; where dreamy, long-necked women In tuxedo, dancing in the arms of gentlemen in navy blue suits; where generous Britons dine with Jewish cultured people or educated Arabs; where recitals, dances, literary evenings are held , tea parties, and pleasing art symposiums. Perhaps such a Jerusalem, with chandeliers and tea parties, could only be found in those who lived on Kerim Abraham Street—those librarians, teachers, clerks, and bookbinders in our dreams. In any case, it is not with us.

The Kerim Abraham district where we live belongs to Chekhov.Years later, when I read Chekhov, I was convinced that he was one of us: Uncle Vanya lived above us, Dr. Samoren bent over me when I had a fever or diphtheria, Examining me with both hands, Raevski, who suffers from habitual migraines, is my mother's second cousin, and we listened to Terry Green in the Palace of Nations auditorium together on Saturday nights.Indeed, we are surrounded by all kinds of Russians, and there are many Tolstoys.Some even looked exactly like Tolstoy.When I see a brown portrait of Tolstoy on the back cover of a book, I am sure I have seen him many times among us: he wanders along Malahay Street, or along Eufadia Walking in the street, without a hat on his head, his silver beard messed up by the breeze, he is as awe-inspiring as the ancestor Abraham. A long rope tied around the waist.The Tolstoyans of our neighborhood (what parents called "Tolstoyan Chicombs") were, without exception, devout vegetarians, world reformers with a deep affection for nature, Those who live by the principles, those who love human beings, those who love all living things in the world, those who long for rural life, and those who yearn for simple farming in the fields and orange groves.However, they can't even grow their own potted plants well: they may kill them, they may forget to water them.Or blame the odious British management for disinfecting our water with chlorine.Some of them are Dostoyevsky Tolstoyan characters: tortured, chattering, repressed desires, fascinated by ideas.But all of them, whether Tolstoy or Dostoevsky, all lived in Kerim Abraham and worked for Chekhov.The rest of the world is lumped together as one "big world".But this big world is also called by other names: enlightened, external, free, hypocritical.I know this big world almost only from stamp albums: Danzig, Bohemia and Moravia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ubangishari, Trinidad and Tobago, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Lake Ganika.That big world is so far away, so intoxicating, so beautiful, but very dangerous and full of threats for us.

It doesn't like Jews because Jews, though smart, quick-witted, and successful, are loud and rude.It also doesn't like what we've done in the land of Israel, because it's reluctant to even give us such a strip of swamps, pebbles, and desert.In that big world, all the walls are covered with graffiti: "Jews, go back to your Palestine!" So we went back to Palestine, and now the whole big world is yelling at us: Jews, get out of Palestine! "Not only is the whole world far away, but even the land of Israel is very far away. There, beyond the mountains, a new kind of Jewish hero is emerging. They are dark, hardy, taciturn, very different from the Jewish people in the diaspora. Different, not at all like the Jews of Kerim Abraham. These young men and women were pioneers, brave, rough and strong, who made friends in the long night, beyond all boundaries, and there were no boundaries in the relationship between young men and women. They Don't care about anything. Grandpa Alexander once said: They think things like this will be easy in the future, and the guy just goes to a girl and asks, and maybe the girl doesn't even wait for the guy to ask, and she will ask the guy Asking is like asking for a glass of water." The unimaginative Uncle Bates Aller said with restrained anger: "This is how all the mystique is destroyed by this sheer Bolshevism? All emotions wiped out? Just turn our whole life into lukewarm water?" Uncle Nehemiah suddenly popped up two lines of lyrics from the corner, which sounded like a desperate beast roaring: "Ah, the road It's been so long and winding, over the mountains, over the plains, ah, mother, I'm looking for you in the heat, in the snow, I miss you, but you're getting farther and farther away, hey, hey..." Then Cipolla said: Russian said: All right, all right.Are you crazy?The kids will hear you! "That's how they spoke Russian. The pioneers lived in Galilee, in the plains and valleys of Sharon, out of our sight.

Those boys are rough and enthusiastic, talk less and think more, and the girls are tall and strong, frank and self-disciplined, they seem to know everything and understand everything.They know you, they understand your shyness, and they still treat you with affection, seriousness, and respect, not as a child but as a human being, albeit a smaller one.In my eyes these pioneers, men and women, were tough, earnest, old-fashioned, and they would sit around and sing songs of heart-rending longing, songs of sneering, songs of unbridled greed; or they would dance wildly, As if beyond the body.But they can also enjoy solitude and introspection, sleep out in the open, sleep in tents, do hard labor, singing "We're always ready," "Your boys brought you peace with the plowshare, now they bring you peace with the barrel of a gun." Bring peace", "wherever we are sent, we will go".They can ride horses, or drive tractors with wide tracks.They spoke Arabic, knew every cave and every valley, could shoot a gun and throw a grenade, and read poetry and philosophy.They were studious and inquisitive, and kept their secrets. Even during the short time when they were lying in the tent at night, they talked about life in a low voice by candlelight, and talked about the struggle between love and responsibility, national interests and universal justice. harsh choice.Sometimes, my friends and I go to the Tanoi delivery yard to see them coming here from far away from the mountain in trucks full of agricultural products, "in work clothes and heavy rubber shoes". Near them, the smell of sucking hay and the intoxicating fragrance wafting from afar—there, indeed, great changes have taken place.There, the land is being cultivated, the world is being reformed, and a new type of society is being built there.There they are leaving their mark on the landscape and on the annals of history, they are plowing the fields and planting the vineyards, they are composing new poems, they are taking up guns and riding horses, and fighting back at the invaders, who brought us miserable His body was forged a fighting nation.I secretly dreamed that one day they would take me with them.Cast me, too, into a fighting citizen.My life has also become a new song, pure and straightforward and simple, like a glass of water on a hot day.

Beyond the mountains lies the exciting city of Tel Aviv.From that place brought us newspapers and rumors of plays, operas, ballets, cabarets, modern art, partisan politics, echoes of bitter disputes, and vague gossip.There are great athletes in Tel Aviv.There was the sea, and the sea was full of bronze-skinned Jews who could swim.Who can swim in Jerusalem?Who ever heard of swimming Jews?These are completely different genes.It is a mutation, like a butterfly miraculously reborn from a chrysalis". The name Tel Aviv has a special magic. When I hear the word "Tel Aviv", this image immediately pops into my mind: a woman in navy blue A man's tank top, strong and reckless lad, bronzed, broad shoulders, a poet-worker-revolutionary, a fearless lad, the kind they call a "Havelman" (very easygoing) , wearing a broken hat on curly hair, casual but provocative, with a cigarette in his mouth, free in the world; he is engaged in hard work in the fields all day long, or uses a mortar, and at night, he draws Violin, at night, he danced with the girls, or sang affectionate songs to them, the bright moonlight reflected the sand dunes, at dawn, he came out of the bunker with a pistol or a light machine gun, sneaked into the night, and guarded the houses and fields .Tel Aviv is so far away! I went to Tel Aviv no more than five or six times throughout my childhood, and we occasionally went there for the holidays with my aunts. Not only was the daylight in Tel Aviv back then compared to the daylight in Jerusalem compared to today Different, and even the law of gravity is very different. In Tel Aviv people walk differently, they walk like flying, like Neil Armstrong floating on the moon. In Jerusalem, people walk as if they are going to a funeral, or as if they are listening to People who are late to the concert, stand on tiptoe first, test the ground, and then, once they put their feet down, are in no hurry to move on. We waited two thousand years to find a foothold in Jerusalem, and we really don't want to leave right away. If we lift our feet, someone else will immediately take our little space. On the other hand, once you lift your feet, don't rush down - who knows if you have stepped on a snake's den We have paid for our rashness and recklessness for thousands of years, and we have fallen into the clutches of our enemies time and time again because we landed without looking. This is more or less the Jerusalemites Footsteps. But in Tel Aviv, ho! The whole city is like a big grasshopper. People are jumping, houses, streets, squares, sea breeze, yellow sand, tree-lined avenues, even the clouds in the sky are jumping. Once, we Went to Tel Aviv to celebrate Passover night, woke up early the next day, everyone was sleeping, I put on my clothes, walked out of the house, and went to a small square to play by myself. There were a bench or two in the small square, a swing, a sofa There are three or four small trees, and the birds are already chirping on it. A few months later, we traveled to Tel Aviv again for the new year, and the small square has moved. It is the same as the small trees, benches, sandpit, birds and The swings were moved to the other side of the street. I was taken aback, I don't understand how Ben Gurion and the duly formed administration allowed this to happen. What happened? Who moved the whole square all at once? Should the Mount of Olives be moved tomorrow? The Tower of David? Will the Wailing Wall be moved? Jerusalemites talk about Tel Aviv with envy, pride, envy and a little confidence, as if Tel Aviv is a vital part of the Jewish nation.An important secret plan, a plan that should not be talked about too much, it seems that there are ears in the walls, and enemy spies and agents are lurking everywhere.Tel Aviv, the sea, the sun, the blue sky, the sand, the scaffolding, the telephone booths on both sides of the boulevard, a new city under construction, with simple lines, rising among the orange groves and sand dunes.Not just a place where you buy a ticket to travel on the Egede company bus, but also a different continent.