Shayndel followed the sound of voices to the shady side of the dining hall, where Arik was holding forth. His Hebrew classes began with the same vocabulary lists and drills as Nurit’s, and like her, he ended with patriotic poems and songs. But where Nurit talked about her home and family, her garden and her neighbors, Arik always turned the conversation to politics.
“The British are not our allies,” he said, speaking a little too fast for most of his students. “There was some hope that when Labor came to power we’d be able to count on them, but now they are denying the right of our people to come home. There are a hundred thousand Jews waiting in Germany with nowhere to go, and those bastards offer us a quota of two thousand? This is not the act of an ally but of an enemy.”
“I heard they were going to permit another fourteen hundred a month,” said a stocky young Pole named David, who had been in Atlit for less than a week but seemed to know everyone in the camp.
“Bah,” said Arik, “that only happens if the Arabs agree to it, and they want the Jews out—or dead. And what the British want most of all is access to Suez and oil.”
“If you’re right, then the Yishuv will be at war with the British in earnest, and soon,” said David, who was sitting on the edge of the bench, his elbows on his knees. “And that’s too bad. My cousin fought with the Palestinian regiments, and he had nothing but praise for them.”
“The limeys don’t want your respect,” shouted a baby-faced boy with a very deep voice. “They’re in bed with the emirs and the effendis, and that makes them our enemies.”
“But we are not at war with the British,” someone objected.
“Not yet. But if we are to have a state and a homeland for our brothers and sisters in Europe, we must kick the empire out of here,” said Arik.
At that, Miloz, the camp heartthrob, got up from his bench muttering, “I have no idea what they’re talking about.” Four girls followed as he walked away, and all the men in the class turned to watch them except for David, the well-spoken Pole, who caught Shayndel’s eye and motioned for her to take a seat beside him. “I am David Gruen,” he said. “And I believe you are Shayndel Eskenazi, yes?”
“Shhh,” she said. “I want to listen to this.”
Someone in the crowd said, “The minute the British are out of here, the Arabs will attack us. Isn’t that right, Arik?”
He shrugged. “We will beat them. The Jews of Palestine know how to fight.”
“But there are millions of them,” said David, “and just a few hundred thousand of us.”
At that, a man in the front row said, “Maybe you can explain this to me, Arik. In all of my years as a Zionist, in the youth groups and in all of my reading, no one ever mentioned the Arabs. Now I come here to discover that there are three times as many of them as there are Jews here in the land. Did any of you know that?”
“They are peasants,” said Arik. “Worse than peasants. They are illiterate, dirty, backward. The educated ones with money use their tenants like serfs, like slaves. Besides, the Arabs did nothing with this land for hundreds of years, and I would remind you that we bought the land from them, legally. But now that we have built factories and made modern farms, now that we have jobs and schools and hospitals, the Arabs are crying that we are taking over their precious birthright.”
“It sounds like the story of Esau and Ishmael,” said a woman sitting in the back row. Shayndel saw that it was Zorah, her arms crossed tightly against her chest.
“Esau and Ishmael? What are you talking about?” Arik demanded. “Do you think we should let our brothers rot in Displaced Persons camps so that these people can take the land back to the dark ages? If you want to quote the Bible, what about, ‘this land that God gives to you.’ To you, not to Esau and Ishmael. To the Hebrews. To the Jews!”
“The rabbis taught that our misery was caused by the mistreatment of Ishmael, the brother of Isaac, and Esau, the brother of Jacob,” said Zorah.
“Which rabbis?” Arik scoffed. “Diaspora rabbis? No, my dear, it is not so complicated. This was our land from the beginning, and it is our land to win back.”
“You were a stranger in a strange land,” said Zorah.
“So what? This is the real world,” Arik said. “If we do not act, there will be none of us left to debate the fine points of the Torah.”
“And that means we must become like all other nations and oppress our neighbors?”
“You know, Zorah has a point,” Shayndel whispered to David, impressed at how her usually silent barrack-mate had stood up to Arik.
“Maybe,” said David. “But there really is no turning back, and nowhere else to go.”
“Enough philosophy for today,” Arik announced. “I’ll be back on Friday. Until then, speak Hebrew to each other. Now everyone stand up for ‘Ha Tikvah.’”
Shayndel thought that “The Hope” might be the saddest piece of music ever written. The song was so slow and stately it sounded more like a dirge than an anthem. Still, the melody was more powerful than any hymn’s, and the words still moved her as deeply as the first time she’d heard them, a young girl with braids and a brother.
Shayndel sang quietly, under her breath.
As long as the Jewish spirit is yearning deep in the heart,
With eyes turned toward the East, looking toward Zion,
Then our hope—the two-thousand-year-old hope—will not be lost: