In one of the most heart-wrenching moments in "Taske", Ilana Rodashevsky's book, a small immigrant family lands in Israel - father, mother, girl and baby.
After many years of dreaming of an ascension, Comrade Brezhnev momentarily opened a narrow crack in the Iron Curtain, and they hurried to leave everything and everyone they knew and leave the USSR far behind, in favor of a dream that is all sunshine and the smell of the sea. "We beat the method," he says. So the father of the family, who still does not know what awaits them in the new home - or rather, in the very long years of searching for a home, in the most elusive sense of the term.
Such moments - warm and poignant - are abundant in "Taske", Rudeshevsky's debut novel, which describes the events of that small family, mainly through the eyes of Alka, the eldest daughter of the couple Sophie and Max, while being shaken by the Israeli reality.
The term "Taska" (which in an interview with her Rudashevsky says that it should actually be pronounced "Toska", but that's how she remembers it from home, and she - and we'll tell you about it right away - does not speak Russian) is officially translated as longing, longing and perhaps yearning or longing, but it turns out that in the Russian origin it is Loaded with sadness and helplessness, which is difficult to squeeze into one single word in Hebrew.
"Most people in Yamit accepted the fact that this is what needs to be done in order for there to be peace, but inside something was broken. At least for my father it was a deep break. It was hard for him to go through such destruction at a young age."
All of these emotions float very gently above and within the complex story that Rodashevsky tells - a story about a Zionist vision of construction and fulfillment, about the optimism that ideology gives, about disillusionment with no choice but also about absorption and a new life - largely based on the story of her own family.
Rodashevski, 57 years old, is an architect, an expert in urban planning and a lecturer at Bezalel, married and a mother of two and lives in Jerusalem.
Even before "Taske", the short story she penned, "Coffee", won first place in the story contest of "Makor Rishon" and her story "My Uncle, Samson" won her second place in the short story contest of "Haaretz".
She was born in Lithuania, and when her parents decided to leave and immigrate to her country, little Ilana was in compulsory kindergarten.
She did not know at the time that she, and they, were part of a large and significant wave of immigration that changed the face of Israeli society to a great extent - the Russian immigration of the 1970s - nor that the years of her childhood and youth, which she spent in the increasingly established city of "Yamit", would also be stamped with a local historical stamp Unforgettable.
The people left behind
"Taske" opens with the surprising death of the mother of the family, with almost absurd incidents that occur around the hospitalization, the funeral and the swearing-in, and wanders back, to memories of the passionate teenage years of Sophie and Max, who meet and establish a home under the Soviet regime, but are looking for a different vision to dedicate themselves to.
They find it, of course, in Zionism, or as Rudashevsky writes: "Unlike the pioneers from the Soviet propaganda poster, Sophie and Max did not raise their fists in the air or carry a sickle and sickle, but a baby, a girl and suitcases. But just like in the poster, the sun broke in front of them and hid the split that came after The parting of the ways and the years to come and everything that is going to happen."
Rodeshevsky describes the crossroads, where anyone who decides to emigrate faces, as "a crack that opens and lengthens... like a train in nylon stockings, not to mention tearing."
This crack was supposed to separate the immigrants, going to a destination that promises favors, from everything that happened before, to forget the millions who died in wars, in gulags and in the forests, "winners and losers who drew the map of the world over and over again like drunken surveyors", so that it would be possible to see again The earth from above, blue and beautiful.
The subtlety, as mentioned, is very noticeable in Rodashevsky's writing, even when she writes about difficult subjects: starting with the difficulties of absorption, language, alienation, attempts to assimilate that are not always successful and longing for the close people left behind, ending with the devastation of the soul with the evacuation by sea and the destruction of the place they thought would be their home, and the pain that for some of the evacuees were expressed in depression, extravagance, detachment or alcoholism.
"But the intention was good, wasn't it?"
the girl Alka asks her mother, in a conversation about the humanistic ideas that stood behind the Soviet Union, and it seems that even later on, Rudashevsky continues and insists on seeing everywhere the same good intention.
"There is only one 'marine'"
A considerable part of the book is devoted to the move to Limat, which was the realization of the pioneering dream of the father of the family - who tried even before to convince his wife to join various settlements, and even (to her great dismay, which gave rise to a resolute refusal) to a kibbutz - and of course to the evacuation of the city, with the signing of the peace treaty with Egypt.
Rudashevsky's parents were part of the "Russian nucleus", which came down to the Rafah entrance when the naval city was in the first stages of construction, and lived for about two years in temporary residences until moving to apartments, in the city's prefabricated buildings.
Contrary to the countless articles published in the press on the tenth, 20th, 30th and now 40th anniversary of the evacuation by sea, for Rodashevski the city does not receive an aura of sanctity, and even though the plight of the forced departure, the emotional and ideological fracture, the loss of another home and the feeling of abandonment by the state are present in "Taske", She seems more sober.
Her parents signed the compensation agreement and left the place long before the evacuation, and did not take part in the fortification and resistance, and she, as a teenager, was angry and disappointed, mainly because her close friends and the liberated lifestyle that no other city in Israel offered her at that time remained in Bimit.
You talk a lot about Yamit, and even earlier about living in Haifa, and you avoid mentioning the names of the cities in Israel. It is always the "northern city" or the "city at the edge of the country". Why?
"I think I wanted the story not to be one of my personal stories. I didn't write an autobiography or a memoir, but a novel, and it was important for me to make things a little more general, to talk about things that are more principled and less personal. Obviously, there was only one 'Yamit' in the world, but If I were to call the city by its name, it would become too specific a place."
But the story is based on your personal experiences.
"Not only. These are my experiences, mixed with the experiences and events that happened to other girls and boys of our aliyah, and also to the children of the immigrants who came from the former USSR in the 90s.
The book is based on biographical elements, but one of the reasons for writing it was the great confusion that characterizes children who are shaken from place to place.
Their past became some kind of mixture of flashes - so I had to invent quite a bit, invent in retrospect, or rather close and complete stories with the help of the imagination.
I read quite a few Aliya stories in the Facebook group 'Russians without a sense of humor and their friends', for example, and during them I understood better who I am, what I am writing about.
I also realized that compared to other ascents, our ascent was much easier and more comfortable."
Easy?
You describe leaving close relationships full of warmth and understanding, intellectual conversations, a warm apartment, even tastes like mushrooms in cream and dill that could not be found in Israel in those days, in favor of very difficult daily struggles to be absorbed in the new environment.
"Nevertheless, we were lucky to arrive at a time when the state welcomed us with open arms and gave us a lot. I read a study that said that 40 percent of the immigrants then had to work in less prestigious professions than their original professions - instead of medicine in a paramedical profession, for example. And I still think there was We were lucky, and for many the absorption was very successful. Almost every family had relatives in the aliyah of the 1990s - and that was happy, because these were branches of the family that we were missing, that we heard about all the time - but then we could see how different this aliyah is. That state ran out of money, and the immigrants who arrived years after us received much less from it and faced much greater difficulties."
You, the immigrants of the 1970s, were called "Villa-Volvo", and later the sea evacuees were called "obstacle to peace" and "blackmailers", as if the older Israeli society embraced you with joy and wanted to give, but was also angry and jealous.
"True, and I still think that in the overall calculation, our immigration was very popular, wanted, that we arrived at a very good time. The compensation for the evacuation was, of course, a much smaller joy, and did not concern only the people of Yamit's Russian core. When Yamit was established, there was a great deal of support for the pioneers came to settle there, and suddenly, after Sadat's visit to Israel, things changed, and the dominant voice was the voice that called for them to go. Some of the people who expressed this position must have thought even before that they should not go to live in the territories, but in those days people like Max and Sophie did not hear that voice They were captives in a dream where there was such a beautiful place, which stood empty and stood empty all these years, just waiting for them. This was of course not true, because the Bedouins who had been evacuated from the area lived there, and in reality there are no places that do not belong to anyone... but the fact that they came to be Pioneers, and after years of significant work, the state told them to leave, it was very difficult for everyone, and the money they received for the houses there did not make up for it."
The money, at least in the story, also disappears very quickly.
"It was a combination of the fact that they grew up in a communist country and didn't know much about money and the crazy inflation that was in Israel at the time, because of which sums that seemed large were not worth much. But the big break was not economic, but ideological and emotional, of course."
The relinquishment of Yamit and then the destruction of everything that was built there were the moments when those who immigrated to Israel, wandered, looked for a home and thought they had found a home - raised their hands, gave up?
"That's how I think in retrospect. I'm not sure that my parents and other immigrants who were there saw it that way. For them it was a sequence of events, some excellent, some less good. I don't think the evacuation was the political line my father would have taken, but he came to terms with it Absolutely. Most of the people in Yamit accepted the fact that this is what needs to be done in order for there to be peace, but inside something was broken. At least with my father it was a deep break. He is a man who came here for ideological reasons, and it was hard for him to go through such destruction at a young age."
In the book, Max insists on enlisting in the army, despite his age and health problems.
"That's exactly how my father was. He fought for the right to serve in the IDF because for him it was part of the deal of immigrating to Israel.
Like Max, he was an adventurer and maybe innocent, and in that sense my mother was more sane, but she couldn't stand up to his power.
In Lithuania at the time there were cells of activists who planned to do significant things, to establish, to settle, not to go up just like that."
When you say ideology, you mean Zionism, right?
"Zionism, of course. With my father, it was very strong and obvious. My grandfather was a prisoner of Zion, so there was no question, it was clear that one had to fight for the right to immigrate to Israel. With my mother, it was not assimilated from childhood, and she simply came with my father Although she was also very enthusiastic. It's hard to know if this was the only reason, but Zionism was definitely intense. In the period before their immigration, there was a global awakening that called to get the Jews out of the USSR, 'Send my people'.
All over the world mobilized to put pressure on the USSR to release the Jews and suddenly, for a short time, it became possible. Immediately afterwards, the gates were closed again and no one could go up."
In the book you tell about two traumatic events that Elka, the girl, goes through. In both cases she waits for her mother to notice, for the adults to ask her, and they don't. Is it related to ideological fervor?
"Yes, and I don't say this out of anger. People who are influenced by ideology pay less attention to everyday life, and naturally children are in a less secure position in such situations. When the family immigrates, the parents are busy establishing themselves, building their own world, and ideology in such a case is a bit like a drug. I'm also able to catch myself in such situations - getting carried away after something ideological and having to make sure that I continue to take care of routine matters."
The color of the sand
Rudashevski teaches a course on immigration and migration at Bezalel.
"I'm a child of wandering immigrants, but beyond that I think we're all like that. After all, even when you move from a kibbutz to Jerusalem, you're an immigrant. Very small situations turn you into an immigrant who has to rebuild her world out of necessity."
According to the story you tell, the desire to integrate was mainly projected onto the children. They did not speak Russian so that they would grow up to be completely local.
"People don't believe me, but that's how it was. My parents and their generation brought a lot of books to Israel, these were people who read endlessly. But they didn't display the books in Russian in the living room, but in the bedroom and in hidden places. In the living room there were travel books that my father got In the army, military instructors. This is also very different from the Aliyah of the 1990s, which was very proud of its culture and felt no need to hide its Russianness."
You wonder in the book what would have happened if you, your partner and your children had immigrated from here, let's say to the USA. What would that have said about the path your parents went through. But you stayed here.
"I feel very connected here, very much at home."
And how do you feel when you see the aerial photograph of Yamit, the one that hangs with so many people who were evacuated from the city?
"I've seen it so many times, that this muscle seems to have locked up already. Many years have passed and it's getting further and further away from me, although every now and then it comes up again, when I come across the color of the sand or something in my work as an architect that reminds me of the city. The sea is like an organ in my body , a present part that will never disappear, but I no longer cry in front of her picture."
Even though you can't come back to visit?
"When my family left Lithuania, it was also impossible to return to visit. Many years passed before the place opened. There are quite a few places in our life with dim windows that have been closed in a drawer, and you can't see them anymore."
You wonder in the book what future this city could have had, a city of prefabricated houses in the middle of the dunes. Do you think it could have become a distressed town?
"This is a possibility, because many places that dreamed of wonderful things did not fulfill the hopes they had, but there is no way to know or even imagine, so maybe I shouldn't say such things, so that they don't put me on the spot," she concludes with a smile.
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