From a Oleh Vatik to a New Oleh

Sent to Yehuda Hammer, actually posting in Jerusalem Post next to heavy-weight posters there.

Dear Yehuda. I also did an Ulpan but in Kfar Saba, in 1977. I almost arrived with Sadat - I mean, the very day he historically came to visit Israel. That time, Yehuda, there were no PCs, and so no Internet, emails, electronic games and there were no DVDs, Video Cassettes, etc. TV was B&W and a letter you send it today, could take 20 days to be answered back on your hands, with some luck. To make a very expensive international call? Only who could afford it… Just to make you see how much different was that time: New York Times was a newspaper with the language I could understand, but not in my budget to buy it everyday (don't even think about Newsweek or Times magazines). And that same radio driving you nuts was of a Russian playing it loud a room below mine, all day. Israeli people used to marry very young those days in Israel (babies were in high need, after Yom Kippur war). Something not really in minds of American, British, French and Argentinean girls, between others, living in the Ulpan, you know (besides, there was a song "How Deep Is Your Love"…then). Terrorism? It was also something else. So much, Police came to Ulpan once and distributed some rifles, to me and other guys, in order to defend the place. Terrorists had infiltrated Israel through boats. I will never forget how we succeeded to find some way a common language in order to not shoot each other in the dark of night. The other day we knew they attacked some vehicles on the road to Haifa (20km from us) and that IDF killed them all.
Chag Sameach Lecha


.
As long as deep in the heart,
The soul of a Jew yearns,
And towards the East
An eye looks to Zion,
Our hope is not yet lost,
The hope of two thousand years,
To be a free people in our land,
The land of Zion and Jerusalem.