Judith, Ephraim, Hodya and Noa
It was so sad and shocking to hear about David’s passing. ….. Hamakom Yenachem Eschem Besoch Sharie Availie Tsion v’ Yerushaliam.
My wife Dina told me about the opportunity to post memories of David on his website. David was certainly a very important person in my life, but I didn’t know where to start, what to say. Maybe overwhelmed by the enormous tragedy, I was just clamming up. I just read the postings that were there and somehow now feel more open to express my feelings and my memories.
I first knew David and Judith in S. Francisco in the mid-seventies. My visits to their open home, a wonderful , warm, inspiring apartment near the Golden Gate Park Panhandle, and my conversations with them were so important to me in helping me to sort out my life and where I was going in Yiddishkiet. Of course I’m still sorting it out and David is still helping me.
I had the merit to be a witness at not just one, but at both of David and Judith’s weddings. They had two weddings, not because Chas v’ Shalom they had separated or divorced in between, but because as they grew in Yiddishkiet, they realized that certain of the innovations they used in the first ceremony perhaps invalidated it in the context of Halacha, the everlasting law of the Jewish People. That they had these two ceremonies says a great deal about David and Judith, about their continually searching, developing and maturing, and about their being open to the truth that they found. That I merited to be a witness at each of the ceremonies meant a great deal to me, not only in terms of my relationship to them, which I treasure to this day, but also as a symbol of my own development and change.
Dina and I recently (a year and a half ago) were able to renew our relationship with David and Judith after a long period of being out of touch. It was a wonderful experience, as David put it, “we picked up right where we left off”. David was the same as ever, probing, searching for the truth, in his own special loving way.
Yosef Shandling
Spring Valley, N.Y. U.S.A. 2005-08-17 12:49:13 °94 |
Hesped for David Margolis
From a Commune in Oregon to the Hills of Beit Yattir
I always accorded a great deal of respect and awe to David and Judith for coming to Beit Yattir. After all, as we know, most English-speakers who come on aliya in middle age tend to gravitate to concentrations of English-speakers such as Raanana, Efrat, even Har Nof. And as we know, the older you are when you make aliya, the harder it is to acquire Hebrew. But when David was alone on Yattir for months at a time, as when Judith was in the States, it was darn hard to get on the short list to invite him over for a meal on Shabbat. I used to wonder about that; after all, there are only a few English-speaking families on the yishuv, so where was he going for his meals, week after week? One of the non-English speaking families David enjoyed going to was the Gorbachevsky clan, who happened to be our next-door neighbors. Lev and Ayala's first language is Russian, their second language is Hebrew, and their English is non-existent. (As I speak now, Lev is standing next to me and he doesn't understand a word I say.) I'd see David enter the Gorbachevsky house for lunch on Shabbat with his signature fruit salad, and three hours later he'd still be inside. One day I got up the nerve to ask Lev Gorbachevsky, "How do you communicate with David for these round-table Shabbat discussions?" Lev didn't even understand the question. "David is one of the most interesting people we know," he said simply, "In any language."
So the Margolis' made their home in a mainly-Sabra community. Even us other English speakers on the yishuv had lived in Israel far longer than them: long enough for our men to serve in the army and for the rest of us to endure the dubious distinction of the gas mask and the sealed room. All of David's Israeli experiences were new to him, and he perceived them through the prism of the writer's eye. That's what I enjoyed about David: reading his latest article about some element of life in Israel that the rest of us had long taken for granted. Take, for example, the time he was in charge of the kablan (contractor) who enlarged their house. Here's David's "take" on that experience, from the article called:
Building the House: The contractor:
The contractor -- can't live with him, can't kill him. Or can you?
"In Israel, we have three major ethnic groups: Yehudim, Aravim and Kablanim . . .
Maybe the moral is that Jews and Arabs change, but the world of the kablanim is eternal."
Isn't that just like David to sum it all up in one pity sentence that we wished we had thought of?
Yattir is a lovely community if I do say so myself, but circumstances during the intifada transformed our roads into danger zones. This was a difficult period of time for everyone, of course, but especially for the Margolis'. I was in charge of organizing shooting practice on the official shooting range for all adults on the yishuv who had not served in the army or needed refresher lessons in marksmanship. Almost all the women took time off from their Friday morning cooking marathons to hang up their aprons and learn how to shoot an M-16 rifle or an Uzi instead. I must say that it was quite some sight: seeing these be-hatted women in long skirts, lying on the dusty ground and grappling with rifles almost as long as themselves. David and Judith were, of course, also part of this scene. I'll never forget David's take on shooting practice and guard duty in his article:
On Guard: Guys like me don't carry guns, right?
He wrote:
Part of what I like about shmirah (guard duty) is that it so clearly distinguishes my Israeli present from my American past. In my past there are no firearms. My grandfather, who escaped from the Czar's army circa 1900, was the last male in the family to do military service. We're urban American Jews, lovers of peace and the life of the mind; less nobly, we shrink from the notion of responsibility for our own protection.
Although there has never been a terrorist intrusion at Beit Yattir, the neighboring village of Sussya has not been so lucky; it is not completely out of the question that I will one day be forced to face my fellow man with my weapon and his between us . . .So, before I go to sleep, I double-lock the door. This, I remember, was always my final gesture of the day in America, too. Double-locking the door behind me, I recognize myself again.
David also believed in giving his due to his community, and he gladly served at the yishuv's English spokesperson vis-a-vis our adoptive American community of Beth Aaron in Teaneck, New Jersey. Although I saw David occasionally huddled with Mauro over some related issues, and knew that he was the official contact person for Zvi Weissler of Beth Aaron, I never knew how much work that entailed until recently. When David became ill and Zvi suggested that we find another contact person, at first we hesitated. But Zvi was adamant: He pointed out that other yishuvim on Har Hevron had had been adopted by communities in the States but the connections had all eventually dissipated—except for Yattir. "It was all because of David," said Zvi firmly. "We in Teaneck, New Jersey are still deeply involved in Beit Yattir because of David."
I owe David a personal debt: he was not only a friend but a mentor. I am a freelance translator and when I first started down that road, it was David I went to for advice. When David advanced from freelancing to his job as editor in the Jerusalem Report, we all cheered him, especially me. One day, David approached me with an offer: he wanted to know if I'd be willing to take over some of his freelance writing work for the Department of Public Affairs of Ben-Gurion University. I was thankful, but a bit intimidated. After all, I reminded him, I had never actually written anything professionally; I was a translator, and only a would-be writer. It was David who encouraged me and believed in me, and he put his own reputation on the line to vouch for me. I owe him a lot, and am proud that I was able to live up to his expectations.
Whenever we had David over for a meal, he always brought his signature fruit-salad-- no matter how we protested that it wasn't necessary. "You're only one person," we'd sigh, "and this is so much work for you." But the truth is, there was something special about the "David Fruit Salad" as we called it and secretly we were happy that he continued to bring it. In fact, it was only this morning that Naava revealed David's secret to me: "He once told me that he spent time painstakingly peeling off the pith from the inside of the citrus fruits," she said. "That's why it was never bitter."
Somehow, that epitomizes David to me: the secret of never being bitter.
I want to conclude, on behalf of all of Beit Yattir, that David will always remain part of the Beit Yattir family. He is, and will remain, part and parcel of the yishuv and the landscape that he loved so much.
Sandy Bloom
Beit Yattir 2005-08-18 05:41:50 °95 |
