My name is Yuri Kutzen-Perchik and I am a Jew from Israel. True, I was born in the Soviet Union in a small town of Beltzi, not too far from Odessa and really close to Kishinev, but I am still a Jew and I believe a good one. Do you know Beltzi? Are you familiar with the region? Are you from there too? It's in Moldova but right on the border with the Ukraine, where climate is warm, people are friendly and fruits are delicious and grow all year long. Beltzi is a wonderful place but you have not missed much. It is not like New York City, Los Angeles or the French Rivera but it is still out there and you may find it on the map. Well, you may need a magnifying glass and a strong one. Beltzi is somewhat smaller and not that cosmopolitan as New York City, Los Angeles or the French Rivera. But, it's a town of people with big hearts, huge egos and powerful ambitions but still, they are very shy and friendly. People there believe that the world evolves around them and they know it better than that. Well, they would be right if the world evolved around them. But...

They, all of them, always had at least one opinion on every subject, however, you get two of them together and they would present at least three opinions on the same subject. How do they do that? Well, there is a supporting opinion, an opposing opinion and a "maybe" opinion. So, as you say, better to be safe than sorry. The knowledge of the subject was not important but the opinion was. That's what you get when the world evolves around you. These opinions were always shared with anyone and anywhere. That was the climax of the existence and that had to be public. Even if you had no opinion, you shared it, and always with a full confidence in your opinion. That was the point and the meaning of sharing. That is why we were so strong, good looking and well above the average.

We, Jews from the small Soviet shtetles, as Beltzi, believed that we were more Jewish than the Jews from the big Soviet cities as Leningrad, Moscow, Kiev, and even Odessa and Kishinev. Odessa was a very Jewish city before the revolution, after the same revolution and almost up to now, but then so many people left for America and to Moscow so only the bandits (sorry former members of the military, law enforcement and the communist party apparatus) and the "New Russians" left to reside there. There was a good joke there. "Father can you lend me some money?"- Said a New Russian to an old Jew. This is funny. New Russians, old Jews - what a contradiction of terms. Only in Russia, only in Russia...

Many of us (the small town Jews) still believe in God, in one way or another, and we always followed all, well almost all, well, many, Jewish laws and traditions, of cause within the frames of the Soviet Union and the ganefs in charge. Do you think it's changed much lately? Don't think - not at all. Same towns, same cities, same people and the same ganefs, only more of them and there is no law you cannot pay off. And, unfortunately, there are less real Jews then before. Before, many of us were ashamed of being a Jew and tried to hide it, and many were proud of it but did not show off. Now, the smartest and the honest ones left years ago, and the crooks with the ganefs are well adjusted to the new "Glastnost" and the "Openness" environment. Now they could rob you blind openly and be called businessmen. What businessmen? Ganefs. And, rob they did, do and will. What a deal. Are you surprised? Hail to the New Russians and especially the ones with the Jewish ancestry. They are the most ruthless kind and often with a lot of brains but no soul. Soul is linked to the conscience and that's a bother. Give them a finger and they would bite the whole hand off. You see, one does not have to be religious or even to follow Judaism to be a Jew in Russia and in all of Europe, as well. We are Jews by blood and Yiddish is our language. We do not remember the language any longer but love the music and some of the sayings. Food is a part of the same culture and we like it as well but only if it was cooked by our grandmothers. Your grandmother was always the best cook. Too bad they don't make them any more.

Yiddish is a cheerful language of not so happy people. But we try. We try to be happy at least once a week, at least on Sabbath. Happiness is included in our culture as a good custom we should try to remember. So, as I said, everything with us is an ethnic question. There is no conversion there because how can you convert your blood. You can convert your religion but, then, what kind of religion is that if you can go in and out anytime you feel like it? You don't ask Italians, Germans or the English of their religion. You want to know the nationality and maybe the country of origin. So, we are Jews and our country of origin is Israel but we came from any and every corner of the world and even Russia. Religion is nice but does not really matter. Jews are the most secular people in the world. You become a Jew when you are still an embryo in your mother's womb. Even then you know who you are because they try to hurt your mother with words and often with actions.

They...? They are the ones who may want to convert later on. Please don't call us Russians or Ukrainians or anything else but Jews. That insults us more than being called a Jew. Jews of any religion are Jews and only in America they are not. In America you can hide your Jewish ancestry by saying: "I am a Catholic". So, you see a guy in a company of Jews wearing a yarmulke and full of joy dancing a freileks on a Jewish wedding and you assume that he is Jewish. Right? Wrong. "I am not Jewish. I am a Protestant," he says checking the bottle of wine for the sign of being kosher, "I converted when I married my third wife Peggy a few years ago". And what does that mean? What does that signify? Gornisht, babkis - nothing. But, you see what I mean.

To be a Jew is a cultural and an ethnic question and never the religious one. Don't get fooled by the reform rabbis. Ninety-nine percent of the Russian Jews are not religious but they are better Jews than some of your rabbis. We suffered, we bled and we died for the privilege of being a Jew and what did they do? Prayed for us? Did it help? Reform is good and we like it very much but not that part. Not the converting part and not many other things. It does not fly with us. That is why nationality and not the religion are qualified by your mother's blood. You are a Jew if at least your mother was one. That's the Jewish law as we know it and that is why the mixed marriages (not the religion wise but the blood wise) were never welcomed in our society. That was and still is the racial preservation.

Remember the "Fiddler on the Roof"? How much can you bend without breaking? That is how we saved the Judaism and not by only praying. Often we forget to pray at all. So? God does not need us to pray and to glorify him. He knows all that stuff already and for so long. He invented it to begin with. He was very bright back then. If I were he, I would die from boredom. For how many times can one hear the same thing? He takes a nap every time we try to pray. That is why, I think, he has no time to fix any of the problems. He is napping all the time. That makes him strong and healthy and very rested because someone prays somewhere all the time. We have to cut down on praying so God would have a chance to fix some of the problems, as a few sicknesses or a handful of wars. Praying and rituals are more for us, so we don't forget it and maybe feel good about it. That's when the happiness arrives. But what if we did not forget anything and still remember it? What if the happiness is a result of something else as well? What is then? How much time should we give to praying and the rituals? How important is all of that then? You think it over. I'll think it over. We all should think it over.

What do I remember of the Soviet Union? A biseleh - very little, nothing of importance. I was too young and too bright-eyed and that is my excuse for not remembering much. Do I really remember the town I was born in? No, not really. Maybe some. Do I remember people? Yes, some of them are right here in Israel and my parents keep in touch with them. I think we all were relatives in that little town in the Soviet Union. What else could I remember when my true life started only here? But, I remember going to school and wearing the ugliest gray uniform. It was of the military style and made out of cheap but quite warm material. It looked terrible, always wrinkled and full of dirt rising from the thickly suspended in the air floor varnishing. I was constantly sweating, and, then, catching cold. I was sick a lot back then attending school only part time. I am much better now, thank you. Does it count for good education? I mean the part-time, due to sickness, schooling. All kids were sick and often and we thought that that's how children were supposed to grow. Being sick.... Is it what you would call "pains of growing up" or "the growing up pains"? Some say it is not a must, not an absolute requirement, but not over there, in the former Soviet Union and the former Soviet Block. I think it's different in some other countries but that was then and there and this is here and now.

I remember being a member of the elite youngsters organization called "Children of October". It was elite and every child of the specific age belonged to it. We were privileged because children of the western, capitalist countries were not. I was seven and that's how we were attached to the Party and the revolution. That was our direct link to the greatness.

We were given a pin, a red star with the portrait of the child-Lenin in the middle. He had the golden locks but later he became bald. Too many thoughts, too many ideas, I think. He had such bright eyes but later he led the bloodless revolution and almost 20 million people died in the civil war that immediately followed it.

I do not remember what we did there but, as soon as we were done doing that, we graduated in to the Pioneers and later the Comsomol. That's when we were introduced to the story of a boy, Pavel Morozov, who, during the civil war, informed the local law enforcement unit that his parents were hiding were hiding some grain in the barn. Grain was more important than lives so his parents were tortured and shot. Grain was found and confiscated and the boy became the national hero. I wonder what happened to him after that. Did his life story go that far? Did he join the parents in the early part of his life? Did he enjoy eating the confiscated grain and turning more people in? It was the time of famine but recently we were told that Stalin organized it in order to confiscate lands of the well-to-do peasants and to promote collectivization. Collectivization was promoted and more people died from hunger and mismanagement of the collective farms. Did Pavel Morozov understand it before he joined his parents? We were told that that's how the real pioneers and the members of Comsomol should act. Revolution and socialism were above individuals and we should not forget it and we never did. We never had a chance. We all wanted to be like him, like Pavel Morozov, and many did. I have never seen his real portrait. What did he look like? Did he really exist? I read somewhere that the German kids during the war in the Hitler Jugend were told the similar stories, denounced parents and became good Nazis. They got medals and pins. We were the good communists, I guess. We got medals and pins as well. But what about the kids that never denounced parents? Were they good at anything?

Pioneers and the Comsomol were the same type of organizations but for different age groups. Pioneers faded away at the age of fourteen and Comsomol membership ended at the age of twenty-six, I think. I had a red tie and another star pin, and then another red flag pin and a little red book that worked as an ID and the proof of your association and the good standing with the party. I remember working for free recycling paper products, glass and the metals for our glorious industry. Do you know that the Soviet Union was the leading country in the world in manufacturing window glass? Yes, it was. But the whole civilized world was using the less breakable plastic compounds and the plate glass for windows already. So what? The Soviet Union was still leading and by far. We produced more and more of the razor blades while the lazy capitalists enjoyed the easiness and the safety of the electric shavers. Our razors were so good that we used them to sharpen pencils more often than to shave. We tried to shave with blades coming from other countries if we could get them. Somehow we bled less doing that. Window glass, shaving razors and many other very similar things were some of the greatest accomplishments of the Soviet Union industry, and again, when they were compared to 1913, they became the greatest accomplishments in the history of the world.

Socialism was clearly leading the world. We were the future. I remember some of the headlines: "This year our glorious industry produces over 275% more steel that in 1913. United States this year produced only 2% more steel then the year before. Well, comrades, capitalists, with this speed you are not going to catch up with us any time soon. This is the clear proof that socialism is definitely ahead in our race for the future." We questioned things and we got the positive answers from the leaders. I just don't think we asked the right questions.

Also we, children, worked on different construction sites clearing them from debris left by the construction workers and planting trees and bushes. The construction workers had to construct so they were not in to cleaning after themselves. There was always shortage of construction workers and the quality of their work. Well, in short, quality was not always there. But the country was growing so fast comparing to 1913 (although we had less people after the revolution, wars and purges) that these little problems were understood and, come to think about it, people living in these buildings had years to correct the shortcomings of the construction workers. They lived there now so they could do whatever was not done in the first place.

The proper thing to do was to repair your new and beautiful apartment right after you moved in and then again in a couple of years when the building finally settled. You really had to do that one because cracks were so huge and so many that buildings looked like the survivors from the last war. The draft in the apartment would become noticeable, especially in the winter. Of cause, the warm clothing always helped in these cases and we had plenty of that. We never blamed the construction worker for their shortcomings. Why should have we? They had to put up with the quality of our work, whatever we did. So, it was kind of a wash, and what's a wash between the brothers communists? The landscape outside the building often had to wait for a few years until debris rotted out and some natural growth decorated the immediate area. It looked better already. We were not in a hurry. After all, how would you recognize your building among the hundreds of exactly the same structures? You use the landmarks: a concrete block in front of the door, a two-story high pile of broken bricks on the left side of the building or an almost new bulldozer where the little park was going to be. One cannot miss that even being totally drunk and this was an important point for the multinational brotherhood of the Soviets. Then, in a few years, when the bulldozer is reduced to a colorful rubble against the lonely whitewash of the wall, you plant a few trees and a few bushes and it would look like the rest of the country - nice but somewhat in disarray.

A lot of good old, even antique, books and metal artifacts ended their existence in the recycling bin and the country was so short on books and antique artifacts. Well, the country was short on everything but books you notice when reading is the best entertainment, if not the only one, you have. That's how we dreamed, traveled and experienced life of love and adventure. We read. We squeezed in to the tiniest corner of the world of our apartment so not to be on the way of anyone and we read. We read everything and anything and we cherished every page of it. Books were always collectable items and the book appreciation was better than gold. The better your private library was the better you were off in the minds of others. Government claimed the ownership of gold and the violators were severely punished but books were open for exploration. We explored them, we dug in and we saved the findings. We kept books in the safest and driest place and they always were in our hearts. We talked books, we dreamed of books and we measured our existence by the number of books we read and the books we were going to read, if we were lucky getting them. That was the time when books were still commodity.

The leaders told us that we were honored with these tasks of recycling the old that the new one could emerge. We had to clear the space and our minds from the old useless things of the past and embrace the fragile growth of the future. We tried very hard to embrace the present and the future but it was getting harder and harder because the future was not coming and the present was not leaving. But we wanted that so much. We wanted to experience the promised. But it seemed that with every step forward we did the promised moved at least two steps further away. They said that we were helping the struggling working class around the world through this. I never could understand how the distraction of completed works by Pushkin published in 1875 and illustrated by the rare engravings or a bronze statuette by Grachev or Lanceray could help the struggling working class around the world. But we truly believed our leaders and dutifully took things from our houses to fill the required quarter. I think some of our leaders recycled some of these things out of junk piles and sold them in antique shops but who can blame the leaders for advanced thinking and fast reaction. That is why they are leaders.

I remember portraits of Lenin, Stalin, Khruschev, Brezhnev and the whole lot of members of the Politburo. They were everywhere being, together with the propaganda posters, an art by itself. Some other very similar portraits eventually replaced all these portraits because the people portrayed happened to die often. But Lenin and Stalin never died. They lived in a huge Mausoleum in Moscow, on the Red Square and in our hearts. Only later did I understand that Lenin and Stalin died too but the spots on the walls were reserved for them anyway. They deserved it for the great accomplishments the matching the fast growing population of the young Soviet Republic with the slow growing supply of food through the reduction of population faster than it was growing. These portraits were there to remind us that and to be thankful to the present leaders for taking a different path in solving the same problem. They sold the natural recourses and the priceless art collections for grain increasing through that the ever-diminishing food supply. That was an interesting approach. Who needed arts anyway if there was nothing to eat on a regular basis? Grain grew in the Soviet Union in abundance but then it was sold around the world for the price of friendship to the less fortunate brothers that did not have socialism yet. The Soviet grain helped them to accept the Soviet Communist Party and the dream about better times when the Soviets would give them more, if not all, for free. The rest of the grain happily rotted on the fields of socialism and people ignored it being constantly drunk, and leaders ignored it being busy arguing with the world the fine points of the system represented by the rotting food supply and the Soviet ballet.

Also they were busy recycling the recycled old books, artifacts, and the precious metals and stones. They understood the value of that and valued it even more. But when the wintertime came, they paid, and the good grain from the USA and Canada would fill the empty silos of socialism and the Soviet citizens had their fill again. I think they liked it that way. Nothing of that was ever announced by the state-owned media but it was still an accomplishment for them. They found the way to regenerate food that was there before, for a brief moment, and then mysteriously disappeared in the vortex of the socialist mismanagement of masses. Production and productivity were the arguable points. Art and the natural resources was always the answer. Whatever you may need, Rembrandt or a Picasso would get it for you.

I remember being called a Zhid but that was so often that I could not really recall the details of the specific incidents. These were not really incidents. This was the way of life. This was a normal way for an anti-Semite Russian or a Ukrainian to greet a Jew. And this was the most anti-Semitic country in he world. Some people, who did not say it to your face, thought about it often enough. Being a Zhid in Ukraine or Russia was a problem but in the Baltic Republics or the Caucuses to be a Zhid from Russia was much better than to be a Russian or a Ukrainian from anywhere. Yes, this was a truly multinational union of the Soviet Republics. And the party was as international as all of this. Everyone hated everyone and no one had to hide it. But the party said that we had to live together or else, and we lived together because that "else" did not sound good.

All I remember about that is that fighting in those cases was not an option but a necessity. The diplomatic approach and the skillful deliberations were not even considered but knifes, brass knuckles and sticks were. So, we learned street fighting from the age of five or so. This was the age we were, for the first time, let out just by ourselves to play or to learn outside the relative safety of the home. This was the age of innocence when the majority of us met the world and fell in love with it. And the world loved us back with all cruelty it could master. That was a good learning experience and an early start in building up your survival skills and we survived. Did someone say that the American youth of the big cities had it rough? Yea, sure. I would love to listen your stories one day when I am not so busy feeling sorry for you, the spoiled brats. What you think was tough was a day of joy for us, the Russian Jews.

I came to Israel in the early eighties together with my parents. I was a teenager and they were not. They worked, I studied and my older sister got married. We were happy in a very basic human way. My grandparents on both sides raised my parents not to be very religious but to respect traditions and the old ways. So, the whole family was secular but strongly in to traditions. If you had more positive things than negative happening to you, you were happy. That was our family credo and we were happy. The balance of happiness was in your favor. So, every Sabbath we did the Sabbath things and every holiday we did the holiday things and one day I wanted to know more. No one pushed me there and no one forced me to pick up the Torah and to start reading it. I had a curious mind full of multifaceted interests and now I am paying for it. Did I understand it? Any of it? Of cause not. I was reading it as a collection of stories, ancient stories, and the primitive fairy tales. I knew almost all of it from other books written by much better writers. Hans Christian Andersen, Asbjornsen and Moe, Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy, Giambattista Basile, Thomas Crane, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Joseph Jacobs, Charles Perrault, Straparola (www.surlalunefairytales.com/facetiousnights/index.html), Oscar Wilde and Aesop wrote the same stories much better and with a twist, but the Bible stories were older. These fairy tales survived thousands of years and many civilizations and that is why they are so fascinating. All that added the Biblical proportions to the local folklore of the ancient storytellers. There was always a Cinderella story in one form or another. I did not know that the Cinderella story was that old. It was probably older then the oldest civilization we know. Was it as old as Lucy -- the oldest ancestor we know? Was she a Cinderella? I think she was. King David definitely was a Cinderella. Moses was a Cinderella. The Queen of Sheba was a Cinderella. Ruth was a Cinderella. History is full of Cinderellas of both sexes. I am not going to speculate on the subject of gay Cinderellas. I think gays are still in the stage of Cinderella before the pumpkin appeared and waiting for the new developments. The Cinderella story was the greatest story ever written and it could be turned around and twisted in so many ways. And the Russian proverb from a revolutionary song "Who was a no one will be all" was at the base of the Cinderella philosophy. The ugliest caterpillar suddenly becomes the most beautiful butterfly. A nobody should achieve everything with hard work and a lot of luck. Isn't it brilliant? Isn't it ingenious? This is the most common dream and the most common desire. Work and dream and your time would come and maybe soon. Fascinating. Fantastic. Was there any truth to any of it? Was there a historical foundation there? Who knows and who cares? Who cares if the natural superstition of people was converted into religion by the powers in charge and then used to conquer and to control the very same people? It was so mesmerizing - the power of the fairytale. Cinderella was the real God and we did not know that. We missed the whole kaboom. Hail, Cinderella the Great! Hail the fairytale!

Christianity was invented by the Greeks living in Palestine as a one-god option to the multi-god complication of the time. As we know now, Jesus Christ was not a historical figure but a pure imagination of the hopeful mind and people died for him in scores, some even smiling doing that. He was another Cinderella and a very popular one. The Byzantine emperor Constantine I used the situation of the splitting Roman Empire to force the religion down to the throats of the conquered people and he did conquer. New religion made him an emperor of value, of substance and saved his empire for another thousand of years.

Mohammed invented (for the least educated people of the time - Bedouins) a new religion based on his recalls, misunderstanding and twisting around of Judaism and Christianity in order to gain back lands his family lost decades before. Mohammed could tell anything to the neighbors - he was the most imaginative guy for thousands of miles. He could tell the story and he could tell it well. Where did he take the stories from? It was just a mix of everything he heard over the years, traveling and he told it as well as he remembered. And, then there was a stroke of genius; when questioned, he blamed it on God. From now on the story was casted in iron. It became a story from God.

That is how Mohammed gained the power he could never have in any other way. It was an old concept - a new religion creates followers, enough to win the war. The concept was old but it worked and quite well. Every conqueror or just a very ambitious aggressor used religion or the anti-religion sentiment to attack the neighbor. They really did not need any other reason. Religion was the reason and anything else was just an excuse. Give them religion and a few theologists and fanatics would start piling to kill in the name of that god. It could be the same god on the both sides but, nevertheless, zealots would kill because of the difference in interpretations of one passage or another. Sunnis would kill Shiites, Shiites would kill Sunnis, Catholics would kill Protestants and the Protestants would kill Catholics and all of them would gladly kill Jews, and why. They are praying to the same god and they are telling the same fairytales but there is a glitch in interpretation somewhere. Is it enough to cut someone's throat? Their monks, priests, fathers, cardinals, pops, sheikhs, imams and mullahs think so and say so. Should we ask the owners of the cutthroats? They may have the different opinion but they can't talk any longer. They, fanatics, would force the masses to do the same killing frenzy calling the other side the "INFIDELS" and the "HERETICS".

Who would you believe - your priest and your imam or your neighbor you know for years if not for life? Masses usually believe the priests and imams. The religious zealot would not hesitate to execute his own mother if she was a heretic by their standards, by their definition. The witch-hunt was and still is always there, always applicable and always accessible. What's the real difference between the ancient bloody gods and the modern gods of blood? Talk to me. I wanted to know that and much much more so I was an easy prey for all sides and for all theories.

I was hooked on religion and its power over human beings. What makes it work and what makes us tick? Why does the unknown and unexplained always takes the shape of the god? Is it because it makes it easier to explain by blaming the higher powers? What happens to reasoning and logic when you chain it to the holy books? How much does one need to experience the "unholy" in order to understand the "holy"? Or, should it be the other way around? Should we experience the "holy" before we can recognize and resist the "unholy"? Where does it start? Where does it begin? I wanted to know. The magnetism of the higher being worked on me and I was ready to follow. Yeshiva - here I come. Shul - people, please save the seat for me. I wanted to know it all and I wanted to be one of these many. I think I always wanted it. I wanted to believe in the higher purpose. I think it was in my genes. I could feel it in my genes.

I joined the species of believers and the subspecies of believers wearing the yarmulke (skull-cap) and the funny clothes, and the peoth (the ear locks). Now, I was the boy Cinderella becoming a prince. It worked. I looked so good that all people I knew, including my parents, were shocked for a while but later they recovered from it with no long-lasting side effects. Sometimes I could catch a glimpse or two of disapprovals and the unanswered questions, but that was all. I could hear my mother's brain saying: "How did he get that way? What did we do wrong? We gave him everything we could. Where did we fail?" And my father's brain answering: "Don't worry, he'll grow over it. It's like the flu. It would pass. At least he is not a homosexual. Is he?" Well, I was not. Not as of yet, but the day was still young. All was in the hands of god. Baruch Hashem!

Once, a few years ago, I met a gorgeous girl. She was bright, beautiful and Jewish. It was at a party my friend from college was giving. We just came back from the annual military training for the reservists and it was time to unwind a little or, in short, to get drunk and wild. As everyone else, I served my three years in the military and I did it right after the school. Did I like it? Well, some meshugas did, I did not. What is there to like? Food was okay but it was still not my mother's. Sleeping arrangements were more than peculiar. So many strange people and in one very large room - snoring and dreaming. Some of them maybe were dreaming about you and in the wrong way.

My room in our apartment, even a small one, was definitely much better. I liked it so much. There was some kind of a magical attachment to it. My friends liked it and even some girls (not too many, though, I may add) liked it, as well. Freedom... Did you have to ask? What freedom do we have in the military? Freedom to peel potatoes? Freedom to wash toilets? Freedom to be shot at? Well, you could shoot back and that was just fine. But still, I hate it even now, fifteen years later. Well, come to think about, I did not mind it that much. Every year over a hundred thousand young Israeli men and women get drafted in to the military and we do not dodge the draft. This is considered to be very dishonorable in our society and strictly punishable by law.

The former American President Clinton would spend a few years in jail here and be shamed for life instead of becoming the President for the second term. But Americans are only Americans and the law could be always interpreted differently if the powers in charge wanted it that way. So, honor and Clinton - if you don't like it, don't put them in one speech or on one page, please. Clinton was the shame that was allowed to slip through and to be forgotten.

We, Israelis, can't afford anything like that. We are not that rich and not that arrogant. Our men have to serve for three years but the women only for two. Lucky them. Mrs. Clinton would serve in the Senate until she dies - the pay is better than in our military. And for the right pay she would do anything and even stay married to Mr. Clinton. Hm... Women. I hope my women are not like that. I hope they stand for something and not just money and power. I like them bright, honest, beautiful, full of the Bible values and very Jewish. All that has to be for real. That was my requirement and I never changed it. These women are not that difficult to find and especially here, in Israel. They are around. I know many of them serving in the military, studying, working, raising children being mothers, sisters, wives, friends, partners and lovers. There are many women like that in Israel. I think all our women like that. Jealous?

So, we serve for two or three years and, then, we get trained, as the reservists, every year. This is important, honorable, and maybe even fashionable. We look good in uniforms with patches, ribbons and submachine guns on the side. The yarmulke gives it an extra touch. Call us aggressors, if you like, but we look forward to our service and we do it with pride. We feel like we serve in the military protecting the Jews not only in Israel but in every corner of the world, and God is on our side. We are the vanguard of democracy protecting the world from the evil of Islamic fanatics. We do not lose wars; we lose lives. Muslims lose wars and lives so God is not on their side. They lost every war with us they started. We took some territories as a result of it and now we give some of it back, as one gives a coin to a beggar. Interesting. Maybe the brotherhood of terror called Islam should revisit religion and the aggressive policies they exercise and find the way of joining the winning side - the democracy. Democracy vs. Islam - that could be a nice title for a book or a good reason for a full out war. Peace is still possible if education and the basic freedoms replace the unproductive and useless knowledge of Koran in the Muslim countries, where evil ruled for centuries, still rules now and will continue to rule until we prevent the deep worldwide disturbance associated with the negative effect of it on masses.

It seems to me that we elect heroes in order to praise them for victories; Americans elect scoundrels in order to blame them for the loses; and the Russians elect criminals in order to watch them fall hard and with a crash. Muslims do not count. They never elect anyone in order not to awake democracy. Democracy could be dangerous if mixed with religious fanatics. And, what else do we have there? We can call it the Mohamed cocktail in parallel with the Molotov cocktail of the Russians. Almost the same explosive powers only Russians aimed it at the enemies and the Muslims, not excluding friends, aim it at the whole world.

It was much easier for Muslims. Their target is much larger and even these losers could not miss. While they are at it, they don't mind killing enemies, friends, brothers in religion and even members of their own family. What's the family if you have a higher calling? Your calling comes from the local Mullah, who does not know much about anything including the Koran. Kill and be killed - what a joy for the faithful. What a great destiny to look forward to. Muslims use democracy to get guns and explosives and to move around, and then they use it all to kill the democracy itself.

It is a very interesting concept of democracy. Democracy through the prism of Koran. Can we even put these two words, democracy and Islam, together in one sentence? Can we call it "the out of box thinking" or should we call it the "democracy in accordance with Islam"? Is not it a bit radical? I never knew Jews killing Jews in a synagogue. As the matter of fact, I never knew Jews killing Jews at all. I never heard of Christians killing Christians in a church but they kill each other and the others in all kinds of different places. And I cannot imagine world without Muslims killing other Muslims in the Mosque and anywhere else, as well. Is it Islam? Is it a part of being a true believer? What kind of a god do they worship? They say it's the same god we have. Well, our god never told us to kill other people over religion. Our god told us not to kill at all. If this is the same god, what happened to this friendly, lovable and loving old man cherishing his children? Why there is a sudden change of heart? Why did he go out of character? Islam was never much on the side of the truth or history to begin with but still it is moving farther and farther from being the last reform of the same religion given by the same god. Complicated but maybe true. So, anyway, as I said, we have a nation of soldiers and than, we have officers and the other professional meshugas who really like it and make careers out of it. Israeli officers come in all three sexes: men, women and the religious ones. Also, occasionally, we get a combination of all above. I don't blame them; I just don't understand them. I even have a few of them as my closest friends and I still don't understand them. I love them and I like the uniforms. Years ago, almost right after the regular service, I applied to the officer's school. I did it to impress a few girls I liked at the time. Everyone knows that an officer's uniform is much better than no uniform at all. I mean from the "picking up girls" point of view.

They did not take me and that hurts. They told me that I had flat feet and probably both of them were left. Great. They could not find it a few years earlier when they drafted me to peel potatoes and dig trenches. I almost froze my behind off for two winter months on the post on the Holan Heights. The famous Jewish doctors... What a joke. What a gross misunderstanding. I could not trust them after that. Shame on you and your stethoscopes, the Jewish doctors of Israel. The way I figured it, our military is already about 175,000 men and women or about three percent of the population. I was one too much. Maybe there were a few more like me and they were a few more too much as well. Think about. This is possible and very probable conclusion, I may add. My logic is very logical. One has to balance these things out if one wants to live in the balanced society. So, I was balanced out of the military and that took me to the Technion in Haifa. Eat your heart out, military of Israel. I'll be an engineer instead. Well, girls did not see it that way. They were more excited with the uniform than with the hard working professional man. Now I knew, I needed a different circle of girls.

That's where I met that girl. The girl I told you about. She was a beautiful Jewess and all the way from America. She was not overly religious and she did not come over here for a fairy tale of the kibbutz. Kibbutz was not for people trying to accomplish something, trying to be someone special. She came here to study at the Technion. She spoke English and French and she wanted to learn Hebrew and Chemical Engineering. After all, Technion was known for the Department of Chemistry and the Nobel Prize. She, Ruth Steinberg, was extremely bright and, after Technion, she could shoot for the stars and get a few. She was so bright and so good looking that she was a prize by herself. The Nobel Prize would not be more attractive than her. Not to me. We met, danced, talked, fell in love and soon got married. Wow! Everything happened so fast. My entire life happened so fast. There I was an average Joe Schmo Nobody and now I am a respectful married Jewish man. And all that happened just over night. Yes, God really works in the mysterious ways and he never forgets anyone, not even me. We happily prospered in love and comfort of the smallest apartment we could afford dreaming of the glorious future that included the Jewish way of life and a larger apartment. We respected traditions and followed it all allowing ourselves a high degree of tolerance in the areas that seemed unjustifiably too strict for us. Many Jews do that. We regarded ourselves as moderately religious sinners and it worked for us very well. The majority of people we knew were the same way.

In a few months after graduation, while we were still searching for the permanent and well paying jobs, Ruth's uncle from Brooklyn, NY visited us. We worked all right, but pay was light and mystical. Light was the amount of money we got for our labors and the mystical part was how to pay all the bills we had to pay. He, the uncle from America, was in Israel as a part of a religious group ready to build a settlement in the Gaza strip. I knew of these settlements there and on the West Bank but never was hot on the subject. The settlements were there for a while already and a few thousand people, mainly religious, built their homes in that part of the world. Somehow they thought that God wanted it from them and they did the holy deed. Maybe, but almost the whole country was against of it due to the high cost of protecting the settlements and somewhat uselessness of their existence.

I was not certain of all of that but it was hard to say. God has a peculiar way of expressing his desires and love for our tiny nation. He chooses us for something special and then we get in trouble and punished for doing that. It raises a question in my mind if we were chosen for these special things or just to be punished. Or, did we get God's messages straight? Don't listen to me. It's just my natural curiosity working overtime. But still, it looks like throughout the history we Jews were the main and the most favorite whipping boy. Is it true? So, we rejoice.

I think many of us rejoice only because we were not whipped that day. Was Gaza one of those choosing? The Gaza strip was going back and forth since the war in 56, if not earlier. Egyptians did not want it, we did not want it and Palestinians did not know what they wanted because they could not manage even what they had. You see, they were not the original Palestinians but a freshly arrived refuse of the Turkish Empire. Turks collected these, no one wanted, people from every corner of the falling apart empire and installed them in the Gaza area just to fill the void between the British controlled Arabs and the dying empire of the Turks. Still, Gaza was listed as an occupied territory and Jews did not have the legal rights to stay there. So, lets make it legal with the God blessing and occupy it properly. And, why not? Lets build settlements with great houses and gardens. Lets start industries so we could work there, rest there, live there. It was becoming a dream, a desire, an obsession, and a possession of many religious Jews. Let's get our land back. God gave it to us thousands of years ago. Torah said that we were destined to get it back when the time was right. Now was the right time. That's what some people believed in and their beliefs were extremely strong. Many people, mainly the religious ones, went there and started what they believed god wanted from them. The uncle from America convinced us to go there too and we did. We thought it would be great to build an oasis of the free Jewish spirit and prosperity in the desert of increasingly decaying Gaza and the Palestinian Islam. There were a few thousand of us. Someone said that there were eight thousand or eighty five hundred, or even nine thousand of us all together but I never counted. I was too busy and it was too hot for something like that. Maybe there were a few people more or a few people less. Does it matter? I mean in the long run? The real number was not important anyway for as long as there were many of us, and we were planning to grow, all together as a community at large. We pushed, we pulled, we dug, we planted and we built. Money? I think some of them came from the government and some from the private sources. I don't think any of us invested any. We had no money but a very strong will. America, Europe - some people had money to give and they gave to the cause they believe in. It was a mitzvah after all. It could be even tax deductible for all I know. I am almost certain that most of these money was from the private sources and not the government. Come to think about it, our government does not have much to give. Between the wars, the terrorism, the health, the very religious families with dozens of children, the education, the unemployment, the single mothers, the people and the country in general we have not too many shekels to spare.

We are not exactly poor but we have to watch what we are doing and spend whatever we have cautiously, with care. Financially, we do not very well but we survive. We could print more money but then what would they worth? Bobkes and not much of that. Shekels are not a hot currency even as we speak and you want to print more. More of not much leans more toward "not much" and not toward "more". Give it up. Lets face it; we need oil and not more of the worthless currency. It looks as "THEY" were chosen for oil and the worry free life and "WE" were chosen to be on the receiving end of the suicide bombers. What a stinking deal. I never would understand why the oil rich countries would not spend less for luxury of a very few and increase the welfare of the many. The Muslim rich break more laws than were ever written. The oil princes spend billions on luxury yachts and palaces, drugs, prostitutes and gambling, propaganda of Islam, terrorism and robbing their own people instead of taking care of the same own people. There are so many poor, beyond any imagination, Arabs, Pakistanis, Black African Muslims and the Palestinians. They are driven to the suicide death by their own living-in-indescribable-luxury leaders.

These leaders and the people didn't worked for this fortune nor do they deserve any of it but, nevertheless, it is there already. Share it, solve the social and the economic problems; build schools and the hospitals; produce food and stop blaming the world for your problems. Be responsible instead of being the slave runners. Take care of the living and stop driving your own people to criminal, desperate acts of suicide. Or, if you still like doing what you are doing, make sure that bombs explode only in the Muslim quarters of the world, killing only your own families. If a few royal Saudis get killed, the world would not miss them much but maybe a few less terrorist acts would get funded.

God, are you sure you did not make a mistake there. But, who am I to ask? Who am I to complain? Has God wronged me in any way? I should be thankful for whatever little I get and I get very little. Well, we don't really need oil. We have the private donations. After all, the religious people of Israel do not go hungry. All you have to do is to dress as a Lubavitch, grow a beard, make a dozen children and none of you would go hungry for life. Private sources. Who needs oil? Oil, machinery, complications, work... I like the private sources approach better.

My house... In the settlement? Oh, it was a beautiful house. It was the best house I ever lived in. We had a small living room, a small dining room, and two tiny bedrooms, kitchen and a bathroom. Also we had the washer and the dryer and the dishwashing machine. We had it all, almost like in America. In addition, we had a decent balcony going around the corner and a small but quite comfortable garden. We grew tomatoes, onions and flowers there and that was delicious even to look at. I had plans to plant a peach and an apple tree, maybe next year. We had room for that up front. Come to think about, we had room for everything, or almost everything. We could work, study, play, have children and protect ourselves and the others with a submachine gun and a thousand rounds of ammunition I was given by the military police. What a paradise. The dream came through and we almost missed it dreaming. Children, we could have many children but we had no jobs. Many people don't even think about formalities as this but my wife was an American and a scientist on the top of it. She was more practical than most of the people I know. She wanted to pay her own way and not to wait for the private sources and the government check every month. I liked it in her. Ruth was offered a great job in Afula and I could get an okay job there, as well. But how do you go to Afula from the Gaza strip every day to work? That was difficult if not impossible and I don't think they were going to build plants and factories in here any time soon. So, Ruth, being well educated, helped in the school and I worked in the agricultural sector but only when it was not too hot. And it was hot there. Believe me. We could not work every day there but we survived. Automation, mechanization and a few Palestinian assistants were the keys to handling the climate conditions of this region. We did just fine. The private sources were generous and all we had to do was to stay there and look tough and Jewish.

Our settlement was designed to house up to one thousand people and we had slightly over five hundred already. We had three hundred and fifty buildings altogether with fifteen, including: the police station, fire department, mayor/administration offices, a small hostel with six rooms, school/kindergarten, general store, the hospital, a water filtering and purification plant, a gas station and the car mechanic, the agricultural business office and the storage and some small businesses, and three hundred and thirty five single family homes for the residents. About a mile north we had another field where in the future we wanted to build an industrial park but first we had to establish a number of businesses where some of us and some of the Palestinians could work.

That's where we were coming short. The industrial ideas we had were not considered practical by the professionals and the financial people from the banks we were trying to get the money from. So we searched and we searched but good ideas did not grow on trees, not in our settlement. We found only two businessmen willing to chance it. Now we had a small apparel manufacturing facility with five of us and seventeen of the Palestinians employed there and a water bottling plant with fifty employees altogether. Also, now we had a trucking company delivering water and the apparel products. This company had one big truck, two medium size trucks and a van. This company employed seven people and was planning to expand shortly. We wanted to add our own bus line to Tel-Aviv and maybe Jerusalem, as well. We needed it and many Palestinians said that they would gladly use it. I think we had some good ideas and it could work given time and money. We were not really planning on disengagement and evacuation. It just happened. Talks we did not want to listen to became a reality almost over night. It happened over night with us but the rest of the world knew it for a while. We thought we would stay there for life.

In a while, maybe a year or so after we moved in, Ruth started to go restless and irritated. She liked the idea of settlements but, in her words, it was not for her. Actually, it looked like another kibbutz for religious people only we had much more privacy, more freedom and we worked less. After all, the climate would not allow for us to work very hard during the day. The majority of us came from Europe and America and we were not accustomed to these conditions. We lost it living for thousands of years in cooler climates and not doing the agricultural work under the blazing sun. Also, we were a religious bunch and religion took the precedence. We had to observe everything we had to observe and that was more important than anything we tried to grow. Kibbutzim used to be like that but it was before, a while back, when the financial accountability was not really important. Now people could work outside the kibbutz using their real professions. It was considered more productive and that attracted more people and of all professions. We could do it too but there was no professional work within a reasonable distance and that was a problem.

Ruth was getting more and more restless and I was getting more rested. I was doing great. Reading, TV, Torah, praying with my brothers, anti-terrorist and anti-government demonstrations, and meetings took almost all my time. I wanted to stay there forever and Ruth wanted to go to Afula now. She wanted to be a chemist and not an assistant teacher in the small religious school we had. What a dilemma. Uncle from America quickly became a dirty word and the target of jokes in our house and religion was getting on that way as well.

I needed to do something. I needed to save my family and to preserve my way of life. The young rabbi I knew strongly advised me to put my foot down. For a few times already I was ready to do so (to put my foot down) but I was afraid that Ruth would put her foot up to my... You know what. She was stubborn. Strong and stubborn. She was from good American stock raised and nourished on freedom and independence. How do you oppress that? America... I knew that freedom and democracy were not all that good but I could not change it, not if I wanted to. I loved my freedom and democracy as much as the next guy.

So, all of us called the Gaza strip home and some of us even liked it there but Palestinians did not like us being there. They called it home and called our presence the occupation. What do you mean "occupation"? We could argue that and we did and the shots were fired and from the both sides. "Do not kill". But we killed and they killed even more and then we killed again. Our mothers cried, their mothers cried and we keep building walls separating us, and the jails holding them in check. We fill these jails up to capacity with terrorists and the other criminals and then we build more jails. Do we need jails? Yes. Do we need walls? Yes. But it would be so nice not to have the terrorists to house in jails and to build a new hospital and a school instead, even for them. They build cemeteries to house the dead heroes but they could grow potatoes there or plant a park for the kids. Their kids could play the terrorists with imaginary explosives there and our kids could play the prophets and the rabbis in our parks and gardens. Maybe one day our kids and their kids could play together on something mutual -- flying to the moon or digging for oil. All they have to do is to find a game both sides would enjoy. What about MONOPOLY? Or CHESS? What if they, together, invent a game called "PROSPERITY FOR ALL" and play it together? That could be a game where you build wealth not just for yourself but also for all and then you distribute it though the social programs and education and all other good things. Schools, hospitals, housing and the level of living should give you points and weapons and conflicts should take the points away. Every conflict should be negotiated. This game should teach to negotiate. You failed to negotiate, to find a peaceful solution and you may lose the game. How do you like it? Would that be fun? How can we do it?

The government said that we had to leave the settlements. A sheynem dank (Thank you very much). But this is my home. Thousands of years ago this land was promised to us by God. We do not recall God changing his word. Were we mistaken? Was God mistaken? The government said that we had to give peace a chance and settlements were the stumbling block in this process. What process? The American process? Palestinians would not budge. But this is my home. I do not have another place to go to. We won these territories in a fair fight and the Bible predicted that. Should we give this peace a chance? Is it really a peace building solution? If we leave, would that show our weakness? If we do that, is peace guaranteed? We are not weak. We can fight for this god-forsaken place if we have to. We can keep on killing. No problem. Government says leave, drop these useless settlements we don't want and don't really need. These settlements are a huge drain on our economy and a point of the conflict. We have to keep battalions of soldiers protecting them and spend millions of dollars subsidizing products produced there. In some cases we have more soldiers and police there than settlers. In many places settlers don't even live there on the permanent bases. They get driven in and out every day. What do they produce? Not much and at the cost we can't afford. Israel would not build these settlements on the first place if not for the movement of the religious people, and mainly in America. And, after all, only a few thousand people wanted to live there to begin with. Just a few thousand. The most of the country was going against it, understanding the problems, the logistics and the cost and not paying too much of attention to the Bible and the rabbis. Modern Israel is mostly a secular society with a lot of respect for traditions. So, how important was it and for whom? Should we sacrifice the security of the country for the interests of a few? Are the interests of these few the interests of the country? Not as far I know. But I was -- no, I am -- the one of these few.

There are twenty-one or so settlements and between eight and nine thousand settlers there. Many would go without resistance. Religion is obedience. They don't like it but they would not violate the civil laws and make our soldiers and the police do what they don't want to do - manhandle the own people. This is unthinkable but they have to uphold the law. Some would stay behind and make it very difficult for everyone. They would try to bring history and God into the argument but whom are they going to argue with? A young Jewish soldier who had to do his job with a heavy heart already? Some of these soldiers are settlers themselves or have friends and relatives there. What if this soldier refuses to do his job this time because of the old religious lady or a recipient of social programs mother with a few kids and a husband spending ten hours a day praying instead of working? What then? The soldier would go to the military jail and these people will have to relocate anyway. Don't you get it? And some of the soldiers have refused to follow orders and went to jail already. Did it do any good?

A few took weapons and committed a crime, the very crime of terrorism we were fighting with. They spilled blood of the innocent. What good did that do and to whom? How does the Bible reflect that? The government was giving this land “back” to the Palestinians in exchange for a chance of peace. We wanted our voices to be heard and our voices were heard but not accepted. We were in the minority. The bigger things are at stake and nothing else should be considered. We want that peace and how much are we willing to give is only up to us.

What else can I say? Jews knew much tougher times and survived. We will survive again. Its just not the Jewish time for Gaza yet. If God really promised it to us, he will take care of it and we will get it back. And, if not, we did not lose much - just a lot of sand, unbearable heat and back breaking work growing gardens in the waterless desert. Mazel Tov, brothers Palestinians, now you break your backs for a change. You try to grow gardens where you failed before. I wonder if we'll live to see that.

We thought and we thought again and again. Both sides of the argument were correct and compelling. Which side was for us? Ruth and I decided to go without fuss. The government gave us enough money to buy a good apartment basically anywhere in the country. It was a time when government offered to all of us to build new towns but our leaders refused to discuss it and all was forgotten. We had to make our own arrangements now. Well, we were going to Afula and there we could buy a house for this money. Small but still a house, and that's where the work was.

The house is nice. I liked the idea of having some land and privacy but a corner apartment with a going around balcony, new furniture and maybe a car sounded much better. After Ruth had an offer for the job she asked about me and I was hired as well. We could move now and government even helped us to pack. Moving too was for free. Well, it was not all that good and rosy. Apartment, the whole building, was not available for another six months. It was still under construction. We had a choice to rent an apartment for these six months or to stay in a hotel. We chose the hotel. Prices were negotiated by the government as well and it was actually less than apartment rent. We did not have to buy the furniture now and we could save some more working. A car was becoming a reality. Emotions aside, it was not a bad deal all together but we are not leaving religion and the group we belong to. We are just going to do it somewhat differently by being more down to earth. The heaven can wait. We still have an unfinished business of living down here in Israel.

Baruch Hashem, Haverim!