*
On December 31, 1948, Marta and Bandi come to our house to
welcome the New Year. ey are ardent Zionists. ey toast the
health of the new state of Israel, drink after drink.
“We could go there,” Béla says. “We could start a business.”
It’s not the ĕrst time I have pictured myself in Palestine. In high
school, I was a Zionist, and Eric and I had imagined living in Palestine
together aer the war. In the midst of prejudice and uncertainty, we
couldn’t stop our classmates from spitting on us, or the Nazis from
overtaking our streets, but we could advocate for a future home, we
could build a place of safety.
I can’t tell if I should greet Béla’s suggestion as the fulĕllment of my
old deferred dream or worry that we are relying on an illusion, an
expectation that will lead to disappointment. Israel is such a new state
that it has yet to hold its ĕrst elections, and it is already at war with its
Arab neighbors. Furthermore, there is not yet a Law of Return, the
legislation that several years later will grant any Jew, from any country,
the ability to immigrate and settle in Israel. We will have to get there
illegally, relying on Bricha, the underground organization that helped
Jews Ęee Europe during the war, to arrange our passage on a ship.
Bricha is still underground, and still helping people—refugees, the
dispossessed, the homeless and stateless—to a new life. But even if we
can secure seats on a boat, our plan isn’t a sure bet. Only a year ago,
t h e Exodus, carrying forty-ĕve hundred Jewish immigrants seeking
asylum and resettlement in Israel, was sent back to Europe.
But it is New Year’s Eve. We are hopeful. We feel brave. In the
ĕnal hours of 1948, our plan for the future takes shape. We will use
the Eger fortune to buy all the equipment we need to start a business
in Israel. In the following weeks, aer much research, Béla will decide
that a macaroni factory is the wisest investment, and we will pack a
boxcar with all of our belongings, with enough to sustain us through