A House Is Not A Home

A HOUSE IS NOT A HOME

From: Moshe Saperstein, Neve Dekalim/Nitzan:

A house is not a home. Not necessarily. And this house in Nitzan will
never be our home. Though Rachel has worked her customary magic and
turned a pigsty into a palace, this house cannot be our home.

This house cannot be our home, not because it is a temporary
residence. We are committed to living here for a minimum of two years,
maximum of four. But few things are as permanent as those labeled
temporary, and there is no way of knowing how long we will actually be
here. And Rachel managed to turn that most temporary and impersonal of
dwellings, a hotel room, into more of a home than this can ever be.

This house cannot be our home because it was built by the bastards who
destroyed our home in Neve Dekalim. This cannot be our home because we
enter it under duress, and not of our own free will. Many refer to
this as the Nitzan Refugee Camp. A high-class refugee camp, but a
refugee camp nonetheless. But refugee signifies someone fleeing a
conflict or natural disaster and being cared for by a neighboring
state or aid agency. Perhaps we would better be described as displaced
persons, making Nitzan a D.P. Camp. My own view is that we were not
onlookers to a conflict but participants – I would like to say
combatants, but we were far too genteel to have earned that title –
which makes our present domicile an Internment Camp, even a POW Camp.

[Aside: A complicated subject, why we are in Nitzan. Technically –
theoretically – we can go where we want. Practically, there is no
choice. I wanted to go to a community in Judea or Samaria, where the
next stage of the struggle – yes, even though I still believe it is
hopeless – will take place. Rachel wanted Nitzan because those most in
need are here and she feels her Operation Dignity charitable work
requires her to be here. And she says we are too old to go through
another expulsion. Add to the mix that our Bolshevik government has
stated that no compensation will be paid to any of the Gush Katif
refugees who go to Judea or Samaria. So, instead of tilting at
windmills in Judea and Samaria we are moping in Nitzan.]

The move from the hotel was exhausting. Certainly it was murderously
so for Rachel, who runs between setting up the house and helping Dafna
and the babies, suffering all the while from severe sciatica. Three
weeks ago Friday our belongings were transferred from the shipping
container behind Dafna's home and we worked every day, except Shabbat,
to get things set up. More accurately, Rachel has worked every day.
Ari and his girls have worked. My brother and my mother have worked.
Girls from a local high school have worked. A Russian couple who
helped in Neve Dekalim have worked. I run errands, carry out garbage,
busy myself putting my cd's in order – they had been packed
alphabetically, but young volunteers who wouldn't know their ABC's
from their XYZ's were ordered to empty the boxes and fill the shelves
and the result is chaos – and try and stay out of everyone's way. My
friend David who runs a large company tells me I have achieved upper
management status.

There have been moments of grand guignol during the week of
preparation. I was sent to an office to complain about something or
other and, while standing in a crowd waiting to attract the attention
of some puffed up clerk, someone started pointing at me and yelling "I
know you! I know you! But you don't know me!" All conversation ceased
as everyone, clerkie included, stared at the both of us. "I was there
when you were wounded on the Kissufim road. After they took you away I
found your finger on the floor of your car!" I just stared. What was I
supposed to say? So I said, "What did you do with it?", fully prepared
to hear that he had pickled it or mounted it on a frame over his
fireplace. "I gave it to an army rabbi" he said.

[For years after my right arm was blown off I was obsessed with its
final resting place. The katyusha had exploded just behind me, at
waist level, and I saw my arm fly into Egyptian territory, the arm
itself obscured by the sleeve of my uniform, the sun glinting off my
watch as the limb spiraled away. The IDF Rabbinate was supposed to
have retrieved it but that is hardly possible considering where it
landed. So my arm is somewhere in the Land of Lost Limbs. I've hardly
spent time wondering about my finger, which I know was retrieved. It
was certainly disposed of halachically, though I prefer to think of it
as being in the Field of Forgotten Fingers. If there is an afterlife
for detached digits I hope it has found a disembodied nose to… scratch.]

The actual move was made a week ago Sunday. Initially most things that
can go wrong, went wrong. Our air conditioner is firm X and we were
given remotes from firm Y. That's been straightened out. Cable tv has
been hooked up but the remote only gets you some cooking channel in an
Eastern European country I cannot identify. [Anyone know of a land
where rat pie is a delicacy?] The washing machine was hooked up
without the small rubber disk on the hose connecting it to the water,
so one has to wear a bathing suit while doing laundry. Our four-burner
stove is now a three-burner stove as we lost a part. And on and on it
goes. Still, pictures are hung throughout the house so it clearly is a
La Passionara dwelling.


The house seems large, 90 square meters, with four bedrooms and two
bathrooms. In fact it is very cramped, and though we have lived in far
smaller places the sense of crowding is overwhelming. Perhaps we own
too much. Certainly we're bouncing off each other the way we did in
the hotel room.

It is shoddily built, rather, the building materials are shoddy.
Plasterboard walls that you can punch a hole through, just leaning
against them makes you fear collapse, and floor tiles that magically
always look filthy. Wash them, scrub them, they still look like
someone just threw up on them.

Here and there a surprising plus. We have two bathrooms, which means I
can leave the toilet seat up without getting yelled at. And – you are
aware of my obsession with excretion and my passion for doing laundry
– as the front-loader washing machine is in my toilet I can combine
these disparate pleasures. Sitting on the oval seat doing my thing
while watching the clothes whirl in the spin cycle is an wholly
unexpected delight.

The yard is problematic. The idiots who put the grass down – the same
mentally challenged folks responsible for the protruding pipe and
short-circuiting sprinkler – were supposed to level the ground before
putting down the squares of grassy turf. But they didn't bother, so
its all hills and valleys and I stumble every time I walk through it.
Most people leave their yards unadorned, either through lack of
interest or lack of money or a refusal to enhance the enemy's
property. But Rachel and our neighbors feel that we might as well live
in beauty while we're here so she has gotten our Neve Dekalim gardener
to fix things up. The cost is substantial but the results should be
worth it. Of course there is a small fly in the yard ointment. A small
black dog, domiciled two houses away, has chosen to fertilize our
lawn. I'm going to find some way to skin the adorable little
miscreant. [And I'll bet you thought I might actually get through an
entire letter without mentioning dog poop…]

Also problematic is the noise level here. Not as horrific as the hotel
and its Central Bus Station surroundings, but far worse than I
imagined it would be. This is still a construction site and tractors
and steamrollers abound, as do their noisy Arab operators. We are
close to the main highway connecting Ashdod and Ashkelon and the truck
traffic doesn't fade before midnight. An air force base is nearby and
the jets roar overhead. An army base is adjacent and gunfire rings out
all day. Railroad tracks parallel the highway and trains are frequent.
[I'm developing a theory that the trains, generally idle in the yard
reading, playing pinochle or strip-the-motor, sense when I'm getting
into the car and hasten to close the road separating us from the
highway.] Firecracker go off at all hours, this being the pre-Purim
period. And buses, friendly and unfriendly, noisily crawl through our
streets. The friendlies carry sympathetic visitors who get off to talk
with Rachel. The unfriendlies carry visiting dignitaries whom the
Expulsion Authority rushes through the town to show how happy and
well-taken-care-of we are. These don't stop to talk to anyone.

More problematic for us, personally, is the nature of Nitzan itself.
Israeli society in general is decidedly uncivil by Western standards.
People are loud, aggressive, brutish. Those who are considerate of
others are viewed as suckers, and the most corrupt are most admired.
In the magical atmosphere that prevailed in Gush Katif there was an
aura that induced calm even in times of great stress. Here in Nitzan
the atmosphere is decidedly unmagical. Many people are broken by
joblessness, hopelessness and a seemingly pointless existence. And
those who are not broken are badly bent. I, who am a loner, find the
atmosphere here oppressive but bearable. I fear most for Rachel,
sensitive, gentle and outgoing.

Less problematic but more annoying is that I am gaining weight. In the
weeks before the expulsion, unable to sit at the table in a house full
of people, I began skipping meals. In the hotel I found the noise and
atmosphere in the dining room simply torture, so I ate and ran. The
result, though I myself hardly see and feel it, is a substantial
weight loss. No, no need to panic, I'm not fading away. I've simply
gone from obscenely obese to frightfully fat. What's interesting is
that most people, with nothing to do in the hotel but eat, have gained
enormous weight. In the narrow hotel hallways it was difficult to
maneuver past people who had developed bulldozer-sized behinds. Now,
here, I am able to go shopping and indulge myself as in days gone
by. And my clothes are no longer loose. Alas…

It is almost midnight and I just stepped out for another cigar. Cars
aplenty, groups of teenagers, the roar of trains and trucks. One of
the things I hate about this place is that with the houses so close
together, and so many street lamps, the sense of isolation I so
cherished in Neve Dekalim is lost. One can't even see the stars, much
less hear the waves.

Our first Shabbat – with food brought in from outside as Rachel was
too exhausted to cook – was spent splendidly alone. We turned down all
invitations and reveled in the relative silence. Friday night prayers,
in a makeshift synagogue barely a fraction of the size of that in Neve
Dekalim, found me surrounded by old friends and singing the old tunes.
I could almost imagine… After prayers I spoke with a friend I hadn't
seen since the expulsion. "We have been here two months" he said.

"How can you stand it?" I asked.

He looked at me as if I were mad. "After four months in a hotel?
Praise God, this place seems like Paradise."

Have a good Shabbat, people.

Moshe Saperstein, Neve Dekalim/Nitzan