Steve (left) and his Ben's son, Yair (right)
Somewhere in south-central Israel, Amatzia lies hidden from view amid the hills and caves, which were once sanctuary to Bar Kochba and his minions. Amatzia is a moshav (communal farm) whose location can best be described as a place that lies closer to the boundaries of the imagination than to any city, town, or village. And it was there that I met a man whose past unknowingly had crossed paths with mine over half a century ago.
I met Ben, better known as “big Ben,” at the suggestion of his son Yair, who thought that his parents would enjoy meeting and chatting with visitors from Yair’s hometown of Cherry Hill. So my wife Bobbie and I set out to meet Ben and his wife Aliza who are longtime residents of Amatzia. The moshav is located in a district that stood fallow for millennia; its barren hills housed scorpions and snakes and not much else. Today those once desolate and wretched mounds have been cultivated into dunams upon dunams of lush vineyards. Amatzia is rustic and rural and just about as far from Brooklyn, where Ben was born and raised, as time and space will allow.
Ben and his wife, Aliza (left) Steve and his wife, Bobbi (right)
Ben is the first and only Jewish cowboy I have ever known. Before Ben’s retirement he worked from dawn to dusk mounted on horseback leading some 1600 head of cattle to pasture, mending fences, and guarding his herds from neighboring Arab rustlers. Today only 600 head of cattle remain; a green carpet of trellised grapevines replaced the others. As we snacked on nuts and dried fruit in his living room, Ben slowly served up the bits and pieces of the events that comprised his life’s story. While Ben shared slices of his past, Aliza set out a lavish spread of cold cuts and salads. I had a feeling she had heard his stories more than once. But not I, which explains why I often interrupted his flow of tales; I could not contain my zeal and curiosity. I was determined to learn as much as possible about the experiences of a man whose past I shared in part and whose chosen pathway through life could very well have been mine.
In 1959 Ben spent some time in the then nascent city of Eilat living on the beach. In those early years of Israel’s rebirth, Eilat, which is Israel’s southernmost city and situated on the shores of the Red Sea, had only one hotel, named Malon Eilat (Hotel Eilat), one watering hole, appropriately called Café Sof Olam (The End of the World Café), and a single air landing strip used solely by Arkia Air – unless you count a stray camel or two. Over the last fifty or so years the only things that have remained unchanged about Eilat are its never ending desert wind, parched bone aridity, oppressive one-hundred-plus degree heat, and the stunningly beautiful waters of its blue Red Sea.
The year was 1959 when I too took up residence on the shores of the same beach as Ben. We may have unwittingly passed by each other as we strolled along Eilat’s sands, just a stone’s throw from its famous coral reefs, flying fish, and the occasional shiver of sharks prowling its shores. While living there I worked a short time for a local fisherman named Jacob. My job consisted of snorkel diving for salt water fish which we packaged in airtight plastic bags, boxed in wooden crates, and air lifted to pet stores in Germany for purchase by home aquarium enthusiasts.
Today, snorkeling buffs and European sun worshipers stream onto those once pristine beaches. It is a place where once only a single hotel stood, now there are a host of hotels, motels, and hostels strewn along its tayelet(promenade). It seems that fifty years ago both Ben and I were searching for something we could not find in either of our places of birth, Brooklyn or Philadelphia. Ben found it in Israel and stayed; I departed Israel and found it in America. Fast-forward half a century and there we sat, not on the shores of the Red Sea, but amid the hills of south-central Israel overlooking the Negev desert, reminiscing and sharing stories.
Since retiring from IBM as a systems analyst Steve Wenick has served as a freelance book reviewer for HarperCollins Publishing. His reviews have appeared in The Algemeiner as well as The Jewish Voice of Southern New Jersey and The Jewish Voice of Philadelphia. His articles on Jewish and Israel topics also have appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Attitudes Magazine and Varied Voices. His daughter and her family live in Israel and they visit frequently. Steve and his wife are residents of Voorhees, New Jersey.