Erich Segal - The Class

Since the kibbutz was not a religious one, on the Sabbath they piled the volunteers into their ramshackle bus and bounced them over the countryside on endless excursions.

As one of the English teachers, Eva was in charge of the descriptive aspects of these expeditions. One was to the mountain fortress of Masada, overlooking the Dead Sea. Here, in the first century AD., a small band of Jewish Zealots withstood a two-year siege by the Roman legions. And when they were finally on the verge of defeat, chose to take their own lives rather than become slaves.

Eva gave her little explanatory briefing, while all about them archaeologists — including hundreds of summer volunteers — continued to excavate the site.

“This remnant of old Israel,” she began, “has become a rallying symbol for us. It shows our determination never again to surrender to an oppressor.”

Jason looked over the stone walls at the plain below and imagined what it must have been like for the outnumbered Zealots to see the heavily armed enemy swarming below them. God, they had courage, he thought.

But then, they had nowhere to go.

If Masada had been uplifting, their next tour was devastating.

They visited Yad Va-Shem, the memorial in Jerusalem dedicated to the six million victims of the Holocaust.

On the floor of the darkened building were plaques naming the many concentration camps in which the victims had perished. The magnitude of the catastrophe was almost too monstrous to contemplate.

The flame burning in eternal commemoration of those wretched martyrs seemed pitifully small. Yet indestructibly bright.

Eva dwelt on this theme during the solemn bus ride home.

“Compared to the many who died, there are few of us here to keep that flame alive,” she said. “I don’t think anyone can understand what this country means until they have seen what we saw today.”

The Sea of Galilee glowed with the rays of the setting sun as the bus journey neared its conclusion. For nearly an hour all had ridden in total silence. Then Jonathan, an American volunteer, spoke out.

“Eva, something’s always bothered me. Whenever I try to discuss the Holocaust with my gentile friends back home, they always ask the same question— Why did they go so passively to the gas chambers? Why didn’t they fight back?”

There was a slight stirring among the passengers in the bus as they strained forward to hear how Eva would reply.

“There were some who fought, Jonathan. Like the brave resisters in the Warsaw ghetto who gave the Nazis a battle to the very end. But it is true that not enough were like that. And there is an explanation.

“When the world found out — and believe me, everyone, including your own President Roosevelt, knew — that Hitler meant to destroy all the Jews of Europe, countries did not throw open their gates and offer them sanctuary. On the contrary, I could tell you terrible stories about shiploads of escapees being turned away and sent back to Germany.

“And when the Jews realized that there was nowhere in the world they could go, a great many despaired. They had no will to fight because they had nothing to fight for.”

There was silence for a moment. Then a young Danish girl raised her hand and asked, “Do you think it is possible such a thing could happen again?”

“No,” Eva replied. “Never. And what makes me so sure is what you see outside the window. The Jews at last have a country of their own.”

“That was quite a speech you gave,” Jason remarked to Eva as they were strolling after dinner. It was a late-summer evening, the air heavy with the scent of flowers.

“Did it make sense to you?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied. “In fact, it was very upsetting.”

“Which part?” she asked.

“Well, your intimation that a Jew will never be fully accepted anywhere but here. That’s not what I’ve been brought up to believe.”

“Forgive me,” she replied, “but my family was as Dutch as yours is American. Still when the war came, it was amazing how quickly we became Jews and aliens.”

“My father thinks otherwise.”

She looked up at him and said with quiet fervor, “Then your father has learned nothing from the history of his people.” And she quickly added, “I’m sorry if that sounded impolite.”

“That’s okay,” he answered sincerely. “But I grew up believing that America is special. A place where everyone really is equal-like it says in our Constitution.”

“Do you still believe that?”

“Sort of,” he said, temporarily forgetting some of the minor setbacks he’d experienced because of his heritage.

“May I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Could you ever be elected President of the United States?”

He hesitated and then replied, “No.”

She smiled. “The difference is — you could be elected President of Israel.”

By the middle of August, Jason had a rudimentary knowledge of the Hebrew language. He also had a collection of increasingly urgent letters from his parents inquiring when exactly he intended to return. He could not reply because he was still unable to decipher his own emotions.

Did he, in fact, want to go back to law school at all? Did he want to leave Israel?

Finally, he came to a decision. He waited up past midnight, when there was a better chance of getting a clear connection to the States, and phoned his parents.

“Look,” he explained, trying to sound both cheerful and rational, “I think I’d like to hold off going back to school for a while.”

“Son,” his father pleaded, “you’ve never let me down before. Can’t you pull yourself together and get over this? You’ve got a brilliant life ahead of you.”

“Look, Dad,” he answered patiently, “I’m a grown-up now. I’m making decisions for myself.”

“Jason, this isn’t fair. I gave you the best of everything.”

“Dad, you did give me the best. But I’m not sure you gave me everything.”

When he hung up and walked out of the secretary’s office, he saw Eva seated at one of the long tables in the empty dining hall. He went over and sat down next to her.

“Want a lemonade?” she asked.

“I’d prefer a beer.”

She got him a bottle from the kitchen and sat down again. “So who won?”

“It was a split decision,” Jason replied. “Let’s just say we both lost.”

“Are you staying?”

“For the next year, anyway. I mean, I might as well finish learning the language, right? Maybe I’ll become the George Keller of Israel.”

“I don’t understand,” she said. “What is a George Keller?”

“A crazy Hungarian and my Harvard classmate.”

“From what you’ve told me so far, all your Harvard classmates are crazy.”

“That’s true,” he smiled back, “and the proof of it is that here I am, First Marshal of my class, potential U. S. senator, picking oranges in the north of a little Middle Eastern country.”

“On the contrary,” said Eva lightheartedly, “that proves you’re the only sane one.”

For the first time in his life Jason Gilbert became an academic grind.

With Eva’s help he found the most intensive Hebrew-teaching Ulpan in the country. It was at Tel Aviv University, intended for high-powered professionals who needed to master the language quickly.

There were four hours of instruction in the morning, a lunch break, and then another four in the afternoon. After which he would run on the university track, then go back to his room in Beit Brodetsky and study until he could keep awake no longer. The only rest he took was from nine to nine-thirty to watch Mabat , the news broadcast on television.

After a month and a half of this self-inflicted torture, he was heartened to find that he could actually understand what was happening in the outside world.