What army has anything to do with deserters?

This is one in a series of stories that have no specific beginning and no intended end. Its working title is “Funny stories of a sad life.” I consider myself an optimist and am happy in my life. Apparently, not everyone thinks that way. This is what makes me curious to keep exploring the ideas and details behind the mysterious face of life.

“There isn’t much that the army can do with people like you,” the officer said. He looked and sounded informative, matter-of-fact kind of informative. This was the last stop on my journey to be formally released from reserve service. In Israel, men typically become soldiers after reaching the age of 18 years. After three years of service in the army, they are scheduled to contribute roughly a month each year until they are 40.

Growing up, I wasn’t questioning the need to have four and a half years of my life dedicated to being a combatant. Pacifism was not a strong concept of my existence. I just knew that my life would involve this civic duty. The idea of war was always remote, in the sense that one only needs to go to war in crisis. Participating in martial activities is mostly a matter of practicing for something to be avoided. A very strange concept indeed, when considering the wording needed to describe it: but the realities in Israel make war a too frequent fact that needs to be dealt with.

In that sense, I am definitely lucky. During my first three years in the army, I was involved mainly in standing in front of soldiers like me and teaching. As part of being one in a team of electronic warfare equipment operators, my duty was also to train new recruits. If any war erupted, I would be operating that equipment from a helicopter, away from the enemy lines. Although not risk-free, I never made much of the prospect of one day having to participate in war. I never felt close to being a combatant. At most, I was an instructor. No war or major tension took place within the mandatory three years of my service.

I enjoyed my time in the army. We were a group of highly skilled young adults, all planning their future after being released. Some of us were more enthusiastic about our military service than others, but hardly any of us considered the army as the center of our lives.

In 1982, when I was in high school, the Sabra and Shatila massacre in Lebanon raised significant tensions in Israeli society. The sense of trust in our government was seriously eroded. However, I was still very much like many others, ready to join the army in whatever role I managed to be signed up for. I ended up in my role as an instructor and was pretty good at that.

Much of the borders around Israel are surrounded by chain-link fences decorated with barbwire. They are also heavily patrolled.

My doubts about the vicious cycle of conflict-driven militarism began to seep in after I rejected the push to become an officer. “The army needs people like you. You are highly capable, driven, and in a position to become a future leader.” My commander was very persuasive. But I was already planning my application to Bezalel, the Academy for Arts and Design in Jerusalem. At that time, I knew I wanted to become an automotive designer. So, serving more than three years in the army looked like a huge sacrifice to me.

After my release, I took a few months to prepare my submission for Bezalel. My first choice, industrial design, didn’t work out. With my second, I was invited for an interview and was left out. I knew I would try again. But before that, I took a break and flew to Australia.

Like many of my generation, I too was drawn to the excitement of exploring the world in various ways. Taking time off was very common, and still is among people in their early twenties. The first Intifada – uprising in Arabic – started in 1987, while I was in Australia.

One day, the headlines talked about the jockey who won in the racetracks. The name of the horse was prominently shown. Who knows, maybe it was Kensei, maybe Jesabeel. Another day, the headlines talked about Bradley Hughes, or maybe it was Greg Norman. I had no idea how golf was played, and the grading system was beyond me. But the contrast to headlines I was used to from Israel kept slapping my face.

Then Australia “defeated their arch-rivals England by seven runs in the second-most closely fought World Cup final to date in Kolkata’s Eden Gardens stadium” (Wikipedia). Ads on TV showed a life that I knew about, but were not so common in Israel at that time: a softly shaped bar of soap rests on the exquisite edge of an expensive bathtub; planks of wood are being varnished with deep stains; a circle of brie is turning in the center of a few happy models. Lo and behold, the models grab a piece of cheese and stuff it in their mouths as they are holding a cracker loaded with yummy-looking sliced meats.

How easy does life need to be? Being secular, my family enjoyed non-Kosher food quite frequently. However, in public and even on TV, showing the combination of dairy and meat together was frowned upon at best. In many cases, it was even controversial.

On the more existential front, terror attacks are still to this day part of the routine. From the outside, the immediate question would be “What is the point of the endless fighting in the Middle East?” This battle makes us all blind to the fact that we are all the same. What would I have become had I continued the typical journey of an Israeli soldier, turned officer, turned commander, turned leader?

Burnt cars beside the party location, one of many where Hamas attacked, on the night of October 7 2023

As I am writing this, in 2023, about a year of Israeli government reaches a crucial moment of its tenure. A deadly strike by Hamas fighters has wreaked havoc on the lives of thousands of Israeli civilians. The Israeli military is reacting with deadly counterattacks. I’ve already been living in Canada for more than twenty years.

But 1987, was the year that for me, the need to continue my life in Israel was properly questioned.

It was my time to prepare for higher education in either design or engineering. I completed my travels and returned to Israel in 1988. Would I design functional devices that make no sense in battle? Should I avoid being involved in the development of warfare? In 1989 I started my life as an Israeli student to become an industrial designer.

In 1992 I reached out to the Air Force sergeant of my unit and informed him of my intention to avoid my duties in reserve service. I wasn’t expecting much. I knew I would be marked as a deserter. I was aware of the risk of being sent to jail. When my unit’s sergeant made efforts to accommodate my decision I was pleasantly surprised. There were steps to take that he duly informed me of. He then scheduled meetings for me with various personnel, among them a social services officer, a psychologist and eventually, the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, the highest rank in the army who could sign a document and seal my release.

We had a serious yet polite confrontation. He challenged my points and tried to understand how serious I was.

I told him “I know that if I was a Syrian citizen I would be executed. But that doesn’t change the disconnect I feel towards the Israeli cause. We declare our call for peace all over the world. On the ground, our actions reflect the opposite.”

“There isn’t much that the army can do with people like you,” he said. “After this meeting, I will consider your case. If I decide to sign your release, you will be notified. If I don’t, you will still need to show up for reserve service. If you don’t you could be sent to jail.”

In June of 1993, a week before my final presentation in Bezalel, I was arrested. For about a week I was held as a detainee with other reservists. Each of them had their own story. Most sounded like excuses, but they were real-life circumstances. One was expecting a baby and had to help at home. Another one’s business was in financial stress. Someone else had health issues. The authorities refused their cases. They didn’t show up and were sent to jail.

When my cellmates heard my story, they showed real concern.

“Don’t tell that to the judge.”
“You’re up for trouble.”
“They will throw you in for a long time.”

But I knew all of that. I wasn’t enjoying myself but I had about a year and a half of going through the ranks of advisors and officials who let me know what I was about to face. I also read about others who were sent to jail for refusing to serve. It all looked to me worth exploring. I was tried, and sentenced for the full time the judge was allowed to impose. I called that time the three most boring weeks of my life, but boy, was I exploring!

Music is Discipline

A dwelling unit becomes my home as soon as I set up my audio system in it. Even living beside a noisy street can be shielded with the right audio system and the right music. You can see that I think music is fun. But even more so, it is a substantial source of discipline in my life.

Saftliv, my grandmother, lived in the downtown center of Jerusalem. I liked spending time in her apartment, listening to my records on her Akai turntable. At our place, a household burdened with two controlling parents and four of us, kids, there weren’t too many opportunities to play records, let alone enjoy them. And my parents never bothered to invest in a proper sound system anyway. So, when I was invited by our grandmother to park my vinyl collection in her living room, I did that and never looked back.

King Crimson ‘In the court of the crimson king’ Cover art (cropped)

Among the shelves displaying crystals and other precious items, two were dedicated to prominent loudspeakers. My grandma wasn’t an audio buff. Neither was I. But she was disciplined. Saftliv knew what she wanted. She had a sound consultant visit her apartment and make his recommendations. I hardly ever listened to the classical music she had in her vinyl stock. But the sound was immaculate.

Savta in Hebrew is Grandma. Liv was our fond abbreviation to her real name – Livia. Saftliv was how we referred to her among us. Her apartment’s front windows faced one of the busiest downtown streets. When shut, they provided reasonable isolation from the noise outside. Thanks to that noise, I could listen to my records without ever worrying about neighbors complaining. And when my grandmother finished her day in the shop she owned, she even liked some of the bands I was listening to.

“Just turn down the volume a bit,” she would ask. “We don’t want to disturb the neighbors.”

Later, when I was a student, my apartment in Tel Aviv, was located beside one of the noisiest streets of the city. Not thanks to my experience with my grandma’s “music hall”. That was what I could afford. My shelving units weren’t in any way as high quality as the ones in the music hall either. But they housed loudspeakers that could express the quality of the music I liked. Whenever my brother visited me, even more than the M&Ms, he appreciated the ability to really listen to music with me.

Meni, as he is known, used to visit me once a week for a gig he had at a local business. Whenever he settled into my living room, he quickly stretched his hand to my ceramic jar, where I kept the M&Ms. It had a lid and the right volume for the half-pound package I purchased every few months. That half-pounder typically lasted about a month.

“I can’t believe there are still any left,” he exclaimed in admiration.

“Well, I only take the handful I want for the day and consume them from the plate.”

Or

“You know, I’m Saftliv’s grandson,” I said.

Both my elder brother and I had heard about our grandma’s peanuts story. But I think it stuck with me the most. Am I the more disciplined?

The two years separating us since my birth continually became insignificant as we developed. Still, for the most part of our growing up, I was the one looking up to him. With our grandmother, I was the more frequent visitor.

Saftliv was indeed a disciplined person, living on her own some twenty years before she passed. In her twenties, our grandmother was a new settler in the future Israeli community of pre-independence Jerusalem. With her father’s encouragement, she moved from Czechoslovakia to Palestine before the Nazis took over in 1938.

The 2022 war in Ukraine is a grim reminder of how discipline is required in dealing with this world’s tyrants. Are we heading into a full-blown World War, or will it stay but a nightmare to the ones directly affected by it? You would think that the pandemic brought us all to some degree of calm and responsibility, but who are you in that sense? Who am I? We just listen to our music and consume our M&Ms or any comfort food for that matter.

One day Saftliv told me about a family gathering from those early days in Jerusalem. She was a little shy, not entirely familiar with all the relatives and guests. She found a quiet spot in front of the coffee table in the living room. Of all the treats that were placed on the table (there weren’t too many), the peanuts bowl lured her the most. Growing up, peanuts were her favorite snack. The roasted ones served in that family gathering were amazing. She took a handful and chewed on them, politely yet absentmindedly

“So, you like peanuts,” a family member smiled at her approvingly.

I could still hear the shame burning in my grandma as she told me this story, more than forty years later. She ate the whole contents of the peanuts bowl. 

“From that day,” she said, “I never touched peanuts again!”

If I remember my response at the time, it was something like, “Wow! I guess they weren’t bothered by that as much as you were.” But some years later I realized I carried in me a very similar load of shame.

I had the questionable opportunity to watch a video of what happens to a dog when exposed to nerve gas. That video was part of a training session I had to go through while serving in the Israeli army. At the end of its torture, the dog lay dead in a puddle of his own excrements. If knowledge is power, then that kind of knowledge made my stomach swerve like a washing machine. So, yes, maybe I do have a strong stomach since I didn’t throw up. But at the time, that knowledge didn’t feel empowering at all.

Then, in the 1991 war on Iraq, I was frustrated with the success Saddam Hussain had had in terrorizing the Israeli society. No one could reliably tell whether he had chemically-equipped missiles. His threats of even launching them were constantly questioned. I was already living in the same apartment where my brother later enjoyed my M&Ms. Everyone around me seemed obsessed with the war. I had the urge to dismiss all of that. The sense that we are puppets in a game that none of us has control over was overpowering. I had believed, like many in the media that missiles would not be seen in Israel.

None of that mattered. The line-ups for respirators were in the news. Not only were they long beyond belief, but they also brought about the ugly side of human behavior. Some people were fighting each other. Others were bullying volunteers and staff who were assigned to provide everyone with the dwindling supplies. I refused to sign up for a respirator.

Misinformation, disinformation, deception and tactics, are all at play in times of peace. In crisis and in wartime, the uncertainty they promote becomes our concrete reality. People hate uncertainty. I hate lineups.

One of the first Iraqi missiles hit a store hardly more than 500 meters away from my apartment. Well, I was wrong. And now I was about to die from nerve gas. I was still frustrated with the hysteria the whole propaganda brought about. However, I was more concerned with my body being found in a puddle of my own feces, just like that dog in the video from my time in the army.

I was even amused to realize how much of my grandmother’s shame I had in me. Our need to be in total control is futile. However, it was either 2 or 4 a.m. I had a few hours before I could do anything useful. I got out of bed. I headed towards the toilet and released whatever I managed to push out. When done, I went back to bed and engaged in thoughts and plans in anticipation of breathing the first molecules of debilitating gas.

Before March of 2020, when the pandemic reached our shores, I’m already living in Vancouver BC with Anat, my wife and Inbal, our teenage daughter. The anticipation for the unknown felt similar to the days before the Iraqi missile strikes. There wasn’t really anything that we could do but follow some guidelines and wait.

King Crimson ‘Discipline’ Cover art (Cropped)

For the longest time beforehand, my small household had a straightforward mobile CD player. During the days of the lockdown, it started to misread some of the CDs we listen to. Quick cleaning of the laser lens fixed this. Nevertheless, I suggested to Anat and Inbal that maybe for the sake of jazzing up our listening experience, we should look for a better piece of equipment. From the day the new compact audio system was placed on its shelf, we never looked back.