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THE PARENTS WHO DID NOT MAKE IT
By Arye Oron (Shtern)
For as long as I can remember, I've known Jewsa
Jewish community, a town that was for the most
part Jewish. During my childhood, I did not
differentiate between the community and the
town. Everything was Jewish: the courtyard, the
school, business, trade and work.
However, gradually a wide, astonishing gap
between present and future was revealed to me.
In the present we saw everything as if it were ours.
In the future, nothing belonged to us. At a young
age we began to sense this truth. As time went on
we were told of this by way of subtle hints, and
finally it became evident that we, the youth of
Luboml, had no future. Although it seemed we
ruled the town, socially and economically all our
resources really were blocked and our destiny was
predetermined and within sight.
When you seem to have no future in your
country of birth, you begin looking for a future
elsewhere. To us, the Zionist youth of Luboml,
two things were clear: that the diaspora was undesirable,
and that the place for which we longed
was Eretz Yisroel. We, the youth, lived with a
dual certainty: that we had no future where we
were born and grew up, and that in another part
of the world, in Eretz Yisroel, we had hope of a
real life.
This was our destiny. It was both positive and
negative. We found ourselves living and working
in a country we could not identify with; it was a
country not created for us, a country that oppressed
us. On the horizon we saw a different
country, a country in which all our dreams for the
future lay waiting for us.
Considering this background it is easy to
understand the extreme reactions of the young
men of our town. Many recruits inflicted injury
357
on themselves to obtain a release from the Polish
army, and then these men, who previously
had done everything in their power to avoid hard
work, volunteered upon arriving in Eretz Yisroel
to participate in dangerous activities on behalf
of the Haganah.
The war between the sons and their fathers
was not over ultimate ends. It was an inner
struggle among the parents concerning their
children's departure to the world at large, the
timing of the matter, their children's professions
and continuing education. There was also the
matter of the separation of parents from children
and their chances of reuniting in the future in
their new home.
Nevertheless, both generations took the same
approach to life. The development of Eretz
Yisroel was at the core of most people's spiritual
existence, as were the Tarbut school, the
youth groups, the study of Hebrew and Hebrew
literature, activism in the Jewish National Fund
and in the Jewish Foundation Fund, and the
holding of elections for the Zionist Congress
(which affected us more than any Polish election).
The youth of our town, young and old, all
were involved in these activities and important
events.
Another deep impression from my childhood
and youth is connected with the gap between
generationsgrandparents, parents, and youth.
Our grandparents worked diligently to preserve
religion, while the youth already were protesting
against it and therefore were seen as skeptics,
even as agnostics.
However, what was common to both sides
was that they met in the synagogue. The older
generation came to pray there, and the youth