Article archive / June 1, 2013
Originally published: . Volume 4, No. 10. Source pages: 14.
‘It had long been my wish, at least throughout high school, to finish undergraduate school and immediately go to Israel to live on an Israeli kibbutz,” Dr. Yael Banai told the Times. She had mentioned in an off-hand way, to this reporter, about an “Israel thing.”
“You really served in the Israeli Army?” I asked.
“I’ll tell you about it,” she said. “… probably more than you ever wanted to know…”
In her teens Yael was a voracious reader, and stumbled upon Leon Uris’ books Exodus and Mila 18, and of course the Diary of Anne Frank. “They also made a major motion picture of Exodus –with the dreamy Paul Newman,” she said, “which I sat through lord only knows how many times.” It all appealed to her on so many levels––WWII, the depression. These were the seminal events of her parents’ lives and she found the topics fascinating.
Yael explained that there was an awareness of the Holocaust emerging in the 60s that had not emerged before in the post-war period.
“Many memoirs were published, or republished, during those days,” she said, “and I read all that I could get my hands on.”
“In addition, several television documentaries appeared on the establishment of the state of Israel, again fueling my interest.”
It greatly appealed to her to be able to participate in the “building up” of the modern day state of Israel after the devastation of the Holocaust, she explained, something she considered close to a miracle.
“The summer of 1968 was a turning point,” she said. “I worked as a student volunteer in Bobby Kennedy’s campaign and after he was shot, worked for Eugene McCarthy. Nixon was elected, so I figured that even though I was not finished with undergraduate work, it was time to depart.”
Yael dropped out of school, got a job and earned enough money for a one-way ticket to Tel Aviv. She left in 1969.
“Imagine my surprise and delight when I discovered that the kibbutz I picked was the very one on which Leon Uris had spent time in preparation for his book, Exodus!”
The name of the kibbutz is Kibbutz Menara, established by holocaust survivors and Israelis, and located on a mountain top on the Lebanese border in the far north of Israel.
In Exodus, Uris changed the kibbutz into a children’s village for holocaust survivors, and told a story about 300 children being rescued after the declaration of the state of Israel’s creation by the United Nations vote in 1947. “This actually happened,” Yael said, “although the number of children was 30. After arriving and hearing of this tale, some friends and I made the same trek, during daylight hours, and not burdened with a sleeping toddler on our backs. Quite an experience.”
“After learning enough Hebrew to be conversant, I volunteered for the Israeli Army in a special program for volunteers from outside of Israel, a program that was established from the early days of the state.” Yael Banai served in the Golan Heights in an encampment on the Syrian border, just across the valley from her kibbutz, on the Jordanian border in the Aravah desert, and very briefly on the Eyptian/Gaza border on a kibbutz called, Kerem Shalom (the Vinyards of Peace). “I used to say that I have lived, and had been shot at, on every border Israel has….”
Yael feels she was lucky, since she lived in Israel during the “lull,” between the Six Day Ware in 1967 and the Yom Kippur War in 1973. “So aside from the odd bazooka attack from the PLO in Lebanon, and the occasional bombardment from the Syrians on the Golan, things were relatively peaceful,” she said.
She does have her “Heidelberg scar,” which she got early one morning when returning from a desert posting. “As I was approaching the bus stop in Kiryat Shmoneh, a town in the valley below Menara. I heard a loud whirring, whizzing noise which I recognized as a Katuysha rocket. I was able to duck behind a concrete barrier at the bus stop, unfortunately a regular feature of the landscape in Israel) but not before being struck with some hot debris from the explosion.” She has a nice little scar on her forehead, even after all these years.
“The katuysha had taken out the second story of a nearby building—happily the occupants had already left for work!”
Yael had planned to finish her undergraduate degree at Hebrew University but her father became very ill and she returned home to the United States.
Margaret Ann Stokes, the young woman who dropped out of school to earn money for a one-way ticket to Tel Aviv in 1969, kept something besides her scar and her experiences. She legally changed her name to her Israeli/Hebrew name, Yael Banai. She followed that dream, across the ocean, at such a young age, and captured it forever.
(Editor’s Note: Dr. Yael Banai has her doctorate in educational psychology, is a Nationally Certified School Psychologist, and is past president of the Louisiana School Psychological Association. She is also serving as a steering group member for the Louisiana Coalition for Violence Prevention, among many other duties and services.)
Dr. Yael Banai around 1970, while living in a kibbutz in Israel. She served in the Israeli Army.
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