The General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine Read Online Free PDF

Matti Peled wore—general, scholar, father—he had a cool and rational way.
    I was only 14 or 15 when he caught me smoking. I was outside by the car lighting up, certain that no one would see me, when suddenly I noticed him walking up the hill. He was deep in thought, as always, and his gaze was down. I had no idea how he would react, but I assumed I was going to be in trouble. He was already quite close before he looked up and recognized me. The unmistakable odor of cigarette smoke was all around, and the cigarette was in my hand.
    “You smoke?” he asked, with mild surprise. “Isn’t it a waste for an athlete like you to ruin your lungs?”
    What I said was: “I don’t really smoke, and I have no intention of smoking.” A stupid reply under the circumstances, but it was true: It was my first or second try, and I didn’t like it at all. As he walked away, I added, “Please don’t tell mom.”
    I stood there for a while, waiting for my anxiety to dissipate. I was stunned— not only by the fact that I’d been caught, but also by his direct and dispassionate reaction. Of course my father didn’t want me to smoke, but he didn’t show any anger. In the end, he left it up to me: It was my body, my life, and my choice.

     
    My father was born Mattityahu Ifland, Matti for short, in the port city of Haifa in what was then northern Palestine. The day was July 20, 1923, and according to the Jewish calendar, it was Tisha B’Av , the ninth day of the month of Av—when Jewish people lament the destruction of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem by Roman legions in 70 AD.
    His family lived on a kibbutz, but they didn’t stay long. In those days, kibbutz members believed mothers should not raise their own children. The babies lived and slept in the nursery and were raised and cared for by nurses while the parents worked. Parents would see their children for a couple of hours each day in the afternoon. Matti’s mother, Sara, could not bear the separation from her son, and when my father was a year old, they moved to Jerusalem, where my grandfather opened a carpentry shop that he operated for many years.
    “Your grandfather was a socialist at heart,” my grandmother liked to tell me, “and always made sure that his income was the same as his workers.”
    He grew up to be a Zionist to the core; till the day he died, he firmly believed in creating a Jewish homeland in Palestine, and he acted on this belief. His was the first generation for which Hebrew, a language that had only recently been revived, was the native tongue. From an early age, he made sure his Hebrew was perfect and that he pronounced it correctly. While still in high school, he traveled up and down the country—indeed, he knew it well and loved it dearly. Many years later, when my father came to criticize Israeli policies, it was still in the name of what was best for the future of Israel. Despite his mounting concerns, he continued to believe in securing the future of the Jewish people in their homeland. And when his loyalty to the Zionist cause was put in question, he demanded and was given recognition from the Israeli Supreme Court that he was in fact a patriot and a Zionist.
    At the age of 16, he volunteered to serve in the Palmach, the strike force of the Haganah, which was the largest Jewish militia in the years leading to the creation of Israel. He joined without his parents’ knowledge or permission, and he would skip school to participate in military training. He served in the Jerusalem platoon with Yitzhak Rabin, with whom he would maintain a lifelong relationship.
    It was during that time that my father changed his name. Members of the Palmach were required to Hebraize their names—to make them sound more Hebrew as opposed to the more European-Jewish sounding names that characterized Jews in exile. It was part of the national Zionist mission to bring about a new Hebrew identity. My father, Matti Ifland, chose the name Peled, because it means