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My PocahontasABv ELIEZER WHARTMANJERUSALEMSK anyone who Pocahontas was and chances are he will tell youabout the famous love affair between Capt. John Smith and the Indian lass. If you were to ask a veteran Israeli to identify the name.chances are that he will say it was the boat on which Golda Meir arrived in Cairo on her way to Palestine50 years ago.It was a rickety old Italian steamer bearing the unlikely name of the lithe daughter of an Indian chief. It carried Golda and a boatload of other idealists fromNew York to Cairo. The crew mutinied en route; the engine broke down repeatedly; the captain committed suicide; the passengers ran out of food and water; and Whartman they arrived flat broke in Tel Aviv on July 21, 1921. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of her arrival in Israel, Golda invited the surviving members of the Pocahontas group and their descendants for a “Mayflower” type of reunion at her home. The incident brought to mind the trip that I had made to Palestine whenI first came to the country in October, 1947.I also was looking for something which America had failed to provide. Shortly after receiving my discharge from the Army, I decided to spend a year of study at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, with the aid of the “GI Bill.” Like most students, I tried to go as cheaply as possible, and booked passage in a ship, the Marine Jumper, which I suspect at one time had been used as a cattle boat. Insteadof pens below decks, the American Export Lines had installed rows of three-tiered bunks, and I, unluckily, drew a middle berth, with a rather portly Arab beneath me, and a thin Jew above.nTHE hold was an oven, and many of us slept on deck. The ship must have resembled one of the immigrant boats which at thattime was slipping out from Mediterranean ports nightly, and I wondered uneasily when the first British destroyer would challenge us. The passengers were a mixed bag: Arabs bound for Beirut, our firststop, and Haifa; groups of Halutzim; Palestinian Jews, many on their way home after having been caught abroad at the outbreak of the war; and a few unattached individuals like myself.My downstairs neighbor was escorting his attractive niece to Beirut, and he reluctantly introduced me to her one day when I encountered them on deck. What with warm, sunny days, a calm sea and, above all, a fetching moon at night, the niece and I became quite friendly, although the constant, hovering presence of the uncle somewhatlimited the possibilities inherent in so romantic an atmosphere.When the ship finally put into Beirut, the uncle promptly disappeared with the niece. Worse, the ship took an alarming tilt, for what looked like half of Beirut had piled into the vessel. We had been invaded by an army of stevedores who promptly began pitching everything not tied down over the side on to the wharf. Undeterred by what had befallen the Marine Carp, our sister ship, two months earlier, when the Lebanese authorities had removed the Jewish malepassengers and clapped them in jail on a phony espionage charge, we prepared to disembark and visit exotic Beirut.And then the news broke like a thunderclap. No passengers bound for Haifa would be permitted to visit Beirut. The Lebanese authoritieshad informed the captain that to prevent another influx of Zionist spies, they would not permit the Jewish passengers to disembark. The captain, to his credit, then informed the authorities that if the Jewishpassengers could not get off, he would allow no one off the ship. An exception was made for crew members, and the Lebanese police stationed a man at the gangplank to check the crew’s papers.USPECTING that the policeman could, not read English, all theyoung Jewish men lined up behind the crew, each producing an official looking pass when he reached the gangplank. 1 fished out anold Army press pass that had been issued to me in Manila, and was waved on. The last man came up with a JWV membership card.On the dock, a score of taxi drivers offered to take as to places where we would experience every delight Beirut could offer; but it already was dusk and the attractions, while enticing, entailed certain risks, so we settled for a nearby bar. In reply to my question, the unsuspecting bartender informed us that a war was coming between Arabs and Jews, that they did not want any Zionists befouling Beirut, and when the final confrontation came, “we’ll drive the Jews into the sea.Innocently, we asked if he had heard of the Haganah; with a vicious sweep of the towel, as if he were driving us all into the sea, he informed us curtly that half a million Jews were no match for 30 million Arabs.The next day, the same act was repeated. The line, the cards, the same idiotic wave of the hand toward the gangplank. This time we went to Beirut. In the suk, the market place, I encountered the uncle.He stared at me, and I at him, and slowly I backed away and dashed for a taxi. One way or another, we all made it back to the ship.WE all promptly dove down into the galley and came up withoverflowing garbage cans, the contents of which we rained down on the port, aiming the bottles at the policemen. When the foghorn blasted to cast off the ropes, we lined up at the rail, singing Hatikvah at the top of our voices. The incoming tide gently wafted to shore the garbage that had somehow missed the dock, and “as the sun slowly sank over exotic Beirut,” and with the echo of Hatikvah still hanging in the air, the gallant Marine Jumper, now back on an even keel, pulled out of the harbor.The next crisis came about an hour before we were to enter Haifa.We demanded that the captain hoist the blue and white Magen David; the Arabs countered with an order to the captain to raise a pennant with the red crescent; and so the captain, bewildered, solved the problem by running up the Union Jack—which infuriated everyone It was dusk when we reached Haifa, and we were forced to remairaboard ship until the following day. 1 stretched out on the deck, and watched the lights of Haifa come on, slowly climbing Mount Carme as the evening light waned. Great clouds hung heavily above thlt; Carmel, touched with a bit of red, reflected from the neon lights olthe city. After Beirut, the symbolism of that cloud was unmistakable Slowly the city dissolved into darkness, and as the lights went off onlt;by one, the “pillar of fire” disappeared. The exodus was over.
Newspaper Details
Philadelphia Jewish Exponent
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US
Fri, Aug 20, 1971
Page 33
Full Page
Clipped by
George C.
USA 14 May 2019
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