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Longing for paradise lost By Michael Handelzalts Tags: Israel One of the favorite Israeli songs of the last 60 years (also the first 60 years of the State of Israel), as selected by the general public, is "Ein li eretz aheret" ("I Have No Other Country"; eretz can also mean "state" or "homeland"). The lyrics were written by Ehud Manor in the early 1980s (although he said they expressed feelings he had had dating back to the War of Attrition). The melody - and a catchy one it is - was written by Corinne Alal, and when it was recorded by Gali Atari in 1986, it was seen as a protest song against the first Lebanon War, which was dragging on and on at the time. Eventually "No Other Country" was enlisted as a rallying song by political movements of varying and conflicting hues. It's easy to understand why, when considering its first stanza: "I have no other country / Even though my land's on fire / Only a word of Hebrew can penetrate / My veins, my soul ... / Within my aching body, my hungry heart / Here is my home." With such concepts being so popular in this country it is easy to understand the indignation expressed by many Israelis when they hear about their brethren flocking to European consulates in Israel to arrange for themselves, their children and grandchildren a second passport, a companion to their Israeli one. Advertisement Indignation notwithstanding, when one has no other country - or, more specifically, homeland - it is necessary to take precautions, based on past experience, and to arrange in the event of unforeseen calamities for a "spare" homeland, just as one makes sure there is a spare tire in the trunk. In the interest of full disclosure, I admit to possessing a Polish passport as well as my Israeli one, as I was born in Poland. Let it be noted, therefore, that I am biased when discussing the issue of dual citizenship. Having said that, I have to point out that the concept of two states for one person, male or female (as opposed to the "two states for two nations" solution), seems to have been part of the Lord's "master plan" when he created the world. How else can one interpret the fact that man is banished from the Garden of Eden to an accursed ground, where he is supposed to eat bread in the sweat of his brow, and the woman is sent there to be ruled by him and to conceive in sorrow? No wonder they long to return to paradise lost. A couple of biblical chapters and thousands of years later, God orders Abram (later Abraham), a native of Ur Kasdim, to "get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee" (Genesis 12:1). The Hebrew version states that Abram is told to leave his homeland (moladetkha) and to go to the country chosen for him and his offspring by God (or, as one biblical commentator says about a verse in Psalms, to "a chosen country for a chosen people"). God, who created man in his own image, should have foreseen that Abram would feel nostalgic about his forsaken homeland. One of the problems with God - at least in my mind, when I read the biblical narrative - is that he is prone to changing horses in midstream. Once he has Abraham's family ensconced in the Land of Canaan, he sends Jacob, who was born there, with his foreign-born sons to Egypt. They stay there for 430 years, and the result is that many generations of Israelites see that country as their "homeland." The "chosen country" thus seems to remain a faraway fantasy of yesteryear, which fosters the notion of "the right of return." When God decides finally to free them, he makes sure that the Israelites wander in the desert for 40 years, and thus that the Egyptian-born ones die. Those who enter the Land of Canaan are thus homeless people, who lack a notion of homeland. Then, because they misbehave (God makes them that way), he banishes the Jewish people again - first to Babylon (from which they eventually return), and then finally all over the world, for about 2,000 years. Thus, subsequent generations of Jews are born in a host of homelands. True, while praying to their Creator they supposedly yearn for Zion, but this seems as unrealistic a notion as paradise was for Adam and Eve. When the Jews ultimately decide to take matters into their own hands, after practically being annihilated by the Nazis, they establish the State of Israel. There are those, by the way, who believe that even that horrific episode in our history was part of God's grand plan - something that is beyond our human comprehension - but in such a totally improbable case, so was the creation of the State of Israel in Palestine. In any event, people who lived here all those years do pose a problem, but it is their problem, since we come - we always do - in peace. Now, with Israel being an established country, with every Jew and Jewess in the whole wide world having the right to come and live here, we again are reminded of what I believe to be a fundamental concept developed by God (although he may have not realized this himself): the necessity of every human being having at least two countries, states or homelands. One that he was born in and to which he belongs, and the other in which he has chosen to live. Whenever I come up with what seems to me to be an original idea, however, I quickly realize that somebody else has already thought it up before me. Hence Gertrude Stein, in "Paris France" (1940): "After all everybody, that is, everybody who writes is interested in living inside themselves in order to tell what is inside themselves. That is why writers have to have two countries, the one where they belong and the one in which they live really. The second one is romantic, it is separate from themselves, it is not real but it is really there ... Of course sometimes people discover their own country as if it were the other ... but in general that other country that you need to be free in is the other country not the country where you really belong." I have to admit that my claim that every person needs at least one other country in addition to the one in which he or she lives is based more on practical factors and on my own experience. True, I was brought to Israel as a child, but nowadays it is my country of choice. Here is where I live, and here is where I want to live, even when everything and everyone here drives me crazy. But when the going gets too tough, the tough go home: I pack a suitcase and go to my other country. Let me be clear: This is not about going somewhere for a vacation. I have to travel to a place where I feel at ease and at home. In my case the place is Poland, where I am at this very moment; indeed a word of Polish can also penetrate my veins and soul. In Poland they have a corrupt prime minister, their members of Parliament may be, for all I know, a bunch of idiots, their clergymen may force their narrow world view on the people - but I don't really care. I spend some time feeling "in," but not really involved, and then come back, refreshed, to Israel, my chosen homeland. Every one of us should have at least two. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Say what you want French court: Claim that Al-Dura tape doctored isn`t libelous. Peace in our time Olmert: Peace talks with Syria are a 'national duty'.

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