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Provenance:
Personal Collection - The card is labeled"85" because
the entire 1984-1985 academic year (of taf-shin-mem-heh",
or 5755) was referred to by this number, but the picture would
indeed have been taken in September or October of 1984.
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In
the first half of 1984 I continued my second semester of studies
at Pardes, a coeducational institute of Jewish studies in Jerusalem.
During
that period I reconnected with my friend David Nelson, whom I
had met a few years earlier at Reed, and I met his future wife,
and her family.
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----->
That's
me on the left holding the pole.
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Provenance:
Photo processing date January 1985. The wedding took place on
Hanukah, 1984, in Tzfat, if I recall correctly.
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Around
September or October of 1984, I moved to Haifa, where I enrolled in
a computer science program at "Israel's MIT", the Technion.
Given my still minimal Hebrew skills, it would be reasonable to ask
if I was out of my mind.
The answer
to this reasonable question would be "yes." Yes I was
insane to try it, and yes trying it made me even crazier.
I was extremely unhappy and returned to Jerusalem, and lived for a time
with a fellow named Andy Moses in Talpiot Mizrach (East Talpiot).
As indicated
on the card, my address in Haifa was 66 Bavel (Babel) Street. In
a place replete with biblical ironies, the truncated "sign of the
beast" (the number "66" in Christian mythology) and the
name of the historic place of exile and sorrow, "Babylon"
or Bavel, seems now very appropriate. I could have known from my address
alone that in Haifa I had reached at least an upper level of hell.
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Above:
David Nelson (z'l) and Tamar, probably very shortly after their
marriage. I've never stopped thinking about David or Tamar.
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There
was however one very happy event in 1984, the marriage of my good
friend David Nelson to Tamar Yehuda in the city of Tzfat (Sfad).
In the photo above I am holding a chuppa pole. Also visible behind
David are his mother and father, and right, is Natan Margalit, and
many others whom I do not recognize. David died tragically less
than 2 years later and Tamar remarried. I often wonder how she is
doing. I must locate her, and meet David's son. |
Friends
begin a home
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