Memories of Petach Tikva

I got a phone call out of nowhere “hello, Aryeh?”

- Yes

- This is Avner

- Avner who?

- Avner F …

I first met Avner in sixth grade in Petach Tikva, and spent portions of High School Yeshiva and the Army in the same circles. We were never more than acquaintances. He was calling as part of organizing a class reunion for the sixth grade class I had joined, the first class to graduate ‘Yavne’ elementary school. After reminding me he lived in the same yishuv as my sister, I promised to make sure to meet him on pesach when I would be staying with her.

Pesach eve in the main synagogue at E, Avner pops up in front of me. I am not sure I would have recognized him. He tells me that Y Gur Whatever is really excited about the reunion. I vaguely recognize the name of our teacher.

Sixth grade was my second year in Israel, my first year in a new school, first year of puberty, first year of my Mother’s epic battle with cancer. It wasn’t a good year. In retrospect the only unadulterated good thing was my first orgasm, though at the time I worried I had broken something.

This teacher was one of the negatives of that year.

Recently I tracked down Lois Cohen, my 4^th grade teacher, in order to send her an appreciation letter. I have no appreciation to give this guy, I don’t even want to spend the psychic energy on recovering my memories of him. Avner has started me down this path, and I cannot stop myself from remembering.

A year or two after we graduated 6^th grade, someone organized a reunion. I went, and then left in disgust when they did a circle of reminiscing, each one was supposed to tell about an ‘experience’ they had had in class. I didn’t have anything amusing to tell about that year, and found it laughable that 13 year olds are already waxing nostalgic. Now it is 30 years later, and I still am not nostalgic.

Here are the scenes that come to me:

- I have a wild head of red curls. Y tells me I need to have a haircut. I tell my Mom, who has no energy. Mom always gave me my haircuts, I have never been to a barber. The next day Y gets angry at me and tells me to write down exactly what he says in my school diary. He tells me that if I don’t come back the next day with a haircut, he will personally give me a haircut I will not forget for the rest of my life. I write it down. I show it to Mom. Mom writes him an angry note, saying that he will not lay a finger on me and that she will give me a haircut when and if she wished. She may have mentioned her cancer and our general situation. I am actually not sure if I read the note or not. I gave Y the note. He tells me to get out of the classroom. I leave, and have no idea how the story resolved. I don’t remember how I ended up back in class.

- One of the boys, one of the North African boys, a small one, is having trouble with the instructions on dividing two fractions. The procedure Y is teaching is to turn the second fraction ‘upside down’ and then perform fraction multiplication. This boy keeps asking what it means to turn the fraction ‘upside down’. Y loses his patience and his temper, calls the boy to him, catches hold of him by an ankle and shoulder and flips him upside down. He dangles him upside down in the air and shouts “do you see now?”

- It is my first day in sixth grade. We are waiting, Y is late. He is often late. Rumors swirl about him, I feel a lot of fear and anticipation. Someone says he lives in a yishuv. Another says he's "tough". Suddenly everyone is scrambling to their feet, I hear a deep barking voice shouting at us. We are standing stiffly in rows, Y stalks amongst us and suddenly quizzes one or another on multiplication tables. I am quaking, I never finished learning my multiplication tables by heart, I always manage just fine in written tests by computing half way in my head. To my relief, he doesn’t choose me. I never did finish the multiplication tables, to this day I compute 7x8 as twice 7x4. It only takes another second.

- Y takes the class out to an unknown destination. We are walking for about 10 minutes when someone throws a pebble at him. Y flies into a rage and demands to know who threw it. Nobody confesses. He marches us back to the school sits us all at our desks and says nobody is going home until the culprit comes forward. After a few minutes of silence, inspired by heroic self-sacrifice I had absorbed from books or movies, I raise my hand. In my broken Hebrew I say that I didn’t throw the stone or see who did, but if he will let everyone go I am willing to take responsibility and stay in their stead. Y doesn’t respond, but after a minute he says everyone can go.

- Y is teaching Gemara. I am sitting at my table, tilting my chair back on two legs, following with my eyes. Every line or two he stops and asks one of the boys to continue. He catches one not following, then another. I don’t remember if he scolded them or marked something down in his papers. I sense he is stalking the ones who don’t seem to be paying attention, so I put on the air of one not paying attention, all the while continuing to observe the line being read. Next he calls my name – I continue reading without missing a beat. I am proud of the grudging grunt of approval from him.

- I discuss the Gemara we are studying with Mom, and bring up a subtle question. Mom says I should ask Y. I ask him the next day, and he says ‘that is the kind of question a Yeshiva student would ask’. I take it as a compliment, am fairly sure it was meant as one. He doesn’t answer the question, perhaps he can’t.

- During breaks I would usually stay in the classroom, reading a book. Once during a break I was reading a book, while two of the brown boys threw chairs at each other, and one hit me. I think I bled a bit.

- I found it hard to follow many of the lessons. One lesson, perhaps it was history or literature, there was a woman teacher. I couldn’t follow and so I opened my reading book under the table and read. The teacher caught me and confiscated the book. She didn’t give it back at the end of the lesson. It was a library book. I was scared to confront her. I finally approached her several weeks later and she claimed she had left it on the table.

- I spend a lot of time being scared. I am scared of teachers, I am scared of my Mom dying, I am scared of terrorists lying in wait for when I take down the garbage. If not terrorists, then giant flying cockroaches that leap into the air when I open the garbage room door.