The Visit Of The {Not So} Old Couple: Aharon And Ida Megged

Not many Israelis have heard about Iowa city, an oasis at the heart of the corn fields of Iowa. The University of Iowa is the home to the famous Writers' Workshop and the unique International Writers' Workshop. For me, as a graduate student specializing in literature, spending several years in IC was a dream comes true.

Every fall a group of writers from all over the world came to Iowa City to attend the International Writers' Program for one semester. Most of the writers, novelists, poets, and playwrights came on their own, and stayed as a group, a kind of summer camp, in one of the residence halls on campus very close to the river.

Before the beginning of each academic year, our small Israeli community (of about 30) would get all excited about the new upcoming Israeli writers. Once the group arrived we usually invited the Israelis to one of our gatherings, and attended their literary readings.

But one year was different, we heard that the writers were a couple, a husband and wife, and they asked to live on their own outside the campus. Shortly afterward we met Aharon Megged, who passed away yesterday at the age of 95, and his wife Ida Zorit Megged.

Although they came to town for a short period, to attend a structured program, staying too close to the group didn't suit them, they had their their own idea about the visit in Iowa City.

While previous Israeli writers spent most of their time socializing with the other writers and did not show a special interest in the town or in the Israeli community, Aharon and Ida loved to explore the town, and, for the duration of their stay, they did not mind being part of the Israeli community. They attended our parties and gathering, and while Aharon was shy Ida was more outgoing and  was interested in everyone and everything. We all warmed up to her, and because she liked to listen, within minutes she heard everything about everyone. We were all young and far away from home, so it was good to talk to that wise and experienced couple.

Aharon and Ida were in their 60s when they came to Iowa City and they seemed old. But I admired the wisdom and freedom that seemed to come with age. They were true to themselves and acted the way they saw fit. They did not get involved in the details of the relationships that naturally evolved within the members of the group. Although they showed consideration and respect to their peers, they chose to stay outside and do their own thing.

That visit in Iowa City remained a happy memory in my family's biography. Moreover, in that visit I saw, for the first time, people, my parents' generation, who acted exactly as they wished, and it made a huge impression on me.

I am now almost as old as they were when they came to town, and with time I am even more convinced that this is how I would like to conduct myself in later years.

The essay appeared in the Times of Israel

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-visit-of-the-not-so-old-couple-aharon-and-ida-megged/

Judging A Town By Its Library

 MAR.18.2013 

 I have always loved libraries, as a child I walked to the local library, a 30 minute walk, twice a week to check out books. In those days in Israel we didn’t own books but got them from the library. In my private collection I only had my most precious books, about 30, those that my brother bought for me; among them were all the children books by Erich Kastner. 

Although thanks to that library in Haifa I could read all the books that I ever wanted , it wasn’t a  real library, there was no place to sit or to hang out. Rather it looked more like a storage place for books. Only when I was 24 year old and my husband and I were graduate students  at the University of Toronto did I get to see, for the first time, a real public library.

The main public library in Toronto is a beautiful building that has every possible book. There I spent many hours listening to recordings of Shakespeare’s  plays so that I could understand the plays that I had to read for my seminar. To this day before I go to see a Shakespeare play I study it in the same way.

Later when we arrived to Iowa City IA(where my husband Tzvi got his first job as an assistant professor at the university), the public library was the first sign that we  arrived to a small yet civilized place. The public library in Iowa City is prominently situated in the center of town. When we lived there the library was a happy place full with children and their parents, teenagers on their own, retirees with time on their hands to read the papers and people who just came to check out books.

 When we moved away from Iowa City to, what seemed like, a similar small town in Texas, I should have read the signs that this place was quite different from Iowa City when I visited the substandard library. Indeed, to compensate for the void in the library and supplement my daughters’ general education, I had to spend  days in used books stores looking for good books for them to read.

Several years ago, Tzvi had to undergo a medical treatment in the Mayo Clinic. Together We walked through, what seemed like, endless corridors to get to the public library in Rochester MI. When we finally found it, the well-lit library was literally one ray of sunshine in an otherwise gloomy period. 

Whenever I visit a new town, I check out , forgive the pun, its public library; by doing so you could learn a lot about the place and its priorities. Moreover, I believe that judging a town by its library is actually an efficient way to evaluate  its merit. If the library is friendly, generous, well- stocked, well- maintained and well-lit you could be pretty sure that you have made a good decision and have landed in  a good  town.

Childhood Under A Magnifying Glass: Over-Parenting Revisited

JUN.20.2013

When another mother told me that I had to make sure that my four-and-a-half-year-old daughter knew how to read before she started kindergarten that fall, I knew that I was in trouble. She explained that in the event that she didn’t read she would be put in the lowest ability group, and that would be the end. I was sure no mother in her right mind would risk ruining her daughter’s future and teaching her to read seemed like a small price to pay. But that was only the beginning:

We lived in Iowa City, a small university town in the Midwest; at that time most of the husbands worked at the university and the wives, all university graduates, were stay-at-home-moms partly due to ideology, and partly because of the limited employment opportunities in town.

With so much time on our hands and so little to do, our children became the focus of our attention, our prime preoccupation and a way to channel our creative and intellectual energy. They were a source of happiness, pride but also an endless cause of motherly concern.

Other children talked earlier, read better, ran faster (or in the case of our community in Iowa City: played soccer, danced, played a musical instrument, sang in a children's opera). The accomplishments of one child became her mother’s personal achievement and the direct cause for jealousy and anxiety of other mothers.

Luckily, as an Israeli living in the US I missed many cultural cues involving raising childen in a competitive environment.  I didn’t understand, for example, the reward system in the American school. I was oblivious to the grave importance of soccer, and didn’t see why in such small classes some mothers were always present at the school.

What I did not miss was the tension is the air. I felt that the outward politeness of some mothers could not mask the pressure and competitive subtext of every interaction.

I am sure that most of the mothers were kind and care-free prior to having children; their new responsibility meant that they believed that the stakes, even at the elementary school level, were so high that everything in their children’s life was of the outmost importance. That solemn attitude did not leave much room for fun and light-heartedness, and being with other mothers became boring and exhausting.

While I was still in Iowa City I sensed that the energy in that small community was unhealthy for me and my family.  I know that competition is a motivating force, but for me it became contagious and even poisonous. In theory I could have chosen to disengage, to have done things my own way, but still I did not see a way out from the ubiquitous competition outside the home. 

The marriages of several parents among our friends did not survive those early years of child-rearing, and I am sure that the anxiety surrounding their children’s achievement did not add to the well-being of their relationship. I am also aware of some children who did not respond well to the pressures of their mothers’ over-parenting.

Being under a magnifying glass is not only hard on the child; it is draining for the parent. I feel that in a way I was saved by returning to Israel; my daughters enjoyed much more independence and became solely responsible for their success and their failure.

For me it meant that  I was free to go on with my own life.