The story of Hanna Levy, who together with her husband Avraham
studied at the Machon on Machzor Bet (2), 1947.
We studied Hebrew in the mornings with our excellent teachers, but spent most of the rest of the day speaking English to each other. Not the best way to learn a language. Some of the top experts in the country came to lecture us in the evenings on political science, Jewish History, “Palistionography”, etc. The highlight of the week was the arrival by motorcycle of Shalom, our dancing teacher. When we met him again in 1987 at our 40th reunion, he confessed that we had been his first formal course. Forty years later we once again danced with him, and although some of us were slightly heavier and not quite so agile, we made up for it with our enthusiasm.
We climbed the hull to see the famous “HaShomer” monument of Alexander Zaid, crawled through caves near Haifa, admired the gardens of the Bahai Temple, stood in awe at the Western Wall, and went down the Jordan in small craft singing “I looked over Jordan and what did I see”.
We sang for hours on end as we rode along in our trusty bus which Efraim insisted couldn’t go without singing”.
As we traveled from place to place, we were often stopped for road checks by British soldiers. They weren’t always satisfied with the special group pass given us by the Jewish Agency introducing us as innocent students from the States and South Africa.
Taken from the story by Hanna Levy “Things You Never Asked Your Savta” 1990
