Eric Bymel: A Conclusion of Sorts

In this final excerpt, Eric discusses identity while also describing memories of his childhood in El Salvador.
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(So today, do you identify as Israeli?)

(pause) I would say yes. But I don’t know. People always tell me, you know, “You’re not Israeli.” They look at me: “Oh, you’re not Israeli. You’re something else.” I don’t know what it actually means. I’m against the compartmentalization of people, putting them in little boxes and saying, “You are this and you are that.” I always ask, “What is Israeli? I don’t know. There’s so many different people here, so many types.”

So I have a citizenship that’s Israeli. I’m also Salvadoran, although for many, many years I didn’t have the citizenship. I had this laissez-passer, you know, this special document that I could travel with. It’s awful. I always had to show this at passport control, and they always looked at it like, “What is this?” It’s the weirdest thing, very unpleasant. So now I’m Israeli. But I don’t give it much importance. When people ask me, I talk about it, but I don’t give it too much weight. As also with my Judaism, the same thing. It’s part of me. I know I’m Israeli, and I supposed if somebody would attack my Israeli side, I would take defense. But I don’t make a big deal out of it. I’m not afraid of criticism. I’m not afraid of anti-Semitism. I suppose I would be afraid if it would threaten me physically, but if somebody said something against Israelis or Jews, I’ll just deal with it. As I deal with anything else, you know.

I always want people to live and let live, somehow, to do their thing and let me do my thing and not step on me. I won’t bother them, just don’t put your expectations on me. I think that’s something that bothered me a lot as I grew up, expectations: you must do that, you must go to the synagogue, don’t forget this one, don’t forget to call up that one, bless that one, and so on. I try to keep a low dosage of that in my kids. I don’t know if I’m entirely successful, but it always comes back to, don’t expect too much.

(Your sister lives nearby. I know you’re close, but is it nice to have someone else here in Israel who understands your background?)

Not very, not very important. I mean, with my sister, we talk almost daily. It’s not a big deal in my life to meet with all these people and bring up memories. It’s not a simple thing because memory is a very tricky thing. Like I said, even my memory, you asked me what my first memory is, and I immediately followed with pictures that become your memory.

(Do you have a desire to take Dassi and your kids to Salvador?)

Oh, very much. It would be fun. I would love to walk up to that house where I grew up and see what it looks like. It’s so embedded in my memory. Or go to the school, or show them around; I would love very much to come unexpectedly.

But it’s like it’s not part of me any more. And it used to be so important, this whole thing, the youth movement that I was the head of. I was so busy with that. We did so many activities as kids. It’s like a capsule. Somewhere lying there in my past, almost not part of me. I don’t know how to explain that. Like, we barely talk about it now, and it was very, very important. I was head of that movement for maybe three or four years. I was busy all week long with that.

(What kinds of things did you do?)

Celebrated the holidays, of course, and prepare activities, like Boy Scouts, you know, camps and outing, games. I always think—I don’t know how I dealt with all that. I had school, I had Hebrew, German, I was in drama, I had plays all the time at school, preparing stuff, learning lines, productions. And Noar Shelanu. That was a big deal.

(Is there anyone that you don’t talk to any more that you’d like to talk to? Not even become friends with again, but just have one conversation with again? Any friends?)

Oh, lots, lots. Lots of people from school. Non-Jews. Sure.

(Just an update?)

Yeah, I suppose, an update, looking back on certain things, mend a few things, erase a few things….

(Is there anything that I didn’t ask that you’d like to add?)

What is your purpose? That’s what I ask myself.

(I’m very interested in memory, in identity, in migration. I’m never looking for any one statement or—just interested in how people remember their lives, especially people who don’t live in Salvador any more. These have been very interesting for me. Most people, especially Israelis or people who live in Israel, have really moved forward and embraced this new place. People like Judith [Meissner], who really feel Israeli, it was very important for her to speak Hebrew without an accent, to be fully Israeli. She’s very proud of her children, who are now extremely involved and successful in the army.

Then you have someone like Noemi, who loves Israel, feels like it’s her home, but felt very strongly that she was raised in Latin America and it’s a part of her and she won’t hide it. She has friends from Latin American who live in Israel and that’s enjoyable for her. But she said, “I never felt like I was from anywhere. I always felt like, yes, I lived in Salvador, but I wasn’t really Salvadoran. I came to Israel and I’m not really Israeli. So I wanted my children to have what I didn’t have. I want them to have a language and a home, and they do.” So that was more in the end what she wanted to get across. This is all very interesting, what people decide.)

I speak with my kids in English.

(You do?)

I do. Since they were born. Spanish is very, very mild. They know almost nothing. English is their second tongue, or first, sometimes. I don’t know. Noemi I think speaks to her children in Hebrew.

(In Hebrew.)

And my kids are so thankful that I spoke to them in English. For them it’s a great thing, it’s an asset. And they don’t care. When Yuval was growing up, I remember I used to speak to him in English, and when his friends would come over, I would turn to Hebrew so they would understand. He would always tell me, “No, no, stay in English, please.” But he would refuse to answer in English. He spoke to me for years in Hebrew when I would speak to him in English. And only when he was five or six, then it started coming out, the English.

(Do your kids ever want to go to the States?)

Oh, yes, they have been, of course.

(But do you think they ever would leave Israel and live somewhere else?)

Yes. Ofer would. He wants very much to be in the music scene in New York. Oh, yes, he would do that. Yuval also. Yuval, he’s studying electrical engineering. But one of his fascinations is television. He’s been writing a script with his friends for a television series or something. He’s very secretive about it. We know almost nothing about it. So his friend is now in LA studying movie directing, I don’t know what, and he wants very much to join him. So that could be a possibility. I don’t mind doing it again.
…..Migration goes on.

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC.