Eric Bymel continued

In this excerpt, Eric discusses his son's decision not to participate in the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) and the family's struggle both before and after.
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(So that [experiences during the Gulf War] probably also guided you when your son decided not to go to the army?)

Yes. Yes, exactly. Ofer came up and said, “I don’t want to go to the army. I don’t want any part of that.” “OK,” I said, “what are you gonna do?”

“I’ll deal with it,” he said, “you let me. I might need your help,” he said. “Maybe not.”

And he didn’t.

He didn’t need our help. He went to a doctor, he went to the army, he did what he wanted. He filled us in once in a while on what’s going on. And I said to him, “Are you sure you’re doing the right thing? What about your friends? What do they say?”

“Some of them are against it, some of them are for it,” he said.

It was very mature and open-- not telling him what to do. I mean, I said to him, “Listen, I wouldn’t do that. I would go to the army. Because we’re here, and everybody does it, and it’s important. But I respect your decision.”

Yuval [eldest son] was adamant. He was furious. And they had all-out discussions about this. But I suppose because of the way we dealt with it, in the end, it was sort of like flexibility won at the end. Although, like I said, I think that Yuval is still resentful. He still thinks that we should have forced him to go. But I said to him once, “We didn’t force you to go, either. You did what you wanted.” I reminded him that I told him, “‘Why don’t you defer it as a student, maybe you should study first and then go to the army?’ And you didn’t want to. You chose what you want. He does as well. And Maayan will do the same,” I said to him.

(So what did he [Ofer] do instead of the army?)

Nothing. They let him go. They were fed up with him because he didn’t cooperate. He didn’t cooperate with the interviews and the testing, he didn’t come on time. All the preliminary things that they do. So in the end he got a letter that said, “We don’t want your services,” or something like this. And that was it. He couldn’t believe that he was so successful, that he had got out of it without trouble. Because they could have sent him to jail, and he knew that he could go to jail. Unbelievable how it worked out. So he went to study, and that’s what he’s doing. He’s studying at Jerusalem in the Academy. He’s a musician, a very good one, in fact, and he loves it. He loves his music. He drums and he plays the piano and he has groups. Heavy metal, rock, classical music. He plays classical music on the piano, and jazz. That’s his life. Music is his life.

(Does he ever talk about what’s going on? Is he very political? He’s apolitical? Is that why he didn’t want to be in the army?)

They are involved, more or less. But not too involved. I mean, I always invite them, “Come and listen to the news.” The news is very important, for me anyway, I always want to be up-to-date somehow. I always offer it to them. “Come and listen if you want.” Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. So they’re sort of involved but not too involved. And neither are we…..neither are we. I miss that somehow. I think I should be a little more involved. But I don’t know how to go about it often. Life is too hectic, too busy. (pause)

I definitely do not trust the political parties, so I don’t belong to any of them, even though I identify more with the left. But I also don’t know which group I would belong to since all these movements that spring up. I don’t know how corrupt they are; I cannot always take at face value what they say. So I keep a distance…..

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC.