Kinneret's+I-Face+Project


 * __toc__**


 * __Allen Kropf__**

=__Rationale:__=

I chose to write about my Grandfather, Avraham (Allen) Kropf. Following the Aliya of my Mother and Father after they got married, he made Aliyah with his wife Rita at a considerably late time in their lives, and he has been living in Israel every year for half of the year in their apartment in Jerusalem. This has resulted in bringing into his life the Judaism and religion it was lacking. I think that this story is special, even though it is not so uncommon. My Grandfather represents the senior citizen of israel, who truly appreciates living in this country. My Grandfather is a professor of Chemistry, and my view of him as a child was as of somebody who knows everything. Everytime I would have a question that nobody felt like answering, they would say "ask Sabba", and Sabba would always give me the lengthy and explanatory answers I was looking for. For these reasons he seemed like an appropriate and interesting person to interview.

=**__Profile:__**=

My Grandfather, Avraham (Allen) Kropf

Allen Kropf, a senior citizen who lives in Israel, represents an angle of the face of Israel that I don't believe you can find anywhere else. I asked him a few questions about his views on Israel, and this is the general picture I got.

Allen has spent most of the first half of his life living in America, sharing the views of many of his friends and neighbors in America about the rights and wrongs of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He once thought peace between the two sides would be easy to reach if only the Israelis would give the Palestinians the land that the Arabs claimed was theirs.

However, Allen says that his development as a Jewish person was very much influenced during the first year he ever lived in Israel, which was 1968. Since that time his sense of belonging to the Jewish people has began to grow. As a result of the feeling that he wanted to identify more fully with his family and with the Jewish people, he began to feel inspired to make Aliyah. He also knew that making Aliyah would enable him to feel more at home in Israel without giving up his feelings of home in America as well.

Allen made Aliyah with his wife Rita in 1995, which he says only strengthened those feelings which had been growing for over 25 years. Since then, Allen has been living in different locations in Jerusalem (currently an apartment off of Emek Refaim), and the other half back in his hometown in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Allen now feels that living in Israel means living at a Jewish pace and among people with whom he shares a long history. He is constantly reminded, by the Jewish calendar, that he is observing the same holidays and weekly divisions that his ancestors did during their lifetimes. While life in America is further removed from the tensions he feels in Israel, it also means that he probably doesn't lead a life where his feelings are as stimulated as they are in Israel.

Since he has family (children and grandchildren) in both Israel and America, there are similar family connections which are very important to him and which are similar in both places.

Allen is quite content with living in Israel as a “pensioner”. In his opinion, Israel is pretty good at helping its senior citizens. Health care is quite inexpensive, Senior citizens get discounts for transportation and there is other assistance that the government provides.

He enjoys Jerusalem's many opportunities in the forms of classes, lectures, Tiyulim and libraries, that expand his Jewish knowledge and understanding. Amherst, on the contrary, has very few opportunities like the ones he takes advantage of when he's in Jerusalem. Of course, as he added, it is impossible to visit and learn from ancient Jewish sites and archaeological digs outside the Land of Israel.

However, he feels it is unfortunate that there is no equivalent type of teaching opportunity in Israel to the one he had in America. Universities in America are much more varied and numerous than in Israel, so you have many more choices as to where and how to teach. But He found that Israeli students were more mature than American students.

Allen tells about his role in the group who were dyeing cotton to make Techelet. They were having problems producing the same color each time with their mixtures of dyes. They had to prepare their mixtures by treatment of snail meat with acids and alkalais and other chemicals. Thanks to his knowledge as a professor for Chemistry, He was able help them understand what chemical processes were taking place and how they could change the conditions of the dyeing process in order to help make their dyes more pure.

Allen concludes his current feelings about Israel in the following way; Israel represents to him the miracle in which Jews were able to establish a homeland where they could continue living out their history and adding their own special contribution to the development of human civilization. He feels he is participating in this special miracle which had not been available to Jews for 2000 years and which suddenly became possible in his lifetime.

Living in Israel and visiting much of the area which was being argued about, and reading about the attitudes and actions of each side in the dispute has greatly changed his old views. He now understands that the basic problem is different than just giving up land. He sees that the basic problem is due to the unwillingness of most Palestinians to accept the fact that Jews have a very strong right to live here and have a country of their own, where Jews can govern themselves according to their own standards and in total security.

Nowadays he has very strong disagreements with many of my colleagues in Amherst. Most of them still keep the old views that he used to have and aren’t willing to accept some of the realities that he's seen and lived with in Israel. They usually listen to what he says, but it is very hard to convince them to give up their old misconceptions.

Allen finds that his living here has made other people feel more strongly connected to him as a Jew. He says that the best example of this occurred during 2002, when the 2nd Intifada was at its worst. Some of his friends advised him, as an American who could easily “go back home” to leave the country because it was not safe to remain in Jerusalem with the suicide bombs going off all around. He said to them that he couldn’t live with himself if he just abandoned his family and friends who lived here. "I know that my Israeli friends felt a special bond with me as a Jew because I stayed and also came back the next year," says Allen.



=**__Background Article:__**=

My grandfather, Allen Kropf was involved with the process of perfecting the Techelet. Techelet is the color light blue. It is commanded in the Torah to wear a Techelet colored thread along with your Tzitzit. The Idea of wearing blue is that it will remind us of the blue sky, and then of G-d, and that will remind us to keep the Mitzvot. The color with which the thread is dyed is produced from a "Chilazon", called a Murex trunculus snail which is a sea creature similar to a fish, found along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. There is a legend that tells us that it was Hercules's dog that first discovered this blue dyeing snail after emerging from the water with his mouth dyed blue as a result of eating these snails. The source of Techelet, Dibromoindigo, is abstracted from the gland of the snail, and gets its color when it comes in contact with wool, the sunlight, limestone based water, and ammonia. The process of the dying is done by P'til Tchelet workers, under the supervision of its founder, Rav Eliyahu Tavger. Approximately 30 snails are used to dye a batch of Techelet strings, depending on the method of color abstracting and type of snail. Although there are many discussions about how to tie the Techelet, these are just because of minor differences that disqualify small requirements. These days Techelet tying techniques go mostly according to the opinions of authorities like the Rambam and Sefer Hachinuch. For instructions on tying tzitzit, visit the following link: http://www.begedivri.com/techelet/tying0.htm More people have begun wearing Techelet over the past two years, but many don't believe in the Kashrut of the current Techelet. They don't think it is the real Techelet that was worn many years ago before it was prohibited by the Romans after Beit Hamikdash was destroyed. Click the following link to read about some problems with Techelet: http://www.begedivri.com/techelet/BlueCrisis.htm

=**__Literary Connection:__**=

__Pines__ Lyrics: Leah Goldberg Music: Achinoam Nini (Noa)

//Hebrew;// כאן לא אשמע את קול הקוקיה, כאן לא יחבוש העץ מצנפת שלג, אבל בצל האורנים האלה כל ילדותי שקמה לתחיה.

צלצול המחטים: היה היה אקרא מולדת למרחב השלג לקרח ירקרק כובל הפלג, ללשון השיר בארץ נכריה.

I remember those snow-capped mountains and a song on FM 93 oh my darlin' I have grown with you but my roots on both sides of the sea

אולי רק ציפורי מסע יודעות כשהן תלויות בין ארץ ושמים את זה הכאב של שתי המולדות.

איתכם אני נשתלתי פעמים, איתכם אני צמחתי, ארנים, ושורשי בשני נופים שונים. //Transliteration;// Kan lo eshma et kol hakukiyah. Kan lo yachbosh haets mitsnefet sheleg, Aval betsel ha'oranim ha'eleh Kol yalduti shekamah litchiyah.

Tsiltsul hamechatim: hayoh hayah ---, Ekra moledet lemerchav-hasheleg, Lekerach yerakrak kovel hapeleg, Lilshon hashir be'erets nochriyah.

Ulai rak tsiporei-masa yod'ot - Kshehen tluyot bein erets veshamaim - Et zeh hake'ev shel shtei hamoladot.

Itchem ani nishtalti paamaim, Itchem ani tsamachti, oranim, Veshorashai bishnei nofim shonim

//Translation:// Here I will never hear the blue-jay's song elated Here a tree with wig of snow I will not find But in the shade of all these solitary pines All my childhood, reincarnated

The tingling of the needles is gone Homeland I will call, a snowy distant dream Greenish frost and ice enclose a mountain stream A stranger's land, a foreign tongue in song

I remember those snow-capped mountains And a song on F.M.93 Oh my darling, I have grown with you But my roots on both sides of the sea

Perhaps only the migrating birds can ever know As they're suspended beween the heavens and The earth below The pain I feel as I am torn

I have been planted and replanted with the pines, And it is with them I have grown But still my roots spread over-seas In a dichotomy of home

**__Connecting Essay:__**
The literary piece I chose connects directly with the topic of my project. The poem "Pines" written by Leah Goldberg, and sung by Achinoam Nini (Noa), describes being torn between two homes, and a feeling of never quite knowing where you belong; loving where you are, and yet constantly missing where you came from. The author describes things that she misses about the place she grew up. The pines she describes represent her childhood in Israel, as do songs on the Israeli radio, but her subsequent life overseas leaves her with memories of snow covered mountains. She feels a longing for both of these homes, and it is not clear what place she feels more part of. This is a beautiful song, and I remember the first time I heard it. The author writes that only birds can truly understand her dilemma, but I think every person can connect with this song on some level, because change is something that we've all experienced. And even if we're happy with the way things are, memories will resurface and leave us with a bittersweet feeling. I feel that the words/ lyrics have a lot to do with the subject of our project, and particularly with the person I interviewed, my grandfather, who obviously feels torn between his two homes. On the one hand he has spent most of his life calling America his home, but on the other hand, after learning about our ancestor's history with the Holy Land, how can one not feel linked to Israel?

Source:http://www.actionext.com/names_n/noa_lyrics/pines.html

=__Creative Connection:__= March 2nd The world is moving too slowly for me. How could anybody talk about normal things? Somebody's life is threatened right now. Somebody's screaming. Somebody's crying. I don't know why I can feel their pain right now. But it's still not as real as it should be. I need to be there. I need to see it. I need to risk my life to be a part of them. There's a war going on, and we are arm wrestling, doing sit ups, reading and writing poems. I open up the Tehillim book. But how can that possibly be enough? Another code red alarm. Another perek tehillim. Another life is over? Israel. Why have you abandoned your people to these horrors? When will it end? What is Israel? It's government? And what is its government? A disgrace.

a word of explanation: I was planning on writing a poem about my feelings for Israel, but nothing was coming to me. Today though, there was something inside me that needed to come out. There must have been at least 5 code red alarms. I was in shock. I couldn't really talk to people, so I sat down and wrote. Four people were wounded this morning after 25 kassam rockets were aimed at the Israelis in the South. It has been going on for seven years, and only recently it has started to be taken somewhat seriously by the media and Israeli government. Before a kassam hits in Sderot an alarm goes off which indicates that everyone should run for cover within the next 10 to 15 seconds. They can't know where the missile will hit, and so it is up to Hashem to protect them. In school we are supposedly notified every time that alarm goes off, and are told on the loudspeaker to stop whatever we are doing and say a psalm. This year it's been getting more frequent. These people live in a reality of constant fear. Every quiet is the calm before the storm. **The people of Sderot are the backbone of Israel.** Here is a poem written by an unknown author about Sderot: Alone, surrounded, by six million ears At home, but hounded, by everyone's fears, A tone is sounded, but nobody hears, The ground is pounded, and washed clean with tears. April 5th

I am now writing after volunteering in Sderot a few weeks ago, and after experiencing the code red for myself. But the experience was so much more than that; it was the people there, their warmth. It was the feeling of personal guidance, and the discovery that I can gain so much by just giving a tiny bit of myself. I visited there with some friends twice in two weeks, each time for two days, and volunteered through an organization called "Lev Echad" ("One Heart"). We did the most simple things there, like walking around and saying hello to people, or just talking to those who nobody listens to anymore. They have so much to say, some of them feel as though Israel has abandoned them, and it meant so much to them that we came there to be with them, that we were endangering ourselves just as they are endangered every day of their lives. When I got back it was hard to adjust back to the normal reality. I felt like Sderot was the real world, and everybody else was just living in an illusion that everything is fine. It drove me crazy that people here didn't feel like it was their personal duty to join the people in Sderot during these terrorizing times. I felt like the attitude was: "so what if some people are being rained on by kassamim as a daily routine? they don't have anything to do with us." the thing is, theyre part of us; Israel is one nation. It could have been me and you who lived in a dangerous location, and we would have wanted the support of the Israeli population. The experience also strengthened my spirituality, while I was in Sderot I felt like prayers were heard. When my friends and I were feeling afraid, we sang in the streets and felt stronger. The appreciation of the people only incouraged us; when you smiled at somebody in sderot, we all felt as though that smile can light up their entire day. I hope to take the things I learned there and apply them to my life here.

=__Reflection:__=

To be honest, when I first heard about the topic of our project this year, I wasn't so excited. I didn't expect to express myself very much during the process. As much as I love my home in Israel, i didn't quite understand the concept of a single person who represents a whole nation to me. It took me a long time to choose a person to interview. I felt that it wasn't a simple question- who represents the face of Israel to me. There are so many aspects of Israel, and so many people who contribute to it. How could I pick just one person? On the other hand, the idea of interacting with students in a different country made it seem a little more interesting to me. Hearing different opinions of other Jewish kids around the world, made this project seem more fun. I figured that hearing their thoughts on my work would encourage me to keep an open mind and to think about things through their eyes. Maybe they had a lot to teach me? Furthermore, I wanted them to see what life in israel was really like. While I knew I was expected to write many peices in the process of this project, I didn't feel I needed to improve my English skills significantly, as I felt they were considerable developed as a result of my reading and writing in my free time. When I decided to interview my grandfather I thought it would be a good opportunity to get to know him better and learn more about his life. In short, I didn't have very high expectations from this project, and so I had a lot of pleasant surprises in the outcome. For example, although the interaction with the Weber school was a bit of a let down, as I didn't feel that it developed to it's full potential, I did find a way to express my own voice throughout this project, and this has resulted in my feeling more connected with Israel. I learned many things in the process of writing the project; about this country, my grandfather, and my fellow classmates. By reading other profiles I got to look at Israel through the eyes of a variety of people. My favorite part of the project was the creative connection. Although it wasn't easy for me to decide what aspect I'd use for it, I'm happy I stuck to writing; It's something I love to do.

=__**Bibliography:**__=

"Beged Ivri." 1983. 23.01.2008 . <[|http://www.begedivri.com/index.html>.]

"Tekhelet- Biblical Blue Dye for Tzitzit." 23/01/2008. <[|http://tekhelet.com/>.]

"Noa: Pines Lyrics." [|http://www.histats.com.] <[|http://www.actionext.com/names_n/noa_lyrics/pines.html>.]

Kropf, Allen. Interview. 12/24/2007. email.

=**__Appendix:__**=


 * Brainstorming:**

Likes to travel to exotic countries, Lived in Japan for a few years a while back. Currently lives in Jerusalem Hobbies: Tennis, playing cards He was the main chemist who gave advice about Techelet in chemistry


 * Interview Questions:**

What inspired you to make Aliyah? What does Israel represent to you? How would you compare the half year you live in Israel to the half year you spend in America? How do you feel your idendity as a Jewish person has changed since you made Aliyah? How do you feel your coming here has affected the continuity of the Jewish people? How did you use your knowledge as a Chemist to help produce the new Tchelet discovery? Has Living in Israel changed your view of politics, if so, how? Have you had conflicts back in America with collegues about your polotical views? What is it like to be an Israeli Senior Citizen? If you have to, at some point, decide weather to live in Israel or America, what country would you pick, and why? What advantages does living in Jerusalem offer you for expanding your Jewish knowledge as opposed to your home in America? How do you feel your family and lifestyle might have been different if you had made Aliyah at an earlier time in your life? How would you compare teaching in American universities to teaching at Israeli Universities?


 * Answers:**

1. Aliyah - The inspiration for aliyah came from the feeling that I wanted to identify more fully with my family and with the Jewish people. I also knew that making aliyah would enable me to feel more at home in Israel without giving upy feelings of home in America as well. 2. Israel represents to me the miracle in which Jews were able to establish a homeland where they could continue living out their history and adding their own special contribution to the development of human civilization. I wanted to participate in this special miracle which had not been available to Jews for 2000 years and which suddenly became possible in my lifetime. 3. Living in Israel is living at a Jewish pace and among people with whom I share a long history. I am constantly reminded, by the Jewish calendar, that I am observing the same holidays and weekly divisions that my ancestors did during their lifetimes. While life in America is further removed from the tensions I feel in Israel, it also means that I probably don’t lead a life where my feelings are as stimulated as they are in Israel. Since I have family(children and grandchildren) in both Israel and America, there are similar family connections which are very important to me and which are similar in both places. 4. My development as a Jewish person was most influenced during the first year I ever lived in Israel, which was 1968. Since that time my sense of belonging to the Jewish people has continued to grow. Making aliyah in 1995 only strengthened those feelings which had been growing for over 25 years. 5. I can’t say that my coming here has affected the continuity of the Jewish people but I can say that my living here has made other people feel more strongly connected to me as a Jew. The best example of this occurred during 2002, when the 2nd intifada was at its worst. Some of my friends advised me, as an American who could easily “go back hom e” to leave the country because it was not safe to remain in Jerusalem with the suicide bombs going off all around us. I said to them that I couldn’t live with myself if I just abandoned my family here and my friends who lived here. I know that my Israeli friends felt a special bond with me as a Jew because I stayed and also came back the next year. 6. When I joined the group who were dyeing cotton to make techelet, they were having problems producing the same color each time with their mixtures of dyes. They had to prepare their mixtures by treatment of snail meat with acids and alkalais and other chemicals. I helped them understand what chemical processes were taking place and how they could change the conditions of the dyeing process in order to help make their dyes more pure. 7. When I came to Israel I shared the views of many of my friends and neighbors in America about the rights and wrongs of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I thought peace between the two sides would be easy to reach if only the Israelis would give the Palestinians the land that the Arabs claimed was theirs. Living in Israel and visiting much of the area which was being argued about and reading about the attitudes and actions of each side in the dispute has greatly changed my views. I now understand that the basic problem is different than just giving up land. I see the basic problem as due to the unwillingness of most Palestinians to accept the fact that Jews have a very strong right to live here and have a country of their own, where Jews can govern themselves according to their own standards and in total security. 8. I have had very strong disagreements with many of my colleagues in Amherst. Most of them still keep the old views that I used to have and aren’t willing to accept some of the realities that I’ve seen and lived with in Israel. They usually listen to what I say, but it is very hard to convince them to give up their old misconceptions. 9. Israel is pretty good at helping its senior citizens. Senior citizens get discounts for transportation and there is other assistance that the government provides. Health care is quite inexpensive in Israel, although it is not quite as good as the health care I get as a senior citizen in America. I am content with living in Israel as a “pensioner”. 10. I hope I will never be forced to live in one place or another and will be able to choose where and when I spend my time. If I were absolutely forced to choose, I would probably choose to live in America because I feel more comfortable there with the language and with my relationships with government and other services. 11. Jerusalem has many, many opportunities in the forms of classes, lectures, tiyulim and libraries, to expand my Jewish knowledge and understanding. Amherst has very few opportunities like the ones I take advantage of when I’m in Jerusalem. Of course, it is impossible to visit and learn from ancient Jewish sites and archaeological digs outside the Land of Israel. 12. I can only try and answer this question by comparing my life with that of Americans we knew when we first lived in Israel and who made aliyah then and stayed in Israel. Most of them became much more observant and Probably that would have happened with us as well. Unfortunately, in many cases, their children grew up and moved back to America, which would have been very disappointing to us. I have also spoken with people like myself who settled on kibbutz in Israel about the time we might have made aliyah many years ago. Unfortunately, they were very disappointed with their lives and many of their ideals had been lost. If this had happened to me, and I think it might have, I would be very saddened by what had happened to my life. 13. Teaching in a small college like the one I taught at in Amherst was the ideal situation for me. I loved what I did and I felt very satisfied by what I accomplished. Unfortunately, there is no equivalent type of teaching opportunity in Israel to the one I had in America. Also, universities in America are much more varied and numerous than in Israel, so you have many more choices as to where and how to teach. But I found that Israeli students were more mature than American students.