Saturday, March 3, 2012

The wisdom of cab drivers




The wisdom of cab drivers


Dr. Haim Shine


A cab ride in Israel can be an extraordinary experience. Cab drivers here are very intelligent; all day long they listen to the news and chat with their passengers. In other places in the world, one will not encounter such an experience in a taxi. There is often a glass dividing window and no verbal connection between driver and passenger.

Earlier this week, I got into a taxi and asked to go to the courthouse. During the ride, the driver asked if I am a lawyer. I answered affirmatively and he explained to me how I should handle funds entrusted to me by clients during an uncertain economic climate. I was impressed. The finance minister and the Bank of Israel governor could take a lesson from this driver on economic policies, both fiscal and monetary. By the end of the ride, I understood why Israel has a hard time implementing financial plans. When taxi drivers are as knowledgeable about the economy as ministers and Knesset members, it is difficult to predict how the public will behave and respond to economic programs.

On Thursday, I took a cab from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. This time I heard the driver’s amazing life story. The long drive included a major traffic jam just outside of Jerusalem, so the driver had time to really expound the story and leave out no detail.

The driver’s father was a non-Jewish Australian officer serving in Her Majesty’s Forces. Following his officers’ training, he took part in the World War II invasion of Normandy and received a military decoration for his bravery. As the fighting continued, his unit reached Paris. Many of his comrades died on French beaches.

At the end of the war, his unit was deployed to the Land of Israel in the framework of the 1922 League of Nations’ British Mandate for Palestine (from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean). The unit’s main role was to deal with illegal Jewish immigration to Israel toward the end of the Mandate period, when the gates to the land were closed, despite the horrors of the Holocaust.

Many British officers spent their leisure time at a small coffee shop in Herzliya with a European atmosphere. The cafe featured an orchestra playing dance music. The cafe’s pianist was a senior intelligence officer in the Irgun, one of the pre-state paramilitary groups, and many of the waiters were associated with underground as well. As the beer and wine flowed, out flowed operational secrets of the Mandate army as well. This information allowed Zionists to breach the blockade of Israel’s shores and attack Mandate strongholds and military camps.

The driver’s mother, whose parents emigrated from England before World War II, was a waitress at the Herzliya cafe. While working there, she fell in love with the impressive Australian officer. Within a short time, they decided to marry. Her family and friends did not accept her marriage to a non-Jew who was also a Mandate officer, so the couple had no choice but to go back to Australia.

A few years later, they returned to Israel to live on a kibbutz where the brotherhood of nations was more important than Jewish identity. That kibbutz is where the driver was born. His father became a taxi driver, who never agreed to convert to Judaism and maintained close connections with his family in Australia.

My driver served as a paratroop officer and took part in the Six-Day War and the liberation of Jerusalem. His father was very proud of him, especially when they visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre together. My driver married a girl from the kibbutz and they had three children.

The driver described his mixed feelings concerning the fact that his eldest son had become religiously observant and is today a Chabad emissary in Australia. The son has no connection to his family in Australia, but instead works to bring young Jews closer to Judaism and the world of Torah.
It is interesting how things come full circle in this world.

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=1473

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