It was the summer of 1966. I was 21 years old. Having spent almost a year in Europe mainly in Paris and London writing poetry, it had been my plan to emigrate to Israel and live on a kibbutz. I had gotten as far as Athens when for reasons I still do not understand, I turned around and started my journey back to San Francisco, the city of my birth.

I found a position tutoring African American kids living in East Palo, one of the few economically disadvantaged communities in what would later be called, Silicon Valley. These students were selected to attend the University of California under a special program. Looking back, it is funny that someone who had barely graduated from High School, was given such an opportunity. The College Readiness Program was run out of the College of San Mateo, located just south of San Francisco. A friend attending school there, Rita Vrat, introduced me to the Shlomo Carlebach, the famous and controversial Hassidic Rabbi who composed much of modern Jewish religious songs. I became close to Shlomo and traveled with him. The Kippah (skull cap) I occasionally wear was a gift from him. For a brief time, I, too, was a religious Jew and even considered becoming a Rabbi. After I finished my tutoring job, I moved back to to San Francisco. I lived primarily from the money I had saved several years earlier when I worked as a Merchant Seaman sailing in Asia.

I began to write a novel. It was about four people, three men, and one woman. They had been friends when they were young adults, having met at a kibbutz near the Sea of Galilee in Israel. Aaron, was born in Priluki in Ukraine (where my great grandmother, Bessie, was from); Michael was born and grew up in Detroit, and Tirosh, was born in Israel. The woman, Rachel, was from Morocco and had moved to Israel as a child when the Jews there were expelled from there in 1948. They had met in the Kibbutz in the mid-50s and went their separate ways a few years later. Aaron moved to Paris, Michael returned to the USA, and Tiros stayed in Israel, as did Rachel who eventually moved to London. They stayed in touch with each other by writing letters.

Much of the book would contain letters between the four of them. From reading them, one would get to know them, learn about their lives, and gain insight into their views and feelings. The letters slowly revealed that each of the men had been and were still in love with Rachel. Rachel was in love with each of them as well. It had been the tension that resulted from this that had caused them to leave the Kibbutz in 1956.

They decided to have a reunion in 1966, ten years after they had left and to do this at the very kibbutz where they first met. Once they all arrived, they talked late into the night on the first night of their reunion.

It is important to realize that I was writing the book before the 6-day war, which took place in June of 1967. That war demonstrated the power of Israel. I doubt that I would have finished the book before the war and it would not have made sense to continue it given the book’s premise.

It was a bit after midnight when the Kibbutz was attacked as part of a major war that was started by the Arab countries surrounding Israel. This was not a war that Israel would win (like 1967). There was a great deal of destruction and deaths. While the four survived Israel almost did not.

Aaron had become a physicist. Michael was an attorney. Tirosh was an up and coming chef. Rachael was a fashion designer. They were all successful. It was not to be made clear if any of them had romantic relationships.

This is an intricate part of the book to describe, and I am not sure I could have pulled it off had I finished the book. After the war, the identities of the men slowly blur. It becomes apparent that there is only one man, and that Aaron, Michael, and Tirosh are just different manifestations of that one man. Then, it becomes clear that Rachel never actually existed. I don’t know how I would have made this transformation. It certainly would have been a great challenge.

The backdrop is the continued decline of the state of Israel due to poor decisions by its government and because of the hatred of the Arabs and the indifference of the rest of the world to the plight of the Israeli Jews.

Much of the book dealt with ambiguity especially of identity. The Kabbalah which is the main expression of Jewish mystical and esoteric tradition would have had a string influence on my writing as well as I was deep into studying it at the time. My writing was I was heavily influenced by the the German authors, Herman Hesse and Thomas Mann as well as the French authors Andre Gide, and Albert Camus. I suspect that the Alexandra Quartet by Laurence Durrell and The Magus by John Fowles both which had read during this time, had a major impact on how I viewed my book.

I had drafted about 20% of the book on a portable typewriter which I had carried with me through my journey in Europe. I had only one copy of my draft. One evening, I went with Shlomo to a synagogue near Dolores Park in San Francisco. I had an small bag with me, which contained the draft of my book. Somehow, I forgot that I had brought it. It was only the next day when I discovered that I no longer had the bag and the book. I went back to the Synagogue to try to find it, but it was not there, and no one there had seen it. I was devastated at the loss and could not bring myself to rewrite it. It was like a death. I never tried to write a novel again but I think I am on the verge of it once more.

Soon after, I changed my life completely. I became a scientist but one focused on the study of consciousness

Now, with all that is going on in Israel and once again an existential threat to its existence, I am reminded of the book and its title“ All Israel Lay in Ruins.”