Page 3 - C.A.L.L. #36 - Summer 2013

Earlier this year, we received the sad news of the passing of Josef Ben-Eliezer
from the Maple Ridge Bruderhof in the USA. Josef was an inspirational figure
for all those who knew him. He had a deep love for Israel and all those who work

for peace here. We reprint a review of his autobiography which appeared
previously in C.A.L.L. (his book can be purchased from
http://www.plough.com/he/ebooks/m/my-search), followed by an article written
by his son, Efraim, reflecting on their last father and son trip to Israel.

Book Review: My Search by Joseph Ben-Eliezer

No person's life is a simple story. The embracing pacifism, secularism and
many stories in this autobiographical Communism along the way. Traveling

memoir, however, paint a picture of a back and forth between Israel and
life with far more twists and turns than Europe, he is unable to find community
most. This short, simple, well-written or peace of mind no matter where he
book is the story of the first 30 years goes. In the end he rejects secularism
of Joseph Ben-Eliezer's life, from his and joins the Bruderhof.

birth in Germany to his decision to join
the Bruderhof community. Those looking for a history of orphans
in the Holocaust or of the Bruderhof
That, of course, is not half the story. will not find it here. In fact that is one

Even though it covers only the first of the book's virtues, constantly pulling
part of the author's life, Ben-Eliezer is you along with Joseph on his journeys
involved in many important historical without commentary or long-winded
events, both as a child and as a young descriptions. It takes only an hour or
adult seeking meaning. The bulk of the two to read the whole thing. Ben-
book describes his experiences as a Eliezer's memoir will probably not give

Jewish boy exiled to Siberia, you much insight on how a person comes
Uzbekistan and Iran during the to live a certain way or on the
Holocaust. This section alone is a individual's role in history. There is a
fascinating account of the difficulties sense that the author himself doesn't

faced by Polish Jewry at the time, and know why he searches, what he is
the harrowing stories of their escapes looking for, or how he finds an answer in
from the Nazis. Arriving in Palestine as the end. Nonetheless his story makes
a teenager, Ben-Eliezer then begins his for absorbing reading, hard to put down
search for a life of values and and harder to forget.
togetherness. He becomes a farmer,

soldier, laborer and revolutionary, Robin Merkel, Kibbutz Mishol

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