Letters and articles by Manuela
8.3.98
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
Like many parents before us, today we received a letter of condolences
in which you write, among other things:
"We won't forget our duty to Jonathan for the sake of all the dear
boys without whom we wouldn't have been able to exist here. We won't
let go until we achieve security and peace for our land and our
country."
These are beautiful words, but what stands behind them? Yoni grew up
in a family that doesn't go well with cliches. A family in which the
father is a religious nationalist and the mother is secular, the
father is a "sabra" and the mother is an immigrant from Italy, the
right and the left.
They say that love brings about unity, but so do other things, such as
respect, lots of thinking and choice. Unity requires an effort, it's
not always easy, but in this family the children grew up to be
creative, artistic and free as thought itself.
You write to us that we've paid a high and painful price, that we_ve
suffered a terrible and painful loss, and you are indeed right, we
have paid a price, but we demand a compensation.
You promised us not to forget your duty to Jonathan. I look at you,
Benjamin Netanyahu, with the eyes that have opened up in my heart, and
at you too, Ehud Barak.
Do you really know what's your duty to Yoni, to his friends, to all of
us? Do you really intend not only not to "forget" you duty, but also
to act?
Your duty, the duty of all our leaders, is to think, to be creative,
to look for every possible way and to act, to give us hope.
Mr. Prime Minister,
I'm sending you Yoni's picture.
Look him in the eye.
Look him in the eye without turning away.
I demand answers.
Manuela and Avraham Dviri,
Eyal, Michal, Sharon and Miri, Yoni's girlfriend.
14.3.98
Mr. Prime Minister,
Two weeks have passed since Yoni was killed.
A week has passed since we sent you our letter. We are still waiting
for an answer.
Mr. Prime Minister, I wanted to tell you how I've spent this past
week.
Lots of friends continue to come to our house even though we've gotten
up from the "shiv'a." They don't quite know how to behave with us. The
conversations are somewhat forced and end with nothing. My husband has
gone back to work and so have the children, but I still haven't found
the strength and the courage to go back. I get up in the morning, and
the hardest job is to get in touch with reality anew, to wake up again
to life after the night's break.
How have you spent this past week, Mr. Prime Minister? What have you
done regarding your duty to Yoni, to his friends and to all of us?
What about the solutions?
We heard about your intention to visit the families of the Palestinian
workers. It's an excellent idea. We have no security problem.
How do you fall asleep at night, Mr. Prime Minister?
How do you sleep at night, Mr. Prime Minister?
Mr. Prime Minister,
Once again, I'm sending you Yoni's picture, this time it shows him as
a small baby, the age of Yair and Avner. Look him in the eye, and look
me in the eye, without turning away.
I demand answers.
Manuela and Avraham Dviri,
Eyal, Michal, Sharon and Miri, Yoni's girlfriend.
Prime Minister
March 10, 1998
reference: li-103; 17
To: Mrs. Manuela Dviri
Manuela, shalom,
I read your letter, and it's not easy for me to respond.
I am familiar with the feeling and the pain experienced by you,
Avraham, Eyal, Michal, Sharon and Miri. There is a hidden thread that
connects bereaved families. And I know that even if life goes back to
routine, there's no remedy for your wound.
I also understand your questions. Like yourself, I frequently ask what
is the point of young people dying, and why we've been destined to
bury our sons and cry again and again over life that has been cut in
its prime. I also repeatedly ask "what is the compensation"?
I could decide to put an end to the spilling of our children's blood
in Lebanon via an immediate and unilateral withdrawal. However,
ignoring the consequences of such a move would be an unforgivably
irresponsible act.
I cannot endanger the lives of hundreds of citizens that may get hurt
if we withdraw to our border without security arrangements, and I
certainly cannot ignore the consequences for the country's future and
the possibility that such a withdrawal may lead to war.
There are no easy decisions. Both in my office and in the government,
we invest all our energy and time in finding a solution that will lead
to a withdrawal of our soldiers from Lebanon at a minimal risk. Until
we succeed in doing that, we, the political echelons, give the Israel
Defense Forces full backing while maximally ensuring the security and
well-being of our soldiers.
Our duty, I agree with you, is to think, to be creative. We will not
leave the subject of Lebanon alone until we find a solution. In order
to fulfill this duty, the government has recently undertaken several
initiatives on Lebanon that hadn't been taken up in years. It's too
early to say whether they'll bear fruit. One thing is clear: we do not
remain unconcerned. But neither is our duty to abandon the future at
the expense of a temporary relief in the present.
Yoni, like thousands of others, fell while fulfilling his duty of
defending the state. These are cold words, perhaps even a cliche. But
the fact is that 20 thousand people have sacrificed their lives to
defend the State of Israel. The compensation for their lives is the
establishment of the state and its survival, and this is no cliche.
When I think about them, when I see these thousands of people, these
troops, in my mind's eye, I'm shocked to the depth of my heart. But
I'm proud of them, proud that we have sons like Yoni, and proud that
we have families like yours, who reveal courage and lucidity even in
the most difficult moments and who want to act, to do something in
order to spare others their suffering and pain.
I'm convinced that our way is correct. In the past four years we saw
that it's easy to inspire hopes by agreements and ceremonies, but very
difficult to realize them. We will bring about true peace not via an
addiction to illusions and false hopes, but via caution, reasoning,
resolve and wisdom.
And when that happy day comes - and come it will - we'll salute to
Yoni and his friends. And then we'll tell the bereaved families: it is
thanks to our dear ones who fell that we've achieved peace.
Greetings,
Benjamin Netanyahu
25.3.98
Mr. Prime Minister,
We received your long and well-argumented letter. I have chosen to
relate mainly to one aspect - your promise to do everything creatively
in order to get out of Lebanon.
I also promise to do everything creatively so that you don't forget
your promise!
In the past month, there has been intensive political activity with
respect to Lebanon, the Palestinians and Syria. I want you to know
that I'm not taking my eyes off you, and that I ask that this be
genuine activity.
We believe that you can bring about peace if you choose the difficult
way, which demands courage, resolve, creativity and leadership.
Complicated problems require intelligent, complex solutions making use
of the best of minds.
As a bereaved mother, I don't only want to look back onto the pain and
the past - I want to look forward, I want you to turn hope into
reality, so that the baby about to be born to our daughter Michal can
grow up in a more quiet, undisturbed country that is at peace with its
neighbors.
Mr. Prime Minister!
Remember Begin and Sadat. They rose above themselves in a dramatic
gesture that was larger than life. At a personal risk to themselves,
they brought about the first peace treaty and in doing so erased the
differences between the left and the right and the disagreements
between the people of two countries.
Our region, which is brimming with strife, and our era, which is
brimming with communications, require such grand gestures.
Mr. Prime Minister!
I believe that you too can do it!
Manuela Dviri
WE, THE PILLAR OF FIRE
The time has come for Israel's minority of the bereaved
to get organized and speak up, with power and authority
by Manuela Dviri
(translated from "Ma'ariv," September 29, 1998)
There is a photo of a dead boy in the newspaper. A boy of twenty,
handsome. This boy came out of my womb.
I'm the father who mumbles "kadish" by the grave. I returned to work
after the "shiv'a" [mourning week] but haven't accomplished much
since.
We are the father and the mother moving like shadows in the street,
you glance at us stealthily and awkwardly keep your distance.
I'm a serial number in the archives of the Ministry of Defense. I'm
the one who doesn't always understand what the clerks are telling her
and grows even more confused when they become short-tempered. I'm the
one who leaves messages on the answering machines of the officials
from the Defense Ministry's Rehabilitation, Welfare and Employment
Departments, after being told that I'm gradually becoming a nuisance,
that I'm not the only one, and that there are thousands like myself.
I'm the one who doesn't get a seat at the Remembrance Day ceremony
because their excellencies the dignitaries and their wives have taken
up all the front seats.
I'm the one whose son, by dying, bequeathed upon her to live in
refuse.
We, the bereaved family, are the most forgotten and neglected
community in the country. Our rating is growing constantly and
continuously, from one week to the next, from one war to another. And
yet, any group of workers with a trade union has greater power than
us.
Every minority in Israel has its own representatives: the new
immigrants, the totally secular, the national religious, the
ultra-orthodox, the left and the right and those in between. The
minority of the bereaved has no mouth, no teeth and no representation.
In a country with a limited supply of grace and compassion, an
unrepresented minority is as good as dead. The truth is, we do receive
pity in commercial quantities, but the ruling establishment knows all
too well that the bereaved families have no troops, and therefore we
can be fed the crumbs of the national cake.
Watch and see: a country that has been characterized and permanently
accompanied by bereavement since its establishment has no deputy
defense minister for the affairs of bereaved families, and the
handling of these affairs has been passed over to a committee of
officials who have made up their minds that they're not going to be
the ones to get the short end of the stick in the tough negotiations
with the bereaved, and that it's the lot of the bereaved to live in a
strict regime of forms, approvals and receipts, until they breathe
their last.
The days of an average bereaved family are filled with dozens of small
humiliations and minor miseries - all the evil spirits come visit them
every night, but the state, in its infinite grace, has granted us in
our bill of rights only half the cost of a "security" door. What
proportion of their income must the state's magnates give up so that
the state grant us a full door? The door is but one of a thousand
metaphors for the bereaved family's seal of wretchedness.
No more. These very days I'm establishing a movement called The Pillar
of Fire, which will speak for the bereaved family, provide it with
support and bring it from the neglected margins to the center of the
national agenda. I call upon my brothers and sisters, my blood
relatives, to cease fruitless, hidden lamentations and revolutionize
the way the country and its institutions treat the bereaved.
What am I asking for? Only that the misery of those doomed to live in
the shadow of death be a tiny bit more tolerable. We'll also strive to
put an end to the mediocrity and lack of creativity characterizing the
political life of the right and left - as in the endless war in
Lebanon - which leads to the silent agreement that we'll always live
in a state of war and that 50 war dead a year is a reasonable price
for enjoying cheap weekend deals in Turkey. I call upon the general
public, the entire people of Israel: don't stand by, don't remain idle
vis-a-vis those whose homes have been penetrated by death. You are not
responsible for us, you haven't signed any promissory note for us, but
look into your hearts and come towards us. Let's lift this burden
together.
My name is Manuela Dviri. Once I was a person like any other. The dead
boy in the photo was a son of my old age. He is also a son of yours.
A RESPONSE LETTER TO URI ELITZUR
by Manuela Dviri
(Translated from Ma'ariv, August 28, 1998*)
We, the bereaved family, keep growing from day to day in quiet
despair. Our lives appear to continue in an apparently normal manner,
but we are crippled forever, wrecked, weeping in light and in
darkness, our legs wooden and our eyes gorged.
We recognize one another immediately, we have a unique mourning
language, a low vulnerability threshold, identifying marks of people
who are both dead and alive, and a heartbreaking look in the eyes. The
public, which has come to terms with the continuous blood-letting, 50
victims in a good year, participates in our grief, noblesse oblige,
and sweeps us into a dark corner. We are such kill-joys and party
poopers. Should I hear one more time the moldy idiotic phrase that has
become a must in the political jargon, "We extend our condolences to
the bereaved families and wish a speedy recovery to the wounded," I
will cry aloud in anguish of heart.
We, the sons of the bereaved family, rejected, neglected and forgotten
in the national attic, are of no interest to anyone between one
Remembrance Day and the next. Please do not disturb the repose of the
neighbors. Of all the notables who paid us a visit during the shiv'a
mourning week, only a handful, a scarce few, bothered to give us a
call afterwards. Many are afraid to come near us, either because
sadness is not good for your health or because we, who have buried a
son, husband, father or brother, repel them. Our burden is too heavy
for them to carry, we are cursed in their eyes. They fear the curse
may be contagious.
This is a most surprising attitude in a country where every mother who
sends her son to the army is walking around with a ticking time-bomb.
We know only too well: the bereavement burst into our life suddenly,
in the midst of a day like any other. A moment earlier we were a
regular Israeli family. The following day, a father wailing the
kaddish mourning prayer over the son of his old age, and our world was
shattered forever.
No more of all this. For too long, we, members of the bereaved
community, have been sitting in a remote corner, listening to the
bureaucrats and politicians tell us what's good for us. We've been
obedient for too long. We've remained on the margins of the convoy for
too long. If the society wants our sacrifice but not us, if it ignores
and alienates us, we'll take care of one another. If the indifferent
and hedonist Israel doesn't hear the hushed crying of the bereaved,
we'll learn to scream. Our legs may be wooden, but given no choice,
we'll learn to stand upon them.
I call upon my brothers and sisters, a huge and vast crowd -
generations of military tombstones from the War of Independence until
now - to join me. We won't be able to heal the open wound in our
flesh, but we'll alleviate the despair somewhat. The suffering will be
slightly more tolerable. I also call upon you -- the entire people of
Israel - men and women who have a soul and whose hearts are not
sealed, to help us. You are flesh of our flesh. It is only by chance
that you are not one of us.
Editor's note: Manuela Dviri's son, Yoni Dviri, was killed in Lebanon
on February 27, 1998.
*Translator's note: Uri Elitzur is a Prime Minister's adviser who
recently questioned the right of a bereaved father to speak up in
public.
Friends talk about a bereaved mother [Yediot Aharonot 12 July 1998 ]
Per amore di Yoni
Manuela Dviri - manuela@interpage.co.il
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