The New Ararat

This memoir is a personal history of landing on the shore of British mandate Palestine in 1936 after escaping Nazi Germany, witnessing the development of Tel-Aviv as a child and a young adult during a period of dramatic events: Arab riots; the Second World War; the rise of Jewish terrorist groups and resistance to the mandate; existential struggle of the fledgling Yishuv for survival during the waning years of the British mandate, and the birth of the State of Israel. This was also a period of breathtaking cultural, civic, and industrial development brought about by the influx of refugees from Central Europe. As a soldier during the 1948 War of Independence I participated in the change from a defensive force to a fighting force and an army. Viewed through the prism of time, my life refracts into episodes like a beam of light refracts into a spectrum of colors. Also as in a spectrum, each episode has its own dark lines. My life wasn't the only thing that I saw through this prism. As I was growing up, Tel-Aviv was growing up with me; as I evolved, so did its pluralistic society. It encompassed a wide spectrum of the Diaspora; its descendants, I among them, were already part of a new society in the making. The cultural dominance of the fifth Aliyah, of which I was part, was being diluted in the 1940s and 1950s by refugees from Asian and African countries arriving in growing numbers. I have therefore written this narrative in a broader historical, political and social setting, capturing events through the eyes of the child and adolescent, and looking back at them with the eyes of the man.
About the Author: I arrived with my family on the shores of Palestine during the Arab riots of 1936 as a refugee from Nazi Germany. I am a veteran of the Israel War of Independence, for which I was awarded the Independence ribbon. In my home town Tel-Aviv I studied fine art and graphic design in my youth at the Urwand Studio, and have worked as an illustrator and commercial artist in both Israel and the U.S. As a member of that studio I worked on the planning and preparation of graphic materials for the 25th Anniversary Exhibition of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. I also designed and executed exhibitions in Tel-Aviv and produced book illustrations, including children books. Concurrent with artistic activities I studied mathematics at The Hebrew University, coming to the United States in 1955 to pursue my graduate education; I studied at Columbia University the University of Maryland, from which I earned a Ph.D. in mathematics. My scientific work includes six books on mathematics published by Harper and Row, Academic Press, and Dover, and articles published in mathematics and neural network journals.