Beginning at sundown on Wednesday, April 18, Jews around the world will celebrate Israel’s 70th anniversary. This corresponds with the fifth day of the month of Iyar, the Hebrew date of the formal establishment of the State of Israel, which occurred on May 14, 1948.
Kansas City is one of those Jewish communities that will celebrate Yom HaAtzmaut, and when the festivities begin that night at the Jewish Community Campus, celebrants will include many of the 300 Israelis who live in this area. They came here for many different reasons, and they continue to live here for a variety of other reasons. Those we spoke with had two things in common: They share a deep love for the Jewish state and do their best promote it to American Jews in their own ways.
Love is the reason Sam Nachum came to Kansas City in 1978, when he was 21. He met the woman who would become his wife while she was in Israel as a participant of the Kansas City Israel Pilgrimage. He was drafted that summer and the couple grew their friendship through letters written to each other while he was in the military.
“When I came here I had $12.50 in my pocket and I didn’t have a ticket to go back,” said Nachum, who journeyed here the day after he finished his Army service.
In 1995, after convalescing for a year following delicate neck surgery, Nachum and his wife, Dana, opened Jerusalem Stone. They import natural stone from Israel for distribution and sale in the United States (jerusalemstoneusa.com).
Nachum is the only member of his family, which includes 66 first cousins, who lives outside of Israel.
“I do love Israel and I visit there at least once a year if I can,” said Nachum, who is a dual citizen of both Israel and the United States.
“I’ve been here 40 years and I feel like I’ve done a lot of different things that I may not have been able to do if I was there. You do the best with what you can where you are at,” he added, noting that he often interacts with more non-Jews than Jews. One of the ways he’s done that is through his work with the sister cities program here representing Ramle and his work with Kansas City, Missouri’s Ethnic Enrichment Festival on behalf of Israel.
Zvia Zadock, who moved here 27 years ago, also promotes Israel through her business, ZVU Artisan Jewelry. Based in Leawood, it sells handmade Israeli jewelry in sterling silver, gold and semiprecious stones (https://www.zvuartisanjewelry.com/). The business has given her the opportunity to travel all over the country to show off some of Israel’s beautiful jewelry art.
Zadock came to Kansas City to visit her sister, who was living in here for a year. “It was a long visit,” she quipped.
Zadock married an American and their two children are high school students, a son almost 18 who is a senior and a daughter almost 15 who is a sophomore.
When she first moved here, she worked as a nanny and taught religious school at The New Reform Temple. A few years ago, she began utilizing her teaching degree again and sharing her knowledge of Judaism and Israel with students, first on a substitute and then a part-time basis at Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy and as a full-time Jewish studies teacher for fourth and/or fifth-graders since 2016.
Efi Kamara came to Kansas City 16 years ago, two months after 9/11 in 2001, as an employee of an Israeli company, Amdocs. While he left Amdocs a few years later, and the company has left the area all together, he is now retired and shares his love of Israel with the local community by working on a variety of committees and heading up the newly formed KCLink, an organization that promotes Israeli innovations and had its first exhibit in February at the Kansas State Capitol in Topeka.
“Our mission is to do good for the connection between Kansas and Israel and the Jewish community,” explained Kamara. “I really enjoy being a part of it. Israel is a super power in terms of innovation and inventions and technology, medical and agriculture and I’m very proud to be an Israeli.”
Israel at 70
Kamara, Zadock and Nachum are all pleased to have played a part in Israel’s growth over the past 70 years.
“You know King David lived to be 70, so Israel is going to pass his lifetime. Seventy is an amazing accomplishment for this little tiny, vibrant country. I’m proud to be an Israeli. I’m proud of my friends for making this country what it is,” Nachum pointed out.
He said it is fun to see how Israel has grown and changed.
“When you go to Israel you see cranes. The construction is amazing, and the infrastructure is getting great and it’s a very vibrant country. It’s alive. It’s moving all the time. ... It’s developing. It’s not boring. There are always things to do. It’s getting better every time I go there,” Nachum added.
Kamara said he often encourages people to visit Israel, and while it is beautiful, it is also very multifaceted.
“They say Israel is narrow and full of tzuris (trouble). Israel is very complex. It’s very versatile. There are conflicts about religion — there are ultra-Orthodox and the secular. There are many, many conflicts in Israel. Of course, our neighbors are big conflicts that we have to deal with in security and defense all the time. All my life security is the most important subject I’ve dealt with, the threat that they are going to annihilate us.”
Kamara boasts about the Israelis who are “achieving huge, huge achievements that affect the entire world.”
“Most of the people came to Israel from all kinds of countries and Israel created an amazing melting pot. For me to see the development of the country, there was nothing there, most of it is desert and things like that. The achievement of the State of Israel is enormous, it’s huge. I’m really proud to see the achievements that Israel has had,” said Kamara, the son of Iraqi immigrants who fled to Israel following pogroms in the country of their birth.
Zadock is concerned that many people are overlooking Israel’s achievements and focusing on its inner troubles.
“When I was little there was a war. I’m not taking it for granted. When you live in Israel you don’t question, you don’t doubt, you live it and you see the power of it. When you go out (of the country) and you see all the criticism and I wonder how do they not understand (Israel)? How do they not see the struggle, the fight, the daily battle against people who have no clue? It’s hard for me to express this to my kids. They don’t get it,” she said.
Celebrations here and there
The Yom HaAtzmaut parties here are nice, these Israelis say, but they will miss being in Israel. The celebration here is just not the same.
“In Israel, when you celebrate, it’s not just you (but) it’s the whole country,” Zadock explained. “It’s on the TV, it’s on the radio (and) the atmosphere in the area is different. Everybody is celebrating. You are part of huge group that are all experiencing it at the same time, so obviously there is more impact being there.
“Being here, there are only moments. We don’t have the preparation ahead of time. We don’t have the picnics, the family gatherings. So, we do the best we can here with what we have, but it’s not the same.”
Nachum has celebrated many Israel Independence Days here in Kansas City.
“I think the community here does a good job putting on an event every year. It’s not the same as what you see in Israel, but you get a good sense of it every year with Yom HaAtzmaut and Yom HaZikaron (Israel’s memorial day).
Kamara said it was very emotional for him to attend his first Yom HaAtzmaut celebration in the Kansas City Jewish community.
“Wow. There are hundreds of Jews coming to celebrate the independence of Israel, so I was really overwhelmed, and I’m still overwhelmed by the fact that the Jewish community celebrates,” he explained. “It’s a big thing he for me to be celebrating Yom HaAtzmaut. I miss Israel but it’s an honor for me to take part in the celebration here.”
Zadock worries whether there will be Yom HaAtzmaut celebrations here in the future.
“Now, I see people that see it as their duty and their honor to be part of it, especially the older generation. You see more of them than the younger ones. My fear is as the older generation disappears, what are we going to be left with?”
The Israeli woman who came here with one suitcase and the intention of returning to Israel doesn’t know whether she will ever go back to Israel to live because there are a lot of variables and people to consider besides herself.
“I don’t see me making any changes over the next 20 years. I don’t know. I’m not planning on anything,” Zadock said. “Will I go visit every chance I have? Absolutely.”
The same is true for Nachum.
“You never know. You just never know,” he said.
It’s a different story for Kamara, whose wife, Orit, teaches Hebrew in the community through Johnson County Community College and private lessons, and has led tours to Israel. The Kamaras plan to return to Israel in a year or two.