Saturday, December 17, 2005
Foreword - March, 2005
Foreword - March, 2005
As might be expected, Mendl Chaimowicz is not the "known" name of the writer of this publication although in a different set of circumstances it very well could have been.
Born to a father from Poland who survived the Holocaust and a mother from Switzerland, Mendl chose to use the first name of his grandfather and the given family name of his father. Had he grown up in the shtetl (town) of his father, Mendl Chaimowicz may very well have been the name he would have been known by.
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Mendl grew up in very much a working class environment, with both parents working. He was born in Ashfield, an inner western suburb of Sydney, NSW but grew up in Bondi where the family moved a year after he was born.
Primary school education was at the newly established Jewish Day School. From there he went to a local state high school (his parents simply could not afford the fees the Jewish day school were asking).
At this state school, Mendl's reasonably good levels saw him start off in the higher grade classes but within a year he was down to the lowest level - he had been "introduced" to anti-Semitism and had started to skip classes.
Early in his second year at the state school, having been "caught out" at wagging school, Mendl found himself undergoing all sorts of tests and assessments by the school counsellor to ascertain why his levels had dropped. The tests only confirmed Mendl's high academic aptitude, but he never spoke about the bashings and "stand-over" tactics he underwent on an almost daily basis at the hands of a group of non-Jewish students.
By the middle of his second year at the state school, Mendl had managed to get himself back into the middle level classes but his parents, realising he was not going to fulfil his academic potential where he was, decided for him to return to the Jewish day school (and to take on a fee payment schedule which they only completed after he finished high school).
The condition set down by the Jewish school on accepting Mendl back was that he would have to repeat the second year in order for him to reach the same level that the school had for its students. Repeating would also allow him to catch up on subjects he had fallen behind in whilst at the public school.
By the fourth year, Mendl had improved his levels sufficiently enough to be awarded a Commonwealth Bursary which certainly came in handy for his parents as it offset some of the school fees for his last two years at high school.
Mendl often tells of his best years being whilst at school. He was a popular student amongst both the staff and fellow students and was elected school captain in his final year - his matriculation year.
Vindication of his going back to the Jewish day school and repeating a year, if necessary, came in his being awarded a Commonwealth Scholarship to university.
Mendl continued his studies at the University of NSW. Despite scoring grades high enough to get him into Law, Mendl elected to do an Arts course concentrating on History and Sociology which in his own words "would give me the chance to decide on what I really want to do".
After two years at Uni, Mendl took a year off (1974) - he had decided to go to Israel to volunteer to work on a kibbutz. Soon after making this decision, he saw an advertisement in a local newspaper calling for applicants to work in the American Summer Camp programme so he applied.
To get enough money for his year off, the year in which he would turn 21, Mendl took on a full time job at Kentucky Fried chicken in Double Bay.
As someone who had been very heavily involved in youth groups in his local community (Mendl had been very active within the youth section of the B'nai B'rith organisation where he had been National chairman for two years) he saw this as an opportunity to further his interests in community work. His application was successful and he was chosen to work in Omaha, Nebraska with the local Jewish Community Summer Camp programme.
Having completed the mandatory commitment of working with two camps as a hut leader, he was asked to extend his stay to work with a camp for blind (non-Jewish) children that the local Jewish community sponsored each year - an experience that helped him decide that his future lay in working either within his own local Jewish community or in the area of social welfare.
At the end of his time in Omaha, Mendl travelled with some other camp leaders to Montreal and New York before visiting family in London. In England, he was able to learn a bit more about his father's family and the time his father spent in various Nazi concentration camps.
From England he went to Israel where he spent a number of months as a volunteer on Kibbutz Rosh Hanikra located on the far north coast of Israel on the border with Lebanon. He was on the kibbutz at the time of the terrorist attack that took place only a couple of hundred meters from where he and his fellow volunteers were sleeping.
On returning to Australia, Mendl completed his Bachelor of Arts (1975) with distinctions/ honours in Sociology and History and then went on to do a Diploma in Education (1976) - "to make the BA worth something" and to allow him to teach if this indeed was the direction he would take.
Whilst doing his practical teaching, he made the decision "not to teach" - he felt the way the education system was set up was wrong and that students were being "forced" to learn rather than "wanting" to learn and Mendl did not feel comfortable with this.
Having become more and more involved in his local community and having been selected to take a student tour to Israel, Mendl felt more deeply that his future lay in community work either locally or in Israel. With this realisation, he enrolled in a Masters course in Social Work in Melbourne. He believed this course would allow him to work in the local community be it in Australia or Israel.
Shortly after moving to Melbourne in 1977 and starting the Social Work course, he found himself more involved in community affairs and within a short time was elected vice-President of the national Jewish student body.
This new position saw Mendl devoting more time to the "job" than to his studies and after returning from an international conference in Washington and following a discussion with the Dean of the faculty of Social Work (who was also Jewish), Mendl made the decision to leave the course and took on a full-time job with the local community - he had already made the decision that within a year or two he would move to Israel.
In December, 1977, Mendl met Janet (the circumstances are included in this journal) and shortly after they were engaged. In August, 1978 they were married and they moved to Israel in May, 1979.
As might be expected, Mendl Chaimowicz is not the "known" name of the writer of this publication although in a different set of circumstances it very well could have been.
Born to a father from Poland who survived the Holocaust and a mother from Switzerland, Mendl chose to use the first name of his grandfather and the given family name of his father. Had he grown up in the shtetl (town) of his father, Mendl Chaimowicz may very well have been the name he would have been known by.
================================================================
Mendl grew up in very much a working class environment, with both parents working. He was born in Ashfield, an inner western suburb of Sydney, NSW but grew up in Bondi where the family moved a year after he was born.
Primary school education was at the newly established Jewish Day School. From there he went to a local state high school (his parents simply could not afford the fees the Jewish day school were asking).
At this state school, Mendl's reasonably good levels saw him start off in the higher grade classes but within a year he was down to the lowest level - he had been "introduced" to anti-Semitism and had started to skip classes.
Early in his second year at the state school, having been "caught out" at wagging school, Mendl found himself undergoing all sorts of tests and assessments by the school counsellor to ascertain why his levels had dropped. The tests only confirmed Mendl's high academic aptitude, but he never spoke about the bashings and "stand-over" tactics he underwent on an almost daily basis at the hands of a group of non-Jewish students.
By the middle of his second year at the state school, Mendl had managed to get himself back into the middle level classes but his parents, realising he was not going to fulfil his academic potential where he was, decided for him to return to the Jewish day school (and to take on a fee payment schedule which they only completed after he finished high school).
The condition set down by the Jewish school on accepting Mendl back was that he would have to repeat the second year in order for him to reach the same level that the school had for its students. Repeating would also allow him to catch up on subjects he had fallen behind in whilst at the public school.
By the fourth year, Mendl had improved his levels sufficiently enough to be awarded a Commonwealth Bursary which certainly came in handy for his parents as it offset some of the school fees for his last two years at high school.
Mendl often tells of his best years being whilst at school. He was a popular student amongst both the staff and fellow students and was elected school captain in his final year - his matriculation year.
Vindication of his going back to the Jewish day school and repeating a year, if necessary, came in his being awarded a Commonwealth Scholarship to university.
Mendl continued his studies at the University of NSW. Despite scoring grades high enough to get him into Law, Mendl elected to do an Arts course concentrating on History and Sociology which in his own words "would give me the chance to decide on what I really want to do".
After two years at Uni, Mendl took a year off (1974) - he had decided to go to Israel to volunteer to work on a kibbutz. Soon after making this decision, he saw an advertisement in a local newspaper calling for applicants to work in the American Summer Camp programme so he applied.
To get enough money for his year off, the year in which he would turn 21, Mendl took on a full time job at Kentucky Fried chicken in Double Bay.
As someone who had been very heavily involved in youth groups in his local community (Mendl had been very active within the youth section of the B'nai B'rith organisation where he had been National chairman for two years) he saw this as an opportunity to further his interests in community work. His application was successful and he was chosen to work in Omaha, Nebraska with the local Jewish Community Summer Camp programme.
Having completed the mandatory commitment of working with two camps as a hut leader, he was asked to extend his stay to work with a camp for blind (non-Jewish) children that the local Jewish community sponsored each year - an experience that helped him decide that his future lay in working either within his own local Jewish community or in the area of social welfare.
At the end of his time in Omaha, Mendl travelled with some other camp leaders to Montreal and New York before visiting family in London. In England, he was able to learn a bit more about his father's family and the time his father spent in various Nazi concentration camps.
From England he went to Israel where he spent a number of months as a volunteer on Kibbutz Rosh Hanikra located on the far north coast of Israel on the border with Lebanon. He was on the kibbutz at the time of the terrorist attack that took place only a couple of hundred meters from where he and his fellow volunteers were sleeping.
On returning to Australia, Mendl completed his Bachelor of Arts (1975) with distinctions/ honours in Sociology and History and then went on to do a Diploma in Education (1976) - "to make the BA worth something" and to allow him to teach if this indeed was the direction he would take.
Whilst doing his practical teaching, he made the decision "not to teach" - he felt the way the education system was set up was wrong and that students were being "forced" to learn rather than "wanting" to learn and Mendl did not feel comfortable with this.
Having become more and more involved in his local community and having been selected to take a student tour to Israel, Mendl felt more deeply that his future lay in community work either locally or in Israel. With this realisation, he enrolled in a Masters course in Social Work in Melbourne. He believed this course would allow him to work in the local community be it in Australia or Israel.
Shortly after moving to Melbourne in 1977 and starting the Social Work course, he found himself more involved in community affairs and within a short time was elected vice-President of the national Jewish student body.
This new position saw Mendl devoting more time to the "job" than to his studies and after returning from an international conference in Washington and following a discussion with the Dean of the faculty of Social Work (who was also Jewish), Mendl made the decision to leave the course and took on a full-time job with the local community - he had already made the decision that within a year or two he would move to Israel.
In December, 1977, Mendl met Janet (the circumstances are included in this journal) and shortly after they were engaged. In August, 1978 they were married and they moved to Israel in May, 1979.
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The above in part goes some way to background Mendl's past and helps to put in perspective what you, the reader, will find in the pages to come.
At my time of writing, Mendl still suffers on an almost daily basis from not being with his children. He goes through a lot of self-imposed "guilt trips" on having not been around whilst his children were growing up and during their formative years. Mendl also anguishes over the standards they have been imbued with which he feels are not those that he would have chosen.
His greatest concern and cause for distress is the almost total lack of communication or care that his children have had for his own parents - their grand-parents, who still live in Sydney.
Presently, Mendl is undergoing his own health concerns - a number of years ago he was diagnosed with Graves Disease and thyroid gland burnt out and was put on thyroid replacement medication for the rest of his life. Soon after this he found out he had a cholesterol problem and was put on medication for this.
On top of this, a routine endoscopy five years ago found a severe ulcer in the stomach that meant more medication and last year he found out he was diabetic.
A further problem that now needs immediate attention relates to an incident Mendl never talks about - when he was inappropriately "fondled" and "touched" by a teacher in primary school. Suffice to say he often has problems sitting and being a courier driving around all day does not help.
Oh how Mendl would have liked to have had his children around him during some of the difficult personal times he has had in recent years.
Despite all this, Mendl is now very happily remarried to someone who helped him get through his early years of depression following his separation/divorce.
