15/6/98

The Iron Lady of peace

  It's a rule in Israeli journalism: when you get a letter from an old Russian immigrant lady urging world peace, don't bother reading it. Just put it in the recycling bin along with all the other letters from old Russian immigrant ladies urging world peace.
   Having followed the rule, it goes without saying you should not call the lady for more details. Or set up an interview.
   Couldn't help myself. I don't like rules. But more than that, this old Russian etc. lives in Beersheba and, like everyone else, I never miss a chance to visit Beersheba.
   Well anyway, I hope I've encouraged you to stay with this. (You may want to continue a bit more just to see if I'm kidding. Oddly enough, I'm not.)
   Mira Efrus founded a peace club in the Ukrainian iron mining city of Kriviy Rig in 1985. A few short years later, world peace occurred when the Iron Curtain melted. It may be a coincidence, maybe not.
   “Of course the club helped; it got people together. Many people came to visit us, of many nationalities.”
   Mira, a 70-year-old with boundless enthusiasm for her crusade, has wanted to create Israel's first peace club since she arrived in December 1996. She has been held back by her arch enemy, war.
   “The Ministry of Education welcomed the idea, but I have not been able to. I have to take care of my husband, Yuli.” Yuli lost a leg in World War II. He has been on crutches ever since. That is not Mira's only legacy of conflict.
   Her father, a journalist, was arrested in 1937 together with his newspaper's entire editorial board. Two years later he was released, “rehabilitated,” and in 1941 he ”volunteered” to join the army. Put on the front, he was killed almost instantly.
   Her grandmother, grandfather and uncle were buried alive at Babi Yar.
   Her grandson is currently in the IDF, stationed in Gaza.
   Mira thought she could help change hate to love. The Soviet regime benignly tolerated her club “because we were all Communist Party members, we were patriots. The KGB was always following me, but they trusted me.”
   She did manage to tweak the Russian bear's nose on one memorable occasion, in 1990. Shortly after Greenpeace guests to her club were refused permission to bring their bicycles into the Soviet Union, she was invited to an international diplomacy conference at the Diplomatic Academy in Moscow. Speaking in front of 200 people, she criticized her government, obliquely, with the words: “Where does Europe end?” She's still proud of that.
   Mira, armed with an ability to speak English, rather ploddingly - she was an English teacher at Mining Transport Technical High School, and the only English-speaking guide in her city of a million people - was the perfect attache for foreign guests.
   “We had peace-making contacts with 22 countries. Many foreign visitors came to our club meetings. We once had the ambassador of Angola. Americans came. You know, we were taught to see Americans as evil, and at first we were surprised to see them smiling and friendly; they thought we would be like bears. Propaganda!”
   Janet Coester was one of their most prominent friends. A leading American peacenik who has walked almost around the world spreading her message, Coester wrote Mira that “[Your club] is one of the best, if not the best, hearth of citizen's diplomacy in the world.”
   Another big-name supporter was Dick Sherwood. He flew the recon flight over Hiroshima two days after the bombing, and thereafter devoted his life to antiwar activities.
   After the Madrid Conference, the Kriviy Rig peace club brought together Jews from London and New York with Palestinians studying in town.
   So Mira brought peace to the world at large. But there were still holdouts of enmity. So Mira came here.
   Don't think she doesn't have a solution to our problems.
   “We have to talk. Arabs and Jews. They will see that youngsters are not guilty. Only politicians are warmongers. Ordinary people are born peaceful. We just have to talk. Understand each other.”
   Now, why didn't anyone ever think of that before?
   Mira sighs and pats her chest. “No grandmother wants war.”
   Seeing her grandson Timur in a military environment - he's been in the army for more than two years - distresses Mira, but at the same time it gives her hope.
   “Timur is a soldier, but he is doing work of peace. It is most encouraging: He is patrolling in Gaza together with Palestinians. They are talking together, and that shows me that peace is possible.”
   Yes, Mira, they may be talking, but what are they saying?