Memoir of a Holocaust survivor, Kibbutznik, lover

The True Adventures of Gidon Lev: Rascal, Holocaust Survivor, Optimist by Julie Gray; ISBN 9781735-249704; 261 pages plus appendices.

By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO – Holocaust survivor Gidon Lev had written a memoir but he needed an editor.  Julie Gray, who had recently made Aliyah to Israel, had a background as a writer for magazines and periodicals.  Even though Lev had children older than Gray, their relationship became more than a work match; the two would travel together, become lovers and lifelong companions, and produce a joint memoir that was  both an  exploration of Lev’s experiences and Gray’s reaction to them.

Instead of relying on Lev’s memory of the Holocaust, the two traveled together in the Czech Republic to Prague, then to Lev’s hometown of Karoly Vary, and to the Terezin Ghetto, from which he had been liberated as a child at the end of World War II.  From the Czech Republic, he and his mother emigrated to relatives in Brooklyn and later Montreal, where Lev continued Zionist youth activities in HaShomer Ha’tzair.  Eventually, he left his mother in Canada to make Aliyah and become a citizen of the recently re-established nation of Israel.

Together, Lev and Gray traced his life as a new immigrant, as a kibbutz worker, and relived his experiences as a young father, whose young American wife abducted their two children and brought them back to America with her.  Lev tracked her down, and tried to get both children back, but was successful in getting only one, feeling guilty that he had to leave behind the other.   He subsequently married another woman,  creating a blended family of her one child, his one child, and their three children together,  which his daughter came to visit from America.  His second wife, Susan, had died shortly before Gray had arrived in Israel, and Lev had been plunged deeply into grief.

Working together on the book restored him to good mental health, and to his normal optimistic view of life. As they traveled together, their relationship grew ever closer.  This reader got the feeling that the more Gray researched Lev’s life, the more enamored she became not only of him, but of the people and places who had made him who he was – a vigorous and vital man whose energy belied the fact that he was an octogenarian.

Lev is not a famous person but his life story, especially as it is told and commented upon by Gray, will engross many readers.

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Donald H.Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World.  He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com