From New Zealand to the Promised Land
Michael Kuttner: From NZ to the Promised Land
Michael Kuttner tells how he and his wife, Margaret, decided it was right for them to move to Israel.
by Michael Kuttner
My parents arrived in Wellington as refugees from Germany just a few months prior to the outbreak of war in 1939. They were single and did not know each other, both leaving behind parents and other extended family, all of whom were murdered in the Shoah. Thanks to the assistance of Herbert and Heidi Ruben and Hermann and Johanna Leyser they somehow managed to obtain a precious visa from a very reluctant NZ Government.
After a tortuous voyage by ship to Sydney and then a stormy Tasman crossing to Wellington they arrived to what seemed to them a small backwater. After all, compared to Berlin and Karlsruhe, Wellington in 1939 as seen from a ship was no comparison to the huge metropolises of Europe.
They wasted no time in joining the local Jewish community and it was therefore no surprise when these two mid-twenties singles met at a dance evening at the Jewish Social Club and subsequently married. Their integration into Jewish communal life was helped by many families in the community.
I was born in Wellington in 1942. Thinking about this now I am struck by the fact that in the midst of a World War with the fate of extended family in Germany still unknown and a Japanese invasion expected any day, my parents decided to bring a new life into being.
Despite rationing we never lacked for food and my mother’s culinary expertise ensured wondrous helpings of European delights. My father volunteered as an interpreter in the NZ Army but was turned down because he was classified as an enemy alien. The notion that Jews were not likely to be siding with the Nazis obviously never entered the thinking of those in authority.
By the time the war ended in 1945 I was only three years old so cannot recollect the devastating impact when my parents finally discovered the fate of their families.
I grew up in Aro Street which was home to many refugee Jewish families. My local primary (elementary) school was Te Aro on the Terrace and there I found myself in the company of many other local Jewish youngsters. Although it was a state school, part of one morning a week was devoted to religious education usually taken by a local Christian Minister of the Protestant persuasion. All Jewish pupils were excused from attending and as we trooped out of the classrooms at 9am to take part in some other activity or just hang out, our less fortunate Christian friends looked on enviously as they prepared to endure a period of mind-numbing boredom.
Aro St, from the Willis St intersection, 1949
Photo credit: natlib.govt.nz
Starting Wellington College was a whole new and somewhat frightening experience after the relaxed and friendly atmosphere at Te Aro. First there was the uniform, then the intimidation from the senior boys towards third formers, the stiff and formal attitude of the black gowned masters, the daunting array of subjects and text books and finally the prospect of army cadets.
After graduating from the sixth form I decided that a career in the commercial world was something I should try. I decided to go for an interview at the Head Office of the Union Steam Ship Company which seemed to offer a wide range of opportunities.
The personnel manager mentioned that I would be required to work every second Saturday. As the company operated passenger as well as cargo vessels the office needed to operate extended hours. Deciding to be up front I immediately informed him that unfortunately I would not be able to accept his offer because being Jewish I did not work on our Shabbat. He surprisingly agreed I would not need to work on Saturdays but I offered to work on statutory holidays instead. I was eventually promoted to managerial positions and invited to receptions where there was always an effort made to ensure my kosher food requirements.
Meanwhile, starting from my post Bar Mitzvah years, I became involved with the Sunday Cheder. This was the start of my many years of involvement with the Hebrew School which lasted well into my third decade.
In October 1968 Margaret (Westheim) and I were married. If ever a union could be called ‘beshert’ this was it because it turned out that Margaret’s grandparents and my paternal grandparents had known each other back in Germany. Little did any of them ever imagine that one day their grandchildren would meet in faraway New Zealand and become a couple.
1968 Michael and Margaret on their wedding day
2021 Michael and Margaret are enjoying life in Israel
The sign on the Kuttner’s front door
Margaret and I were always involved with Jewish communal work so it was not surprising that we were kept busy volunteering on all manner of communal and Zionist committees ranging from JNF, WIZO to Jewish kindergarten establishment and Synagogue Board matters.
It was during this time that a revolutionary decision was taken by the Wellington Hebrew Congregation Board, namely the hiring of shlichim couples from Israel to assist the Rabbi in his duties and to fulfill the requirements of Brit Milah and Shechita. In actual fact, Margaret and I became very close to many of the shlichim and felt a very special bond with them. Once we had moved to Auckland, looking back, we realised that many of them were almost like family to us. As each of them moved back to Israel we kept in very close contact with them.
The year 1983 marked a momentous change in our lives and one which unknowingly at the time laid the foundations for our future aliyah.
Many large corporations had over the years shifted their head offices from Wellington to Auckland. In 1983, the Union Company as it was now called after being taken over by the TNT group in Australia, decided to also shift north. By this time I was deputy to the Human Resources Manager and I was offered and accepted the relocation opportunity. It was not without a lot of uncertainty and emotional turmoil as this was the first time we would be living at quite some distance from our parents and extended families. We finally made the move to Auckland in December 1983.
Eve and Ray Spitz and Anita and Les Brem befriended us from the moment we arrived and we became the closest of friends. Gradually we settled into the rhythm of Auckland congregational involvement with me being elected to the Board of the AHC, (subsequently President), and Margaret taking over the duties of secretary in the Greys Avenue office.
The campaign to free Russian Jews from Communist bondage had been in full swing for quite some time. The Auckland community organized a mass letter-writing campaign to prisoners of Zion and eventually those imprisoned were released and made their way to Israel. Imagine our thrill when one of these refuseniks visited Auckland to thank the community for all their efforts on his behalf. In another of those strange coincidences this same man, Ari Volvovsky, lives not far from us here in Efrat and every time I meet him he reminisces about those stirring times and how the letters he received from NZ made him realize that he was not forgotten in the gulag.
NZ to Israel
In 1989 our oldest son Jeremy spent a year in Israel on the MTA B’nai Akiva program which combined learning at a Yeshiva with other activities including IDF and Kibbutz experiences. Margaret and I visited him in Israel and at the same time took the opportunity to spend time with our friends who had been on shlichut in Wellington, the Tavel and BarNoy families. We felt an instant connection and bond to the Israeli/Jewish lifestyle here.
Jeremy was based in a small town called Efrata (south of Jerusalem and part of Gush Etzion) studying at Rabbi Riskin’s Yeshiva. We knew very little about Efrata before our visit so did not know what to expect. We were pleasantly surprised at what we found, the small but already growing infrastructure and above all friendly and welcoming families from all parts of the diaspora, half of whom were English speakers. We were also greatly impressed by the philosophy of its founder and Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, whose warm and tolerant attitude was a hallmark of the town and attracted religious and secular families.
We spent a glorious month in Israel seeing as much as we could and meeting many people. On our long flight back to Auckland we talked and discussed our impressions and experiences and started to think about living in Israel.
Having sampled, albeit briefly as tourists, the wonderful feeling of how one could live life fully as Jews in a country where the majority were of the same faith, we seriously started to think about our future direction. Having already reached ‘middle age’ and with teenage children, we felt it was a matter of ‘now or never’. We had grown up fully immersed in Jewish and Zionist activities but realized that over time we were not really fulfilled and had become increasingly unsettled in Auckland. Leaving elderly parents and other siblings behind at the far end of the world had always been the primary factor for delaying any decision but at the end of the day we had to do what we considered was right for us and our family’s future.
With our minds made up we set the wheels in motion for relocation to Israel.
Meanwhile Jeremy came back and spent an unsettled year planning his ‘escape’ back to the Promised Land.
The following year in 1991 we organized most of the paperwork with the aliya shaliach who was based in Australia. We made a pilot trip to Israel to prepare for our aliya. This included reserving space in an absorption center where we would spend the first 6 months including attending an ulpan, arranging a suitable high school for our younger son Simon, opening bank accounts, looking to purchase a house which included negotiating with architects and builders and finding a lawyer who negotiated the final terms of our house purchase. We were helped enormously in all these challenges by the Barnoy and Tavel families who became our surrogate families in Israel.
A short time after our Aliya I started working at Shaare Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem in Public Relations. I stayed there until my retirement in 2009. Margaret worked as secretarial assistant to the Professor who was head of Pediatric ophthalmology at Hadassah hospital until her retirement in 2007.
It is timely that I am writing this on the eve of the 30th anniversary of our Aliya. We are totally fulfilled here and can't imagine being happier anywhere else.
So what about our lives from 1991 to 2021?
· We learned to drive on the right hand side of the road and navigate the driving habits of Israelis
· We both struggled to learn to speak Ivrit, Margaret much more successfully than me
· Jeremy and Rachel married and we have five grandchildren, the oldest is 24 and youngest 11. Simon was living and working in Europe but has returned to Israel working as a clinical psychologist.
· We are part of a close knit caring community surrounded by many friends who pop in for a chat, or just when passing by.
· We have shopping malls and all services we need within walking distance or a few minutes by car.
· There is a huge range of classes from sports to art and everything in between. There are shiurim on all different topics.
· There are a myriad of shuls to choose from within easy walking distance of our home.
· We are both busy and involved with chesed activities. Margaret joined the local Chevra Kadisha and has been active in helping many disadvantaged families. I am kept busy writing for J-Wire, visiting the elderly homebound and taking part in a weekly shiur.
· The availability of Kosher food whether in supermarkets, restaurants or take out establishments during the year and especially at Pesach makes living a full Jewish life that much more enjoyable.
· As we age gracefully we appreciate even more than ever the first class and advanced medical care which this country offers to all its citizens.
Not everything has been easy or straightforward. Probably the most difficult thing for us has been our distance in earlier years from our elderly parents and other family members. Unlike other olim from western countries, we are not entitled to receive a pension from New Zealand because according to the law in New Zealand, no pensions are payable to people who emigrate before retirement age. Having worked relatively few years in Israel our local pension here is very minimal. We were aware of these factors before we made aliyah.
Living amongst like-minded people, where the chagim correspond to the seasons of the year, where, when we have hardly disposed of our lulav and etrog we are reminded of the next chag, Chanukah, because sufganiot (donuts) are already appearing in the shops, boys from the local high school knock on our door weeks before Pesach volunteering to help clean the house, where you can arrange for a minyan for a yahrzeit at short notice and you will have plenty of people attending.
This is definitely home for us. We have never looked back and never for one moment regretted our decision to live in this vibrant, exciting and amazing country.