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reject those who are different. Nevertheless, Israel offered me at sixteen an intoxicating opportunity to immerse myself in another language and culture and to experiment with models of belonging and community. After the Sinai campaign in 1956, when Israel had occupied the Sinai desert for the first time, a group of my classmates set out with a large number of others belonging to the same youth movement for an extended hike over the Hanukka vacation, into the wilderness where the liberated Jews wandered for forty years after leaving Egypt. Friends suggested that I come along.
    The area was bleak and mountainous, rock desert rather than sand dunes. Because of the Biblical background, Israelis treat such a trip as a voyage of self-discovery, not so much an encounter with wilderness as an encounter with history. We went south by truck to the staging area where we were to set out on foot, each person carrying a backpack with food and water for three days and a sleeping bag. Gathered at the foot of a steep hill, with a narrow trail winding up between the boulders, we were warned that once we left the trucks there would be no turning back and that no one who could not last the course should go.
    Worried, I started up the hill, but I had had nothing like the hiking experience of my friends, and this was the first time I had tried to walk or climb with any significant weight, so halfway up that first hill, with the trucks still waiting at the bottom, I told the other girls from my school that I could not be sure I would be able to keep going and it would be unfair to the others if I stayed in the group. I stepped off the trail and sat to one side, prepared to start down when everyone had passed. Along came a group of the boys, insisting that they could take turns carrying my pack and I would surely be able to keep up with nothing to carry, and I let myself be persuaded by their enthusiasm.
    Within a couple of hours, too late to turn back, it became clear that even without a pack I was in trouble. Regular rest stops were called, and each time we stopped I lay down and fell asleep for the few minutes available. There were magnificent views, but I did not see them, staring at my feet and stumbling from fatigue. The day ended with the celebration of the first evening of Hanukkah, with lights lit in tin cans and the group singing folk songs. I managed to keep going until the afternoon of the second day, to a point when I couldn’t get up. By then we were on a well-marked trail to that night’s resting place, so two of the boys stayed behind with me for an extra hour and then we walked the remaining distance, I leaning on their shoulders, arriving after dark.
    The next day I started out walking on my own again, and the going was not so steep. At midmorning, someone asked me whether I would carry his camera and step out of the line from time to time to take pictures, and I felt absurdly honored to be able to contribute in some way to the group. Euphoric with fatigue, I tried to sort out my feelings, with two quite different sets of emotions running simultaneously. The Israeli sequence was informed by the socialist ideology of the youth movement, with its emphasis on solidarity, mutual help, and commitment to the group. As long as I tried my hardest it was not inappropriate to receive help, but Israelis sometimes give very short shrift to those who do not do their best. At the same time, I could review my emotions as an American teenager, feeling humiliation and resentment of those who had helped me and discovered my weakness. Part of me felt deep love for and closeness with my comrades. Part of me wanted to withdraw and avoid them in the future.
    Beyond my feelings about my collapse, I found myself thinking in two ways about the question of whether it could be right to risk burdening others and about the meaning of helping. Training patterns in the Israeli youth movements and in the army are said deliberately to create situations in which