Israeli Childhood
About Nir Ben-Shmuel
As an adult so many years later, he still remembers all those afternoons and memories from the mid 80’s. He often doesn't feel bad or weird with his nationality, but sometimes he does try to keep that to himself. He loves legos electronics and sports like football but decided to invest himself into software engineering, At a time that was the beginning of PCs and video game consoles.
What are some of your strongest memories of growing up in Israel?
“I have a lot of good memories from my childhood in Israel. I used to walk to school together with my friends…” “I remember the Friday afternoons where everything suddenly got very quiet in the streets...and then Friday family dinners my mom cooked with the dishes we all liked.” “We used to drive north visiting my dad's parents and brothers for a few days.” “I also remember being a teenager during the Gulf war in 1991. There were sometimes sirens during the night and we had to go into a room which we sealed in advance with nylons and masking tapes.”
Why was the gulf war memory so strong?
“Although Israel is a young country, it went through many wars before and also one after I was born.” “But this was the first time that the entire population was under attack, and not only the soldiers at the front or the cities next to the border.” “There were missiles fired from Iraq to Israel, and we were told that they may carry chemical weapons.” “As a teenager, it was the first time my life was at risk.”
Has anything unusual ever happened to you because you are part Hungarian?
“We got our Hungarian passports just a few years ago. My grandparents from my mother's side were born in Hungary, and moved to Israel after world war II and the Holocaust.”
What did you do when you got home after school (what was a normal afternoon)?
“After school I used to play with my friends, either from school or from the building I was living in.” “Outside we played soccer, tag and hide and seek. Indoors we were watching TV, collecting cards andApricot kernels, which looks awkward in “It was the very beginning of video games consoles and PCs, they were very slow, The games were stored on tapes.”
““I also remember being a teenager during the Gulf war in 1991. There were sometimes sirens during the night.””
What hobbies were you into and what got you interested in these hobbies?
“I enjoyed playing with Lego.”... “I loved programming on my PC, and I remember programming an animation of a man made of hashtags, moving his arms and legs. I found it very challenging, and I guess this is why I became a software engineer.”
Have you ever felt like other people see your nationality differently than you see it?
“Being an Israeli is sometimes complicated, as Israel was always and still is in a conflict with neighboring Arab countries.” “We were always told that Israel is the safest place for us, and that we need to fight for it.”...
“It is very interesting for me to meet ZIS parents from Arab countries like Lebanon, and discuss with them about how they were as kids in the Middle East.”
Have you ever felt “targeted'' because of being Israeli?
“I never felt targeted because of being an Israeli. Sometimes I try to avoid strangers from asking me where I am from, just as a precaution.I guess this is because we were always told to be careful while traveling outside of Israel.”
What was school like for you in Israel?
“For me the most important thing in school was to meet my friends. We learned Math, Literature, Geography, History, Bible, and a lot of other things.” “In high school I could pick the classes most interesting for me, and I studied Math, Physics and Electronics.”...
“The last two years of high school were about final exams and preparing for military service.”
