Identity

At our annual visit to the Israeli consulate last week, we heard Hebrew all around us. There was an exception, however, a short, sturdy, elderly man who was speaking in slightly accented English. We couldn't place his accent except to be pretty sure that it wasn't Israeli. Because the seats on which we were sitting were close to the reception window, where he was standing, we couldn't help overhear his conversation with the clerk.

He told the clerk that he had fought in the Palmach, the elite combat unit of the Jewish pre-state military force, but that he hadn't lived in Israel for 50 years. Whenever he goes to Israel, he said, he's hassled because he has no Israeli passport, and therefore he wanted to renounce his Israeli citizenship. The clerk pointed out that he could easily stop the hassling by obtaining an Israeli passport, but he was adamant. He didn't want a passport. He was a supporter of Israel, he said, but he didn't want to be a citizen. Finally the clerk gave him the papers he needed and sent him to the appropriate window to present them.

If the old man had fought in Palestine before the establishment of the state in 1948, he would have spent 12 years in Israel after the state's independence plus whatever time he had spent before independence serving in the Palmach. That's enough time to learn Hebrew. That he was speaking English to a Hebrew-speaking clerk conveyed an implied message: I'm not one of you. The medium was indeed the message. His use of English strongly suggests that he did not identify himself as an Israeli and that he wanted official confirmation of that change.

His attitude was hard for us to fathom, for while we identify ourselves as Americans, we also think of ourselves as Israelis and cannot imagine renouncing either identity. But few identities, it seems, are impervious to change. Even that most basic identity, gender, can be altered. Although the transsexual who has changed from male to female still possesses XY chromosomes, she can convincingly present herself to the world as a woman and can think of herself as one. About half of all American adults have changed their religious affiliation at least once, although for Jews, the ethnic component of their identity probably remains the same. A prominent example was the late Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, who was born a Jew and always considered himself one.

Prompted by overhearing the Palmach veteran ask to renounce his citizenship, I realized that although some of my identities are not likely to change - male, husband, father, brother, American, Israeli, and Jewish - others have dropped out and still others added. I no longer think of myself as a student or as a teacher or as a researcher. On the other hand, identities such as army veteran, husband, father, and Israeli were adopted one by one as time went by. Our identities change with our circumstances.

They say our cells regenerate every seven to ten years, yet we remain the same person. In view of our changing identities, however, do we really remain the same? I thank whatever gods may be that I'm not the person I was at 31, my age at which we married (my wife says I'm a decided improvement over that young man). The intervening decades have seen changes in my attitudes, perceptions, and experience, and I no longer look at the world in the way I did when I was young. It's hard to rid myself of the illusion that there's an inner, unchanging personal core, but when I consider the changes that have taken place over the years, I'm not so sure.