Israel and Andrea – Both 60 this year

Published July 6th, 2008

By John Johnston
Managing Editor

Sabra:  a term used to describe a native-born Israeli Jew.

Which Andrea Gralnick isn’t – but is in spirit.

Sabra: a Hebrew term for prickly pear cactus – a tenacious, thorny desert plant with a thick hide that conceals a sweet interior -- hard on the outside and soft inside.

Which Andrea Gralnick is – according to both her mother, and Gralnick herself – when she isn’t being hard on the outside.

Thorns at the ready, she’s a mass of contradictions who will contradict if she believes otherwise; indeed, a (small c) catholic -- who couldn’t be more Jewish.

Like the scarf she folds and unfolds on her lap, Andrea has a methodical approach to life that those who are Jewish more easily comprehend is at the same time more than merely existence. Simmering close to the surface, however, is the unbridled love of a mother, akin to the matron she sees in Mother Israel.
 
And at 60 – like her beloved Israel – both still going strong; both celebrating milestone birthdays this year.

Raised in Baltimore, she became an elementary school teacher – and then later, with a child in tow, moved into public school administration --- which is where she’s spent most of her professional career.

That is, when she’s not being the wife of Bill Gralnick – a career in itself for the last 19 years.

Bill Gralnick is now the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office Executive Assistant for Homeland Security.  But for more than 30 years, he was either affiliated with or leading the American Jewish Committee (AJC) in Southeast Florida --- and whether exposing the Ku Klux Klan in Tennessee, building bridges between the Jewish and Cuban-American communities in Miami, or showing the world the plight of Soviet Jews, he’s been a major influence in American intellectual history.

Also a teacher, but not in the formal sense, Bill is a man who sifts words like fine flour. He’s a lover of language that results in dialogue – that results in clarity, which results in communication – that results in more dialogue.

But when it comes to Andrea – some would whisper (else risking the infamous Gralnick glare) – he’s a pushover.

With elegant impatience, Andrea herself is anything but that.

Currently the program director at the Jewish Community Center’s Wellington branch, she sees her task as “creating and promoting programming to meet the needs of people in West Palm Beach County.”

“We have programs here,” she said, “starting form pre-natal to seniors, but our concentration is on children and families – we’re developing a parenting center,” she smiles.

That enigmatic smile.

And a smile that grows immediately when the subject turns back to the State of Israel.

“It’s a very magical place to me -- a very spiritual place where I feel free and happy and carefree.”

“I’m always looking to grow and change – and so is Israel.  I think of myself as very vibrant and full of life and truly that’s what Israel is all about.”

And what Andrea Gralnick is all about – is the next trip to Israel.

“I was really in my 20’s before I went to Israel for the first time,” she recalls.

First there in 1972, she’s been back, including the most recent eight-day trip, “10 times.”

She recalls as well that Israel was initially “picked as a vacation spot – and it became more of a spiritual experience.”

“Bill and I are very unusual in that neither of us have one relative in Israel -- some friends…but no relatives.”

And what did she find this time in Israel that surprised her?

“The growth – it’s amazing how many more people there are in Israel now.”

Tel Aviv “was this cute little town,” during her first visit in 1972, “and now it’s this huge megalopolis.”

“And Jerusalem -- every corner is built up.”

Does she think about danger when there?

“No, I think about it more when I here,” she says, adding: “I saw less young men with Uzi – you used to see green and guns everywhere.” She pauses, notes: “twenty minutes after we left, there were rockets.”

“My Bubby”

Growing up, “it was Orthodox – not Zionistic.  We kept kosher and I belonged to an orthodox synagogue.”  

There was also “Shabbat dinner every Friday night – at my bubby’s” – the Yiddish word for grandmother.

“I kind of go through withdrawal when It’s been so many years since I’ve been” she says, reminded by bubby talk of the matron land.

And she’s go on talking about Israel for as long as you cared to listen – but she recalls how she and Bill met.

 “I was living in Florida,” she says.  “He was in Miami and I was in Boca.  The Pope was coming to Miami, and Bill had previously done an educational program for Jewish education -- which was the reason he knew to invite me in the first place.”

She pauses – and now no longer folding and unfolding the scarf – recalls that “in the previous spring, he was a guest speaker at my synagogue – where he talked about I Never Saw Another Butterfly” --  a collection of works of art and poetry by Jewish children who lived in the concentration camp Theresienstadt.

“I thought he was talking just to me,” she smiles.  Less enigmatically.

Bill worked up to asking her to marry him – but did so “on a Tuesday night,” she smiles.  “A work night?.  Me a mom.  A baby sitter?”

“It was two nights before Passover, and we pulled into Ville Maison – and he doesn’t say a word.  And I’m looking at my watch, and he doesn’t say a word.”

“It’s 11 o’clock,” she continues, and suddenly he brought out a bag, “and in it was a beautiful poem, asking me to marry him.”

In it was also a roasted egg, “rather than a diamond,” she said, explaining that during the previous year’s Passover, Bill had read an article about the different Passover traditions, one of which was that the person who’s ended up with the roasted egg as it completed passage during the Passover Seder, would be the next person to be married.

And like Bill, exploring different ways to look at the same thing, the enigmatic smile returns.

“I want to be on the cutting edge,” she says – about her new job (begun Jan. 30), and life in general.