In the summer of 1966, after my 19th birthday, I dropped out of the City College of New York, where I was studying journalism, and immigrated to Israel. By doing so I gave up my college deferment and the security of home and family.
Several forces led to this life-changing decision. The Vietnam War was raging, and I wanted no part of it. I was horrified by a war that made no sense; I was appalled by the inequality of young men and women, mostly from low-income families, being led to slaughter; and I felt guilty about my college deferment.
I also had a burning desire to learn if there were places in the world where people lived peacefully in community, sharing resources, treating each other with respect. I learned of such a place when a friend who had moved to Israel a few years earlier told me about kibbutzim, a network of rural farms in Israel.
I contacted a group that helped young Americans move to Israel. Knowing my parents would not have approved, I bought a plane ticket, asked my best friend to drive me to the airport and, after the plane departed, to give my parents the letter I wrote explaining my leaving.
I spent a mostly glorious year on Kibbutz Galon, about an hour from Tel Aviv. My first job was in the orchards, and for a boy from the Bronx who didn’t know which end of the cow milk came from, it was quite an awakening.
That year, and the year after hitchhiking around Europe working at various jobs, my local draft board kept sending me letters. Returning home after two years, I did so convinced I was a conscientious objector. My case was taken by the N.Y. Civil Liberties Union.
On the day of my draft board hearing, they asked one question: Are you a Hassidic Jew? I was not, so that was the end of it. They told me to report for a physical. I knew there was no way I was going to fight in Vietnam but had no idea how I was going to avoid it.
On the day of my physical, I was joined by dozens of other young men. After the exam, I was called to the front of the room. An officer looked at me with sad eyes, saying, “I’m sorry, Mr. Solomon, your knee condition won’t allow you to serve.” I had chipped my left kneecap playing basketball as a youth but could still run like the wind. A note from my childhood doctor detailed the injury.
It was one of those moments in life that feel like divine intervention. A few months later, I found myself on a rural farm in West Virginia with two others starting one of the first intentional communities. I lived on that farm for three years, met my wife there and am still playing tennis on that bum knee.
(Sol Solomon lives in Sutton.)