My journey started because of one of the great cataclysms in American History. I was reminded of it while in 2022 I was reading the Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. Soon after, I watched the streamed version of the book. In both versions I returned to a time warp of June 1968. After returning to Boston to do my second internship, following graduation from Scotland’s University of St. Andrews Medical School, and doing a six-month internship (called a house-job) in internal medicine in Aberdeen, followed by five months of obstetrics and gynecology in Israel, I was thrust into the dilemma about doing my American military service.
After much deliberation and help from a senior medical resident, who was active in the anti-war movement, I decided to move to Canada after my application for alternative U.S. service were rejected. My plans included applying for landed immigrant status in Canada. I was offered a place at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal. I awaited my Canadian immigration acceptance papers.
As I read one early episode from the Handmaid’s Tale, the story had reached a point where June, the protagonist and her husband Luke and their toddler daughter, are attempting to reach the Canadian border. They are seeking refuge from Gilead, the dystopian society in which they now lived. Gilead had broken away from the United States in a “war of liberation” and ruled its populace with an iron fist and strong fundamentalist Christian values. They had created a system because of a low birthrate whereby suitable households could obtain “Handmaids” which would act as surrogate mothers with the male of the family (designated as Commanders) impregnating them in a ritual known as the “ceremony”. In it, the wife embraced the Handmaid between her widespread legs, as the red-clothed woman was being impregnated by the Commander—mechanically without any semblance of romance or affection.
June, later known as Ofred, (taking on the second half of her name from Fred, her commander) tries to escape after she loses her job as an editor. The new Gilead regime is tightening its grip on the population. The chilling scene of the chase to the north ends with an accident in which the vehicle is wrecked and June tries to run further carrying her child but is finally aggressively apprehended. After a period of “re-education” which includes some brutal torture methodologies, she is assigned as a Handmaid to Fred and his wife Serena Joy. Serena was not able to become pregnant (presumably due to Fred’s sterility).
The fleeing to Canada hit home to me while I was watching Ken Burns’ documentary film Vietnam. The horror of the war and the evolution of the anti-war movement and the exploration of the so-called August 1964 Tonkin Resolution reminded me of the I.F. Stone newsletter sent to me as a subscription by my father, who opposed the war. He was a department of a defense government employee, so he had to keep his views to himself. I read Stone’s take on the Tonkin resolution and decided that this war was not for me.
I received the anticipated telegram from Canada informing me of my acceptance as a landed immigrant in mid-June 1968. I was very anxious and was suspicious that perhaps I was being watched or my phone tapped. The drive to pick up the hard copy of the telegram was so nerve-wracking that I almost missed the correct exit from the highway to Cambridge, where the telegram was awaiting me. We were all packed and ready to go. Very early in the morning, I and Yael, my Israeli-born wife, loaded the suitcases and food cooler into my VW Beatle and started up highway I-89 north to Canada. When we arrived at the border I was so nervous that I initially drove into the exit from the United States (with the gigantic American Eagle, spread-winged over the roof top). When I saw the movie, the Gilead symbol, reminded me of that Eagle. When I realized the error I had made, I rapidly did a Beatle small-radius reverse turn and drove into the Canadian border entrance.
The officer asked why we were entering Canada. With mental images of my grandparents coming to the United States from Eastern Europe, I said, “we are coming in as landed immigrants” and showed him our papers and passports. He time-stamped all the papers and wished us luck. A Montreal friend’s sister helped us find a nice roomy apartment, an easy bus trip to the Royal Victoria Hospital and a short walk to a great shopping district. A month later two federal RCMP officers came to our apartment and asked me to verify my place of work and status—which initially frightened me, but when they left and wished us a “welcome to Canada and good luck”, my fear dissipated. I joined the many thousands of Americans who had made the same decision as I had.
As I watched the Vietnam documentary, I realized that the decision I made to leave the United States for Canada was probably the most important and impactful decision of my life. My whole being and career path were changed forever. Of the most powerful episodes in the documentary is that of Dr. Hal Kushner who in December 1967, the helicopter he was in was shot down. It reminded me of what I had heard about doctors doing service in Vietnam and the high loss rate of physicians participating in Helicopters missions. The irony is that when I did my service in the Israel Air Force (IAF), one of my activities was helicopter medical evacuations, at times in combat zones.
From Montreal, I moved with Yael back to Israel, where I did a mixture of medical training and military service in the air force. When asked by American friends, why I could do military service in Israel but not in America. My answer was and still is, “I’m not a pacifist, but have to believe that the war is justified, and the Vietnam war did not do that for me”. As a doctor in the IAF, most of my time was spent as a base doctor that looked after ordinary conscripts, officers and those that lived on their base, their families. I think history proved me right in the choice to forgo my American status. Many Americans have come to believe that the Vietnam War had a long-lasting negative effect on America’s national fabric.
I have always believed that literature and film and theatre give us all the opportunity to extend our lives and boundaries beyond ourselves. The Handmaid’s Tale and the Vietnam documentary did that for me. My leaving the United States was the entry point to a whole new and completely unanticipated life.
Excellent story and writing.