“How is it possible that our zoo doesn’t have an elephant?” This was the question Tel Aviv children asked Baruch Goffer, director of the historic zoo located in Tel Aviv’s Hadassah Garden, time and again.
The children of the city did not know what Baruch knew: bringing an elephant to Palestine was no easy task. Not easy at all. After several unsuccessful attempts to bring an elephant from India, thwarted by various bureaucratic obstacles, our Baruch Gopher decided to turn his attention to Africa. Perhaps salvation would come from there?
But Palestine had a formidable competitor. Its name was Egypt. And Egypt wanted elephants, too. Of the four elephants found in Africa that were deemed suitable for the region, the Egyptians received three. But the elephant destined for Palestine was, shall we say, “not an easy one” (in more ways than one). He required some adjustments because he was not sufficiently “civilized.” And that took more time – and more money.
Rumors of the elephant’s impending arrival began spreading throughout the Jewish community. “He’ll be here any moment!” the newspapers announced. A writer who went by the initials “Y.K.” even published a special poem in Haaretz in the elephant’s honor, proclaiming that children will see and rejoice to soon get a giant new immigrant…
But alas! Just moments before the elephant was due to set out on his journey, fate intervened, and the enormous mammal came down with an eye infection.
The children of Israel were beginning to lose patience. They were already wondering among themselves: Would the elephant really make it to Palestine after all?
Our elephant was born in the “Belgian Congo” and thus given the name Bungo.
He was, to put it nicely, extremely pampered. A virtual mountain of bananas was needed to persuade him to do the honors of climbing into the enormous crate prepared for him aboard the ship.
Then came the news: the ship had set sail to Palestine. It would reach the port of Haifa in two weeks.
The news spread like wildfire, and the children of Israel could hardly believe their ears. It was really happening!
And the person chosen to accompany Bungo on his journey was none other than Leah Goldberg, the resident poet of Davar LaYeladim (“Davar for Children”). She published the first installment of The Great Journey, a series that would follow the Zionist elephant’s arrival and his integration into the emerging state.
And on Wednesday, October 30, 1946, Bungo’s great journey came to an end at the port of Haifa.
“When the ship approached, we went aboard,” Baruch Goffer recalled excitedly. “And there was our elephant, inside a huge crate, seemingly understanding that we were his friends. He raised his long trunk toward us as if in greeting. Our joy knew no bounds. There before us stood an elephant – a real, live elephant.”
And just as the elephant entered the zoo, Goldberg published another poem in The Great Journey, so that Bungo would feel loved and welcome in his new home.
There was not a newspaper in town that failed to report on the new arrival.
The excitement was immense, and the rush to the zoo was indescribable. Everyone wanted to see the elephant wonder with their own eyes. At last, he was home!
And the advertisers? Naturally, they too jumped onto the trunky bandwagon with advertisements like in the image below.
The story could just end here, but we cannot ignore the elephant in the room: our elephant was lonely. And a lonely elephant, as the zoo learned the hard way, is an irritable elephant.
““Although he was easygoing with his keepers and loved to play with them,” director Goffer said of Bungo’s “moods,” “it seemed that from time to time he was overcome by a desire to run wild. At such moments, he would overturn his keeper’s wheelbarrow and snatch the broom and his other tools from his hands. Holding the tools between his long teeth and trunk, he would run back and forth until he finally calmed down and returned the tools to his keeper.”
Goffer knew that an elephant should not be kept alone, and decided to find Bungo a companion.
It took a full year to find her, but eventually she arrived. Her name was Magumba, and she was younger and more even-tempered. She was also much smaller than Bungo.
Was It a good match?
“How astonished and delighted we were when we arrived at the zoo early one morning and were greeted by a remarkable sight,” Goffer reported. “Bungo and the young newcomer were standing side by side, using their long trunks to bring food to their mouths. They looked just like an old pair of friends. And not only did Bungo allow Magumba to eat from the crate; to us watching from the sidelines, it even seemed that he deliberately let her snatch the best and freshest fruit from it.”
And until Bungo passed away in 1960 – they lived happily ever after.
