Testimonies from the Jewish Quarter (the Rova) of the Old City of Jerusalem

I recently watched a documentary about the fall of Jerusalem in May 1948. Those who were born and lived there before 1948 still call anything outside the walls "the new city". In 1948 about 120 Jewish soldiers defended the Jewish Quarter against the Jordanians. Despite plans to place Jerusalem under international control, the British abandoned their positions or simply relinquished them to Jordanian soldiers and armed Arabs civilians, while restricting Jewish soldiers and even civilians from entering the walled city. They also confiscated their arms and ammunition, and even shot and killed some of them. When the 20 or so remaining Jewish soldiers ran out of ammunition, and the Jewish civilians took refuge inside one of the syangogues to escape the ruthless Jordanian artillery fire into their houses, Moshe Rusnak, their commander of the Jewish defense unit, decided to surrender to the Jordanians. When the Jordanian commander realized that he had been held at bay by two dozen young Jews and Jewesses, he arrested a number of civilians, old men, including a 90-year-old one, and several children and took them to Jordanian prison camps. Just to save face. (photo: Moshe Rusnak signing the surrender agreement.)

Colonel Abdullah el-Tal, one-time commandant of the Jordanian Arab Legion, in describing the destruction of the Jewish Quarter, wrote in the volume of his Memoirs (Cairo, 1959): "... The operations of calculated destruction were set in motion.... I knew that the Jewish Quarter was densely populated with Jews who caused their fighters a good deal of interference and difficulty.... I embarked, therefore, on the shelling of the Quarter with mortars, creating harassment and destruction.... Only four days after our entry into Jerusalem the Jewish Quarter had become their graveyard. Death and destruction reigned over it...." "As the dawn of Friday, May 28, 1948, was about to break, the Jewish Quarter emerged convulsed in a black cloud - a cloud of death and agony."

Jonathan Sidon
Jerusalem weekend supplement,
June 8, 2007


Eli Kedar was born in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City. He was taken prisoner by the Jordanian legion in 1948. After liberation, he returned to his home and became commander of the Jerusalem Division in the 1967 war. Shmuel Even-Or (Orenstein)'s father was the Western Wall rabbi until he was shot and killed during the War of Independence. Puah Steiner was expelled from the Jewish Quarter in 1948, and returned in 1967.

Dawn, June 7 1967. Eli Kedar, commander of the D company of the 163 regiment of the Jerusalem Brigade was standing outside the Dung Gate. Behind him an army of photographers and reporters were getting ready to immortalize the Israelis entering into the Old City. Eli, however, suspecting that the Jordanian Legion was lying in ambush, was in no hurry to lead his troops in. Having lost communication with his commanders, he had to make a strategic decision: push forward towards the Western Wall or turn South toward the Jewish Quarter, where he had been born, raised and expelled by the Jordanians. Eli chose his childhood home over the ultimate Jewish symbol (and over his own fair share of glory). "I walked down the same route the Jordanian legion had walked when they conquered the Jewish Quarter in 1948", he recalls. "But instead of finding the enemy, I found white rags and kaffiyas. Even when we reached the Rova there was no resistance, it was deserted. I know the area like the back of my hand, so I combed it quickly. Even though I had been away for 19 years, it looked almost the same. Then Eli and his soldiers turned to the Kishla building, but were met with gunfire. "Paratroopers emerged from David Street, all of a sudden, and I had no idea how they got there. There officer was equally surprised and asked me what we were doing there. I told him that I was going to the movies."

Later that day, when the Old City was about to be liberated, Eli was overcome by the desire to fulfill an old dream - after all he was so close to his childhood playground. It didn't take him long to jump into a Jordanian military vehicle parked near by and drive to his parents' house in the German Colony, a mere three minutes' drive. He gave his surprised father a khaki uniform and helmet and drove him back to the Rova: "My father's eyes filled with tears when we stood in front of the old house. He started running about and touching the stones, saying over and over again that this was the happiest day in his life."
Eli Kedar (formerly Mizrachi) was born in the Jewish Quarter in 1932. The Orensteins had moved nextdoor in the early 1940's. Avigdor Yitzhak Orenstein was the Western Wall rabbi until 1948. "My father's task was to supervise the daily prayers and to send daily reports to the chief Rabbis and to the National Committee who had appointed him", recalls the rabbi's son, Shmuel Even-Or (b.1929). "In those days the Wall was very different from what it is today. The Arab residents of the Old City would pelt us with stones, or ride their donkeys close to the Wall with the sole purpose of soiling the ground with animal dung. There were many restrictions on the Jewish worshippers - blowing the shofar before Yom Kippur was forbidden. I have childhood memories of the British police chasing and beating those who breached this order."
Puah Steiner, a sixth generation Jerusalemite, was born in the Jewish Quarter in 1941. "Even as a little girl I understood that the Rova had been conquered", she recounts the events of that fateful day in May 1948. "Everybody was broken hearted. The Jordanian legionnaires were looting and stealing everything they could lay their hands on. My sister and I had to walk among tongues of fire until we were outside the walls. When we heard that our father had been taken prisoner by the Jordanians we were devastated."

The Siege and the Detention
On November 29, 1947 the United Nations voted to terminate the British Mandate in Palestine and to allow its partition into two states. The next morning, residents of the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem found themselves under siege, in appalling conditions. The British policemen displayed mostly passivity. At the end of January 1948, 19-year-old Shmuel Even-Or was serving with the Palmach in the Negev. He was notified that the Arabs had blown up his parents' house in the Rova: "Our house was known as the Orenstein outpost, under the command of my brother Avraham. When the house was blown up he was home with my mother, and they were both wounded. The following day the British blew up what was left of the house, so I had to find lodgings elsewhere in the Rova." Eli was 16 years old when the War of Independence broke out: "I was working in a carpenter's shop outside the city. One day after work they simply wouldn't let me go home, so I went to my relatives' house. I managed to return to my parents' house during Passover (3-4 months later), when I was allowed back into the City to deliver matzoth."

The situation in the Rova deteriorated further in mid-May, when the British left. "I had terrible nightmares every night", says Puah. "One evening we heard horrible screams: 'Arabs with knives', and everybody scrambled towards the inner houses for cover. We thought the Arabs were coming to slaughter us, and we had had nothing to defend ourselves with. I grabbed my mother's skirt and we started to run with the others. Everybody was certain that this was our last day. Everybody was crying and saying the prayers for the dead. My father said something that I cannot forget to this day: 'I pray they take pity on women and children, and if heavens decide that we part, remember that the Torah is the only important thing the world. When you grow up, marry Torah students.' Then we heard that the Arabs had gone elsewhere, and we were able to return home. For us it was a miracle."
Eli was posted on Karaim Street, in an abandoned British post, where he was manning a Tommy gun. "For days I was stranded there without a chance to see my family. I was even shot in the arm when the Arabs stormed us. When I got back to my post, we were practically out of ammo. So we threw potted plants at the enemy." The news of rabbi Orenstein and his wife's death during a Jordanian shelling was a very severe blow for the Rova residents.

"Naturally, I wasn't there,", recalls Shmuel. "When I reached the new city nobody wanted to give me the bad news. It was terrible losing both my parents like that."
By the end of May, 1948, the Rova fell and most of its residents were taken prisoners, some willingly. Eli: "I was too young to become a POW, but my mother said we had better split the family. So I joined my father, who had been taken prisoner along with other men. She stayed behind with the other children. Strange as it may sound, when I tried to surrender, the convoy of prisoners had already left, so I had to run after them." Eli spent nine months in Jordan as a POW, in Umm-el-Jamal, close to a military airport by the Iraqi border. "What I remember mostly from that time was forever standing to attention in the blistering sun for the roll call. The Jordanian soldiers always had the count wrong, and each time they came up with a different number. One day, after Hanukkah, I tried to escape disguised as a Bedouin. I had worked out the times the Jordanians went on patrol, but on that very day they changed the routine, so I got caught. A few months later, we were liberated. Groups of prisoners were returned to Israel. My father was among the first while I was freed with the last groups. When they told me I was going home, I decided I wanted a souvenir, so I stole the lock and keys to the camp. When the Jordanians discovered the loss they went crazy. They kept us there for several more hours, but in the end they let us go.
At the same time, Puah's father, Shlomo, was also in a prison camp in Jordan. His family was evacuated to the Katamon neighborhood in Jerusalem, including Puah: "My mother was a very strong woman and she managed to keep the family together and alive. I remember mostly how badly I missed my father. He sent us letters via the Red Cross, but he was forced to write them in English. He was urging mother to take care of our education. One night, in February 1949, a military vehicle stopped in front of our house, and father stepped out of it. Even though he was a liberated prisoner of war, he felt compelled to bring us presents: very good quality blankets. One of them was made into a winter coat for me. My two-year-old sister didn't remember father at all, and had a hard time getting used to him. She kept asking my mother when this man was going to leave."

Back to the Rova

"...a shocking picture was unfolded of the results of this policy of wanton vandalism, desecration and violation perpetrated during the period of Jordan occupation from 1948 onwards. In the Jewish Quarter all but one of the thirty-five Jewish houses of worship that graced the Old City of Jerusalem were found to have been wantonly destroyed. The synagogues had been razed or pillaged and stripped and their interiors used as hen-houses and stables. In the ancient historic Jewish graveyard on the Mount of Olives, tens of thousands of tombstones had been torn up, broken into pieces or used as flagstones, steps and building materials in Jordanian military installations and civilian constructions. Large areas of the cemetery had been levelled and converted into parking places and petrol-filling stations. ... The Western Wall holds a unique place in the history and faith of the Jewish people. For nineteen centuries Jews flocked to the Western Wall from all parts of the world to pray and worship before it. It would not cross the mind of Jews to impair in any way the sanctity of the Western Wall.The interest now evinced by the Jordanian Government in the Wall is surprising against the background of the vandalism perpetrated there by that Government when it was in occupation of the area. The Jordanian Government deliberately profaned the sacred character of the Wall by erecting adjacent to it structures of secular services, warehouses and toilets, and converting its immediate precincts into a slum."

Eli did not move back to the Rova after the Six Day War: "I could have moved back if I wanted to. But all through the years I asked myself what I was going to do there and I found no solid reason to buy a house. Perhaps I was wrong, but I am happy where I live now."

Puah's felt the exact opposite when Jerusalem was liberated in 1967. Even though she didn't liberate the city with her own hands, and due to pregnacy complications, she managed to visit the city several months after the war, but when she saw her old home she became very emotional and wanted to move back in for good: "When I first set foot in the Rova after so many years, I nearly fainted. Every alley and every house took me back in time to my childhood. When I stood in front of our old house, I saw yeshiva students studying the Gemara. I thought to myself that my father would have been pleased: he used to sit in the same room and study the same thing. Puah was willing to move back into her house right there and then, but when the euphoria dissipated, bureaucracy took over: "A lot of people wanted to move into the Rova, so we had to draw lots. We were not lucky enough. Others drew the lucky numbers." Ten years later, Puah and her husband managed to buy an apartment in the Rova and they have been living there since: "I admit that we are living in crowded quarters, and it is sometimes very noisy, but I feel that heavens guided me to the Old City. We considered moving out several times, but my son said that nobody leaves the Rova. I agreed with him. One cannot be a resident of the Rova and ignore its rich history and heritage. This is why I put my childhood memories in a book, 'Out of the Overthrow' where I describe the fall of the Rova.

Shmuel still feels closely connected to the Rova and its heritage, although he now lives outside Jerusalem. He is the director of the Association of the 1948 Defenders of the Rova and is an authority on the history of the place: "I feel it is my duty to tell the story of what happened there, how the residents fought for their home and ideology with all they had. It is very important to teach the young generations about what happened in the Old City before 1967."

Divided for 19 long years

*The Jewish Quarter is situated in the South-Eastern part of the Old city of Jerusalem.

*Archeological digs found evidence that the Rova was inhabited in the First Temple period.

* In 1267, rabbi Moshe ben Nachman, the Ramban (Nachmanides, not to be confused with the Rambam, Maimonides, rabbi Moshe ben Maimon) arrived in the Old City.

*He founded a synagogue in the Rova, which is named after him.

* The first cabbalist was born in the Rova in 1543, rabbi Yitzhak Luria, Ari the Holy.

* A synagogue in the Rova was named after him.

* On the eve of the War of Independence there were 1,700 Jewish residents in the Rova.

* There are now 3,500 Jewish residents in the Rova.

* The Jewish Quarter is the third largest among the four quarters of the Old City.

* It is smaller that the Muslim and the Christian Quarters, and larger than the Armenian Quarter.

* The Rova attracts around 7 million visitors each year, among them 1.5 million tourists.

* The youngest fighter who gave his life in the War of Independence was Nissim Guinny. He was ten years old.

*There has been an almost uninterrupted Jewish presence in the Rova since the days of the Crusaders.

*The only 19 years WITHOUT a Jewish presence in the Rova was between 1948 (when the Jordanians seized the Old City) and 1967 (when it was liberated by Israel).

*Archeological digs of the Rova have been conducted since 1969, when the Society for the Restoration and the Development of the Jewish Quarter was founded.

*The digs unearthed important finds dating back to 1948 in a water hole.

*It came as a complete surprise, because Moshe Rusnak, commander of the Rova defense unit, ordered the destruction of all weapons and ammunition before the Jewish defenders surrendered.

* Nobody knows who hid the arms in total violastion of that specific order.

* The only mosque in the Rova was erected in the 15th century by a Jew who converted to Islam following an argument with his neighbors.

*The mosque is not open for religious services.

*There is a special Arab-owned bakery in the Rova: it has all the required kosher certificates.

*Its specialite de la maison is a pastry is called "hamama" - bird, because it is shaped like the beak of a bird.

*Bread is baked according to an old secret French recipe, a sort of local baguette.

*According to legend, the Messiah will come when the Hurva (ruined) synagogue has been rebuilt for the third time.

* The Society for the Restoration and the Development of the Jewish Quarter is rebuilding the Hurva synagogue.

*This would be the third time, as the synagogue was destroyed in 1720 and 1948. (Two days before the fall of the Jewish Quarter in 1948, the Jordanians blew up the synagogue and the Jordanian commander in charge reported to his superiors: "For the first time in a 1,000 years, not a single Jew remains in the Jewish Quarter. No building there stands undamaged. This makes the Jews' return here impossible." However, in 1967 the Jews returned. The Jewish Quarter was rebuilt, but the Hurva remained in its desolation and a long-running architectural disagreement began.)

*The synagogue will probably be ready in a year and a half. Prepare thyselves!

Excerpts from LETTER dated 5 March 1968 from the permanent representative of Israel to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary General

Fwance is losing it completely!

Orr Heller
Maariv, June 14 2007 (from Paris)

Israel's hopes of strengthening ties with France once Mr. Sarkozy moved into the Elysee turned out to be exaggerated: the town of Pierrefitte, North of Paris, has to decided to adopt arch terrorist Marwan Barghouti and make him an honorary citizen. Former West Bank Tanzim commander, Barghouti is currently serving five life terms plus forty years in Israel on several counts of murder and attempted murder of Israeli civilians (and of a Greek monk) in terrorist attacks masterminded and sponsored by him during the second intifada. Two weeks ago, the Pierrefitte city council made this decision on the grounds that "Barghouti is being punished for his political convictions."
Jewish communities all over France were shocked by this decision and were quick to issue a harsh condemnation of the Pierrefitte city council and even demanded that the decision be reversed.

I suggest they simply adopt Barghouti and offer him residence in Pierrefitte so that he can spread his political conviction among the North African Arabs who aren't quite so pleased with their life in the douce France, and teach them a thing or two about intifada, not just rioting and burning cars, but the real staff - daily suicide bombings, road bombs, shooting ambushes. I mean if your heart bleeds for him, do something useful, for crying out loud!

Remember!

Dalia Mazouri
Maariv, April 15, 2007

Six survivors were chosen to light the six memorial beacons on this year's Holocaust Memorial Day. They were young when they parted with their parents and siblings and were left to deal alone with the Nazi war machine. They acted with great valor. These are their accounts:

David Gur was born to a family of four in Okany, Southeastern Hungary, in 1926. In 1938 the Hungarian regime began to implement anti-Jewish laws. Imbued with Zionist ideals, David decided to move to the Land of Israel. But first he had to travel to Budapest and learn a useful trade. He was apprenticed by a master builder and also became a member of the "Young Guard" (Hashomer Hatzair) underground movement.
In March 1944, Hungary was occupied by the Germans. David joined the underground movement and was put in charge of forging documents. One day he and his friends were caught by the Hungarian security services. They quickly swallowed the forged documents, but the equipment their were carrying gave them away. During the interrogation one of them died, and the rest were taken to a military prison in Budapest to be executed. However, instead of being march to the execution site, they were taken to the Swiss consulate where they were released. David discovered later that the resistance had bribed a senior officer in echange for their lives.
When the war ended, David found out that his father had been murdered in Auschwitz, but his mother and sister had survived. David resumed his activities for the Hashomer Hatzair. In 1949 the communist regime in Hungary outlawed the Zionist organization, so emigrated to Israel to smuggle Zionist youths into the State of Israel.
In 1985 David was one of the founders of the Association for the Research of Zionist Youth Movements in Hungary, and he is still an active member. He and his wife Naomi have three daughters and ten grandchildren.

Zanne Farbstein was born in Bardejov Slovakia in 1926. She was the seventh child of a religiously observant family. Her first memory of the war is of group of German soldiers breaking into her parents' home one Shabbat eve (Friday night). Her father's business was confiscated and her two older brothers were taken to a forced labor camp.
In March 1942 all girls below 25 years of age were ordered to report to the local school. Zanne and two of her sisters, Edith and Sarah showed up together with about one thousand other girls. Their father walked them to the school, and when they arrived, he burst into bitter tears and gave each one of his daughters a korona coin for luck. The three sisters were part of the first transport to Auschwitz. When they arrived, they were ordered to leave their possessions on the train, including their father's good-luck coins. After a few months in Auschwitz, they were taken to Birkenau for forced labor.
Thanks to her Aryan looks, Zanne survived several selektions and even managed to be assigned "desirable" jobs, such as clothes sorting or unloading luggage from the trains. One day she found her father's prayer shawl among the luggage she was unloading, and later she learned that he had been taken to the crematoria. The three sisters never missed a day's work, because they knew that the weak and the ill simply vanished without a trace. One day, Edith, the eldest, was weak and weary to go to work, and offered her good shoes in exchange for Zanne's worn out ones. The three of them knew what it meant. Edith was never seen again.
On January 18, 1945, Zanne and Sarah were forced to join the death march to Germany. But in one of the villages the German guards disappeared and the haeftlings were left on their own. Learning that the war was over, Zanne and Sarah went on to Prague and Bratislava, where they discovered that two of their brothers had also survived. They went back to their hometown for the emotional reunion of what was left of their family.
They remained in Bardejov and tried to go on with their lives. In 1949 the extended family was brought over to Israel aboard the Independence. Zanne is married to Moshe and they have two children and five grandchildren.

Yaakov Janek Hollander was born to a family of five in Krakow, Poland, in 1929. In 1942 the family was taken to the Krakow ghetto where Janek and his parents were separated from the other children.
The family was deported to a work camp and from here to Plaszow concentration camp. Janek remembers Plaszow as hell on hearth, because of the terror reigned on the inmates by camp commander, Amon Goeth, who was madly shooting at whomever he pleased. From Plaszow, Janek and Benek, one of brothers were taken to Starachowice and eventually to Auschwitz. There they survived a number of selektions, and were eventually taken to forced labor in a coal mine in Rideltau, where Benek severely hurt his leg. In March 1944 they were forced to march to Mauthausen. Benek could hardly walk because of his injured leg, but Janek begged him and urged him to go on. They reached the camp, but Benek didn't make it further. They were separated for the first time. Janek was assigned to a work detail and never saw Benek again.
In April 1945 the camp inmates were forced to march to Gunskirchen. Many died on the way. Rumors in the camp had it that the Germans had fled. Janek, weighing 33 kg (thirty three kilograms at age 16 !!!!!!!), barely able to stand or walk, managed to crawl outside the camp. He was found by the Red Cross and taken to the nearby hospital where he met soldiers of the Jewish Brigade and decided to join them and fight in Italy. But a group of Jewish war orphans was formed in Selvino, Italy, looked after by the Youth Aliyah in order to be relocated to Israel. One year later the children were put aboard the Catriel Hayaffe ship, but the British intercepted the ship and ordered her to Cyprus. In 1947 the children arrived at the Mishmar Hasharon kibbutz. Janek joined the Palmach Harel Brigade. He fought in the War of Independence and went on to found the Zeelim kibbutz in the Negev, together with other orphans he met in Italy.
After WWII, Janek learned that his father had been murdered in Auschwitz, his mother had been brought down by illness in Plaszow, his bother Dolek had been shot in Bergen-Belsen three days before the end of the war. In 1953 Janek married Dvora. They have two children and one granddaughter.

Yaakov (Jacki) Handeli was born into a wealthy family in Thessaloniki, Greece, in 1928. In 1941 German troops marched into Thessaloniki and established the Jewish ghetto in the Baron de Hirsch neighborhood. The Handeli were also forced into the ghetto, in a humiliating display of Nazi force. Two weeks later Jacki's family was deported to Poland. Over 80 persons were forced into each car and travelled without food or water. Jacki learned his first German words on the train: "You won't need this any more!"
One week later the train arrived in Auschwitz-Birkenau, and the passengers were thrown out of the cars and underwent their first selection. After the selection Jacki never saw his parents and sisters again. He and his brothers were assigned to different work details in the camp. In addition to the harsh living conditions, Jacki and his brothers along with the rest of the Thessaloniki Jews suffered from isolation, because they didn't speak German, Yiddish or Polish and therefore couldn't communicate with the Germans or with the other Jews in the camp.
After his brothers died, Jacki remained on his own, until Thessaloniki boxer Jaco Razon took
him under his wing and helped him get more food and survive the terrible conditions in the camp.
In January 1945 the prisoners were sent on a death march. Jacki recalls the snow-covered road stained red with the blood of those who had been shot on the long march to Gleiwiz camp and riding towards Dora Mittelbau in open coal cars in the freezing rain without food or water. The journey ended in Bergen-Belsen where they remained until their liberation by British troops.
Jacki came to the Land of Israel in 1947 aboard the Pan York carrying South African volunteers, and fought in the War of Independence. No other member of his family survived the Holocaust. Jacki and his wife Rachel have two children.

Manya Brodetzky-Titelman, an only child, was born in Zhabokcrich, Ukraine in 1932. In July 1941 German troops marched into her hometown, followed by Romanian troops. The Jews were ordered into five cellars, where Romanian soldiers opened fire on them. Manya passed out and when she regained consciousness, she saw that her mother had been killed in the massacre. Her father also fainted and fell to the ground before the shooting began, and was also saved. Manya and her father remained hidden among the corpses until it nightfall. Then they went back to their house only to discover the neighbors had looted everything. They fled to the woods where they hid, hungry and thirsty, in the rain and the cold for a week. Eventually they decided to go back to their house.
A week later they were sent to the ghetto where they shared an apartment with several other families. They were hungry and cold all the time. There they found out that the bodies of their massacred relatives and friends were decomposing in the cellars where they had been shot. The local police ordered a number of adults and children to carry the bodies out of the cellars and bury them in mass graves. Manya recalls how she identified her mother's body by the red boots she had been wearing. She and her father hid the body and buried it near their home.
Towards the end of the war, the Romanian soldiers took all the Jews to the main square of the town to shoot them, but the German troops arrived unexpectedly and warned the Romanians that Russian troops were coming. The Romanians fled and everybody was surprised to find out that the German troops were in fact partisans in disguise.
After the war Manya went back to school and remained with her father in her hometown. The family immigrated to Israel in 1980. In 2003 Manya was part of a group of survivors who erected a memorial tombstone on the mass grave in her home town. Manya was widowed last month. Her husband, Boris, was also a Holocaust survivor and a Red Army veteran. Manya has two daughters, five grandchildren and a great-granddaughter.

Mordechai (Motke) Wiesel and his twin brother were born to a Haredi family of eight, in Szatmar (Satu Mare), Transylvania, in 1929. Nazi racial laws were enforced as soon as Germany invaded Hungary in 1944. Fearing for his childrens' lives, Motke's father sent three of his sons including Motke to work on a farm. A few weeks later the three brothers were sent to the town ghetto where they were reunited with their parents. Motke's family was part of the second transport to Auschwitz. He and his twin brother Meir managed to sneak close to a crack where they could breathe. They arrived at the camp on their 15th birthday. He remembers asking his mother why there were women along the tracks and what they were doing dressed in striped jackets and with their hair shaved off. She replied: "This must be a lunatic asylum sort of place."
During he first selektion Motke and Meir were separated from their parents and siblings whom they never saw again. When they went through the gate and read the "Arbeit macht frei" sign, Meir asked candidly: "How long do you figure we have to work here to be freed?" A week later the twins were dispatched to Krakow-Plaszow, to work on Schindler's pig farm and as
apprentice builders.
Later they were transferred to Gross-Rosen and from there to Langenbilau Sportschule near Reichenbach. Motke was burning with fever and barely made it to the train. On May 8, 1945, a Russian tank found its way into the camp. Motke and his brother moved into a vacated house in Reichenbach and stayed there until they regained their strength.
When they returned to their home town, they discovered that only their eldest brother had survived. The "Hagana" organization helped them flee to Italy via Austria, where they waited to be smuggled into the Land of Israel. In 1946 Motke boarded a ship, but it was intercepted by the British and forced to sail to Cyprus. He reached Israel in 1947, and joined his brother Meir who was waiting for him in kibbutz Sde-Nahum.
Motke joined the army and was wounded in the battles to open a route to Makor Haim. Later he fulfilled his dream to become an officer in the Jewish army. In 1952 Motke married Esther and they have two children and eight grandchildren.

July 1942

Ruth Avraham, a Jewish woman from Berlin, is among tens of Holocaust survivors whose story of survival made their way into books. These are excerpts from "Ruth and Maria", by Raya and Al Sokoloff, an outspoken chilling account of Jewish life during the Nazi regime, describing how Ruth parted with her parents.

Every night we prayed for the Allies' to defeat the Nazis and save us. Every day we waited with mixed emotions for the bombings and the shelling they were delivering to Germany. On the one hand we feared we might be killed, on the other hand we praying for salvation.
I cannot figure out why I insisted on having a baby. Walter thought I lost my mind. He thought this idea would be the death of us all and wouldn't even hear of it. We had heard of Jews cruelly murdered, others had disappeared, and as for ourselves, there was no way we could escape the horrors. But I wouldn't give up: I felt I had to bring new Jewish life into the world, despite the monstrosity surrounding us. The desire and the need to have a child kept me sane and gave me a reason to live.
"How will we manage with a baby?" Walter kept asking. "Have you thought it over? What if we die?" I had no answers for the questions he kept asking, but I didn't give up. I had never let anybody talk me out of doing something that I really wanted to do. Eventually, when he could no longer stand my supplications, Walter gave in, and I became pregnant in the spring of 1942. I was still doing forced labor, so I had the necessary documents for traveling on the tramway. I was not allowed to sit down, however, so I had to stand for the entire commute. Sometimes, as I was standing with the yellow star pinned on my coat, a fellow passenger would take pity on me and slip an apple or a piece of bread into my purse.
Walter and I made preparations for the birth of our baby. As a forced laborer I enjoyed a few privileges, such as 5 grams of coffee per day, and the choice to have a midwife deliver me at home or go to the Jewish Hospital in Berlin. Walter and I had already decided for a midwife, because of the rumors that the Nazis were doing terrible things to Jewish babies born in the Jewish hospital. While we were busy planning, we tried no to think about the daily routine of aerial attacks and running to the shelter.

In the first weeks of pregnancy I started bleeding. Dr. Emil Cohen, who was 84-years-old, was very worried and instructed me to lie in bed for at least six weeks if I wanted to keep the baby. So I lay in bed for six weeks, because I was desperate to have the baby. Luckily, my parents lived close by. My mother, who was 62 years old at the time, was working in an arms factory. My 70-year-old father was too old and weak to work. So he took care of me while I had to lie in bed. He would fix me meals and I ate in bed. My parents were delighted that I was going to have a baby. A grandchild is something wonderful to look forward to even when the world around you is collapsing.
And then, in July 1942 my parents received the order to prepare for deportation in two weeks' time. We knew that deportation meant death. My mother understood, she had no illusions.
Walter and I had decided to go into hiding, but my parents were too old for this. My mother was almost blind, and my father was very weak. My mother knew where they were going, but she was ready to face her destiny: "I'd rather have a horrible end than an unending horror", she used to say. So we went on with our lives as if a miracle was about to happen any moment.
During those two weeks I went to see my parents every day. I was going to give my father a non-rust watch – an expensive item in the reality of those days. I had bought it on impulse several months earlier, but after the ominous letter I decided to give it to my father as a good-bye gift.
The most dreadful day arrived all too soon. It was a Tuesday, July 22, 1942. I hadn't been able to sleep all night. I forget what I said at work, perhaps I asked for a day off, because I wasn't going to wrap Aspirin pills for the Nazis that day.
Even though it could have harmed my unborn baby, I couldn't eat a thing. The air was heavy with fear and horror. At dawn I went to my parents' house to help them pack. But they were already packed. My father recited the morning prayers, as usual, and then put his prayer shawl and phylacteries in his bag. That morning his prayers took longer than ever.
My parents were too weak to carry heavy cases, that's why they put on several layers of clothes, as many as they could, considering the heat of July.
Waiting was a nightmare. Of all their children I was the only one to see them off. Edith was in England, Anna in the United States, Betty in Palestine, and Ella, fearful for her own family had stayed at home. It seemed to me that I was in Germany for a very special reason – to provide comfort and strength for my elderly parents.
Suddenly there was a heavy knock on the door and we were startled although we knew it was coming. That was it. That which we had feared most had materialized. Two SS troops came in. One last look, one last hug. "Keep believing, we'll pray for a miracle", I said to them.
The soldiers started shouting their orders. I helped my parents with the luggage down the stairs. A truck was already there and the building was surrounded by armed guards with assault dogs. There was nobody on the truck yet, my parents' names were the first on the list. We went around the truck carrying the heavy parcels. Our neighbors had gathered in the street to witness the event. I couldn't help myself and I climbed into the truck together with my parents, and sat with them. We hugged, and cried and prayed. I wanted to return the love they had heaped on me all my life. My being on the truck was infuriating the guards. They yelled at me that I could join my parents on the transport if I wanted. It was hard to resist the temptation. I couldn't bear the feeling that I was abandoning them. As soon as I jumped off the truck it started rolling. I followed it like a mourner walking behind a casket. Then I ran around a long block in order to get ahead of it, but I was too late.
I turned around and walked home. I was very weak because I hadn't eaten anything since the night before, so I lay in bed. Suddenly I remembered that I hadn't given my father his watch.
I knew the truck was heading for the Jewish Community Center on Gross Hamburger Street. That building, which had once been the center of a vibrant community, had become a place of death and ruin. By day, day trucks would arrive and unload their cargo of helpless Jews. At night, while the rest of the Berliners were asleep, train would pick up the hapless cargo and lead them to their last destination: death.
I got out of bed and ran to the center without putting on my yellow star. When I got there, I lowered my head. I felt as if the entire world was watching me and could see and hear my heart pounding in my chest. I forced myself to calm down. I examined the building and found an easy way in. I took it as a sign that God was watching over me.
The room I entered looked like a picture from hell. Hundreds of human beings crammed together, children crying, mothers breastfeeding their babies, some men were praying loudly, others were whispering. Then I saw my parents, they were close to the door, as if expecting me. We embraced again. My father was in a state of shock. My mother told me that on the very same morning the Nazis had questioned my father about his bank account and forced him to sign his possessions over to them, in order to pay for his ticket to Theresienstadt, on the outskirts of Prague.
My mother signaled to me not to say something that might upset my father even more. So I pulled out the watch and gave it to him. My father couldn't believe his eyes. He lift it up in the air for a better look and examined it carefully and kept smiling all along.
This is how I remember him, enjoying the treasure that had just landed in his lap, the last happy moment of his life.
My eyes never left the door. My mother understood my anxiety and signaled to me leave. We hugged again, we prayed together – "Hear, oh Israel, the Lord our God is one God" and I left. I made my way out of the building by the same unguarded door.
That night, Walter and I sat together silent with grief. We had that night only to remember, one single night to sit shiva and mourn my parents. We had a plan and we had to act without delay. For if we didn't, both of us and our unborn child would share my parents' fate.
The following night we ignored the curfew and headed towards my parents' house. The swastika seal was already on the door, meaning that the occupants of the house had been taken to their final destination. Nobody ever touched those seals. They were like the markings on a fresh grave. I removed the seal carefully. Walter opened the door.
The apartment looked exactly as it did the day before, except now it was empty and quiet. I thought I was going to be sick. The furniture, the beautiful dishes reminded me of the Shabbat and holiday meals we had had together. But there was no time to throw up. Our plan was to take every piece of furniture we could carry and sell it. We had to focus on staying alive and keeping the baby. And for that we needed money. My parents' furniture would provide us with that money. It wasn't antique furniture, but it was still fashionable. Lots of houses had been bombed and destroyed in Berlin, and furniture was not easy to find those days. That's why we were certain we would find buyers.
We took only the smallest and prettiest items that could fetch the best prices. The next day we snuck in again, and then again the following night. Each time we removed the seal and then pasted it back again carefully. Walter had several old friends dating back to the days he was in the furniture business. They helped us every night, putting their own lives at risk. One of them loaded all the furniture in his truck and then others helped sell it on the black market. I myself managed to ferry some of the lighter pieces using a simple hand trolley. Our hearts pounding in our chests, frightened to death that someone might spot us from some window and denounce us to the Nazis, we pushed my parents' furniture through the streets of Berlin. Miraculously, we managed to sell every single piece without getting caught.
I forget how many Reich marks we made selling the furniture, but it was the last present my parents gave me. They wouldn't know it, but this is how we managed to stay strong and survive. The following year, when we decided to go into hiding, we had enough money for bribes and for purchasing goods on the black market. I hid the money and the birthday greeting from my mother, which turned out to be her last letter, in a secret pocket underneath my clothes.

(I translated the Hebrew translation of the English version. I hope I didn't stray too far off the original).

photographs: Ruth and Walter Avraham, spring 1939.

Ruth's parents, Frieda and Meir Frum, 1941 (?)

Mourning over a lost sister

I have lived in Israel for 23 years now, i.e. twenty-three Holocaust Remembrance Days. Twenty-three times I read and heard survivor accounts, stories of murdered relatives and friends, shattered communities, mass murder and genocide.
Anti-Semitism is raising its monstrous head once again. Most Europeans would like to bury their part in wiping out European Jewry by giving blind support to the Arab propaganda that would make even Goebbels proud. Therefore I have decided to dedicate part of this blog to testimonies of crimes committed against the Jews of Europe during WWII as they are published in Israeli newspapers. This is the story of Esther Weiner, by Avraham Tirosh.
(The Weiners, Esther seated in the middle, her brother Joseph standing behind her).

My aunt Esther waited for three years for her permission to join her two brothers in Palestine, until she was deported to Treblinka. My father never forgave himself for failing obtain the certificate that would have saved her life. This is what he wote sixty years ago: "I had but one sister, sweet and pure, but she did not have wings, and I couldn't save her."

Although I was born before WWII in mandatory Palestine, I sometimes define myself as a Holocaust survivor, no offense to those who have "earned" this title in earnest. I was pulled at the very last moment from that "Valley of Death".
My late mother came to the Land of Israel in 1930 at the age of 21. She rebelled against her non-Zionist ultra-Orthodox family and persuaded her equally Hassidic uncle, who was less opposed to the Zionist idea to pay for her ticket in utmost secrecy. Six years later, in Palestine, she married my father, Joseph Weiner (Tirosh). I am their first born son.
I was almost two years old at the beginning of summer 1939 and my mother decided to travel to her native Bialystok, to proudly introduce me, the Land-of-Israel grandson to her parents. We were ready to leave in August, but due to the imminent war my mother decided to put off the voyage. Luckily! War broke out on September 1st. Other Land-of-Israel mothers, I don't know how many, who wanted to show off their children, were stuck in Poland. Some managed to flee, others perished.
But this is not what this story is about. Neither is this story about my family solely, although so it might seem. All of my mother's family perished in the Shoah, except one of her sisters who followed her to the Land of Israel. On my father's side, his brother was here, and they both helped their widowed mother to travel to Palestine. Only Esther, their younger sister stayed behind and was murdered together with her husband and infant son in Treblinka, in all likelihood.
My late father was involved with bringing legal and illegal immigrants to Palestine/Land of Israel, but despite being well-connected, he couldn't obtain the necessary "certificate", the immigration visa from the British Mandate officials, so Esther had to stay behind. My father never got over his tragic failure and he never forgave himself.
During the 1940's and 1950' my father was writing for "The Tzofeh" (The Onlooker) under his nom de plume J. Tirosh (although his name was still Weiner). This newspaper had a large Zionist-religious audience. Although being a young child at the time, I remember the "celebs" among them. But I was taken by surprise when I found out what had happened to my aunt.
My father passed away eleven years ago. Among his belongings we found a number of articles and letters, most already published by different newspapers and magazines. A few months ago, I went through his papers once again, and found an old edition of the newspaper, and among its yellow pages the following article, published 60 years ago, on February 28, 1947. This was my broken-hearted father grieving over his younger sister's death and agonizing over his own inability to save her.

This is the article "I Had One Sister":
I had one sister, sweet and small, my beautiful young sister. But she didn't have wings, she didn't know how to fly. We grew up as two soft chicks in the loving nest of a pair of lovebirds: mother and father.
I grew up and became a man. I grew wings and I thought I had to fly away from the nest, far far away, to the land of the sun and the azure. My younger sister pleaded with me and begged: please take me with on your wings. Wherever you shall fly, I shall fly. Wherever you shall dwell, I shall dwell. How shall I eat and breathe alone, on my own, with no-one beside me, when your soul is my soul?
I encouraged her, I promised to take her with me later on: wherever I shall go, you shall go. But I didn't keep my promise. With God as my witness, accursed evil stopped me and stood in my way. The gate was locked behind me. High walls stopped me in my tracks and wouldn't let me pass. My powers failed me.
I sent her messages to comfort and encourage her: I will bring you over, I will help you leave. Tomorrow we shall receive the good sign. I will build a paper bridge for you. I will send you your "certificate". It will allow you safe passage to me, to the land of sun and azure, and you shall find peace.
I had this sister, my one and only sister. But she didn't have wings, she couldn't fly away. She stood by her window every evening, looking into the twilight, waiting for the letter man. She stood there wishing him to come, waiting for the sign, for the paper bridge. She stood there for one year, two years, three years, but the sign didn't come. Yet she didn't despair. She grew up, became a woman, a few gray hairs found their way among her curls. She got married and still she waited, wished for the sign.
My wings were severed, there was no wind beneath them. I had no power to send her an eagle. I had no power to bring her to the promised land, close to me, to my home, to the safe nest. The wind didn't help her, she had no power to fly like a dove, to fly far away. To find refuge from the coming storm. She was waiting for me, for a sign from me. She was hoping I could save her. Even though the sign was long in coming, she kept on waiting.
Treblinka was not far away. In fact it was very close, in place and time. Too close. She could almost see and feel it. About one hour away from her home. There sat my fragile sister, lonely
and forlorn, so close to Treblinka, swallowing her tears and waiting. Humming a soft tune and waiting. Eating her bread in sorrow and lying in her bed in grief. She was so sad, so sad, but she waited. She sat in her home, but she did not despair. She looked out the window and waited, tapping on the window sill and wondering: "Why is the postman late? Why is he always late?"
She waited one year, two years, three years. She sat there feeling sad and abandoned, but she didn't despair. She was still waiting for a miracle. Still praying. Until the man from Treblinka came for her and took her away, along with the rest of the children of Israel, and led them to the fires of Treblinka, which sucked her bone marrow and smashed her bones, until she and the baby in her arms were no more.
And still she laughs, hope hovers on her scorched lips: a paper bridge will be built and salvation is near. Very near. It is nearing my house, it is by the gate.
But alas, I had but one sister, fragile and pure. She didn't have wings. And I couldn't lift her to fly on my wings. Let her soul, holy and untainted, rest on the wings of heavenly angels. Glorified and sanctified be the great name of the Lord (mourning prayer).
When is my sister's yearly commemoration (juhrzeit)? When is your sister's commemoration, or that of your brother, your mother or father? Even this "pleasure" has been denied us. My sister died without a name, without a date. She left nothing behind and nothing remains of her. Not even the day, not even the month. Alas!"

As I said, this is not only the story of my family. I am sure many Jews in wartime Palestine were grieving and agonizing over the fate of their helpless families, over the unsuccessful attempts to bring them over to Palestine and save their lives. Instead, those left behind in Europe went up in the smoke of the crematoria. The scars in their hearts must have never healed, just as my father's heart bled to his very last day.
All that is left of my aunt Esther, my father's younger sister, is a tiny book-shaped tombstone that my father left on his father's grave, dedicated to the memory of Esther and Ephraim Ditkowsky, her husband, and their infant son Avraham Shmuel, named for our grandfather, just like me. Except I have no idea how old he was or what he looked like when the murderers took his young innocent life.

My grandfather, Solomon Katz

This is my grandfather Solomon Katz. I never met him. He was murdered by the Nazis long before I was born. My mother hardly knew him, she was barely five years old on that accursed day when Nazi troops marched into Lvov, lined him up against a wall and shot him, along with other prominent members of the Jewish community and university professors. One can clearly see how dangerous he must have been to the Third Reich. This is the only picture I have of him, the only picture I have ever seen. I don't even know how old he was in 1932 or when he died. At the bottom of the picture my mother, his daughter, wrote in her own hand: "Daddy in Gubalowce, 1932", in Polish. It is nothing short of a miracle that this photograph has survived 75 years and perhaps a dozen house moves.
This year, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, for the first time in my life I was overcome by the need to wear a new pair of shoes and to perform the blessing "who has given us life": Blessed art thou, our Lord, our God, who has given us life, sustained us, and enabled us to reach this day," although this blessing is customarily offered on Passover, Feast of Weeks, Jewish New Year, Yom Kippur, Tabernacles, and Rejoicing of the Torah. But I needed to let my grandfather know that I am alive, his only grandchild, and that my two sons, his great-grandchildren, are alive. One of them is getting married soon, and hopefully great-great-grandchildren will be born.
I wanted to let him know that his smile goes on, my mother had it, I have it, one of my sons has it...
I also wanted to ask him to keep an eye on us and on the children of Israel who are once again threatened with annihilation, so that the smiles of the six million murdered 62 years ago are not forgotten forever.

The Stockholm Syndrome

Even before it is out, Burg's book is making headlines. I wish I could call it names, but I haven't read it, and I probably never will. It might be a good read, I admit, but the fact that it was picked up by almost every possible anti-Jewish anti-Zionsit sites puts me off. Besides I saw Burg's interview with London and Kirschenbaum and he wasn't able to provide proper answers to their probing questions (no attacks, no provocations, just musings) and in fact endorse his claims by anything other than the ramblings of his burning mind and vivid imagination. He went on whining in his monotonous voice, reciting a well-prepared well-rehearsed speech, totally oblivious of the anchors' questions. He invoked his dead father (who is probably turning over in his grave) and went on to explore his gut feelings that he is welcome to keep for himself as far as I am concerned. For me, he is just another example of a self-hating intellectual Jew trying to make a living maligning his fellow Israelis, as soon as his career petered out, just like Uri Avneri. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you well. .

Arik Bachar
Ma'ariv. June 10, 2007

With a coveted EU passport in his pocket, with a yearning for the Diaspora that spat his father out, Avrum Burg is free to go to France and leave the feeling of disgust to us.

They say that the people residing in the Land of Israel is so stupid that it cannot elect its leaders. Avrum Burg is the ultimate proof of the stupidity put forth by this thesis, proof that the filters of the Israeli electorate do a better job than most believe.
This is the man who would have been our PM, the one with two passports and a multitude of faces. The one who came to the conclusion that Zionism is not so great only after his retirement conditions were revised. Not to mention the police inquiry into his shady business enterprises. Only after he hit the glass ceiling did he realize that his meteoric light was dimming and started to search the depths of his tormented soul for proof that perhaps the Jewish presence of Israel is misplaced and that in fact we were at our best while in exile.
In his wonderful interview with Arik Shavit for the Ha'aretz (available on the net, mostly on Zionist-bashing, Jewish-blood-sucking sites, in case you have had too much to eat and cannot puke), Burg is taking the Stockholm Syndrome to incredible heights: the loyalty displayed by the average hostage towards the goals of his abductors pales next the Burg's burning adoration of the same Diaspora that spat out (and on) his ancestors and devoured all those who lacked the foresight to run for their lives before it was too late.
Last week I returned from a visit I to those places that make up Burg's love and desire: Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Lodz ghetto, places Burg himself must have visited while wearing elegant suits provided for him and paid for by the Jewish people. Since he confessed to Shavit that the ideas he put down in his soon to be published book had been on his mind for quite some time, one can assume that Burg came up with profound realization that "Israeli society is afraid, ... [experiencing] this utmost fear, the ancestral fear of the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust" while searching for it in those very locations. And what is the amazing observation that this retired genius who purported to be the great hope of Zionist politics brought back from Poland? That the people subjected to the ultimate genocide is not always behaving in a rational manner. Really, Burg! You mean we should no longer be wary 60 short years after the terrible trauma?
You are talking about the belligerent Israeli society and the disproportionate use of force against explicit threats to complete that genocide? Go to Rwanda, Burg, and observe the behavior of those who survived an extermination attempt 13 years ago. Then perhaps you will appreciate how restrained Israel actually is. Go to your beloved America, the center of your coveted exile, where you claim that that Jews can attain their their utmost glory, and count the number of human lives exacted in response to the 3,000 WTC victims.
However, in spite of everything, Burg is one more example of the vitality of the Jewish people. He managed to find in the Shoah the exact opposite of what most Israeli have learned: namely that the Jews believed and hoped up to the very last moment, when they were pushed into the gas chambers. But 60 years ago, as they stepped over the threshold of the phony showers built for them on the soil of the continent that Burg's heart goes out to, they must have thought, every last one of them, that perhaps moving to Palestine in the mid 1930's might not have been an entirely bad idea.
So now Burg holds a EU passport that entitles him to vote, work and reside as a proud Jew in France. Congratulations, Mr. Burg, but when you take up lodgings over there, remember to cover your head with a see-through skullcap, just to be on the safe side. And you can let us deal with the disgust on our own, and to drink from the well into which you chose not only to piss, but also to throw up.

Burg's Passport
Ar'el Segal
Maariv May 19, 2007
(not that holding a foreign passport is amoral, criminal, or even illegal, no such thing. But one who served as Knesset Speaker and Director of the Jewish Agency - "President of the Jewish people" - is in no position to urge Israelis to acquire a second passport and clear out of the country that is not only their homeland, but that they also love, cherish, build and sometimes even die for. And die young, too.)
Several days ago a Jerusalem Court rejected the appeal of French citizen and former Jewish Agency director (1995-1999), Monsieur de Bourg, who insisted that the Jewish Agency keep on covering the costs of a private driver for his private jeep, to the tune of 22,000 NIS/month (~ 5,500 USD). Justice Sara Shdior explained that "Burg failed to list all pertinent details to his claim, such as the fact that the Jewish Agency is not the only or the main sponsor of Burg's vehicle, as he is entitled to funding from the Knesset, as former Knesset speaker. He also failed to mention that the fact that he sometimes uses said jeep for purposes connected to his activities as a private businessman.
During the Gaza disengagement I sat next to Mr. Burg as guests of Nissim Mishal's talk show. When I was done talking, Burg looked at me with arrogance and disdain, and proceeded to regurgitate the corny cliches of the articulate left, the so-called voice of sanity. I was not impressed. I had always considered Burg a self-content megalomaniac pompous ass. As a matter of principle I'd rather not share in other people's flatulence. I even make it a point to restrict my own to "under the blanket" situations. But I must confess that I had shared the general opinion defining Burg's public figure as an honest politician, a man of principles. Yet the fact that the former Jewish Agency Director and Knesset Speaker bends over backwards for a foreign passport is quite metaphoric - one more indicator of the decomposing political leadership which justifies the rapidly spreading feeling of despair. If a former chairman of the official body in charge of bringing Jews to Israel uses his wife's birthright to obtain a French passport, where does it leave the others?
And perhaps Burg's appeal (which was rejected in court) to obtain funding for his private driver from the Jewish Agency is one more proof of Mr. Burg's principles - unfathomable impudence and great sense of humor: one more attempt at cracking jokes at our expense.

Gilad Shalit has a French passport, because his mother is French. What good did it do him?

New Toys for British Army in Iraq and Lessons in Ethics

Israeli Drones over Iraq
Felix Frish
Ma'ariv June 6, 2007

While the British academia (cacademia) is pushing for a boycott of Israeli goods, Her Majesty's Army is purchasing Israeli drones.

One day after PM Blair's attempt to reassure his Israeli counterpart by opposing the academic boycott, the British Army signals its willingness to cooperate with Elbit Systems and places an important 110 million USD order for Hermes 405 drones to be used in Iraq operations.

These UAV's are also being employed by the IAF and according to foreign military analysts, they have the capability to launch missiles against different targets. According to Elbit Systems, its British subsidiary, Tacs-U will be in charge of the production along with French Thales. According to the contract, British ground crews will also be trained to use this sophisticated tool. Yossi Ackerman, President and Director General of Elbit: "The Hermes 405 has gained worldwide recognition among UAV users."

And now for something that really blew my mind: British army officers travel to Israel to learn about training the next generation of officers and military ethics . Once again: while the British academia calls for boycott, British and Israeli military come closer.

A large international delegation consisting of Army officers from the UK, US, Germany, Finland and other countries, attended a congress on military ethics organized by the Center of Ethics in Jerusalem and learned from Israeli officers how to instill the military ethics principles into younger generations of officers. The delegations also visited the dividing wall.

(adapted from Felix Frish and Yuval Lidor, Ma'ariv June 8, 2007)

Stupidity

Ar'el Segal
Ma'ariv, June 9, 2007

40 years, 4000 years, does it matter?
"Citizens, in the name of honor, in the name of our heroic Arab fatherland, in the name of history, past and future: we are entering today a battle for freedom, valor, honor and salvation. We shall stand before the Israeli aggressor and we shall wipe him out, in order to remove the stain of the imperialist Zionist entity. Brothers, free fighters from Gaza, Sinai and Sharm-al-Shech, brothers, heroes from the Lebanon and Syria, start marching on Tel-Aviv." This is how the Egyptian radio station began its broadcast to the Arab world on June 5, 1967, the day the Six-Day-War broke out.
This week, as I was leafing through an American magazine, I stumbled upon the best ever definition for "politically correct", a vile notion that corrupts dialogue and thought. "Political Correctness is a doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical liberal minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end."
I need this definition when the Iranian president declares that the days of Israel are numbered. One week ago the British academia decided to call for a boycott against Israel, which doesn't take me by surprise. Nor does it surprise me that members of Israeli academia acted as catalysts. Samuel Johnson said that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Yes, and humanism is the last refuge of a traitor. Ironically, the first blood libel incident against the Jews documented in the Christian world took place in Norwich, England. Norwich Jews were accused of murdering 11-year-old William. One of the main characters in the story was unsurprisingly a converted Jew, Theobald of Cambridge.
The blood accusation later spread to the continent and the persecutions started. The passage of time left no mark either on the perpetrators or the renegade Jews. During the Defensive Shield operation, members of the Israeli academia signed a petition calling on the world to intervene and stop the ethnic cleaning of the Palestinians by Israel. It is not by chance that at the very same time Israeli PM Ariel Sharon was sipping Arab children blood in an Egyptian TV series. When Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was kindly asked to take that program off the air, he replied: "Not all Jews are the same." Jewish self-hate is undoubtedly a very deep and unprecedented psycho-historical phenomenon.

The root of self-hatred
German Jewish philosopher Theodore Lessing published The Jewish Self-Hatred (Der Judische Selbsthass) in the 1930's. He was murdered by the Nazis in 1933. Lessing claims that the highly developed Jewish sense of morality is the key to the pathological self-loathing. An individual is not interested only in knowing the reason behind the disaster that strikes, they want to know why. Most humans will shift the blame onto someone else, usually the enemy. The Jew accepts his own guilt because he perceives every misfortune as punishment which brings him closer to salvation.
This self-blame is the result of thousands of years of persecution. The claim is supported by Masechet Shabbat (13,72): "Pray tell, rabbis, who wrote the book of fasting? They answered: Hanania ben Hizkiyahu and his followers who loved misfortunes (meaning misfortunes that can be atoned for, as well as the miracles for which they can praise the blessed Lord). Then said Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel: We also love our misfortunes, but what to do, for if we were to write them down, we would not have the time (Rashi comment: because they were aplenty)."
An additional reason for self-loathing is the gentile background. Victim demonizing is a frequent psychological process useful for overcoming conscience qualms over trespasses. The individual seeks a reason to justify his misfortunes (e.g. the attitude towards the expelled Gush Katiff residents). Two thousand years of Christian love must have done something to the Jewish soul, else why would the Jews themselves believe that they deserve their persecution. In Lessing's words: "In order to turn a man into a dog it is enough to repeat calling him 'You, dog'!".

This week marks the 40th anniversary of the Six-Day War, but the public atmosphere dictated by the media swings between lament and grief. At times it seems that the Israeli elite regret our victory. Any person in their right mind would ask: "Are they sane? What would have happened to us if we hadn't crushed our enemies? Where would we have been had the intentions of our Arab enemies materialized, as expressed by Egyptian president Nasser in 1965, during his speech in Hilwan: "Our goal is the destruction of Israel. During the first summit we set two objectives. The immediate one – to complete the unification of the Arab forces, and the national objective – to annihilate Israel."

The tale of stupidity and ignorance
My TV set is tuned to channel 10 broadcasting "What we lost in the Six Day War". I go ballistic. Some of us, the "older ones", remember the battle cries of the crowds rallying in the main squares of Cairo and Damascus, days before the war broke out and liberated parts of our land. PLO leader at the time Ahmad Shukairi coined the phrase "Men to the sea, women to us". This became the legitimate, public chant of the blood thirsty Arab mobs, a battle cry of the tribal Arabs who used to slaughter all males and enslave all women. This barbaric cry is still popular with the Palestinians, both within and without the Green Line (remember the October riots?): "Haibar, Haibar, ya yahood, Jaish Muhammad Sawfa ya'ud", meaning "Haibar, Haibar, oh Jew, Muhammad's Army is coming for you." (Haibar was an oasis inhabitant by independent Jewish tribes until Muhammad treacherously attacked them, slaughtered all the men and enslaved all women and children).
How better to conclude this discourse on stupidity and ignorance than by mentioning a painful episode from our more recent history: remember the Fager rockets landing in Afula, Beit Shean and Haifa during the second Lebanon? What did the Hezbollah call them? Haibar rockets.

Jerusalem the Golden
On the eve of the Six Day War, Naomi Shemer wrote her "Jerusalem the Golden" classic, one of the finest examples of renewed Hebrew song. Well, during many a conversation with educated people, I was surprised to find out how few of them knew what inspired this beautiful anthem. Masechet Avot de Rabbi Nathan describes how Rabbi Akiva rewards his wife Rachel for her faithfulness and support through thick and thin, with a beautiful piece of jewelry named Jerusalem the Golden, an engraving of the city of Jerusalem, ruined and deserted by her Jewish residents. The gorgeous engraving was a memento of the city's lost grandeur and an expression of the hope for deliverance. And to complete the puzzle, in the Midrash Rabba Eicha, we read how Rabbi Akiva and the sages traveled (climbed) to Jerusalem and spotted a fox in the ruins of the Holy of Holies. While the sages wept, Rabbi Akiva burst into laughter. The sages were bewildered, but Rabbi Akiva explained: "As long as the prophecy of ruin was fulfilled, so shall the prophecy of salvation be fulfilled."

And behold, Naomi Shemer was composing her beautiful song during the Six Day War waiting period without the slightest suspicion that Jerusalem was soon to be liberated. Those whining today about our victory in the battle field are the same ones that criticized Naomi's lyrics, mostly "the dry water wells, the empty market place". Amos Oz, the one with the beautiful bangs and pure soul reprimanded: "What does she mean by the dry water wells and empty market place? It was full of Arabs. What does she mean no-one was going to the Dead Sea? With my own eyes I saw Arab women heading for the Dead Sea all the time." Naomi Shemer replied in the documentary produced in her honor: "This claim is really infuriating and offending. As if a man who misses his beloved should seek comfort with this psychiatrist, Amos Oz, who would reassure him: Don’t worry, your beloved is not alone, she is in bed with another man. For me, a Judenrein world is a dead planet, and the Land of Israel without Jews is empty and deserted."
(illustrations: Jerusalem and East Jerusalem painted in 1842 by British artist David , of all names, Roberts)