Israel in our eyes

Israel in our eyes - Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

July 27, 2006

To our dear congregation and community:

 

Ruby and I reluctantly returned home this morning (Wednesday, July 16th) after twenty-three days in Israel, the last ten, on our own, after a most magnificent of intrepid tourists from our community (mostly from our synagogue) returned home on the sixteenth. Our trip was a great expedition to see the most significant places that contributed to the creation of Medinat (The State) of Israel. Places of antiquity and modernity, of valiant resistance to subterranean bullet production were on our itinerary. We went to Masada and Gamla, Jerusalem and Safed, Golan and Yad Mordechai, Tel Aviv and Latrun. We saw faces of valiant Jews and those rescued from the Holocaust. We walked the streets, heard the voices, tasted the food and breathed the air of the only Jewish state on the face of the earth. We spent money that brought home beautiful things and contributed to the economy. We met an old woman from Europe who helped be a kibbutz in the north - Lochamei HaGeto'ot - now under bombardment. We ascended the mountains and peered into the valleys. We didn't see it all, but we saw a lot. We saw a brave nation that sits alone amidst sworn enemies. We saw brave faces that smiled and laughed. We walked through markets crowded with shoppers bumping into you without batting an eyelash, with such smells of fresh vegetables and flowers and bargains on everything imaginable. We walked through alleyways and byways reflecting antiquity and modernity. We pushed ourselves to see as much as we could possibly cram into these few days. We prayed in Kehillat Shirah Hadashah with enthusiasm, vibrancy and passion, and visited the Dalton winery whose fields of grapes ready for harvest soon are currently on the front line of the war. All of the beauty, physical and spiritual, comes at the price of constant vigilance and defense, and also suffering.

 

While we did not go to Haifa, Ruby and I have spent time in that beautiful city by the bay, ranging from the port to the mountain top of Carmel. It sits now silent, except for the air raid sirens signaling a rocket or katyusha attack. People spend most of the time in the air raid shelters. Can you imagine living like this? Ruby and I saw many children, separated from the their parents and brought to the center of the country where they could spend their time outdoors. Emek Hefer has taken a lead in this as it is a relatively larger area in the middle of Israel. At the bottom of the television screen they scroll the names and phone numbers of families who are prepared to host families from the northern sector, no questions asked and with unlimited time frames. These are truly the most significant gestures of solidarity!

 

It is nearly impossible to convey to you the various moods, often conflicting, and the psychology of Israel at this moment. It is so foreign to us, even post 9/11. What is needed to be known outside of Israel is that the Hezbollah have been stocking, with the acquiescence of the Lebanese government thousands upon thousands of katyushas and kassams and rockets of all sorts over the past years for the express purpose of firing from civilian locations onto civilian targets in Israel. They have been preparing to instigate this fight for a long time. they picked the time and the place, knowing full well that Israel could not allow any more attacks on its sovereign soil in a copy cat plan that Hamas did from the Gaza Strip. While indeed there have been many civilian casualties on the Lebanese side, it is due to the fact that that is where they have entrenched themselves. They have used the Lebanese unabashedly as human shields and now aim exclusively at civilians. No country would allow a third of its population and nearly half of its territory to live under such a constant, diabolical and lethal threat.

 

And this was the last thing that Israel wanted to happen. Like our group being in Israel, this was a great tourist season for Israel and for Lebanon as well. Both countries needed the normalcy of a strong season, the influx of people and monies, work, fun, happiness. Israel, after trying to protect the Galilee previously, pulled back to the internationally recognized border in 2000 hoping, now seen in vain, that Lebanon would not ignore the UN resolution that required it to disarm the Hezbollah and exert control of its sovereign territory with its own army, which it did not do. And Israel pulled out of Gaza exactly a year ago so that the Palestinians could begin their nation building. Instead the Palestinian Authority did nothing to stop Hamas from reigning katyushas and other missiles on Shederot and other settlements inside Israel borders. And Hamas terrorists are now the government with a real live charter which declares its intention to destroy Israel. With whom do you talk? Why talk? Can it be that the hard line hawks with whom Ruby and I politely disagreed respecting the reality that we had tickets back to the States and they did not, and thus being very tender in voicing an contrary thoughts. Is it no other that a fight to the death, and it won't be Israel's!

 

I have been up for a day and a half at least, but finally have released my emotions to write a little, but I feel that even these words are inadequate to tell you how we felt being there, watching the TV and reading the newspapers, and then leaving. Most humbly we say that we felt like "traitors." They needed us with them and we wanted to be there too. We left more than our hearts there. We left a piece of our soul as well. When we came to the Kotel in the beginning of the trip I placed several notes into the wall. Some I was entrusted to bring and others I wrote for people. I concluded my note with the words "Shalom al Yisrael" - "Peace Over Israel." I couldn't imagine how necessary and urgent those words were. I am sure that Ruby prayed even more fervor from her spot by the Kotel. May they come true, sooner, or later if necessary.

 

I close this installment with the note that we as the Conservative Movement have another interest and investment in the current affairs. All three Israeli soldiers being held hostage after being attacked without provocation, one in Gaza and two in Lebanon, all became Bar Mitzvah in the Masorati - Conservative congregations in Israel. It is a small but noteworthy fact of our presence and influence.

 

Shalom Al Yisrael,

 

from very tired and reluctant travelers,

Rabbi and Ruby