Hebron Articles - April-May 2004
A Beacon of Light
The True Untouchable
Hallel
The Traffic Jam That Saved Eretz Yisrael
The Return of Weimar
Profiles in Courage or Profiles in Cowardice?
by David Wilder
The Jewish Community of Hebron
May 19, 2004
Shalom.
I’m presently wandering around the United States – so here, it’s still Yom Yerushalayim and tonight begins Yom Hevron - the days when Hebron and Jerusalem were liberated during the Six-Day War in 1967.
I’d like to share with you some of my experiences here.
I spent last Shabbat out west. It was a great few days. People greeted me with wonderful enthusiasm and their hospitality was reminiscent of Abraham’s generosity. As far as I was concerned, it was a highly successful trip.
It was also highly educational. In what way?
I’m frequently asked if Hebron isn’t dangerous. How do we live there – how do we deal with terrorist threats, and the like. Hearing questions like these, one might assume that just about everywhere else in the world is really really safe. Everywhere except Hebron, and maybe a few other places, like maybe all of Eretz Yisrael.
Well, as I wrote, my hosts were fabulous – they wined and dined me, and made sure I met some of the right people. One night, knowing that I’d probably be leaving the house earlier than them the next morning, they gave me a key to their home, along with some interesting explanations. They told me that not too long ago a group of thugs had been breaking into people’s homes in their vicinity. Not only would they break into homes, they would break doors down, kicking them in, sometimes at two different entrances simultaneously. Once inside the house, they would not only ransack and steal. They raped women and beat up others present. Real good folk, as you can imagine.
So, at night, their front door isn’t only locked. Rather, a large, heavy metal bar is fitted horizontally on the door, preventing it from being kicked in. And that was only the beginning. This particular family, all of whom are really lovely people, have a household arsenal including a 12 gauge shotgun, a SigSaur pistol (an automatic sidearm used by elite special forces unit and the US Navy SEALs), and some other goodies, the likes of which I’ve never seen before. They all know how to shoot, mother, father and kids. If I had half of what they own in Hebron, I’d be accused of everything under the sun – and terrorism would be the least of the charges. They also installed electronically controlled metal security shutters.
So, that’s safe, good old America – and I thought, perhaps naively so, that the ‘wild west’ only exists today in cowboy movies and novels.
That’s out west.
Now, a little closer to the Atlantic, on the east coast. I spent an evening with friends out here in New York, in one of the famous five boroughs. At ten o’clock at night I went out with my host for evening prayers at a nearby Jewish educational institution, a large, very successful mix of Jewish and secular studies.
Just before we entered the building, he pointed in the direction of some benches outside, within the plaza leading to the building’s doors. Sitting there were a bunch of our ‘cousins,’ the kinds of which I thought I’d left in Hebron. Women wearing scarf head coverings and chadors, the veil showing only their eyes. Kids too, and a few men. There they were, sitting right next to the entrance of a yeshiva study hall in greater New York.
My host told me that during the summer months the courtyard is filled with them, and they sit there all night. When I asked about security problems he said that last year there was a little ‘rock-throwing’ but following some calls to the police, that had stopped. Since then it had been quiet. That really made me feel good, right at home.
And I’m the one people ask about ‘security threats?’ Maybe the questions are legitimate, but they should be directed perhaps, at the places I visit while traveling around the United States, as opposed to my home in Hebron.
Ok – that’s one set of stories. The second deals with how I celebrated Jerusalem Day. This morning I attended a few children’s classes in a New York elementary Jewish school. I spoke to three classes of children in 4th to 8th grade. It was really a lot of fun. The kids were good and listened to what I had to say.
I told them how it was, how it used to be - how the British arrested Rabbi Moshe Segal in the early 1930s for blowing the shofar at the Kotel, the Western Wall at the conclusion of Yom Kippur prayers. And how Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak HaCohen Kook, then the Israeli Chief Rabbi threatened to continue the Yom Kippur fast and conduct a hunger strike until Segal was released. And how Jews were banned from the Kotel from 1948 until 1967.
I also spoke to them about Hebron and Ma’arat HaMachpela, about the ordinance forbidding a Jewish presence inside Ma’arat HaMachpela for seven hundred years, and how Rabbi Shlomo Goren, Chief Rabbi of the IDF, single-handedly liberated the city in 1967.
When their Rabbi introduced me as an American living in Israel, I politely corrected him, telling the kids that I’m an Israeli who happened to be born in the United States. And I tried very hard to impress upon them that we live like they do – the kids play basketball and soccer, go to school everyday, play outside and ride on bicycles, and, very simply, live, not in fear, not with trepidation, but with the same zest for life that kids have everywhere.
Yesterday I spoke at a different school, where the children were involved in ‘chesed’ or ‘good-deed’ projects. Some kids were sewing teddy-bears for Hebron’s nursery school. Others were writing letters to soldiers in Iraq. And still others were designing crossword puzzles in Hebrew for children in an Israeli hospital. I also told these youngsters about Hebron, stressing that they were walking in the footsteps of Avraham Avinu, our forefather Abraham, whose primary trait was that of loving-kindness and good deeds.
As we celebrate the 37th anniversary of the liberation of Hebron, I think it’s time that our brethren around the world start to view Hebron in a different light – not as a beleaguered city, drowning in the shadows of terror and evil. Rather, Hebron must be seen as a glorious radiating light of hope, of spirituality, the roots of all peoples. Hebron can and will remain a free city, open to all, only as long as the Jewish community there exists and thrives. Should our community cease to be, G-d forbid, for any reason, Hebron would revert back to oppressive, barbaric rule, as existed for literally hundreds of years prior to the Six-Day War.
As long as Hebron is envisaged as ‘dangerous,’ so it will be in the eyes of many. When Hebron is grasped as a beacon of culture and heritage, so it will be. Then, the only people who will query me about ‘treacherous places’ will be my children, asking, ‘Abba, isn’t the United States dangerous?’
With blessing for a happy Hebron and Jerusalem Day.
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by David Wilder
The Jewish Community of Hebron
May 11, 2004
It’s difficult to write – there’s too much to write about. There are three subjects in particular, which are, I believe, related.
As I write this, I’m watching Israel television news. Today’s news have dealt with only one subject: the murder of six Israeli soldiers by Arafat’s killers, this morning, in Gaza. The six, traveling in an Armored Personnel Carrier filled with ammunition, were on their way back to their base, following a night of activities in Zaytun. Together with other Israeli soldiers, they participated in searching for terror factories, producing Kassam missiles and other deadly weapons. Their vehicle passed over a 100 kilo bomb, buried in the street, operated by remote control. The resulting explosion caused a fire ball which could be seen from miles away.
Pieces of the APC, together with the soldiers, were splattered around the area. Within minutes, Arab barbarians began accumulating body parts of the Israeli soldiers, cannibalistically displaying them before cameras, demanding that other terrorists be released from prison in exchange for the ransomed body parts. A short film of the terrorists, pointing to a severed head and demanding the release of terrorists, was shown on Israeli television, Channel One news.
Israeli soldiers, attempting to salvage their comrade’s remains, were attacked by Arab terrorists, surrounding them and shooting at them. Hundreds of troops were brought to the scene to protect their friends-in-arms.
The Israeli Chief of Staff, Lt. General Moshe ‘Bugi’ Yaalon stated during a brief press conference that Israel will not participate in any negotiations with the Arafat-terrorists who perpetrated this war crime.
Radio commentators noted that the IDF chose to send soldiers into the Zaytun neighborhood rather than destroy the weapon’s factories from the air because of the large numbers of civilians who live in the area. In other words, the Arab’s lives are worth more than Israeli lives.
That’s subject number one.
Subject number two:
A few days ago, seven Hebron residents were notified that arms, granted them by the IDF, were to be confiscated. Central Command General Moshe Kalpinsky, signed orders ordering that their weapons be taken from them. This, due to police recommendations that these people might be ‘dangerous.’ One of the men whose weapon is to be taken from him, Tel Rumeida resident Shalom Alkobi, is a member of the Hebron emergency security squad. He carries a weapon wherever he goes, for clear reasons of self-defense. He has a letter from the Prime Minister’s office stating that the Shabak, the Israeli intelligence services, had nothing to do with this decision. In other words, our good friends, the police, are at it again.
In reaction to these military orders, the resident’s attorney, Naftali Wertzberger, sent a furiously-worded letter to Kaplinsky, writing that the orders are blatantly illegal. A person legally holding a weapon must be granted a special hearing, with the reasons for the confiscation clarified, allowing the person a chance to defend or explain himself. A hearing such as this was never held. In addition, the orders give absolutely no reason for the confiscation.
The Hebron community sent an equally enraged reaction to the General, accusing him of abandoning Hebron’s Jews by ordering that their weapons be taken from them.
Interestingly enough, one of the people to receive a confiscation order was not male, rather a Hebron housewife. Her name is Elisheva Federman. Elisheva is the wife of administrative detainee Noam Federman. When her husband’s weapon was taken from him and he was jailed, the security forces suggested that she be licensed to carry a weapon in order to be able to protect her family, should the need arise. However, a few days ago, the Hebron police deemed Elisheva, mother of seven young children, living without her husband for eight months, too dangerous to have a gun, even at the cost of her life and her children’s lives.
Subject number three:
I’ve saved, perhaps, the best for last. Speaking of Elisheva and Noam Federman. This morning Elisheva had a rare opportunity to see her husband without having to look past the bars of a jail cell. Noam has been in prison for almost eight months, the only Jewish administrative detainee in Israel. He’s not been tried, or convicted. But he’s in jail.
This morning Elisheva met Noam at…. where else, at the Jerusalem Municipal court.
Almost two years ago Noam Federman was jailed, and then placed under house arrest, having been accused of masterminding the infamous “Bat-Ayin” Jewish terrorist ring. Subsequently three men were charged and convicted of trying to blow up an Arab girls school. Two other men were arrested and jailed, but later acquitted of all charges brought against them.
Noam’s accuser was one of those convicted. He named about 50 people who supposedly participated in the plot, but of them, only Noam was arrested. That was, again, almost two years ago, just as the investigation was beginning. (See: Noam Federman presenting the Twilight Zone- http://www.hebron.com/news/noamtwilight.htm)
As a result, Noam was placed under strict house arrest. While trying to legally overturn the house-arrest orders, the Israeli intelligence services had Noam jailed as an administrative detainee, thereby, for all intensive purposes, circumventing the courts, who almost always uphold ‘Shabak’ arrests, ‘for security reasons.’
This morning, Noam and Elisheva met at the Jerusalem court for another hearing dealing with the Bat Ayin case. Suddenly the prosecutor asked for the judge’s attention and stated that the state was dropping all charges against Noam in the Bat Ayin case for lack of proof. Their one, star witness, started telling different stories, and his instability led them to reconsider their case against Federman.
The surprised judge then asked the next, logical question. “So now Federman can go home?.” The prosecutor quickly jumped up and exclaimed, ‘No, of course not, he’s still an administrative detainee.”
It should be noted, that, according to media accounts, this is Noam Federman’s forty first acquittal.
Speaking later with Elisheva, she told me that the Shabak claims that the Bat Ayin case was only one of the reasons Noam is being held in jail. The other reasons are, of course, secret
Bolshevism, at it’s best, in Israel, 2004.
What can I say? Things here are really mixed up.
Concerning subject number one: about the six soldiers massacred this morning in Gaza, only to have their remains stolen by their killers – if the news media had made as big a deal of the Tali Hatual family killings a week ago as they are today twith the soldiers, maybe the soldiers would still be alive. Maybe the government would have allowed the IDF to unleash it full fury, thereby preventing today’s bloodshed. But no, after all, Tali and her four murdered children were only civilians, residents of Gush Katif. They opposed Sharon’s disengagement plan, almost making them ‘enemies of the people.’
Concerning subjects two and three: the weapons and the Federmans: In reality, they are nothing more than a continuation of subject number one. The Arab’s lives are worth more than Jewish lives – it’s preferable to attend Israeli soldier’s funerals rather than wipe out terrorist nests from the air, even at the cost of ‘innocent’ Arab lives. So too, it makes no difference if Jews have weapons to protect themselves or not. We can be jailed without due process of law and abandoned to the will of the same barbarians who steal dead human remains.
Clearly, according to the lexicon of the current Prime Minister (and some of those who preceded him) settlers are distinctly lower class citizens, similar to the Hindu untouchables.
As untouchable as Ariel Sharon may think we are, in the end, it is he who will be remembered as a cast out, an historic relic, whose infamy will rival that of such villains as Josephus Flavious, and others of his caste. He will be remembered as the true untouchable.
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by David Wilder
The Jewish Community of Hebron
May 3, 2004
Yesterday was one of those days – one of those days when you don’t know what to say. On the one hand, you breathe a great sigh of relief. Thank G-d, the hard work paid off and the referendum failed. Of course, concurrently you ask yourself why there was a referendum in the first place. Since when is Eretz Yisrael for sale? How is it possible that an Israeli, a Jew, especially someone with a long track record, most specifically, Ariel Sharon, could conjure up such a nightmare – giving parts of Eretz Yisrael to our enemies, whose sole desire is to destroy us!? Certainly it doesn’t make any sense.
With that, you still offer a prayer of thanksgiving. Thank G-d for miracles.
To be honest, as soon as Limor and Bibi decided to go with Sharon, I was despondent. I told my friends and colleagues, “it’s not worth the struggle – the referendum is lost – don’t waste any time on it - now we have to start preparing for ‘the day after.’” Boy was I wrong. This is as good a time as possible to repeat the age-old mantra: Never Give Up!
On the other hand, it was difficult to smile, or show any expression of joy. The haunting pictures of Tali Hatual and her four girls are paralyzing. Such a beautiful family, such beautiful people. In truth, six, not five people were killed. Tali was beginning the ninth month of her pregnancy. Her husband David was quoted as saying, “We knew it a boy. We were so happy.”
According to IDF sources, after killing Tali with the first burst of gunfire, the terrorists approached the car and systematically murdered the four girls, one by one, shooting each child in the head. To define such behavior as beastly is an insult to beasts. There are no words to describe the deliberate viciousness of such creatures, posing as human beings.
And what about the husband, the father? Can you imagine being at work, hearing of a terror attack, and not being able to reach your loved ones who might well have been in the vicinity of the assault? That’s what happened to David Hatual. According to witnesses at the scene, Tali’s cell phone didn’t stop ringing – her husband was calling her. No one dared answer.
David, a teacher and school principal, sped from Ashkelon towards his Gush Katif home, only to be stopped on the way by his father-in-law, who broke the tragic, terrible news to him. Not only a pregnant wife, but his four daughters, his four children, his entire family. Inconceivable. Not even in the worst of your worst bad dreams. But it happened.
Responsibility: Where does it start and where does it end? Some of the names are all too familiar – they need not even be repeated. Leadership is bound by the motto, ‘the buck stops here.’ Others are also not lacking in accountability. For example, this morning General Moshe ‘Bugi’ Ya’alon, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Armed Forces, pointed a finger at another guilty party. An Arutz 7 report states: ‘He places the blame on the Supreme Court. He said that lining the Kisufim Route are "houses that, for security reasons, we wanted to remove, and pay the occupants compensation. But the legal system did not allow us to do this." The homes served as camouflage for the terrorists and their actions.’ In other words, had those homes been destroyed, it is quite likely that none of us would ever had heard of the Hatual family. The Hatuals and others.
But responsibility for close to 1,000 deaths and over 6,000 casualties cannot be shouldered by any particular person.
The problem is conceptual. It demands an unyielding grasp of abstracts, such as faith, such as the association between the Jewish people and the land of Israel, Eretz Yisrael.
Let’s face it. Without faith it is almost impossible to live here. And I’m not talking about Hebron. I’m referring to the entire State of Israel. Clearly, nothing about the past 56 years – or even the past 100 years, is linked to logic or rationality. Be it 1948, 1967, 1973, or today. If G-d didn’t want us here, we simply wouldn’t be here.
That does not mean that we sit back and wait for a celestial hand to appear from the heavens. Many hundreds and thousands of people worked very hard over the past few weeks, bringing about the positive results of yesterday’s vote.
As far as the land of Israel is concerned, the first sentence of Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak HaCohen’s quintessential work “Orot” says it all: the land of Israel is not an intermediary, a superficial land entity where Jews can take refuge. Rather, it is an indispensable element of the existence of Judaism, together with Torah and Am Yisrael, the Jewish people. Without Eretz Yisrael, there is no Judaism.
Of course, if Eretz Yisrael is only earth and rocks, then who cares if we relent and give some away. But should Eretz Yisrael be an actual part of our collective neshama, our collective soul, how could we even entertain such thoughts? And that’s exactly what it is.
These are the elements that Israel’s leadership is lacking. Why else would Ariel Sharon do an about-face? Why would Rabin initiate Oslo? Both, for the same reason. They have no faith, no faith in G-d, no faith in the determination and ability of Am Yisrael, and no faith in the sacredness of Eretz Yisrael. Deficiency of faith leads straight to despair, which in turn, leads to bizarre decision-making, (see: Disengagement).
Yet a question remains: given the two sides of the coin, as presented above, which takes precedence: the sorrow or the celebration? Early today, Rav Dov Lior, Chief Rabbi of Hebron-Kiryat Arba ruled that this morning’s prayers be appended. He decided that due to yesterday’s miracle, a special prayer be added. On Jewish festivals, or following a miraculous event deserving of exceptional gratitude, a prayer of Thanksgiving is included during morning services. This morning, at Rav Lior’s yeshiva Torah institution, worshipers recited the Hallel, verses of praise extracted from Psalms.
Yesterday we cried while breathing a sigh of relief. Today, we paid tribute to the glory of G-d. And now, we must return to work, so that all Israelis will understand why Hallel was chanted after the Jewish people voted for Eretz Yisrael.
With blessings from Hebron.
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The Traffic Jam That Saved Eretz Yisrael
by David Wilder
The Jewish Community of
April 28, 2004
Yesterday morning we left Hebron at about 10:30. The car was full – my wife, daughter and her two small children. The others were on one of the two Hebron buses. The destination: Gush Katif.
THE referendum is scheduled for next week – Sunday, May 2. Ariel Sharon is worried. The Hebrew daily Maariv quoted the prime minister as saying, “Whoever votes against the ‘disengagement’ is voting against me.” In other words, Sharon is transforming the referendum into a ‘no-confidence vote.’ Arutz 7 posted an article saying that Sharon is considering resigning should the referendum be defeated.
In yet another article, Associated Press correspondent Ramit Plushnick-Masti writes: Sharon Plan would remove up to 100 west bank settlements. “Senior Israeli officials and government advisers acknowledge privately that many - if not all - of these isolated enclaves may eventually be taken down, even without a peace deal, if they become increasingly indefensible.”
Arutz 7 reports: “In the meantime, Sharon and his staffers are hiding the truth from the public regarding the depth of his planned pullback from Judea and Samaria. "If the Likud members would know what Sharon is really planning," Likud leaders told Yossi Elituv of Mishpachah [Family] magazine, "they would be storming his office and demanding his immediate resignation." The Likud seniors told Elituv that Sharon has given the order to "hide the evacuation from Judea/Samaria, and concentrate only on the pullback from Gaza. His purpose is to lull the Likud members, obtain their consent for the disengagement from Gaza, and then to use that to move on to the next stage - a massive evacuation of Judea and Samaria."”
Yet it is vital to note that Sharon does not represent all of the Likud leadership.
Speaking at Mt. Hertzl on the eve of Israel’s 56th independence day, Speaker of the Knesset Rubi Rivlin, basing his speech on the famous words of Theodore Hertzl, “If you will it, it is no legend,” said, “These words beat in its heart and drove its wheels, as Zionism succeeded, achieved the impossible, time after time.
When we willed it - the legend became reality.
When we willed it - the scattered exiles of Israel were gathered in.
When we willed it - from a small, fearful community, we became a proud nation.
And when we willed it; when we really willed it - the Land was conquered, and nobody stood in our way.
But the story has not yet ended.
Even today; on the one hundredth anniversary of Herzl's death; in the
fifty-sixth year of the Independence of Israel; nothing is self-evident.
Even today, every day, we must continue to will it, we must continue to
believe.”
Speaking before lighting the traditional, honorary torch of honor:
I, Reuven Rivlin, son of my father and teacher, Professor Yosef-Yoel Rivlin, may he rest in peace, researcher of Semitic languages, and translator of the Koran into Hebrew, and - may she live long - my mother and teacher, Rachel, who today, 6th Iyar, is exactly one hundred years old; seventh generation in Jerusalem; descendent of the Aliyah to Jerusalem, one hundred years before the vision of Herzl, by the disciples of the Gaon, Rabbi Eliyahu of Vilna; Speaker of the Sixteenth Knesset; am honored to light this torch, of the fifty-sixth Independence Day of the State of Israel.
In honor of - The Knesset, the legislature of Israel, and the temple of democracy!
In honor of - the pioneers, the vanguard of those who came to settle the Land of our Fathers, who redeemed the land - from Hanita - to Kfar Darom; from Negba - to Kiryat Arba, that is Hebron!
In honor of - The heroes of all branches of the security forces.
In honor of - Jerusalem, our holy city, our eternal capital and the heart of the nation.
And for the glory of the State of Israel!
Rivlin’s initial speech most certainly alluded to the challenges of Zionism and the will to overcome – not only 100 years ago, not only fifty-six years ago, but also at the present. Rivlin’s words, coming from the Speaker of the Knesset, articulating ‘the pioneers, the vanguard of those who came to settle the Land of our Fathers, who redeemed the land - from Hanita - to Kfar Darom; from Negba - to Kiryat Arba, that is Hebron!’ reflect the true Likud ideology, the true Zionist ideology, which Ariel Sharon has so grossly warped. And Rivlin is not alone.
Yesterday, some 150,000 Israelis voiced their opinion, not in words, but in actions, expressing themselves with their feet and with their tires.
According to police reports, 70,000 people arrived yesterday in Gush Katif. Our experience has taught us that the ‘official estimate’ is about a half of the ‘real thing.’ According to Gush Katif spokesman Eran Sternberg, over 100,000 people managed to get into Gush Katif. Tens of thousands of others, including yours truly, were crowded out. Traffic authorities said this morning on Israel radio that they have never before witnessed a traffic jam as large as yesterday’s, tens of kilometers long.
We left Hebron at 10:30 in the morning for a two hour ride to Gush Katif. I managed to drive the last 20 kilometers in about an hour and a half and we were still about 10 kilometers from our destination. After not moving for over an hour and having spent a grand total of five hours in the car we decided to pull into a nearby kibbutz, found a nice place for a picnic barbeque (not too far from some Bedouin tents), and camped out for a few hours.
But you know something. No one complained. And I’m not talking about us. I’m talking about thousands and thousands of people stuck, just like us. Many of them were more daring than I was – they parked their cars on the side of the road and walked, 10 or more kilometers, in order to reach Gush Katif and participate in the main event at 3:30 in the afternoon.
No one really cared how long it took to arrive, because the message was clear. Gush Katif is part of Eretz Yisrael and we have no intentions of leaving, not now, not ever. Over 100,000 Israelis shouted out to Ariel Sharon – “Go ahead, just try and evacuate Gush Katif, go ahead, just try to evict over 7,000 Jews from their homes. Because if you so dare, you will not be evicting 7,000 Israelis – you will have to evict hundreds of thousands of people!!!”
Have not doubt: the almost 200,000 Likud members who will be voting on Sunday saw and heard yesterday’s events. Many of them participated. I expect that early Monday morning the results will be self-evident.
History will definitely remember Ariel Sharon from many diverse angles. But perhaps one of the most unique will be just this: Ariel Sharon initiated the greatest traffic jam in Israel’s history, a traffic jam which may turn out to have saved Eretz Yisrael.
With blessings from Hebron.
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by David Wilder
The Jewish Community of Hebron
April 19, 2004
Annually Israel marks the Shoah, the Holocaust, mourning six to seven million Jews, slaughtered by the Nazis during World War Two. The date chosen for Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Memorial Day, is quite significant, coming a week after Passover, the holiday commemorating the birth of the Jewish people, and a week before Yom Ha’azmaut, Independence Day, celebrating the rebirth of the Jewish people in Eretz Yisrael with the founding of the first Jewish state in two thousand years.
The enormity of the holocaust is practically beyond human comprehension. We can easily picture one person, ten people, one hundred people, a thousand people, or even 10,000 people. Huge sports arenas can contain tens of thousands of people. Let’s take Yankee Stadium in New York. It has a capacity of almost 58,000 people. Imagine one hundred and twelve Yankee Stadiums, filled up with people, to the brim. And then, all at once, delete them from existence, erase the people in them. In an instant, they are all gone. The men, women, children – be they rich or poor, religious or secular, good people and not such good people – with one thing in common. In the blink of an eye they cease to exist.
Well, not really. Because their family and friends remember them, miss them, mourn them.
Maybe it’s difficult to conjure up 112 Yankee Stadiums. Perhaps I can present an example closer to home. Picture 2,167 World Trade Centers - with 3,000 people filling each them. That is about six million five hundred thousand people. That is how many people were butchered between 1941 to 1945. All gone, with the blink of an eye. Obliterated from existence.
But don’t err. That is how many people were lost – but that is not the holocaust. Hitler’s plans included not only killing people. Rather they represented a final solution, an eradication of a people, obliteration of a culture, annihilation of a religion.
These numbers are only partially accurate. In reality, the picture is quite different. In 1933 European Jewry numbered about nine million five hundred thousand Jews. Remove from that six or six and half million. What remains? About a third. Two thirds of European Jewry was wiped out. So forget the examples presented above. Can you picture two-thirds of the United States gone?
One would expect, following such a cataclysm, that certain lessons would be learned and internalized. Sixty five years should not be long enough to forget. Perhaps we did not forget, perhaps we never learned in the first place.
One of the most important lessons we should have learned is who to trust, who to depend on, who believe in. Or, better phrased, who not to trust, depend on, or believe in. Quite simply, the Americans and the Europeans did nothing, absolutely nothing, to stop and prevent the carnage. Today, in Israel, if a person witnesses an attempt to harm someone and does nothing, he or she can be tried and convicted in a court of law. Non-action is a crime.
Maybe we cannot put the United States and Europe on trial. But trust them? Rely on them when our very existence is at stake? An apparent contradiction in terms. Unless you’re Jewish – unless you’re an Israeli, especially an Israeli leader.
Ten years ago Israel placed its fate in the hands Bill Clinton’s signature and Arafat’s good will. When the Hebron Accords were signed over seven years ago, we were told point-blank, “your security is dependent upon palestinian cooperation.” Today, where is Clinton – where is Arafat? And how many Jews are dead, maimed and/or psychologically wounded. Today Bibi and Limor, shadows of Sharon, tell us of our good fortune – ‘look at the promises we’ve received from the President of the United States!’
Watch George W. Bush closely. Where will he be on January 21, 2005? At best, where will he be on January 21, 2009?
The ‘hitnatkut’ – Sharon’s ‘disengagement,’ the plan to flee from Yesha, from all of Judea, Samaria and Gush Katif, beginning in Gaza, the intention to transfer tens of thousands of Jews from their homes, is classic demagoguery, appealing to the masses ‘we must sacrifice a few for the many and save whatever we can.’ I cannot help but feel nauseated by the fact that on the day preceding Holocaust Memorial Day two of Israel’s premier politicians, Education Minister Limur Livnat and former Prime Minister, presently the Treasury Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu announced their support to abandon Gush Katif. And this afternoon, Foreign Minister Sylvan Shalom, one of the fiercest opponents of the plan, also surrendered to Sharon’s pressure and declared his support. Bibi Netanyahu, who apologized for deserting Hebron, and Limur Livnat, one of the staunchest supporters of Yesha, have done an about-face, and together with Sylvan Shalom, are now willing to participate in evicting over 7,000 Jews from their homes. And this is only the start.
Sharon promised a ‘strong Gush Etzion – a strong Kiryat Arba – a strong Hebron.’ Let’s see how long it takes for Hebron to receive building permits, allowing new construction on Jewish-owned land. Let’s see how long it takes for Kiryat Arba to receive a building permit allowing construction of a permanent synagogue called Hazon David on presently uninhabited state-owned land in or around Kiryat Arba. My guess: don’t hold your breath!
The early 1930s witnessed considerable political instability in Germany. On January 30, 1933, German president Paul von Hindenburg, an old, tired general turned politician, appointed Adolf Hitler Reichskanzler, or chancellor of Germany. “Although he was fiercely anti-Nazi and had defeated Hitler in the 1932 presidential election, he reluctantly agreed to von Papen’s theory that, with Nazi popular support on the wane, Hitler could now be controlled as chancellor. The date is commonly seen as the beginning of Nazi Germany.” [http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Paul von Hindenburg]
Sharon’s government is a mirror-image of the Weimar Republic’s tragic collapse. Appeasement - The Hindenburgs, the Chamberlains, the cynical utilization of democracy as a tool of mass destruction, - it’s all being repeated before our eyes. Sharon, Netanyahu, Livnat, Shalom and all the others are marching Israel down the road of calamitous disaster, which, if not diverted quickly, will lead us straight into Aushwitz II, otherwise called the Mediterranean Sea.
World Jewry might then, one day in the not too distant future, mark Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Memorial Day, as the beginning of the end of the Jewish State.
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Profiles in Courage or Profiles in Cowardice?
by David Wilder
The Jewish Community of Hebron
April 13, 2004
On December 8, 1941, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt referred to the previous day, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, as “a date which will live in infamy.” It was on that day that the United States of America came under direct enemy attack, thereby endangering the future of that country.
Roosevelt concluded his historic address by declaring, “The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implication to the very life and safety of our nation.As commander in chief of the Army and Navy I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense. Always will we remember the character of the onslaught against us.”
There are days which, for one reason or another, are eternally remembered. There are leaders, who, for one reason or another, will be perpetually recollected, for words they said, or for deeds they did.
Many of these historic events are virtually spontaneous, coming about as a reaction to a certain event, as were FDR’s words that day in Congress. Yet, occasionally, one can almost predict the significance of a certain happening. That is very possibly the case today.
It has been decided that on Sunday, May 2, (the 11th day of Iyar, according to the Jewish calendar – the 27th day of Omer) approximately 200,000 people will take to the polls, and their vote may be an overridingly decisive factor in the future of the Jewish people in Eretz Yisrael – in the land of Israel.
I know, this sounds overly melodramatic, an exaggeration, at best. I honestly wouldn’t mind if such were the case. However, as things stand today, that’s the way it is – for real.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon today landed in Washington for talks with President George W. Bush and his senior staff. On the agenda is Sharon’s proposal to unilaterally abandon Gaza to the PA terrorists, while forcibly transferring some 7,000 Israelis from their homes. Sharon is also offering Bush an additional plum. Last night, speaking in the Jerusalem suburb of Ma’ale Adumim Sharon declared that he is willing to surrender all of Judea and Samaria, excepting six ‘settlement blocks,’ to Arafat. Those six, according to his speech, are, Ma’ale Adumim, Givat Zeev (also a Jerusalem suburb), Ariel (in Samaria) Gush Etzion (just south of Jerusalem), Kiryat Arba, and Hebron. In other words, Sharon is committing Israel to compulsorily evict hundreds of thousands of Jews from their homes, while deserting a vast majority of Judea and Samaria to our deadly enemy.
wThis morning a journalist asked me if I felt relieved that Hebron was on the ‘good list’ – one of those places to remain under Israeli control. My answer came it several parts:
1. Of course I’m not relieved. Sharon’s plan affects the entire state of Israel and has nothing to do with one or two cities, here or there. What difference does it make to if Sharon uproots me from Hebron, my son from Shavei Shomron, my friends in Kfar Darom in Gaza, or people I don’t know in Beit El and Shilo? We are all in the same boat, to sink or swim.
2. Concerning Hebron, (as Shimon Peres so aptly asked during a radio interview) how are people going to get to and from Hebron?
3. Lastly, Sharon knows all too well that he will never get everything he asks for, so more than likely something on his list is going to get cut. And who do you think that might be?
wIt was just over a year ago that Sharon overwhelmingly defeated left-wing Labor party leader Amram Mitzna for the Israeli premiership. Mitzna’s campaign platform unashamedly included a total withdrawal from Gaza. The Israeli electorate put its collective foot down and said no – no acquiescence to terror. Now Sharon is twinning Mitzna, adopting the very policies that his own supporters rejected.
wThis morning’s headlines read: Tragedy Averted: An AIDS Terror Attack. Israeli intelligence forces recently arrested a Tanzim terrorist ring which planned on exploding an AIDS-filled bomb in a heavily populated area in a major Israeli city.
Can you imagine the effect such a headline would have, printed, say, in the Washington Post, and not in the Israeli daily Ma’ariv? And if the perpetrators, were not Tanzim Arabs, but, Iraqi extremists? And if the city to be afflicted was not Tel Aviv, but Washington DC or New York? And can you imagine how Americans would react if, the President, the same day the story broke, suggested a compromise with the same Iraqi leaders who backed such an attack?
This is exactly what is happening. Sharon is offering to give our enemies a gift for their creativeness. Today, these headlines appeared in the Israeli press. Tomorrow, Sharon will present his planned surrender to Bush.
Hard to believe – but true.
Due to heavy political pressures here at home, Sharon has been forced back to the polls, this time a referendum, for or against his proposed plans. The decision-makers are his own Likud party members. They will have to vote – I agree or I disagree – with the suggested catastrophe. Should Sharon win, it is unlikely that his cabinet or the Knesset would not follow suit.
A few days ago, during a conversation with famed activist-attorney, Kiryat Arba resident Elyakim HaEztni, he said to me, ‘now we will see if the Likud is really Likud, or if they have decided to be Meretz.’ In other words, will the Likud party members remain true to themselves, to their ideology, to their beliefs, or will they betray themselves, their land, their people?
It is an understatement to say that there is a great deal riding on the answer.
How can you help? If you read Hebrew, go to http://www.likud.co.il/. On the bottom left corner is a box. The first item is “moadon haverim.” After clicking on this you will find a link to “snifei halikud.” Here you will find addresses and phone numbers of all the Likud chapters in Israel. Write to them, call them, let them know what YOU think. We will try to post such a list in English, together with a list of all voting Likud members who are eligible to vote on May 2. Your voices must be heard – the Likud must know how important this issue is to ALL OF US – WHEREVER WE ARE!
John Kennedy wrote a book called ‘Profiles in Courage,’ “accounts of eight U.S. Senators who risked their careers, incurring the wrath of constituents or powerful interest groups, by taking principled stands for unpopular positions.” Presently we are facing, not eight people, rather 200,000 people, whose choices will determine whether May 2 will be remembered as a ‘date of infamy’ or a ‘date of honor?’ Will those people be profiles in cowardice, or will they be profiles in courage?
With blessings from Hebron.
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