Opened Eyes in Acco
My dear friend Yitzchak, a courageous new immigrant from South Carolina, invited me to his “swearing in ceremony” in which he and his fellow soldiers pledge their loyalty to The State of Israel and her Army. I remember the ceremony from my army days and was eager to see the shining look of pride and accomplishment on the face of a Jew who just a few months earlier barely spoke a word of Hebrew. But as is often the case in this country of ours, things don’t always turn out the way you would you expect.
The ceremony took place at the famous prison museum in Acco which served as the jail and site of execution for many Jews who took part in the Haganah, Irgun, and other pre-1948 underground organizations. The self sacrifice and courage of Dov Gruner embraced the gallows rather than succumbing to the British, made this location a worthy one for all of these soldiers who only had the merit to stand
I don’t know why I didn’t make the connection. I am going to Acco. The same city where just a few months ago Arabs rioted through the city burning and pillaging just about everything they could find. When I arrived, I felt like I was in a Muslim music festival somewhere in the heart of Beirut. There was not a Jews in sight. Not one. When I asked directions from a group of Arabs, I got heckled and taunted. The looks of hatred and scorn on the faces of many of the Arabs all around me was tangible. I couldn’t believe it. It is not that I was in a Muslim country – or even Judea and Samaria “the West Bank” – I was in Israel of the 1948 boundaries. If this wasn’t a demographic problem in the making, I don’t know what would be. While just 60 years ago the prison system was a place that most Jews would do anything to avoid, I must confess feeling a sense of relief upon making my entrance.
Now Yitzchak is in his early thirties and therefore was serving in “shlav bet” or “phase 2” in which older soldier immigrants serve a shortened period of 6 months in the army. While I was expecting an exuberant group of proud soldiers, eager and honor to affirm their loyalty what I actually saw was quite different. Many didn’t sing along with the Israeli anthem, and most didn’t look all that happy to be there. The moment in which I will never forget in my own ceremony was being handed a “Tanach”, a Bible, and realizing that my very presence in the land for which my people have been praying for 2,000 years was due to G-d’s promise to us in this book. Yet, this ceremony had an interesting difference. It seemed that most of the soldiers didn’t take a “Tanach” but a “brit chadasha” – or New Testament. As a matter of fact, out of 15 soldiers in Yitzchak’s unit, 2 asked for the traditional Jewish “Tanach”, 3 wanted nothing at all, and 10 wanted the New Testament. Yitzchak explained that a good portion of the entire group were not Jewish at all, coming to Israel under the right of return established by the government and including under the definition of Jewish anyone who would have been persecuted as a Jew under the Nazi regime. The problem is, that when we allow the UN, the US, the EU, or for that matter, the Nazi’s to determine policy in the Jewish State we end up in a country that looks very different than the one for which we have entreated G-d for all these years. We end up with a hostile 5th column of Arabs who vocally call for the destruction of Israel and proactively take steps to accomplish that goal, as well as a serious neo-Nazi problem in the country consisting of anti-Semitic gentiles who are not anywhere near Jewish according to Jewish Law.
We have one tiny Jewish State and we are in great existential danger. Not because of Arabs and not because of Neo-Nazis. The true peril lies in our hearts. Is Israel to be a state of Jews or a Jewish State?
