Federation Israel Fundraiser Speech

Good evening. I’d like to thank Charlie Schiffman and Bob Horenstein of the Federation for their invitation to have me speak this evening. They believe that as a result of my recent trip to Israel, I might be in a position to shed some light on the effect of this recent war on the Israeli people. I hope that I can meet their expectations.

I had scheduled my recent trip a number of months ago. I visit my two daughters and my older daughter’s family once or twice each year in Israel, spending a good deal of my time with them at their beautiful little home in Karmiel. Karmiel is a large town in the center of northern Israel… very much a family oriented community.

This year, I had the extra bonus of overlapping my trip with that of my youngest daughter Shana’s USY youth group “Pilgrimage” trip. She would arrive a couple of weeks before I came and she would spend an additional week with all of us at Lisa’s Karmiel home.

When the war broke out on July 13th, two days prior to my departure for Israel, it never occurred to me to cancel my trip.

I wrote the following to my friends:

Karmiel was shaken in the last few days by Katyushas. Unlike its neighbors
to the east and west, Tsfat, Haifa, and Naharia, Karmiel suffered little if any
physical damage, thank G-d. But the emotional damage is evident in the
phone calls this last week with my daughter, Lisa. Although seemingly
calm, I can sense her distraction and fragility as she breaks suddenly from the
phone to watch a breaking news report, and when she forgets to say good-bye when she hangs up. The children feel the tension… They have heard the
explosions and know their mother is frightened.

On the flight over, my recurring thought was “I must find a way to help…” This wasn’t a wish… it was an imperative… I could not stand aside as a tourist and watch as Israel suffered. I knew I must help. Upon arrival, I joked with my daughters that they needed to find me an extra large IDF uniform and an M-16. I was angry as well.

My son-in-law, Udi is a member of a special unit of the Israel Police. His main mission these last five weeks has been that of first responder when rockets have fallen. His territory is the north and he and his crew have been very busy these last few weeks. As a result of the critical nature of his job, he, like ambulance drivers, hospital workers, fire fighters and so on, have not had the opportunity to seek refuge in central Israel. When he sent Lisa and the children south to safety, he stayed.

At first I made myself useful by driving up to Karmiel on those infrequent times that Udi was able to get more than a few hours off of work to sleep. I would bring him down to my younger daughter Netali’s small two-bedroom apartment in Tel Aviv, where Lisa brought her three little ones and her mother to escape Hezbollah’s rocket attacks. After a few hours with his family, we would drive back up to Karmiel. Often on these trips, I would stay with him for a day to keep him company and provide moral support.

As a result, I had the opportunity to experience what life was like in the northern towns. The city was a ghost-town. Usually busy streets were empty. One coffee shop remained open… and was empty. Sirens would announce the incoming rockets… sometimes after they started falling. The sound was unlike anything that I’ve ever heard before… a deep rumbling boom. The anxiety grows on you… It is cumulative… I was there only a couple of days. I cannot imagine what it must be like for those who are forced to endure the constant anxiety for weeks on end, such as those who could not or would not leave their homes in the north.

After a week of calling, I finally found an organization that accepted my offer to help. Latet is a relief organization that provides all sorts of social services in Israel, but has especially taken on the job of bringing food and necessities to families who have been forced into shelters in the north. In these hard-hit towns, banks, gas stations and grocery stores are shut down. There is nowhere to buy food locally and no way to get to the stores in cities that are still open. These folks rely on the delivery of these food packages for their survival.

On the designated day, I joined a convoy of private cars following a truck to Kiryat Shemoneh.

I wrote the following:

We arrived in the nearly deserted town of Kiryat Shemoneh. We saw a few
military trucks, a taxi and maybe one private car in this normally bustling,
working class town as we drove to our designated distribution center in a
parking lot.

As soon as I opened the door to my car, I heard
the not-too-distant explosions from falling Katyushas. We quickly unloaded
the truck which was filled with pre-packaged boxes of donated foods... peanut
butter, pasta, rice, canned foods, baby food, and hundreds of packs of pampers
for the babies. How babies could sleep with this racket was beyond
me...

I was surprised at the number of families with babies and
small children. These families simply do not have the resources to
leave. People were not walking around in shock, but more, had an attitude
of fatalism... "We are here... we can't get out... let's get this over
with soon so we can resume our lives..."

Mostly people were very grateful that they were not forgotten... Even if they had unsuccessfully argued for more food or presents for the kids, in the end almost all said, "Todah Rabah... La briut"... "Thank you very much... be well..."

Another day we distributed food in an Arab village only a couple of miles from the border. Katyusha rockets don’t care if they hit Arab or Jew… And the terrorist Nasralla didn’t particularly care either. A few days earlier, two little Arab children were killed by a Katyusha in Nazereth… This town, Horfesh was a Druze village. While waiting for the truck with supplies to arrive, we met a man who owned a restaurant which, of course was closed. He invited us back to his own home and proceeded to prepare a meal for the dozen volunteer relief workers. As we ate, he told us… “We Druze are more Israeli than the Israelis! We want the Hezbollah destroyed…” Later at the distribution center, the mayor of the town regaled our team with “Thanks”.

How have the Israeli northerners handled this situation? I would say that what I observed was a sense of helplessness and fatalism. Isolated, hiding in shelters, they felt alone, forgotten and frightened. There was a pervasive sentiment that Israel must succeed in disabling Hezbollah, or this would simply happen again six months or a year from now.

In closing, I want to relate a conversation that I had with a very close friend… a Jewish leader in the Bay Area. When I called after my return from Israel, he told me that he was very upset with what I had written in my letters. “You have children at home and you put yourself at risk without a good reason… There is something abnormal about that!” The response in Israel to me and others like me was remarkably different. They were incredibly moved that I had chosen to come to Israel, even after the war broke out. They were amazed that I, a foreigner, would put myself at risk by going into the war zone on relief missions.

I explained to them… I am not a hero… I am not a foreigner… Although I was born in the Diaspora and have not yet made Aliyah, Israel is my country too… The Israelis are my people and Israel must survive… It was my duty to help in whatever way I could.

I wish I could have done more… I wish I were still there.

Thank you.