Grandma's army

I can’t believe that two years have already passed since our lone soldier granddaughter was recruited into the IDF.   Because of her impressive credentials, Ophir was chosen to join the Operations Room of the Tel-Nof airforce base in the south of Israel. In its 70 years, the Tel-Nof airforce base - which is the air force’s place of origin - has acted as a main factor in both defense and offense. Fighter jets, transport aircraft, attack helicopters, transport helicopters and Remote Control Aerial vehicles have been situated in the airbase. No airforce base has ever been home to such a number of aircraft from various divisions, which together form Tel-Nof’s legacy in the IAF’s history. Every day, aircraft take off from Tel-Nof to perform training, attack, defense, reconnaissance and electronic warfare sorties, among others.  Its personnel have made the place what it is. Our granddaughter was part of a human chain sharing responsibility and transferring it from per...

In my last blog I chronicled the battles that Israel has fought since the State was declared. However, perhaps the most significant battle that the Jews fought, and won,   took place in the second century BCE.     Desiring to unify his kingdom through the medium of a common religion and culture Antiochus, the Greek ruler at that time, tried to root out the individualism of the Jews by desecrating their holy Temple and suppressing all the Jewish Laws. We are now at the end of an eight day Festival commemorating this particular victory. The story of Mattitiyahu Maccabee and his sons, who head the Revolt, is told in detail in the two books of the Maccabees.   A small, vastly outnumbered band of Jews waged battle against the mighty Greek armies, and drove them out of the land. Even though Judaism would have disappeared if Antiochus had succeeded in his strategy,   Jewish sages chose to leave these books outside of the Bible. One of the reasons is ...

Last week I mentioned my son living in Ashkelon and that two of his sons – two-thirds of triplets – have joined the IDF. The family has also two older sons who finished their army service some time ago. One of the triplets has recently joined the same fighter unit as his cousin (the one who just got engaged and finished his IDF service last month). His brother joined the IDF last week in the “Combat Engineering Corps., an unknown aspect of the IDF in our family’s tradition.   [The third triplet has yet to change his civilian clothes into an army uniform. In Israel, after completing high school,   boys and girls are allowed to study for some time in special religious frameworks   before beginning their army service].  The Combat Engineering Corps   was founded in 1947 when its soldiers were mainly drawn from Jews who had served in the UK’s Royal Engineers. Their official motto  is  "Always First"  - the unofficial being “ The hard...