Grandma's army

On January 12 th 2005 a terrible tragedy struck our family – our beloved son-in-law, Simcha’s husband Gideon, was murdered by terrorists. Since the Israeli Defense Forces were responsible for the defense of settlements in the Gaza strip, Gideon had been driving in an army jeep to determine where to build a security fence at one of the settlements - Morag. While they were traveling in the area of the greenhouses around which the fence was scheduled to be built, the jeep was suddenly blown up by a roadside bomb which was detonated by two terrorists. Gideon, who was driving, was killed outright and the vice battalion commander who was sitting next to him lost his leg. The two young 19 year-old soldiers sitting at the back were miraculously physically unharmed but severely traumatized. Gideon’s oldest son, Nir, who worked together with his father and was supposed to be with him at the time, was held up and didn’t accompany him to Morag. To compound the tragedy, in August of the ...

Jews and their Israelite ancestors have lived in Gaza since Biblical times. A historic Jewish community existed in  Gaza City  prior to its expulsion by the British, for safety reasons, during the infamous 1929 riots by the city's Arabs. Land for the village of  Kfar Darom  was purchased in the 1930s and settled in 1946. It was evacuated following an Egyptian siege in the  1948 Arab-Israeli War . Gush Katif began in 1968, when  Yigal Allon  presented an initiative for the founding of two  paramilitary settlements in the center of the Gaza Strip. He viewed the breaking of the continuity between the northern and southern Arab settlements as vital to Israel's security in the area, which had been captured the previous year in the 1967  Six-Day War . In 1970, Kfar Darom was re-established as the first of many Israeli agricultural villages in the area. Allon's idea was ultimately designed with five key areas slated for Israeli presenc...

Azriel’s son, Meir, who is serving in the IDF at the present time, is the youngest son of his five children and the fourth in line to serve in the army. His oldest son, Yair, is still in the airforce and youngest sister is due to do her army service in a year’s time. Meir (whom we all call “Memi”) will tell you in approximately his own words (originally in Hebrew) how he feels as a soldier in the IDF. " I joined the Israeli Defense Forces a year and eight months ago. Recently I completed a course  in a special commando unit in the Golani regiment.  I chose to serve in this particular unit when I was first recruited. In order to be accepted I had to go through a series of tough exercises and challenges, accompanied by a very strict selection process. I opted to serve in Golani since it was the same regiment in which my father served many years ago My joining the  IDF was motivated by the wish to contribute as much as possible to the good of my country. Also, in...

For the last two thousand years at least, since the Jewish People had no homeland and were subject to the whims of their host countries, they were not allowed to own land and were very restricted in their livelihoods.  They only started working on the land again when the first pioneers emigrated to Israel in  1882 which was known at the time as Palestine, a name given to the area by the Romans. The original names, from bible times, were Judea and Samaria. Which brings me back to the moshav in the Negev where I spent 40 years of my life. All our children helped out on the moshav from a very early age and learned the value of hard work, developing a strong “work ethos”.  What is most surprising however is that,  somehow, my oldest son Azriel “inherited” love of the land. He knew he wanted to be a farmer from a very early age and, in order to study agriculture he went to the U.S., after his army duty, in order to make enough money to attend the Faculty of Agri...

It was only in my teens that I became aware of a country called Israel. Someone introduced me to a Zionist movement - and that was the major turning point  in my life. I eventually joined a training farm in England run by the movement . My goal was to eventually become part of an agricultural community in Israel. My farming experience in England was centered around the cowshed where I had become very proficient in milking cows. I emigrated at the end of 1954 but, by the time I was able to join a moshav in 1960, I was already married with two small children aged three and one-and-a-half years old. Neither my husband nor myself knew anything about farming but we were both determined to become pioneers. The moshav, which had just been founded, was located in the northen Negev. We had no financial means but were helped by the government who wanted to develop the country, especially the Negev. It was like a barren wilderness with nothing but bare land. Today, it is a...

At the age of 16, my granddaughter, Ophir, who is an excellent student, was accepted to an innovative programme called “MEET” (Middle East Education Through Technology). The selective programme (out of 800 applicants only 10% are chosen)   brings together Israeli and Palestinian young leaders through the common language of technology and entrepreneurship. Working in partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) since 2004, MEET’s goal is to educate and empower the next generation of Israeli and Palestinian young leaders (age 15-17) to take action towards creating positive social and political change in the Middle East. The programme comprises 3 consecutive summers with volunteer instructors from MIT, and a weekly programme at the MEET centres in Jerusalem and Nazareth, taught by MEET alumni. Run entirely in English, the programme provides MEET’s 200 high school students with the skills, values and network to become “agents of change” in the region....

I am now back in Israel, waiting for my granddaughter to give us her impressions of her life as a “lone soldier”. Actually, she is serving in the airforce so we are still “up in the air”. Which reminds me of something I heard some time ago which is probably  not well-known. Perhaps the most emotional song to emerge out of the mass exodus from Europe was “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” which was introduced in the popular film The Wizard of Oz.  The song was voted the 20 th century’s No. 1 song by the Recording Industry of America and the National Endowment for the Arts. The lyrics were written by Yip Harburg, the youngest of four children born, in New York to Russian-Jewish immigrants. The music was written by Harold Arlen son of Jewish immigrants from Lithuania. In writing it, the two men reached deep into their immigrant Jewish consciousness, from the progroms of the past and the Holocaust about to happen. Read the lyrics in their Jewish context and suddenly th...

I was unable to continue with my blog for some time since I am visiting my daughter and family who are living in London and had no access to a computer. I will be coming back to Israel in a few day’s  time and, meanwhile, will confine my writing to my impressions of what is being said about Israel from an outsider’s viewpoint. The people with whom I have come into contact are mostly ignorant of what is going on in Israel and probably couldn’t care less. The exceptions are those who have been to Israel. Those who do come often have a built-in prejudice, mainly as the result of the anti-Israeli media to which they have been exposed. The following poetic-like piece  was written by Oliver Marjot, a sophomore medieval history concentrator from Guilford, England. He was one of a group of Harvard students, of all backgrounds and faiths. He expected the ten-day Israeli Trek to be a confirmation of his “European certainty of your arrogant oppression”. “I came to you, Israel,...

Feet on the ground, eyes in the sky. A typical day in the life of my grandson in the airforce.

GRANDMA’S ARMY I wanted to join the Israeli army but was turned away, which might be because of my age although I would make up for it in willingness. I will always regret the fact that when I emigrated to Israel I had my chance and didn’t take it. So I did the next best thing and  got married instead, and am now the proud (and anxious) grandmother of  four grandchildren who are in the army at the same time, and another three will be joining them in less than a year (they are triplets), making  seven altogether. I don’t know whether having seven grandchildren in the army/airforce at the same time would constitute a Guiness book record, but it is certainly unusual. There have always been armies and it seems always will be (unfortunately), but the IDF (Israel Defense Force) is different from any other. There has never been such a humane and moral army in the history of the world. I am willing to challenge anyone who cares to contradict this. But the most cruci...