First to engage, first to fall – he saved the lives of his colleagues.
By Rolene Marks
*Photos courtesy of the Harush family and Israel Police.
“If I had just a tiny bit of information about what was to come, I would never have let him go,” said Hodaya Harush in memory and tribute to her late husband, Eliyahu. Hodaya is an extraordinary woman, a mother of three, who is Haredi and serves in the Israeli Police as an investigator at the Netivot police station. Eliyahu Harush was the first officer to fall on 7 October in Sderot during the “Battle of Sderot Police Station” that would become one of the seminal moments of that ‘Black Saturday’ – a symbol of the heroism of Israel’s police who fought valiantly against a ruthless enemy who threatened the civilians of their town.
A few nights before the seventh, Hodaya had a dream. She dreamt that she was standing with Eliyahu’s shift commander and she was crying. Hodaya tried to erase the dream from her mind but the events of the days to come would reopen that memory.
Eliyahu dropped Hodaya and their three girls off at her father’s house in Petach Tikvah on the Thursday before he started his shift at the police station. He was going to collect them after Shabbat ended. They communicated via What’s App for the next two days and one of the last messages Hodaya received from Eliyahu was a sticker with the message:
“Keep an eye out for children who don’t have family”.
Her final words to him were “Chag Sameach”.
Saturday morning started with sirens and rocket fire. Hodaya gathered her children and joined the rest of the extended family in the mamad (shelter). Hodaya like most Israelis, is used to rocket fire and sirens and tried to settle the children back to sleep. Her brother-in-law, who was also a police officer, received a message from his patrol unit and was called away. Hodaya understood that something big had happened. Although she had never broken Shabbat, Hodaya opened her phone and saw the messages coming in. The news came in that Sderot Police Station had been taken over by Hamas terrorists. Hodaya had seen a picture of the white pick-up trucks with mounted guns on the back that is synonymous with Hamas that day. Hodaya tried to call Eliyahu. She sent messages. She tried another police officer, Mor Shakuri, but there was no answer from either of them. Shakuri was already dead, killed, as was her father Roni that day, when terrorists opened fire on a car he was in with two other officers.
Hodaya’s daughter Lia, just 5-years-old at the time, told her that she had a dream. Lia dreamt her father had been killed. Hodaya felt that the dots were starting to connect. The day passed without any word from Eliyahu – or his whereabouts. Hodaya started to call anyone she could to try find out what happened to Eliyahu. She called hospitals, other police officers and friends. Her heart could not reconcile what she knew logically – something was wrong. She had seen that the district commander had given the order to demolish the police station and was frantic he may still be inside.
“On that Saturday, I didn’t know exactly what was happening,and that uncertainty is something I wouldn’t wish on anyone. His father and I ran backwards and forwards from the balcony looking for a sign of a patrol car but none came. It was like a movie. His sister said that maybe he’s hiding and without knowing, I told her: I know that Eliyahu is the first to go out to defend and protect his comrades and the citizens,” says Hodaya. “He is the first to save lives,” she continues.
At 1h36 in the morning, police officers finally arrived and told her that Eliyahu had been killed. Hodaya’s first question was if the police had the body – and if it was whole. They confirmed he had been killed at the front of the police station. Hodaya broke down, devastated. At 26, she was now a widow with three small children. She had to find her strength for them. Two weeks later, she returned to work.
“Even before they buried my Eliyahu, they came to me from the National Police Academy; I was still in training. They came to me from the academy and said to me: Listen, if you don’t want to continue with the course, just tell us.” Hodaya answered with an emphatic no.
“The first thing I said to them, without hesitation, was that it was Eliyahu who sent my resume, I told them: this is Eliyahu’s will. Eliyahu made sure that I joined the Israel Police and I am going to do everything possible to serve as a police officer,” says Hodaya.
Hodaya wrote her eulogy before she knew what happened that morning. She spoke of how he fought in Hashem’s name with bravery and determination to save lives. At the funeral, two officers told her that because of Eliyahu, they were alive. He had saved their lives.
It was at the Shiva where Hodaya would find out what happened that morning. A police officer told her the events as they unfolded:
Eliyahu was on shift with another officer, Sharon, when they received a call that there was an infiltration at nearby Zikim beach. Rockets were raining down on the south and other parts of the country. He told the officer to gear up – full gear, rifles, vest – everything. They were unaware that Hamas terrorists were already in Sderot. As Sharon exited the building, a pick-up truck arrived and opened fire. Sharon managed to get to a nearby shelter where he stayed for five and a half hours. Eliyahu ran out, drawing the fire to him as other officers ran to the roof where they were eventually saved. Eliyahu was the first to engage with the terrorists and the first to fall. He saved the lives of his colleagues who managed to get to safety.
Hodaya has started a campaign to dedicate a Sefer Torah in Eliyahu z”l’s name:
Ten police officers fell in the Battle of Sderot, 59 on 7 October and 66 since 7 October.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
A tribute to the passing of tennis icon and Israel Prize recipient – Dr. Ian Froman.
By David E. Kaplan
When it comes to immigrants having enriched Israel, South Africans have been amongst the ‘top seeds’ and when you add the contribution in the field of sport and tennis, few more so than Dr. Ian Froman, who passed away at the age of 87 on September 9, 2024.
It is no surprise that “Mr. Tennis” as he was affectionately known, was a recipient of Israel’s most prestigious civilian award – the Israel Prize. Over the years I have had the privilege to interview Ian for a number of publications both in Israel and South Africa.
On hearing of his passing, I thought back to a sweltering hot summer’s night in 2015, when a special gala event in his honour was held on the commercial rooftop of a high-rise in Herzliya Petuach.
From the stars in the night sky above to the stars below of Israeli tennis, there was Amos Mansdorf, Gilad Bloom and Shlomo Glickstein, as well as video-clips and photos that included Ilie Năstase, Jimmy Connors, Brad Gilbert and Tomas Muster, all taken with Ian over many years at his proud “offspring” – the Israel Tennis Center in Ramat Hasharon. From those around the world who were unable to attend, there were audio-visual messages giving Ian what they described as “a big hug.”
I thought at the time of the Beatles number, “All you need is love” as there was a lot of it about. There was the love of Ian for tennis and the State of Israel and there was the reciprocal love of the Israel tennis world and the State of Israel for Ian.
Ian’s journey, more like an adventure, began with love.
Ian in action. Early days of tennis in Israel, Ian found it more difficult finding a court to play than finding his form.
OPEN COURT’SHIP
Representing South Africa in tennis at the 1963 Maccabi Games having competed and getting to the 3rd round in the men’s singles at Wimbledon in 1955 going down to eventual finalist Kurt Nielsen, this young graduate in dentistry “fell in love with Israel” and “I made the decision to makeAliyah (immigration to Israel).” Only snag was when he returned to Johannesburg after the Maccabi Games, he also fell in love with a young girl named Ruth. After courting Ruth for a few weeks, he was now faced with a dilemma – it’s either Ruth or Israel. “I doubted Ruth would ever come live in Israel and so I stopped asking her out. What was the point …. why pursue that which you know has no long-term future.” Still, Ian could not shake Ruth from his mind and so called her again to ask her out but this time it was she who turned him down. Explains Ruth:
“I wanted to live in Israel and thought why pursue a romance with a dentist who obviously wanted to stay and practice in Joburg!”
The Magic of the Maccabiah. The 1961 South African Maccabi tennis team with Ian Froman (six from the left).
This bizarre situation of each not knowing what the other was truly thinking was only later resolved when Ian accepted a chance invitation to a function at Ruth’s parent’s home and an intimate chat over cocktails, revealed they loved Israel as much as each other, so much so that later that same evening, they announced their engagement. Shortly thereafter, the newlyweds – or in tennis parlance, ‘Doubles Partners’ – moved to Israel and so began their journey into the history books. Ian never went on to practice dentistry and instead proceeded to change the face of tennis in Israel.
It did not happen overnight!
INSPIRATIONAL IAN
After arriving in Israel in 1964, “I thought I would slot into the local game, only to discover that tennis in those days was something out of the Jurassic age. I used to run around like a madman just to find a courts to train. There were no facilities and we often used to furtively sneak onto private courts to practice. Apart from private courts, it seemed to me that the only privileged people playing tennis were tourists at beach hotels.” This motivated Ian, who together with Freddie Krivine, Joseph Shane, Harold Landesberg, Rubin Josephs, and Dr. William Lippy began fundraising to launch tennis as a sport in Israel by building a national Israel tennis centre (ITC). This was achieved on an old strawberry patch in Ramat HaSharon donated to the ITC by the government, and on April 25, 1976, the late Leah Rabin, wife of the late Prime Minister of Israel, Yitzchak Rabin, cut the ribbon to the Center, and 250 children signed up to participate. Who in a sense also “signed up” was the Prime Minister, who for the rest of his life played frequently for well-deserved relaxation.
Turned on to Tennis. Two of Ian’s friends and converts to tennis, Leah and Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzchak Rabin.
The Israel Tennis Centers, under Froman’s inspirational direction and fundraising finesse, grew over the years from strength to strength, as tennis centers opened up from Kiryat Shmona in the North to Beersheba in the South. It was little wonder that this chapter in the history of tennis in Israel is referred to as the “Froman revolution”. In 1989, Froman received the Israel Prize, the country’s most prestigious civilian award.
This recognition was bestowed not so much for the Center’s contribution towards striving for excellence in the sport, but more for providing community enrichment programs and popularizing the sport across the socio-economic divide. The centres from inception, catered to children and families from all religions and ethnic groups – without prejudice.
“Tennis should not be an elitist game and we set out from the beginning to make it accessible to kids from outlying areas,” asserted Ian. “We included children from all backgrounds and religion, providing them with a lifetime sport in an educational environment.” The ITC proved an enriching sporting mechanism where Jews and Arabs could meet and play from a young age and foster better understanding.
Recognising the immense contribution beyond sport, State President Chaim Hertzog, said in presenting the Israel Prize to Ian:
“You have created a virtual social revolution throughout Israel.”
Inspirational Ian. Dr.Ian Froman, President of the Israel Tennis & Education Centers is awarded in 1989 the Israel Prize for “social impact” through sport by Israel’s State President, Chaim Herzog.
What the State President meant by a “social revolution” was best explained by the late Kollie Friedstein, another South African roped in by Froman, who would go on to serve as Executive Director of the ITC as well as Chairman of the Israel Tennis Association. Friedstein, who immigrated to Israel in 1942 from Johannesburg imbued by the ideology of his Zionist youth movement – HaShomer HaTzair and was one of the founders of Kibbutz Shoval in the Negev, disclosed to me in an interview that he was drawn to Froman’s concept, “not so much to produce future tennis champions, but of creating healthy environments across the country attracting kids who might otherwise be on the streets. I saw this as an expression of my Zionism.” Of course, the advantages of sport centers were not always immediately apparent to everyone at the time. During the opening ceremony of the Yaffo Tennis Center, Shlomo Lahat, the then mayor of Tel Aviv-Yafo, was pelted with rotten tomatoes by local protestors. Established in an area known at the time for its crime, prostitution and drugs, residents had complained that they needed an upgrade in educational and cultural facilities, not tennis courts. Soon enough though, the Tennis Center became the pride of the town, and people were advertising their homes for sale as being “within walking distance of the Tennis Center.” Froman knew where he was heading with his vision.
Apart from being one of the largest social service organizations for children in Israel and the largest tennis programme for children in the world, the ITC over the years produced outstanding players who made their mark on the most prestigious courts around the world.
While its graduates have included greats like Sholmo Glickstein, Amos Mansdorf and Dudi Sela all top 30 ranked players, it was the double players of Andy Ram and Yoni Erlich who made history for Israel by winning Grand Slam titles. In 2006, Ram became the first Israeli tennis player to win a grand slam title when he captured the mixed doubles title at Wimbledon with his Russian partner, Vera Zvonareva. Then in 2008, with Erlich, the “Dynamo Duo” became the first Israeli doubles tennis team to win a Grand Slam tennis title in winning the Australian Open in Melbourne.
Former Israeli professional tennis player Gilad Bloom who reached a career-high world ranking of 61, posted on social media on hearing of Froman’s passing:
“At age 11, as a promising young player in Israel, Ian introduced me to Dick Savitt, a Jewish Wimbledon and Australian Open champion. Within a year, I became a world champion for my age group. Alongside my parents, Ian was one of the most important people in my life and influenced its course more than anyone else.”
Referring to the experiences he and other top players of his generation and those that came before and those that followed, Bloom says, “The confidence of Israel tennis players to compete at the highest level, would never have been possible without Ian Froman.” Rattling off the names of Israel’s tennis greats like Amos Mansdorf “the best player of my era,” Shahar Pe’er and Dudi Sela who all literally “grew up in the tennis centers Ian established,” he took a sport “that didn’t exist in Israel and brought it to the point where we had top-20 players and reached the Davis Cup semifinals.”
Fun under the Sun. Rival reactions on the faces of Ian Froman (left) and the British Ambassador to IsraelSimon McDonald (right) already on the phone following the winning point for the UK against Israel in the Davis Cup at Ramat HaSharon. (Photo: D.E. Kaplan)
And it was at the Davis Cup tournaments hosted in Israel that brought Israelis in their multitudes to the stadium in Ramat Hasharon. There was always a festive atmosphere with that head of white hair bobbing up all over the place as Ian was at home holding “court”.
Tennis Frenzy. Ian would gaze up with pride during a Davis Cup match at the packed Canada Stadium in Ramat HaSharon. It was testament of how far the sport had developed during the “Froman revolution”.(Photo: D.E. Kaplan)
CUP RUNNETH OVER
Covering the Davis Cup tournaments as a reporter, I recall, when Israel was up against countries like the UK, Chili, Austria or South Africa, one could be excused for thinking it was more like war than tennis – a far cry from the sedate ambience of a Wimbledon or Roland Garos. With drums beating and blearing horns, the crowd traditionally erupted with every point won and then descending into the depths of despair with every point lost. Usually there were selected tunes for either – “David Melech Yisrael” for points won, with the player’s name substituted for “David” and the Funeral March” for points lost. Always placing the weight of the nation on the shoulders of their Israeli competitors, the spectators forgot they were spectators and close calls were far too important a matter to be left to the likes of umpires, who battled to maintain decorum – generally an unknown phenomenon in Israel.
Such was the vibrant atmosphere at Ian’s creation.
On their Feet. Lively Israeli spectators at a Davis Cup match between Israel and Chili at the Israel Tennis Center Canada Stadium, Ramat HaSharon. (Photo: D.E. Kaplan).
TIME FOR TENNIS
“In life, everything is timing,” said Ian at an event honouring him in 2022. “When hitting the ball in tennis, you need to time it correctly. If you get married or go into business, timing is essential. For me, the timing was just right. It started just after the Yom Kippur War. Israel was pretty depressed. With the Russians and Ethiopians who came in afterwards, how would we help them integrate? ” These words resonated with this writer as I recall following the mass Russian immigration to Israel in the 1990s, the Tennis Centre in Ramat Hasharon together with the South African immigrant organization, TELFED, sponsored a project organising tennis lessons for Russian adults that were bussed to the Centre and received tennis instruction in Hebrew as well as Israeli folk dancing on an adjacent court. It was a project that gelled exactly with Ian’s philosophy of using the ITC as an instrument of integration into Israeli society. As he said, “The centres have been a way of bringing children together in Israel, which is a melting pot of people from all over the world, from different societies, different religions, different backgrounds and different finances.”
How right he was.
Community Participation. His presence unmistakable even though face partially obscured, Ian Froman (3rd from the left back row) with an inspired team of South African TELFED volunteers (including TELFED director, Sidney Shapiro Top left) at the Ramat HaSharon tennis stadium at the Davis Cup tournament between SA and Israel in 2001. Also present were ITC Tournament Director at the time, Danny Gelley (3rd left in thefront) and ITC Director, Janine Strauss (top row far right). (Photo: D.E. Kaplan)
FINAL SET
Listening to the fine tributes at Ian’s funeral at Kfar Vitkin from members of the family, friends and people from the world of Israeli tennis, I thought back to that event honouring Ian in 2015 when he said what I thought captured his journey best of all:
“I do not have to think back on life as a cup half empty or half full, for mine runneth over.”
Condolences to wife Ruth, children Yarona, Amira, Philip and their families.
*Feature picture: Love, Set and…Oh, what a Match. Lovebirds, Ruth and Ian Froman at a 2015 event honouring Ian’s contribution to Israeli society and tennis in Israel. (Photo: D. E. Kaplan)
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
Tribute to a man of law, of reason and of community
By David E. Kaplan
(Courtesy to the Jerusalem Reportwhere a shorter version of the tribute was first published)
“Dialogue,” is the word that I closely associate with the late ‘Judge’ Henry Shakenovsky of Ramat HaSharon, Israel who on the 8 August at the age of 95, left this troubled world a poorer place devoid of his off-the-cuff humour and wise ‘counsel’. “Resolution is best achieved by listening and understanding the other side,” he publicly expressed at a meeting well over two decades ago when I first got to know him. It’s a credence that Henry always adhered to both in public and private discourse and followed through by example. He impacted many to follow this path, myself included.
Apexed with a wad of white hair, he would like a lighthouse, illuminate any place by his presence but it was much more his personality and erudition than his appearance that would hold the floor. Armed with a vocabulary that he masterly marshaled to be so poignantly persuasive, it was little wonder that he excelled as a barrister/ advocate at the South African Bar and in later years, even following his aliyah to Israel, remaining as an Acting Judge on the Supreme Court of the Witwatersrand Local Division (WLD). How many times I recall him saying, when trying to make arrangements, “Apologies, I will be in South Africa presiding in a case.” I would welcome on his return listening to him relate cases, usually with bizarre circumstances that would have me in stiches of laughter as he comically embellished in his inimitable way the facts of the case and the issues of law both in English as well as in Afrikaans, particularly as it related to witness testimony. Having grown up in the old Orange Free State province of South Africa, Henry spoke a “suiwer” (pure) Afrikaans and frequently teased me over my “kombuis Kaapse taal” (kitchen Cape dialect), with its own nuances and humour. Our love of the law and language was our bridge but there was so much more.
Out in the Open. Understanding the topography and turbulence, Unity in Diversity delegation meeting outside in the hills of Judea/ “West Bank” with Henry Shakenovsky (center).
Henry’s later retirement from the Bench in South Africa never impeded him from giving ‘opinions’ or ‘judgments’ on issues in Israel. I think back to 2005, when Israel was a society divided as it agonized over the issue of separating from the Palestinians in Gaza. There was a “them” and “us” self-imposed schism in the country and a prevailing mood of “What’s the point in talking to them? They don’t understand and never will.” This did not cut with Judge Shakenovsky who some six months preceding Israel’s evacuation of Gaza, formed a group with his wife Ruth and close friend Maurice Ostroff of English speakers from opposite sides of the political spectrum to thrash out the most divisive issue on Israel’s national agenda. Appropriately named Unity in Diversity (UID) – I believe coined by Ruth – I participated at these vibrant, at times volatile gatherings where Henry acted as the moderator and I reported on it for The Jerusalem Post.
Determined to Dialogue. Outreaching to understanding, the cofounders of Unity and Diversity (UiD) Maurice Ostroff (left), Henry Shakenovsky (right) with Rabbi Bernard Paz from Mitzpe Yericho (center).
It was always as if a court was in session with Henry presiding. In the absence of a gavel, ‘Judge Shakenovsky’ nevertheless maintained order and vociferous debate ensued.
Comprised of mainly former immigrants from South Africa, North America and the UK and from both sides of the “Green Line”, we exchanged views on issues that were dividing the nation. At the very first meeting, Henry introduced his vision with the following:
“We aim to explore whether there are shared values which, despite our differences, could unite us.”
What followed were tough meetings held alternately in ‘safe’ zones in central Israel followed by visits in armored busses to communities in Judea and Samaria or the “West Bank” as some participants insisted or demanded on calling. Some who came to that first meeting said, “That’s enough. I’m not wasting my time again.” Participants were at loggerheads over fundamental issues. Even the choice of words by a participant could cause a furor. Was the disengagement from Gush Katif in Gaza an ‘evacuation’ or an ‘expulsion’? Although at times feeling trapped in a verbal minefield, Henry was masterful at handling the situation.
As is today in 2024, Members of the Knesset back then were little better at setting an example of decorum and so Unity in Diversity under Shakenovsky’s co-leadership, felt it was up to them to create a fresh dynamic of intellectual discourse. “Our aim,” asserted Henry, “was never to try to change the views of the other side but to establish a forum for dialogue where people would be free to express their views to an audience that would listen.”
Meeting of Minds. In an office adorned with books of law, Henry (left) meeting with former President of the Supreme Court of Israel, Aharon Barak, at Reichman University.
How frequently Henry would quote – sometimes bellow – in Latin:
“Audi alteram partem”
A fundamental legal principle of “Let the other side be heard as well” in which each party is entitled to a fair hearing and given the opportunity to respond, Henry hammered this home when rowdy participants got out of hand.
There was something poetically poignant here because Henry’s birthplace in South Africa was a small dorp named “Vrede”, which in Afrikaans means “Peace”. This name arose following a bitter feud between the early Afrikaner settlers of the area as to where the town should be located. A compromise was finally reached and peace among those early citizens was achieved, hence the name, “Vrede”.
It is that dialogue and compromise that drove Henry to constantly seek the ultimate prize of “vrede” or “peace” on a new but biblical landscape and to shift away from the paradigm of “them” and “us”.
What was most disquieting to Henry was what he so eloquently termed “the dislike of the unlike.”
However, it was his legal insights and understanding of the “dislike” from OUTSIDE Israel who were abusing the law to legally assault the Jewish state under what became known as “Lawfare” that Henry’s contribution to our Truth be Told (TbT) committee proved so invaluable. Established in the wake of the notorious 2001 UN Conference Against Racism or “Durban Hatefest”, TbT, a grassroots organization committed to proactively articulating Israel’s narrative to the outside world, depended on erudite lawyers of Henry’s standing . He contributed immeasurably during the period of the Goldstone Report and the years following, when TbT members were responding to the lies and distortions appearing daily in the international media.
Memorable Meeting. A few members of the Truth be Told committee with Henry Shakenovsky (front left) meeting in Tel- Aviv with visiting from South Africa, Rev. Kenneth Meshoe, founder of the African Christian Democratic Party (center) and his wife Lydia (front). Also present are Barry Shaw, Harris Green, Annette Milliner, Rolene Marks and the writer (top left).
While Henry has sadly left the world stage, that stage since the October 7 massacre in southern Israel has only worsened as it pertains to the Jewish state and Jews across the world.
The global assault to undermine Israel by the abuse of law has only but intensified and a new generation of like-minded Henrys are needed today more than ever.
May Judge Shakenovsky’s legacy endure through the lives of others he so influenced.
A “mensch” and a community man (Henry served on the executive of Beth Protea, the retirement home for Southern Africans in Israel), he will be sadly missed by friends, family and colleagues.
Condolences to wife Ruth, daughter Jill Cohen in Israel, sons Brian and Richard in Australia and their families.
*Feature Picture: Acting Judge Henry Shakenovsky on the Supreme Court of the Witwatersrand Local Division (WLD).
.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
In a post October 7 world when Jews again are tagged and targeted, the name of cycling legend Bartali personifies true heroism– reflections and recollections during the 2024 Tour de France.
By David E. Kaplan
This year’s 2024 Tour de France – won in spectacular fashion by Slovenian Tadej Pogačar – had plenty of high moments and the breaking of long-held records. For the most part, I watched on TV all 21 stages. What particularly caught my attention was on the Saturday and penultimate stage of the grueling 21-stage race that ended the next day in Nice in a nail-biting ‘time trial’, was the commentator’s line which he repeated again and again:
“If Pogačar wins today’s mountain stage, he will equal the record of 5 mountain stage wins in a Tour with Gino Bartali.”
Bartali? Where had I heard that name before?
Records and Revelations. Tour de France 2024 race leader Tadej Pogačar climbs to victory on penultimate stage 20 atop Col de la Couillole, equaling the record of the great Gino Bartali who saved Jews during WWII in Italy. (Photo: Tim de Waele/Getty Images)
It rang a clangor and for more than only cycling. I let the thought linger until the end of the stage when Pogačar won in spectacular fashion and the animated commentator was battling to catch his breath as if he had himself just raced the132.8 km and said:
“Theonly other man to have won five mountain stages in one Tour was Gino Bartali in 1948.”
Again, the name Bartali and coupled with a “76-year-old record had been equaled.”
76 years…Bartali……!
And then I remembered.
Pogačar had equaled a record of not only the leading cyclist of his era, a three-time winner of the Giro d’Italia (1936,1937 and 1946), who won the Tour de France in 1938 and again after the war, a decade later in 1948 but had, in the intervening years, saved the lives of Jews in wartime Italy.
It all came back to me when I recalled back to a Yom HaShoah ceremony many years earlier in my hometown of Kfar Saba in central Israel. That year, the annual memorial ceremony for the six million victims of the Holocaust focused on the connection between sport and the Holocaust and related the story of an Italian, not Jewish and a great cyclist named Gino Bartali, who at great risk to himself and his family, had saved Jews from certain death at the hands of the Nazis. There was good reason why on July 7, 2013, Yad Vashem recognized Gino Bartali as Righteous Among the Nations.
Writing on the Wall. Years later, Gino Bartali sticks his head out his car window to view graffiti honouring him and other Tour de France winners – Ottavio Bottecchia (1924), himself (1938), Fausto Coppi (1949) and Gastone Nencini (1960).
During his lifetime, Bartali didn’t talk about his wartime activities and was only after his death in 2000 that details began to emerge.
A villager from a poor Tuscan family, Bartali in the second half of the 1930s was reaching the peak of his career having won his first Giro d’Italia in 1936 and then retaining the title in 1937 when war clouds began to ominously loom over Europe. When he then in 1938, won his first Tour de France, it was in the aftermath of this triumph that revealed as much about Bartali’s moral character as his cycling prowess.
Cycling Courier. Gino Bartali and his bicycle that helped saved the lives of Jews.
As related by Bartali’s son Andrea, there was one particular fan of his father who was following the cyclist’s progress with more Machiavellian than sporting interest – Benito Mussolini, the country’s fascist leader. Under the evil spell of Hitler, “He believed,” said Andrea, “that if an Italian rider triumphed in the Tour de France it would show that Italians too belonged to the master race.”
Man of Modesty. Bartali wanted to be remembered for his sporting career on his bike and when asked about his wartime excursions, used to say: “I did the only thing I was good at, I cycled.” In truth, he did so much more risking his life to save Jews from the clutches of the Nazis in wartime Italy.
Bartali would go on to win won the 1938 Tour de France but for him, unlike for Mussolini it was a ‘race’ only in a cycling not in an ethnicity sense. While the Italian leader felt Bartali had contributed to fascist prestige and wanted to exploit the cyclist’s win, Bartali would have none of that.
“When my father was invited to dedicate his win to Mussolini and the fascist cause, he refused,”revealed Andrea. A risk-taker on the saddle, he was even more so when off. By refusing to dedicate his win to the fascist cause “my dad was insulting il Duce.He was taking a great personal risk.”
However, he would take far more serious risks in the near future.
Streets of Salvation. Bartali’s bike on display in the cycling museum in Madonna del Ghisallo Church, Lombardy. Withing the frame and handlebars, were hidden the photographs and counterfeit ID documents for Jews fleeing for their lives from the Nazis.
In the middle of that year’s 1938 Tour de France, on the 14 July, Mussolini published the Manifesto della razza (Manifesto on Race), which led to Italian Jews being stripped of their Italian citizenship and any position in government or the professions. These antisemitic laws demonstrated the increasing influence of Adolf Hitler over Mussolini. Nevertheless, Italy still managed to remain a country in which Jews could at least take refuge, but that all terrifyingly transitioned when Italy surrendered to the allies in 1943 and the German army responded by occupying northern and central parts of the country. They immediately started rounding up Jews and sending them to concentration camps.
Smiling Monsters. Bartali defied them both – Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler riding in an open car, circa 1940s.(Fotosearch/Getty Images)
It was at this point that Bartali, a devout Catholic, was asked by the Cardinal of Florence, ArchbishopElia Dalla Costa, to join a secret network offering protection and safe passage to Jews.
His role in the network spearheaded by the Cardinal together with Rabbi Nathan Cassuto (later arrested by the Nazis, deported and sent to his death) was uniquely suited to his temperament and talents. As an internationally renowned cyclist; a national hero with a face recognised by all, he became an unsuspecting courier – on two wheels – relaying forged documents, most of it relating to Jews trying to escape.
ON THE ROAD
So, on the ‘surface’ (literally as well as figuratively), Bartali was undertaking long training rides for which he was renowned, but in reality, he was carrying photographs and counterfeit identity documents to and from a secret printing press produced by the Assisi network, another rescue operation initiated by Church people in that town. All these secret documents were hidden in the frame and handlebars of his bicycle.
Riding through many roadblocks manned by Italian fascists as well as Nazis, when Bartali was stopped and searched, he specifically asked that his bicycle not be touched “since the different parts were very carefully calibrated to achieve maximum speed.”
A perfectly credible explanation.
At remarkable risk, Bartali cycled thousands of kilometres across Italy, peddling between cities as far apart as Florence, Lucca, Genoa, Assisi and the Vatican in Rome.
At one point he was arrested and questioned by the head of the Fascist secret police in Florence where he lived and for a period, went into hiding, living incognito in the town of Citta Di Castello in Umbria.
In addition to these defiant exploits, Bartali hid his Jewish friend Giacomo Goldenberg and his family.
“He hid us in spite of knowing that the Germans were killing everybody who was hiding Jews,” Goldenberg’s son, Giorgio would later reveal.
“He was risking not only his life but also his family. Gino Bartali saved my life and the life of my family. That’s clear because if he hadn’t hidden us, we had nowhere to go.”
The Goldenberg family would emigrate to the emerging Jewish state after the war. Young Giorgio Goldenberg, son of Bartali’s friend, would take with him a signed 1940 photo Bartali had given him of his cycling victories. Giorgio now goes by the name of Shlomo Paz and has three children and five grandchildren and lives outside of Tel Aviv.
BRAVE BARTALI
Portrait of a Cyclist. The 1941 photo Gino Bartali gave to young Giorgio Goldenberg who would change his name to Shlomo Paz and live outside Tel Aviv.
Andrea Bartali says that eventually “little by little my father told me about his actions during the war.” However, “he made me promise at that time not to tell anyone.”
An unusual type of hero was Bartali.
When asked why he could not speak about his father’s heroic wartime exploits, he replied that his father had said:
“You must do good, but you must not talk about it. If you talk about it, you’re taking advantage of others misfortunes for your own gain.”
Father and son. Gino Bartali with his son Andrea who would years later be in Jerusalem to see his late father honoured at Yad Vashem.
Because Bartali didn’t want to be acknowledged for what he had done, very few of those he helped ever knew his name or what role he had played in their rescue.
Andrea Bartali says his father refused to view his actions as heroic.
“When people were telling him, ‘Gino, you’re a hero’, he would reply: ‘No, no – I want to be remembered for my sporting achievements. Real heroes are others….”
Really? If Bartali been caught by the Nazis – despite being a sporting hero – he most likely would have been shot.
Living Legacy. Bartali’s son Andrea Bartali visiting the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum in Jerusalem in 2013, where his father was recognised as Righteous Among the Nations for risking his life to save Jews during WWII.
None of this was related by the sports commentator at this year’s 2024 Tour de France while he constantly made the comparisons between Pogačar and Bartali. Probably, like the Jews Bartali saved, the commentator did not even know the story.
However, for those who do know and remember, in a post October 7 world when Jews again are tagged and targeted, the name Bartali personifies true heroism – others before self.
The Road Ahead. Members of the ISRAEL-PREMIER-TECH team at the 2024 Tour de France emblazoning to a global audience on their cycling attire the name ISRAEL and the Star of David.
*Feature picture: Hero on and off the bike. Gino Bartali rides uphill in the 1938 Tour de France.(Photo STF/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
These past 7 months have demonstrated that Israelis are extraordinary in so many ways.
By Rolene Marks
It has been over 7 months of agony. It feels like years. I do not remember life before 7 October – I do not think most people do either. There is 7/10 – and life before that, which is blurred and fuzzy. We are not the same people who went to sleep on 6 October. We never will be again. How could we be?
This year, the national holidays in Israel have a distinctly different tone. They are sacred days, filled with sorrow – and dread. Yom Hashoa (Holocaust Memorial Day) in the shadow of 7/10 was extremely poignant and difficult. The images of our brothers and sisters burnt to ash or herded onto the back of trucks and taken away as well as the raw, unbridled hatred that fueled the attack was reminiscent of the experiences of our ancestors – and family.
On 7 October, Hamas intended to terrorise. And they did. The trauma we have is so deep; it is at a cellular level. They came into the one safe haven of the Jewish people, our collective home and into our individual homes as families, and raped, mutilated, tortured, burnt, murdered and kidnapped. We thought it could never happen again – but it did. We are so deep in our collective trauma that we have not even begun to emerge into post trauma but no sooner had the news broken, Israelis began to flex our well-toned resilience muscle. War and trauma are not new to Israelis or the Jewish people, but this time it was different. The level of depravity was beyond our comprehension – and many of us feel that we have been transported back in time, to the pogroms and persecution of our grandparents and great-grandparents.
We are now approaching two Days of Awe – Yom Hazikaron, Memorial Day for fallen soldiers and victims of terror – and Yom Ha’atzmaut, Independence Day. The two days take place one after the other so that we never forget the price we paid for what we have – a Jewish state. This year it is all the more emotional and heightened as we are fighting a war for our very survival – while antisemitism soars to astronomical levels.
Hamas made no distinction between any of us – left or right, religious or secular, Muslim, Christian, Jew, and foreign national – everyone was a target. Our answer to that, despite our differences, is to come together as a nation and focus on what is most important – supporting our bereaved families and families of hostages, demanding the immediate return of our hostages, ensuring the world does not forget what happened on 7/10 and standing behind our army.
In our grief, we each adopted a personal mission. Through our pain, we have each found a purpose and this article is my personal love letter to every single one of my exceptional fellow citizens and women. On 7 October, we experienced the worst of humanity. On 8 October, the best of Israel and the Jewish people trudged through their pain, shock and grief and rose to meet the challenges.
These Days of Awe, I want to express my profound love for my fellow citizens.
To the men, women and canines on air, sea, land, tunnels and airwaves, who are fighting not just for our survival, but for our very existence, there are not enough words to thank you. You are the best of us. You are our husbands and wives, sons and daughters, lovers, colleagues, friends and you are not just fighting for us, you are the vanguard in the clash between good and evil. We are proud of you, we stand by you and we know without any doubt that you adhere to the strictest moral and ethical code as you fight a monstrous entity that does not respect the laws of armed conflict, but instead uses their civilians as human shields. You can hold your head up high.
To our warriors, human and canine, who paid the ultimate price for our safety, your names will go down in the annals of our history, and we will honour you eternally. We will wrap our arms around your families. May your memories forever be blessed.
The 7th of October was the darkest day in Israel’s history, but it was also a day that ordinary people became superheroes. There were parents who drove down south to rescue their children in the carnage, risking their lives and saving many. Noam Tibon, a retired IDF General, and his wife got into their car and headed straight to Nahal Oz to help rescue his son and his family, trapped in their safe room. Tibon and his wife would not only rescue injured soldiers, shepherding them to safety, but Noam engaged in combat with terrorists before managing to free his family. Civilians like Yusuf Marhat, a Bedouin bus driver who transported revelers to the Nova festival and then drove towards the carnage to rescue as many as possible. He saved many lives that dark day. Aner Shapira was amongst a group of people hiding in a shelter when Hamas opened fire on them and threw grenades in. Video footage shows Shapira throwing at least 7 grenades out before he was eventually killed. His best friend Hersch Goldberg Polin was taken as a hostage and remains in captivity. These are just a few of the many who drew superhuman strength to save as many lives as they could.
To every first responder who ran into the danger, we salute you. It was the call centre operators who took those first calls from terrified kibbutz residents. I keep thinking of the operator who took the distressed call of Avigail Idan’s siblings, who saw their parents murdered and did not know where their baby sister was. The siblings hid in a cupboard where their mother Smadar had safely hidden them before she was murdered. The operator told them to hide there “till the good people come”. Images of Jewish children hiding in cupboards from killers takes us back to that darkest time in our history. The remarkable first responders from Magen David Adom, firefighters, United Hatzalah, Zaka, IDF soldiers, doctors, nurses, police and all who ran into the gates of hell went above and beyond the call of duty. They were nothing less than magnificent.
The attacks of October 7 left many orphans. Statistics estimate 119 children who lost either one or more parents. Breastfeeding mothers rushed to donate their breast milk so that our smallest and most vulnerable treasures would receive sustenance. This is love in a profound time of sorrow.
The Beautiful Israel. Young kids making sandwiches for soldiers who may be their fathers or mothers defending their country in the north and the south.
To the volunteers, near and far, who are diligently picking fruit and vegetables, thank you! You are helping to feed a country who faces the real threat of a lack of food security. Many of the agricultural workers who came from Thailand, Nepal and other countries returned to their countries in the wake of 7/10, leaving farms without labourers. Israelis sprang into action, making sure cows were milked, fruit, vegetable picked, and that the farms that form the country’s food belt have continued to function. Volunteers have been streaming in around from around the world to help – including a team of cowboys from the USA. It has been an incredible show of love and solidarity.
Stepping up to the Plate. Braving warm smiles on faces traumatized by national tragedy, Israelis preparing food for their soldiers.
To my colleagues who are journalists or are in the field of public diplomacy – we are tasked with bearing witness, recording history and testimony and sharing it with the world. It has been at times, an agonizing task. We have had to see the images and footage from the atrocities that are unfathomable in their cruelty. We have had to see them again and again in order to ensure the story is told, the atrocities not denied or forgotten. It takes a massive toll. We will continue to speak.
To the lawyers who are defending Israel in the international courts against libelous accusations of genocide – some heroes really do wear capes. In this case, robes. You are our legal heroes in your robes, presenting Israel’s case with alacrity, dignity and forensic detail, compiling case after case that easily disproves the accusation of genocide. You have had to pore over the evidence of a true genocide, the atrocities of 7 October, in all of its savage imagery. This is unbearable but proves without a doubt who the perpetrators are – Hamas.
To my sisters, the Zionesses roaring on behalf of our mothers, sisters and daughters who no longer have a voice, who were raped and tortured and then violated again by feminists and women’s organisations who not only denied the violence they endured, but built a wall of silence. We, the women of Israel, will tear down that wall by speaking up. We will not be silenced.
Country United. As they say an army marches on its stomach, it didn’t take long for Israel’s restaurants to get into the kitchen to feed their heroes. Within days of the war began following the massacre of October 7, even Israel’s top restaurants rallied to provide food for the soldiers.
Someone once said that an army marches on its stomach. The IDF must be the most well-fed army in in the world. Israelis and volunteers from abroad have been packing food parcels, donating, hosting barbeques on the border and ensuring that the army that defends its nation, eats well. Restaurant owners have koshered their restaurants to ensure that all food meets religious requirement and no soldiers is excluded from enjoying a delicious meal. Druze women and restaurant owners have closed their restaurants to the public and are catering solely to soldiers. When they open to the public again, we will support them in our masses.
What’s Cooking? In wartime Israel, everyone does their part – even if that means cooking dinner in a parking garage. Seen here at the Keshet school in Jerusalem’s Katamon neighborhood, are student volunteers in their school’s parking garage, which also is functioning as a makeshift kitchen feeding as many as 300 people per day.(Photo by Neil Weinberg)
To the hostages – our brothers and sisters held in torturous conditions, and those who have been released – no amount of words do justice to explain your courage and your dignity. Former hostages who have bravely shared about their horrific experience have done so with the greatest dignity and continue to fight for the 132 that remain captive. The stories are shattering – torture, starvation, systematic sexual abuse and more accounts that speak of unfathomable trauma. We will not stop until every single one of you is back.
The people who have vowed to rebuild their devastated communities and kibbutzim, you are the beacon of hope, of resilience. You remind us of what we have, what we cherish and what our commitment is.
Seniors in the ‘Service’. Volunteers sort donated resources for Israelis displaced by the October 7 attacks and Israel-Hamas war. (Photo: Foni Mesika)
Young people who have risen to the challenge. You are more than our greatest hope, you have more than proven our future is radiantly bright – you light the way. You have shown up in our darkest moment in the most magnificent way and while we look around the world at the chaos on campuses and in marches, alarmed at how the young and more often than not, gullible have been radicalized, we do not fear for the future of Israel. You are our future. You are the generation that will go down in the annals of history as one of our greatest. I believe that.
To you who has gone above and beyond and who I may not have mentioned, thank you. To every single one of us, navigating our own trauma and pain, but showing up, every single day, there is no greater love than the love we have for each other.
Every single one of us. Am Yisrael Chai!
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
Naming a lane after one of Israel’s finest field agents – Sylvia Raphael– brought back memories about a heroic South African woman that resonates to an Israel today at war
By David E. Kaplan
It was long overdue.
On the 22 January 2024, people from kibbutzim and towns and cities across Israel came together alongside a green picturesque riverbank park in Rosh Ha’Ayin in central Israel to attend a lane-naming ceremony. They did so bound by a past that was in some way connected to the extraordinary life of a South African woman born in Graaf-Reinet to an atheist Jewish father and an Afrikaner Calvinist mother and who for reasons deep within her as well as late awakenings about the horrors of the Holocaust, placed herself in the most life-threatening situations spying for Israel. The sixties and early seventies were a most dangerous period for Israel; it was to be a most dangerous period for Sylvia Raphael.
In the Right Lane. Invitation to a ceremony marking the naming of a lane in Rosh Ha’Ayin after Israeli field agent Sylvia Raphael from South Africa.
As a journalist in Israel who has spent nearly 20 years researching and writing about fellow South African Sylvia Raphael, thoughts percolated through my mind as I watched the mayor of Rosh Ha’Ayin pull the cord to reveal the sign that read in English and Hebrew Sylvia Raphael Lane 1935-2005. Only 20 minutes earlier, as I walked from my parked car, I was stopped by a curious local resident, a young father wheeling a baby in a pram, who asked who the lane, across from his home, was being named after. When I told him, he asked:
“מי היא הייתה?” (Who was she?)
Brave Beaut. A young Sylvia Raphael from Graaf-Reinet in South Africa’s Eastern Cape.
This is why I began this article with “long overdue”, although, as I watched the cloth give way to the name Sylvia Raphael, I took comfort it was fulfilling the prophetic words of former defense correspondent, and close associate and advisor to Yitzhak Rabin, Eitan Haber. Back in 2005he wrote in Israel’s daily,Yediot Ahronot following Sylvia’s funeral at Kibbutz Ramat HaKovesh that:
“One day when true peace comes, they will write books about her, name streets after her and make movies of her life.”
Honouring a Hero. A group gathering beneath the unveiled sign of Sylvia Raphael Lane in Rosh HaAyin with the writer (center), Sylvia’s best friend on kibbutz Ramat Hakovesh Hadas Zamir (third from left) and mayor Shalom Ben Moshe (front).
Well, we are far from “true peace”, nevertheless there has since been a book, many articles, an internationally acclaimed documentary “Tracing Blood” directed by Saxon Logan in which I was interviewed, a square named after her at the Moshava (settelment) Migdal in the north of Israel, and on this 22 January 2024, a lane in Rosh Ha’Ayin in central Israel. I looked around at her old friends, representatives from the South African community in Israel and colleagues from the shadowy world of espionage and I was sure that going through everyone’s minds was:
“How we could have done with Sylvia today.”
On everyone mind in Israel is the October 7 massacre, our hostages in Gaza and the daily loss of our precious soldiers. It is like an inescapable daily horror show and we all know it occurred due to a gross failure on intelligence. In these tragic times, we reflected on not only on the fascinating life of Sylvia but her abilities of providing critical intel, a professional attribute that Sylvia was in a class of her own. As Haber so poignantly and poetically put it:
“If Israelis knew what Sylvia actually did for future generations, they would go twice a week to her grave to lay flowers that it would one day reach the heavens.”
Bald and the Bold. Posing as a photojournalist, Sylvia Raphael on a movie set on in the South of France with actor Yul Brynner.
Well, the local resident who stopped to question me, need not go to her graveside to lay flowers but could step onto the lane each day, walk along the bank under the shade of trees with his children and appreciate he is doing so in safety because of the service Sylvia once performed.
So, who was Silvia?
In a 2005 interview for The Jerusalem Post following Sylvia’s funeral, her Norwegian husband, Annaeus Scholdt, revealed to me:
“She was a gifted woman; quick witted; and well qualified to do what was required of her. I still do not know – even as her husband and her lawyer – what she had done prior to her business in Norway. She was the consummate professional; she would never speak to me about her Mossad past. All I know it was extremely dangerous.”
It must have been!
Sylvia took over from Israeli spy Eli Cohen following his public hanging in Damascus in May 1965 defying the Syrian assumption that Israel would never replace him with a woman; in 1967 she watched from a hotel balcony in Egypt as Israeli mirages flew over on a bombing mission; and as an intimate friend of the Jordanian Royal family, Sylvia used to babysit the current king of Jordan, King Abdullah!
Only a few years earlier, Sylvia had joined the stream of young ‘sixties’ adventurers volunteering on kibbutzim, attracted by the alluring amalgam of ideology and fun on Israel’s agricultural cooperatives. She found herself on Kibbutz Gan Shmuel near Hadera. If her good looks were attracting attention, there were others too interested. The Mossad spotted and recruited her.
Shades of Sylvia. Shaded by trees are Harris Green (left) and Rob Hyde, representing the South African community in Israel at the ceremony honouring Sylvia Raphael.
The late sixties and early seventies were turbulent times. Palestinian terrorism was constantly front-page news, replete with aircraft hijackings, assassinations and attacks on airports and embassies. Rising rapidly to become one of Israel’s top field agents, Raphael posed as a Canadian freelance photojournalist, Patricia Roxburgh joining an agency in Paris, known for its sympathies for the Palestinians. Dropping subtle antisemitic barbs on the European cocktail circuit, she ingratiated herself into anti-Israel circles easing her penetration into the inner sanctums of the Arab world. Her brother David ‘Bunty’ Raphael says in the documentary:
“One day she was in Cairo, the next in Damascus and a week later in Mogadishu. Who had even heard of Mogadishu in those days? We all thought she was covering stories for her publisher; now we know she was leading a complete double life.”
Hot Shot. Attractive Israel field agent, Sylvia Raphael, posing as Canadian photojournalist Patricia Roxburgh was able to infiltrate the inner sanctums of enemy Arab countries as well as terrorist camps.
She had been one of the very few agents who penetrated the PLO bases in Jordan and Lebanon when an unattractive little-known terrorist dressed in khaki, a red and white headscarf and a holstered gun on his belt, had set his sights on causing as much mayhem and destruction in pursuit of high-profiling the Palestinian cause. Did the ‘Beauty and the Beast’ ever meet? With both Yasser Arafat and Raphael now gone – Who knows?
Rising in the ranks to become one of the spy agency’s star operatives, most of Raphael’s exploits are still shrouded in mystery, apart from the one assignment that went horribly wrong. In July 1973, Raphael joined a hastily assembled team of Mossad agents to track down Ali Hassan Salameh, Black September’s operation chief in Europe and thought to be the mastermind of the Munich massacre. In the sedate Norwegian village of Lillehammer, the team gunned down a Moroccan waiter called Ahmed Bouchiki instead of Salameh. The documentary shows how Salameh deviously masterminded the Mossad to kill the expendable waiter. Sylvia had expressed constant doubts about the mission but her bosses authorized the mission to proceed.
Sylvia the Spy. With Israel today being attacked by the Houthi in Yemen, Mossad agent Sylvia Rafael is seen here on ‘assignment’ as a photojournalist in Yemen in 1967. (Photo Double Exposure exhibition)
No matter how professional, in the furtive world that Sylvia had lived, mistakes with lethal consequences were always a possibility. Hazards of the ‘trade’! The Mossad’s botched assassination would prove a prelude to another mistake, this time from the other side. In September 1985, Force 17, a splinter group of the PLO, murdered three Israelis on a yacht off the coastal resort of Larnaca in Cyprus. They claimed publicly that the victims were Mossad agents, one of whom was the prized Sylvia Raphael. They believed they had their revenge.
Not so! Raphael would live for another twenty years before succumbing to leukemia at the age of 67.
In 2015, I had occasion to interview Eitan Haber on the 20th anniversary of the assassination of his close friend – Yitzchak Rabin. We sat in the Executive lunge of the Hilton Tel Aviv. At the end of the interview, I asked him:
“You said in 2005 that Sylvia was one of Israel’s best agents; can you tell me why?”
He replied, “She was not one of the best; she was THE best.”
Intrigued, I asked him to elaborate. He simply smiled and said:
“I will say no more.”
DOWN MEMORY LANE
Although not strictly born Jewish, Sylvia felt Jewish. This was evident not only for the risks she took for the Jewish people but before she passed away in 2005 in Pretoria, South Africa, she had arranged to be buried in Israel, on the kibbutz that she was a member, Ramat Ha’Kovesh and for the following words to be inscribed on her stone:
“I am buried in the soil of my soul”
She most certainly is, and as of January 22, 2024, the lush soil along a lane in Rosh Ha’Ayin now too exudes the soul of Sylvia.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
By Yaakov Hagoel, Chairman of the World Zionist Organization
When talking about the Declaration of Independence, one usually focuses on its resounding opening sentences:
“The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books“, or in one of the following paragraphs, which talk about the natural and historical right to the land, the call for peace with all the inhabitants of the land and the partnership in the fight against Nazi evil.
All this is good and important. The Declaration of Independence is truly a work of thought of precise wording, every word of which was examined and weighed by the heads of the Jewish population on the eve of the establishment of the State. But no less is the last part of the scroll, dedicated to signatories.
David Ben-Gurion at the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1948 (Photo: GPO)
Thirty-seven people were privileged to sign the founding document of the State, headed by David Ben-Gurion of course, and among them also Golda Meir, Moshe Sharret, Rabbi Yehuda Leib HaCohen Fishman Maimon and many others. Every time I look at the signature section, I come across David Remez‘s signature.
Why specifically Remez’s signature? Because it is the most prominent of them all. Most of the signatories used a pen brought especially for the event by the People’s Administration that intended uniformity for the signatures. Remez brought his own pen with him, a special and thick pen, and to this day his signature stands out as the most prominent name among the signatories.
For me, the story of David Ramez’s signature – he has many accomplishments to his credit since the early days of the Yishuv, as a Knesset member and cabinet minister – is not just a historical anecdote. There is an important message, especially during these days. Recently the Declaration of Independence has become a symbol of the national controversy that is burning within us. Some say it is all mine, and others say it is all mine. There are those who maintain that the values that they support are the correct balance between the different levels of government and the other side which says that these values are actually the opposite.
But the truth is neither here nor there. The Declaration of Independence belongs to the entire Israeli public, and besides the thirty-seven actual signatures on it, there are millions more transparent signatures of every citizen. Everyone signed the scroll – each of us with his own special pen, values, stories and hopes. Over the years we learned to unite around the scroll, to add more and more signatures at the bottom, and today the Declaration of Independence is the place where all these signatures are gathered, and on the basis of which the Israeli partnership grows.
The Declaration of Independence must not be read as if it supports only one side of the political map. Such an appropriation will erase from it many signatures of Israelis, partners on the way. What we must do is the opposite: take out each and every one of us his special pen, re-sign the scroll, find our unique place within this founding text – and then take all these pens and continue to write, together, the great Israeli story.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
Walter Robinson was a giant of a man with a giant personality and giant visions who overcame giant challenges
By David E. Kaplan
Each person’s passing is customarily marked by a stone revealing name, dates, a biblical reference and messages from loved ones. For Walter Robinson, who passed away 2 August 2023 aged 99 in Herzliya Israel, there already exists a stone – a mighty one that has windows, doors, balconies and patios for it is a stone not marking of a person’s passing but of a community’s celebration of life. That stone – more like a sparkling gem – is called Beth Protea, a retirement home perched in the city of Herzliya north of Tel Aviv in central Israel and it would not exist were it not for the grit and determination and always inspiring presence of Walter Robinson.
At Home in Israel. Named after South Africa’s national flower, the pride of the community in Israel, Beth Protea.
When Beth Protea was just an idea – an abstract conversational point “between men enjoying a scotch” as Beth Protea’s oral folklore records – it was Walter who grabbed that idea like a ‘loose ball’ in rugby and ran with it. There were no shortages of “tackles” along that tumultuous run for touch but nothing was going to stop this Irishman, also South African but most of all, an Israeli and a feisty proud Jew. Armed with a multitude of talents, exuberant personality, a power of persuasion delivered in lyrical Irish, and a team of merry men, all very able and ably plied “by copious amounts of whiskey,” as Walter put it to this writer in an interview many years ago, Beth Protea was transformed from an “good idea” to the pride of the Southern African community in Israel.
I remember as a much younger young man attending Beth Protea meetings where Walter would hold the floor. Waiting for the right moment to enter the verbal fray, with a loud authoritative but so pleasantly lyrical voice, he would present his argument, so well packaged and when the odds were stacked against him – as they frequently were – not hesitate to bring the full weight of G-d behind him as he so adeptly dived into the Torah portion of the week and selected that which served Beth Protea best. I have no doubt, with Walter’s hand, G-d had a hand too in ensuring the success of Beth Protea.
Walter Holding Forth. Always a pleasure to listen to, the founder of Beth Protea Walter Robinson addressing a gathering in the Gallery at Beth Protea.
Before getting the Beth Protea project off the ground, finding the funds proved the first of the proverbial ‘tackles’. Walter related to this writer that “We held our first fundraising campaign back in 1985 in Haifa where there was quite a large resident Southern African community and after our presentation, you won’t believe the first question someone asked. “What are you guys planning to serve for lunch?” Can you believe it? That was the first question asked by this crowd of South Africans! We had no land to build on; we hadn’t raised a dime, and people wanted to know what we would be serving for lunch.”
Quick off the mark, Walter replied, “Well, if you don’t start donating, there will be no dining room in which to serve lunch!” and nearly three decades later, it was Walter himself with his beloved Fanny, themselves residents at Beth Protea, who would be sitting in that dining room and be asking:
“What’s for lunch?”
It was only fitting that Walter would spend the final leg of his life’s journey in the ‘The home that Walter built’.
Inspirational Leader. Walter on being appointed in 2013, ‘Hon. Life President of Beth Protea’ being flanked by the then Chairman of Keren Beth Protea Colin Schachat (l) and then present Beth Protea chairman, Isaac Lipshitz.
Before Walter and Fanny arrived to settle in Israel, there had been a group who were toying with the idea of a retirement home but mainly to cater for parents who were left behind in South Africa. The concept found little traction until Walter’s arrival from Cape Town in 1981. Well-known and respected for his communal work back in his adopted South Africa, the ad hoc group roped him in and within a few months of his arrival in Israel, he was chairman of a steering committee. “They allowed me to unpack my suitcases first,” he bellowed with his boisterous Dublin guffaw. That Dublin accent was his inimitable trademark and it was only fitting that at his funeral – which in the words of his children was “a celebration of his life” – began with the playing of a joyous Irish song that many, familiar with the lyrics, joined in. Tears gave way to smiles as the song touched on life, lasses, love, green landscapes and whisky. The music and its message resonated and encapsulated the adventurous life of a man’s journey, a journey that spanned five countries ending in Israel but beginning in Dublin, Ireland, where Walter qualified as a civil engineer at Dublin’s prestigious Trinity College.
It was while there during WWII that Walter nearly ended up in jail and was rightly proud of it!
NO ROUTING OF ROBINSON
The year was 1944 and Walter and his student chums – all fervent Zionists – started a newspaper called the Dublin Jewish Youth Magazine(DJYM). One day, Walter opens the evening paper, and “I see this MP, Oliver Flanagan, questioning whether the directors of the DJYM have a license to publish and whether our articles had been submitted for censorship as required by wartime regulations. Both were serious offences, carrying prison sentences. Of course the answer to both was – NO. Bugger it, we just did what felt was right,” says Walter, delighting in his mischievous past. Flanagan was a notorious antisemite who in his maiden speech in the Irish Lower House the previous year, had urged the government “to rout the Jews out of the country.”
Well this antisemite was not about to “rout” Robinson. Once it was brought to fulminating Flanagan’s attention that “The owner of the paper’s printers was a great friend of Prime Minister Eamon de Valera and so if the printer could not go to prison, neither could we,” the harassment halted. Walter’s Zionism continued to soar, culminating nearly fifty years later in his finest communal achievement – the opening of Beth Protea in 1992.
Walter Honoured. Seen here on the occasion of Walter being appointed Hon. Life President of Beth Protea are two of his grandchildren and (l-r) Herman Musikanth clutching the whiskey, Fanny (centre) and Walter.
Much would happen in the intervening years. Walter would work all over the world, beginning in Ireland, then the Scottish Highlands for three years and then further afield in Pakistan working in the naval dockyards of Karachi, followed by many years in South Africa where he met and married Fanny. Fanny I too got to know well when she was editor of Telfed magazine, a position that I would later assume. Walter and Fanny married in South Africa in 1956, and after a spell in Ireland and a trip through Europe, they settled in Cape Town where Walter joined the family engineering business. Their three children, Gary, Brendon and Rena, were born there and educated at the Jewish day school, Herzlia School, where Walter was active on the board serving as vice-chairman and subsequently chairman. How poignant, as was pointed out by one of his children in a tribute at the funeral, that from the school he immersed himself in Cape Town ‘Herzlia’ to the retirement home in the city of ‘Herzliya’ he immersed himself in Israel – covering the bookends of life’s journey – were associated with Theodor Hertzl, whose line, “If you will it, it is no dream” pertained to Walter who transcended that other journey throughout his life – from dreamer to doer.
Living the Dream. Passionately supportive of Herzlia School in Cape Town, South Africa where he served as vice chair and chairman, Walter Robinson applied the inspirational words of Theodore Herzl at the entrance to the school to his monumental project in Herzliya, Israel – Beth Protea.
One of Walter’s other kids had it right when said in tribute “He made the impossible possible,” and to understand how, the words of one his good friends who worked very closely with Walter to get Beth Protea literally “off the ground” come to mind. At a special ceremony I attended conferring on Walter ‘Honorary Life President of Beth Protea’ in 2013, Beth Protea’s “financial whiz” Herman Musikanth poignantly summed up Walter’s extraordinary leadership skills:
“Walter led out front, completely absorbed and dedicated, causing all those around him to follow. It was the trust, the honesty of purpose and his personal efforts, generated through his leadership that created the support.” Quoting the words of Albert Pike written in the early 1800s that “What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and this world is, and remains, immortal,” Herman concluded with – as I do now:
“I believe that Beth Protea is probably as immortal as one can get.”
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
The story of a book, its journey and the people it enlightened
By Stephen Schulman
Some time ago, an interesting book came into my possession. English Home Teacher: Practical Lessons in English by Alexander Harkavy had reached me via a circuitous route and with an interesting history. My wife Yona‘s family: her father Meir and mother Tsila together with her mother’s mother and a brother, all Holocaust survivors, had come to Israel in 1949 while the eldest sister remained in Russia. Meir’s entire nuclear family had not survived. A few years later, her uncle and grandmother left for the United States to join her other uncle, also a Holocaust survivor, living there. In 1956, her aunt, Gesia, succeeded in leaving the Soviet Union and spent some years in the States staying with her brothers helping to look after their young children before finally settling in Israel and bringing the book with her.
Man of Words. The Russia-born writer, lexicographer and linguist Alexander Harkevy who after the antisemitic pogroms of 1880 in Russia, joined the Jewish Am Olam (Eternal People) back-to-the-land movement. Unlike Bilu, which directed its activities towards Palestine, Am Olam saw a Jewish future in the United States. In 1882 he emigrated to the US but rather than fulfilling back-to-the-land aspirations, he gravitated to the written word.
Aunt Gesia was fluent in Yiddish, Polish and Russian but the pressing need was to learn English. Caring for her nephews and nieces left little time for formal study. It was then that she acquired the English Home Teacher: Practical Lessons in English. A New Method for Home Instruction: that had been expressly written for Yiddish speakers to learn English.
The book’s author Alexander Harkavy was a most noteworthy gentleman, both talented and industrious. Born in 1863 in Novogrodek, Belorussia, the grandson of the town rabbi, he showed an early interest in languages acquiring knowledge of Hebrew, Russian, Syriac, German and Yiddish. Moving to Vilna at the age of fifteen, he wrote his first work in Yiddish and three years later after the pogroms of 1881, immigrated to the United States.
Beginnings in Belorussia. The town of Nowogródek in Belorussia where Alexander Harkavy was born in 1863. (Photo Shtetl Routes Teatr NN.PL)
Harkavy’s love of Yiddish together with his gift for languages soon crystallized into a vocation. Before making New York his permanent home in 1890, he had led a peripatetic life alternating between Europe and North America helping to found a Yiddish newspaper and a periodical. Once settled in the Big Apple, his literary output was prodigious. With many Jews from Eastern Europe arriving and not having time or opportunity to formally learn the new language, he published Der Englishe Learer (The English Teacher) 1891 and Der Englisher Brivnshteler (The English Letter Writer) 1892 in the “English self taught” genre expressly written for Yiddish speakers and that became immensely popular.
Posing with Peers. Representing the American organization HIAS during a visit to Europe in 1920, Alexander Harkavy (seated, center) posing at a table with fellow representatives from Jewish communal organisations
His talents were not confined to textbooks and in his prolific career, Harkavy translated Don Quixote into Yiddish, revised the King James English Bible, translated it into Yiddish for a dual language version and compiled and contributed to many Yiddish anthologies and publications. Amongst his many other activities, he taught U.S. history and politics for the New York Board of Education and Yiddish literature and grammar at the Teacher’s Seminary in New York. However, his lasting contributions were in lexicography where he compiled Yiddish-English and English-Yiddish dictionaries and the crowning achievement: the Yiddish-English-Hebrew Dictionary (1925) that played an important role in educating East European Jewish immigrants and is in use today.
Yidden Gems. It is partly due to Harkavy’s work that Yiddish today is regarded as a language. His Yiddish dictionaries show that its vocabulary is as ample as that of the average modern language, and that, if lacking in technical terms, it is richer in idiomatic and characteristic expressions.
The English Home Teacher: Practical Lessons in English first published in 1921 and reprinted in 1929 is both a fascinating and enigmatic book. The 272 pages contain 50 lessons each of which commences with a short passage in English, each word accompanied by its translation and a pronunciation guide. It is then followed by a grammatical exposition very often having no connection to the passage itself. Naturally, all the explanations and pronunciations are in Yiddish in Hebrew script.
To put it mildly: didactically, the book is no great shakes. In fact, it would make the eyebrows of a modern and trained English teacher curl! There is no logically graded structure and progression, no revision or reinforcement. In the very first lesson, the neophyte English learner is served a heady brew of past simple active and passive and present perfect tenses plus comparison of adjectives! Moreover, as the pronunciation guide for each English word in the text is written in Yiddish, it would have been interesting to hear someone’s first attempts at enunciation. Nevertheless, it should be borne in mind that this book was written over a century ago when the science of language teaching had barely emerged from its swaddling clothes.
After four decades in the USA, Harkavy was well versed in the contemporary culture, fluent and well read in the vernacular. With his home in New York, he was thoroughly conversant with the current trends of American society. Moreover, he was also on intimate terms with the immigrant experience of his co-religionists and knew full well the basic English required in order to survive and make a living in this new and daunting land.
Well-traveled Book. Expressly written for Yiddish speakers to learn English, Alexander Harkavy’s ‘English Home Teacher’ found its way into the writer’s wife’s family and finally ended up in Israel.
Logic dictates that the English be modern, the passages be relevant and the vocabulary be practical and utilitarian to enable the user to interact and communicate with his/her surroundings. Therefore, it is most puzzling to read the contents of the introductory reading passage in each lesson where the writer has chosen to take the opposite tack. The majority of them are anecdotal, often piquant and pithy with a moral attached whilst others are homiletic. Furthermore, their contents are mainly drawn from early Victorian England with the corresponding vocabulary. It demands a great stretch of the imagination see how archaic terms such as: “a droll fellow, to dine, a duke, an incision, the latter, a witty idler, a tankard, a draught, taken counsel, took lodging, a roguish companion, whereupon” etc. etc. could be put to daily use or even understood in the Bronx.
What were Harkavy’s motives in choosing the texts?
Was he trying to show off and impress his readers with his erudition and grasp of English? This doesn’t seem likely as he was well known and highly regarded in the community and his learned reputation went before him.
Harkavy, having grown up in the world of Talmud studies, was familiar with the tradition of exegesis, wit, pilpulim (hair splitting argumentation and debating) and knew that many new immigrants from Eastern Europe had a similar background. Possibly, he chose the reading passages to appeal to their tastes for most of them are witty, humorous and thought provoking. The introductory passage to the third lesson begins:
A lunatic in an insane asylum was asked how he came there, and he answered: “The world said I was mad, I said the world was mad and they outvoted me.”
Much food for thought!
The English Home Teacher: Practical Lessons in English was first published in 1921, a year that boded ill for the millions of Jews wishing to flee the persecution, pogroms and mass murders of Eastern Europe and the Baltic states and seek a haven on safe shores. There had been a shift in American public opinion and sympathy for all those displaced and stateless had become a fear of being swamped by a wave of impoverished immigrants, feeble in body that would cause the growth of slums, expose workers to cut throat wage competition and endanger American standards of living. That same year, with the passing of the Emergency Quota Act, the United States had declared a moratorium on its immigration policies and had begun to drastically restrict the number of newcomers with Australia, Canada, South Africa and other countries following suit.
Food for Thought. The first lesson in Harkavy’s book – first published in 1921 – is about eating dinner.
With his finger on the pulse, Harkavy was no doubt painfully aware that the Jewish newcomers from Eastern Europe fitted the popular and biased stereotype of the unskilled and indigent immigrant with his/her broken or non-existent English. Maybe he felt that his book offering reading passages on a ‘high level’ would enable its students to acquire a more sophisticated vocabulary with better communication skills to dispel this negative image, ease integration and aid their entry into the work market.
In the archives of ANU (the Museum of the Jewish People) situated on the campus of the Tel Aviv University, there is a film of his visit to Novogrodek in the early 1930’s. The atmosphere was festive for here was a native son who had made good in the Goldene Medina returning as a celebrity to pay his respects to his birthplace. The feted guest was escorted around town and proudly shown the Jewish institutions: the mikveh (ritual bath), the synagogue, the yeshiva and the Talmud Torah with the little children studying diligently at their tables.
Covers a lot of Ground. The cover of Harkavy’s book that must have prepared so many Yiddish speaking immigrants from Eastern Europe to the USA.
The film is bittersweet and very sad and serves as yet another testimony to Jewish presence wiped out during the Holocaust. In 1941, the German army occupied the town and the 10,000 Jewish inhabitants – men, women and children – who comprised half of the town’s population, were ultimately murdered with the assistance of local collaborators. Harkavy was spared the agony of hearing this terrible news.
He had passed away in New York in 1939.
About the writer:
Stephen Schulman is a graduate of the South African Jewish socialist youth movement Habonim, who immigrated to Israel in 1969 and retired in 2012 after over 40 years of English teaching. He was for many years a senior examiner for the English matriculation and co-authored two English textbooks for the upper grades in high school. Now happily retired, he spends his time between his family, his hobbies and reading to try to catch up on his ignorance.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
Wounded veterans from the UK and Israel compete in Veterans games in Tel Aviv
ByRolene Marks
I am writing this article during quite a poignant week. If you are a keen observer of military history, the first days of June are hugely significant. This week, we commemorated 56 years since the start of the Six Day War in 1967 that changed the landscape of the Middle East. The 6th of June marks 41 years since the First Lebanon War “Operation Peace for Galilee” in 1982 and a day that changed the trajectory of the Second Word War as Allied forces troops landed on the Normandy beaches in France in 1944. D-Day. We salute the remarkable men and women of the armed forces.
Why is mentioning famous historical military operations relevant to the veterans games that this article is dedicated to? Because it is a reminder of the fighting and sacrifices made for our freedoms and democracy. We owe these brave soldiers a debt we can never repay. They fight with everything they have – and return bearing the wounds and scars of battle, some carried deep inside the recesses of their souls. We bear reminding of the enormous sacrifices made by our armed forces and whatever generation deployed to battle, they deserve our acknowledgement, respect and support.
Sporting Snapshot. Competing British and Israeli teams pose together at the Veteran Games in Tel Aviv. (Photo Tomer Appelbaum).
Last week, Beit Halochem Centres in Israel played host to the Veteran games, welcoming 60 wounded warriors from the United Kingdom and their families. Beit Halochem (House of the Warrior) is an extraordinary organization. The organization provides unique rehabilitation, sports and recreation centers serving disabled veterans and their families. Beit Halochem provides a place where the wounded undergo the various treatments, which they need for as long as they live. The centre emphasises sport as a rehabilitative tool along with a wide array of social and cultural programmes.
The four Beit Halochem Centres in Israel – including the state-of-the-art complex in Tel Aviv, played host to the warrior athletes and their families as they engaged in friendly competition in events that included swimming, shooting and CrossFit.
War to Tug-of-War. Families of wounded veterans join a spirited game of tug-of-war.
Ex-servicemen and women from across the UK armed forces who have lost limbs in combat and other veterans who are battling crippling post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were selected to compete. PTSD is often endured in silence and sports have a therapeutic effect for many suffering from trauma. What made this competition particularly unique is that competitors did not have to reach a certain sporting standard to qualify. This means that no matter what their sporting level or experience, everyone could compete for medals.
This is the third year that this event took place, and presents a great opportunity not just for veterans to compete, but to bond with each other as well as take in the sights and sounds of Israel.
Grit and Determination. Ashley Hall in competition in the X-fit
The games were organized by Beit Halochem UK and the IDF Disabled Veterans Fund. Beit Halochem UK raises awareness and funds to help support Israel’s wounded veterans. Beit Halochem in Israel helps 51,000 wounded soldiers and victims of terror by offering them support for the rest of their lives.
“Physical activity, camaraderie and the family all play a crucial role in the successful rehabilitation of injured soldiers and the Veteran Games put both front and centre,” said Veteran Games co-founders Andrew Wolfson and Spencer Gelding. “Medals are a great bonus, but our goal is to provide an environment for veterans to challenge themselves in a way that will provide lasting benefits, while building friendships with other heroes and their families with whom they have so much in common.”
Pulling their Weight. Once putting their lives on the line for their countries, wounded vets from the UK and Israel engage in friendly competition in Tel Aviv.
These remarkable warriors are absolutely inspirational.
Ben Roberts, 42 a veteran from Essex who served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan said, “I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and in 2010 was diagnosed with Combat Stress Insomnia. I took part in the games last year and they have inspired me, shown me that I have a purpose and I have worth and that there are people out there that are willing to support us and show us British veterans that we can achieve things even with mental health. The games for me personally were a major spiritual level as well and the energy was just amazing here and it has helped me through the year where we are today”.
Cheered on by the Competition. A British athlete is cheered on by Israeli staff and athletes during the third Veterans Games in Tel Aviv on May 29, 2023. (Courtesy Beit HaLohem UK)
Organizers ensured that families were front and centre and they stood on the sidelines and cheered as their loved ones tested their mettle in friendly competition. Family members often struggle when an injured veteran returns back home and the role they play in their loved one’s recovery is crucial. To keep children entertained, a soccer camp is simultaneously held. Nothing builds bonds quite like sports!
Sight to Behold. Craig Lundberg receiving a swimming medal in the visually impaired category
Craig Lundberg 37, was completely blinded after being hit by two rocket-propelled grenades that are usually used for targeting helicopters or armored vehicles while on his second tour of Iraq in 2007. “It feels amazing to have my family along that they can see no matter what life throws at you, you can focus and get around it. I am really honored to be here and I competed in CrossFit and swimming and won a silver medal. It wasn’t expected because there was some great competition. For the lifting of weights and running, my son stood at one end my partner at the other and called to me so I could hear and get from point A to point B so it was a real family event. It is massively important that they are involved. Every day the family live with the sacrifice of living with a blind partner which isn’t the easiest sometimes, so to have them here giving support has been top notch.”
Opening Ceremony. A veteran of Afghanistan, cabinet minister for Veterans Affairs, Johnny Mercer MP addressing the opening ceremony of the Veteran Games.
Accompanying the UK delegation was Minister for Veteran’s Affairs, Johnny Mercer. MP Mercer served in the Royal Artillery and retired in December 2013 with the rank of captain. “We traditionally look at Israel and certainly the certainly the wealth of data you have accumulated over years of experience. I’m trying to make the UK the best country in the world to be a veteran and to do that we need to work with our friends and partners to understand what they’re doing that works really well, so that we can replicate that in the UK.” Mercer added that “it’s amazing to be out here in Israel. There’s nothing quite like an Israeli welcome, seeing the Veteran Games and using the power of sports as a vehicle for recovery. It’s extraordinary.”
Brother-in Arms. From different countries, these veterans share a bond understanding and camaraderie.
The games were timed to coincide with half-term (semester) vacation in the United Kingdom and the group had the chance to visit historical sites in Jerusalem, experience the healing powers of the Dead Sea and enjoy culinary and even graffiti tours in Tel Aviv.
Top Training. Veterans are seen ahead of the Veteran Games in Israel. (photo credit: Courtesy of The Veteran Games)
The bonds forged between these exceptional warriors from the United Kingdom and Israel will last a lifetime.
We could not be more proud to salute them.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
