SPECIAL KABBALAT SHABBAT, MAY 30, 2008
ISRAEL AT 60: HONORING ISRAEL'S SOLDIERS
GUEST SPEAKER: ITAMAR KREMER
I've been asked to come and speak about my experiences as a soldier, since I hold the rank of Captain (res) in Givati, the Israeli infantry brigade.
Israeli soldiers aren’t heroes. We are lawyers, doctors, plumbers and even university students. Some of us are unemployed, others are in debt; we have girlfriends or wives (maybe even a husband or two), children, parents, brothers and sisters. For 11 months a year, we are the person walking next to you on the street or cutting the line at the bank when you come visit Israel. You can even meet some of us in New York, playing music, eating at the hummus stand or studying at the desk next to you in your college library.
But for one month every year, when we are called for milu'im (active reserve service), we go to where we've been ordered and try to come back home safely, after doing to the best we can the job we’ve been given, the holy job of defending the State of Israel, standing as (the advance guard or the forward look-out) of the Jewish People.
The image of the Israeli soldier as the olive skin hero, with the dark hair and the strong figure, is an image we’ve admired for years, both in war and in peace. Sometimes, it’s heroic, like during the rescue of the kidnapped Jewish passengers at Entebbe Airport in 1976 and sometimes, it’s more controversial, such as during the daily hard work of standing in checkpoints in the West Bank, checking Palestinian civilians on their way to work or school.
When you live in Israel, the sense of community is different than here in the United States. The person living next door, whether the bus driver or the prime minister, is part not only of the same geographical community but the same social and the national one as well. Only in Israel, do people from different social, economic, political and religious strata come face-to-face on a daily basis. The bureaucrat who works for the government, the cabinet minister and the delivery guy who delivers the bottled water – they sit next to one another on the bus, they eat at the same cafeteria, they stand in line at the same bank and go to the same movie theater. There is no way for them not to be in each other’s face, and life.
When you’re in Israel, the closeness of this community can sometimes be overwhelming. But when you leave Israel, as I did for the past two years (a term that is coming to its end in a few weeks), you understand how much you miss this community.
One of the questions that I’ve dealt with for the last two years is what role does American Jewry have in this community? Some would say, half cynically, that the role is one of fundraising, of providing the necessary resources for us Israelis to do “our thing”. But I would say that American Jewry has no role in this community, if that means that they are outside the community most of the time and are invited to enter on a limited “as needed” basis. Rather, you are part and parcel of this community, even if physically at a distance.
The real question is how to sustain this community for the coming generations, when so many young people running away from Judaism here in this country, while the young people in Israel no longer feel the same obligation towards service to the Jewish People – whether in the army or in volunteering – that they used to.
My solution to this problem is to increase the meetings between Israelis and Diaspora Jews through more trips to Israel, more study in Israel and more visits to Jewish communities in the Diaspora and, yes, more aliyah.
In my opinion, the current younger generation that was not amazed by the miracle of the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 and that did not pray for its survival during the 1967 and the 1973 Wars has to identify its ties with Israel in a different way, in terms of personal “belonging”. Only when you are part of a social process can you can feel ownership and partnership, and this should not be done only through donations to respected organizations but through hard work and personal touch.
The values of the American Jewish community are education, pluralism, tolerance, volunteerism and “tikkun olam”. These are the same values that the majority of Israelis were raised on. From my experience, as someone charged with helping olim with the process of aliyah and klitah (integration into Israeli life), the North American aliyah in general, and the North American students in particular who come on aliyah, are committed to changing things in Israel and fighting for the values they believe in.
In my army service, I had a few important moments, moments that made me feel so strongly committed to Israel. The first time I led soldiers into Lebanon, the moment that I ran into my father while both of us were in army service, the experience of meeting my brother, also in military fatigues, emerging from a helicopter on a remote hill in the middle of nowhere and sitting down for coffee with my soldiers – these are memories that I treasure. I got the same feeling a year ago, when in one of the conventions I was attending, people just started singing “Yerushalaim Shel Zahav” and when I looked around, I could see a genuine love of Israel reflected in their eyes.
In the end, it doesn’t matter where in this Israel-centered Jewish community you live or what you are doing – if you are committed to making Israel a model society and a light unto the nations, we are all in the same community and soldiers fighting for the same goal.
For further information about Israel programs, trips and aliyah, log on to www.linktoisrael.com.
I myself am here until August 18th, 2008 for advice and help of any kind. My successor as the Jewish Agency/MERCAZUSA shaliach, Naomi Freedman, herself a second generation tzabar masorti (Israeli-born Conservative Jew) will be arriving then to carry on this important work. I do hope that you will give her the same kind of warm welcome I have been privileged to receive from you.