Politics aside, a story from the Holy Land
Thursday, January 22nd, 2009I spent most of my winter break in Israel on a 10 day tour of the country provided free of charge through the Birthright foundation that aims to send young Jewish Americans to Israel to learn about the country and religious history. I thought it would be like one of those condo seminars you sit through in Vegas becuase of the lure of a free steak dinner, where I’d be bombarded with political & religious propaganda hooked on the allure of a free trip to Israel. But it wasn’t like that. Sure, they wanted all of us to leave loving Israel, Israelis and feel a personal connection to the Jewish state- and to a degree- it worked. I never really understood what the big deal about Israel was besides that for some stroke of bad luck, there always seems to be large influential groups of people who disliked Jews. I never understood that before the concentration camps and mass graves of the Holocaust, Hitler had given the Jews in Germany a chance to leave, and if only they had a place to go, perhaps history would have looked a little different, but instead, the majority of the world from Australia to the Americas, shut their doors to the Jews with one Australian diplomat actually quoted as saying “Australia currently does not have any social problems and does not wish to import the Jewish social problem at this time.” Of course that statement is outrageous for many reasons including calling Jews in general, a social problem, but also ignoring that the ethnic cleansing of Aborigines is a pretty big social problem.
Anyways, in debating how I wanted to talk about Israel, I thought I’d share my favorite story our amazing guide Yoni told us as we sat atop a military bunker on Mount Bental, a dormant volcano, in the Golan Heights about 1 mile from the Syrian Border, 40 miles from Damascus. It’s one of those cool heoroic battle stories that every country has…. so if you don’t agree with my politics, I think you can agree with the spirit of the story -and assume there are parts that were probably wildly exagerated by Yoni but this is the story I heard as I overlooked this beautiful landscape….
(view from Mt. Bental, the rugged lines two thirds up on the right of the photo mark part of the Israel-Syria border)
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