Last Day in Israel

I am sad to say that this is my last day although it will be nice to return home and share with many of you a more in depth commentary on this mission.  So as not to make this day any easier for us we were on the bus by 7:15 in order to pray at a Wednesday morning shacharit service with the recently ordained Rabbi Or Zohar at the Beit Daniel Synagogue in Tel Aviv.

Rabbi Zohar was ordained last month at HUC in Jerusalem.  He comes from a modern Orthodox family but gave up his Orthodoxy and became secular although he earned an MA in Jewish Thought.  He was attracted to spirituality and began writing music of a spiritual nature.  Someone then suggested he become a Reform rabbi which to him was quite strange.  Never the less he went to HUC and served as an intern under the leadership of Rabbi Meir Azari but was given freedom to create new spiritual expressions such as this weekly non-advertised Wednesday minyan.  Now he runs a third Beith Daniel center  program facility in a municipal building in the heart of Tel Aviv called Kehilah Tefilat HaLev (Prayer of the Heart).  They now have about 60 family units who pay dues, plus other attendees and get about 40 people every other Friday.  Starting in January they will meet weekly.  His approach is connecting the spirituality often sought by Israelis who travel to the Far East and India but realize that spirituality can be found through Judaism.  He led the service with tunes I had not heard before some of which he composed.  There were only 5 others in attendance besides our group of rabbis but he says that it doesn’t matter.  The prayer experience is for the souls of those who come.  We then had a discussion where Meir Azari expressed his distress at the lack of support the Reform movement , our rabbis and congregations give to the Israeli Progressive movement and its congregations.

We turned our chairs around for a totally different discussion with General  Bentzi Gruber who gave us some insight into the recent Gaza situation and the ethical decisions made by Israel and the IDF.  His presentation included photos and videos which showed how Hamas had lied continually during the situation presenting false and doctored information such as a picture of a father carrying a deceased or seriously wound young boy.  They claimed that was an image from Gaza but only months before this picture was taken in Syria showing the situation there. 

He showed of a situation where a suicide bomber driving in a stolen jeep tried to low up a bus but because of timing turn towards a moshav.  A guard had to make a judgment within 8 seconds to block his path receiving the premature explosion.  He lost his legs but miraculously survived. We saw another video of a terrorist on a stretcher having his gun taken away so he could be presented as a civilian.  Another showed a terrorist grabbing children as he ran from place to place, dragging them as human shields knowing the Israelis try to avoid shooting wen innocents are present.  Yet he also posed the question of what the IDF should do when a known confirmed terrorist with blood on his hands drives in a vehicle with innocent women or children?.  We also saw cases of terrorists getting into UN ambulences.

Gruber said that of the 1.8 million resident of Gaza only about 40,000 are considered terrorists.  He views the majority of Gazans not as his enemy.  He explained how Israel warns civilians through leaflets, phone calls and text messaging to clear a targeted area.  Instead they gather on the roof of that targeted building.  Israel then shoots at an empty section to scatter them and demonstrate they mean business.  Only after the residents disperse do they destroy  the building.  He explained that during the perion of the situation with Gaza 120 terrorists and 57 non-combatants were killed.  Many pilots and drone shots were diverted when it was unclear if civilians were present.  During that exact time in Syria there were 817 deaths.  He spoke of other ways the IDF acts with a strong sense of ethics.  He taught his soldiers that they need to be able to exhibit Chesed in the field and return with the same sensitivity to a crying baby.  Finally he concluded letting us know he was the child of Holocaust survivors.

Due to a change in plans our next stp was added to our itinerary.  We went to a neighborhood in South Tel Aviv to learn about the foreign workers and illegal informed of their situation by Danny Bibo, ho is a volunteer in helping to make the situation more humane.  In his professional life he is a university professor. We met in a small park  where many of these mostly African congregate.  It was explained that there are two distinct groups.  The first are the invited in foreign workers.  They come legally for up to 63 months.  They often have paid a large fee to get the visa to come and spend a large part of the compensation to repay that fee.  Often different nationalities work in specific areas.  The people from the Philippines work in care giving, those from Thailand work in agriculture and the Chinese are often found in building.  In the other group of asylum seekers or infiltrators, depending on your perspective they mainly come from Eritrea and Sudan.  The Eritreans are mostly Christian and the Sudanese are ether Chrisitian, Nativist or non-Arab Muslims.  When the y enter the country they are detained for months and then given a bus ticket with no legal status of any sort.  They can not work legally and are often exploited.  They are not a fifth column and their crime rate is not the atrocious number some want y  ou to believe.   We met with an Eritrean woman who was a university graduate and spoke excellent English.  She is unable to teach so she works at a small daycare center. She described ow she had to flee Eritrea, made  her way to Sudan and because of someone she knew made her way to Israel.  After her detention she came to Tel Aviv.  Her life is not happy and she wished she could go home and leave Israel which she doesn’t like.  She described the high level of physical abuse directed against women who no longer hve family structures to protect them.  This was a very sad and distressing visit.  We left some tzedakah but a lot more need to be done as well as deeper exploration as to what is the most appropriate way to treat with the situation as well as the people involved.

On  the way back to the bus we stopped at a shwarma place for a quick lunch.  Our next stop was in Ranana to and organization called Leket.  Leket comes from the word in Leviticus when we are taught to leave the corners of our fields (pe’ah) and the fallen sheaves of grain or the untrimmed vines for the needy.  A young woman, Dannelle, originally from Teaneck, New Jersey, explained their operation and then we dug in and sorted tomatoes, eggplants and lettuce to be distributed to different organizations and communities in need, mostly in the Southern area mus affected by the recent troubles.  This was a great project on which to end our program.  Now back to the hotel to pack and get ready for our final dinner.

We were taken to the David Intercontinental Hotel where we were shown arund by Hani Sand who I coincidently found out worked at Federation in NYC and was friends with Noam and Jaime.  Before we sat down for dinner she had already sent a Facebook message to Noam telling him that she was having dinner with is father.  We held our final debriefing discussion and the group felt that the agency Da’at/ARZA World travel and our wonderful tour educator, Uri Feinberg, did a fine job coordinating the combination of adding the solidarity mission on to te original mission of giving younger rabbis the know how to lead their own tours.

At the final dinner at the hotel I sat with Guy Millo the CEO of Da’at/ARZA World Travel and discussed future trips.  

To  end on a lighter note, when the wine was served Hani said she didn’t like the wine.  I had tasted it and realized that it hadn’t gone bad was a very plain house table wine.  Hani kept talking to the manager and they returned with 2 new glasses, only for Hani and me and served a Barkan Altitude series Cabernet Sauvignon, so my final dinner was fully enjoyed.  

Off to the airport where I dropped a bottle of virgin olive oil that was given to each of us as a gift from the hotel.  I did not have to worry if it would break in my suitcase.  My parting gift to Israel before my flight was a puddle of oil.