H eadlines
Entebbe Event to Remember Mission ‘Impossible’
L OCA L
SASHA ROGELBERG | JE STAFF
RABBI ALBERT GABBAI
remembers exactly where he was
on July 4, 1976: in Manhattan,
watching a parade of boats
floating down the Hudson
River, American flag in hand,
celebrating the bicentennial of
the nation’s independence.

But he said the celebra-
tion was interrupted by an
announcement that
102 hostages, mostly Jewish and
Israeli, in Entebbe, Uganda, had
been rescued by Israel Defense
Forces commandos.

On July 5, Gabbai will host
Miracle at Entebbe, the 45th
anniversary commemoration
of the military operation at
his synagogue, Congregation
Mikveh Israel.

Operation Entebbe was
lauded by the United States and
other western nations as a neces-
sary and “impossible” mission.

Following the hijacking of an
Air France flight on June 27 by
members of the Popular Front for
the Liberation of Palestine and the
Red Army Faction (a radical West
German group), the hijackers kept
106 Israeli and French passengers
as hostages, demanding the release
of 53 Palestinian and pro-Pales-
tinian hostages, many of whom
were prisoners in Israel, and a $5
million ransom.

Led by Lt. Col. Yonatan
“Yoni” Netanyahu, the older
brother of former Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
a 29-man assault unit — part of a
larger group of 100 commandos
— entered the Entebbe
Major Rami Sherman (center) in the back seat of a Mercedes — the lead
vehicle used to confuse Ugandan troops.
Courtesy of Lou Balcher
Lou Balcher (left) and former Israeli President and Prime Minister Shimon
Peres at the 25th anniversary of Entebbe commemoration
Courtesy of Lou Balcher
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM International Airport terminal
and rescued the hostages.

The operation lasted only
53 minutes, and Yonatan
Netanyahu was the only casualty
among the commandos.

“It’s an amazing story of
creativity, of chutzpah,” said Lou
Balcher, the event’s organizer
and national director at
American Foundation Creating
Leadership for Israel.

From Entebbe, Gabbai
believes an important lesson can
be learned.

“Our rabbis tell us that Jewish
people are like a body. When
anything in the body hurts, the
whole body hurts,” Gabbai said.

“Therefore, we are in solidarity
together. We’ll go to the end of
the world to save our brothers
and sisters.”
For Balcher and Gabbai, the
connections between Philadelphia
and Operation Entebbe are
serendipitous, adding to the
significance of the event.

Yoni Netanyahu graduated
from Cheltenham High School,
and his father, Benzion Netanyahu,
was a Hebrew language professor
at Dropsie College.

For the past 30 years,
Congregation Mikveh Israel,
nicknamed “the Synagogue of the
American Revolution,” has hosted
the Miracle at Entebbe event every
five years. The synagogue’s fifth
location at 44 N. Fourth Street
opened on July 4, 1976 — the same
date as Operation Entebbe.

Operation Entebbe’s legacy is
also widely honored by the U.S.

military. “The raid made all countries
aware that special operations
forces could be in small groups,
could be successful, in daring
missions,” said U.S. Army Col.

Ken Brier, who will speak at the
event. However, for some Jewish
people, Operation Entebbe is
more than just a military victory.

“We all feel that remembering
our Jewish history, and our
Jewish past is vital to our contin-
uation and contributes to our
understanding of our values,”
JEWISH EXPONENT
Brier said. “Commemorating
significant events from our past
helps assure our future.”
Major Rami Sherman, one of
the special force operatives on
the mission, feels similarly.

A second-generation
Holocaust survivor, Sherman
remembers walking with
rescued hostages, in the dark
night in Entebbe, one of his most
emotional moments during
the operation. To Sherman,
Operation Entebbe serves as
a reminder of the Jewish fight
for existence that has been
ongoing for thousands of years.

This fighting spirit, he said, is
what drove him to carry out
Operation Entebbe.

The mission, Sherman said,
not only highlights the impor-
tance of Israel’s existence, but
also the mutual responsibility
Jewish people have, no matter
how far from one another.

“We are together: the Jews
in Philadelphia and the Jews in
Los Angeles,” Sherman said.

“We don’t know each other, but
there is something in common,
something connected.”
Sherman, having given more
than 500 lectures on Entebbe,
will share his story on July 5.

Miracle at Entebbe will be
an in-person event, but the
program also will be shown live
over Zoom.

The event begins at 11
a.m. at Congregation Mikveh
Israel with a seminar with
Ambassador and Consul
General of Israel to the New
York Consulate Ido Aharoni. It
also will feature a video address
by Benjamin Netanyahu. The
outdoor ceremony begins at
2 p.m. l
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JULY 1, 2021
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