opinion
I BY SHERRIE SAVETT
t is not often that one gets to
experience a transformative life
experience. This July, I had the
privilege of traveling to Israel with
35 other leaders from cities across
North America on a four-day national
solidarity mission. I knew the trip
would be an emotional one, but
getting the opportunity to support the
country that I love in the aftermath
of the recent Gaza conflict was an
important journey for me to take.

We focused on three big issues on
this trip: the 2021 Gaza conflict, Israel’s
new government and its challenges,
and internal social issues. Israel is
ever-changing and evolving, and
always seeking effective and creative
solutions. While the strength and
effectiveness of the new coalition
government remains to be proven,
many are hopeful and see its diversity
as an asset. The new government has
members from left- and right-wing
parties, as well as, for the first time in
history, an Arab party.

Israel faces many complex internal
issues and external threats. Most
recently, more than 4,300 rockets
targeted Israel during an 11-day period.

The civilian population all over the
country experienced these attacks and
the constant sirens warning them to
run to safe rooms and bomb shelters.

Residents of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem
had never experienced missile attacks
before and were stunned by the
experience. Trauma among Israelis,
and especially children, is widespread.

We were fortunate to meet many
people during our trip, inspiring people,
trying to overcome the incredibly
challenging problems and working
to heal themselves, others, and their
country. Taly Levanon, director of the
Israel Trauma Coalition, introduced us
to talented and brave therapists who
risked their lives amid rocket fire to
comfort families.

16 Like all mission trips, our days were
packed. Each person we spoke to and
each story we heard were important
testimonials to the unwavering
strength of the Israeli people. We
visited the parents of 5-year-old Ido
Avigal, who was killed by a Hamas
rocket in Sderot.

Despite having access to a modern
safe room and being able to make it
there in time, shrapnel pierced the
metal and concrete of the room, killing
Ido and wounding his mother. It was
devastating to see the safe room
frozen in time with childrens’ posters
on the walls and to meet his incredibly
resilient parents who honor their
wonderful son and find the means to
look forward.

At the Kfar Aza kibbutz in the Jewish
Federation’s partnership region, just
five kilometers east of Gaza, we met
AUGUST 26, 2021 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
Chen Abrahams, a woman who lived
all her life in this kibbutz founded by
her grandparents. She showed us a
disturbing array of rockets and weapons
that had been targeted toward her
community over the many years of
bombings. Despite the constant threat
of war and violence, there is a waiting
list to live at this kibbutz, and the city of
Sderot is growing rapidly. We saw this
love of country and sense of community
everywhere we went — an unrelenting
pride in Israel, and an unwillingness to
give into the terror of Hamas.

Another major issue that emerged
during the recent conflict was the
rioting that occurred in some of the
mixed cities where large populations
of Jews and Arabs live together. In
Lod, where the worst riots took place,
we visited a community center and
saw how staff are working with the
Joint Distribution Committee to help
people coexist. We learned of JDC
programs aimed at closing the social
and economic gap between Jews and
Arabs. We spoke with Arab women
who participated in a program that
helped them to secure good jobs in the
high-tech arena.

Jewish community members often
don’t understand where their money
goes when it supports overseas work
by organizations like JFNA, the JDC
or the Jewish Agency’s Israel Trauma
Coalition. Every gift to the Federation’s
Jewish Community Fund goes in part
to these critical efforts, which support
life-saving and well-being programs
that encourage positive changes to
the complex Israeli society. Our Jewish
philanthropy contributes to a more
vibrant Israel.

I walk away from this trip with a
deepened connection to Israel, as
well as a firm belief that as American
Jews, it is our responsibility to serve
as ambassadors for Israel. We must
diffuse lies and correct misinformation
being spread about Israel by its
detractors and the media, and listen
openly and speak calmly and factually
about the struggles Israel faces.

When we met at the Knesset
with MK Nachman Shai, minister of
Diaspora Affairs, he emphasized how
American Jewry is a security asset for
Israel. We open doors, protect them in
our Congress and encourage solidarity.

He and the other three MKs we spoke
to all emphasized that American Jewry
is just as important to Israel as Israel is
to American Jewry.

In the end, this trip was about
solidarity and support to our brothers
and sisters abroad and the feeling that
we must stand together as one people
united by our common heritage and
Jewish values. Am Yisroel Chai!
Sherrie Savett is the chair of the
Jewish Federation of Greater
Philadelphia Campaign.

“[PHOTOGRAPHER NAME]/[COLLECTION NAME]/GETTY IMAGES.

My Four Days in Israel with JFNA:
Standing in Solidarity with Israel



opinion
I The good news
Israel Must Remain a about America’s
abandonment of
Jewish Majority
its Afghan allies
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BY HERBERT CHUBIN
n her essay published in the March 8
issue of the Jewish Daily Forward, Sari
Bashi, a Jewish human rights lawyer and
the research director at Democracy for the
Arab World Now (DAWN), faults Israel for not
granting citizenship to Palestinian residents of
Gaza and the West Bank. She says Israel “grants
citizenship to Jews and their descendants,
including millions of Arab Jews like me,
descended from Arabic-speaking families in
Iraq, Morocco and other Arab countries. But it
denies the rights of citizenship to Palestinian
residents of Gaza and the West Bank, even
though nearly half of them descend from
refugees from what is now internationally
recognized as the State of Israel, and all of
them live under Israeli rule.”
What kind of logic must a person use to reach
such an illogical conclusion? Tens of thousands
of Jews have given their lives in the past 100-
plus years to create a Jewish majority country
— the only one in the world — and hundreds of
thousands of Jews have sought refuge in that
Jewish majority country during the same time
period. Yet Bashi asserts that Democracy for
Palestinians can only be achieved once Israel
ceases to be a Jewish majority country.

How does one respond? By reminding
her, and others who think like her, of the
consequences that befell Jews when Israel did
not exist, and based on history, will happen
to Jews if Israel ceases to exist as a Jewish
majority nation.

In 1948, Israel was established with the help
of the United Nations in a portion of the Jews
historic homeland. Since then, hundreds of
thousands of Jews have found safety in Israel.

Bashi conveniently forgets to mention that
most Jews were forced to flee to Israel from the
Arab Muslim majority countries that she refers
to above, with only the cloths on their backs.

Hatred for Jews has existed for millennia, but
intensified with the beginning of Christianity.

For almost 2,000 years, generation after
generation of Christians sought revenge
against Jews for the alleged murder of Jesus
Christ. This desire for revenge has taken on a
life of its own.

World War II laid bare this phenomenon.

Despite being persecuted themselves by Nazi
Germany, many of the citizens of the conquered
European countries assisted the Nazis in
murdering their Jewish inhabitants. Some were
so committed that, even after the war ended,
many surviving Jews were murdered by their
fellow countrymen when they tried to return to
their homes.

Should Israel cease to exist, will any country
or group of countries offer sanctuary to the
seven million Jews that live in Israel? One
only has to look back at 2,000 years of history
and to World War II for the answer. All the
leading nations of the world, including the
United States, found reasons to keep us out
during World War II, directly contributing to the
deaths of millions of Jews.

There have been three mass extinctions
of Jews by Christians: first during the
Crusades, followed by the Spanish Inquisition
and, in the past century, the Holocaust. In
between those events there was, and still is,
ongoing persecution of Jews. According to
the Pew Research Center, Jews, now largely
concentrated in Israel and the United States,
number only one fifth of one percent (0.2%) of
the world’s population.

Contrary to popular belief, there has not
been a reemergence of antisemitism; it never
went away. Antisemites again feel that they can
openly express and carry out their hatred for
Jews without fear of retaliation. For example,
according to the ADL, in the United States
there were 2,100 incidents of antisemitism
in 2019, a 12% increase, the most in any
year since the ADL began tracking them four
decades ago.

The continued existence of the Jewish
majority State of Israel must be ensured
for future generations of Jews both living
in Israel and living in the diaspora. As
such, Palestinians must never be allowed to
achieve through diplomacy what they have
been prevented from achieving through the
force of arms: the end of Israel as a Jewish
majority nation. l
J BY HAROLD RHODE
ust as America abandoned the Shah of Iran in 1978-79, it
has now abandoned its Afghan allies. Other U.S. allies —
such as the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan
and Israel — must ask themselves whether America can be
trusted to come to their aid in times of need. Sadly, the answer
is a resounding no.

This undoubtedly will lead to a further tightening of the ties
between the Sunni-Arab Gulf states and Israel. To paraphrase
former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer: “If you can’t
rely on the 250-lb gorilla (America) to protect you, then the 100-
lb gorilla (Israel) is your next best alternative.”
This is not the only silver lining, however.

The apparent winners in the debacles — the Taliban, ISIS
and other terrorist groups — hate one another. And, due to the
eternal battle between militant Sunni forces and the fanatic
leaders of the Shi’ite Islamic Republic, Iran hates them. Fears
that Tehran and the Taliban are about to engage in serious
cooperation, thus, are overblown.

As a result, the task at hand is to encourage all of the above
enemies to fight against one another. Given their inability to
overcome their historical enmity and put the past behind them,
this shouldn’t be too difficult.

One could argue that sometimes enemies cooperate when
they consider it in their interest to do so. One example is the
CIA and KGB. The same applies to Muslims, such as when the
Iranian leadership protected the children of the anti-Shi’ite
heads of al-Qaeda and ISIS.

This was a sophisticated strategy on the part of Tehran: to
treat the families of potential enemies very well and keep an
eye on them — like hostages. Its Sunni enemies understood
that if they were to attack the Shi’ite regime, it would kill their
sons living in Iran.

America should never take sides when its enemies battle among
themselves. The U.S. must only attack when an enemy strikes it,
and do so mercilessly, conveying the message that it’s not worth it
to attack Americans or U.S. interests.

This is what Israel has been doing to Iran and its proxy
Hezbollah in Syria, without deploying troops on the ground. The
U.S. needs to emulate the Israeli model of protecting interests
from the air. l
Harold Rhode received in Ph.D. in Islamic history and later served
Longtime business executive Herbert Chubin, as an adviser on Islamic Culture for 28 years in the Office of the U.S.

Department of Defense. He is now a distinguished senior fellow at
a Philadelphia native, moved from Yardley to
the Gatestone Institute.

Bethesda, Maryland, eight years ago. He is now
retired. JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
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