Yom Kippur War, 50th Anniversary, Remembering the Carnage of Armor

A Syrian Tank in the Golan, 1973

On 2pm on October 6, 1973, near the end of the Yom Kippur fast by Jews, Egypt and Syria, backed by auxilliary soldiers from many Arab nations, attacked Israel.  It was a surprise attack with devastating Israeli losses of 2,521 killed and more than 8,000 wounded.  

This week I learned that in addition to the soldiers from Arab countries who went to Egypt and Syria to fight, Cuba sent 500 tank commanders to the Syrian Army. These tank commanders led crews that fought in The Valley of Tears near Mount Bental in the Golan Heights between Israel and Syria.  

In the battle, 160 Israeli tanks stopped the advance of 1,500 Syrian  tanks. The Syrian tanks had to funnel through a narrow valley. At the end of the battle 153 of the Israeli tanks were damaged or destroyed. Nearly all the Israeli casualties in the battle were tank crewmen. Only seven Israeli tanks survived the fight. 

The Syrians lost more than 600 tanks with many more damaged. Thousands of armor crewmen in these Soviet-built tanks were killed and wounded. Of the Cuban tank commanders, 188 were killed, 250 were wounded. Just 62 went back to Cuba uninjured after the war. 

In June of 1975, I re-enlisted in the Army and went to Fort Knox, Kentucky, for Armor School.  The 1973 Yom Kippur War informed a lot of what we learned about tank tactics and about the short, violent life of tank crews in war. For instance, we were given the breakdown of casualties among Israeli tank crewman in the Yom Kippur War. 

Tank Commander 60%

Gunner 25% 

Loader 10%

Driver 5%

Tank commanders, according to the reports, "suffered fatal head injuries and hideous face and neck wounds." They had their hatch open and heads out to see the fight. Which helps to explain why almost 90% of the Cubans were killed or injured fighting on the losing side of one of the biggest tank battles in history. 

Within three days, the Israel Defense Force rallied and launched counter attacks against the invading armies.  By October 25, the IDF was shelling Damascus and was less than 60 miles from Cairo. 

In 19 days there was a cease fire and the war ended.  From the Sinai desert where the Egyptian Army invaded and retreated, to the Golan Heights where the Syrian columns began their invasion, the border areas of Israel were littered with the wreckage of tanks.   

Book Report 2020, Book Groups In this year of Pandemic and Social Distancing

In this year of Pandemic and Social Distancing, I am part of more book groups than ever in my life. Most of the discussions are on Zoom, but also on the phone. Zoom is not as much fun as talking in person, but distance does not matter, so I can connect with people in Germany as easily as here in Lancaster. 

ESL Book Group 

Four years ago, I volunteered with a local ESL (English as a Second Language) group run by Andrea Bailey. While volunteering I met Sarah Gingrich and Emily Burgett. We talked about books sometimes and asked each other about books we read or wanted to read. We ended up reading the same books, then getting together to talk about them. We became with a book about a Russian Holy Fool. The book is a novel titled Lazarus. 

From there we have read books about faith, the plague, and many other topics. Other people have joined depending on the book. In the past two years, Andrea moved to Wisconsin and Emily moved to Massachusetts then joined the Army, but with Zoom we can still meet. This summer, in the midst of the pandemic, we discussed Decameron.  For that discussion, we were joined by Chelsea Pomponio, a professor whose research is in Medieval Italian Literature focusing on Boccaccio. After Decameron our book was Love in the Time of Cholera.  As part of that discussion, Sarah Reisert gave us an impassioned critique of that book as beautifully written sexism, racism, child molesting and promotion of patriarchy.  It was delightful. I love a negative review. In October we talked about Free Will by Mark Balaguer.  The next book is Breaking Bread with the Dead by Alan Jacobs. It is not a book about sharing Avacado Toast with Zombies. 

The World Conquest Book Club 

This summer I talked with a former co-worker who returned to the library and museum where we both worked as a director. We were talking about leadership and decided to start a monthly book group to prepare Michelle to go from director of the library to ruling the entire world. We settled on six books that would be the basis of world domination. Naturally, the first was The Prince by Machiavelli. Next was The Art of War by Sun Tzu, followed by Plato’s Republic and a critique of Republic by Karl Popper called The Open Society and its Enemies. In November we will read Lioness a biography of Golda Meir. I have been promised a cabinet position in the Michelle World Government. 

Writers in Residences 

This is a monthly book group organized by the Jewish Community Alliance in Lancaster in cooperation between local Synagogues. This month we are reading Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel’s Classroom by Ariel Burger. It will be the first time I am participating in this new format. We will discuss each book with the author. So Ariel Burger will be on the Zoom call. In February I will be introducing the author Raffi Berg as we discuss his book Red Sea Spies: The True Story of the Mossad's Fake Diving Resort. 

Pre-COVID, the Hillel group on the campus of Franklin and Marshall College had book discussion group during the normal academic year that I would attend when I could. 

The Evolution Roundtable 

This group has met Monday’s at Noon on the campus of Franklin and Marshall College since the early 1990s. Most regular attendees are retired professors, along with some current professors, and members of the community like me. I joined about a decade ago. Each semester the group reads a book about some aspect of evolution. The current book is The Deep History of Ourselves: The Four-Billion-Year Story of How We Got Consciousness. In past years we have read books on many aspects of evolution including The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, and, of course, The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. In the late 90s Stephen Jay Gould joined the group for one of its meetings. 

Virtual Reading Group: The Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College 

Like the Evolution Roundtable, this group meets weekly to discuss books by the philosopher Hannah Arendt. We are currently finishing Essay in Understanding: Formation, Exile and Totalitarianism 1930-1954. The 90-minute discussions have a lot of context and background and different interpretations. The group will start again in January looking at The Promise of Politics followed by the book I most admire of all Arendt’s works The Human Condition. I have written on every page of the copy I read in 2012. 

Torah Study 

Each Saturday morning my Synagogue has Torah Study. The book each week is The Torah. We go through in a cycle determined by the Hebrew calendar. This group is very different on Zoom than in person. In the Synagogue, Rabbi Jack Paskoff clarifies points in the Torah using his white board and explaining often ambiguous Hebrew. On Zoom the Rabbi has to manage the discussion much more than in person. 

The New York CS Lewis Society 

I joined the NYCSL Society in 1979. Since 1980 I have been able to go to monthly meetings once or twice a year to the meetings in NYC. Last year I went to the 50th anniversary celebration on Long Island. I have not been to a meeting this year but hope to join the Zoom meeting this month. It will be a discussion of books by Lewis and G.K.Chesterton written in wartime.

 

Books with Friends

I am also reading books with friends on topics we agree and disagree about. A very sincere friend from Greece who is living in Germany asked me to read a book with him about Trump: Evangelicals at the Crossroads: Will We Pass the Trump Test?

I like Dmitri, so I read the book. I hated the book but discussed why with Dmitri and with our mutual friend Cliff. Following that book, Cliff and I are reading a book on abortion titled Beyond the Binaries by Thomas Horrocks. We will be discussing it next week.     

Another friend, Christina Hu, and I are talking about creating a podcast. This summer we discussed basing the podcast on books about America, its place in the world, and its effect on the world.  We read Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War and Band of Brothers.  We are now talking about something different than a book-centered podcast.  But the books led to some really good discussions.

                   

Vote Trump to Support Israel? Not This American Jew!

 

 

I know Jews in America and Israel who support re-electing the current President based in part on his support for Israel.  I can understand how an Israeli could have that opinion. Although I supported President Obama, I did not support his foreign policy in general and his relationship with Israel in particular.

While I understand Israeli support for Trump, I knew it was bad for America. Here is one of many Israeli rabbis who support Trump. 

 

Then I read an article by a Taiwanese American justifying his plan to vote for Trump.  He pointed out, correctly, that Trump has supported Taiwan more than any other recent President.  And stood up to China more than any other recent President.  He sounded very much like a Jew supporting Trump based on Israel.  The article by Eric Chang begins:

“If you asked me to put money down on whether or not Donald Trump could point Taiwan out on a map, I would say you are out of your mind. However, if you asked me whether or not the Trump presidency has been good for Taiwan, I would be lying if I said it has not. To be clear, I am not talking about what might be better for the United States; I am strictly talking in terms of Taiwan’s geopolitics and from my personal opinion.

Growing up in the U.S. when I was younger, I never really understood why my progressive parents would sometimes vote Republican. But now, after living in Taiwan for more than 19 years, I can see the method behind the madness. The GOP has traditionally been more vocal in their support of Taiwan. And of course, a lot of that has to do with the massive arms purchases, but it is tangible, effective support nonetheless.”

As I read, I realized that the short-term benefits to Taiwan and Israel of a Trump re-election were based on the America continuing to be the richest and strongest country in the world, and on Trump keeping his word.  It was a clear “Oh shit!” moment that was belied by everything that Trump has done in his life and particularly what he has done as President. 

Trump’s deep concern for Israel came from his Evangelical advisors telling him how much the flocks they fleece love Israel.  Trump needs Evangelical votes to be re-elected, but on November 4^th, he will have no further need the religious rubes he scorns in private. 

Taiwan will be useful to Trump until he trades away protection for the island nation in a deal with President Xi of China. He will sell out Taiwan and the island nation will follow Hong Kong into Chinese control and loss of independence. 

Part of Trump caving in to Xi will be the real ruin of the American economy that will follow Trump’s re-election.  Trump’s central failure of 2020 is his pathetic response to COVID-19.  The United States is the plague nation of the world with the most infection and death in the world in absolute numbers and even worse relative to population.  The debt and death we have accumulated in 2020 will leave China on top of the global economy as early as next year if we collapse suddenly. 

 

Reading Eric Chang has made it clearer to me how important it is for Americans to vote as Americans.

Chang’s essay is, in part a response to an article a week before that began:

“A strong United States is crucial for a more secure and democratic Taiwan. Contrary to popular perception among the first generation in the Taiwanese American community, the Trump administration has weakened the United States’ economic, diplomatic, and moral standing in the world. This is detrimental to Taiwan’s long-term security and democracy. The authoritarian government of China continues to threaten military intervention, claim sovereignty over democratic Taiwan, and expand China’s military and economic power throughout the Asia Pacific region.

The November 2020 election is the Taiwanese American community’s opportunity to vote Trump out of office and support the election of former Vice President Joseph Biden and Senator Kamala Harris. The Biden-Harris administration will take actions to strengthen the U.S.’s relationships with our allies rather than continue our unilateralism.”

Trump is a vile liar who wants to be a dictator and re-election will grant him and his family the ability to plunder America and ruin the 240-year experiment in democracy that America is. Supporting Trump in or out of America means trusting the man of 20,000 lies to keep his word.

Israel and Taiwan are vastly outnumbered by foes who would destroy them. A strong and stable United States is the best chance for both countries to be safe in a dangerous world.

But for Americans of whatever background there is no choice. Every American should be a one-issue voter and that issue is “Defeat Trump.” We are currently the leading plague state in the world because of his failures and four more years will be beyond dismal.  I plan to express my support for Israel and America and free people around the world by voting for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to replace the worst President in American history.

While advocates for Israel and Taiwan point to current reasons to support Trump, the long-term direction of a Trump presidency is to support dictators and betray democracies.  At the time Trump betrayed the Kurds after one phone call from Turkey, Israelis expressed concern Trump could do the same to them. I said, "Will not Could."  Whatever the weaknesses of Democratic foreign policy in the past, Biden and Harris are pro-democracy and believe America should support democracy around the world. That in itself is an infinite improvement over the dictator-wannabe we have now.

 

 

 

Visiting Ramallah--Trump Peace Plan Looks Ludicrous

A luxury apartment complex outside Ramallah. 

Built with money from Qatar, it is so far out that it has few residents.

During my visit to Israel, I was able to spend a day in Ramallah and the surrounding region. Ramallah is the largest city in the what would be a Palestinian state. It is close to Jerusalem in the region Israelis call Judea--the Judea part of Judea and Samaria.

T-Mobile deals with this ambiguity with a welcome message unlike the messages for any other border crossing. I wrote about that here.

I went from Old City Jerusalem on a scheduled city bus with my friend Cliff.  The 9-mile trip took us about an hour.  We were the only non-Arabs on the bus.  There was a huge security area about halfway between the Old City and the central bus station in Ramallah. We did not have to stop there on the way over.

At the Ramallah bus station, Cliff's friend Michael picked us up. He lives in Ramallah and has a counseling practice for victims of domestic violence and trauma.  He drove us around the city of Ramallah and the surrounding region.

He lives in the city with his wife and children.  For him, a settlement of the question of Palestine could not come too soon. He is an Arab Christian. He wants to be an Israeli citizen. He hopes that can happen, but would like peace in almost any form.

He says that no one he knows takes the Trump plan seriously. The U.S. did not speak to anyone from Palestine. Michael thinks it does not take into account the reality on the ground. He drove us to an upscale shopping mall with an ice skating rink. A few miles from that mall are Israeli settlements and Arab villages.

A new mall near Ramallah. 

The settlements and villages form a patchwork that will not allow an easy-to-define border.  Unless the settlements and villages are torn down, the border will have to allow for passage of Arabs and Israelis between the places they live and the two states that will result from the Trump plan.

Michael wants to live a good and safe life and have a future for his children.  He took Cliff and I to his home, gave us food, then took us to the bus station.  The 9-mile trip back took more than two hours and included changing buses at the security checkpoint.  Residents of Ramallah who work in Israel take these buses back and forth every day and have commute times as bad or worse than what we experienced.  

Michael had no faith in the Trump plan, but hopes some plan brings peace to the region. I hope so too.

Disposable Health Wealth

When I left Israel, I took a direct flight to Tbilisi, Georgia. I had never been to this country on the east end of the Black Sea with a civilization dating back more than three millennia. I had a vague plan of seeing Tbilisi then heading to Azerbijan and maybe Armenia before returning to the Georgian capital.  I stayed in Tbilisi for all of the four days I was going to spend in the region. A week ago I wrote about how much I loved riding here.

One of my recent meditations is on thankfulness. It occurred to me after I left the Republic of Georgia, that one thing I can be very thankful for is a ridiculous amount of disposable health.  Of course, the fact that I can fly to Israel and Georgia and ride also says I have disposable wealth, but the riding in Georgia in particular says I have disposable health.

Every day for three days I rode up a six-mile or a nine-mile hill and rode back down through switchbacks occasionally passing a car.  Even as I approach my seven decade with the body and mind I was born with (except for a few replacement parts), both still function well enough to allow me to ride a bike up and down a mountain every day, eat local food, explore the city on buses subways in addition to the bike, and then fly off to another adventure.

But as with all the healthiest people I know, health is not the goal. At various times in my life, I have obsessively worked out because I wanted to be a bicycle racer,  to be a soldier again in my mid-50s and then an Ironman. But I have never made being healthy a goal.  The result of being a soldier, a racer or an Ironman is health, a lot of health, disposable health.

I am so very thankful for the health that allows me to make a plan, then change the plan based on what is in front of me.

Six-Day War Veteran Tells His Story of Ammunition Hill Battle

Micheal Lanier telling us about the battle for Ammunition Hill 

My friend Cliff and I visited the Ammunition Hill Museum and Memorial in Jerusalem. It preserves the site of one of the battles in the 1967 Six-Day War that led to the capture of Old City of Jerusalem where Cliff and I are staying for the week.

We toured the museum which follows the battle hour by hour in film and pictures.  Both of us have previously walked the grounds of the site and climbed in and out of the trenches.  At the end of the museum visit we were going to watch a documentary of the battle, but one of the staff members said we can hear from a veteran of the fight for Ammunition Hill.  We went for the veteran.

Michael Lanir (מיכאל לניר) was a 26-year-old lieutenant leading an infantry platoon when the battalion got orders to attack the Jordanian stronghold at Ammunition Hill. It was held by a detachment of the elite Arab Legion.

Lanir was born in Jerusalem in 1942. He was six years old when Old City Jersalem was besieged by the Jordanian Army and shelled. He told us of water and food shortages and that many civilians were killed and wounded in the siege.

Returning to the battle in 1967, Lanir was a reserve paratrooper called to active duty three weeks before the war began. He and his troops trained to fight in the Sinai, but that battle was won so fast that his unit was redirected to capture Old City Jerusalem.  Lanir led his men into the trenches. He made a point of telling us Israeli officers lead from the front.

Michael Lanir next to the rock he took cover behind when he was shot

Shortly after the battle began, Lanir was shot in the neck.  He showed us the rock he was taking cover behind when he was shot.  His men thought he was dead. They covered him with a blanket and continued the fight.  An alert medic saw movement in Lanir's fingers and sent him to the hospital.  He recovered and today is a 78-year-old member of a group of veterans who talk to visitors to Ammunition Hill about their part of the battle.

Lanir and the commander of the Arab Legion company opposite him in the battle

He told us about a reunion of veterans on both sides that happened in the 1990s. He met the Jordanian commander of the unit they were fighting. They discussed the battle in detail and the Jordanian leader was sure it was one of his men who shot Lanir.  They left the event friends, both men who were doing their duty in the battle and both were happy they survived.

Mount Bental and a Battle That Saved Israel in 1973

The trenches on the Mount Bental Outpost

The Yom Kippur War in 1973 was arguably the last real full-scale armored war.  The American wars in Iraq in 1991 and 2003 were so lopsided in armor and ground attack aircraft that they could hardly be called armored warfare.
 The overwhelming triumph of the Israeli Army in the Six-Day war in 1967 led to terrible complacency in 1973.  The Israeli Army very nearly lost the war in fierce fighting both in the Sinai in the south against Egypt and in the Golan Heights against in the north against the Syrian Army.

The view from Mount Bental

The battle for the Golan Heights was one of the greatest tank battles of the 1973 Yom Kippur War or any war.  If the Syrian invasion force of 1,500 tanks and 1,000 cannon had broken through the thin Israeli line, the country could have been split in half and conquered in a day.

Between the Mount Bental observation post and Mount Hermon is the Valley of Tears where the battle was fought. An Israeli force of just 160 tanks slowed and finally stopped the Syrian columns. Though vastly outnumbering the Israeli defenders, the Syrians had to move through a narrow valley. In the end 600 Syrian tanks were destroyed.  Just seven of the Israeli tanks were still in service when the Syrians withdrew after their significant losses. The crews of the 153 damaged and destroyed tanks were nearly all casualties by the time the three-day battle ended.

Today Mount Bental is a tourist destination.  At least a half-dozen buses labored up the winding climb, discharging hundreds of tourists to explore the trenches and bunkers and, of course, the gift shop.

The view is amazing and beautiful looking over both the Israeli Golan and into Syria. It must have looked entirely different with 1,500 tanks streaming out of Syria.

The Suite High of Jerusalem

My first night in Jerusalem was my second night in Israel. The first night I spent in Eilat. All of the second day I drove the length of Israel north from Eilat to Mount Bental near Syria, then I drove back to Jerusalem. It was Sabbath, I did not have a reservation, so I pulled off Route 1 just 20 miles from Jerusalem and surveyed my options on Orbitz.  

Since I had to park a car until I could return it to the airport, I needed a place with low hassle parking.  I chose the Crowne Plaza which wasn't very expensive and had easy access to the road to Jerusalem.  I have been a member of the Holiday Inn loyalty program since 1999 so occasionally I get upgrades.  

But not like this.  

The Crowne Plaza is a tall tower with 21 floors on height above the Central Bus/Rail station.  When I checked in I got upgraded to the 19th-floor suite.  It had a balcony that wrapped 3/4ths of the way around the hotel to the south, east and north and could have held a party for more than a 100 people.  The room was huge.  And best of all was the view. Here is what I saw on the balcony after I checked in: 

This was my room:

And this was the view in the morning:

The hotel: 

28 Hours, 739 Miles, A Full Circle of Israel

Israel, from Eilat to Golan

On Friday morning, November 1, I got up at 4:30 am in Paris and began a long day of travel that ended on the beach in Eilat, Israel.  The usually fast train ride direct from Luxembourg station to the airport was twice as long because of track work, two trains, then a bus. 

But after a long walk and the extra security checks that come with flying to Israel, I boarded a full 737 for the 4-hour flight to Tel Aviv. I knew before I left America with a swollen knee, I would not be able to ride the 300-plus mile distance from Eilat to Golan, so I decided to see the whole country in a 739-mile circle that started as soon as I cleared customs and picked up my Hyundai rental car. 

By 4pm I was driving the first of 200-plus miles to the southernmost city in Israel: Eilat. I got a hotel two blocks from the beach that was the cheapest hotel in the city. All the signage in the hotel was in Russian and Hebrew. I might have been the only guest who was not from Russia.  The city was alive with party music till well past 4am, but I fell asleep early after the long travel day.

At 7 this morning I got up and walked to the beach. There was a roped off area with several swimmers doing "laps" swimming back and forth between the ropes marking the swimming area. As soon as I started swimming and tasted salt water, I realized this was the first time I swam in the ocean. I had played on the beach when I was a kid and with my kids, but I never actually swam.  It felt great. And the water was so clear I could watch the fish swimming underneath me. 

After the swim, I showered and drove north, all the way north to the Mount Bental observation post, part of one of the greatest tank battles in Israeli military history.  Just 160 Israeli tanks stopped 1,500 invading Syrian tanks. After the battle just seven Israeli tanks were still in operation and most of the crew members were killed or wounded.  The Syrians lost 900 tanks and suffered thousands of casualties. 

From that scene of violent battle, I drove back to the south to Tiberias on the Sea of Gallilee.  On the way to Tiberias on the northwest shore of the sea is the Mount of Beatitudes monastery, the site, according to tradition, of the Sermon on the Mount: a memorial to peace just an hour away from a memorial of armored warfare. 

On the drive north I traveled along the eastern border of Israel including the entire length of the Dead Sea. So going back to Jerusalem, I drove near the Mediterranean coast.  For the rest of the week I will take shorter rides near Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and places in between.   

The Beach in Eilat, Israel

Evolution: Israelis and American Jews Grow Apart

Moshe Dayan and Ariel Sharon 

in the Sinai during the Six-Day War in 1967

I love Evolution. Not only is it one of the most brilliant theories in the history of science, fundamentalists of every kind just hate it and Charles Darwin is not Jewish, not even a little!!

As a Jew, I have heard the sub-text of criticism of science all my life. Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, brilliant Jews without number have been disparaged for their work by people who hate Jews. But the man fundamentalists hate the most is as thoroughly English as Windsor Castle and the family that lives there.

Darwin, the reclusive English gentleman, developed a theory of life so sweeping that critics, especially religious conservatives, are still trashing his theory 150+ years later: a theory that has proven as tough and durable and resistant to flame as cast iron frying pans. 

Most of all, I am delighted at examples of Evolution working right in front of our eyes. The way to see Evolution work is to take a population of any living thing, separate it into two or more parts as far away from each other as possible, a water barrier is especially good, and watch the two populations change.

Darwin famously illustrated his theory with Galapagos finches.  Gil Hoffman, politics reporter at the Jerusalem Post, showed me how evolution occurred with Jews living in Eastern Europe, primarily Poland and Russia and nearby countries, for hundreds of years before the 20th Century, when everything changed.

At the end of the 19^th Century, that population began to divide into two parts.  Zionists left to restore Israel as a nation. Others, like my own grandparents, left for America. 

You could say there were three groups: those who left for America, those who left for the land that would become Israel, and those who stayed.  In 1939, those who stayed were the largest group. By 1945, millions were slaughtered and many survivors fled Europe for the Middle East or North America.  Beginning in the 1970s, more than a million Russian Jews would flee to Israel and America, continuing the trend. 

But the early Zionists and my grandparents in America were the populations that separated and evolved.

Jews who fled for America largely assimilated. The tailors and shopkeepers and laborers had children who became doctors, lawyers and the writers who shaped American literature, Broadway and Hollywood.  They were American success stories. The Zionists became pioneers, making the desert green, fighting for survival, eventually gaining independence and becoming one of the fiercest Armies in the world. 

One culture produces Moshe Dayan and Ariel Sharon. The other gives the world Jerry Seinfeld and Philip Roth.  All four brilliant in their own way, but no doubt who you would call if you were under attack. 

American and Israeli Jews speak a different language, eat different food, celebrate the same religious festivals in different ways and in this century are increasingly separate on politics. 

Gil Hoffman travels regularly between Israel and America.  He spoke at my Synagogue this year.  He worries about the increasing divide between Israel and American Jews.  He did an excellent episode on the subject on his podcast “Inside IsraelToday” on the Land of Israel Network.

In America, three of four Jews identify as Liberal and/or Democrat and in the same numbers, loathe President Trump.  Israel, in sharp contrast, is one of just three countries in the world that have a positive opinion of Trump: nearly 70% of Israelis have a favorable view of Trump.  The other two countries positive about Trump are the Philippines and Nigeria. Apart form those three nations, the 192 member countries of the United Nations have a negative opinion of America’s chief executive, including America.

As more anti-Semitic incidents happen in America, the gulf between the two communities continues to grow.  Over the last century, American Jews have become much more American: rich, largely insulated from the virulent anti-Semitism of the rest of the world, and driven by personal ambition.

Trump made the alt-right and white supremacists his base, infamously saying there were “fine people on both sides” at an event with one side waving Nazi flags and chanting “Blood and Soil.” Anti-Semitism in America increased rapidly as Trump ran and won his racism-centered campaign.

In Israeli society, universal conscription means the path to power and influence is through the Army.  Israel is under constant threat and defines itself by its readiness to fight with enemies on every side. For Israel, surrounded by enemies, Trump is an ally who moved the US embassy to Jerusalem and pulled out of the Iran treaty that was so unpopular in Israel.  

The political differences between American and Israeli Jews are likely to get worse no matter what the future holds for the two countries.

When groups split and grow apart, the usual trajectory is to grow further apart.  When Gil Hoffman speaks on this topic, he hopes to be a small part of bringing the two groups closer together, even as he reports the news that shows Jews separated by six thousand miles in distance are separating even further in politics and practice. 

I am going to try to live part of my life on both sides of the divide. I am planning to spend the first three months of 2020 traveling in Israel.  For Jews, anti-Semitism is a question of if, not when. Israel is a place of refuge for all Jews everywhere. So I want to know and experience more of the Land of Israel.  We’ll see how my thinking evolves.

Six Days of War: Three Wars Lost in Six Days

Israeli Sherman Tanks in the Sinai, Attacking Egypt

Ignorance Can be the greatest ally or the greatest enemy of an army at war.  In the book Six Days of War, Michael B. Oren explains in considerable detail how Arab ignorance and mistrust was the real key to the vastly outnumbered Israelis defeating three Arab armies in just six days. 

Oren shows how the Israelis called up all of their reserves and prepared for weeks to attack Egypt before Egypt attacked them, or to defend if Egypt attacked first. And yet the Israeli attack on June 5, 1967, came as a complete surprise to the commander of the Egyptian Army.

The reasons are complicated, but Oren makes a strong case that Field Marshall Abdel Hakim Amer, supreme commander of Egyptian forces, filled the upper ranks of the Egyptian military with cronies, shoving aside talented leaders preparing for a coup against his childhood friend President Gamel Abdel Nasser.

The Israelis put Moshe Dayan in charge of the military just months before the war, another signal to anyone paying attention that the war plans were for an attack.  Also, just months before the war, the Egyptians blockaded the Israeli port in Elat and all shipping. Time pressure pushed the Israelis to act, and yet, the Egyptians blustered and waited and did not prepare for an attack, let alone prepare for their own.  

On June 5, nearly the entire Israeli Air Force attacked air bases all across Egypt.  By the afternoon, more than 80% of the Egyptian Air Force was burning wreckage, most of it on the ground.  Cratering charges made the airfields useless.  At the same time, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) rolled into Sinai in a multi-pronged attack that succeeded so fast and so well that the most optimistic Israeli leaders could not believe it.  

With so much of the IDF fighting on the ground and in the air in Sinai driving toward Egypt, if the Jordanian and Syrian armies had attacked, Israel would have to stop the attack and defend itself, at minimum pulling all air support away from Egypt.  

Both the Syrians and the Jordanians had sworn mutual aid in case of attack.   

But nothing happened.  Iraq also was to attack in support of Egypt.  It's forces sat in Jordan and Syria.  

On June 7, fighting started near Jerusalem. The Israelis had no plans to recapture Jerusalem, but the Jordanians fired on the IDF from the Mount Scopus and other heights in Jerusalem. the IDF attacked to take out the guns and by the night of June 9-10, retook Jerusalem and had the Jordanian army, including the vaunted Arab Legion in full retrat all across the West Bank of the Jordan River.

During this period, the Syrians shelled Israeli settlements.  The settlers on the frontier howled for help.  On June 10, the IDF attacked in the North toward Syria.  If the Syrians had attacked, the Israelis would have been obliged to stop their offensives in Jordan and Egypt. But the Syrians shelled civilians and stayed still.  Their army, like the other two Arab armies was in headlong retreat on June 11.  

In war, the mistakes of the enemy are often as important as the plans of the winners.  In this case, arrogance and mistrust among the Egyptian leaders was followed by a betrayal by their allies.  The end was Israel more than doubling in territory and smashing three Arab armies.  

Oren explains battles in great detail, especially retaking Jerusalem and the air attack that won the war on the first day. He also gives the reader a lot of detail about propaganda.  Egypt used its media to deny their losses and tell the world they were winning the war. Part of the hesitation of the Jordanians and Syrians to come to the aid of Egypt was the glowing reports Egypt was sending of their great victories.  

The other overwhelming impression the book gave me is of how ignorant the Egyptians were of what the Israelis were doing despite the evidence in front of them. The rest of the world was also largely ignorant of how bad the situation was on the ground and how fast everything changed.  It reminded me of how the world blundered into war in 1914.  

This book tells a complicated story very well. 

Jerusalem: The Youngest 5,000-Year-Old City I Ever Visited

Jerusalem: 5,000 years old and the youngest city I visited in my 20-country tour. When I flew to Israel after a month in mostly Eastern Europe, I expected Jerusalem to be the spiritual pinnacle of my trip. It was quite the opposite.  Jerusalem is youthful, growing, vibrantly alive. Surrounding places thousands of years old are new apartments, stores, hotels, clubs, couples in love, groups having fun, people arguing, people haggling, and old people here and there like rocks in a stream bed with the wild current of life swirling past.

In the Old City are warrens of streets of stone, closed to traffic, alive with people: restaurants, shops, stores, clubs, every manner of business line tiny streets and the streets that don’t allow cars.  The streets are also filled with young people.  Soldiers are everywhere and they are young, the proper age of soldiers. Young men and women with automatic rifles laugh in cafes, read on buses, stare at their phones at tram stops and takes selfies in cafes. The soldiers you see everywhere look like soldiers should: young, strong, and tough.

In cafes and restaurants, groups of young people fill the tables. They also wait on the tables and cook the food. When I bought bread or coffee or a sandwich, it was a young person who handed me my order. The hotels I stayed at had people in their 20s on the desk.

By contrast in Belgrade a lovely cobblestone street ascends toward the top of the main hill in the city. Along that street is restaurant after restaurant with live music and lovely gardens. The waiters, the musicians, the diners are mostly older people. The scene is beautiful on a summer night, but very different from Jerusalem. Belgrade draws the best people who want to stay in Serbia, including many young people. But the city, like so many in Europe, is old and getting older. Jerusalem, like New York, Paris, London, Beijing, and other world cities draws young people from everywhere.

Jerusalem also draws tourists from everywhere. Retirees from America, across Europe and Asia flock to the Old City. But on the steep streets of Jerusalem, the tourists walk from stand to stand in the market or shop to shop then stop to catch their breath. Young people bump past and stride up and down. When the vendors in the open-air market shout, young people shout back.

Even the Orthodox are young. In America, the enclaves of Orthodox Judaism are home to an aging population. In New York City and in my hometown of Lancaster where there is an Orthodox Shul, the strictly observant Jews are older. Outside my hotel on a closed street in Old City Jerusalem, one of the outside tables at the closest pizza place had a table with a dozen young Orthodox men staining their white shirts with sizzling pepperoni pizzas--and laughing at each other when they did it.

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Many people told me Tel Aviv is a young city, more vibrant, more secular. I can't say because I never left Jerusalem and so did not see the rest of the country. But the youth vibe of Jerusalem is my most lasting impression of a very ancient city.