Jon and Anne
October 31, 2011 MONDAY – last day of
Federation Mission
Natan Sharansky meeting at the Jewish Agency
How lucky we were to have a personal update with Natan Sharansky. He is best known
for his stand on civil rights which started in his homeland of Russia. He was arrested and spent 9.5 years in Siberia. The Jewish Federations allacross the country and throughout the Diaspora started marches to gain support for his release which did not happen until the 80s. He has become a symbol for standing up for civil rights throughout the world. Natan is small in stature and bigger than life in his ideals. He spoke to us from his heart and there truly was not a dry eye in the room. He is currently the Chairman of The Jewish Agency.
One of the missions of The Jewish Agency is to bring Jews to Israel; so far 3.5
million Jews have come. One of the biggest missions which began in the 80s was to bring 50,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel and we had a view of this on-going initiative when we visited the Ethiopian Absorption Center in Kiryat Yam. The Jewish Agency also provides immediate monetary and counseling support for families, especially the children, who are victims of terrorist attacks.
His biggest current concern is to develop strong Jewish student leadership on
college campuses and to empower young jews in order to combat the growing anti Israel sentiment. His program costs $60,000 to bring one leader onto a
campus for a year. It is the Israel Fellow’s program but he calls it “Traveling to Occupied Territories”. Presently, there are fellows on 50 US campuses and we are working to get a fellow at USF in Tampa. His other program is called Massa, which brings young Jews to Israel to study for six months to a year in order to build young Jewish leaders all over the world.
AIPAC briefing
AIPAC is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
We learned that AIPAC is:
Not a PAC
Not a foreign agent
Not prescriptive
It is:
A domestic US Lobby, trying to do what is good for America and trying to do what
is right for US-Israeli relations.
It is bi-partisan
AIPAC has 200 employees, most of them in Washington, DC. They also have 17 district and regional offices and 9 professional lobbyists. Most of their work is done by citizens like us lobbying their Congressman, Senators and local leaders and by writing letters to the editors
of our local papers.
One of their main goals is to try to keep Iran from going nuclear and they are very
active is getting money for Israeli defense. They are currently receiving 3 billion dollars for the US over a 10 year period. They are also active in trying to update their lobbyists so that are always kept current. Most of the money Israel gets from America is
spent on equipment and technology in America; i.e. the money stays in the US.
The AIEF – American-Israel Education Foundation brings people to Israel and
they fund about 12 trips a year. This past year they brought about 20% of our
congressmen to Israel. They have also brought the upcoming young leadership from the black and Latino communities to Israel. They also have a minister’s mission. We were very impressedwith our host, Deborah Patt at AIPAC and the work that they are doing. There is going to be an AIPAC annual conference in Washington, DC in March and many of our group expressed interest in trying to go to it. There was a discussion about J Street.
ISRAEL MUSEUM AND THE SHRINE OF THE BOOK
Before our museum tour, we had sandwiches at a little café at the museum (G-d forbid
we should skip a meal!). The newly renovated Israel Museum boasts state of the art galleies and the Shrine of the Book, which houses the Dead Sea Scrolls. The museum is the largest cultural institution in Israel and is raked among the world’s leading art and archaeology museums. Unfortunately, you need a full day here. With our limited time, we were only able t o see the Dead Sea Scrolls. These ancient texts found by the Bedouins in covered clay pots. They sold them and they are now displayed beautifully here. Once again, Ophir, amazed us by his expertise and he gave us a wonderful explanation of how the scrolls were found and how the Hebrew text from so long ago is so similar to the modern Hebrew text used in our modern Torah
scrolls. Though we were all very tired from our long day, most of us remained to go on a walking tour of the old city with Rich and Ophir.
Walking tour of old city with Rich and Ophir
Our bus let us off near the Zion gate for our tour of the old city. Ophir expertly
led our group through the Muslim, Christian and Jewish sections of the city
giving us a wonderful historical perspective of each area. He is so knowledgeable about each of the religious groups; it seemed that there was no question he was unable to answer. His openness and sense of respect for each area was so passionate and respectful. We also walked through the Cardo and made a stop at the Blue and White Gallery where we purchased two mezuzahs done by Udi, the owner/artist of the studio. We had been there twice before and had purchased an Agamograph from him. Lenny has kept in touch with Udi all these years; unfortunately, he was not in the gallery when we arrived. We wanted to thank him for the enormous welcome balloon that he delivered to our hotel upon our arrival in Jerusalem.
The walking tour ended near the Zion gate. Geri and I decided to leave the group.
They took the bus back to the hotel. We set off for the western wall and one
last shopping spree through the souk. We were lucky to find what we wanted and
got back to the hotel before they did. Traffic was horrible. One thing we noted
in Jerusalem were thousands of tourists, Americans, Germans, Asians, British,
Latinos, Christians, Jews and Muslims, peoples of all color, all sharing their
combined heritages together in this wonderful and magical city.
Farewell Dinner at Mona restaurant
We all assembled at Mona Restaurant with high expectations and enthusiasm. Nehemia and his aide, Margalit, joined us along with our expert bus driver,
David, our amazing guide, Ophir and a friend of Renee’s, Uzi. It was a lovely place for our farewell dinner and as promised, the food was “a cut above”
and included things like calamari, seafood risotto, steak, salmon, wonderful vegetables and salads and of course, lots of wine. We have been eating mostly wonderful kosher vegetarian food throughout our trip (awesome for Lenny and Marcia and Rich who are vegetarians) and this was a welcome change for the carnivores and seafood lovers amongst us. There were terrific toasts, hugs to Gerri and Marvin and Bobbie and Don, who had an early flight and had to depart early. Promises to keep in touch. We all know that we will cross paths many times at Federation events.
A reunion of our group is already in the works and will be at Bobbie and
Don Bernstein’s, date to be determined. We also know that we will see Nehemia as he comes to Florida several times a year. We will be eager to reconnect with him as he was such a presence for us throughout our trip; showing up to board our bus in the middle of the desert, at the Palmachim air force base, in the Golan Heights, in Jerusalem at IAI. He used
his VIP status to help us see firsthand many places and to meet many people
that most tourists never have the opportunity to do. By 9:30 p.m. it was time
for the rest of us to depart for the airport: Rich, Geri and Lenny, Janet and
Bruce, and Renee. On the way to the airport, we stopped at the hotel to drop off Marsha and Michael, Anne and John, our lovely newlyweds and Anne’s mother Annette, who kept up with us on all of the steps we climbed, cried with us on this emotional journey and set the bar very
high for all of us as we age to be able to do it with her grace and beauty, at
the hotel as they would spend the night before departing for an early morning flight to the states and other ports of call.
Bus transport to the airport in Tel Aviv for our flights to Kennedy took about 45
minutes. Everyone was pretty quiet on the bus; some simply too tired to speak and some, I am sure reflecting on the whole 10 days experience of the Mission which simply flew by. All the days of early starts and late endings became a blur in some ways as we tried to absorb “the whole of it”. For all of us, without exception, the trip was a life changing, soul wrenching event which we must now carry back with us to Sarasota. As Rich said his final toast to us, we have an obligation
and a responsibility to return to Sarasota to inform our friends and family of
the spirit of Israel, its hopes, dreams and complex issues it faces on a daily
basis. It is so easy to criticize Israel from an American perspective. What this trip did for us was to give us a new perspective. Rich asked us to be ambassadors to encourage people to go to Israel and to learn about the country through their own eyes and experience. He also asked us to stand up and speak out when we hear inequities and misreporting, either from the press or from friends and family. He also requested that we stay current and informed on what is happening in Israel. One major concern is the growing anti-Semitism on US college campuses.
Upon arrival at the airport, we were met by our VIP escorts, who took us around the long lines, whisked us through Israeli checkpoints and security; right to the check
In for our boarding passes and then to the entry to our gates – totally hassle free.
Now we are on the flight to Kennedy where we will have a 12 hour layover – so it
will be! We got about five hours of sleep on the plane so far. It is 4:00 a.m. Sarasota time and they are waking everyone for breakfast. We think
it is going to be a tough re-entry to get back our east coast body time.
Rich Bergman brought us to Israel and brought the soul of Israel into our
souls. Rich has an extraordinary compassion , dedication and love for Israel.
He shared this passion with us for 10 extraordinary days. We laughed together, learned together and cried together. Most of us will become stronger champions of Israel because of Rich.
He is truly one of the most sincere and compassionate individuals that we know.
Now we are in the Delta lounge, settling in for our long layover in Kennedy
Airport. Our new friends, Bruce and Janet Udell, kindly invited us to join them and Rich here so we could visit with them and enjoy the comforts of hot coffee and good chairs, phone hook-ups and food. Now they have left for the last leg of their journey back to Sarasota. We, on the other hand, still have a 7 hour wait. We are eager to get home now.
Rich and Geri finish our blog at JFK
