Tag Archives: “To Cast A Giant Shadow”

Peace Please For Israel , The Middle East, The World

10 Jul

Recently  my synagogue’s Men’s Club sponsored a showing of the movie, “To Cast A Giant Shadow,” all about the 1948 formation of the modern State of Israel, the siege of Jerusalem,  and the attacks by five Arab countries to destroy Israel before it was even a day old.

The movie starred Kirk Douglas as Colonel David “Mickey” Marcus, a true hero of the Second World War, who became the first general of Israel and died in a tragic incident concerning friendly fire.

Other stars included Frank Sinatra, John Wayne, Yul Brenner, Angie Dickerson, Topol, and Senta Berger, who played the characters of real people involved in the creation and salvation of Israel against the multitude of Arab nations who vowed to destroy them.    It is a fictionalized version.  But it gives a view of Israel from the 1960s when the movie was made and the terror that people were living through then.

Sounds familiar?  It does to me, as once again terrorist forces from the East, the South and the North try to destroy Israel, and anti-Semitism and Jew hatred takes over social media, and the traditional media also seems to favor the terrorists of Hamas over Israel as it defends itself. In fact, the word Zionism has replaced the word Jewish on social media to create Jew hatred around the world.

We were basically defenseless then.  No one would give us weapons. The British were turning everything over to the Arab nations.  The Jews had just suffered through a massive attempt to annihilate them—the largest genocide in human history. Many of the ‘soldiers’ had recently arrived from the concentration camps.  Who would have thought Israel would survive?  It was really a miracle, perhaps the divine intervention included the help of Mickey Marcus.

Now we are not defenseless.  But once again there are fractions in the world that would like to see the destruction of the State of Israel.  The UN made it obvious who they wanted to believe when they would not even admit for months that the Hamas terrorists raped and brutalized Israel victims, both women and men and the horrible murders of children.  The UNWRA seems complicit in the work of Hamas.

On college campuses and in cities around the world people are supporting Hamas, a terrorist group that ended a cease fire and has caused the deaths of thousands of people. It seems to be a world gone insane. But not only in Israel.  Yesterday Russia once again bombed the Ukraine. This time destroying a children’s hospital in Kiev. 

How bad can it get before the world realizes that Israel is a sovereign country?  Ukraine is a sovereign country.  When Iran says it will obliterate Israel, what does that really mean? Nuclear War?  When Russia threatens to use nuclear weapons, what does it mean?  Nuclear War?

In the Middle East the wars between Israel and its neighbors did not stop then with this war for survival.  For the entirety of Israel’s existence, the Arab nations surrounding it have worked for its destruction.  For the past decade, Russia has been trying to chip away at Ukraine’s borders.

Isn’t it time for these continuous battles to end? Isn’t time for children everywhere to be able to sleep a peaceful night without the need for bomb shelters? 

Isn’t it time for Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah to start working to make life better for the people they are entrusted with and use the money they have to rebuild and create a strong economy and society instead of using more and more money to precure arms and build the tunnels and machinery for destruction?

Isn’t it time for Russia to pull back?  So the children and people of Ukraine can have peace again? Before this blows up and more people die on both sides. 

Does anyone think nuclear war will end the battles?  It might –  with the destruction of the world as we know it.  Releasing atomic bombs will not solve the problems.  Ukraine and Russia border each other. Any nuclear bomb will harm both. Israel borders many Arab nations, if Iran obliterate Israel other nations will also be destroyed. It makes me think of another of my favorite movies, “War Games,” in which we find out that thermonuclear war is a non-winner for everyone.

Please Peace.  No more battles, deaths, sleepless nights, and destruction.  It is time for Iran and its terrorist proxies to look at their own plates and solve the problems of their people and stop trying to kill all the Jews in the world.  The same in Ukraine.  I know that the ‘normal’ people of the world who are suffering do not want any more battles.

Please Peace. For Israel. For Ukraine. For the world.

Movie Night in the Catskills Was A Wonderful, Magical Night

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast_a_Giant_Shadow

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WarGames

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Jerusalem In My Heart

7 Dec

Yesterday I told my daughter not to go to Jerusalem. She and her husband live in Holon, about an hour from Jerusalem. I know that violence will explode as Hamas lashes out over the US decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. It makes me ill.

Nothing has really changed.  But those who work toward hatred use it as a cry to kill and destroy.  And the way the media and the politicians across the world reacts adds to the mob mentality of hatred.  If you show people rabble rousing then they will turn into hate filled mobs.  Why not use some common sense.  And just relax.  The US Congress recognized Jerusalem as the capitol of Israel decades ago. This is not news.

I love Jerusalem. It is in my heart. I spent my sophomore year of college in a Jerusalem attending Hebrew University, living in both Givat Ram and then Har Hasofim campuses. I traveled the roads and went throughout the area surrounding Jerusalem with ease. In 1974 and 1975 we could easily go anywhere in and about Jerusalem. There was no intifada. There were no walls and barricades. We all went where we wanted.

But still my family worried.  It was less than a year after the Yom Kippur War.  My Grandma Esther, who was born in the USA, would send me letters with newspaper clippings and write, “You could kill me in easier ways.”  My Grandma Thelma, who was born in Poland, would send me letters telling me to meet up with her family who had come to Israel after the Shoah.

My love of Jerusalem started before I even saw it,  when I was 11 years old.  The movie, “To Cast A Giant Shadow,” came out. I went to see it with my cousins and grandmas during the summer. I sat next to Grandma Rose, my cousins’ grandma. But we shared her. She had been a citizen of Jerusalem during the siege in 1948 when the Arab nations declared war on Israel after the UN declared the new country of Israel.  Jews in the Jewish Quarter of the old city were cut off without food or water as the siege started. They survived due to old hidden waters in the City.

Grandma Rose, Grandpa Asher and Uncle  Jack survived. But Grandma Rose told me she never forgot looking back to her city, to Jerusalem and wondering if she would ever see it again, when she was forced to leave. When all the Jews, families who had lived there for centuries, were taken out of the city by the Jordanian soldiers. She did not go back, but she never forgot. She died in the USA.

When I lived in Jerusalem, I was there when Uncle Jack returned for the first time, 26 years after he had been forced out as young man. My uncle and aunt came to Israel for their 25 wedding anniversary. And I got the benefit of being with them as my Uncle relived his childhood and told me about the siege and how they survived. He also never forget the last look back as he left his home.

I have been to Jerusalem many times. The heart of Israel. Where the Israeli government has its parliament, the Knesset; where the Israeli Supreme Court makes decisions that benefit those of all religions; where the holy sites of Jews, Christians and Moslems exist in close proximity.

It was in Jerusalem,  the city of peace, that I was taught to use an Uzi and an M-16 automatic rifle to survive.  It was soon after the Yom Kippur War and it was not always safe.  It was in Jerusalem that I became used to the bus drivers who would walk through the bus and ask about every package to find out who it belonged to , to make sure there were no bombs.  It was in Jerusalem that I felt the ground shake as the military detonated bombs it had found nearby in an empty field.  The terrorist groups have been attacking Jerusalem and Israel for decades.  Nothing seems to stop it.  There is always another reason they claim to try to kill or cause chaos. So this decision really changes nothing. The violence ebbs and flows like a tide.

I have been to the Temple Mount and visited the mosques; I have seen the tomb of Jesus in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem; The tomb of Rachel on the road to Bethlehem; the tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron. Some of these places are difficult for Jews to access now.

Every time I go to Jerusalem now, I see signs of hatred rising. I love Jerusalem, like many others say they love it as well. But some times I wonder about their signs of love; they are are hard to decipher, to understand. Throwing stones, setting fires, stabbing, terrorists attacks. These are not signs of a people loving a city.  These are signs of destruction.

Recently I was at the Harry Truman Presidential Library.  I read about his recognizing the State of Israel and how so many American and international politicians were against this decision. But he did what he thought was right.  The world survived.

Instead of focusing on the one issue of Jerusalem, why is the world not focusing on the proxy war between the Shia and Sunni that is taking place in Syria?  Why not focus on the war occurring in Yemen?  Why not see the horrors that are happening in Turkey?  Why not Iran and Saudi Arabia?  Hundreds of thousands people have been killed.  Millions have been displaced.  Israel has nothing to do with any of it… so the Arab world stays silent.

Jerusalem is not the reason for all these conflicts.  There are much bigger conflicts within the Moslem Arab nations that is causing unrest in the Middle East.  I hope one day there will be a end of hostilities.  That both sides will decide to just live in peace.  That they will move forward and not ruminate on the past.  To be honest neither side can win, unless they let the past go free.

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Movie Night in the Catskills Was A Wonderful, Magical Night

24 Jul

It was our Saturday night tradition at the Ritz Theatre in White Lake, NY. In the late afternoon, early evening, we children would go to the early movie with our grandmas: Grandma Esther, Grandma Rose, Grandma Thelma, Mrs. Anoff. They chaperoned about nine or ten children and kept us safe.

Our dads would drop us off at the front of the theater with money for the movie and snacks. We were supposed to be very careful there as it was at the intersection of 17B and 55. So there actually was a bit of traffic.

I think our grandmas would collect all the money and pay. However, when we got a little older, we were allowed to buy our own tickets. If you were under 12 it was one price, over 12 you paid the adult fare. It was always sad when someone had a summer birthday and turned 12. They now had to pay much more!

Our parents, in the early 1960s. Kauneonga Lake, NY.

Some of the parents, in the early 1960s. Kauneonga Lake, NY.

Our fathers, in the meantime, would then go home to get ready for Date Night with our moms. It was their special time together.

We would watch whatever movie was showing that week. The movie I remember the most was “To Cast A Giant Shadow” about the Israeli War of Independence and Colonel David “Mickey” Marcus, the American officer who helped with ending the siege of Jerusalem. It actually had a major impact on my life choices.

For this movie, I sat next to my Grandma Rose.   Grandma Rose, was really my cousins’ grandma, but that did not matter. We shared grandmas in the Catskills. In any case, Grandma Rose lived through the siege of Jerusalem with her husband, Grandpa Asher, and my Uncle Jack.

While we watched the movie, Grandma Rose spoke to me throughout, telling me what happened to her in 1948. She told me what really happened during the siege. What in the movie was true, what was just fiction. She told me about the lack of water and food. She told me about the day they finally left Jerusalem and how difficult that day was for her and Grandpa Asher. How she looked back knowing she might never live in Jerusalem, her Jerusalem again. She never did. They moved to the USA.

I was eleven years old when “To Cast A Giant Shadow” came out in 1966. But this movie and the story of Jerusalem stayed with me my entire life. It was because of this movie and Grandma Rose’ commentary, that I went to Israel eight years later to spend my sophomore year of college at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. I lived in both the Givat Ram and the HaHasofim campuses.

I was able to go freely between both the old city of Jerusalem and the new city. I saw the places Grandma Rose had told me about, as well as, the places I saw in the movie.

While I was gone, Grandma Rose passed away. My parents did not tell me. They did not want it to be in a letter. In those days we had no cell phones, no computer, no Skype. I found out when I got home. I was heartbroken.  I wanted to tell her all about the Jerusalem, where I lived and how it had returned to one city.   But I never got the chance.

But I always remembered that one movie and Grandma Rose.

Movie night was always an exciting night. Without television, cable, VCRs, DVDs, Netflex, we looked forward to going to the movies one day a week. Even when we got older and did not need our grandmas to go with us, we would still go in a group to the movies. Then we would go to Poppy’s for ice cream after the movie ended. It was always a good time. Even on dates we went as couples with someone else. It seemed odd to go out with just one other person. Sometimes we even ran into our parents at the ice cream parlor. So strange, so different from when we were children.

Because when we were young, our dads would come to pick us up after the movies. When we were settled in back at our bungalows, the parents would go out. They were dressed up, looking fine. Many times they were just going to the movies as well. Sometimes, they went to a show at one of the many hotels or bungalow colonies to see a comedian or musical. It was a wild time in the Catskills.

We always knew when they went to a show because they came home with one of those keychain photo viewers. We loved them. I found some when we cleaned out my parent’s apartment and I brought one back to Kansas with me.

My parents always went out extra special on Fathers’ Day weekend because their wedding anniversary was June 17. They had spent part of their honeymoon at Grossinger’s before heading up to the Finger Lakes and exploring on their own. So a special evening out at Grossinger’s was often their anniversary celebration destination.

Movie nights changed after the Ritz in White Lake closed. We then traveled to Liberty or Monticello to go to the movies. But the magic still remained. Movie night in the Catskills was a wonderful, magical night.

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