Jewish Herald-Voice (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 100, No. 12, Ed. 1 Thursday, July 3, 2008 Page: 6 of 32
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Page 6
Jewish Herald-Voice
July 3, 2008
Nation
Sderot, Israeli MI As galvanize U.S. Jews
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Dorit and Ben Genet, with Sderot resident Natan Galkowicz, whose daughter was
killed in 2005 by a Kassam missile, stand beneath a banner in Hollywood, Fla.,
expressing solidarity with the people of the besieged southern Israeli town.
By BEN HARRIS
NEW YORK (JTA) - Gabrielle Flaum
always has been involved Jewishly,
from attending a Jewish summer camp
to participating in social action pro-
grams. But the New Jersey teenager’s
summer trip to Israel in 2006 with
a Reform youth group elevated that
involvement to a new level.
Three days after the group arrived,
Hezbollah began firing Katyusha rock-
ets into northern Israel from Lebanon.
A friend of Flaum’s Israeli counselor
was among the first Israelis killed in
the war, and later the counselor left
the group when his Israel Defense
Forces reserve unit was mobilized.
Flaum was so moved by the experi-
ence that upon her arrival back home
in Millburn, she started SOS: Save
our Soldiers, a teen advocacy group
dedicated to securing the release of
Ehud Goldwasser, Eldad Regev and
Gilad Shalit, the three Israeli soldiers
kidnapped in the summer of 2006.
Twenty to 30 Jewish teens, includ-
ing some who had never connected
to Israel, now gather once or twice
a month at the Flaum home for SOS
meetings. The group successfully lob-
bied the New Jersey state Legislature
to adopt a resolution last year calling
on the United Nations to help free
the soldiers - the first such resolution
adopted in the United States. It also
had the idea to place empty chairs
on synagogue pulpits during the High
Holy Days, an act of solidarity that was
widely adopted across the country.
“I knew that I needed to do some-
thing,” Flaum, 17, told JTA. “For the
families of the soldiers, I really under-
stood. I came to love this counselor,
and he had a really large impact on
my life. It could have been any one
of them.”
Along with the plight of Israelis
suffering from Arab rocket fire, in
particular those in the southern Israeli
town of Sderot, the cause of Israel’s
missing soldiers has galvanized
American Jewry as few Israel-related
issues have in recent years. From the
$360 million raised in 2006, to help
Israel’s north after a month of rocket
attacks, to the 150,000 signatures on a
petition to the secretary-general of the
United Nations calling for the release
of those missing in action, to the
dozen MIA-related groups started on
the popular social networking website
Facebook, the causes of the MIAs and
the Israeli communities under Arab
fire have prompted American Jewry
to close ranks.
“Israel’s security and defense
always evoke a strong response and
overwhelming consensus in the
American Jewish community,” said
Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the
Reform movement’s Religious Action
Center. “Both these issues - Sderot and
the MIAs - fit into that pattern.”
The One Family Fund, a non-
profit organization that sends money
to Israeli victims of terrorism, has
found that the issues resonate with
supporters. In the Miami area, the
group placed mock Kassam rock-
ets on some 150 homes with signs
expressing solidarity with the people
of Sderot. One South Florida home
had as many as 100 rockets arrayed
on its property with a 25-foot sign
that read, “Sderot, We Are With You.”
“I grew up on the phrase ‘Never
again,’ as many people did,” said Mimi
Jankovits, the director of One Family
Fund’s Southeastern Region, which
hatched the idea of the Kassam repro-
ductions. “And I feel like, once again,
we’re at that point where Jewish peo-
ple are being put into danger, they’re
living in fear, because they’re Jewish
and because they’re living in a free,
democratic Jewish state.”
One Family Fund has raised $1
Contest From page 1
Houston’s Danish rescue boat exhibit.
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contest. Entries included all of
Louisiana and Mississippi. The trio
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million for Sderot since December,
compared with $3.7 million raised for
general terror relief in the past fis-
cal year. That support, officials say,
was motivated in part by the stories
of those who had seen the plight of
Sderot residents firsthand.
Steve Gutow, executive director of
the Jewish Council for Public Affairs,
said the issues of Sderot and Israel’s
captive soldiers resonate with peo-
ple. “They’re focused, they’re human,
they’re the kind of issues that moti-
vate people’s hearts and minds,”
Gutow said. “People tend to focus on
individual experiences that in some
way relate to their own lives. When
you talk about war and peace, that’s
way out there, beyond the ken. But
when you’re talking about an MIA,
people said that could be my son,
that could be my brother.”
The Zionist Organization of
America, which sponsored a citywide
Purim party in Sderot and distributed
5,000 food parcels, regularly releases
statements citing the rocket fire there
as evidence of Israel’s misbegotten
hope to negotiate with its enemies.
“This demonstrates that there
should be no further concessions and
rewards to the PA, and no further
uprooting of thousands of Jews from
their homes, as is being planned on
an even grander scale by the current
Olmert government,” ZOA President
Morton Klein said in a news release
echoing Israeli officials’ criticism of
the Gaza withdrawal.
Jewish Voice for Peace, a liberal
group based in San Francisco that
describes the attacks on Sderot as a
violation of international law, pointed
to Sderot as evidence of the need for
an entirely different political agenda.
“Starving 1.5 million Gazans will
not bring security, justice or peace
to Israelis, Palestinians or Jews any-
where,” the group said in a recent ad in
The Nation. The group called both for
the release of Shalit and Palestinian
“political prisoners” and “administra-
tive detainees” held by Israel on secu-
rity grounds without trial.
The breadth and nature of the
Jewish community’s response to
Sderot and the MIA issue has prompted
some comparisons to the Soviet Jewry
movement, the last Jewish cause to
ignite the passions of a broad swath of
American Jews.
Nancy Kisslin Flaum, Gabrielle’s
mother and a veteran of that move-
ment, said she is heartened to see
teens today standing up for their
beliefs. “As a Jewish educator, and
I’m a therapist, what I’ve loved about
everything over the last year-and-a-
half working with the kids” is that
“this issue has been an issue that
almost everybody can wrap their
arms around and jump on board,”
Nancy Flaum said. “It’s been a long
time since the Soviet Jewry move-
ment,” she went on. “To see teens
have a voice and make a difference
- that’s why doors opened so fast.
People paid attention.” □
“Bonds Voyage,” when Barry Bonds
hit the record-setting home run last
summer; “Topped by an Angel,” when
little-known golfer Angel Cabrera beat
Tiger Woods in the PGA champion-
ship and “Knocked out cold,” when
the Saints were beaten in the NFC
championship game during a snowy, 5
degrees in Chicago.
All contests were judged on mate-
rial published the previous year.
Winning entries may be seen at www.
jhvonline.com. □
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Samuels, Jeanne F. Jewish Herald-Voice (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 100, No. 12, Ed. 1 Thursday, July 3, 2008, newspaper, July 3, 2008; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth543910/m1/6/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .