To
Friday at 8:00 a.m., we boarded our buses in
Along the way, we stopped at a winery for a tour and a wine-tasting (note to self: no more wine before noon), reached Haifa and drove around the hills of Mt. Carmel to see the port (which extends almost as far as the eye can see), walked around the city, stopped to see the large Bahai church spreading over multi-level terraces of layered lawns, took an hour off for lunch at a falafel stand (great falafel), got in the buses and drove to Caesarea to see the ruins of the ancient Roman city, sat in the ruins of the Roman amphitheatre looking out on the Mediterranean, walked the beach looking for shells, then drove along the coast toward Tel Aviv, passing Netanya where we could see — by looking first to the right and then to the left — the nine mile width of Israel’s 1967 border (less than the distance between Beverly Hills and Downtown Los Angeles), continued on through Tel Aviv with its tall modern buildings, and finally made the long drive up Highway 1 back to Jerusalem — arriving in plenty of time to walk to the Western Wall to welcome Shabbat.
In other words, in less than a day, we traveled from
On the bus, I am reading Herman Wouk’s historical novel on the birth of
The novel’s main character, Zev Barak, is reviewing the operations order prepared by Mickey Marcus — the American colonel appointed by David Ben Gurion as general of the Israeli forces — to save the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, which is days short of surrender:
Here were detailed maps of each sector, annexes for logistics, transport, and intelligence, a meticulous order of battle. L’Azazel, what an effort! Only the document was a fantasy.
The array of forces, formidable on paper, was in fact a list of eroded and broken units, some so far below complement as to be little more than memories. Available supplies would fall far short of the logistics annex.
The attack plan — a frontal assault yet again, but this time a deception, while the main surprise punch came from the brigades around Jerusalem — was professionally conceived, but the fresh manpower to bring it off was not there.
Marcus, who directed the construction of the Burma Road — at night, in secret, in a matter of weeks — that broke the Arab siege of Jerusalem, and who died days thereafter, tells Barak about a poem running through his mind:
I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade . . .
He was looking straight into Barak’s eyes, his expression somber and drawn. “Ever heard it?”
Barak reluctantly sipped brandy, feeling something like pity for the first Jewish general in two thousand years. How to lift the spirits of this beset outsider, this well-meaning fish out of water, burdened by David Ben Gurion with a thankless command and a hopeless mission? . . .
Marcus took a long drink. . . “I could just get on an airplane and go home, you know. My wife thinks this isn’t my fight. I told you that. I’m sending more and more kids to get killed at Latrun for one reason. I think the Old Man is a wise tough old bastard, probably a great man, and I’m a Jew, so I’m carrying out his orders.” He resumed reciting . . .
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous . . .
“Probably not a great poem,” said Marcus, “I’m no judge of poetry. But by God, it says what a soldier thinks when he’s low. Now, what about my op order?”
“First of its kind in this army,” said Barak.
Marcus nodded, pleased. “You guys will have to learn. You’ve got a country now, and by God you’ll have to fight for it. Your kids, too. Maybe your grandchildren. After 1776 came 1812, you know. Civil War, World War I, World War II — .”
Back in Jerusalem, as Shabbat approaches, we walk from the hotel to the Old City, where we proceed down narrow streets and winding passageways, past old stone buildings along a rough stone way traveled by so many (some only in their dreams) over so many years, and then suddenly — and it is always sudden, no matter how familiar this route has become — the Wall appears in view around the final bend.
I am struck once again at what a miracle it is that this state exists, that this city is accessible, and that we are here.
There are hundreds and hundreds of people at the Wall (within an hour there will be thousands): various groups of ultra-Orthodox, some davening furiously, others walking quietly around; college students with backpacks; circles of young men, arms around each others’ shoulders, singing and dancing; rabbis seated in chairs studying pages from the Talmud.
Despite the large number of people, it is not difficult to find a place at the Wall. We place our foreheads and the palms of our hands against the Wall, praying or thinking or simply absorbing the moment. We place notes in the Wall, seeking blessings for family and friends, peace for all the inhabitants of the land, an end to the violence of millennia.