Little Miracles

A New Scroll of LA Jewish News

Folks,

All during Chanukah, our eyes and hopes, and for some, anger, were focused on the lights of Israel. By the time the box of candles was emptied, the war had kindled all manner of flame. Sadly, for a few, the conflict has lit a desire to chant slogans suggesting the eradication of Israel, to harass Jewish college students, and to deface Jewish businesses and institutions. For a growing number, however, the war has led to a rededication to Jewish ideals, including peace, and a longing for Jewish community. In the glow of these expressions of love of Israel and Jewish life, I dedicate this issue.

Not by might, nor by power will this publication continue, but through your subscription. As an independent Jewish journalist, I am adding a creative and concerned voice to the conversation about events and their impact on our Jewish community. I need your help to keep this light alive. Please subscribe to MegilLA today.

Happy last day of  Chanukah &
Shabbat shalom.
Edmon J. Rodman

////\/\\\\

////\/\\\\

Witnessing the miracles of survival

Edmon J. Rodman
 
What are the miracles of Chanukah, really? This year, celebrating the holiday in the fallout of the Israel-Hamas war, and the rise in U.S. antisemitism, miracles had been hard to find. In the lighting of the candles, there was always a flicker of doubt about the war.

In my singing of minor key holiday songs there was always a fluttering incursion of dissonance. Even the pops and smoke of the latkes cooking in oil reminded me of the conflict.

Then, on the sixth day, there was a change. Nothing miraculous, mind you, but a lightening of the darkness.

Sitting in the Solarium of J Los Angeles, I listened, eyes wide open, to the testimony of three young Israelis who had been touched by death on October 7. Hearing each of their accounts, trauma by trauma, helped shift my attention to the miracles of Jewish heroism and survival.

Their stories “will be hard to hear,” warned the J’s director Brian Greene, by way of introduction. But “our obligation is to hear the story and retell it. “We need to witness what happened,” he said.

The three, Eran Smilansky, Anat Amir, and Benny Avital, had arrived in the U.S. just that morning, and their presentations, co-sponsored by the Jewish Community Center Association, the Israel Ministry for Diaspora Affairs, and the World Zionist Organization, indeed stretched my ability to witness.

None of the three were professional speakers, but that wasn’t the reason, their stories were hard to hear. It was the unrehearsed telling, and the spilling out of angst-filled details, of the gut-twisting attack that unsettled many of the 40 or so people in the room.

Listening to their stories, I also wondered if I would have the courage, and presence of mind to do what they, or their loved ones had done.

Eran Smilansky, a 28-year-old potato farmer who lived on Kibbitz Nir Oz, a kibbutz which lies within view of southern Gaza, shared matter-of-factly, how he survived the Hamas attack on his home.

Haltingly, he told the story of how, armed and hiding in the closet of the saferoom of his home, he had fended off several Hamas attackers, eventually wounding eight of them.

“They found me in the closet, and jumped back. I jumped out. I didn’t want to kill them,” he said, “Just one bullet for each one.”

After the attackers pulled back, he thought they would mount another attack. “I was just waiting to die, to be honest,” he said.

When the army finally arrived via helicopter, “We found dead bodies, dead friends,” he said, sending a chill through me, and I suspect, many in the room.

“The army took the dead bodies,” he said, letting us know that this act had saved him from the worst kind of anguish. “I can’t see my friends dead,” said Eran.

The Hamas attack left another of the witnesses, Anat Amir, in mourning. “I am here to tell you the story of my father,” said the mathematician. “His is a story of heroism that must be told and must be heard.”

On the day of the attack, Anat was safe at home in Tel Aviv. Her 67-year-old father Mordechai, a man with kind eyes, who everyone called Mordi, was living on Kibbutz Kfar Aza.

“He worked in computers since the early 80s in his kibbutz house. He always knew how to solve anything,” she remembered. He designed things and “was the embodiment of what it meant to be an engineer.”

A “thorough,” worker, he did not use Google to look up design solutions. Instead, when confronted with a design problem, he would “google the manual, and then devise a solution.”

In the days after his death, Anat was able to piece together her father’s solution to the deadly problem he faced.

At the time of the attack Mordi was home with other family members. When he realized the attackers were heading for his home, he told his family to go to the safe room, and “‘Get into the bathroom and lock the door,’” she said.

Though safe houses in Israel don’t have bathrooms, her father was the kind of person who planned for any contingency, Anat explained.

Thinking quickly, “he sat on the floor of the saferoom with his back against the door,” said his daughter. “He chose his position carefully.”

“The terrorists shot him. They murdered him. He knew that they would kill him. But he did have a plan. He positioned himself in such a way that he would block the door. The terrorists would have to make an extra effort to move him to get to his family.”

The plan saved his family.

“More than anything I feel robbed. My father was robbed of his future and I was robbed of his presence. He should have been here to worry about me. And most of all, he should have been here for me to worry about him,” she said.

“I must somehow grow from this. Somehow become better than I was before. Otherwise, his death would be for naught.”

Benny Avital, another survivor from Nir Oz, a friend and neighbor of Eran’s, also had a story of survival to tell. Setting the scene, he showed us a map, detailing how close the kibbutz, home to “around 400 people, young families, adults, a variety of people,” was to Gaza.

“My wife is a runner,” he said. “She runs close to the border,” close to the no-man’s land. “It is so safe,” said Benny, on any other day “a nice open place to run.”

The day of the attack, she did not run, as she was away in Tel Aviv with Benny’s sister-in-law. He stayed home with their three kids, and that night they all slept outdoors in their sukkah.

Awakening them the next morning around 6 A.M. was the siren. It’s demanding call sent them into their home’s bomb shelter, or safe room. Living that close to the border, “the kids are used to it,” said Benny.

Though his kids thought it was “a little scary,” they “were happy there was no school tomorrow.” This was “before we understood what was happening,” he added.

Immediately, Benny started getting What’s Up messages on his phone. He and his wife talked. “Don’t worry,” he told her, “We are in the room, it’s OK.”

Soon, from the gun fire and yelling outside, Benny realized they were anything but that. He heard the terrorists come into his home.

Wanting the audience to understand his situation, he laid out for us: He was alone with the kids, in a bomb shelter that was designed to withstand rocket attacks, not attacks from armed terrorists. And, the door had no lock.

Though Benny was a member of a kibbutz team of first responders, who had rifles and ammunition in the house, his first priority was to hold the door shut.

He heard the terrorists, shouting in Arabic, while they smashed up the house. “They try to open the door,” said Benny. Only his hand on the door handle is keeping them out.

Ten minutes pass, but they are not able to enter. “They didn’t shoot through the door," explained Benny still incredulous.

The terrorists go outside, then come back, this time facetiously wishing him “Chag Sameach.”

“The only thing that separates me and the kids from the terrorists is the handle. I hope I have the strength,” he said.

With no sign of rescue by the army or police, the terrorists are there for a long time “They feel comfortable. Like they own the place,” said Benny.

Around 12 they leave. Only then, as Benny goes outside, does he see the extent of the damage on the kibbutz.

Many of the homes were in flames.

“Where is the army?” he asked.

He rescues one family whose house was not completely engulfed. As they emerged, they were black with soot.

Via cell phone, his friend and neighbor Eran Smilansky, also re-emerges. He has survived.

The Jerusalem Post estimated that around a quarter of the people of Nir Oz were assassinated, kidnapped, or injured in a very severe way. About a third of total prisoners kidnapped to Gaza were Benny’s neighbors.

The losses continued to mount. Later Benny found that his big brother, Gil Avital, 56, who also lived on a kibbutz died in the attack. After fighting to save his own kibbutz, he died helping to save a nearby moshav.

“I know that Americans like a happy ending. It’s not a happy ending,” he said.
“When I went outside It felt like Armageddon. It was completely silent,” said Benny. All the doors were open and I could see no one. It was my little miracle that I survived.”

Benny and his family are staying in a hotel in Elat. Soon they will move to Tel Aviv. As a community, “we will decide what to do next,” he said. “We are trying to get back to normal. Right now, this is our fight.”

////\/\\\\

Live from the Archive*

This vintage postcard, postmarked “1957,” shows the Westside Jewish Community Center (now J Los Angeles) as a USO (United Service Organizations) location. It’s a reminder of what the Jewish community has done to help American servicemen and women. “Thousands of servicemen attending the Jewish Welfare Board program each month join seven thousand members in making use of the 80,000 square feet of facilities,” reads the caption on the back. Purchased from a vendor in Israel, and arriving during the Israel-Hamas war, the card demonstrates that at times Israel can be a source for artifacts connecting us to LA's Jewish past.

*The Rodman Archive of Los Angeles Jewish History is a collection of approximately 1000 objects, photos, clothing, art, books, recordings, and ephemera relating to the lives and endeavors of Jewish Angelenos between 1850 and 1980.

////\/\\\\