A Meshuganah Goy Joins the Navy!
Having served my thirty five year sentence as a clinical social worker in Community Psychiatry, I worked nights on my vacation to close off a career, downsized my life radically, and caught a plane with the intention of serving Sar El for three months.
Unimaginable. . . indescribable . . . beyond my wildest dreams ! I lived a lifetime in those three months.
My previous 2, 3-week assignments (2007, 2008) had introduced me to the IDF volunteer experience, but three months had made me part of Israeli society and Army life. Sar El is the only place on earth that you can do anything even roughly approximating this.
The first assignment was a medical supply base – (with a big international Sar El group) and for the first time I began to realize that we (Sar El) as well as Israel, are at the crossroads of the ‘universe.’ We stand at the point in history and geography where 2,500 years ago, Jewish prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel predicted that Jews from the four corners of the world would be streaming back to this tiny patch of real estate at the intersection of the world’s trade, religion, politics and avian routes.
My dormitory room had two Atlanta journalists, one of New York City’s finest-shot in the line of duty, and a brilliant Chilean linguist. Other volunteers included kids from France, Canada, South Africa, Siberia, Moscow and the States all with different motivations and plans with respect to Israel. There were Aussies, New Zealanders, Dutch – heroic people, many with unimaginable histories of tragedy and recovery. So many are unimpressive-looking, professionals with amazing and business accomplishments, and familial connections with the holocaust; Jews making the first stages of Aliyah, young, bright-eyed youth with careers and education in suspension for a time, while they learned from the unique people of this miraculous land. Observant Jews, Atheists, Christians, Agnostics, New Age, Hebrew, Gentile, all dressed in khaki with the blue Sar El epaulettes and a wish to serve this most (by Hashem’s Grace alone) unbelievable military in history.
In the evenings, we discussed (and competed over) knowledge of Israeli history, demographics and art; we swam in the Mayaon pools near Jerusalem, toured Mt. Hertzl and wept over the graves of the recent Cast Lead and Lebanon-Operations warriors. We had an evening with a heroine of the Siege of Jerusalem: Zipporah Porath; and disclosed ourselves, (our motivations, and our passions) to one another.
Then Pam gave me a choice for my next assignment and Mashuginah Goy was off to the Navy.
South of Haifa, it was a large Tech, Logistics, Supply and Transport base with a Commander who treated us like royalty. He was a war hero who had us to his boardroom three times and introduced us to his senior staff. We also had two mornings per week when we could run with the Senior Staff on the Haifa beach waterfront since the commander had ‘fitness’ as a high priority for his people. Base discipline was significant because of its security-sensitivity as an installation: no photos, no computers. We were serving the vessels that keep Israel’s magnificent coastline and airspace – safe.
Bordered on the west side by massive Banana plantations with towering cliffs to the east. . . the site was magnificent. When the surf was heavy we could hear the roar in the distance while the banana leaves clapped and rattled in the foreground.
The Sar El group was amazing: A tenured, eastern US university professor and his wife, a Russian-American software specialist who ran his own business and had been beaten up by the KGB and imprisoned for a year for possessing a copy of Solzhenitsyn’s GULAG. . . ; an ex-prima-ballerina who had grown up in Iran and her author and parliamentary-aide husband from Britain who were living in France. An Aussie business man that had survived and thrived after a catastrophic auto accident, two Israeli women living in Judea, a South African business woman whose children were prospering and she was now free to come and serve; a New York businesswoman who had been living in San Diego who had moved to Israel for eight years and spoke fluent Hebrew. Then there was the multi-lingual Dutch woman living in Denmark and an electrical engineer from the States and . . . me (Goy Mashugah). They were all brilliant, accomplished, multi-lingual, multi-cultural individuals, in love with Israel .
Our evenings were intoxicating. We discussed the relevance of the Hatikvah. The professor presented on how he had believed that he was the only surviving member of a family line, exterminated during the holocaust. He had (over a decade’s work) found over 100 relatives living in Israel. It was a powerful and emotional event.
Then the British author (living and teaching in France) presented on his book about Jewish twins saved by the Kinder Transport to Britain who had been raised as Christians in an abusive family home.
These creative, complicated, gentle, ingenious people accepted me so well that it makes me tear-up to think about it. Me, an outsider, a categorical ‘representative’ of an institution that persecuted their people for 1700 years. I was included, appreciated and given a voice: It was that wonderful Jewish: “Hesed” (charity).
The lone Madricha (a tough job) arranged tours of the Naval Museum, Safed, and a spectacular high-tech winery in the Northern Galilee. As we were descending through the Druze villages on our way back to the base, the Hezbollah launched a rocket into the area just to show their appreciation to the UN.
I got into trouble in my assignment by climbing around on the high warehouse shelves just to assist in the aesthetics of the arrangement of stored materials. An inspection of the base was imminent. I was “punished” by re-assignment to the base-maintenance and fire-suppression commander. He was a young, vibrant, appreciative, 20-something sergeant that became a master sergeant (stripe moved from the sleeve to the epaulette) while I was there. He invited me to the ceremony. This young guy had driven ammunition trucks during the second Lebanon war while Katushya Rockets flew overhead. He had his war medal above the pocket on his white Navy shirt.
We had to re-paint all the fire hydrants and equipment boxes on the base with a glossy oil paint so that they could easily be found day or night. There were about 200 items to paint and we had two days of 40 degree Celsius temperatures. I loved my ‘punishment’ and had no problem tolerating the heat . It was outdoors, I had more work than I could ever finish and in fact I had to recruit the other Sar El-niks if their workload dropped temporarily. I could watch the airplanes on patrol and maneuvers overhead and hear the comforting rattle of gunfire in the nearby range and training-grounds. At night we would hear the local residents shooting wild boar.
Then the blessed rain hit and it was wild! Blew out all the plastic-covered windows of our Moadon (lounge) but turned the beautiful mountainside green. We needed warmer clothing and during the rain I was assigned to renovate the office of my newly-promoted ‘boss.’ So I was stripping, sparkling and painting his new office . That was in-between pumping fuel oil to the hot water system and setting up for a fire-suppression training session . I love variety !
It was during that time that the Israeli Navy captured the Iranian arms ship destined for the Hezbollah (Nov 3rd). GO NAVY ! ! !
I re-enlisted at this base since my work was not complete in the first three weeks. The next Sar-El group was largely American. I remained ‘Navy’ while they served with HOME FRONT command under a gracious Druze commander, repairing and replacing materials for civilian causalities of war and natural disasters.
Again, it was a stunningly varied group of business people and professionals, more homogeneous in age but brilliant. CPA’s, a pharmacist, artist and photographer, a Uruguayan-American linguist businessman and several people with US military experience. Some had made history.
We got to the Hannah Senesh’ Memorial (on her beach-front Kibbutz), Caesarea, and the Naval Museum and had wonderful interaction with a Parisian Golani soldier who had a training accident and was recovering at this base. He was trying to get his points up to return to his Golani unit. We also met the young geniuses from the computer department responsible for missile, tracking, firing and threat-alert control systems. These young soldiers and Navy personnel were magnificent and what was so comforting was that unlike the majority of Canadian, American and Western European youth, they KNEW that they are at war.
In our evening activities we had our language, history and culture quizzes and discussed issues surrounding the debate between religious observance and secular-business challenges. Then there was the topic of the impact of the massive Russian immigration.
The remarkable gratitude and graciousness of the Israeli people to a Christian- Goy- that- loves- Israel- with- a- visceral- passion –was remarkable. The Sabra ‘prickles’ are actually under-developed blossoms. Not only is the Sabra sweet inside, but it is tough, necessarily-defended and beautiful as a cactus blossom.
At the end of my second assignment at Tirat Carmel, Pam gave me another choice (bless her) and this too was spectacular. Tech and Logistics – in the Negev.
I had never been in the Negev and was looking forward to it. I had my first dust-storm yet we had beautiful, gentle rains on several days. Again: different base, different military culture, different Sar El culture.
This base was immaculately organized and clean, good morale and much more relaxed in its discipline. We were treated like royalty (relatively speaking, of course by ‘military’ standards). The nights were frosty and the days were 22 degrees. My bunk-mates (not in the same bunk of course) were again international, brilliant and varied.
My work partner was a genius Russian-American who had served Missile guidance systems in the Russian Army. He had his own software development company and a photographic memory not only for technology but also history and culture.
Our dorm had a US Army Lt Colonel Reserves (retired), an Aussie businessman with an apartment in Israel and the ‘Russkie’. Of our group, we had a British agency translator, Israeli-Oleh-couple who were traveling, an American artist and photographer, a chemical engineer and a young Torontonian businessman. Again we were Christians and Jews, observant and nominal, but with a higher proportion of ‘Goyim’ than in any other of my six groups.
My job was in an open-sided warehouse where we were dismantling, re-sorting and cataloguing tank parts into mobile containers for front-line repair stations. Around us were tank engines and the warehouse across the alley stored the canon barrels. Our civilian supervisor spoke little English but was extremely experienced with Sar El volunteers. The “Russian” businessman had good facility with languages and had enough Hebrew to really mediate. It was hard physical work, exacting and meaningful. When the containers were transported to the Heli-pad by the big fork-lifts, we would paint redundant army vehicles that were held for parts so they could not be used for terrorist purposes. While the paint was still dripping, the big fork lift would literally come and snap it out from under our brushes.
Our evenings were vigorous because the intellectual acumen in the room was stunning. The Madrichot were highly committed and delightful. We visited the Award- winning Beersheba Palmach Memorial dedicated to the defense of the Jewish community from the Egyptian Army and Arab irregulars in 1948. Then we were off to Ben Gurion’s Sde Boker’ and the ‘Midreshet grave site. Our road passed amidst meditating camels, Bedouin encampments and the spectacular desolation of the desert.
On base the air was filled with Air Force activity. The base that Sar El had helped move from Tel Aviv was nearby so the transport planes that I had served in 2007 were flying overhead.
On the weekends, I stayed mostly in Tel Aviv, so every Sunday, I was up at 4:30am and caught the train either to Haifa (when I was with the Navy) or Beersheba . The trains become ‘troop-trains’ on Sunday morning and Thursday afternoon as Israel’s remarkable youth head either off or onto the bases all over the country. These beautiful kids, carrying automatic weapons and packs as big as they are – beautiful young late-teen-to-early-twenties. These girls with shoulder ‘tags’ from every type of unit, ranks, of all levels, carrying huge packs and fire-arms – represented a sight so incongruous with our naïve North American and Western European view of the world- that it was astonishing.
But Israel is on the front lines of a war that the rest of the world denies is even taking place. Just as in 1930, they are hated for being Jews and blamed for every political problem on earth, so they are now conscripted into a war they didn’t start and would ecstatically lay down their arms and go ‘off-alert’ if they thought for a moment they would survive. They stand alone in a terror war that is different from any other time in human history. They have to find humane ways to fight this war against ‘people’ who hide-behind (and celebrate the deaths of) their own women and children. When they defend themselves, they are condemned because to the majority of the international community the only way there will be global peace is when they no longer have a homeland, sovereignty, and the capacity to defend themselves.
Israel Geva, the Air Force war hero that acts as coordinator for Sar El, came and spoke to us on behalf of General Aaron Davidi who was the architect of Sar El. He tells of the very unique situation in which Israel finds itself. The threat to Israel extends as a threat to the whole world, yet the world (as in 1938) refuses to believe it. Israel is forced by the international dictators to give away the small amount of land it has and immediately that land becomes a terror base of operation to attack them. We have seen it in Gaza: soon: Judea and Samaria.
In this untenable double bind, the soldiers, sailors and airmen of the IDF see Sar El volunteers appear. This Diaspora of brilliant and creative Jews (and the Christians who support them) converge on the crossroads of the universe and put out a hand to their own people to let them know they are not alone in the fight. So often the soldiers don’t understand because it really doesn’t make any sense: “You spend YOUR money to come from YOUR comfortable existence which WE would like to have. . . to do ‘grunt work’ in the ARMY that WE (except for the elite combat units) would like to avoid ! ! ! ? ? ? ? ? ?
One of the greatest challenges of retiring is the loss of one’s occupational identity. Baruch Hashem Adonai, these three months immediately replaced my old identity with a brand new and much more meaningful one.
Roger Brian Neill, BA, MA, RSW
New Westminster, B.C.,
Canada