Dr. Tamar Katko is a historian and educator specializing in the World War II period. She heads the Secondary Humanities Teaching Track at Kibbutzim College and serves as curator of the Jewish Fighter in World War II Museum named after President Chaim Herzog.

Dr. Tamar Katko believes Victory Day over Nazi Germany, which falls on May 9, is an appropriate time to discuss the approximately one and a half million Jews who fought in World War II. Their names don't make headlines, but their magnificent history often reaches you at the Jewish Fighter Museum in Latrun, which you helped found and where you serve as chief curator. The story of Corporal Samuel Elyakim (Sam) Schwartz, for instance, is beyond comprehension.

"Schwartz came from an Orthodox Jewish family that immigrated from Hungary to the US in 1939. He didn't fit in at the yeshiva due to behavioral issues, so he found himself wandering the streets without knowing a word of English. When World War II broke out, friends from the neighborhood suggested he enlist with them."

"He volunteered for the 82nd Airborne Division and served as a paratrooper in the headquarters company of the 504th Regiment. He was trained in special forces and emerged as a brave paratrooper and commander who carried out operations in enemy territory under constant life-threatening conditions. Among other missions, he participated in battles in North Africa, the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes, and in Germany. With his unit comrades, he rescued several Holocaust survivors at Dachau camp and brought them to the US for treatment after the war. For his actions, he received dozens of medals for bravery, and he is even buried with his wife in Jerusalem."

What happened to him after the war ended?

"He returned home and informed his family of his return. They looked at him, with all his uniforms and medals, and his father announced they were willing to consider taking him back into the family – only if he removed all the 'costumes' he was wearing and returned to study at the yeshiva, without hearing a word about what he went through during the war. Schwartz agreed, returned to the yeshiva, became a rabbi, and locked away all his uniforms and medals in a sealed safe. Eventually, he had four daughters, none of whom knew or heard about their father's heroism during the war."

When was his story revealed?

"When Schwartz's daughters arrived to pay condolence calls to one of the people Schwartz had rescued during the war. In the living room were photo albums, and on one of the pages, those present told about the picture of that American hero who saved Jews, a brave hero discussed even at military academies and the White House."

"One of Schwartz's daughters, Drey Chaya Hochstein, said the man in the picture looked familiar, and when she asked his name – she nearly fainted. She said it couldn't be possible because her father was also named Samuel Elyakim Schwartz, but he hadn't participated in any war. They told her to check again. Eventually, she found the safe containing his will and uniforms."

And the story branches out, because then she called you.

"She told me she tried to interest the Yad Vashem Museum in the will, but they weren't interested. That's how the uniforms and medals came to our museum. She flew to Israel and bought a separate seat for her father's uniform so it wouldn't get wrinkled. The museum in Washington offered her a legendary sum for this jacket, but she decided to bring it to us. We built an entire display case around Schwartz's uniform and story. In the end, Dale Hochstein made aliyah following her father, who is buried here, and today we're even neighbors. When people from the US military visit our museum, they're amazed – because they study his tactics, but his own family barely knew who he was."

Galloping toward death

About Polina Gelman, the Jewish woman, some have heard a bit more, but she, too, is not really a well-known figure.

"Despite her physical unsuitability due to her short height – less than 4.9 feet – and after her tireless persistence, she was accepted to a flight and navigation course and recruited to the women's regiment in the Soviet Red Army Air Force. Because of her small hands, her flight gloves slipped off every time she launched a bomb. Despite these seemingly problematic physical attributes, in 1942, she was assigned to an operational flight unit and began missions bombing German targets. She bombed force concentrations, fuel depots, anti-aircraft batteries, searchlights, bridges, vehicles, and caused significant damage to the Germans. In total, she completed 857 missions, logged 1,300 flight hours, and dropped 113 tons of bombs, earning her the Hero of the Soviet Union award."

There's also Colonel Mordechai Frizis, a Jewish fighter who became a national hero of Greece.

"At the outbreak of World War II, as a Lieutenant Colonel, he commanded a Greek battalion against the Italian attack in northern Greece, on the Albanian front. His soldiers truly admired him, and in the Kalama sector, he managed to break the Italian attack and force the Italian troops to retreat, leaving behind hundreds of dead and about 700 prisoners. Some saw this as the first victory for the Allies in World War II."

"The next day, on December 5, 1940, his unit was attacked by Italian aircraft. Although he ordered everyone else in his unit to take cover to avoid being targeted by the aircraft, he continued to command from horseback and refused to dismount while galloping and encouraging his men with the battle cry 'Aeras' (courage). During this attack, he was killed by aircraft fire. For his bravery and courage, he was awarded the Gold Medal. He became one of Greece's national heroes, with his statue erected in the main square of his hometown, Chalkis, and in the courtyard of the military museum in Kalpaki, in northwestern Greece. Twenty-five streets in various cities across Greece, including the capital Athens, bear his name."

And there are no streets named after him in Israel. The name Haviva Reik is also less well-known to the general public. Hannah Szenes, on the other hand, is known to all of us. Why is that?

"That's a wonderful question. To create memory consciousness, you need to work at it. You need to write about the subject of memory, work on embedding the memory, and promote it. But the Reik family, to answer your question, mostly from Kibbutz Ma'anit, members of Hashomer Hatzair, were modest people who didn't come from an aristocratic background like the Szenes family – and they didn't succeed in promoting the memory consciousness of Haviva Reik. Hannah Szenes's father, on the other hand, was Bela Szenes – a publicist, writer, and author. That apparently filtered through."

It's easier to promote memory consciousness that way.

"Add to that the fact that Szenes came to Nahalal and abandoned her bourgeois image. She became a country girl from Nahalal who worked in the chicken coop and cowshed, yet still wrote in hiding, because writing was perceived as a bourgeois act. Although Haviva Reik also rode Vespas in Slovakia, cut her hair, and dressed like a pioneer, her family didn't engage in promoting her memory."

"For Hannah Szenes, they held a funeral that passed through all the cities in the country, and her honor remains intact, but it's also worth remembering Haviva's activities: she organized Jewish refugees in Slovakia, created an underground network with partisans, and smuggled them to the mountains. In the end, she was caught during a struggle and paid with her life. She was fire and brimstone, yet almost nothing is known about her. That's the shaping of memory consciousness. It depends on who invests in it, and who has the desire to preserve a certain figure that serves cultural and social needs, a figure that will be remembered and become an icon."

Nordau's DNA

And here are more figures whose past we've forgotten: most of us don't really remember that Ezer Weizman or Haim Laskov also fought in World War II.

"Laskov was in the Brigade along with Meir Zorea and Israel Tal. Ezer Weizman was a driver in North Africa. You haven't heard much about it because it doesn't fit our national ethos. After Weizman heard in a telegram that his cousin, pilot Michael Weizman, the son of Chaim Weizman, was killed over the Bay of Biscay in the North Atlantic Ocean, he decided that he too wanted to be a pilot. He persisted until they transferred him to flight training."

"The first 12 generals in the IDF were from the Brigade, three IDF Chiefs of Staff came from the British Army, along with two presidents – Ezer Weizman and Chaim Herzog. Most of the commanders who shaped the IDF were World War II veterans, but this conflicts with the narrative of the Palmach, Irgun, and Lehi, whose stories are remembered by most of us."

These were more grassroots, Hebrew, nationalist organizations.

"And World War II is associated with the diaspora. It's impossible to build a national ethos of beautiful blondes and fine figures based on a diaspora story with fighters who received medals from the British Army. We needed here the image of the new Jew, the pioneer, the buddy. Rabin, for example."

What else doesn't fit the narrative?

"That in World War II, we had 1,700 people from the Jewish settlement who enlisted in the British Army and were prisoners in Greece, in German captivity. They were tortured, starved, some escaped, and some returned in waves. Among them, for instance, was Shimon Peres' father, Yitzhak Perski. What happened to all those liberated prisoners? We didn't hear about it because it didn't fit the narrative. What image does a prisoner or captive have, when our desire was to establish a state that would represent the image of the strong Jew, the sabra, the one who doesn't surrender? There are things that weren't displayed in our showcase. The Holocaust, on the other hand, was portrayed on a different scale, inconceivable, and alongside victims and crimes against humanity, there were also quite a few heroic elements of Jewish heroes."

But your claim is that we mainly remember the victims, not the male and female fighters.

"We adopted the image that a Jew is a good merchant, a good banker, scientist, writer, poet, wonderful musician, philosopher. But a fighter? That's not in the Jewish DNA."

Max Nordau and Ze'ev Jabotinsky, for example, would not agree with you.

"Nordau's 'Muscular Judaism' tried to change that perception – that is, we are not the limp Jew. And indeed, many fighters adopted this new DNA. When Jewish fighters from various armies arrived in Europe, they understood that Holocaust victims could easily have been them or their parents. It hit them hard and also shook their integration in the countries they came from, because they didn't want to be Jews in antisemitic countries. However, most of them didn't immigrate to Israel, they weren't Zionists, and therefore most of them aren't mentioned in our history."

"Nails in the Nazis' throats"

How would you characterize the nature of Jewish fighters in World War II?

"They had an urge to prove that 'we are not like you think we are.' They tried to prove it in school sports classes and outside school hours as well. This means that Jews showed they don't avoid danger, don't avoid responsibility, they're the first to charge, to take responsibility. My father, for instance, who was among the leaders of the Sonderkommando revolt, eliminated Nazis and skewered them with nails in their throats."

"Jews proved they would fulfill any mission as army soldiers. When Jewish fighters saw the sights at Auschwitz, and were subsequently the first to rush toward Berlin and conquer it, with that energy from Auschwitz, they simply wrecked Berlin, destroyed every evidence of Nazism. This doesn't necessarily characterize Jews, but it was important for them to show Jewish power, and that's how they would want us to remember it."

This raises questions for me about October 7 – how will they remember and teach the events of this terrible massacre? How will they present the hostages, the military's failure?

"The Jewish people don't like to learn from the past. We tend to skip over our history, consciously or unconsciously. We have uncracked layers regarding our relationship with the past, with our history. I hope that the memory of October 7 will be meaningful. This is an event that must enter our memory consciousness, even if it doesn't make us feel good. Fighters must understand their history to understand why they charge forward. Citizens must understand what happened here to understand why they choose to live here. And if they don't have an answer – that's a fundamental problem."

"I also deal with this in a new course I built at Kibbutzim College – 'Ceremonial Rituals: Their Place in Education and Shaping Memory Consciousness.' The course brings up the raw and unedited past, and its purpose is to look at the history of ceremonies, rituals of worship, and what they address from a community and human perspective.

"I believe that this raw completeness, the exposure to the difficult raw materials from the current war and those that preceded it, is essential to create a complete memory consciousness. To truly understand where we came from and where we're going, we must not discard anything. The antithesis to this is sweeping under the carpet, which could harm us. We will grow from this great fire that happened to us on October 7. My father always said that the soot from a burned forest is the best fertilizer. The greenest leaves grow from the most burned forests. But for that, we must not forget."

The post Memory's selective lens: Why Jewish WWII heroes' stories fade appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Professor Meir Litvak is a historian and chair of the Department of Middle Eastern and African History at Tel Aviv University. 

Q: The surprise attack by the Hamas terrorist organization on Oct. 7th has proved several Israeli assumptions wrong. As an expert on the Middle East, would you say the concept that Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah is cautious and does not wish to engage in war with Israel has also been shattered? 

"As strange as it may sound, the concept still stands because Nasrallah has not yet launched a full campaign against Israel, and his activity on the border is also considered to be below the threshold of war, seemingly cautious."

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Q: Isn't it absurd that this is the definition of relative caution? We see more and more terror acts and threats in the north and already have casualties. 

"Nasrallah is nearing that boundary and constantly pushes the limit of provocation without forcing Israel into a complete war with Lebanon, at this time. But it does necessitate Israel to turn its attention and resources there. What I am describing may change at any moment, if the circumstances change for Nasrallah. If he decides that Israel is weak or ineffective, he may act differently."

Q: On the other hand, if a war does break out with Lebanon, Nasrallah must understand that the damage of the 2006 Lebanon War will pale in comparison. 

"He understands this very well, but if he concludes that Israel is sinking in the mud of Gaza, exhausted, and the IDF worn out, he may be tempted to act, and this is a very dark scenario as far as we are concerned. Another option is that the situation in Gaza will become catastrophic, Hamas will collapse and the Iranians will order Nasrallah to save what is left. In such a case, he may be forced to act against his will."

Q: Is there a scenario where Nasrallah will not comply with Iran, assuming that the price for him will be too high?

"When foreign media reported in August that Israel struck a drone factory in Iran, Nasrallah was quick to announce that revenge would come from Tehran. That is, he removed from himself the responsibility to respond. Is that what will happen now too? It depends on the circumstances, and making predictions in the Middle East is a very dubious business."

Q: Either way, the strategic surprise he aspired to, an ideological victory, he won't receive. 

"Then he will have to settle for a tactical surprise. There are still forces at the border, and it is possible to surprise them. After what happened in Gaza, anything can happen, even when we are on high alert."

Q: What do you think Nasrallah wishes for strategically? He said he wanted to conquer the Galilee. And what then? 

"Such an occupation, even for a short amount of time, would be a tremendous strategic blow to Israel. If we compare it to what is happening in the Gaza periphery, are we sure it will return to normal? That the kibbutzim will be restored? The same is true in the north. A strategic defeat for Israel is part of a long and historical process, which for them includes the decline of Israel and its collapse. If tens of thousands of Israelis leave the country because of the war, that too they view as a step toward Israel's collapse. And they are convinced it will happen, as are Hamas and Iran."

Q: They had a once-in-a-century opportunity on Oct. 7. Why did they not go all the way? 

"I don't think they were aware yet of the magnitude of the achievement on the first day. War is also not something that you can start in half an hour, and activating the missiles takes a certain amount of time. Moreover, it is quite possible that they feared the magnitude of the blow that Israel would retaliate with. Hezbollah is still cautious."

Q: From the outside, Nasrallah is cautious, perhaps deterred. From the inside, is Nasrallah's position as secretary-general of Hezbollah strong and stable?

"He is the undisputed leader of Hezbollah. In the Shiite group, his position is strong, he is admired, successful, and sophisticated."

Q: He is less revered in Lebanon. 

"True, the Lebanese people are angry at him and hold him responsible for the country's devastating economy. But in Hezbollah, his position is strong."

Q: Hezbollah is a separate economic entity from Lebanon. A Hezbollah fighter earns as much as the Lebanese chief of staff. Does Nasrallah care about Lebanon at all? 

"He created this myth that he is the defender of Lebanon. Nasrallah was portrayed as the one who restored Lebanon's sovereignty after the IDF withdrew from the security zone in 2000. He does not want to go down in history as the destroyer of Lebanon if another war breaks out against Israel.

"It's true that Hezbollah operates as an independent economic system, and to a large extent damages the Lebanese economy and destroys it, but it still wants to appear as the savior of Lebanon. That's why Nasrallah is walking a tightrope between promoting Hezbollah's interests and protecting Lebanon."

Q: And how would you describe the relationship between Hezbollah and Syria?

"As far as Syria is concerned, when [former President] Hafez Assad was still alive, Nasrallah reported to him. But today the relationship between Hezbollah and Syria is more like that of equals. Bashar Assad listens to Nasrallah's advice and wisdom. The relationship between Syria and Hezbollah has changed a lot in Nasrallah's favor, and this is part of his achievement."

Q: Does Nasrallah really understand Israeli society, as he claims?

"I think his 'spider web' theory is wrong. He thought that if we were given a small blow, we would collapse. But even in the face of the failure of state institutions, we see Israeli society, and its strength. At the same time, he understands well the psychology of Israelis. He knows how to play on our fears, and he is taunting us by inciting fear."

Q: If you had to guess, what do you think is going through Nasrallah's mind at the moment? 

"He wants to see how the Israelis act, how strongly we react. He watches with curiosity to understand how this event will end and remains vigilant. He raises the threshold of provocation all the time, and it is always possible that he will take one step too far."

Q: And what do we know about him as a person? 

"He came from the lower class and studied in Najaf, Iraq. Although he was not a student of [former Supreme Leader of Iran] Ruhollah Khomeini, he certainly absorbed the radical spirit. He returned to Lebanon, stood out as a very talented person, and what's interesting is that when it was decided to replace the first leader of Hezbollah, Subhi al-Tufayli, they wanted Nasrallah to be the one to replace him, but he refused. He was in his early 30s then and said that he was too young, not mature enough, and decided that he did not want leadership. In the end, Abbas al-Musawi took office, and chose Nasrallah as his number two."

Q: And what does that tell you? 

"That Nasrallah is not an obsessive honor seeker, he is cautious and relatively modest. Furthermore, he sent his son to fight in Israel, and he was killed in one of the encounters with the IDF. That is, he not only sends others to die but also endangers his family and is ready to pay a personal price. It increases his prestige."

Q: You mentioned al-Musawi, who was assassinated by Israel. What do you think the repercussions would be if the IDF assassinated Nasrallah? 

"Because he is so talented and dangerous, it's unlikely that we'll get a worse replacement." 

Q: And what can be said of Nasrallah's relationship with the Supreme Leader of Iran Ali Khamenei?

"Iran sees him as the leader of Hezbollah. Khamenei appreciates him and even likes him, while Nasrallah sees Khamenei as his supreme leader, and he is also subordinate to him. Let's not forget that Nasrallah ranks low in terms of his position in the religious hierarchy, he is a member of the Shiite religious establishment. When Nasrallah meets with Khamenei, he kisses his hand. It is a sign that 'I am subjected to you'. In other words, Hezbollah does not start anything strategic here without an order from Khamenei."

Q: What about the interesting dynamic we've seen since the beginning of the war: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh's meeting with Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, or for example, Nasrallah's meeting with him? What is the nature of the communication like these days along the Hezbollah-Iran-Hamas axis?

"Let's not forget that Saleh al-Arouri, the deputy head of Hamas' political bureau, is in Beirut, and he maintains close and daily contact with Nasrallah. Just a few months ago, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad established a joint headquarters in Beirut, and it is clear that such a headquarters also includes members of the IRGC. 

"That is, it is clear that the Iranians are considering a scenario of the convergence of the arenas, and it is clear that the Hezbollah-Iran-Hamas triangle is very active, and even more so in times of war. We can assume that Hamas hoped Hezbollah would enter the war much faster.

"But Iran is not necessarily eager to use Hezbollah, unless as a last resort. Iran has always maintained Hezbollah as the arm that would act against Israel if Israel attacked Iran. But now the chance of Israel attacking Iran is zero, and then Iran may decide that it is possible to use Hezbollah."

Q: Why is the chance of Israel attacking Iran now zero?

"It would be a bad idea to attack Iran. Look at how we dealt with Hamas, and the amount of resources we will have to invest there is still far from over. So going to war with a country 1,500 kilometers [932 miles] away, a country with 2,500 ballistic missiles that can reach any point in Israel, sounds like a far-fetched idea. We can't handle our weakest enemy well, so how do we handle our strongest enemy? We need to stop with this arrogance, according to which we can do anything, and recognize the limit of our power."

Q: Given your in-depth knowledge of Khamenei, what do you think is going through his mind at the moment? What are his red lines?

"Khamenei detests Israel with all his heart and wishes for its destruction. He also did not hide his great joy at what happened to us. However, he is cautious. He does not want direct Iranian involvement, and it is very important to him that there be no Israeli hit inside Iran. That is why he is determined and sophisticated in using his proxies, Hezbollah for example, who will do the job.

"Khamenei had an opportunity on Oct. 7th, but he also has a historical vision, so he is not in a hurry to destroy Israel right now. His ideological view is that Israel's blood must be shed, brought to its collapse so that it will submit to Iran's demands and no longer exist as a Jewish state. Then, according to his vision, we will all return 'home' – some to Morocco and some to Ukraine. Along the way, it is important to him that Hamas does not collapse, and there is a danger that he will try to push Hezbollah to intervene, but without Iran itself bearing responsibility for the results."

Q: What else do we know about Khamenei as a person? 

"He is a cunning and sophisticated politician. He is not a great light from a halachic point of view, but completely mediocre. He nurtured the Revolutionary Guards, which is the focus of his main power. He is also suspicious because every president who served under him in Iran was failed by him. He is obsessed with his hatred for America, and especially for Israel.

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"A research analysis revealed that Israel appears in his speeches 90% of the time, while in Khomeini's it appeared only about 40% of the time. Khamenei is also modest. He makes sure to dress modestly. [Former President of Iran] Hassan Rouhani, who by the way does not drink coffee without the supreme leader's permission, posed for a photo with an expensive Rolex watch. You won't see such mannerisms in Khamenei."

Q: We know he is Israel's nightmare, but it turns out that his successor is equally worrisome. 

"He is grooming his son to succeed him, and this is a very problematic move in Shia Islam. His son is worse than him. He is close to the most extreme circles in the Iranian system. Khamenei may hate America and Israel, but he also has an inherent caution and fear. His son has no fear. He belongs to a generation that is used to seeing a powerful Iran. It does not have the past memories of a weak, pre-modern Iran, and this may bring it to a state of lack of caution, even lack of restraint. On the face of it, he seems more worrying than Khamenei."

Q: In conclusion, what do people not really understand about Hezbollah, about Iran?

"Both Iran and Hezbollah are rational and pragmatic entities, but not moderate. They do not wish to commit suicide and die for the sanctification of God, and perhaps that is why we have not seen them join the war until now. They consider their actions in a measured and cold manner. At the moment, it seems that they are reluctant to take extensive action against Israel, due to a series of considerations. On the other hand, Iran threatened to intervene if Israel destroys Hamas. What will the Iranians decide at a given moment? As I said - it is not smart to make predictions about the Middle East. 

The post 'Khamenei is not in a hurry to destroy Israel; he has a broader vision' appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Prof. Merav Roth – Clinical psychologist, psychoanalyst and culture researcher from the Department of Counseling and Human Development at Haifa University. She is one of the leading figures in the treatment of victims of the October 7 attacks. Author of several books and articles: Reading the Reader (published by Carmel), True Love as the Love of Truth (published by Alma) and Wars of Impulses (published by Modan).

Prof. Merav Roth, this week you attended the funeral of Carmel Gat, the hostage who was murdered last week in Gaza with the other five hostages. What drove you to this?

"The thing that really broke my heart was the fact that Carmel's father and brother were unable to deliver their eulogy address based on their family relationship alone. Her father, who had others read out his eulogy, dedicated his address to stating the message 'it shouldn't have happened,' and her brother too related to this. They mourned the unnecessary loss of Carmel, who was due to have come home during the first hostage release round, and then once again in the last deal that did not come to fruition.

"All those who spoke at the funeral spoke of Carmel as an individual whose heart overflowed with kindness and was constantly giving to others. This was also backed up by the testimony of those hostages who did succeed in returning from captivity, as they described how she helped them with meditation and yoga, and she recommended that they should write a diary to keep their spirits up. Bearing this in mind, it was most apparent that the family's overall feeling was a combination of total helplessness and extreme anger at the fact that after all, it was the state that failed to bring her home. The right to simply be sad was completely absent."

The terrible feelings from the funeral mix in with the difficult and complex feelings that are affecting us all. It seems that over the course of the last week we have been engulfed by a bubble of depression and desperation. What has been going on with us over the last few days?

"The murder of the six hostages took people back to October 7, as an incident that simply should not have occurred, and gave rise to an emotional desire for somebody to turn back the clock and erase this horrendous error. The desperation also results from what is termed in psychology as 'learned helplessness.' We have been struggling and fighting now for ten and a half months, and as time goes by and the objective has still to be attained – we begin to lose faith in our ability to have an impact on the situation. People are used to the fact that there is a correlation between the extent of the efforts they invest and the outcomes of their actions, and over this last year our actions have not succeeded in bringing about the desired results.

"Moreover, there is a discrepancy between what we expected or were promised and what actually happened. Prior to October 7, we had faith in the establishment and its various systems that are supposed to protect us – and they failed us. They told us 'we are one step away from victory', 'the pressure being applied by the IDF will return the hostages' – and now we see that the IDF pressure has actually killed them. This creates extremely shaky ground under our feet combined with considerable self-doubt, doubts concerning the world as we knew it. It creates profound distress."

In your last book, Wars of Impulses, you write that we are all engaged in internal battles. To what extent is the external distress a result of the internal tensions with which we are all contending at this current juncture?

"There is a constant relationship between the internal struggles that we experience and the tension and distress that we feel outwardly. We are engaged in an internal struggle between the feeling of helplessness and the need to feel that we have the power and the influence over our situation, for example. A deeply wounded state, without the north or the south, without the return of the hostages, a war without an end in sight, combined with an extremely aggressive and divisive public discourse – all of these serve to reinforce the feeling of helplessness. Having said that, I must point out that I am extremely impressed by the fact that the additional part of the soul always manages to come back and lift its head above water, it leads the struggle for a world set right."

In your book, you also relate to the solidarity that is found in the conflict with the desire to jump ship, to get on a plane and leave for somewhere safer.

"The external reality, in which the Israeli sense of partnership and common fate is under attack and the profound belief that 'we don't leave any injured on the battlefield' is being undermined, it is attacking our ability to come together and unite, as Israelis have always done in past wars and emergencies, and thus to gain the cohesive and comforting power of the community.

"I have been working with Kibbutz Be'eri since the war began. Be'eri is a refreshingly inspiring community in terms of its strengths, its wisdom and mutual responsibility. I have learned from them just to what extent being part of a genuine community can serve as a force for healing. This is also being manifested on the national level: when hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets following the brutal murder of the six hostages – this is a sign of extraordinary solidarity. When Israeli artists come to sing to wounded soldiers and the families of the fallen – we can then see that not all hope is lost. That the true values of what it means to be an Israeli have not dissipated."

Being detached comes with a price

An additional struggle that many are certainly experiencing at this moment in time is between the desire to survive and live and the feelings of guilt of the survivors.

"It is only natural for people to aspire to live. The urge to live wills us on to engage in creative activity and development. On the other hand, the feelings of guilt sensed by the survivors, and by all of us, cause us to be ashamed of our urge to live and push us to retreat and to limit our actions. And there is something else: we all identify with the hostages due to the staggering existential arbitrariness of it all. As it could have happened to each and every one of us. Empathizing to a moderate extent is both admirable and important as it constitutes part of our mutual responsibility. However, an exaggerated sense of guilt will probably lead to an individual withdrawing from life and could lead to depression and extreme anguish."

The boundary between them is wafer thin. What can we do?

"I propose moving on from a feeling of guilt among the survivors to a sense of obligation, which I define as a duty to create a bridge of light from the victims of October 7 – whether they were murdered, abducted or survived – to our present and future. To project the good and the worthy in them and to perpetuate them in a variety of forms, and above all – by remembering the people that they were before that cursed Shabbat. If we live according to Carmel's spirit, for example, we will continue to advocate doing good. That is genuine loyalty to those figures as October 7, of all days, is the least representative of who they were. Therefore, it would not be fair to them to remember them only via the disaster."

This is also connected to the struggle between remembering and forgetting. It is not always easy to remember and to relate to the trauma, even if we do so indirectly and in a more controlled manner.

"It is impossible to be totally engulfed in an effort to remember and remain connected 24/7 to such a severe trauma, as this would simply break us apart. It is for this reason that we all experience both emotional and mental detachment – disassociation. Even those hurt directly by the October 7 massacre, those freed from captivity, the families of the hostages – all need to conduct themselves with varying degrees of detachment, as otherwise they would not be able to survive mentally. If we do so to a moderate extent, then this actually serves as a positive mechanism that can protect and look after us. But, in view of the long, drawn-out duration of the situation, there is a price to pay for the protracted detachment that is already taking its toll on the emotional functioning of us all. It is for this reason that there is so much fatigue and heaviness accompanying many of us, as our soul wastes a lot of energy on distancing an individual from his soul, so that he won't collapse under the heavy burden of the overwhelming grief, horror, anger and anxiety."

 In the meantime, it appears that at least on the street, everybody is coming together.

"At the demonstrations held following the murder of the six hostages we saw a tremendous amount of empathy and affinity. We are intimately familiar with them, them and their families, and this makes the loss into 'ours too.' In addition, the feeling that this could have been avoided – as they appeared on the list of those that were due to be released – created the tidal wave of outrage and frustration.

"People came and flooded the streets en masse to say to themselves that there is still a world for us to struggle for, that our values remain, that concepts such as 'responsibility' and 'tikun' (repairing and improving the world) are still relevant. They took to the streets as we all feel extremely lonely in our anguish, and the comfort provided by belonging to a large body of other humans is extremely considerable. Another reason for taking to the streets is to take part in the effort to control events rather than having events control us. Passivity and standing on the sidelines are experienced as accepting our fate, and in deeper sense – as being complicit in the sacrificing of human lives."

A key question is what is going on in the tunnels right now, what can bolster the hostages being held captive for such a long time now?

"Above all, there is an extremely powerful contract between the hostages themselves and their families of 'we are trying to look after ourselves for you and you for us, and none of us must give in.' Both sides – the hostages held in captivity and the families here in Israel – are trying to preserve themselves for their loved ones.

"An additional source of strength is that sometimes, when your home has been destroyed, the just world becomes your home. We pray that the hostages do not lose their connection with the just and decent world. It is quite possible that they have not lost it, as their view of the just world that was stolen from them continues to hold them as an internal mirror for their true image, and as a hope for a world to which they might be able to return and for which it is worthwhile making the effort to hold out. I personally believe that this does keep some of them going, despite the awful suffering they are experiencing. We sometimes see this in work with children who have been subjected to abuse at home, which is a combined psychological and physical tragedy. On occasions, it is amazing to see just how, armed with awe-inspiring mental resilience, they succeed in safeguarding the just and decent world that has been so absent from their lives as a moral compass to guide them in their inner self, and this preserves and protects them from falling apart, and later on even enables them to reconnect to the just world.

"Values are also a strong mainstay in our mental existence. The hostages there and their families here, and all of us together with them, adhere to values of human dignity and freedom as an internal moral compass, which both objects to what is going on and also keeps alive any hope of repairing the damage. The hostages know precisely what the world is that they believe in, and this helps them to function as humans whose spirit knows to refuse what is going on around them. I can say this with the utmost confidence, as I work with some of the released hostages and have heard what kept them going. I think that this is also what is keeping us going at the moment, the values towards which we aspire. The image of the just and decent world that we await and for which we are tirelessly working, based on the hope and belief that it will eventually arrive.

"This is true for the entire political spectrum – apart from the extremists, who are led by the more primitive areas in the soul. But the majority of the people are neither extremist nor destructive. Most of the people are peace seeking, and they are searching for the path to walk along between their beliefs and the extremely divisive and polarized reality in which we now find ourselves. Unfortunately, neither side is aware of this as regards the other side. This is one of the tragic setbacks that we really need to fix."

The human cure for pain

From a broader perspective, what happens to a society whose resources are being chronically exhausted? The chronic stress with which we have been trying to cope for the last year, what does it really do to us?

"We are in the midst of a nightmare, and we have no influence over what is happening in it, which is constantly going from bad to worse, and the worst part is that we are unable to wake up from it. Usually, people do not dream about their own death, they tend to wake up a moment beforehand. Six innocent people facing a firing squad is a nightmare from which you should usually wake up before the shots are heard. In the nightmare that is our current reality we are witness to the shooting and continue to live after it and to be scared to death of the next shooting.

"Values are also a strong mainstay in our mental existence. The hostages there and their families here, and all of us together with them, adhere to values of human dignity and freedom as an internal moral compass, which both objects to what is going on and also keeps alive any hope of repairing the damage. The hostages know precisely what the world is that they believe in, and this helps them to function as humans whose spirit knows to refuse what is going on around them. I can say this with the utmost confidence, as I work with some of the released hostages and have heard what kept them going. I think that this is also what is keeping us going at the moment, the values towards which we aspire. The image of the just and decent world that we await and for which we are tirelessly working, based on the hope and belief that it will eventually arrive.

"Our society is very sick. We feel that we lack the means to distinguish between the truth and falsehood, between institutions that uphold values and a world that is left on its own and without control. The accepted norms, as we know them, have been violated in so many aspects, that it is difficult for us to identify ourselves in the mirror of our reality.

"At the same time, I have also seen the opposite and extreme moving phenomena, of people pulling themselves up by their bootlaces from despair time after time to engage in a profound commitment to others and spreading love for the place where we live. I am constantly taken aback by the ability of people to cope with adversity, to give of themselves to others and to adhere to the value-based and historical significance of our existence in this land as a moral compass and as a hallowed objective."

That sounds quite optimistic, but it is imperative that we relate to the fact that our existence in this state has been severely undermined among large sections of the population. In your book, you refer to Freud's "uncanny," that feeling of strangeness and alienation in a familiar and intimate environment. On occasions, we might get the feeling that the state has morphed into the "uncanny."

"There is a profound feeling of a home that we loved, that has rapidly changed its face – we can no longer identify the front door, the windows, the stairway, nor the pictures on the wall. The values are no longer our values, there is no security, and from the balcony we look out into darkness and appear to be consumed by it in despair. It is an extremely difficult situation, but I believe that we will succeed in finding our home once again. We will not give up until we do find it. The 'tablets have been broken' and we will rewrite them, but we will have to have a long and hard think about our new contract here, in this place we call home."

As we approach the conclusion, we really must speak about the manner in which we can build a mental dam to hold back the turbulent reality.

"Strangely enough, the inter-generational traumas into which we were all born – the Holocaust, the wars of the State of Israel, the mass immigration from the diaspora – are also a source of strength and hope. We have managed to come out of immensely large-scale crises and we have a story to tell. The story is a pillar, it is the justification, the moral compass, and we have a history of moving on from catastrophe to recovery, time and time again. I fully believe that this will be the case this time too. People say 'everything is rotten' – that is simply not true. We have seen tremendous shows of caring and empathy from the entire nation, even if the nation is divided by profound differences of opinion. We know what we would like to happen. We have not yet found the way to get there, but we will. We will remain severely bruised and overwhelmed with grief for many years to come as a result of the unprecedented loss we have incurred this year – but we will find the path once again."

"Truth is the foundation. Before we do anything else we have to look the truth squarely in the eye. We need to assume responsibility for all the failures. To learn where we went wrong and what we need to do differently. Working with various types of wounded or injured has taught us that recognizing the truth and taking responsibility are a prerequisite for recovering from trauma. The truth, however painful it might be, also enables us to begin to repair things. As long as we continue to argue with the truth – paranoia and arrogance take its place, they seek to protect us from a broken heart and guilt. Recognition of the truth frees us from an enormously heavy mental burden."

Finding the way involves finding our feet, as in your article, based on two legs – love and truth.

"Truth is the foundation. Before we do anything else we have to look the truth squarely in the eye. We need to assume responsibility for all the failures. To learn where we went wrong and what we need to do differently. Working with various types of wounded or injured has taught us that recognizing the truth and taking responsibility are a prerequisite for recovering from trauma. The truth, however painful it might be, also enables us to begin to repair things. As long as we continue to argue with the truth – paranoia and arrogance take its place, they seek to protect us from a broken heart and guilt. Recognition of the truth frees us from an enormously heavy mental burden."

And love?

"Love is the strongest medicine in nature. Those released hostages tell us that what kept them going during their time in captivity was the love for their family, and the knowledge that their families love them and are waiting for them. There is a secret contract of love between both parties that compels them to hang on and ride out the storm. Love and the ability to see and feel for others are the basis of human ethics, especially when combined with the truth. If we are able to look at each other with love and with sober moderation, even through the veil of dispute and disagreement, we should be able to work together in order to get this place where we live back on its feet. The love of our land is also the source of our pain today, but it is also the doctor's prescribed medication for our ailments and pains."

The post A year of hell: How to cope with captivity appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Dr. Dan Sagir
Researcher and lecturer on Israel's nuclear program
Research Fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Author of the book "Dimona - Israel's Nuclear Deterrence"

Dr. Dan Sagir, we just had a tense week in which Iran threatened to attack us for the second time in less than four months. How much worse can this situation get?
"I believe that Israel, Iran, and Hezbollah all want to avoid a regional war. On the other hand, we are in the Middle East, and everyone wants to maintain their self-respect and the status they believe they deserve."

There's an unknown here that might not be clear to some of the public. On the surface, we are supposedly a nuclear state – which should create deterrence. But in practice, does Israel's nuclear capability, according to foreign sources, still deter Arab states? It seems Hezbollah and Iran are not particularly impressed by it.
"Iran and Hezbollah are not fazed by nuclear weapons, and likely for good reason. They know that no sane country would ever use them first. There's no connection between Israel being a nuclear state, according to foreign sources, and the current crisis. The present situation is being managed on a conventional battlefield between Israel and Iran, and against Hezbollah. Another threat front includes the Houthis, Syria, and Iraq. This strategy by the Islamic Republic has been ongoing for decades and has recently reached a troubling maturity that we now have to deal with."

According to you, all the actors you described are not afraid of a non-conventional action. If that's the case, I wonder why this issue has surfaced in public discourse. Just last month, former Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that since Iran's nuclear program cannot be stopped by conventional means, "We will have to use all the means at our disposal."
"The strange and worrying instances where public figures – from academia, former defense ministers, or the current Minister of Heritage – threaten or hint at Israeli nuclear use are mostly reckless. These are baseless claims that were never seriously discussed, and the reason is simple: The Israeli nuclear program, developed according to foreign sources, was initiated by the first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, who understood Israel's inherent security problems. As various reports suggest, he believed we needed a weapon to protect us from annihilation. However, Israel has never faced, and is not facing today, an 'existential threat' since 1948."

Will China shiver from the cold?

Perhaps to better understand the current constellation, we need to understand why Iran initially pursued the development of nuclear weapons.
"The timing reveals more than anything else the reasons behind their nuclear weapons development. In 2003, about two years after the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush decided to invade Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein based on the belief that weapons of mass destruction were present there. For Israel, this was a gift that came with a price: The crushing of the Iraqi army and the fall of Baghdad's regime completely disrupted the regional balance, making Iran a dominant regional power in the Persian Gulf.

"Iraq also came under Iranian influence due to the Shia majority in Iraq. But more importantly, the U.S. invasion of Iraq terrified the leaders of the fundamentalist-Shia regime of their own collapse, and they decided to revive the nuclear weapons program that the Shah had initiated. This was a completely rational decision aimed at preserving their regime, not at destroying Israel or the U.S."

You speak about rational arguments, but an experiment conducted by Israeli professor Moran Cerf found that participants wearing a virtual reality helmet, putting themselves in the shoes of the U.S. president, responded to an intense missile attack of unknown origin by launching nuclear weapons. The proportion was nearly fantastical – 190 out of 200 participants, and almost all regretted the use afterward. What is the likelihood of non-rational nuclear weapons use, and how can that risk be reduced?
"I'm not familiar with the experiment you mentioned, but generally, the decision to launch a nuclear missile is in the hands of the primary decision-maker in every nuclear-armed state after a long series of checks and discussions. To be more specific, in all nuclear-armed countries, nuclear weapons are referred to as 'the captain's personal weapon,' and they are not part of the capabilities under military command. Due to the 'ambiguity policy' that Israel has adopted regarding its capabilities in this area, there is no public information on the decision-making process in Israel on this issue."

You believe the current conflict will remain below the nuclear threshold. How so?
"Over the years, there has been a strong international norm known as 'the nuclear taboo.' In other words, any country developing nuclear weapons, whether considered 'good' or 'bad,' has learned and understood the nuclear logic that has existed since 1945, which dictates that such weapons should not be used. They are weapons for ultimate deterrence.

"Of course, these things are enshrined in the famous Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The countries that signed the treaty, including Iran, are committed to a complete ban on the use of nuclear weapons, especially against non-nuclear states. In the end, the presence of nuclear weapons maintains the highest level of international order. Furthermore, over the years, there are those who claim and prove it numerically that there has been a significant decrease in the number of wars worldwide due to nuclear weapons.

"To be more specific about the current conflict, Israel needs to make it clear to the Iranians that any harm to Israel's strategic assets or massive missile fire towards population centers will elicit a suitable response. The Houthis in Yemen have already understood this after their port went up in flames."

But the Iranians didn't understand. In the previous April attack, four warheads of 'Amad' missiles hit the Nevatim base. Twelve sirens even sounded in Dimona. Theoretically, and I'm not referring specifically to Israel here, is a deliberate attack on a nuclear facility equivalent to using a nuclear weapon?
"Absolutely not. Every country's nuclear systems and facilities are protected against conventional weapon attacks. I doubt the Iranians aimed their missiles at a sensitive facility in Dimona. From all indications, they aimed at the Air Force base in the Negev. In any case, as I mentioned earlier, any Iranian attack on a strategic Israeli asset will be met with the harshest response.

"By the way, it's important to remember that we have no real reason for war against the Iranian people, quite the opposite. Iran is ruled by a regime hated by most Iranians. Therefore, Israel must ensure it does not harm Iranian civilians, only regime assets."

Explain.

"We have the capability to hit their oil fields, which is a very serious matter – because the Chinese have a deal to buy and purchase oil from Iran for the next 25 years. If China wants to ensure a steady oil supply from Iran, it will have to restrain Tehran because damage to the oil fields could leave the Chinese freezing. But if there are casualties in Tel Aviv from missiles, let the Chinese freeze. After all, China will not go to war against us. Israel cannot live in fear that Iran may have nuclear weapons in the future. We must not allow them to turn us into hostages of the Iranian nuclear threat.

"Another important point that Israelis do not sufficiently understand: Iran is a militarily and economically weak country. The ayatollahs' regime fears for its future, which is why they have avoided investing in strengthening the army, fearing it would support the overthrow of their regime. As a result, a hybrid entity with limited power was created, called the Revolutionary Guards. Their air force is outdated and irrelevant, and they pose no threat. We, on the other hand, can do as we please in Tehran. The Iranians are highly vulnerable, but Israeli citizens are losing sleep at night out of fear, and unjustifiably so. The Iranians are highly exposed and have more reasons to fear than we do. They have simply developed a way to fight Israel through third parties – the Houthis and Hezbollah."

Rabin's Concerns

In 2031, our array of concerns is expected to change. This is the year when the nuclear agreement with Iran expires, which may bring it to a completely different stage in its project, if it doesn't happen much sooner. What will be Israel's deterrence strategy against a nuclear-armed Iran, and how will it affect the policy of ambiguity?
"The policy of ambiguity is fantastic and will be effective for us until mid-2031 and possibly beyond. Fortunately, we did not have to pay a political price at the time for developing nuclear weapons, according to foreign reports. The decision to abandon the ambiguity policy depends on international circumstances.

"Firstly, it's important to remember that it's not at all certain that Iran will rush to declare it has nuclear weapons. If it does declare itself a nuclear state with Chinese and Russian backing, we'll have a problem. We might have to inform the U.S. that we are ending the ambiguity. This should, of course, be done with American consent because, according to foreign reports, it was agreed in the Golda-Nixon understandings that the U.S. would agree that Israel could have nuclear weapons as long as it did not declare it. But if Iran becomes an illegitimate nuclear state, like North Korea, it's likely to face crippling sanctions – so there's no real reason to abandon the ambiguity policy."

I want to go back to an interesting chapter you wrote in your book "Dimona – Israel's Nuclear Deterrence". The chapter is titled: "Israel Without the Bomb, an Alternative History." What would our security reality look like today vis-à-vis Iran, Hezbollah, and the Houthis if Israel did not have a nuclear program, as is reported by foreign sources?
"The threats would be the same. Iran and Hezbollah are not fazed by nuclear weapons, as mentioned. The reality would be exactly as it is today, except for the panic that Israeli governments in the 1980s experienced due to Iraq's and later Iran's nuclear programs. Back then, Israel would likely have initiated an accelerated program to develop a military nuclear capability in response. This would have led us to develop nuclear weapons in a short period, but the costs we would have paid would have been higher."

Yitzhak Rabin feared the Iranian threat, and he is certainly not the only one. If we look at this from the other side, how much do leaders fear initiating the use of nuclear weapons?
"Every leader understands the clear dangers posed by that. That's why democratic countries are not preoccupied with this issue. I'll share an anecdote that reflects the whole story: In the U.S., a document is issued annually summarizing the U.S.'s nuclear strategy. It is supposedly updated every year, but in reality – there are no real changes and nothing to update, because it's clear to Americans that nuclear weapons are not to be used. We're trying to save the planet from global warming and sweating through the summer months, so use nuclear weapons?"

Are you including Putin in your remarks? Just three months ago, he ordered a nuclear drill.
"It's true that Russia is concerned with nuclear weapons, especially after it was nearly defeated by Ukraine. Putin declared that he has nuclear weapons, and at that time, there was enormous panic worldwide for two hours following an unexplained explosion. In the end, it turned out there was no nuclear explosion. Putin certainly went through some tough moments in the war against Ukraine and tried to leverage anything possible, but despite all the threats, he never actually came close to pressing the button."

The Red Button Protocol

In the US, there have been recent attempts to develop a protocol for when the red button needs to be pressed. Nobody wants to use these weapons, but the infrastructure is being prepared for it.
"The procedures don't really change. The Cold War ended in 1989, and military powers that threaten the global balance, like Nazi Germany or Japan during World War II, have faded from the world. So why do countries invest in this? Because it's a status symbol. The issue of use is a different phase because any country that uses nuclear weapons knows it could spark a world war. This is also related to the fact that, in terms of nuclear weapons, there is a global policeman – the U.S. It initiated the treaty and ensured it would be eternal, without an expiration date. The world accepted the logic that this is a weapon that has no place in use."

At least not for a first strike. In 1983, Thomas Schelling and Israeli Nobel laureate in economics Robert Aumann planned a classified war game centered on nuclear warfare. The participants in the game admitted that the results were terrifying, and every time the ending was the same - chaos.
"Absolutely. Once the first use happens, we are in a completely different story."

The post 'Israelis are losing sleep out of fear – and unjustifiably so; Iran is a weak country' appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Prof. Israel Knohl is an Israeli biblical scholar and historian, the author of the book "From the Fountain to the Mountain" (published by Carmel and the Shalom Hartman Institute), a senior research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, and a visiting lecturer at Harvard, Berkeley, Stanford, and Chicago universities. Emeritus professor in the Department of Bible at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Q: Prof. Israel Knohl, in your new book "From the Fountain to the Mountain - The Hidden Roots of the Story of the Giving of the Torah", you shed new light on a very significant moment in Judaism – the revelation at Mount Sinai. You claim that the giving of the commandments and the revelation of God did not occur at Mount Sinai or in a dramatic scene, as is commonly believed, but rather beside a spring, in a much quieter place. Before we get to the crux of the matter, how did you come to think of this in the first place?

A: "I grew up within the Jewish tradition, and throughout the years I heard the familiar story of the giving of the Torah that we all know. I grew up thinking that this was the only story and there was no other. Shortly before the coronavirus outbreak, I led a seminar on the Book of Hosea, and when the pandemic broke out, we could not meet physically, so I suggested, casually, that we read on Zoom the ancient poem at the end of the Torah, chapter 33 in the Book of Deuteronomy. As we began reading the poem, we reached Moses' blessing on the tribe of Levi, and for the first time, I thought - what does it actually say? What happened there at the Waters of Meribah?"

Q: This is not the first time you have read this blessing, but it seems to be the first time you realized something about it. After about 60 years of reading the same text over and over again, you suddenly deciphered it differently.

A: "We read this blessing ritually every Simchat Torah. But during COVID, I gained a new perspective on this blessing. I understood it meant something else, and from there it snowballed. So yes, only after about 60 years of reading the same text over and over again, did I suddenly understand that the commandments were given in a different location. I attribute this insight, this discovery, to the outbreak of the Corona pandemic."

Q: The discovery you are talking about is closely related to the desire of the biblical narrators to reach an audience. This is quite an interesting angle.

A: "My general claim, in terms of the development of literary genres within the Bible, is that the writing of a story is linked to the emergence of an audience. If you want to publish a book, you need an audience of readers. However, in ancient Israel, until the 8th century BCE, it seems there was no established audience of readers. We know this from archaeological evidence, which shows few archaeological inscriptions before the 8th century BCE. Another evidence for this is the prophets – We have numerous stories about the prophets Elijah, Elisha, and Samuel, but their actual prophecies were not recorded in book form until after the 8th century BCE.

"Only after that can we find prophets who wrote down their prophecies – Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah. These are the first four prophets whose prophecies were written in a book, all in the 8th century BCE. Before that, there may have been elitist writing at the royal court – a poet would sit and write, for example, about Jezebel and Ahab's marriage. But it was only for the elites."

Q: And the writing you refer to from a later period was much more widespread.

A: "It was widespread and comprehensive. For example, even the opposition had their words recorded in a book. The words of Amos, the outright opponent of the king of Israel and his official cult, are included in the book. These are sharp, oppositional prophecies that challenged the regime. By the way, it's unclear whether Amos himself could read and write, but if not – he had someone beside him who wrote down his prophecies in a book."

The beginnings of Israelite consciousness

Q: You are describing an inherent problem: if the prophet Amos, for example, did not necessarily know how to read and write, then large segments of the people probably did not either. So how were important contents disseminated when most of the people did not know how to read and write?

A: "The primary medium before the 8th century BCE was poetry. Poetry, because of its rhythms, was considered easy to memorize and transmit, and it tells us about the main events of the period. In the current book, I proposed separating what the ancient poem tells us about the foundational events from the narrative recounted later in the Torah. To my great surprise, I realized that the situation depicted in the poem is very different.

"True, Mount Sinai does appear there, but Mount Sinai is only God's starting point because it seems they worshipped him there. We know this through ancient Egyptian records, which indicate that even before the biblical period began, around 1,400 BCE, tribes in that area worshipped a god named Yahweh.

"So God sets out from Sinai, which is a volcanic mountain in Shei'r, Edom, Midian – indicating a place in southern Transjordan or northwestern Saudi Arabia. This departure shakes the mountains, but according to the poem, it is not accompanied by any speech from God. However, speaking, giving of the commandments, making of the covenant, and its violation – all take place in a completely different location, beside a spring near Egypt, in the western Sinai Peninsula. He speaks to all the people, without the mediation of Moses. So as you said at the beginning – the giving of the commandments and the revelation of God did not occur on Mount Sinai or in a dramatic scene, but rather beside a spring, in a much quieter place."

Q: Can we regard the poetry as a reliable source?

A: "Let's take, for example, the Song of Deborah, which begins with the story of 'When you, Lord, went out from Seir, when you marched from the land of Edom, the earth shook, the heavens poured,  the clouds poured down water. And then it mentions 'the mountains quaked at the presence of the Lord' – meaning, molten lava streaming down from Mount Sinai. But the opening about Mount Sinai is not the main point. The main focus of the poem is a battle between the Canaanites, who lived in the valleys, and the Israelites, who lived in the hill country, and it seems to have occurred around 1,100 BCE.

"At that time, there was no king in Israel, no taxes were collected, and therefore it was not possible to maintain a standing army. So the soldiers were actually farmers who volunteered for war. In the Song of Deborah, there is mention of a small village – Meroz – which is not mentioned anywhere else in the Bible: ''Curse ye Meroz', said the angel of the Lord...because they came not to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty.' It's not 'with the Lord's help' but 'to the help of the Lord' – meaning, God needs the help of the warriors of Israel. And that village, which did not send soldiers to the war, is cursed.

"So to answer your question, I don't think a later poet would bother to mention such a minor detail. Many scholars believe that this is an extremely ancient poem, reflecting the state of consciousness of the people of Israel, in its very beginnings."

"The quiet power of water"

Q: Is it coincidental that the prominent and widespread description of the event at Mount Sinai was associated with a dramatic, volcanic phenomenon? The story about the solid spring did not resonate with the people, perhaps because it was perceived as less memorable.

A: "The poem, along with all its beauty, is a text written in a language that is not always easy to understand. In addition, the Torah was sanctified as the founding document that is read on Shabbat and during the week. Moreover, the thundering and roaring volcanic revelation certainly has a strong visual and auditory effect. It leaves a powerful impression, instilling fear, and becomes etched in memory. But the spring has a different uniqueness. It is etched in the national memory by the demand for one God – 'There shall be no strange god in you' (Psalm 81:10). This is the core of monotheism, which demands a profound change in religious practice. So at the spring, there is a foundational event, not dramatic, but on a level of content that profoundly affects religious life."  

Q: But this commandment is quickly violated.

A: "Part of the people violate it and worship other gods because they were asked to go against their habit, against what was acceptable. Monotheism was revolutionary at the time, but ultimately – that revelation by the waters, which is based on the commandment not to worship other gods – has survived until our very days. This shows the power of it."

Q: "Still waters run deep." In the book, you also refer to the narrator. What do we know about him? 

A: "He takes the core elements from the poem and creates a volcanic motif, endowed with greater authority since everything that was said to Moses at Sinai by God carries immense weight. I believe the narrator was affiliated with prophetic circles, a fierce opponent of the official cult and the golden calves. He opposes prosperity and splendor, and encourages a simple and elementary cult with stones and ashes, without hewn stones, silver, or gold. He is against the priesthood and believes that all the people of Israel have a status of holiness – 'a kingdom of priests and a holy nation', that is his motto. The narrator opposes the king, and in a socio-economic way cares for and supports the poor and weak in society through relevant commandments. He is a religious-social reformer."

Q: In the book, you also refer to the role of Moses as a national leader, and not as one whose role is to mediate religious knowledge. Does this make religion more egalitarian, and more accessible?

A: "Yes, because we are used to looking at the biblical religion as prophetic, with Moses as a founding and establishing figure. In the poem, Moses is much more of a political leader, who leads the children of Israel when they cross the Red Sea. He is not the one who mediates religious knowledge, which according to the poem is transmitted equally to everyone. We do not need a religious establishment to mediate between us and God, because we have direct access to God."

Q: How is this approach manifested?

A: "The question is whether a person needs to go to Bethel, where he will meet God and speak with Amaziah the priest of Bethel, who will mediate the word of God for him; or whether a person can go to the sons of the prophets, who sit in all kinds of tents, devoid of splendor, silver, and gold – and they are the ones who will mediate religious knowledge for him. The narrator takes a traditional approach that testifies to a more egalitarian and accessible religion, as mentioned."

"Society drives progress"

Q: What does the traditional approach you mentioned, which makes religion accessible, attest to?

A: "I think this tradition attests that the public, in general, as a whole, holds more power than the leadership.  According to the poem, it is essentially the public, not the leaders, who are important and decisive. The public is the one that leaves its mark, has direct contact with the divine, and needs to internalize the fundamental commandments.

"The tradition of the poem, written in a pre-monarchic society, in the period of the Judges, a time when there was no king in Israel, without a permanent regime – is a tradition that believes more in the people and its strength, its survival, than in the ruling figures. This tradition entrusts the people with the responsibility of preserving tradition and culture, alongside recovery and revival after severe crises."

Q: This is a message that resonates greatly with our times.

A: "Absolutely. For example, the poem describes a terrible civil war within the tribe of Levi: 'Who said of his father, and of his mother: 'I have not seen him'; neither did he acknowledge his brethren, nor knew he his own children; for they have observed Thy word, and keep Thy covenant.' An enormous crisis that tears families apart, with strife and disagreement. But the people still have the strength to overcome this internal war. I think this is a wonderful message for our times.

"I believe that even today, we must have faith in the strength of society and the public, even if the leadership fails. It is the society that drives progress. Even during a harsh civil war, there is no need to panic. The people have resilience, and I sincerely hope this is what we will see in these times as well."

Q: How are your new insights received in the world of biblical studies and academic research? Surely, some strongly disapprove of them.

A: "The book was only released three weeks ago, and so far I have received positive responses from academics, but we have to wait and see."

Q: Will the religious establishment accept your thesis? 

A: "I don't expect great things, but it's important to remember that I'm also not writing for the religious establishment, that's not my target audience. However, I'm aware my books are studied in the yeshiva world. There are yeshiva students who keep my book 'Sanctuary of Silence' under their Talmud. This book delves into the priestly literature of the Torah, and at the time it was quite innovative.It didn't receive much enthusiasm from the academic community back then, but today it has become widely accepted as the consensus."

Q: Will this also be the case with the current book?

A: "I don't rule it out, but it takes time, perhaps many years. We'll wait and see."

The post Myth or reality? This could be the real place where the Torah was given appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

In a bold initiative aimed at combating global warming, Professor Yoram Rozen, head of the Asher Space Research Institute (ASRI) at the Technion and a professor in the Faculty of Physics and a team of academics and industry experts has formulated a daring plan to launch a massive foil sheet into space to act as a sunshade, deflecting a portion of the sun's rays and lowering the Earth's average temperature by 1.5 degrees Celsius within a relatively short span of 18 months.

Q: From the outside, your idea sounds a bit presumptuous, Prof. Yoav Rosen: to send a shade into space that will cover part of the Earth to help deal with global warming and even lower the temperature here by a degree and a half. Tell me about your plan at the Technion.

"The idea is to send an enormous sunshade, covering an area of 2.5 million square kilometers (965,255 square miles) – roughly the size of Argentina – to a unique point between the Earth and the sun. It will unfurl between the sun and the Earth, blocking a portion of the sun's radiation and lowering the average temperature here on Earth by 1.5 degrees Celsius within a relatively short period of about a year and a half. Since we will not be able to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions entirely – and even if we do, we will still be left with the current high temperatures – we need to address the problem from the outside."

Q: It is commonly thought that since the beginning of the Industrial Age, the temperature on Earth has risen by about a degree and a half. So you're closing a gap of about 250 years in a year and a half.

Rozen acknowledges that lowering the Earth's temperature by 1.5 degrees Celsius in just 18 months is an ambitious goal, given that global temperatures have risen by approximately the same amount over the course of 250 years since the onset of the Industrial Revolution. However, he asserts, "According to all our analyses, this will work. The current average temperature on Earth is around 15 degrees Celsius, and it would be preferable to be around 13.5 degrees."

The sunshade itself would be constructed from a material already used in space missions and turns out to be relatively accessible. "It's not all that different from the survival or shock blankets used by pilots, hikers, and marathon runners to keep warm after physical exertion. It's the same material as the survival blankets you can find at Decathlon for 34 shekels (around $10)," Rozen explains. "The material is the same material – but it's clear that when sending it into space, some changes are required, and everything becomes more expensive."

Q: You're talking about a shade the size of Argentina, Algeria, or Kazakhstan. How will the production work?

While acknowledging the enormity of the task, Rozen emphasizes that the production process would be modular, with the sunshade constructed in separate components that need not be connected in space but could operate adjacently to create the desired shade. "The production will be done in parts," he clarifies. "Even in space, the components don't have to be connected; they can be side by side to create the shade."

Q: Will the shade be noticeable on Earth in any way? Will we have a shadow in the middle of the day?

"We won't feel it, and there won't be a noticeable shadow. It's a bit like a fly casting a shadow on Earth from a kilometer up. But in practice, it will lower the temperature for us, and also block 2% of the radiation that reaches us, which is the goal. The shade will mainly affect the area within 1,600 km (994 miles) from the equator, which is the critical area that affects the entire planet."

Q: How did you come up with the idea in the first place?

"The idea for the sunshade project germinated a few years ago when an Israeli group of academics and industry experts convened to explore potential solutions to global warming. While initial suggestions included launching 250 million massive (2.5 acre) balloons to shade the Earth, the group quickly recognized the impracticality of such a vast number of balloons, which could potentially fall into the atmosphere."

"A few months later, while traveling back from a conference, the idea clicked – how to send the sunshade, to what point, and what materials to use," Rozen recounts. "The next day, I discovered that someone had proposed a similar concept 16 years earlier, which gave me confidence that I was on the right track. The difference is that all the previous papers on this were theoretical, while we're coming up with a structured implementation plan."

While acknowledging the project's astronomical cost – an estimated $30 trillion – Rozen and his team have decided to start small by sending a prototype sunshade the size of a classroom into space. "After we succeed with the small one, we can enlist the world's support for the larger project," he states.

Q: When will you be able to send the prototype into space?

"Within three to four years from the moment we have the money. Sending the prototype into space will cost about $15 million. Right now, our progress is slow because we don't have money to invest, and the expectation is that in the future, we'll be able to rely on outside companies to prepare the sail, computer, and other parts."

Solar storms, pressure, and darkness

Q: You emphasize that shading the Earth must be done from outside it, i.e., from space, and that shading from the Earth's surface won't work. Could you explain that a bit more?

"On a hot sunny day in Israel, you go into an air-conditioned building. Maybe it's more comfortable for you, but you haven't changed the temperature of the Earth. If a bus stop has a roof, it's a bit more comfortable underneath it, but it doesn't change the temperature of the Earth because the roof absorbs the heat. So the shading has to be done outside the atmosphere. You need to block the radiation from reaching in the first place."

Q: The point for positioning the shade is 1.5 million kilometers (932,057 miles) from here. Why exactly?

"It's a fantastic point because it's one of five fixed points in space that rotate with the entire system. It's the only one that interests us because positioning the shade at other points would likely cast a shadow on other stars, not just us. So we have to be at the first Lagrange point, which is the distance where the gravitational forces of the Earth and the Sun are in equilibrium."

Q: What will you do about the radiation pressure?

"The radiation pressure is not negligible and knocks the system out of balance, so we'll position the shade a bit farther 'to the right,' about 50,000 km (31,069 miles) towards the Sun, to restore the system to equilibrium. By the way, the new point is also unstable, meaning the shade could still lose balance and fall. So we'll need to make corrections, just like a person standing on one leg adjusts their stance to stay upright."

Q: is the significance of such corrections in space?

"In principle, you can put an engine and make minor corrections all the time, but an engine adds weight and complexity, both of which we want to avoid. So we will deploy a sail and move to one side, or close the sail and move to the other side. The movement and reorientation won't happen every few seconds or minutes, but every 100-200 days. This is a solution that isn't problematic for us. It seems that between these two points, we can move within a certain range and stay within the area without falling. The shade will be modular and made up of many such blankets, as mentioned, and more units will be regularly launched to join the larger system."

Q: How many such launches will you need?

"We're talking about 2.5 million tons. We can currently launch 100 tons, and each time we'll launch the maximum possible. We'll likely need thousands of launches. The travel time will also be relatively short. The James Webb Space Telescope was launched about two and a half years ago to the relevant point for us, and the travel time was a few weeks."

Q: Will there be annual routine maintenance for such a project?

"There's not really an option for maintenance. Any part that fails, meaning it's in the wrong orientation, will be replaced with another. The cost of replacement is marginal compared to the entire project."

Q: What about the Sun's heating affecting the shade negatively? Just a month ago, satellites detected strong solar storms.

"It's true that the Sun has its cycles, but broadly speaking –the Sun is cooling over the course of billions of years. In a few billion years, it's also expected to go out, and then we'll need to talk again and see what we're doing."

International interest

Q: I'm trying to think about what's more presumptuous: thinking it's possible to send such a shade into space, or raising the amount of money we're talking about – $30 trillion.

"Fortunately, I'm not dealing with raising the global amount. That depends on a lot of politics."

Q: The annual US budget is about $5 trillion. I assume this is a global interest, and every country will have to contribute its share.

"To be honest, I was sure that for such a project, with keywords like sustainability, global warming, and saving planet Earth, it would be very easy to raise money – but it turns out that's not exactly the case."

Q: What kind of reactions are you getting in academia and beyond about this idea?

"Everyone is excited about it," he affirms, "but some professional bodies are skeptical about the costs. Nevertheless, technology companies, countries, and prominent environmental activists have reached out to us and expressed great interest."

However, Rozen expresses surprise at the opposition from certain environmental circles, who fear that a solution to global warming might lead to complacency about pollution. "It's important for me to note that our solution, effective as it may be, needs to coexist with the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions," he emphasizes.

Q: On the subject of opposition – how did October 7 affect your project?

"We had a major partner that left us on October 7. I'm talking about an academic institution from the United Arab Emirates, the National Space Science and Technology Center (NSSTC). They want to continue working on this project, but it's possible they were instructed to stop working with us. We visited them several times, they were our research partners and they also have a larger budget."

Q: Are you in any contact with them?

"No, they're not responding to us right now."

Q: Is there a chance they'll come back to the table?

"Yes, I'm optimistic. It's an academic institution supported by the government, and we had a great relationship that included weekly meetings that led to progress. We were supposed to visit them and present the project at the UN Climate Conference. But they told us not to come and that this project won't be in our pavilion. If the collaboration had continued, we could already be counting down to sending the prototype into space."

Q: What will happen if your plan to send this shade doesn't go through? Are there other solutions for lowering the Earth's temperature?

"Let's start from the premise that we agree the Earth's temperature is rising. As I see it, there are three branches to the solution: The first is to absorb carbon dioxide, CO2, back from the atmosphere or the oceans, thereby reducing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. This is possible, but we're talking about insane amounts of CO2 that we'd need to liquefy and store, and anything stored can always leak out. It's an option, but it's not without problems."

"The second solution, believe it or not – is painting everything white. The brighter an object is, the more light it reflects and doesn't absorb as heat. When you wear a black shirt you absorb more heat, while a white shirt will lower your temperature."

Q: That doesn't sound very realistic.

"Right. A sub-branch of that is to do it in space. That is, to create more clouds that reflect light and lower the temperature, but there's an extreme game with the weather here."

Q: What are the long-term risks if we don't send this shade? What could happen to the Earth over a few decades?

"I'm a physicist, not a climate scientist, but we're already witnessing more and more disasters and extreme events. If we don't address the problem, we'll see even more of them, with greater damage and a threat to our lives, within two or three decades. If we continue to allow the Earth's temperature to rise over a longer period, we could reach a point where no functioning humanity can solve its problems. It's hard to predict the future, but very negative changes could occur for humans, perhaps even irreversible ones."

Q: There are those talking about relocating humanity to another planet. Your shade solution sounds more realistic.

"If we can't live on Earth, we'll need to find another place. And relocating humanity to another planet – Mars, for example – is much more expensive than the $30 trillion we're talking about. Moreover, think about the extreme conditions on Mars: We'd have to live there in a biosphere because the radiation there is lethal and the temperature is extreme. We'd need spacesuits and a constant oxygen supply. But here, on Earth, we have great conditions, we just need to invest in solutions."

Q: It's sad, but we need a "climate October 7" for people to wake up.

"I have news for you – we're already in a 'climate October 7,' and we're not aware of it because the disaster is ongoing, not happening all at once. Fortunately, we're not annihilating 100 million people in one event, but it's happening gradually. Unfortunately, instead of focusing on a solution that will advance and improve our lives, humanity is invested in another global project that costs us much more – wars. It's so easy for us to spend money on wars, but when it comes to our future here, the expense becomes harder and more complicated. I'll never be able to understand that. We need to take action now, so we don't pay compound interest on our inaction."

The post A space sunshade: Will this Israeli plan stop global warming? appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Q: You've served as director of the Hall of Names at Yad Vashem – the world Holocaust remembrance center – for nearly 30 years. You told me before, that the preoccupation with names and the stories of the victims in the Pages of Testimony collection fascinates you. On a deeper level, what does this pursuit mean to you?

"Shimon Peres once said that people are not floating in the air like in Chagall's paintings, because every human being is tied to a specific place. For me, the pursuit of the source of the names, their place of origin, and their roots is a winning combination of history, geography, and textual research in multiple languages. Of course, the fact that we're helping people to get closure and sometimes find living relatives also contributed. Our main work is based on the page of testimony, a personal card briefly describing the identity and a short biography of the Holocaust victim. These are usually filled out by family members, friends, neighbors, and acquaintances. While the page of testimony itself is printed in 14 languages, our work involves more than 30 languages."

Q: You've typed countless names into the database of victims' names. You must have encountered some unique stories.

"I worked for years at the Hall of Names desk, where people came and asked for information about their relatives. Once, a man insisted on receiving the original page of testimony, which was forbidden. He kept requesting it until I finally complied. When he had the page in his hands, he stepped aside, turned around, and I heard him recite the Mourner's Kaddish prayer inside the hall. It broke my heart. The page of testimony is a symbolic gravestone because most of the Holocaust victims did not have a grave. This is the reason our work touches the deepest chords of people's souls. To this day, we receive about 1,000 pages of testimony per month. The first one arrived at Yad Vashem in 1954."

Video: PM Netanyahu speaks during the Holocaust Remembrance Day on May 5, 2024

Q: What did early efforts to collect names involve?

"The first protocol of Yad Vashem included a recommendation on how to approach the mission of collecting names – contacting families and requesting them to report missing persons. Another channel was appealing to the archives of the extermination camps, which was, of course, an oxymoron - because there were no records kept at all. Initially, in the 1950s, registration was done by communities, and along the way, the idea of personal commemoration emerged based on the page of testimony, which incidentally is also legally valid.

In 1955, a national campaign to collect testimonials lasted over two years, with registration stations set up across the country. At one point, when organizers were unsatisfied with the public response, teams of pairs went door-to-door asking people to fill out the pages.

Years later, in 1994, we worked in the southern city of Kiryat Gat and the city of Carmiel up north, sending high school students door-to-door. We managed to collect about 30,000 names there, but one of the teams, consisting of two girls didn't return on time. We waited and waited, and they simply didn't come back. Towards evening, they returned pale-faced with tears in their eyes. We didn't understand what happened until they explained to us that the delay was caused by one family filling in more and more pages of testimony. They brought over 100 pages from one family. It was an unforgettable event. In the end, the operation in the 1950s led to the collection of about 800,000 names, and following another operation in April 1999, we collected about 400,000 more."

Q: You've worked on the collection since 1984, locating names from various populations in unconventional places. Where did you find victim names?

"We search everywhere – in schools in Poland, checking Sept. 1939 student lists, realizing the missing Jewish children were murdered. We received pages of testimony from unlikely places like Suriname in South America and Hong Kong, where Jews lived. Inevitably, there will always be someone who lost family in the Holocaust. We even got pages from Monaco, even though it's not exactly the place one tends to think of in the context of the Holocaust. But the Holocaust reached there, and several tens of Jews were sent to the camps from there."

Q: What about locating names in the ultra-Orthodox community?

"In the ultra-Orthodox sector, various forms of commemorating names have developed. In books dealing with religious subjects, there are dedications by the publisher or author to family members who were murdered in the Holocaust. We scanned tens of thousands of books for dedications. We also found many memorial plaques in synagogues with names, and sometimes names on synagogue seats dedicated to victims' memories. We photographed 99% of synagogues and study halls in Israel. In some cases, discarded memorial plaques had to be reassembled from backyards after renovations. We concluded that 65% of the names we found in synagogues were not registered in our database. This is a serious and significant source. Additionally, we attempted to locate more names in cemeteries. Roughly speaking, on one of every ten tombstones in Israel, there are names of Holocaust victims. In the absence of a proper grave for the victims, the family seeks a physical, tangible place to commemorate their memory. I think over the years we have covered over half of the graves in the State of Israel, probably hundreds of thousands of graves."

Q: You had a similar project among Jews from the former Soviet bloc. 

"We made significant efforts to raise their awareness of the importance of the subject because, in the former Soviet Union, the Holocaust was a taboo topic. They had different narratives, and almost no approval was given for commemorative actions. Before the Iron Curtain fell, we received some self-printed testimonials, smuggled out by foreign tourists."

Q: How do you feel when you discover a new name?

"The Nazis wanted to destroy the Jews, and also to annihilate their memory. Therefore, for me, every new name is another victory over the Nazis. I have a picture in my office of a machine developed by IBM and marketed in Europe in the 1930s, which served the Nazis in managing the population census of the Jews in May 1939. Today, we use similar, advanced technology, but for the opposite purpose – to preserve the memory of the Jews and to turn them from numbers into people. For me, it is another victory over the Nazis. But it is important to mention that there is great responsibility in locating the names. Our team is mostly composed of experts in linguistics and philology, proficient in several languages. Our goal is to thoroughly understand the name and interpret it in its historical context, as language changes over time. Sometimes, a single letter can alter the entire meaning. If we attempt to document the name of the victim, and we make a mistake with one letter – everything we did is worthless. That individual will not be remembered, as no one will find them due to the incorrect name."

Q: Nevertheless, errors such as duplicate names might occur, and sometimes it takes time to update names I presume. 

"True, but that doesn't absolve us of responsibility. We try to be as accurate as possible and avoid duplicate names. It's important for us to honor the victims and preserve their memory as accurately as possible, but only those who don't work make no mistakes. Just a month ago, one of the employees at Yad Vashem discovered that her uncle's name was listed with us as a victim, while he survived. It happens from time to time, and it's preferable that these are the kinds of mistakes we make."

Q: Was there a testimonial that moved you deeply?

"In 1999, we executed an extensive computerized project in which we typed more than a million pages of testimonies. One was about a woman who had been sent to the Treblinka extermination camp. Her name was Bat Sheva and she was from Kavala, Greece. We had no other details except that she sold ice cream at a school. The person who filled it out was a child who bought ice cream from her, writing he didn't know anything else except that he'd never forget her delicious ice cream, tasting like the madeleine cookies in Proust's 'In Search of Lost Time'. The flavors brought emotion and memories to life. We shared this story with all our typists, and I remember time standing still. It was very emotional."

Q: Do you get overcome with emotion often due to your work?

"Our team consists of about 20 people, and they are exposed to extreme emotional situations, both difficult and optimistic. But generally, these are people mainly dealing with death. Some of the team members write about 30 names of victims per day, for years. The pages of testimony also indicate how the victims were murdered, it's incomprehensible. But this work is so important because we are responsible for ensuring that the memory of these people is not erased. There was a case where an employee came to me and said she could no longer type the names of the victims, that it was hard for her, and asked to type the names of survivors instead, thus connecting to the more optimistic aspect of the work."

Q: Some of the victims were children. I suppose this makes coping more difficult and complex.

"It's painful because we have records indicating a child was murdered, but we don't have their name. There are testimonies with the name of an adult who was murdered, and it's noted, for example, that they had three children, sometimes even indicating their gender and age, but without their names. This is because distant relatives filled out the testimony page, but they didn't always remember the names."

Q: It's chilling. They lived, but no one will remember them by their names.

"It's as if they never existed. Every time I encounter such a testimony page I shudder, my heart breaks. Currently, we have no solution for this because the law of privacy in Europe applies to 100 years from birth. Maybe in another 20 years, we will be able to locate the names of the children. It's a little comfort."

Q: When you began working at Yad Vashem, you had approximately one and a half million names, with about 4 million missing. Did you ever imagine you'd gather such a vast number of names over the years?"

"I didn't dare imagine it, but I held onto hope. Now, my dream is to reach 5 million names before retiring next year. That's roughly another 100,000 names by then. Over the years, our team diligently typed countless names into the system, one by one. I've personally inputted thousands of names. Each name stirs something within us, offering a glimmer of hope for continuity. These names have become my life's mission, albeit a challenging one. Every passing day, we exhaust known and potential sources, with fewer survivors and dwindling documentation. It's a constant race against time."

Q: You rely on artificial intelligence. Could this advance lead you to uncover more names?

"Over the past year, artificial intelligence has 'learned' to scan written and photographed testimonies of Holocaust survivors, extracting additional names of victims. The technology keeps improving, allowing us to delve into testimonies provided by tens of thousands of Holocaust survivors over the years, some of whom have passed away, and extract additional names along with detailed information such as full names, birth cities, parents' names, and the last place they were seen. This technology enables us to sift through vast amounts of data and uncover thousands of names in a fraction of the time it would take us manually. However, the machine still requires further training to become more accurate. If successful, there's significant potential here for text scanning on a massive scale within a reasonable timeframe."

Q: Even with artificial intelligence, do we need to accept that some names may never be identified?

"I fear that might be the case. As of January this year, we've documented around 4.9 million names. The mythical figure of 6 million, as mentioned in the Nuremberg trials, is likely closer to 5.8 million in reality. The difficulty lies in knowing that we may never be able to document all the victims, especially in regions where sources are scarce. The issue is that people don't understand that there was never truly a list of 6 million or even 5.8 million. I've encountered people who are genuinely surprised, and astounded, that there are still around a million names of Holocaust victims missing. They ask me, 'Don't you know all the names? We always hear about the six million.' But it doesn't exist, there isn't a comprehensive list of all the victims, just as there isn't an organized list of survivors. In our database, there are over a million names of Jews whose fate is unknown. In Germany, there's currently an attempt to reconstruct the names of Jews who lived in the country between 1933 and 1945, but it's challenging because at the time the Germans certainly didn't document the names of the murdered. They simply annihilated most of them without any record. In contrast, our mission, as stated in the Book of Names, is to engrave the names of the Holocaust's Jewish victims into the world's memory. That's our mission."

The post 'People are astounded that around a million names of Holocaust victims are missing; 6 million is probably 5.8 million' appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Brigadier General (res.) Yoram Laredo is the head of the National Emergency Management Authority (NEMA). He served as the Home Front Command chief of staff as well as well as the commander of the Rescue and Training on Duty Brigade and as well as the head of the command's central district. In 2015 Laredo headed the IDF rescue mission to Nepal after the earthquake there.

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Q: Yoram Laredo, head of the National Emergency Management Authority (NEMA), you have been out in the field many times in the war. Have the difficult sights and incidents also touched you on a personal level?

"Not so long ago we held a tour to Kfar Aza. This is where I started my military service, and where I also met my wife. It was frightening. Over and above the destruction and the devastating stories, this kibbutz is also part of a formative experience in my life. The combination of all these things together tore my heart apart. This emotional impact sharpened my desire to be even better and more professional in the field that I am responsible for today."

Q: As part of your position, and as someone who, among other responsibilities, is entrusted with assessments of possible scenarios for national emergency events on the home front, were you surprised on October 7?

"I think that everyone was surprised. It didn't matter that I have already experienced difficult and complex events and I work in security, military, and emergency – nothing compares to that."

Q: Did your assessments consider the extent of the evacuees we saw?

"We do not deal with intelligence assessments of the situation, and write possible scenarios together with the authorized agencies, but the scope we saw in real time was not considered in our assessments. The war assessments considered two arenas: the evacuation of tens of thousands of people in the north to public facilities and for this purpose, the 'Safe Distance' program was built, for evacuation in the north of the country. But, for example, Kiryat Shmona was not included in the planning, just as the city of Sderot was not included. After all, we have no plan for the evacuation of all cities in Israel. I can say with a sense of satisfaction that we did not evacuate a single person to any public facility, and all evacuees were housed in hotels. This is an unprecedented achievement, also on an international level."

"Last year my parallel position head in the USA visited Israel. They have huge budgets, but their entire principle of evacuation is based on public facilities. I have been dealing with emergencies for many years and I have never come across a situation where so many evacuees were accommodated only in hotels."

Q: What will you do if the hotels are fully booked?

"The current evacuation to the hotels was made possible because of their occupancy, of course, and thanks to the Ministry of Tourism that made sure that all the evacuees were housed in hotels. But in extensive plans for an earthquake or a widespread war, we understand that at least 300,000 people will be homeless. Therefore, these plans are based, of course, on public facilities".

"The evacuation? Well, it wasn't perfect"

Q: In 2021 you said that you are stable, and the civil space is ready to deal with an emergency. On October 7, many felt that this was far from the truth.

"NEMA was established from lessons we learned during the Second Lebanon War, to produce a national methodology for emergency preparedness, in addition to training and drilling of relevant officials. In the case of Swords of Iron, we ensured that the tools for managing the civil campaign were activated, and we formulated a picture of how the entire country would continue to function while anticipating disruptions. We set up forums to prioritize the entry of goods and refined products, a joint workforce with the Ministry of Economy to fill the shortage of personnel, a regional response by the IDF to the gap in security guards in infrastructural facilities, and conducted work to raise the possible implications of cyber attacks.

"In answer to your question, the overall recovery and response were reasonable. One can criticize and complain, but the event was unprecedented and so was the response after it: to organize the education system, to manage tens of thousands of evacuees, to preserve medical care, and to deal with welfare care. I am not speaking from above – but as a professional. I felt that we created an entire infrastructure and tools that resulted in control and coordination. Ultimately, in all modesty, the system we established at NEMA for monitoring the situation and understanding the gaps in the functional continuity – worked as expected. The national production and supply chain was not dramatically challenged. Beyond that, thanks to assistance from the Home Front Command, we also monitor the quality of service that residents receive from government ministries and the scores are high."

Q: The scores are high, but NEMA activated the evacuation plans both in the north and the south - which were delayed. Why did this happen?

"It worked well in the south. On October 7^th, we began the evacuation of 25 settlements that had been infiltrated and residents were murdered, and the IDF rescued them from the combat zone. The immediate response in Sderot was given about three days later, with the evacuation of 4,000 residents from the western neighborhoods that were exposed to fire from Gaza. On October 14^th, the entire city was evacuated, and on the 16th, settlements at a distance of 4-7 kilometers from the border were evacuated, following intelligence alerts. From the moment the decision was made, the evacuation was carried out quickly, thanks to the regional councils around the Gaza Strip and the Sderot Municipality, which functioned in a professional and admirable manner. In addition, contacts had already been made with travel agents and hotels in the south, and the system began to operate immediately."

Q: Don't you think it should have happened earlier?

"Nothing is perfect, but I think the decision to evacuate the residents was in good correlation with the changes on the ground. There was dynamic decision-making here, as there was not a predetermined script. There were 70,000 residents in Ashkelon, who were without protection for about three weeks from the start of the campaign, and then were given the possibility to evacuate from the city and move to alternative housing for a month. This is not something trivial."

Q: What was the problem in Kiryat Shmona?

"As I mentioned, Kiryat Shmona was not part of the evacuation plan in the north. In addition, part of the issue was that the evacuation was conducted also on the Sabbath, and people did not want to evacuate then. The evacuations were not forced. Then it took more time to find hotels for people who wanted to be relocated with their family members. As there was no immediate danger, we complied with many of the requests. It is important to say, also in regard to the north, that three weeks after the start of the war we updated the assessed scenario and sent government offices our updated assessment, and the strategic inventory levels were adjusted."

Q: NEMA also coordinated the provision of services to the evacuees from the government ministries, but, at the beginning of the war, the Ministry of Finance did not allocate sufficient funds, and payments to hotels were delayed, evacuees complained to the Ministry of Tourism of disorder in the hotels – and it was your responsibility to organize all this.

"A government ministry, by nature, functions in routine times, but emergency events disrupt this routine. For this reason, the government ministries need to be structured differently, so that emergency situations will be given more significant status. This should be one of the lessons that we have learned on a national level. Providing services to citizens during routine times is important, but we must enhance the ability to know how to act during an emergency. Whoever does not have emergency capabilities ready in advance, will not survive in times of chaos."

Q: The criticism is that various ministries were required to undertake immediate tasks, while they were still trying to make head or tail of the situation. Emergency or no emergency, our elected officials are expected to come to their senses in times like this.

"There is a need to coordinate expectations with the public regarding the level of service and state abilities. Today, the national emergency services are not sufficiently developed. The public complained to the government offices. I watched from the sidelines and thought 'To make a decision in the public service, you need an accountant, lawyer, etc.' The army has a procedure for shifting from routine to emergency, but the procedure in government offices remains the same. I don't think it's fair to come to them with complaints. They are simply less structured for an emergency."

Q: Part of the structure of the government ministries is also connected to you, that is, in the ability to set up the forum of district government ministries. A district is an extension of the central government, and its role is to enable the effective implementation of its policies. If these districts had been more operative, things might have been different.

"We must improve on this point. Every government ministry has a district branch, and I have an employee who manages the district emergency committee. We have to make it more operative. Among other issues, they are not a significant factor because the governmental structure in the ministries sets the policies and has the resources to implement them. As NEMA, we must understand how to create processes with a close connection between the district heads and processes of forming a situational report, alongside operative influence in the region. The government ministries also need to strengthen their districts. In the flurry of events, a ministry's ability to maintain centralized control is almost hopeless."

To protect the production chain

Q: We spoke about the north before, but it seems appropriate that we should delve deeper into the subject. A flare-up in the north will be completely different. Only in the last few days, have we encountered a rather alarming document from the Ministry of Justice, which deals with preparation for complete darkness.

"A war in the north is a different story and is expected to significantly challenge the national production and supply chain. We understand that the issue of energy and regular supply of electricity will be the focus, so we will be holding a war game in the near future on this issue, under the auspices of the Minister of Defense."

Q: Just to make things clear, the assessed scenario considers a situation where about half of Israel's population will be cut off from electricity for a day, and maybe even longer.

"True. We need to prepare here for an extensive blackout, a power cut, in addition to the development of a full scope military event in the north. Almost everything is based on energy and electricity. Together with the Ministry of Communications, we activated AM receivers that will allow continuous radio transmissions even in the absence of electricity, even in a bomb shelter or a residential secure space. I advise everyone to buy, among other things, a transistor radio, batteries, and bottled water. We are also working on an energy solution for several cellular endpoints that will function during prolonged power outages. Medical ventilators and breathing support machines are another example of needed devices, and the Ministry of Health has already approved ways to help patients on ventilators during a prolonged power outage. Time is precious and plans must be ready."

Q: You emphasized the importance of the supply chain. How do you ensure the supply of food without the supply of energy and electricity?

"We have, for example, analyzed potential threats with the Ministry of Economy. The Ministry has designated supermarkets from Hadera and North with energy backup, which will continue to provide service during prolonged power outages. This is called the 'Super Iron' program. The Ministry will practice a war game with the large retail chains to rehearse the procedure. The Ministry of Economy also stocked up on 20,000 food rations, to distribute to citizens in shelters with issues of accessibility, via the local authorities."

Q: In the case of applying the assessed scenario in the north, what are the most important things that you have to undertake?

"Beyond the demand for energy management, it is important to make sure that we have a correlated picture of the situation with the government ministries. That is why we purchased satellite phones for use in emergencies. It is also important that the decision-making process is not compromised. Another issue is people's ability to self-evacuate. Those who are in their own homes, in a protected area, have lower chances of being injured. We have statistics that back this up. If there are people who nevertheless decide to evacuate independently, the state will have to provide an appropriate response."

Q: All the plans we discussed are important, but in the end, your main weakness is that you cannot force the implementation of your emergency plans. This is a problem.

"This is the crux of the difficulties, and we are pushing for legislation, the Home Command Law, because without it any government ministry can say 'I'm not doing this.' To me this is ridiculous. I am delighted that in recent events there has been a voluntary commitment by government ministries. Beyond that, NEMA is the liaison between the government ministries, a joint entity that connects them to the situation, sets priorities, and is also connected to the intelligence corps and the development of the situation. But in other emergency situations, it is not certain that the commitment will be similar."

Q: So, you believe that the state would be better prepared for an emergency if procedures had been anchored in legislation?

"Yes. If we had the authority to guide and instruct the implementation of the plan we constructed – the procedure would work more smoothly. Legislation would make everything more harmonious."

Q: What is important to emphasize in such legislation?

"Among other issues, creating a mechanism that will ensure proper preparation by the state institutions and economy, so that they function properly in an emergency; determining roles and authorities of the state institutions, local authorities, rescue agencies and other entities; having a national master plan for the home front, with statutory status, formulated by NEMA and approved by the government; the obligation to report annually on the state of the home command's preparedness for an emergency; determining an earmarked emergency budget for each government ministry and local authority; declaring of a 'state of economic emergency.' We must not have a situation where a certain ministry assumes the powers of other ministers. In an emergency, NEMA will provide the appropriate response. NEMA is the one that will guide organizations and ministries, both formally and legally, during an emergency. If situations are anchored in legislation, Israel's preparedness for emergencies will soar."

Q: Besides legislation, you still haven't talked about increasing the budget. Your budgets dropped by approximately 60% within a decade.

"Maybe this will surprise you: I don't feel that we have an unusual budgetary problem, but the issue of legislation is much more crucial."

Q: In conclusion, you have been in this position for more than three years. Did you imagine that during your term the Covid-19 pandemic would seem like a distant, almost relatively minor, event?

"Absolutely not. I did not think that in retrospect, relatively speaking, the COVID-19 virus would be regarded as a seasonal flu. I did not expect this, and everything must be done so that such incidents do not happen here again."

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Tomer Tzaban is a former undercover officer. He fought in the Shimshon unit at the beginning of the Second Intifada. He is the author of the new book "In the Heart of Gaza" and the bestseller "Undercover in Gaza" (Kinneret Zmora-Bitan). Today, he is a diamantaire.

Q: Tell us about your first mission as an undercover soldier with the Shimshon unit in Gaza in the 1990s.

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"My team's first mission was in the Jabaliya refugee camp. Israeli trucks were hit every evening by gunfire, mines, and roadside bombs, and the terrorist cell would slip away into the refugee camp, which was just a few minutes away from the road that supplied the [Jewish] community of Dugit and an adjacent naval post. Our goal was to lure them out of their hiding spots. We were dressed in black suits and veils tailored specially for us, and we tried to cause an uprising in the refugee camp."

Q: How do you get a refugee camp to revolt?

"We staged a breakdown by an IDF supply truck outside the entrance to the camp, and our team was supposed to lead the crowd to the military vehicle and attack the soldiers; we assumed that this would lead the wanted men to leave their hiding places and expose themselves. The team moved around the center of the camp, and the crowd gathered around us shouting 'Allahu Akbar' as we approached the broken-down vehicle. The entire camp followed us, thousands of refugees. Suddenly, we noticed a masked man approaching us, and from him, we realized that our wanted men had made an appointment in the evening at one of Jabaliya's schools.

"We arrived at the same school in the evening and saw nine masked men entering the school courtyard armed with axes and machetes. One of them also had a loaded Kalashnikov. He started talking with our collaborator and suddenly someone pushed him to the ground and the head of the terrorist cell put the barrel of the rifle into the man's mouth. All this happened as masked men surrounded us."

Q: That's a rough situation for a first mission

"I felt like I was in a movie, and soon the director would yell "Cut.'  But of course, that wasn't what happened. The leader of the terrorist cell shouted at us, 'Jabalya is mine." In our earpieces, we heard the command, 'Prepare to engage.' A few moments later, the command to open fire roared over the radio. We were ten soldiers against nine terrorists, we drew our weapons, and each soldier shot almost simultaneously at the masked man in front of him. There was the sound of a massive explosion in the schoolyard, and almost like magic, all the masked men fell to the ground. It was the first time the soldiers on my team had killed a terrorist."

Q: You eliminated several wanted terrorists in Gaza and during your service, you encountered major terrorist figures, including Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a senior Hamas figure who smuggled weapons from Iran to Gaza. Some 20 years before he was assassinated in Dubai, you almost killed him yourself, in an event you wrote about in your new book "In the Heart of Gaza."

"In early June 1990, I was scrambled to the unit's briefing room. The Shin Bet Rafah district officer pasted pictures of Muhammad Nazimi Nasser and Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, members of the cell that murdered IDF soldiers Avi Sasportas and Ilan Saadon, They were a well-trained cell that kept constantly on the move.

"The cell's hideout was in Khirbet al Adas, east of Rafah. The cell members hiding there, Nasser and al-Mabhouh, were armed with rifles and handguns. At midnight on a moonless night, we began to move through an olive grove toward a dilapidated two-story building. One force stole toward the door, and my force went in through a window on the second floor. As soon as I reached the window, I saw a young man in front of me with a frozen, frightened look. He was dressed in a white tank top and underwear. I told him to freeze, but he started running away. I caught up with him in the basement and pointed a gun at his head.

"Suddenly, there was a huge explosion at the entrance to the house. It was the iron door being breached and the rest of the force entered. A search of the house revealed that the terrorist cell had escaped. What we didn't know at the time was that these terrorists were on their way to cross the perimeter fence separating Israeli and Egyptian Rafah, and they had with them some of Ilan Saadon's personal belongings."

Q: You were the first into the house; if things had worked out differently perhaps you would have been able to take down Mabhouh.

"Maybe, but that wasn't how it worked out. Either way, 20 years later, when the pictures of Mabhouh's assassins were published, I smiled to myself. That day I went to Ilan Saadon's grave and asked him to forgive us for taking so long."

Q: Did you ever encounter tunnels during your time in Gaza?

"I knew Gaza like the back of my hand, but things have changed since then, of course. The Gaza underground was only in its infancy when I served there. At the time, the tunnels were mainly in the Rafah area, and their function was to smuggle drugs, people, goods, and weapons. The tunnels back then were shafts like those we see in the Shfela from the time of Judah Maccabee. The more we tightened the border, the bigger the tunnels became, but they were nothing like what we see today."

Five days in a ceiling void

Q: From your fieldwork did you manage to understand how Gazans differ from us?

Let me tell you a true story: one of my missions was to eliminate a high-level wanted man in Rafah. The Shin Bet couldn't get to him, and every evening collaborators would be murdered. The Shin Bet recruited a collaborator, an arms dealer, who came to Rafah with weapons and sought to sell them to the target. I was sent as a sniper to observe what was happening: I located a two-by-four-meter ceiling void and waited there for five days. During that time, I observed the people of the city and looked at them deeply.

On the fourth day, I noticed six masked men advancing to the building I was in. I was sure they were on to me. I put down my sniper rifle and came out of hiding with a submachine gun and a handgun. Suddenly, I saw the terrorists interrogating a collaborator, and in the end stabbing and killing him. What changed my understanding of them was what happened next: they mutilated him' and they cut off his legs, hands, and genitals. They took a sadistic pleasure that I couldn't understand. This was the first time I realized that they were not like us in any way. I realized that we had failed to understand something very fundamental about them, so what we saw and heard on October 7, unfortunately, didn't surprise me."

Q: Things had been boiling under the surface for years, and on October 7 we saw everything erupt.

"Israelis refused to see the truth. We had a mirror held up in front of us and we refused to look at it. Lately, the penny has dropped for me: People asked me, 'Is there no hope after all?' What we can see from this question is that many people are willing to ignore the truth; they fall for the illusion that there is a future for us with these people. We insist on finding something, which in my experience doesn't exist… There is a people here that wants to take our place. We have to understand that."

Q: You say that with a lot of confidence. Perhaps there is no absolute truth here?

"In the closing chapter of the book I write about an encounter I had about ten years ago in Antwerp, with a Jordanian who told me: Today you are strong, you have an American father. But once you are weakened, we will slaughter you all. The same is true for some Israeli Arabs, unfortunately. If Hezbollah had occupied territory inside Israel, I believe that some of them would have joined in. This is true of Jenin; it is true of Gaza. That's how I see things."

Q: What particularly worries you right now?

"I believe that the tunnels were built over the years to create a fortress, waiting for the day when we would move in. The IDF works smart, but it's hard work. As long as we are on the move, we are in good shape. If we are stationary that is when we will have problems; that's why undercover units were established and this is why the Shimshon unit needs to be re-established – knows how to go inside, do what needs to be done, and leave secretly."

Q: Was Shimshon substantially different from Duvdevan?

"No, but our specialization in Gaza was unique; Duvdevan operated in Judea and Samaria. In Judea and Samaria, you dress up as a school principal, a businessman. In Gaza, you disguise yourself as a worker. In Judea and Samaria, the population is more intelligent; Gaza is the pits. As time passes, people with money leave Gaza and what's left is the worst of the worst. In Judea and Samaria, people use perfume; in Gaza, we didn't shower for days so that we would be filthy. Imagine washing your hair with scented shampoo and then going out on an undercover mission. You would become a target straight away.

"The closure of the Shimshon unit was another measure that reduced our human intelligence in Gaza. It is impossible to compare the number of collaborators before and after we left Gaza. In Judea and Samaria, the Palestinians say that whoever dreams of carrying out an attack at night, gets up in the morning and the Shin Bet arrests him. This is not the case now in Gaza. We saw evidence of this with the failure of the Sayeret Matkal operation there two years ago. It's like entering an enemy country like Syria or Lebanon."

Q: Do you remember your last time in Gaza?

"When I left Gaza, only a few cells had weapons, very different from the situation today. Even if our cover was burned, we didn't find ourselves facing terrorists with submachine guns and RPGs from every corner. In most cases, it was fauda [Arabic for chaos, and a word used by Israeli undercover teams when their mission has been compromised] with knives, sometimes handguns, and rifles. My last memory of Gaza is a thought: I'm leaving the place, and I really don't know what the future will bring to the place. I understand that this is a place we have no interest in controlling, and on the other hand, every area we withdraw from will lead to a nest of terror. Gaza will not change. They don't want to build, develop, prosper. I find it hard to understand that mindset."

Q: From your deep knowledge of Gaza, what do you think will happen there in the short term, even before "the day after"?

"If people are hungry, more and more terrorists will turn to the Shin Bet and Unit 504 [a secretive IDF intelligence unit that operates agents and interrogates prisoners] and provide information in exchange for aid. It's already happening. Gaza will descend into chaos. For us, this may be an advantage, because it will allow us to gather better intelligence."

Q: What should "the day after" look like?

"For years, wealthy people left Gaza. They paid to leave. We need to encourage them to leave."

Q: Assuming that there will be countries willing to take them in.

"The problem is – and other countries understand this – is that they have no ambition to be a prosperous people. In 1970, in Black September, they tried to assassinate the King of Jordan; they turned Jordan into a terrorist state and were expelled after a year of fighting. Lebanon, a prosperous country, deteriorated into a civil war after they [the Palestinians] built up Fatahland. In Kuwait, the Emir expelled them to Judea and Samaria. And since their only aspiration is to eliminate us, in Gaza they will always return to their ways."

Q: Things are heating up in the north What lessons can we draw from Gaza when it comes to Lebanon?

"The most important thing is the images coming out of Gaza. The Middle East understands the language of power and the destruction in Gaza resonates in the Arab world. Even those countries that want to make peace with us – the Saudis, the Emiratis – want to know that they are forming a defense alliance with a strong country. So, what happens in Gaza is clearly heard and seen in Lebanon. [Hezbollah Secretary General, Hassan] Nasrallah, unlike [Hamas Gaza leader, Yahya] Sinwar, loves Lebanon, and the Second Lebanon War left a scar on him. He doesn't want Lebanon to be left in ruins, and that gives us leverage over him."

Q: Don't neglect the soldiers

At the close of your first book, "In the Heart of Gaza," you talk about life after military service. Is your service still with you today?

"I compartmentalized everything for a year and one pays a price for that. For example, on a vacation of all places, when you're near a beautiful lake with your family and everything looks good and you have some release for your soul, the trauma too is released bit by bit. In one of his interviews, Lior Raz from Fauda said that he forgot a lot of things, and only while speaking and writing did the memories come back to him. That was the case for me too."

I repressed significant and difficult events from my service but watching Fauda changed something for me. I looked at the tense and frightened faces of my children as we watched the show and realized that I had been through exceptional and unusual experiences. In some ways, watching Fauda led me to write the first book, which was really a form of release. Up until then, the weight from my time in Gaza weighed heavily on my shoulders. Beyond that, of course, there are things I'd love to let go of. Some things that are suitable for the army but you don't want them to be part of your civilian life. "

Q: Does that also apply to reservists coming out of Gaza today?

"The situation of the soldiers is insane; they can be fighting in Gaza, be given a short break and within half an hour they can be home. Something about this scenario just doesn't work out. These are powerful experiences, and people's realities can get mixed up. These transitions confuse the mind, and people can find themselves loading their weapon in normal situations because they are still in a state of operational alertness. This is something that is also typical of undercover soldiers: one day you are a resident of Gaza, and another day you are an ordinary citizen."

"I remember going out one time during my military service and stopping to fill up on gas. I saw an Arab gas station attendant holding a fueling nozzle, and within a second I was in another place, seeing a terrorist, a refugee camp, thinking someone was coming to kill us. That's when I realized something was wrong with me. I dealt with the trauma by myself for years, so I say to soldiers that they should talk about things, and let things go. For the families, my message is to pay attention to outbursts of violence, nightmares, and alienation. Without care and attention, this violence seeps into society. It is important to give people the feeling that they are not alone, and more importantly, to deal with the whole trauma issue at the state level."

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As with most great figures in history, Napoleon Bonaparte's legacy is divisive: some laud him as a brilliant thinker and military genius, while others view him as an imperialist and enslaver who should be vilified, not lionized. 

Israel Hayom speaks with Allon Klebanoff, a military historian, head of the Israeli Society for Napoleonic Research, and member of the International Napoleonic Society, to shed light on the legendary emperor. 

"People don't realize that Napoleon is a historical figure whose influence on our lives today remains great," Klebanoff began. "He ranks second in history in terms of the number of publications about him, with Jesus being the only one to precede him. He is a central subject in books, articles, and various fields of art – literature, poetry, theater, cinema, music, and opera. He even reached the Israeli theater with Nissim Aloni's 'Napoleon, Dead or Alive.'

In addition, at this time, a biopic about Napoleon is also showing in theaters worldwide, directed by Ridley Scott, in which Joaquin Phoenix portrays the emperor.

Q: But some in the French culture view him as a controversial figure, don't they? 

"Every significant figure in history is subject to interpretation and debate. Even during his lifetime, Napoleon was criticized by his contemporaries, such as the foreign minister at the time, François-René de Chateaubriand. But in general, he is undoubtedly one of the most admired and popular Frenchmen. He stars in two of Stendhal's most famous novels, one of the greatest writers in French literature, as well as in the works of Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas. Not to mention director Abel Gance's 1927 six-hour epic 'Napoléon' is considered one of the most central and important films in the history of silent cinema."

Q: Would you say that this is true today as well? Because, in 2021, for instance, when France marked the bicentenary of the death of Napoleon, his tarnished legacy – due to the reinstatement of slavery that had been banned after the revolution, among other things – led to French President Emmanuel Macron insisting that he was "commemorating not celebrating" the emperor's legacy.

"Macron is a statesman. But when it comes to the French public itself, I can say, as someone who has visited the country many times, that there is an innumerable amount of documentaries, books, articles, and exhibitions dedicated to Napoleon. And that was during the coronavirus pandemic, and people still flooded the exhibition."

Q: Napoleon saw the world in a particular manner, and led to many others seeing it the same way. 

"That's exactly it. Anyone who has watched legal dramas knows the well-known practice on the witness stand, where a person puts his hand on the Bible and swears to "tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." But in French civil code, which Napoleon famously bequeathed France, there is no such practice because he believed that a person will always lie if that is in his or her interest and that there is no such thing as 'whole truth.'

"He insisted that France's civil code, the 1804 Napoleonic Code, should be clear to everyone. He demanded that the wording be simple and clear, and was even personally involved in the drafting. After the peace agreements with the Habsburg Empire and England, he dedicated himself to far-reaching reforms in France and turned the country around - from one that was torn apart by the revolution to the most advanced one on the globe, with the Napoleonic Code having formed the basis of the law systems of many other countries. 

"This is just one example of Napoleon's ability to make others see the world from his point of view. By the way, based on what my friends said, who live abroad [where 'Napoleon' premiered earlier than in Israel] and watched the movie, what is missing from the latest biopic are the historical impact and the historical consequences of Napoleon's work. He spread two of the central principles of the French Revolution – liberty and equality – with every step he took on European soil as well as in the Middle East."

Q: He is also said to have majorly influenced the Jews at the time. Some say Jewish nationalism was affected by Napoleon, directly and indirectly. 

"True, because of his journey to the land of Israel. His army's entry to Israel in 1799 was the first time that a European army entered the land after more than half a millennium, after the departure of the Crusades in 1291. His arrival here was significant."

Q: How so? 

"From the moment Napoleon arrived here and until the present day, the Middle East has not for a moment retreated from global attention, and Napoleon was the trigger for this. But before that, on Oct. 7, 1571 – and as I say Oct. 7 I get shivers [because the recent brutal Hamas attack on Israel also took place on Oct. 7] – the Battle of Lepanto took place in the region of western Greece.

"The Ottoman navy was defeated there by a European coalition, which led to the beginning of the decline of the Ottoman Empire and the decline of the western Mediterranean basin. No one came to the Middle East except travelers and the region was forgotten."

Q: Is it true that during the Siege of Acre in 1799, Napoleon issued a proclamation offering the land as a homeland to Jews? 

"You're touching upon an important subject. This was a controversial statement, and some say it was forged. My teacher, Professor Mordechai Gichon – [one of the outstanding archaeological and military historians of Israel in the last decades] – was convinced that it was true, and I follow his view. I am convinced that it is a genuine document, even though the original text has never been found. Napoleon had an interest in bolstering Jewish nationalism so that it would help him in the land of Israel, just like he did in Italy in 1796. 

"By the way, there is no dispute that after the Italian unification, [German-Jewish philosopher and Zionist thinker] Moses Hess wrote 'Rome and Jerusalem', which definitely contributed to the birth of Zionism. In other words, after Athens and Rome gained independence, it was Jerusalem's turn. 

"Moreover, when Napoleon arrived in Venice in 1797, he saw the [local] ghettos and was revolted. He ordered the ghettos to be dismantled and all the restrictions on Jews lifted because they went against the principle of equality of the French Revolution. Some 118 years before the Balfour Declaration, he called on the Jews to return to the land of their ancestors. There are a number of respected researchers who see this as evidence that Napoleon was history's first Zionist."

Q: And how did the 'first Zionist' influence the IDF, for instance? 

"The conscription system used today in all armies of the world began with Napoleon. The French Revolution led to the first public conscription in modern history. Mass conscription is well implemented in Israel, which is based on the reserve army.

"Napoleon also influenced the creation of the General Staff: he had unusual abilities, and when he defeated the Prussians and they had to rebuild their army, they said they didn't have anyone as brilliant as Napoleon, and so they had to develop an efficient system to deal with a superior military. And so they established what we today call the General Staff, which is part and parcel of modern armies. 

Q: How about the fighting in Gaza? 

"Napoleon is the father of the modern concept of fire. Until he came on the scene, artillery was an auxiliary force on the battlefield. Napoleon used it as an independent arm, and achieved his goals through large concentrations of fire. Indirectly, the use of massive fire in Gaza, from the air and on the ground, is inspired by Napoleon.

"Soldiers who rely on canned food should also thank Napoleon, as he was the one who recruited scientists to come up with ways to preserve food on the battlefield, which led to the invention of canned food. Certainly the fighting in Gaza is based on principles that date back to the Napoleonic era."

Q: What about combat objectives? Are Israeli leaders inspired by him? 

"This might be surprising, but yes. Napoleon understood that victory was not just about territory and maneuvers, as it was customary to think in the 18th century, but in destroying the enemy's army. In the case of Gaza, our victory will not be complete until Hamas is destroyed physically."

Q: Could a strategic surprise, such as the Oct. 7 brutal attack by Hamas, have happened to Napoleon? He is said to have been quite arrogant and was maybe unprepared. 

"He made sure he had excellent intel and had agents all over Europe. I can't imagine Napoleon becoming as blind as we were before the Yom Kippur War or Oct. 7. Something like this didn't happen to him, and there are no "what ifs" in history. 

Q: Has Napoleon ever surprised his enemies in such a way? 

"He surprised his opponents several times. One of the most amazing strategic surprises was recorded during the crossing of the Alps when he surprised the Austrian army in northern Italy. He crossed an area that was considered impossible to cross and managed to reach the rear of the Austrian army, as seen in the famous painting [by Jacques-Louis David]. By the way, the painting was complete propaganda [to cultivate public support by exaggerating Napoleon's success and image].

"He also strategically surprised Russia when he invaded it, even though they had an alliance." 

Q: For this article, we photographed you on the ruins of the Qaqun fortress, a scene that is also connected to surprises on the battlefield. 

"In general, the most famous sites in Israel associated with Napoleon are Jaffa and Acre, but the encounter at Qaqun is also captivating. A month and a day before the Battle of Mount Tabor, we got a fascinating window into his tactical, dangerous, outside-the-box thinking. This is an encounter that he supposedly failed in. He tried to catch his opponents between two flames and give them a decisive blow.

"His opponents recognized that it was a practice drill and slipped away, but from that moment on, they were deterred by him and kept their distance. In the Battle of Mount Tabor, on April 16, 1799, he was already successful in the exercise: he surprised the Ottoman force, which was caught by fire from two sides. This is how the goal of his trip to Israel was achieved – neutralizing the threat from the east to his forces in Egypt."

Q: In the Ridley Scott biopic Napoleon is portrayed as a knight, an impressive warrior. Truth or myth? 

"He was in the line of fire and displayed courage. At the Battle of Arcole, he grabbed the flag and ran first to the bridge. At the Battle of Arcis-sur-Aube, in 1814, his uniform was torn by bullets fired at him. Having said that, Napoleon never led a cavalry charge. But he was, of course, a brilliant strategist and tactician. His genius is reflected in his ability to plan ahead." 

Q: As part of your work at the Israeli Society for Napoleonic Research, which has about 500 members, you must learn a lot about Napoleon's character. How would you describe him? 

"He was a good son and sent half of his salary to his mother, who took care of seven other children. He was a complex, intellectual, self-taught person who already at an early age read intensively. In fact, in his final exile on St. Helena, he said, 'I have fought sixty battles, and I have learned nothing which I did not know at the beginning.'

"It may be pretentious, but it only indicates his intellectual base, which also included a lot of information about Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Hannibal. There are few soldiers in history who were that educated."

Q: Napoleon has also been described as short-tempered, worked around the clock, and was not particularly sociable. 

"He was sociable with his friends, but at the same time, he was a practical person and not much into small talk. His work capacity was indeed extreme. He worked 20-23 hours a day. Whenever he felt he was about to fall asleep, he would get into a bath filled with boiling water. One time, his servant put his hand in the water and almost got burnt. 

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"When Goethe met him, he was fascinated by his depth and sophistication. The philosopher Hegel called him 'the soul of the world on a horse'. Napoleon came from an impoverished family, a small and marginal island, and lost his father at a young age. Despite all this, he built himself up with his ten fingers."

Q: Did his short stature bother him? 

"Napoleon was not short at all, that's a myth. His height was average for his period. It was English cartoonists first who portrayed him as short to mock him."

Q: I cannot help but ask about Napoleon's wife, Empress Joséphine, as the latest biopic emphasizes their relationship. 

"She was the love of his life, even though their relationship was turbulent. She cheated on him left and right from the very beginning. She did not want to marry him but was later persuaded, which did not prevent her from keeping her lovers. Napoleon found out about it and wanted to break up with her, but he too had lovers and allegedly fathered five children out of wedlock. 

"The French say that 'marriage is too heavy a burden to be borne by two', and this mentally helped Napoleon and Josephine bear the mutual betrayal. In the end, Napoleon decided to divorce her because she did not have children and he wanted a legal heir. Both of their hearts were broken, and yet, they remained good friends until the end of her life. His last words were, 'France, the army, head of the army, Joséphine.'"

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