At four o’clock on the afternoon of Holocaust Memorial Day 1981 Prime Minister Menachem Begin entered the Knesset cabinet room to welcome 30 top-ranking leaders of the United Jewish Appeal (now the United Jewish Communities). With old-world charm he kissed knuckles pumped palms squeezed shoulders and called almost everybody by their first name.
These were the genuinely dedicated ones – the ones who traveled tirelessly across America elbowing their way into disinterested Jewish communities to fire them up for Israel pounding on Federation tables for a bigger share of the designated funds tearing up in disgust pledge cards they deemed inadequate and sometimes even locking doors so that no one could leave until they had given money – big money – for Israel.
Had they been asked why they expended so much effort and means doing what they did most would probably have simply said that the fate of the Jewish state was every Jew’s responsibility. Some might even have confessed to a sense of remorse and guilt over the appalling record of their elders – the American Jewish leadership of the Holocaust years – who paralyzed by inertia ignorance apathy and indifference had done too little too late to save Europe’s Jews. Now these philanthropists were resolved the Jewish state would not go the same way.
There was a predictably solemn note to Begin’s words of welcome as he recalled the Six Million who had perished and the undaunted valor of the fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto. And everybody straightened up in rigid attentiveness when one of their own an elderly man pulled up a sleeve of his jacket to reveal a claret-colored scar and muttered I was there.
You fought in the Warsaw Ghetto? asked an incredulous Begin. The man nodded. Without another word the prime minister rose walked over to where he sat bowed his head in solemn salutation gripped his shoulders in a fervent and possessive gesture and in a voice husky with emotion said Ata gibor b’Yisrael. Yevarechecha Hashem – You are a hero of Israel. May God bless you.
The aging philanthropist whom everybody knew as Ruby was a Los Angeles magnate dressed in a white outfit. He was very short with a skinny neck a big head and silvery tusks of hair that stuck out on the sides.
Deeply moved at the prime minister’s gesture he closed his eyes pulled his mouth in at the corners twiddled the lobe of his right ear sat down blew his nose to blink back the tears and immediately shot up again to chokingly announce that he was doubling his pledge to a million dollars.
Everyone applauded. Irving Bernstein the indomitable executive vice president of the UJA clapped his hands longer than anyone else. He was bushy-haired short and slim an intense activist with piercing bespectacled eyes that never left your face. Now typically he bayoneted into the prime minister to ask Tell us Mr. Begin how the memory of the Holocaust influences your attitude toward Germany today.
For the briefest moment Begin stared balefully back at Bernstein. Burying his face in his hands he whispered between his fingers amid an astonishing silence that the subject was deeply emotional for him.
I have a special attitude concerning what the Germans did to our people he said in a voice that expressed an infinite sorrowful spirit. You see I know how my mother my father my brother and my two cousins – one four years old one five years old – went to their deaths.
The premier’s eyes stared unseeingly at the faces of his guests. They stared back at him in reverence.