The Los Angeles
Pro Israel
Rally Committee
(LAPIRC)

Suzanne Davidson -- A One-Woman Mission for Israel

Suzanne Davidson is the Founder of the Los Angeles Pro-Israel Rally Committee

I am haunted by Menachem's face. I wake up in the middle of the night and I remember his shining brown eyes. I see the brave smile coming from this Israeli man in a wheelchair who will never walk again. The memory of a man who's lifeline to the outside world is a cell phone on his lap with an ear attachment. When a call comes in from his wife, friends or other relatives it rings straight through to him. This is the oxygen of his life which keeps him sane.

Most men hate to be dependent and hate to feel the slightest bit of helplessness. It is worse for them. Menachem will have to be washed and fed by someone else for the rest of his life because he was cut down by a Palestinian terrorist's bullet. I am haunted and I pray.

On December 24, 2003 I board a plane for New York, which will have a connecting El Al flight to Israel. I have not been there for four years and it is a completely different world now. As of December 24th, 909 Israelis have been murdered by Palestinian terrorists, 5985 have been injured. In total there have been 19,736 different terror attacks. Amazingly due to an airline snafu I am upgraded to first class. For five hours I was in the lap of luxury....meals, room to spread out and practically my own bathroom. A fairly decent way to begin a 15-hour flight.

And then from the sublime to the ridiculous. I am packed like a sardine along with 300 other Jews on a 10-hour flight from New York to Tel Aviv. The good news: I had an aisle seat. The bad news: to my left is a gentleman who snores in my ear and to the right is the kitchen galley. And wouldn't you know about 150 people must have eaten something salty before they boarded the plane because for the next ten hours they continued to come (like locusts) to the kitchen/galley asking for water. My ankles swell to the size of tennis balls. However the bagels were huge and hot.

Imagine that you live in the Mid-Wilshire section of Los Angeles and you hear of a suicide bombing in Beverly Hills. Pretty scary, huh? Thursday evening when I arrive in Tel Aviv there has been a suicide bombing on the road to Petach Tikvah at a bus stop. Four people have been killed. Petach Tikvah is five minutes from Tel Aviv.

According to my relatives this goes on every week. So how come I don't see this on CNN? Or NBC or CBS? I am also informed that several months ago three soldiers, two men and a woman were sleeping at an army base near Gaza, and a Palestinian terrorist came in and butchered them all. Has the U.S. media become so blase about murder? Is there only coverage when a huge bomb goes off in Jerusalem?

And now my visit begins. My cell phone doesn't work and neither does my hair dryer. No matter. I am in Israel and my Jewish "Neshamah" (soul) is being exercised. As always Tel Aviv hums. Life continues each day and there is more traffic and more cars than I remember. My older cousin goes to classes to help her memory and my young teenage cousins go to school and to movie play-dates with friends. One of my relatives is a dentist who overworks as if he's an American. But none of them will go to Jerusalem. They are not taking any overt chances.

I have come with "Virtual Tourist" money. This is a great Aish Hatorah idea. When people know you are going to Israel, they give you money to spend as if they were going themselves. Armed with money from my Uncle, Ray Sandler, my boss, Amit Patel, my co-worker, Sandi Klein and of course myself, I begin to spend, spend and spend.

I am always amazed and delighted. I can never get over that no matter where you look everyone is Jewish. There are Mezuzahs on every door. The sit-coms are Jewish, the commercials are Jewish. My family there is rather secular so after Shabbat dinner we watch a comedy show similar to Saturday Night Live. In one sketch they bring out someone who is supposed to be Sadam Hussein. The panel of comedy news people interview him about his capture:
Interviewer: "Why didn't you go to Syria instead of Tikrit?"
Sadam: "I did. But I left and came back."
Interviewer: "Why?"
Sadam: "There were too many Arabs there."

A big laugh from every one of my relatives. Thank G-D they are still able to laugh.

My 14-year-old cousin and I go to see the latest "Lord of the Rings" film. For security reasons we have to pre-order the tickets. We are scanned and searched before entering the cinema and we have to sit in pre-assigned seats. The film is about good vs. evil. How appropriate. I am sitting next to my teenage cousin whose grandmother and great-grandmother survived the Kovno Ghetto. He is now living in a world where he does not know from day-to-day where or when the next Palestinian suicide bomber will strike. A classmate of his recently lost his father to a terrorist bullet. I tell my young cousin that Jews all over the world care about him and Israel and are doing all that they can do to help.....I hope I am right.

By the way, at the end of the film the good guys win -- with a lot of man-power and with a little help from "above." Yup that's about right. That would be the story of Israel.

To be around Israelis is to watch courage in motion. They may not think so but it's true. My 70-year-old cousin will go this week to tell her story of survival to an interviewer at Yad Vashem. She always felt that her story wasn't that important...that other people had it far worse than she. She shows me pictures of a recent trip she took to Kovno, Lithuania. She wanted to find the place where he father was buried. He was taken out of the Ghetto along with 5000 other men to a nearby Fortress and shot. She found one small headstone for these 5000 Jews. She said she could only stand to be in Lithuania for one day. That it was like visiting a cemetery. She said "Everything in Kovno is the same." 58 years later and the house she was born in is still there. The store her grandmother owned is still there. The only difference is that the townspeople have changed the numeric addresses on the buildings so that no Jews can come back and claim any homes or businesses as theirs. 58 years later and the hate continues. Before arriving in Israel the news from France is horrifying and withering. Jews have to hide their yarmulkes or risk being beaten by angry Muslim youths. Is it 2003 or 1938?

After 9-11-01 most Americans get that (in the words of that famous Jewess Gertrude Stein)"A terrorist is a terrorist is a terrorist." Terrorists only know killing and they like it. They want to destroy all vestiges of Western society and they don't care if they have to use their children to do it. But I still run into people who don't understand how important it is to support Israel. As Israel goes, so goes the world. The lesson of World War II is - when the world lets innocent Jews die, the rest of the world is next.

I work with someone who recently said to me: "You know I don't agree with supporting Israel." This guy, who by the way is Jewish and rich beyond anyone's imagination, does not "get it." G-D forbid one of his children goes into a mall and gets blown up, then he will.

I am in a taxi. The news is on and my Hebrew is limited. I turn to the driver and ask if everything is alright. He answers, "Everything is fine right now, but the day is not over."

Jerusalem: I go to the Kotel (The Wailing Wall). There are no words to describe the depth of feeling. I have prayers from many of my friends. I pray for them and for Israel. I cry, but not because I am sad. I cry because I am a Jew at the Kotel and I am home.

On to a lunch at a small diner where the owner is barking orders and telling me what to eat. I eat what he advises. It is delicious. I also manage to get some food on my skirt. The owner brings me a rag with a glass of cleaning solution. Don't you just love Israelis? My taxi drives up a narrow street. We stop at a redlight and I look over to see the Sbarro pizzaria. The restaurant where so many were killed two and a half years ago just because they wanted to have pizza for lunch. It is completely rebuilt. Israelis know how to bounce back. I am inspired.

And now the reason for the trip: We drive to the organization called OneFamily. This organization assists those individuals and their families who have been hurt or affected by suicide bombings. They will let me interview a Survivor. An interesting term "Survivor". Only three years ago if you mentioned that word people thought you were speaking about the Holocaust. OneFamily (Israel Emergency Solidarity Fund) was founded in September 2001 as a grassroots effort to respond to the unmet needs of victims of terror in Israel. Since its inception, OneFamily has distributed more than 7.5 million dollars in various forms of financial, emotional, psychological and material assistance. To repeat myself, as of December 24, 2003: 909 Israelies have been killed and 5985 have been injured. There have been 19,736 different terror attacks. OneFamily provides direct financial and legal assistance and provides the family network for world Jewry to express their natural sense of brotherhood. They do this by facilitating direct contact, relationships and interaction between survivors and world Jewry as individuals, communities and organizations. Their programs include: Adopt a Family Program, OneFamily Orphans Fund, and the OneFamily Youth Division. They have an astounding website at: www.onefamilyfund.org. On their site are listed the names and the stories of those who have been murdered along with those of survivors. Also at this site you will find testimonies and memorials from friends and relatives.

“We are trying to make this a central worldwide website for all information on victims of terror,” says OneFamily Director of Public Relations, Yehuda Poch.

I meet with Effi Turkia, the Liason between OneFamily and survivors for central Israel and Tel Aviv. I am to be introduced to (at Tel Hashomer hospital in Tel Aviv) a survivor of a terrorist's bullet. His name is Menachem Mordechai, a 46-year-old man who is the husband of wife Mazel (46 years-old) and father of three children (18, 17 and 11-years-old) who is now paralyzed from the neck down. The terrorist attack occurred on Thursday, March 13, 2003. He is sitting in front of the hospital in the sun. Mr. Turkia wheels him inside to the cafeteria and we sit at a table as the interview is conducted.

Interviewer: What happened to you?
Mr. Mordechai: I lived in the Shima Settlement (which is in the South Hebron Hills). I took my father to visit my uncle in a Jerusalem hospital. I drove on Road #1 and stopped to pick up my wife and brother-in-law. My father and I were in a nearby parking lot when the terrorist opened the car door and shot me and my father. The terrorist thought he had killed me. The terrorist was laughing. (Mr. Mordechai saw the terrorist’s face and recognized him from pictures in the local police department. His father, a man of seventy or so years is also paralyzed). The police and ambulance came right away and took me and my father to Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem. In the ambulance I went into a coma which lasted 50 days. The doctors operated after four days. My wife and children were by my side and had a place to stay at the hospital.

His wife Mazel, who is a teacher, was by his bedside and didn’t work for three months. The family gets some assistance from the government but it is OneFamily who gives them the money they need to live on every month. Also a community in the United States has adopted them through the OneFamily “Adopt a Family” program. He cannot sell his home because it is in the West Bank, but he would like to buy another. He would have left the hospital a month ago but he is renting a home and cannot live in it till he makes it handicapped user friendly. OneFamily has bought him a laptop which is a big help to him psychologically. Every day he swims and has physical therapy along with engaging in water sports.

He has an aide here at the hospital but will need 24-hour a day care for the rest of his life when he leaves. His daughter is in the Army now and his son will go to the Army next year. They have all had family counseling but after a time the children said that Hashem creates everything and that they accept this and can now go on with their lives without the counseling. Even though Hebron is still dangerous the family stated that they would have stayed there, but they moved closer to the hospital to be near their father and husband.

Mr. Mordechai was head of a Software Development project and supervised 12 people before the terrorist shooting. He worked there for 18 years.

Interviewer – How has this affected you and your family?
Mr. Mordechai – Every morning when I awake I am depressed. I feel it especially when people come in to bathe and feed me. I say to G-D what is going to happen to me? I can’t even read the newspaper by myself. But I need to be strong for my wife and children because they have been strong for me. If I fall (apart) they all fall. I must smile and not be depressed.

Mr. Mordechai’s father is also paralyzed but has moved back to his home in Beersheva. Mr. Mordechai’s mother had been ill before the terrorist attack and so psychologists met with her to prepare her for her husband’s disability. They told her that her son was out of the country for business. They wanted to prepare her for the double shock.

Interviewer – Out of such evil and chaos do you harbor any hatred for Palestinians or Arabs?
Mr. Mordechai – I have worked with Arabs (Israeli Arabs) all my life and have had them in my home for Shabbat. I do not dislike all Arabs. I had a nice Palestinian who worked in my house and some of my Arab friends come to visit me in the hospital. I do not harbor any hatred for any of them. Israeli security constantly checks in with me (because they have not caught the terrorist yet). They know who he is and where he lives but he is in hiding.

Interviewer – What do you dream of?
Mr. Mordechai – I dream of standing up. I would like to be able to get a prosthesis.

Menachem can move his right arm a little but not his fingers. As for the future there are special government programs which he can work for -- perhaps computers, answering phones at a company or even opening a business with his wife.

Interviewer – Is there anything you would like to say to those Americans who will be reading this?
Mr. Mordechai – I never thought in my life I’d ever meet so many loving people. There are so many Jews who care about Israel. On holidays kids from all over the U.S. send me cards and best wishes. It makes me feel very good and they also come to visit me. There is a group called Adat Yeshurun who visit with me and are from the United States. They will be coming to Israel to have Passover with me in 2004.
Interviewer – Do you ever think of leaving Israel?
Mr. Mordechai – Never.

There is not much to say after this, except what are you doing to help the only democracy in the Middle East? What are you doing to help the brave State of Israel and her people?

Thank you Hashem for this trip.

Webmaster's note see the Frontpage article "Not in Our Name -- Not in Your Life", exerpted below: 

An advertisement signed by a group of artists, academicians, and “activists” called Not In Our Name (NION) appeared in the September 19 New York Times. The ad stated that the United States would not invade Iraq in their name. The “activists” were really Socialists, Maoists, Stalinists, Leninists, Marxists, and Communists. However, the mainstream media does not identify them as such. They prefer to call them “activists.” (Know your mainstream media code words.)
...
Clark Kissinger, the “spokesman,” as the Hartford Courant referred to him, is a board member of NION and is a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP). The RCP is an organization that wants to replace the democratically elected government of the United States of America with a Communist dictatorship. The RCP is affiliated with such philanthropic groups as the Shining Path of Peru and the Communist Party of Nepal -so you can get an idea of what they have in mind. Their leader, Bob Avakian, is in France avoiding the FBI ( I wonder if he knows Ira Einhorn?).