Opinion | The Flame of Us All | Israel today

The publisher of the Haaretz newspaper, Amos Schocken, one of the leading left-wing figures in the country, vehemently opposed the visit of President Yitzhak Herzog to Hebron to light the first Hanukkah candle. To clarify his reservations about the Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria, he claimed this week that the parents of Shalhevet Pess, a ten-month-old baby who was murdered in 2001 by a Palestinian terrorist in the Avraham Avinu neighborhood of Hebron, are to blame for the baby's death. "Shalhevet Fes was killed because of the irresponsibility of her parents, who thought it was possible to raise children in a combat environment, and of the Ministry of Welfare, which in a normal country would take children out of war zones," he wrote. And so it turned out that the victims became guilty in the way of the left, to prove his abysmal hatred of the Jewish presence in Hebron in particular and in Judea and Samaria in general.

In my imagination, I followed the phrase "war zones", and there I met Amos Schocken's grandfather, Shlomo Zalman Schocken. In those distant days, when Zalman Schocken was present in the Land of Israel, it became clear that the whole country had become one fighting zone. Schocken's proper conclusion was to leave Israel and go settle in New York. The grandfather, like his grandson, saw paramount importance in moving away from any of their presence in war zones.

The gloomy days that Shlomo Zalman encountered were the days of World War II. On the one hand, there were Lebanon and Syria, which were under pro-Nazi French Vichy rule, which allowed the German Air Force to use its bases to refuel in Syria and bomb British targets in Iraq. On the other hand, a much more serious threat was the German army, which went from force to force under the leadership of Erwin Rommel, who invaded North Africa and made his way quickly to the conquest of the Suez Canal. The Germans reached El Alamein, about 100 kilometers from Alexandria, and it was clear that the conquest of the canal between Europe and Asia would not stop them there on their way north to join their forces in the USSR, as well as take control of oil resources in the Middle East.

The Germans were so sure of their imminent victory that SS officers in Rome settled on the maps they had on the Jewish community in Israel and divided Tel Aviv, Rishon Lezion and Haifa into small neighborhoods and areas for the purpose of rapid purification and extermination of all Jews.

The fear of breaking through the British lines of defense aroused existential anxiety, and practical plans began for the fortification of the Carmel in preparation for a suicide battle.

The Carmel was to be the last fortress that would allow Jews a few days to flee.

Shlomo Zalman Schocken, who was at the time chairman of the board of directors of the Hebrew University, left for New York and left the university shattered in the face of the flight of an administrator from the combat zone.

The senior official left behind to fill his place, David Werner Senator, sent a telegram to Schocken with an urgent call: "General anxiety. Your absence is prolonged. Losses ... Severe financial problems. Highly recommend returning quickly."

Schocken's reaction was negative. New York is better. In early 1942, Schocken announced in a telegram he sent to the university: "I can not leave America at this difficult time." Schocken's biographer, Anthony David, tells us that even the professors who remained in the country and supported him - Gershom Shalom and Shmuel Hugo Bergman, Akiva Ernest Simon and Martin Buber - burst out laughing. Which particularly amused them the indirect way in which Zalman informed them that he did not intend to return. Most of them saw in this telegram a fear of being repackaged and sold as a vision.

According to Amos Schocken, during the fall of missiles on Gush Dan - all its residents had to leave their homes and move away from a combat zone.

When Katyushas fell in the north of the country, it was necessary to stay away, and when the missiles hit Ashkelon, they had to flee.

My recommendation to Schocken is to pay a visit to Ashkelon and anticipate the 40,000 housing units being built there in March, and to understand that New York is not our option.

May the curse of Amos Schocken on the parents of Shalhevet Pes be rolled on the next Hanukkah holiday to a new settlement in Judea and Samaria, Shalhevet, and a large menorah will be placed at its entrance, and the flame of us all will remove the darkness in the face of the great light.

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