The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

"Do you want the Messiah to come?": The letters sent by children to Golda Meir at the end of the war are revealed - Walla! news

2022-02-18T20:20:09.355Z


In the letters, the children express their feelings in the wake of the Yom Kippur War, raising issues that their ears caught on in those days, such as the concern for prisoners and the discussions in agreements regarding the territories. To the children from Kibbutz Hulata, Golda answered in person: "I also hope that the coveted peace will come soon and we will not know any more wars."


"Do you want the Messiah to come?": The letters sent by children to Golda Meir at the end of the war are revealed

In the letters, the children express their feelings in the wake of the Yom Kippur War, raising issues that their ears caught on in those days, such as the concern for prisoners and the discussions in agreements regarding the territories.

To the children from Kibbutz Hulata, Golda answered in person: "I also hope that the coveted peace will come soon and we will not know any more wars."

Eli Ashkenazi

18/02/2022

Friday, 18 February 2022, 21:00 Updated: 22:10

  • Share on Facebook

  • Share on WhatsApp

  • Share on Twitter

  • Share on Email

  • Share on general

  • Comments

    Comments

The letters were sent to Meir from children from all over the country (Photo: Official website, IDF Spokesman, IDF Archives at the Ministry of Defense)

"To Prime Minister Golda Meir, I want to tell you that you are very smart, so I want you to continue your work," the seven-year-old Eilat wrote to the prime minister about two months after the Yom Kippur War.

"You know

that my father was killed!

Among all the soldiers who were killed," she continued, "I want you to continue to be smart and kind-hearted and to continue to bring weapons to our soldiers. You know that instead of living I save a lot of fuel and electricity.



Eilat's letter is one of many sent from children to then-Prime Minister Golda Meir, during the period from after the war to February 1974, and they were recently entered in the state archives.

"We were in the second grade at the time, the" Dagan "class in its hospital, which had only seven students," said Eilat Brimmer, a former Goldschmidt.

She remembers well the letters she, Alon and two other students from their class sent to Meir, but did not remember the contents of the letter she wrote then.



Eilat's father, Avner Goldschmidt, was killed on the second day of the Yom Kippur War, when he led his soldiers in a tank to battle in the Katsavia area of ​​the Golan Heights.

About twenty minutes drive away, in Kibbutz Hulata below the Golan Heights, his wife, three daughters, parents and sisters sat in the shelters.

He was 30 at the time of his fall.

More on Walla!

There is also a surprise: 5 recommendations for great series that you should not miss

In collaboration with Binyamina Winery

A letter from Eilat from the second grade of her illness (Photo: Official website, State Archives)

"I remember exactly where I stood when they came to announce the fall of Avner," recalled Alon Malachi, who was a member of Eilat's cult.

"I was standing on the steps of the shelter. This is a picture that stayed in my head."

Six years earlier, in the Six Day War, when Alon was only a year old, his father, Shlomo, was killed.

He is survived by his wife and three children.



Alon also wrote to Golda Meir.

"Hello Prime Minister. Congratulations on giving us a lot of weapons," he wrote.

"I want peace. I want you to be prime minister again because you always bring us a lot of weapons from America."



The letters from Eilat and Alon, like other letters from children from around the country, were sent on the days when the ceasefire took effect.

In many of them it is evident that the children express a feeling that the danger has passed and that a major part of the discourse that has reached their ears has at the same time concerned the supply of weapons from the United States.



Malachi says he did not remember sending a letter, and its publication now evoked memories that were burned during the war.

"It really moved me," he shares.

According to him, the Yom Kippur War left him with very strong memories;

"I remember very well the Yom Kippur War. The shelters, the planes, when they announced the fall of Avner. My father was killed when I was a baby and for me Avner and his whole family were very dominant figures, I remember him to this day. It was a very hard blow when I learned That he was killed. "

"Congratulations on getting us a lot of weapons."

Alon's letter from the second grade of her illness (Photo: Official website, State Archives)

Most of the children's letters were answered by members of the Prime Minister's Office, on her behalf.

However, it seems that the personal story of the girl Eilat made the prime minister answer the four little students from her illness in person.

"Dear and kind children," she wrote to them, "I have received the letters sent to me by Eilat, Dorit, Lilach and Alon and I thank them very much for writing to me. Together with you and with all the people of Israel, I also hope that the longed-for peace will come soon I am sending you a small gift as a souvenir and I would like to send my warmest congratulations to all the children in her illness. "



Eilat remembers well that Golda Meir sent her and her friends a painting that hung in their classroom.

"It probably moved me, because the fact that I remember it to this day," she said.

Answered the children from her illness in person.

Meir's reply letter (Photo: Official website, State Archives)

In the children's letters, most of them from lower classes, one can be impressed by the public debate about the discussions on the separation of powers agreements between Israel and Egypt and Syria and future agreements regarding the territories.

It was a charged and controversial subject to which the children must have been exposed as well.



For example, Michael Shapira, seven years old from Jerusalem, wrote: "I ask you not to return the territories we liberated, because we shed a lot of blood (...) How will you know and be sure that if we return Sinai, Judea and Samaria and the Golan, there will be peace? (...) "Do not be afraid of Kissinger (US Secretary of State, AA) (...) I hope you will pay attention to this letter even though it was written by a child who is now 7 years old."



Other issues that were in the headlines were the condition of the wounded and concern for the safety of the prisoners.

Esther Sagron from Moshav Brachia asked in a letter to the prime minister if she had visited the wounded and added a question - "Do you want the Messiah to come?".



The girl Orit Moreno from Holon also wished for the coming of the Messiah and wrote a song about it: "When the Messiah comes, he will announce peace / Ephraim Katzir (President, AA) will travel to Cairo / and bring Sadat to Meir. About peace / maybe it's just a dream / The main thing is that we sing about peace. "

"Mrs. Goldla in the painting."

Letter from Ronit from third grade from Dimona (Photo: Official website, State Archives)

It is clear that the children are well aware of the difficult feelings and worries of the adults.

Uriah Shachak from Sde Eliyahu wrote that he was sad that his uncle was killed.

Yaara Halperin from the Kiryat Ya'arim youth village wrote that she was shocked after hearing that Israeli soldiers had been killed in captivity.



Yizhar Luzia, a defensive sixth-grader, asked why food was provided to soldiers of the Third Army of the Egyptian Army who were besieged, while the Egyptians and Syrians even refused to convey to Israel the names of the prisoners in their hands.

"After all, I imagine how worried the soldier's parents or relatives are and do not know where he is," he wrote.

"A good war finale."

A letter from a sixth-grade ram from Haifa (Photo: Official Website, State Archives)

Children from Kibbutz Hulata who wrote letters to Golda Meir (Photo: Courtesy of those photographed)

Ella Bachar, a second-grade student from Makhanim, was interested - "Did you have a hard time in the war?"

And updated the prime minister on the severe damage suffered by her settlement: "The houses and the dining room and the new secretariat exploded."



Ronit Vered, a third-grader at the Afikim school in Dimona, added to the letter a painting of the prime minister walking with the Israeli flag in her hand and her eternal cigarette in her mouth, and so that there would be no doubt, she wrote: "Mrs. Goldla in painting."



Eyal Eilat, a sixth-grader from the Herzl School in Haifa, also added a painting to a letter he sent after the Tishrei holidays, in which a soldier with a tank and a plane above him is seen, writing: "A good war is over."

  • news

  • News in Israel

  • Events in Israel

Tags

  • Golda Meir

  • Children

  • Yom Hakkipurim War

  • State Archives

Source: walla

All news articles on 2022-02-18

You may like

Trends 24h

News/Politics 2024-03-28T06:04:53.137Z

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.