Thirty-Five Years

Thirty-five years may be more than a lifetime for some of you. It's more than half of mine. I was a young mother of two thirty-five years ago when the Yom Kippur War "broke out."

What a strange verb to describe one of the most frightening and dangerous wars in the History of The State of Israel.

It was early Yom Kippur afternoon, and my husband was about to leave for Mincha (the afternoon prayer.) Suddenly we heard a siren. The stairwell was filled with neighbors rushing into the shelter. I was sent up to try to explain to an elderly woman, Bubby Willig, an English speaker, that she ought to join us, but I was told not to panic her.

We soon discovered that Israel had been attacked on two fronts, in the north by Syria and the south by Egypt. Our troops/soldiers (troops don't give it a personal enough sound) had been overrun, killed, captured. Israel was in mortal danger.

Miraculously, within a couple of weeks, we were victorious. It would have been easier if the government hadn't kept consulting wiht the Americans, who weren't really allies. For them it was a game trying to control all the fighting forces/armies. We did much better in the 1967 Six Days War on our own.

In the very early days of the war, our New York Betar friend, Chaim (Chuck Hornstien) Haran was killed. Almost two months later, yes after the ceasfire, Eli Solomon was killed by an Egyptian sniper. For many of us in the New York Betar crowd that made it that 100% of our friends who had fought were dead.

Since then, we gather at Har Herzl Military Cemetery every year. Now it's thirty-five years, and Baruch Hashem, bli eyin haraa, we were entertained by the antics of Eli's grandchildren. Afterwards we went to a friends' Jerusalem apartment where we toasted to:

"Friendship"