Friday, May, 0, 1983 29

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Vilnay: Israel's Premier Pathfinder

By J. CHESKY

World Zionist Press Service

JERUSALEM — "Just as
you don't ask a beautiful
woman her age, you don't
ask an old writer how many
books he has written," quips
Zeev Vilnay, the leading
authority on the Land of Is-
rael. At 82, the stocky,
white haired tour guide is
still healthy and finishing
another book, a guide to
South Lebanon, commis-
sioned by the Israel army.
Born in Kishinev, Vilnay
moved at the age of 6 to
Haifa with his parents. As a
barefoot boy, walking in the
Galilee, which he considers
the most beautiful area of
Israel, Vilnay came in con-
tact with the Halutzim',
pioneers who came to build
the land.
"I used to visit their road-
building camps. I asked
them, 'Do you know that
mountain over there is the
Carmel,' or 'Do you know
that river is the Kishon?' A
pioneer would begin recit-
ing verses from the Bible
about Elijah's confrontation
with the priests of idolatry
on the Carmel or about the
miracles or the prophetess
Deborah along the Kishon.
"I realized," said Vil-
nay, pointing toward the
ground, "that my mission
in life was to marry these
youngsters who came 'to
build and be built' in
Eretz Yisrael to the land
they came to redeem."
Vilnay spent his early
years working for the His-
tadrut Labor Federation as
a guide. He wrote his first
book as a result of a tour to ,
Modiin (where the Macca-
bean revolt broke out) dur-
ing Hanuka in 1924. After
Vilnay delivered his lec-
ture, one of the 30.0 mem-
bers of the tour group stood
up and proposed that each
person give one grush, (ab-
out a cent), to finance the
printing of the lecture.
Since then, Vilnay has
written more than 50 books,
including an eight-volume
encyclopedia, and &series of
guidebooks — "Israel
Guide" — on which two
generations of Israelis in-
terested in their land have
grown up.
Several times during his
career Vilnay went to study
abroad, receiving his Mas-

*

attended by the chief rabbis.
ters degree from London
"I had realized that
University and PhD from
Dropsie College in , people remembered places
because of legends. There
Philadelphia.
Often, he had to inter- was no legend about this
place near Eshtaol. So I
rupt his studies to handle
pressing problems at created one . . . years later,
home, such as training whera took a group of tour
guides to the spot, the cus-
the reconnaisance units
todian of the rock, ap-
of the pre-state Hagana
pointed by the government,
Jewish defense force and
of the Israel army in the told me to cover my head be-
cause I was approaching a
War of Independence. "I
taught them about the holy place. When he kissed
the rock, I couldn't contain
.Arab villages, their loca-
tions, h.ow to approach myself and told him, 'Don't
kiss the rock, kiss me!' "
them and which might be
Looking back on his long,
-hostile to JeWs."
•But Vilnay met the Arab productive life, Vilnay has
people in peace and friend- few regrets. But he admits
ship, as befits co-citizens to an emptiness, following
the death three years ago of
and neighbors: "I grew up
with the Arabs in Haifa, in his wife Esther, whom he
fact, Arabic was my second says inspired much of his
work.
language after Russian"
Today, Vilnay guides
(He also speaks Rebrew,
only special tours, mostly
English and German).
for the army, in which
Another of his contribu-
tions to the Israel Defense one of his. sons. is a
brigadier general. "When
Forces was the introduction
of map reading into officers' I started," Vilnay recalls,
"one had to set out for
training. He also served in
Modiin by train from Tel
the Israel army in the Six-
Day War at the age of 67, Aviv to Ben-Shemen. At
teaching officers about the that time, there were few
cars and only a broken
land they had taken.
down railway. We'd sleep
Vilnay's research aroused
at Ben-Shemen and set
his interest in place names.
He saw the establishment of out early in the morning
settlements on the sites of on foot for Modiin. It was
former Jewish towns and a two-day journey, dur-
villages as a way of ing which you would feel
strengthenidg the Jewish close to the land.
"Today, it takes 30 min-
connection with the land.
Because of this, he was a utes from Jerusalem to
Modiin. One of my-slogans
natural choice for member-
ship on the national com- has always been, 'With the
sweat of your feet, you will
mittee for place names.
"I gaVe names to more know the land.' Today, tour-
than 100 Israeli towns ing is on wheels and super-
and villages," he boasts. ficial. So I leave that to the
"One that I. am particu- younger guides."
Vilnay attributes his long
larly proud of is Alon
life to his impoverished
Shvut in Gush Etzion.
After the Jews were dri-
childhood. "My parents had
ven out of the region by
the Jordanian-sponsored
Arab Legion in 1948, they
looked longingly across
the ceasefire lines at the
NEW YORK — 'The
giant oak at Gush Etzion. Jewish Theological Semi-
Then the territory was nary of America will award
recaptured in 1967, I three honorary degrees at
thought the name Alon commencement exercises
Shvut (Oak of Return)
scheduled for May 15 at the
was fitting."
Park Ave. Synagogue.
By 1948, when the state of
Those receiving honorary
Israel was established, he
degrees are Dr. Eric Ken-
had become such a noted
dal, director of the center for
authority that a rock about
neurobiology and behavior
which he had invented a
at Columbia University;
legend was made a religious
Harold Ginsberg, professor
monument -at a ceremony
emeritus of biblical history
and literature at the Jewish
*
Theological Seminary and
the seminary's director of
, inter-group iactivities', Jes-
sica Feingold.

no money -for meat. So we
ate only fruit, vegetables
and a bit of fish. Because
there was no money for
shoes, I walked barefoot.
This made me hard and
strong. Even today, I don't
have a doctor."
Within the coming
months, Vilnay is' planning
to travel to London to re-
search yet another book, on
the men and women who
wrote about the Land of Is-
rael. Though this journey
won't be on foot, Vilnay will
finish this book and, hope-
fully, many others. His is a
unique and inimitable con-
tribution to fostering au-
thentic contact between the
people and the land of Is-
rael.

The method of the
enterprising is to plan with
audacity, and execute with

vigor; to sketch out a map of
possibilities, and then to
treat them as probabilities.

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