ISRAEL AT 40

Fingeroot's Victory Medal from the
Israel Consulate and a list of Americans
honored at the Israel Memorial Forest.
Those named, several whom Fingeroot
knew, were killed in the War of
Independence.
Fingeroot knows that he could easi-
ly have been one of those listed at the
memorial forest, but ignoring his duty
to Israel during the war was never an
option.
"I felt it was something important
to do," he says. "Something just pulled
me there — this was a land for all the
Jews, for the Jewish immigrants from
everywhere.
"Together, we worked to help build
Israel, such an important part of Jewish
history. And we are part of that history."

I t was deep into the night in
Jerusalem, but almost no one
was asleep.
It was Nov. 29, 1947, and the
United Nations was about to vote
on the establishment of Israel.
In the midst of all the anxiety, a
small girl named Ofra was doing all she
could to get some rest. Only eight years
old, she kept closing her eyes only to
hear her parents cry "Wake up!"
The family sat huddled in their one-

room apartment, listening to the radio.
"My parents kept telling me 'This

country voted for us, this one against
us, " Ofra Fisher recalls.
Today, Fisher is acting superinten-
dent of the United Hebrew Schools.
Long before Ofra was born, her
14-year-old mother ran away from
Poland to help settle what -Would
become the Jewish state.
"My mother's parents," Fisher says,
"thought she was crazy." Yet they
followed their daughter to Palestine and
thus almost certainly escaped slaughter
in the Nazi death camps.
Fisher's mother came to the kibbutz
where she met another determined,
young Jew who had headed the Zionist

movement in Poland. The two fell in
love, married and moved to Jerusalem.•
They settled, with their first
daughter, Ofra, in a small. apartment.
They had just enough money to survive,
so young Ofra was surprised when one
evening her father came home with a
large box.
He set it down and began twisting
and turning the dials. And thus the

"The Arabs thought Jerusalem
would be a very easy
capture."

family began their long vigil beside the
radio on the night of the historic U.N.
vote.
After the General Assembly's deci-
sion in favor of establishing a Jewish
state, Ofra and her parents went out-
side where they joined a jubiliant crowd.
"All the people were singing and
dancing in the middle of the streets,"
she says. "And some were going door-
to-door, making sure that everybody
heard the news."
The joy of the day was quelled when
the Arabs began an immediate attack
on the Jewish residents. Ofra's father

joined the Jewish army and was station-
ed near the Dead Sea.
The Arab armies, meanwhile, set
their sights on Israel's capital city. With
most of the men running off to join the

armed forces, Jerusalem's remaining
population consisted of the elderly,
women and children.
"The Arabs," Fisher says, "thought
Jerusalem would be a very easy cap-
ture." They were wrong.
It's not difficult to understand the
Arabs' confidence. In addition to the
fact that most of Jerusalem's remaining
population appeared anything but
threatening, they suffered from a lack
of food and water.
The Arabs had destroyed the city's

BEN FINGEROOT

sewage and water systems, so residents
were forced to use nearby wells — an ex-
perience Fisher has never forgotten.

"To go to the well was very, very
dangerous," she says. "Many times
those who went to get water never came
back."

Most often, this chore fell to Ofra's
grandfather, who had moved in with the
family. Once a week, he would carry two
empty pails to the well and return with
water in each. As little possible water
would be used for drinking, Fisher says,
with the rest serving to clean the
dishes, then to wash the floors, and then
finally for the toilets.
Food, too, was scarce. Each person
received small rations of bread and
eggs, which Fisher says served "most-
ly so you can keep alive, that's all."
Yet the Jews of Jerusalem struggl-

THE SECOND DECADE

SECOND PRESIDENT: Yitzhak
Ben-Zvi, 1952-1963.

OUT OF THE DESERT: Jewish immigrants created villages, towns and cities —
and farm lands — through tireless work.

FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 1988

WAITING FOR BREAD: Food shortages and rationing
were common in the difficult early years.