UWR
Rabbi Spectre Makes
• 50th Visit To Israel
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PHIL JACOBS EDITOR
R
abbi Efry Spec-
tre of Adat
Shalom Syna-
gogue remem-
bers vividly the 1956
ow Sinai campaign, when
Israel launched a mil-
itary action against
Egypt to break a con-
centration of menac-
ing
enemy
armaments. He was
there for it.
In 1967, Rabbi
Spectre traveled with
some $10,000 in funds
-4,
from his community Rabbi Spectre : His 50th visit.
in Philadelphia to
help pay for the needs of the city's to Israel. One early June morning,
Jewish volunteers during the Six- his phone rang. It was a news re-
porter calling to ask his opinion of
Day War.
As recently as April 1993, as the war that had just started in Is-
part of the Michigan Miracle Mis- rael. That's how Rabbi Spectre
sion, Rabbi Spectre delivered a first learned of what would be
Torah to the Frenkel School, lo- called the Six-Day War. A day or
cated in Jerusalem. It was, he two after the war ended, he was
says, one of the high points of a ca- on a plane to Israel, carrying emer-
reer and lifetime filled with gency funds to help Philadelphia's
achievements and wonderful volunteers. He was one of the first
American citizens to visit the
memories.
Now the rabbi is in Israel on a Western Wall.
"I never imagined that in my
visit. While there is no great dra-
ma of international or even local entire life I'd live to see the Ko-
magnitude, he is experiencing his tel, and there it was," he said. "It's
own personal milestone, his 50th hard to describe the feeling of ex-
periencing this and seeing the Is-
visit to Israel.
Rabbi Spectre had just gradu- raelis experience it as well."
Over the years, Rabbi Spectre
ated from Columbia College in
New York and was preparing to has returned again and again.
enter seminary when he found Sometimes, it's to lead missions;
himself in Israel during the Sinai other times it's to visit his broth-
Campaign. Jewish Agency officials er Phil, executive director of the
gave him and other young Amer- Masorti Movement in Israel. His
icans the option to leave Israel brother and sister-in-law, Barbara,
quickly. But he and many othdrs have lived in Israel for 27 years.
"I can't stay away," he said.
stayed to work in the towns, cities,
Indeed, the rabbi will be lead-
moshavim and kibbutzim as re-
placements for young Israeli men ing a group on Miracle Mission II.
and women pressed into military That will be his 51st trip.
•
Has the country changed? He
service.
Now, on a cold, snowy Friday says, in terms of building, ab-
afternoon in his synagogue office, solutely. As for the spirit of the
Rabbi Spectre smiles about some people, he said it remains as
of his memories. He remembers strong and purposeful as ever.
"I still see an idealism that can't
Jerusalem when it had but one
traffic light, located at Rechove be equaled anywhere else in the
Yaffo and Rechove Melekh. He world," he said. "And I know that,
drifts south to Eilat, a place he re- forme, I still experience the same
members not for its booming re- feelings, the same emotions when
. sort-like contemporary look, but that plane lands at Ben-Gurion
for the only three houses in town each time I visit. It's difficult some-
he can describe from the 1950s times to turn my back on Israel
when I return home." 111
and `60g.
"It was a simpler time in the
cities," he said. "I can remember
seeing a man walk down the street
with a Torah in his arms. Every-
where he walked, people flocked
around him to kiss it. These were
the kinds of sights experienced
MP every day."
It was in 1967 that Rabbi Spec-
tre was to lead a group of students
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