Generations
Linked

Seven soldiers talk from experience
about protecting Israel.

LONNY GOLDSMITH

StaffWriter

I

n the 49-year history of the State
of Israel, there have been five
major wars in defense of the
country.
At a recent meeting for the
Michigan Friends of the Israel Defense
Forces, the association for the well-
being of Israel's soldiers, three genera-
tions of veterans compared notes.
Ann Newman was born in
Palestine, and fought in the under-
ground for a homeland. "I was a
young, ideological student," Mrs.
Newman said. "I was with others just
like me."
Rudy Newman, who would eventu-
ally meet and marry Ann in Israel, was
a student at Wayne State University
when he was called.
"I was recruited to fly for Palestine
in January of 1948," said Mr.
Newman, a Navy pilot in World War
II. He not only aided in forming the
Israeli air force, but El Al Israel
Airlines as well.
Amnon Reiter was a 17 1/2-year-
old high school graduate in 1955
when he joined the Israel Defense
Forces (IDF). "I wanted to be a com-
mando," he said. "I was told I was too
small, so I joined as a paratrooper."
Reiter was one of the 396 para-
troopers that reached the Suez Canal
in the six-day Sinai campaign during
October 1956. "The Sinai campaign
was a great success," Reiter said. "The
air force played a big part in this war.
They did in every war."
Uri Segal took part in another war
that lasted six days — in 1967.
"We had been on alert for 48
straight hours," Segal said. "If we got
an all-clear by 8:00, we could go to
sleep."
He was asleep until 8-.02, when the
sirens went off and the bombs fell.

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1997

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"My biggest memory was seeing
the flames all around us," Segal said.
"The only reports we could get were
from an Egyptian radio station in
Cairo that said we fought valiantly
but we were all dead."
Segal and Josh Berkovitz were
attending college in the United States
in October 1973.
"It was Yom Kippur, and I was liv-
ing at a relative's house in
Philadelphia when the phone unex-
pectedly rang," said Berkovitz, who
was just starting his first year of col-
lege. "I was told there was a war in
my country."
Berkovitz went to the Hillel chap-
ter on campus, where 12 Israeli stu-
dents, as well as American ones, were
raising money to send to Israel.

"I told the president of Hillel that
we needed to go home to fight,"
Berkovitz said. "He took me to a syn-
agogue where I asked the rabbi to
buy us 13 one-way tickets to Israel."
Berkovitz arrived in Israel two days
after the war started and was taken to
his unit.
Segal was at Lawrence Tech in
Southfield. "I called the Israeli
embassy and consulate and they told
me I didn't have to go back," Segal
said. "I bought my own ticket and
went anyway." Segal also found his
unit, who were more than glad to see
him.
Dahlia Berkovitz, the eventual wife
of Josh Berkovitz, had a less glorified
role. She dealt with the missing in
action, and soldiers that had died in

combat. Her responsibility was to go
through their personal effects.
Ron Stay was involved in "the
longest and ugliest war in Israel's his-
tory," the 1982 action in Lebanon.
"It's a war that is still going on
today," he said. "Eight hundred sol-
diers died there. It's 800 too many."
According to Stay, the IDF was at
its lowest point in 1982 and 1983. "I
had my eyes set on a military career,"-
said Stay, who had just finished offi-
cers school at the time. "This war
had high-ranking officers refusing to
fight.
"It was the same type of war
that made Vietnam ugly in America."
While Mrs. Berkovitz calls the
differences in attitude a "different
generation with different goals,"
Major General Yoram Yair thinks
today's soldiers are even more dedi-
cated then those of the earlier years
of Israel.
He told the recent Friends of the
IDF meeting that "I belong to the
1967 war generation, and have seen
the past 30 years of the IDF. Every
generation is pushing the standards
higher. It's satisfying to see the level
of expertise getting better."
In the wake of the suicide bomb-
ings on Jerusalem's Ben Yehuda Street
on Sept. 4, Yair feels "there is very lit-
tle that can be done. When someone
has no appreciation for his own life,
it can't be prevented. It can happen at
a moment's notice."

Ann and Rudy Newman, Amnon Reiter, Uri Segal, Dahlia and Josh Berkovitz and Ron Stay discuss the past.

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