Above: (from left) Emily Halberg, Erica Grushoff Jessica Wood, Brook Fellows, David Fischel,
Amanda Lasser, Jamie Weitz and Nicole Kahrnoff take it easy in the wave pool at Atractzia Waterpark.

Left Scott Schwartz of Bus R-5 at a Havdallah service on the southern steps of the Kotel in Jerusalem.

The Border

An IDF soldier brings the reality of war and
terrorism a lot closer to a group of teens.

DAN FREEMAN
Special to The Jewish News

A

s they walk up the path
towards the top of the
wind-swept hill, the 60-odd
participants in the second
Teen Mission are thinking the same
thoughts: "Are we going to have to lis
ten to another boring speaker?" "Can
we get ice cream soon?"
Then a man appears
from behind a rusting
artillery mount and
quickly changes their
minds.
This man is not like
any of the speakers the
group has heard previ-
ously. His body has obvi-
ously faced the elements,
but the easy smile on his
face proves that he has
conquered them. The cap on his head
proudly displays his origin and the
source of his frank language in one
word: Brooklyn. Around his waist are
the tools of his trade: the pistol, the
beeper, and the most powerful of all,

7/17
1998

22

the cellular phone. His name is
Captain Mike Ginsberg of the Israeli
Defense Forces.
He begins to explain to the group
of now interested teenagers where they
are The hill they are on forms the
edge of the kibbutz Misgar Am and a
section of Israeli's border with
Lebanon and Syria. It is now the front
in the battle between Israel and
Hezbollah, a group of Shiite
Muslim extremists who have
taken up where others left off
in the now 50-year-old goal of
driving the Jewish people into
the sea. He tells them of the
political imprisonment that
these people have endured, the
revolution that was staged,
and their current life under a
Syrian puppet government.
He points at the sites where
roadside booby-traps have
gone off and from where Kedusha
rockets have been launched. Finally,
he explains why people who had qui-
etly shouldered the burden of their
place in life for so long now attack:
they are getting foreign money, firing

a single rocket will double a villager's
income and killing an Israeli soldier
brings in a windfall of $250.
He then begins to move down the
hill to get out of the wind. The amaz-
ing view that dominates so much of
the Lebanese and Syrian countryside
has served its purpose and now it is
time for a story in a condensed set-
ting. He walks down a path and the
group follows him blindly, they're all
in his piper's spell.
Once at the bottom of the hill, he
tells a story that brings the entire situ-
ation into a closer, unavoidable light.
On April 7, 1980, the children's house
at the kibbutz, a building fewer than
50 feet away from the group, was
assaulted by five terrorists. Their plan-
ning was flawless and their execution
nearly so. After taking two infants and
four children hostage, they made their
demands. These demands involved the
release of many terrorists, but those
inside the children's house knew the
value that Israel places on its children.
After 9 112 hours, a helicopter arrived,
supposedly bearing the Romanian
ambassador. In five minutes, the IDF

commando team inside the helicopter
eliminated the terrorist threat without
losing a single soldier's life. Their final
casualties were the kibbutz's secretary,
who died in the initial attack, one
child beaten to death in the night and
all five terrorists.
Ginsberg's delivery is flawless, but it
is interrupted by a sudden noise. In the
distance, an artillery barrage strikes,
adding yet another degree of reality to
the experience. He closes with the fol-
lowing simple thought, "Here, Israel, •
belongs to you as much as me."
He urges us to share our experi-
ences with those who could not come.
As the mission participants walk to
the very bottom of the hillside, some
head towards a kiosk for their second
or third ice cream of the day. Others,
and they are many in number, have
other, far more important things on
their minds, like the value of a coun-
try that is so far away and yet one
they can still call home. Li

— Dan Freeman, an I th grader at
North Farmington High School, is trav-
eling on Bus C-2.

