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Jacobs and some
students from
Detroit at the
Knesset menorah.

rockets are launched Israelis have
between 10 and 15 seconds to
find a bomb shelter, that Hamas’
Charter calls for Israel’s destruction,
that Hezbollah in Lebanon is now
thought to have more than 100,000
rockets threatening Israel, etc.

THE ISRAELI REALITY

And just as the students are tak-
ing all of this in, something terrible
happens. While we are in the Old
City, there is a fatal stabbing, just
minutes from us. A female police
officer, just 23, was attacked by three
terrorists who were all quickly shot
dead. Some in our group even heard
the shots. I look up her name and
face and see the photo of a beautiful,
youthful girl named Hadas Malka.
The sadness among the students
is palpable; the school lesson is now
all too real. We had been noticing
young uniformed girls all day, just
like Hadas. Some cry over the loss
of her young life. For me, it’s like a
death in the family. My heart is now
officially broken.
At the Western Wall, I peel away
from the group for some alone time.
Anyone who’s been there knows the
power of that place and, of course,
I am deeply moved. But when I
return to the group I see something
I never expected — many of the kids
are crying, some hysterically. They
see me and we tearfully and silently
hold onto long hugs. No words are
necessary.
There were plenty of moments of
joy for us on the trip. But it seemed
joyful moments were constantly fol-
lowed by tearful and sad moments,
which I guess is the story of Israel.
The group sang, along with an
Orthodox family at Shabbat dinner,
and then sobbed at Yad Vashem.
They explored the markets and
laughed with people on the streets,
and then cried when a kibbutz moth-
er explained that she can only carry
two of her children to the bomb shel-
ters when the sirens go off. Joy, and
then tears, and then joy, and then
tears. The emotional roller coaster of
this place is just on a constant loop.
As we depart, each person
describes what especially touched

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them. Many mentioned the
Ethiopian Jewish woman who
described her incredible life experi-
ence, from abject poverty in Ethiopia
to the Israeli Knesset. She said when
she first came to Israel as a child she
was shocked to see there was such
a thing as white Jews. “What claim
do THEY have to Judaism?” she
thought.
The students have now experi-
enced the real Israel, not the narra-
tive of the media. Firsthand knowl-
edge has replaced preconceived or
misconceived notions. They each
say they are forever changed, and
I believe them. Once again, the
Promised Land has delivered.
For me, I am happy and sad. I so
love this place and get such joy out
of seeing first-timers — especially
these kids — experience it for them-
selves. But yet I also experience
waves of great sadness when I’m
here.
Israel lives under an ominous
cloud. Its enemies are everywhere;
their weapons are getting more
sophisticated; anti-Semitism is on
the rise; and world support for Israel
is waning. We Jews put on a brave
face and embrace the future with
faith and determination, but who
can deny that we face increasingly
daunting odds?
I see the Israeli kids on the beach
in Tel Aviv joyfully playing volleyball.
Around them, music is blaring, peo-
ple are skateboarding, laughing in
the cafes, couples are strolling along
the waterside, watching a spectacu-
lar Mediterranean sunset, seemingly
without a care in the world. I think:
This is exactly the picture of what
this place is supposed to look like.
David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first
prime minister, once said: “In Israel,
in order to be a realist one must
believe in miracles.”
I will take his lead. I am a real-
ist and so I, too, must believe in
miracles. •

Attorney Mark Jacobs of Farmington Hills is a
community activist involved in several non-
profit organizations, including Jewish Family
Service, Heart 2 Hart-Detroit and AIPAC,
where he is the Michigan director of African
American Outreach.

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