Hey, beloved tribe.
So let’s hold onto last weekend’s rescue for just another minute. We had so much to cry about before, and we will have so much to cry about ahead, but let’s just hold onto this goodness for another moment and take it in.
These past few days, I have been so struck by the difference between Israel and the U.S. when it comes to national solidarity. Consider this contrast between the two:
Israel rescues four hostages and the whole country loses its mind with joy. Dancing in the streets. Dancing on the beach. A TV anchor unable to break the news to his viewers without crying on camera. Because the operation took place on Shabbat, secular Jews all over Israel ran to their Orthodox neighbors, who would have no way to hear about it otherwise, to tell them the news or to leave notes on their doors.
Meanwhile, as we speak, there are also 5 American hostages languishing in the dungeons of Gaza. Quite possibly being beaten, sexually violated and tortured, as many Israeli hostages have been. Have any of you heard a single non-Jewish American express the slightest concern about them? No one here thinks about them. No one here talks about them. If anyone anywhere gives the slightest f*** about any of them, I haven’t seen a shred of evidence. It’s like a total non-event. And why would this be? Is it because they’re Jews? Is it because Americans just don’t share this familial feeling? I suspect it’s both.
The other point I want to touch on before moving on is the almost unbelievable ingenuity this rescue took to pull off. There can be no doubt it will be studied by military strategists for decades to come. Avi Isaacharoff, co-creator of the action TV series Fauda, reportedly said it was more incredible than anything he could possibly dream up for the show. I fully expect a dramatic reenactment to be included in the next season.
One dire challenge involved in planning this op is the fact that the four hostages were being held in two separate buildings in the middle of the very densely populated Nuseirat “refugee camp” (is it really a camp if it includes apartment buildings, a shopping mall, a bustling market, etc.)? Moreover, the IDF made the bold decision to wage this operation in broad daylight, relying on the element of surprise to compensate for the obvious drawbacks of such timing.
They needed to invade the two buildings at precisely the same moment, because they knew if they chose one ahead of the other, the Hamas guards in the latter would immediately kill the hostages in their own charge.
Then once the IDF had successfully made contact with the hostages, they needed to evacuate them to safety while being shot at from all sides. I’ve heard it said, more than once, that if anything had been off by as little as a half second in any direction, the whole mission would have imploded.
The elite Yamam unit of the IDF studied the problem for weeks. They submitted plan after plan to the War Cabinet. They made models of both buildings and created countless simulations, only to be told by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to come back to him once they’d solved this, this and that potential issue that might arise.
Not since Entebbe has the IDF pulled off a rescue mission with this level of brilliance and chutzpah. Truly we have reasons to kvell.
On this note, let us turn to the promised intro to our national treasure, Rudy Rochman.
First of all, look at this punim:
Is he not so handsome? Are we not all tempted to arrange shidduch dates between him and our daughters? But he is way more than just a (very) pretty face.
I met Rudy last week in Seattle, where he spoke at Temple de Hirsch Sinai. It’s worth remarking upon that he stood on the bimah and held an audience of around 400 absolutely spellbound for 90 straight minutes without reading a word of his talk. He had no written speech with him. He spoke off the cuff and he was galvanizing. He has the kind of charisma that’s once in a generation, honestly on par with figures like Barack Obama or Bill Clinton. He creates a sense of authentic connection with whomever he addresses. He appeals to people on every point of the Jewish spectrum, from the very Orthodox to the totally secular and reform. When he concluded his talk, he received a standing ovation.
At that event, I learned that until he was 7 years old, he had never known quite how to identify himself. He was born in Paris but moved to Israel at the age of 3 and again to the U.S. when he was 5, where his family settled in Miami. His mother’s family was Sephardic and from North Africa and his father’s were Ashkenazic. People were always asking him what he was and he didn’t know what to say . Was he French? Israeli? American? To every member of his extended family, he represented a different “other” category to at least some extent.
But when he was 7 years old, he boarded a tour bus in London with his mother and the driver pointed to her shirt, which bore the word emet — “truth” — in Hebrew letters.
“Hey,” the bus driver, who was a neo-Nazi, said. “Is that shirt written in Jewish?”
“It’s written in Hebrew,” said his mother, “which is a Jewish language, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“So you’re Jewish?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Then get off my bus!” the driver ordered her. “I don’t want any Jews on my bus.”
Rudy’s mother, who was a strong and proud woman, said, “I don’t know who you think you are, but I’m not going anywhere. I have just as much right to be on this bus as anybody else.”
That’s when the driver got up, seized her by the shoulders, and physically threw her off the bus.
“And that was the moment,” Rudy told us, “when, for the very first time, I knew exactly what I was. I was a Jew.”
It was also the moment when he resolved that from that day forward, he was going to cultivate every single quality he needed — physically, mentally, emotionally, intellectually and ideologically — to never again be helpless in the face of Jew hatred.
And that’s exactly what he’s spent his life doing.
Rudy served in the Paratroopers Brigade of the IDF directly following high school. Then he began his undergraduate education at UCLA, where he earned an Associate’s degree. But after that, he decided to transfer to another school in order to earn his B.A. and — as counterintuitive as it might seem — he asked the internet what the most antisemitic institution of higher learning in the U.S. might be. Upon learning that it was Columbia University (my own alma mater), he decided to go there.
And it was there that he began a career as a stunningly effective Jewish-Israeli activist with a very impressive track record of persuasion within one of the hardest environments to work within: the college campus.
One of the first other Jews he met there was an active anti-Zionist activist. After they became friends, that young man ended up leaving school before his own graduation to join the IDF.
While earning his B.A. in Political Science at Columbia, Rudy founded the school’s Students Supporting Israel (SSI) chapter and served as its president.
He is now working on a documentary series called We Were Never Lost, which highlights the Jewish communities in Africa. In the course of making the film, he languished for 3 weeks in a Nigerian prison when he was suspected of sympathy with Biafran separatists in their conflict with the nation’s government. He was subsequently cleared of all wrongdoing, and has since returned to active duty as a sniper and paratrooper within Israel’s current war with Hamas.
He is one of my Zionist heroes and the many clips online of him engaging with anti-Israel protestors are truly inspiring to watch. I have never seen anyone more informed, self-possessed, disarming, calmer or better at persuasion.
Okay, fam. I will be back with you Friday. I hope everyone is having a week full of loved ones and cheesecake.
In the meantime, I send you warm and heartfelt love. Chag sameach Shavuot.
Am Yisrael Chai.
Wonderful reading about Rudy. Also -- glad you brought up the American hostages in Gaza. I often wonder about this. There definitely was a time when this country would go berserk over an American being held hostage - remember Iran Contra? If I were held hostage I would assume that America would be working non-stop to get me out. But, crickets. The fact that no one talks about it is to me just another example of how spineless America has become. If we had to fight WW2 today, we'd lose. And . . . the fact that they are Jews may also have something to do with it.
I disagree that America is spineless. Keep in mind the Journalist in Russia who will be tried for Espionage. There is a lot of bad in government, but we do not know exactly everything going on behind the scenes and without security clearance most do not.