Jewish Community Relations Council, Boston, Massachusetts

              BARBER'S
GRANDSTAND
By GARBER
A 
Note: We were privileged  to make arrangements for the
recent BMC Mission to Israel, which has just returned.    The
126 participants left happy and came back happier.    One of
ihe members of the mission was good enough to write me the',
following letter which you can read over my shoulder:
"Dear Bcrnie:
"Ever wonder what a first-time-traveler-to-Israel aches to
jset down on paper before the vivid and electrifying impressions
I become fading recollections? With a proper bow to the Com-
. bincd Jewish Philanthropies and Garber's for picking 120 or
so people up out of busy existences and providing them with
• a magnificent journey to Israel, the reactions of one such traveler run something like this:
"Ancient and modern co-existing in a burgeoning nation,
peopled by energetic folks from perhaps 115 lands, living in
the Middle East danger zone—but living! Only a few minutes
from Balfour Forest where .many of the voyagers planted
cypresses lo help make the future secure, we came to storied
Nazareth, understandably enamored of its past. (A special
ecumenical pleasure awaited me there: In that important reli-
j gious nexus, I ran into Reverend Howard Kcllett of Boston's
' Old North Church.
"The legendary old, the pulsating new. When we emerged
from the Weizmann Institute, we came upon a gentle Talmudic
scholar sitting on a nearby bench absorbed in loving perusal
of wise words of Jewish sages long departed and oblivious lo
the scientific achievements of the basic research laboratories.
(Mentioning this to friends when I returned, I was told that
one of the Weizmann Institute's most valuable pieces of equipment—an electron microscope—was fetched there by donkey
cart.)
"Why was it that all of the documentary viewing and long
nights of study and reading, even the listening to and giving
of lectures, could not have begun to convey the drama of coming upon wreath-crowned Israeli military trucks of the 1948
War of Liberation, rusting in glory along the majestic road
up to Jerusalem? Who can measure the valor or estimate the
debt owed not only by Israel, but by all of the civilized world,
to these modern defenders of the Bible land?
"Beersheba's Bedouins. Tel Aviv's merchants, Jerusalem's'!
pious men, Haifa's energetic builders, Ashdod's seaway planners—the eye beholds, the mind stores up,, the soul itself remembers. But the kaleidoscopic recall is fragmentary at best:
Ibe meaning beneath the colorful texture of the land and the
aspiring cities upon the land will certainly abide with all
travelers.
"We have learned that Israel is no longer underdeveloped.
I Not at all. She is exporting science. And even more. She is
exporting anew the marvels of Biblical precept and the determination to be of generous service to all mankind. We know
now that however much we who live in America in freedom
contribute to the upbuilding of this exciting, teeming, vigorous
state, the men and women of that unique community of the
rescued and spiritually-refreshed top such gifts twice over—
in taxes, in sacrifice, in sweat and in the very act of beleaguered
living The wealth of that ringed-by-hostilc-arms outpost is in
the vibrant spirit of its pioneers, the eagerness for learning,
the resolution to link a civilized past with a fruitful future.
"Some travelers on this mission found the wonders of the
new Museum in Jerusalem most impressive; all marveled at
the Dead Sea scrolls so handsomely and proudly displayed
there; some will cherish the proof beheld of the wonders of
conservation and productivity in the land of our fathers. But
for this one traveler, the overarching impression, the most
treasured memory, the vignette no trick of time can ever erase
is this: Shortly after our. group departed in hushed silence from
the Yad Vasheiri, shoutVy after we were privileged to enter the
memorial to the martyrs of Buchenwald and Auschwitz and
the other enclaves of Nazi savagery, we came again to the
broad streets and friendly hills of Jerusalem. There we saw
an Israeli girl of about 11 skipping down the street happily, a
fine, long loaf of bread under her arm. She was flying along
on joyful feel to her home in Israel, secure, loved and loving.
The majesty of noble deaths memorialized in dignity had been
the agonizing prelude to this enchanting portrait of a new life
In dignity, in freedom and—if God and men so will it—in enduring peace.
"Sincerely.
"R. S."
/V*L>-   /t^/f^C