My last visit to Israel was in July of 2019. I am fortunate that in my adult life, this represents the longest period I’ve ever experienced without being in this extraordinary place. As much as I love the energy, the food, the architecture, and the museums (this week I visited ANU, the recently revamped and reimagined Museum of the Jewish People on the Tel Aviv University campus), what matters most to me is being with the people I love.
Yesterday I had lunch with my friend Shula. I met her through a rabbinical school classmate whose family had been close to hers for many years. When my classmate and I were first-year graduate students, thousands of miles away from our families, Shula would invite us to her home in Ashkelon for amazing meals, visits to the beach, and warm interactions with her children and their friends who were all approximately our age—some in the army, some in school. It was a chance to have real Israeli experiences, practice our Hebrew, enjoy Shula’s amazing cooking, and experience the gentler pace of the lovely beach town.
Rabbi Yoshi, his wife Jacqueline Hantgan, Shula Shani, and Ariela Zweiback in Tel Aviv.
We talked to Shula about her children and grandchildren (she showed us the newest photos of them all), life in Israel during the pandemic, politics, and Tel Aviv’s exorbitant prices and impossible traffic and parking. She showed us pictures from her recent visit to Ein Harod—the kibbutz where her husband Uri was from, the place she had lived for many years after they married, and the place where she had met my friend’s family all those years ago, which was the serendipitous reason we had found each other in the first place.
One of the photos was of Uri’s grave.
Uri and Shula’s story is in so many ways a microcosm of the story of Israel. Uri’s family immigrated to what was then Palestine in the early 1900s. Their last name was Zeigermacher which means “watchmaker” in Yiddish. When they came to Israel, they wanted a Hebrew last name, so they changed it to “Shani,” from the Hebrew word shaon which means “watch.” Shula’s family immigrated to Israel from Iraq in 1950 when she was 4 years old. They lived in a tent in a resettlement camp built by the government. They were so poor that they could only afford bread and powdered eggs which her mother would mix with water to make omelets.
Uri grew up on the kibbutz and had a deep love for nature. He enjoyed hiking and loved animals. He was a great athlete and strong student. Drafted into the IDF in 1958, Uri became a fighter pilot, ultimately achieving the rank of Major. On Oct. 8, 1973, Uri’s plane was shot down over Egypt during the Yom Kippur War.
Shula described Uri’s final mission based on what she and others have been able to piece together from surviving members of his unit. It was the third day of the war and his squadron was sent to fight in Egypt. They had been trained to avoid Soviet-supplied surface-to-air missiles by flying extremely low to the ground. The Egyptians, though, had recently been armed with next-generation missiles, and Uri’s plane was hit. The rest of the squadron, Shula told us, had already decided to turn back in retreat given the heavy fire they were taking. “But Uri,” she said, “loved this country so much that he wouldn’t turn around, and so he died.”
Israel is teeming with tourists now. Two days ago, I was at the airport dropping off one of our daughter’s friends who had joined us for her first-ever visit here. As we waited in the long line of the first security check, we saw a delegation of about 200 Canadian Maccabee participants on their way back home. We spoke to people in line returning home to Miami, New York, and Chicago.
They should all know Uri’s story because part of the reason that their—and my—visit was even possible was his love for this place and its people. He made the ultimate sacrifice not just for his family but for all of us.
May his memory forever be for a blessing.
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Yoshi