Thirteen Rhode Islanders recently returned from a wonderful, albeit brief visit to Israel as part of a Federation National Solidarity Mission. Highlights of the trip were an overnight stay with families in the Afula/Gilboa region, our P2K region and a specially arranged visit to an air force base in our region, which was arranged by a longtime Israeli friend and teacher with whom we connected because of Partnership 2000. We saw several pilots, including her son, take off in F-16's. All in our group felt this was a once-in a life-time experience.

This was my second trip to Israel. My first trip was on a UJA family mission in December of 1990. On that trip, we first approached Jerusalem from the north, ascended Mount Scopus and got off the busses at an overlook with a commanding view of the Old City, centered around the gold Dome of the Rock atop the Temple Mount; and recited the shehechianu. This turned out to be the most moving experience of that trip, and perhaps of my life.

This time, on the flight over, I recalled that moment vividly and wondered if I would be so moved again this time. But as it happened, we approached from the west (i. e. directly from Ben Gurion Airport). Again this time, the bus stopped at an overlook; but this time the view was of modern west Jerusalem - crisscrossed by highways, dotted with shopping centers, construction everywhere. Instead of the gold dome, I saw golden arches. (There was, in fact, a McDonalds just down the road from the overlook.) It struck me that this view represented the ongoing fulfillment of the great biblical mandate to occupy the land.

Jerusalem is a great paradox. One of our speakers -- an attorney who has been striving to bring together Arabs and Jews from different parts of this city -- asserted that the notion of an undivided Jerusalem is a fiction; few Jews venture into East Jerusalem, and few Arabs into the western part. And yet, it is one city in the sense that her inhabitants - Jews, Arabs, Christians - have coexisted and interacted for centuries. He further noted that very few terrorist attacks emanate from East Jerusalem; that Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem would love to get their children in to Israeli schools; and that the Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem have much higher incomes than those of other Palestinian areas.

From Jerusalem, we headed north to Rhode Island's partner city Afula in the Gilboa valley, following the first-to be-opened section of Highway 6. This expressway is envisioned not just as a north-south route within Israel but as a transitway connecting Europe, Africa, and Asia. In this sense, it promises to renew Israel's role as a crossroads of civilization and ensure her place in the commerce of nations.

To protect traffic on this vital artery, a wall in under construction along that part of the road that passes within a stone's throw - literally - of the 'seam line' or 'green line' demarcating the West Bank from Israel proper, as defined by the cease-fire agreement ending the 1967 War. Except for the new wall, this border is not a fortified line, with barbed wire and bunkers, as I had expected. In most places it is just a low earthen berm, or perhaps a wire fence. Arab villages sit just yards to the east of the line, Israeli villages just as close to the west.

In the Gilboa region, our bus turned off the main highway and followed a road to Jenin, going as far as the Army checkpoint - within clear sight of that city where the most deadly upheavals of the intifada have occurred. We drove through an Israeli Arab village and a kibbutz right on the green line. There is no IDF border defense in these areas; each village or kibbutz relies on whatever fencing, sensors, etc., it can afford it install, plus its own residents' vigilance. So close are these villages to the line that had we been allowed to disembark, one could have thrown a frisbee into the West Bank.

A civil engineer employed by the Gilboa regional commission told us of various projects - roads, water supply, irrigation -- he had been working on in cooperation with his Palestinian counterparts prior to the intifada. These projects would have benefited all residents of the area, but especially the Palestinian villagers, whose standard of living is far below that of Israelis. Now, he lamented, all those vitally needed projects are suspended; and whenever peace is achieved it will take years for each side to regain the requisite trust of the other for these projects to recommence.

Thanks to one of our partners in Afula, we visited an Israel Air Force base in that region. We were not kept at distance from the action; instead we were allowed right on the tarmac as a squadron of F-15 fighter jets was taking off for maneuvers. So close were we that we could feel the ground shake as the jet turbines ignited with a deafening roar and shot the planes down the runway and upwards, where they disappeared into the clouds in mere seconds.

Afterwards we saw a video on the Air Force's capabilities, asked questions of the base communications officer and a pilot, and then examined (again, up close) a fully armed and fueled fighter jet in high readiness to scramble on a moment's notice.

The most memorable and enlightening experience of the mission was the overnight stay with families from Alfula-Gilboa (each family hosted two mission participants). Our host family - as gracious and congenial and articulate as could be -- lived in a small agricultural moshav (a community more structured than a village but less so than a kibbutz) in the hills about 10 miles outside of the city. That night we took a walk; our hosts pointed out a cluster of lights to the east -- a Jordanian village, he noted; another cluster just to the south, Jenin (in the West Bank); and over the hill to the north, Alfula.

Particularly intriguing to me, among the many topics of our wide-ranging conversation, was the typical Israeli perspective on religious observance. Most secular Israelis, we were told, do not observe Judaism even to the extent of a moderately observant American Reform Jew. Rather, they feel that they express their Judaism by the very fact of living on the land, under conditions of danger and privation that we Americans would find intolerable, thus preserving a Jewish homeland. I found this a profoundly revealing and humbling insight -- a far more expansive notion of 'being Jewish' than I had previously conceived.

Everyone who addressed our group thanked us profusely for coming to Israel. They could not tell us enough how important it is to them, how it eases their sense of embattled isolation. One speaker used the analogy of a parent hearing that her child has been injured and hospitalized: presumably she would not merely say "Oh how awful - send me the bill and I will send you a check"; rather she would rush to the hospital to be with the child. So it should be with American Jews and our fellow Jews in Israel: in their time of crisis, we must come forth with not just our dollars but our presence at their sides.

I left Israel both disheartened and heartened. Disheartened insofar as nothing I saw or hear gave me any reason to believe that peace is imminent or even anywhere near. But heartened by the realization that Israel will survive as a Jewish state: the spirit and determination of her people are unbroken. Israelis are not just defending their state but continuing to build a civilized, democratic society on the very ground on which the Patriarchs trod some 3000 years ago.

  Adar Aleph 5763 - March 2003