Love of the Land: Making the right decision

Making the right decision

Barbara Sofer
The Human Spirit/JPost
05 March '10

At the recent dedication of Ohel Ari, named in memory of Ari Weiss who was killed in action in 2002, the appreciation of the young man, his family and his community shone through and has set the bar of valor high.

‘You made the right decision,” say the new immigrants who’d kindly offered me a ride to Ra’anana. They were referring to my moving to Israel decades ago, around the time that they, too, had considered aliya, but then postponed it until a much later period of their lives.

My immediate reflex is to say a quick prayer of thanks, not so much about the long-ago decision to live here – although I feel very fortunate to live in Israel and grateful that the adjustment is so far behind me. But I am thankful every day of my life that my children have survived the near-misses of their military service as officers in the IDF. I am still anxious through every stint of their reserve duty. I know that Diaspora life presents its dangers, too, but having your children so near, yet under fire, is an ongoing, harrowing experience that is central to Israeli life.

TONIGHT SUCH thoughts are particularly poignant. We’re on our way from Jerusalem to Ra’anana for the dedication of Ohel Ari, a synagogue and Torah study center in the northeast part of that city.

The stunning, new white edifice with its modern lines and cathedral ceiling is a hub of learning, prayer and communal good deeds. This is a night to celebrate, but ebullience is muted because the center is being named in memory of a young man, a son of Ra’anana, aged 21.

St.-Sgt. Ari Yehoshua Weiss was killed on September 30, 2002 when Palestinian gunmen opened fire on his position in the Nablus casbah. He is the son of Rabbi Stewart Weiss, a regular contributor to this paper, and Rabbanit Susie Weiss, a social activist in Ra’anana.

American-born Jews, they had made the decision to move to Israel and to bring up their six children here.

Nearly eight years have unbelievably passed since the morning of September 12, 2002 when I read writer Eli Wohlgelernter’s unforgettable description of Susie Weiss’s successful solicitation of food to feed her hungry soldier-son Ari and his 34 fellow members of the Nahal Engineering Brigade. I remember it like yesterday: Wohlgelernter described the immigrant from Cleveland and Dallas going from restaurant to restaurant and shop to shop gathering eats and treats for the soldiers. She went from Little Red Riding Hood (Kippa Aduma) Shwarma – where the proprietor simply asked her “How many?” before filling bags with grilled turkey sandwiches – to the Roladin bakery, where she came away with individualized honey cakes with a legend engraved in frosting: “To a soldier, Happy New Year!”

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Love of the Land: Making the right decision