Within 24 hours

This past Shabbat, Rabbi Aryeh Perlstein, Assistant Rabbi of our shul, Young Israel of North Beverly Hills, gave a speech that concluded with a remarkable story.
Its title: “If I Forget Thee, O Jerusalem.”
A familiar line, yet the story gave it new life.

It spoke of two heroes of their time: Moshe Stempel, a deputy brigade commander, and his fellow paratrooper Dov Gruner.
On June 7th, at the Lions Gate, Stempel turned to Gruner and told him to go down to the Kotel and find a way to place his hands upon the ancient stones.
At that very moment, Stempel and his men pinned the flag of Israel to the grillwork above the Wall.
It was Dov Gruner who first touched the Kotel, and with that simple, sacred act, he made history.

But the story deepened further.
This Dov Gruner had been named after his uncle, another Dov Gruner, one of the Irgun fighters executed by the British during the Mandate.
Before his hanging, he wrote a final letter to his commander, Menachem Begin, declaring that if he could live his life again, he would still choose the same path.
Courage clearly ran in that familys veins.

Fast forward to another poignant moment, this time within the last twenty four hours.
We attended a friends grandchilds Brit.
There, I met my dear friend Sara Weintraub and her husband Bob, who began to tell me a story about his grandfather, one of the Ritchie Boys.

“Do you know who the Ritchie Boys were?” he asked.
“Of course,” I said. “They were a secret army of Jewish refugees who worked with U.S. intelligence, and their efforts helped the Allies turn the tide against the Nazis.”
Bob smiled. “Exactly right.”

We spoke for a while, and I listened closely, trying to absorb every word, another encounter with the legacy of heroism.

About an hour later, as I stood quietly, taking in the ancient covenant unfolding before me, a tall gentleman approached.
“Nissel, you write for The Times of Israel, dont you?”
“Yes,” I answered, still a bit surprised that a stranger could recognize me from the tiny picture accompanying my blog.

He introduced himself as Yigal Zaidenstein, a cousin of the babys family.
“Rebecca,” he asked, “do you know why Paraguay played a crucial role in the establishment of the State of Israel?”
“Of course,” I replied.

At that point I felt like I needed to pass a history exam.

“They cast one of the decisive votes in favor of our state at the U.N.”
Yigal nodded. “True, but do you know why Paraguay voted that way?”

And then he told me an incredible story.
His grandfather had been the personal physician to the President of Paraguay.
On the eve of the U.N. vote, Paraguay had decided to oppose the creation of the Jewish State, perhaps influenced by the number of Nazis who had found refuge there after the war.

The Jewish community of Paraguay learned of this decision and reached out to Yigals grandfather, a modern day Mordechai, or perhaps a Queen Esther in disguise.
He went directly to the President and said:
“If our country votes against the establishment of a Jewish homeland, I will resign as your physician.”

And so, at the very last moment, Paraguay changed its vote, and the map of Jewish destiny was altered forever.

You may well ask what my point in all these stories is.
Within just twenty four hours, I was always aware of how close knit and extraordinary the Jewish people truly are.
All I did was attend our beloved shul to daven and listen to our Rabbis words, then go to a Brit of a friends grandchild, and through the people I met, I heard the echoes of Jewish courage and compassion across generations.

In those brief hours, my admiration for the Jewish people deepened even more, listening to stories of men and women who, in their own ways, helped turn the tables of history.