It’s safe to say that the memories of recent missions to Israel make a deep impression on the participants, their families, and perhaps a few close friends.
It’s considerably less common that a mission makes a strong impact on hundreds of people who weren’t even there. But that is the impact of the three-and-a-half day Highland Park/Edison mission to Israel, in late February, and the numbers it has deeply touched continue to grow.
The mission’s group of 37 people, which included a couple from New York City, two people from Baltimore, and one person from Lakewood, started their time together in Israel with a dinner, orientation session and speaker at the World Mizrachi building on February 26. From there, the group took in 18 distinct areas or speakers connected to the current conflict within three days. The whirlwind schedule included a visit to the Hostages and Missing People Square, a trip to the Shura Rabbanut base, a visit to Sderot, a walk through Kibbutz Zikim and Yeshuvim Kfar Maimon and Ofakim, a visit to the Nova music festival site (outside Reim), a barbecue with soldiers, a meeting with World Mizrachi Executive Chairman Rabbi Doron Perez, a visit with bereaved families, and much more.
The experiences of the visit were so striking for the participants that they just had to share them widely at home.
On March 16, nearly a dozen participants in the trip offered their perspectives at a Mission Debriefing held on Shabbat afternoon at Congregation Ahavas Achim in Highland Park. Well over 100 community members attended the 45-minute program.
On Tuesday April 2, Congregation Ohr Torah in Edison will host a lunch and learn program, from noon to 3 p.m., inviting attendees to “see and hear from the Highland Park/Edison Mizrachi mission.”
Florence Zevin of Highland Park, who has a “Free the Hostages” sign in front of her home with a picture of Tzachi Idan, shared that she was moved by the opportunity to meet a member of Idan’s kibbutz, Nachal Oz, at the Hostage Square. “It was a powerful experience to speak with a member of the Tzachi’s kibbutz family, after seeing his picture in front of my house almost every day,” she shared at the Mission Debrief.
For her husband, Joel Zevin, one of the most emotional occasions was visiting wounded soldiers at the Tel Hashomer Hospital. As he put it, the soldiers inspired him because they weren’t at all upset to see strangers from abroad walking through their hospital ward, and they did not dwell on their injuries or medical struggles. Rather, they were thankful to see the support from American Jews.
Alan Silver of Highland Park shared the stories he’d learned about the terrorists’ takeover of the Sderot police station on October 7, how an Elite IDF Special Forces Unit member in the community took out a Hamas sniper on the police station roof, and how the next day an IDF plane dropped a bomb on the police station. The following day the bodies of 26 terrorists were found in the rubble, all equipped with maps of the different shuls and the times of their prayer schedules. The police believed the bombing of the station stopped the terrorists from leaving the station and going on more killing sprees.
Chaya Kohl of Highland Park was touched by how powerfully Israelis are focused on the plight of the hostages in Gaza. She pointed out to the crowd at the Mission Debrief that the dog tags many people in the U.S. Jewish observant community now wear have a Hebrew and an English sentence that are not identical in meaning. The English wording states, “Bring Them Home—Now!” while the Hebrew sentence is “HaLeiv Shelanu Shevui B’Aza,” which translates as “Our Hearts Are Captive in Gaza.”
Brondy Strassman of Highland Park, one of the co-coordinators of the mission, shared that when she went to Israel, she came with a small assignment from one of her children: to purchase and bring home Tehillim booklets for children, which her grandchildren could use in school. Yet in visiting a few seforim stores, she found that all the children’s Tehillim books were sold out and she heard that the warehouses were empty, too. As she understood, the children of Israel have been thoroughly mobilized to daven for the hostages and their family members and neighbors serving in the IDF.
Ken Strassman, Brondy’s husband, engaged attendees at the Mission Debrief in two demonstrations that brought home the challenges and losses Israel faces. In one, he asked an attendee to respond to an alert and run from the front of the shul to the “bomb shelter” by the doors in the back of the room. He told him he had seven seconds to get there; the person made it to the shelter in nine seconds. In the other dramatization, Ken had a group of two dozen crowd into a narrow space and he told the story of Staff Sgt. Aner Elyakim Shapiro. On Oct 7 Shapiro attempted to escape Hamas terrorists in a bus shelter with a few dozen others; Hamas terrorists threw grenades at the shelter and Shapiro caught each of them and threw them back at their attackers. Tragically, he missed one of the grenades; only four people in the shelter survived.
Speaking to The Jewish Link, Lynn Hanfling of Edison, another mission co-coordinator, said that it took a few weeks to organize the mission and “many, many phone calls.” She praised their tour guide Rav Yossi Goldin, Mizrachi representative and son of Rabbi Shmuel Goldin (formerly the rav of Englewood). Her most memorable impression of the trip was visiting the Shura Army base; “I get the chills just thinking about it,” she said. This base was where the IDF brought the bodies of those slaughtered on October 7. The IDF Rabbinate had the task of identifying the dead and adhering to Halacha as they prepared the deceased for burial. In all the stories the mission heard, she was deeply touched by how carefully the rabbinate was to show sensitivity to the deceased.
Marc Hanfling, Lynn’s husband, spoke of the “strength, unity and emunah” that he saw in the people living in the South of Israel who were affected by the attacks on October 7 and in others all across the country. He was touched by the stories he heard at the Shura Army Base and in a visit at the Har Herzl cemetery. He stated, “This mission made many things very personal,” and gave as an example the recent news that the IDF had determined that Captain Daniel Perez had died on October 7. Marc recalled the talk the group heard during the mission from Rabbi Doron Perez, Daniel’s father, who at the time did not know his son’s fate and showed great courage and determination in facing the uncertain prospects.
Rabbi Yaakov Luban, rabbi emeritus of Congregation Ohr Torah, who served as the spiritual leader of the mission, said that he “came away extremely inspired,” adding, “I never saw so much tragedy—at the hospital, the cemetery, at the Shura army base, at Sderot, at the site of the Nova music festival. And yet I was so inspired, because there’s so much positive energy and unity.
“I saw so much appreciation of the bravery of the soldiers and commitment to the war effort,” he continued. “A cab driver told me I was a tzaddik, and when I asked him why he replied, ‘Because you came here to give us chizuk.’ Everyone should go on a mission, because you will give chizuk and get chizuk.”
Harry Glazer, the Middlesex County Editor of The Jewish Link, can be reached at [email protected]. He feels particularly privileged to cover this very moving story.
