Menschkeit Cowboy
The Promising Land #2: The non-Jews stepping up for Israel in its time of need.
The Promising Land is a recurring column about Israel, the opportunities and threats it faces, and its place in a changing Middle East. This is The Promising Land #2.
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The latest Palestinian terror war against Israel has killed 1,400 Jews and unleashed fresh torrents of antisemitism around the world.
While it is a moral imperative to bear witness to the evil of Jew-hatred, it is important to acknowledge those non-Jews who have come to the aid of the Jewish people in their time of need.
What follows is not an attempt to sugarcoat the failure of so many to stand up for Jews. Quite the opposite. It is meant to underscore the role of choice. Antisemitism is a choice. Terrorism is a choice. Staying silent is a choice. Condemning Israel for defending itself is a choice. The people you’re about to read about chose differently.
‘Thou shalt plant vineyards…’
The call-up of reservists to war-time duty has left farms across the Jewish state struggling, which is why Israelis have been taken by the story of ten cowboy farmers from the United States who have flown in to volunteer their agricultural labour and know-how. The young men, evangelical Christians from Arkansas and Montana, paid for their own flights and will be working on farms in Judea and Samaria. One cowboy said: ‘We’re just here to serve Israel in any way we can during the hard time here in the struggle against Hamas.’ Working-class, red-state, church-going America’s love for Israel is very endearing. And who doesn’t love a cowboy?
Cycles of violence
Alaa Amara is an Arab citizen of Israel and owner of a bicycle shop in Tayibe, an Arab-majority town 40 minutes north-east of Tel Aviv. When he learned that Jewish families evacuated from southern Israel were being housed in nearby Tzur Yitzhak, he knew instantly what to do. Amara crammed 50 bikes into the back of his van, drove to Tzur Yitzhak and donated the cycles to the children.
Amara told The Times of Israel: ‘My friends around there gave them items, food; they had what they needed. But there were a lot of kids there, they didn’t have anything to do — no school. I did it to benefit the children. They don’t know about war.’
He knew he was taking a risk. Arab citizens who help Jews or work with the state are typically denounced as collaborators and face intimidation and violence. After an Arab-Israeli influencer tweeted about Amara’s kindness, his store was looted and burned to the ground in the middle of the night. The arsonists had attempted to lure him there in what Amara suspects was a planned lynching.
The story of Amara’s generosity and the penalty he paid for it inspired Israelis to crowdfund to help him reopen his store. So far it’s raised NIS 750,000 ($200,000).
Bedouins of Be’eri
Few gentiles have done as much for Jews as four heroic Arab Bedouins from Rahat, an Israeli city twenty miles east of Gaza. Early on the morning of October 7, with news of the massacres in southern Israel filtering through, Ismail Alqrinawi’s uncle despatched him and three of his other nephews to Kibbutz Be’eri, where his son worked in the cafeteria. They had only one instruction: bring Hisham home.
En route, the four men encountered the horrors of the Supernova music festival attack, still in progress and with Hamas terrorists gunning down victims all around them. The Bedouins pulled over and began ferrying festival-goers into their vehicle then driving them to safety in batches. They did so for hours until they had rescued between 30 and 40 people. They gave their evacuees water and phones to call their parents before driving into Be’eri.
In the meantime, Hisham had gone into hiding amid the attack but came out to help a Jewish woman, Aya Meydan. She had left the kibbutz that morning for her regular meet-up and bike ride with a friend but headed home when she heard about the invasion. (She later learned her friend had been shot dead by Hamas.) As she approached Be’eri, Hisham warned her the terrorists were inside and shooting everyone in sight, including children. Surrounded on all sides, the pair were forced to hide in a patch of thorny bushes, where Hisham messaged his father asking for help.
When Ismail and Hisham’s three other cousins arrived, they bundled Hisham and Aya into the car, only to be confronted by arriving IDF soldiers, who assumed they were witnessing a hostage-taking. Aya screamed at them not to shoot and explained that these Arab Bedouin men, total strangers to her, had saved her life. The men drove her to Ofakim police station and stayed with her while she waited for an evacuation bus. Aya’s husband Omri and their children were still locked in their panic room back in Be’eri and, conscious of her distress, the Alqrinawi men decided they couldn’t leave her. So when Aya finally took her seat on the bus, her phone rang and it was the men telling her to look out the window. There she saw their car, which kept pace with the bus for the 12 miles to Beersheba, so that Aya wouldn’t have to make the journey alone.
Kasher outside, how ‘bout that?
A Missouri businessman and co-owner of the St Charles restaurant Novellus, Bob Affholder, who is not Jewish, wanted to do something to raise money for Israelis affected by the October 7 attacks and make a statement in solidarity with the Jewish people. So he consulted Rabbi Chaim Landa and for 24 hours turned Novellus into a glatt-kosher restaurant, pledging the takings from that day to Colel Chabad, which has been supplying meals to displaced Israeli families. Affholder will also match the donation out of his own pocket up to $50,000. He told Chabad News: ‘When I saw the images and videos on TV, I knew I couldn’t sit idly by; I had to do something. I want to be there for the people of Israel and show my support for the Jewish people everywhere, now, in their time of need.‘
Harvard schooled
Billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin is a graduate of Harvard who has donated $500m to the Cambridge, Massachusetts school. But when students at the Ivy League university issued a letter blaming Israel for the October 7 attack, Griffin vowed never to hire any signatory to the statement. It’s no small threat: his Citadel hedge fund offers internships that pay $19,000 a month. Griffin told the New York Post: ‘It is despicable that leaders of these student groups did not immediately condemn the terrorist atrocities by Hamas but instead blamed Israel for them.’
He is also credited with bouncing Harvard’s much-criticised president Claudine Gay into issuing a firmer statement on the attacks after her initial comments were widely criticised.
Carer vs. terror
Bravery and bribery saved Camille Jesalva’s life and that of her employer on October 7. The Filipino care worker, 31, was at the home of Nitza Hefetz, the 95-year-old woman she takes care of, when Hamas terrorists burst in. Jesalva begged the terrorists to leave Hefetz alone and when they demanded money, she handed over her savings, which she had set aside to visit her young son back home. She told Israeli media: ‘It’s a miracle that I stayed alive. I told my mother that I was going to die, and I asked her to send me a picture of my son because I felt that I wouldn’t get out of this alive.’