Monday morning’s dramatic rescue of two Argentinian-Israeli captives provides much-needed hope that the remaining 101 hostages believed to still be alive in Gaza will return to Israel. Norberto Louis Har and Fernando Marman had been kidnapped together on October 7th with three female family members who were released in November. The reunification represents an echo of an earlier operation, the Raid on Entebbe, when Israel demonstrated it would go to the ends of the earth for the sake of saving Jewish lives.
On June 27, 1976, Air France Flight 139 took off from Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv en route to Paris. On the way, the plane picked up 58 passengers in Athens of whom four were terrorists. At the mercy of the hijackers, the pilots diverted to Benghazi, Libya where a British-Israeli nurse feigned a miscarriage and left for the hospital. Given that the follow-on destination was Uganda, it is a strange coincidence that this clever Mancunian once tended to the wounds of dictator Idi Amin during his time training with Israeli Paratroopers several years before he cut ties with the Jewish State.
Upon landing in Entebbe, passengers were divided between Jews and non-Jews with the latter group shepherded out of Uganda. Heroically, the Air France crew felt duty-bound to stay with the Jewish hostages and so refused an offer to fly back to Paris. Among the hostages were Holocaust survivors, a cruel irony given that two of the hijackers were German.
In an audacious undertaking, members of the IDF’s elite Sayeret Matkal unit flew eight hours to Entebbe at a height of only 30 meters/100 feet to avoid radar detection. Upon landing, the soldiers successfully located and freed 102 of the 106 hostages with three tragically killed in the crossfire and a fourth who had been taken to hospital in Kampala murdered several days later by Idi Amin’s forces. The only IDF casualty of the raid was Yonatan Netanyahu, a loss that deeply impacted the nation and more acutely his brother Benjamin.
Not all of the hostages were thrilled with how things played out after landing in Tel Aviv. George and Renee Karfunkel, an American couple of significant means, complained to the State Department that nobody from the embassy was on the tarmac at Ben Gurion to help them.
In a since-declassified cable, the consular officer writes in exasperated diplomatese “We are aware of Karfunkels’ opinion they should have been met on arrival, but we do not agree that was required or even appropriate. Their feeling of disappointment was heightened by thousands of Israelis who had gone to the airport without having arrival information and who greeted the hostages with wild enthusiasm. However, those thousands were present not so much to greet the hostages as to participate in a national event of great historical and emotional significance. The presence of a consular officer at the airport would not have assisted the Karfunkels.”
A factor in the Karfunkels’ frustration may have been their misperception that embassy staff were taking it easy given that the plane landed in Ben Gurion Airport on July 4, 1986, when Americans of all stripes were out celebrating the Bicentennial. Thankfully, the Karfunkels did not hold a grudge against Uncle Sam. Their daughter Anne Neuberger proudly serves in government today as National Security Advisor for Cyber and Emerging Technology.
As we approach the holidays of Purim which commemorates the attempted extermination of Persian Jewry and Passover whose central tenet is escape from bondage, our hearts turn towards our brothers and sisters still held in captivity. We pray that all of the hostages safely return home in hopes that our JCC can fulfill a promise we made to the Argamani and Ohel families during their visit to us over Hanukkah that we will host them once again when Noa and Alon will be free.
Services
Kabbalat Shabbat
Friday, February 16th
Services: 6:00pm
Dinner by reservation: 7:00pm
Kabbalat Shabbat
Friday, February 23rd
Services: 6:00pm
Dinner by reservation: 7:00pm
Shabbat Parshat Tetzaveh – Shushan Purim Katan
Kiddush sponsored by Izumi Sato in memory of her mother
Saturday, February 24th
Services: 10:00am
Kiddush: 12:00pm
Kabbalat Shabbat
Friday, March 1st
Services: 6:00pm
Dinner by reservation: 7:00pm
Kabbalat Shabbat
Friday, March 8th
Services: 6:00pm
Dinner by reservation: 7:00pm
Shabbat Shekalim – Parshat Vayakhel
Kiddush open for sponsorship
Saturday, March 9th
Services: 10:00am
Kiddush: 12:00pm
Kabbalat Shabbat
Friday, March 15th
Services: 6:00pm
Dinner by reservation: 7:00pm
Kabbalat Shabbat
Friday, March 23rd
Services: 6:00pm
Dinner by reservation: 7:00pm
Shabbat Zachor – Parshat Vayikra – Erev Purim
Kiddush open for sponsorship
Saturday, March 24th
Services: 10:00am
Kiddush: 12:00pm
Friday Night Dinner Reservations can made on our website: https://jccjapan.jp/shabbat-meals-sign-up/
Events
The World’s Best Purim Party
Saturday night, March 24th
Megillah Reading: ~6:30pm
Klezmer: 8:00pm
Nijikai: 11:00pm
Sanjikai: 1:00am
Registration Details: https://jccjapan.jp/event-registration/
Stay tuned for film screenings, cooking classes and lectures
If you have an idea for an event or a topic you would like to share with others, please visit our website: https://jccjapan.jp/event-committee-inquiry/
Announcements
The minyan for our overseas visitor to recite Kaddish in memory of his father will take place this Tuesday, February 20th at 6:30pm at the JCC. Parking is available. If you can help get us to 10, please reply to this e-mail. Rare is the opportunity to do a mitzvah just by showing up.
Condolences to the family of Zvi Zamir who passed away recently at the age of 98. Zvika served as Mossad Director during the disastrous West German operation to free Israeli athletes held hostage at the 1972 Munich Olympics. The tragic lessons learned from that mission led to more successful rescues in Entebbe and more recently Rafah.
Thank you to last week’s Scholar-in-Residence Professor Marc Shapiro for his Friday night lecture on Rabbi Shlomo Goren and Saturday afternoon discussion on the week’s Torah portion and various rabbinic personalities. The lounge was packed for a delicious Chinese New Year inspired dinner of egg drop soup and sweet and sour chicken. An additional debt of gratitude to the Fischer family and Oasis Management Company for sponsoring kiddush that featured Izaki-san’s famous hamantaschen in honor of the new Hebrew month of Adar I.
Carmel Tanaka, founder of the Jewpanese Project, will be visiting in March 2024. The Jewpanese Project is an oral history initiative recording lived experiences and stories at the intersection of being Jewish and Japanese or what we at the JCC like to call our everyday lives. If you are interested in participating, please visit her website: https://www.tinyurl.com/jewpanese
Yiddish Club with Jack Halpern: Please contact Jack at jack@cjki.org if you are interested to join. All levels are welcome, from beginner to advanced. Much more than just language, the club’s monthly meetings explore Yiddish culture as well.
Shabbat Terumah
Candle Lighting: 5:05pm
Havdala: 6:03pm