LOOKING AROUND: Israeli flag in Canton

By Barbara Sofer
Jun. 6, 2002

After driving many hours through the flat farmland of the Allegheny Plateau of Ohio, what a thrill to see the blue-and-white Israeli flag flying in the sunshine. Canton, Ohio is known as the home of the National Professional Football Hall of Fame, not for the size of its Jewish community. Nonetheless, that flag was out and 100 women turned up for lunch, eager to hear an update on the current situation in Israel and to support Hadassah Hospital over 9,000 miles away.

In Cleveland, the names of recent Israeli victims of terror were announced in synagogue together with the local deaths and yahrzeits. In Lexington, Kentucky, the president of Eastern Kentucky University hosted a luncheon for local Zionists in the faculty club mansion, surrounded by the proverbial bluegrass.

For a visiting Israeli, the warm support by Americans - particularly the Jewish community - was energizing. Statistics that say most Americans back Israel despite the negative press certainly felt true in the US heartland.

Our brethren were eager to hear close-up reports of those stories largely overlooked by their news: eyewitness testimony of Palestinian ambulances pulling up to a hospital in Jerusalem; a soldier's personal account of the six-year-old suicide bomber who was sent toward him weeping while he served in Jenin (the soldier helped the child unfasten the bomb); reports from IDF doctors who set up impromptu pediatric clinics in Nablus for the Palestinian kids whose mothers heard Israeli doctors were in town and brought them for checkups.

Swamped by unfavorable reports about us, our brethren, too, secretly worried that maybe something had happened to the gutsy, honorable Israel they loved. Because they'd heard more about those who refused to serve than those who rushed to volunteer, they sought assurance that neither our will to defend ourselves nor our values had been eroded by the violence and prevarication of our enemies.

Once again I realized how much harder we have to work at getting our message out, again and again, and again: We are standing firm and doing our absolute best to maintain human rights in the face of actual, not just potential, attacks. For all the wonder and sway of storytelling, the gulf between hearing about terrorist attacks and living amidst the horrifying explosions remains great. But I didn't feel a jot of resentment against those who stayed away this winter. It would be misused emotion at a time when our communities have never needed each other more.

Nearly every newscast included a prediction by a high-ranking American official that the US would become the target of a renewed Muslim terror campaign. To concretize what suicide bombings were, familiar footage from my own Jerusalem was shown over and over.

For all the talk of stringent security, the US felt wide open to this Jerusalemite accustomed to having her purse checked three times before entering a supermarket. Bags and bulges weren't examined anywhere except the airport, where the staff seemed to lack the discerning professional eye.

Americans seem vulnerable, and American Jews more so. Reports from American campuses are particularly disturbing. These weren't the infamous campuses of Northern California where Jewish students have felt threatened. One student told me that her campus "wasn't too bad," even though the so-called conflict reconciliation course that paired an extreme left-wing Jew and a Palestinian and always came out anti-Israel made her uncomfortable. Another student, in Dayton, Ohio, confided that she was suffering from her Pakistani-born professor's Israel-bashing.

Where are the strong voices of American students - not only Jews - challenging repressive concepts that threaten democracy? Where are the reminders that Muslims, not Jews, attacked the United States on September 11? Student protests won't mean a thing unless they are echoed by the parents and grandparents whose philanthropy is critical to many American institutions of higher learning. This isn't a time to show how liberal we Jews are by standing there and allowing abuse. Zero tolerance for Israel-bashing and Jew-bashing should be the rule. The same goes for publicly supported radio and TV stations.

What a confused show of democratic values it is to allow your anti-democratic enemy to attack you, and remain silent. Democracy means the right to defend your views. Just as we have been forced to use the weapons in our arsenal, our brethren must use whatever influence they have to protect our people here and abroad.

The media war needs to be fought on many different levels. Local communities should know when their local station is sending a reporter abroad, and make sure he or she has access to insiders' tours of Israeli institutions. I would go as far as asking where the reporters are staying, and expressing dismay if they've chosen to stay in east Jerusalem and employ an all-Palestinian film crew.

In my case, through their local contacts, the media-savvy US Jewish communities made sure I was interviewed on city radio and TV stations wherever I went.

Just this week my family received our first piece of mail addressed to "Jerusalem, Held Territories." It was a frequent flyer report from American Airlines, the company victimized on September 11.

We need to bond together, supporting those who support us and showing our displeasure to those who have sided with our enemies. In at least one city in Ohio, local supermarket chains were being nudged into stocking more Israeli products by communities committed to buying Israeli products. We need to do the same with lasers as with soup nuts.

Our hi-tech market is also being targeted by those looking for excuses to punish the Jewish state. A friend with a Jerusalem hi-tech company had his business relationship broken off by a German (!) company that objected to associating with Israelis.

In these difficult times, the Jewish people in Israel and the Diaspora need to hang together to build strategies of self-defense and healing. May we look forward to the time when all our resources can be directed to houses of scholarship and worship.

In the meantime - thank you, Canton, for keeping our spirits and our flag flying high.