The War of Independence had just ended.  White, uniform, square tombstones appeared in too many cemeteries in Israel . To simple passers-by or people who were not touched by the tragedies, it seemed that things were beginning to progress.  Only the mothers, fathers, wives, brothers and sisters, could not see the final light of Peace for their permanent, unceasing pain and sorrow.  We didn’t envision then, that this interweaving of action and sorrow will be so much a part of our lives here, with more and more bereaved families through the coming years, until we will all seem like one big bereaved family, trying to lead a normal life.  

People were being released from the army, gradually, with priorities, but students started going back to the University and Technion.

     One day I got a call to come to the Ministry of Defence in Tel-Aviv. A tall building in one of the side streets of Tel-Aviv.  The prevalent saying that the only difficulty in negotiating with the Ministry of Defence, is in finding a parking space, was true even in March 1949.

The word “Ministry of Defence”  had a threatening sound for me, an officer in the field, whose concept of “defence” was commanding a unit in battle, for whom even the news on the Declaration of the Establishment of the State reached, belatedly, in the midst of battle.  

       There were six people sitting around a table in a small room.

I had never seen them or heard about them in my life.  One man, who introduced himself as the Director General, smiled kindly at me and called me by my first name.  It seems it was a well practiced habit that was intended to break the initial ice between interviewers and an interviewee.  The Director General explained that they are a Committee interviewing field officers from all IDF units, chosen by their commanders as candidates for an I.D.F. Mission to the Jewish Community of the United States to assist the U.J.A. (United Jewish Appeal) in launching the greatest Fundraising Campaign of its history.

     These impressed me very much, though it seemed a bit unrealistic.  My right ear had not yet completely recovered from my wounding, and I was too shy to admit I couldn’t hear every word.  In due time my hearing completely recovered, but by then I was older and much more experienced, and learned, like many others, to use partial deafness as an instrument of defence against unpleasant information.  But in this specific case, I was twenty one, seated at a disadvantage with my partially deaf ear towards the Director General, and even if I dared I couldn’t move, as the place was so crowded.

I was about to tell that I didn’t find myself qualified in general knowledge, especially in the knowledge of English for such a mission of national and global importance, but I missed his inquiry into my knowledge of English, so I remained on the short list.

To my surprise and even shock the announcement of being chosen as a member of the Mission came to the Brigade Command with the appropriate papers of appointment.  I was now an official member of the l949 mission, called “The Mission of Heroes”.  

The sudden passage from our small, still bleeding, country, to the biggest city in the world, with its huge Jewish Community – double in number to that of Israel – was sharp and bewildering. 

Modern technology in all its glory was already widely practiced in the United States , overwhelmed us completely with its inventions and possibilities.  The speed in which things were executed seemed to us almost wizard-like.  Years later, after I came to know the United States and its History quite well, I understood the shortcomings of affluence, but now I was there for the first time, and highly impressed with the personalities we were brought to meet, in the large, richly equipped offices of the United Jewish Appeal, whose president was known to be a wizard fund-raiser, and to whose credit were the millions of dollars Israel got in those years.  

The personalities I met left a permanent impression on my young mind.

     Henry Morgenthau,Jr. was known as a Minister in President Roosevelt’s Cabinet, as a Diplomat in Turkey , as the initiator of the Economic Assistance to Europe .  All the other participants in the meeting were as impressive, either in their roles within the Jewish Community or in the world of business.

I sensed more than understood that I was facing a wondrous phenomenon,

      Of a complete alliance between brothers, that even when separated by oceans, carry the sense of responsibility for each other.  I certainly could not then define it in words, this phenomenon of spiritual elation that carried me through this whole voyage, emanating from the feeling that we are not alone in our struggle for our country and its sustenance.  I felt a part of the “Jewish National Family” for the first time of my life.  

With the principle that “time is money”, and according to the pressures coming from the Israeli Government in need. The Jewish Leadership was all enlisted to raise more and more money for the needs of rebuilding a country after a wear, and the absorption of waves of new immigrations into the new State.  Refugees from Arab Countries and North Africa , in addition to the absorption of the Survivors from Europe .  This necessitated our departure from fascinating New York , as soon as possible.  It seems that the President of the U.J.A. contrived  a meaningful, yet bold and grandiose action plan for deeper fund raising.

Our mission, comprising of five male officers and two female officers was separated.  Each of us was sent to a different part of the country.  I found myself in a plane carrying me to San-Francisco in California .

I was coached during the flight, in English, from the U.J.A. man accompanying me throughout the mission.  In San-Francisco we boarded a special train, with two carriages carrying the name “The Caravan of Hope”.  One carriage was carrying  an exhibition of pictures of achievements, the other carriage included a reception area, bedrooms and even a terrace-bridge, like the one in American Election caravans of Candidates.  I also found my partner to this mission already there.  He was The Head of Settlement Department of the Jewish Agency, Levi Shkolnik, who later changed his name to Levi Eshkol, Finance Minister, and in the late sixties was the Prime Minister of Israel.

He was a friendly man, and welcomed me very warmly, saying he couldn’t wait to see me, “the English speaking Officer” who will save him and especially his listeners from the shame of exposing his lack of knowledge in English.  Only after we were comfortable with one another did he find out that the shame doubled, after I confessed my complete ignorance in the Language. 

But there is nothing that can stand in the way of will and especially necessity.  

     The voyage started in San-Francisco, after the mayor of the city and the notables of the Jewish Community there boarded the train and visited the exhibition, to  learn and observe on the one hand and listen to us reporting on the urgent needs of the State on the other hand. They announced their donations; even the Mayor, who was not Jewish, announced a donation.  Something that impressed me even more.  Later it was explained to me that this is done quite regularly.  After increasing our coffer in the amount of several Millions, we set out to Sacramento – the Capital of California.  

We threw a lot on who was to speak in the House of Representatives, and my name came up.  A soldier is a soldier all the time and everywhere, I tried to put on a brave face,  but on entering the great hall, with two UJA men on both my sides I couldn’t help feeling like a condemned man on way to the gallows.  The first lecture of my life,  in English yet, and not even to sympathetic Jews, but to representatives of a House.

     On  reaching the podium, I was approached by a large man, it seemed to me for a moment that the stranger knows what was to follow, and was going to attack me in self-defence. Instead he hugged me.  This was the Speaker of the House, a man of Irish descent, and  got very excited and emotional  at the sight of an Israeli Officer in uniform. He hugged me several more times,  as if meeting a brother-at-arms, which is pretty close to the truth, his people too fought the British for Independence .   The analogy was not exactly historically true, but at that moment he didn’t pay attention to such trivialities.

I need not have had to worry.

All these lovely people liked the prepared speech, and were especially happy with its brevity, and honored me by standing up and applauding loudly. Something I had never experienced in my life.  

     The voyage continued along the California Coastline, and lasted several weeks.  In each city we reached, the two “caravan of Hope” carriages were detached from the train, and the regular drill started. Children from Jewish Schools in the morning.  Hadassa ladies in the afternoon.  Leaders of the Jewish Community and the U.J.A. leadership, cocktails at six, followed by an evening Rally, where one of us, sometimes both, spoke.

But it was not enough for the temperament of Levi Shkolnik.  In the later hours of the evening he called in the leaders and activists of The Labor Zionists, for talks and sentimental conversations till the small hours of the night.

I was put in charge of the young people. The exhibition consisted mainly of photographs, which rather showed the need for development of land and people, rather than achievements.

The boys and girls were not interested in Diagrams and Statistics.  They quickly surrounded me, an attraction in uniform, checking each button and insignia, touching here and there, and asking ”what is the meaning of the olive branches on your shoulders?” “How many do you to be a lieutenant?,  a captain?”  The Commander’s insignia (sikat memim) on the collar of my shirt impressed them the most.  It seemed to ensure these young people of the safe future of the Jewish People.  They seemed to be eager to take part in the great endeavor.  I completely shared their excitement.  An excitement that never left me since, in all my dealings with the diaspora Jewry.  Their knowledge of Hebrew, their sincere and open interest in Israel and what is happening there, the light that shone in their eyes.  

In Los Angeles we were privileged to experience a very special and different event.  The exhibition carriage was broken into during the night, but in the morning it was discovered that nothing was stolen, instead two large sacks of money were found in the middle of the carriage.  It is quite understandable why the money was contributed in such a dramatic manner, and so anonymously.  My imagination flourished.  I too had heard of the Jewish Gangsters in Los-Angeles.  

After spending some weeks in such a manner, the two Israeli delegates had the feeling that they mastered the trade and overcame their difficulties with the English Language, and started winding up their speeches.  And there are people in the Jewish Communities between Los-Angeles and San Diego , who are willing to swear that they never slept so well as they did during the long-winded speeches of the two Israelis.  In order to be really exact I should mention that in the Great Synagogue of San Diego, on a very hot day, we managed to put to sleep a thousand and five hundred good Jewish men and women.  

The journey came to an end.  Shkolnik left for Washington D.C. to acquire wide-caliber iron pipes for irrigation of the fields in summer.  This was his great love.  The irrigation of the arid Israeli land, th blooming of the desert.  But he didn’t forget our adventure.

We met again fifteen years later.    Levi Eshkol Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, and  I a senior officer, Head of a Department in The ministry of Defence, presented him with my department’s new budget for his approval.  His instant reaction at the sight of the large sums of money in the Budget Proposal was: “My young friend, if you think that the money we found in the sacks in Los-Angeles is still with us, you are gravely mistaken.  Please present a realistic Budget Proposal.”.

I continued on fund-raising missions in other places in California .  I returned to Los Angeles and had a farewell dinner with the U.J.A. representative who accompanied me until then.

The man, who was initially so formal in manner and elegant, and his approach was so professional and practical all through the journey, was revealed as a very sensitive man, with a warm Jewish heart.  As many of his generation at that time was a liberal with left political sympathies.  People like him have often showed signs of disapproval of Israel . To my surprise he opened up and confessed that since the establishment of the Jewish State of Israel, he had been struggling to find his true identity and mission in life. His meeting with us ended his inner struggle. He had decided to abandon all other work he was doing and devote himself only to U.J.A. public relations.  And if it leads him to emigrate to Israel , he will consider it a closure of a circle, and the achievement of an ideal, that seemed to him only few years before as a complete pipe dream.  

     This is the account of my first meeting with the great Jewish Community of North America, who shoulder to shoulder with Israel shared the great decisions of establishing the State, the fight for its existence, and the even longer fight for its economic survival and the establishment of a viable economic structure in Israel that could carry the heavy load.