I had been asked to come back to
lecture many times after that. First for the UJA, and when The Development
Corporation of
In l956 the army
was asked to send a four officer special mission to the
This time I was
sent south, and met the most amazing man. The
UJA representative told me that I was invited by one of the Leaders of the
community to stay at his house after the meeting, as he had something of great
importance to discuss with me. We
came to the house after
His suggestion
was “to use dolphins in the service of the navy, as an under water fighting
unit, to hit enemy war ships, destroyers and cruisers.
It was obvious
that my host was one hundred percept serious, and that he had devoted hours, if
not days, to the development of his idea of underwater fighting, and came to the
conclusions that dolphins were the best solution. It was possible, he said, to
train them to carry an under water mine or bomb, let them out into the water far
enough from the enemy boat, and as they are intelligent creatures, they can be
trained to seek their food under a metal surface.
I was too shocked
to react quickly to this strange idea. Before I could even open my mouth my host
pulled back the curtains in the living room. The beautiful outside garden came
into view, brightly lit, and the huge swimming pool in the middle glittered even
more. I was duly impressed.
He pushed a button, and two huge metal door opened into the swimming
pool, before I had a chance to close my mouth I noticed
some dark- silver huge masses swimming
contentedly in the pool. My
eyes almost came out of their sockets, when I recognized that they were about a
dozen merry dolphins, jumping and diving in the pool.
If they had listened to our conversation they would not have displayed
such joy. My host then explained
that their initial training period was now over, and the rest had to be done in
After delivering
this amazing speech, he seemed relieved, and explained that for the last few
years he had been worrying about the Egyptian Navy bombarding the shores of
In later years I
came to the conclusion that under this fantastic and light-headed joke lay a
basis of complete devotion to the Zionist ideal, and sincere concern for the
fate and survival of
The more I
traveled from city to city the more I was amazed
at the devotion and love all these Jewish Communities evinced towards
People of
important public positions are chosen to chair committees of volunteers who take
it upon themselves to personally contact the people who made a pledge.
The chairman is responsible to see that it is all carried out, and
supplies the volunteers with the information on how much was donated the year
before, and how much is needed now.
On such devoted activity that lasted several weeks for each campaign, the
chairman was rewarded by hosting the meeting with the Israeli speaker.
After such an initial campaign within the business community, the National Executive Committee meets in order to ascertain that the sum total of the contributions is fifteen percent higher than that of the year before.