Deceased actor Paul Reubens, who created the iconic character, is inextricably linked to Israel’s fight for independence through his father, pilot Milton Rubenfeld, who flew with Ezer Weizman.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Jewish actor Paul Reubens, best-known for his alter ego Pee-wee Herman, died Monday at age 70 following a six-year battle with cancer.

Reubens’ Pee-Wee comedic character was a children’s TV show favorite in the 1980’s and he parlayed it into a film career that also included more serious roles, such as a drug dealer in the move “Blow” that starred Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz. He was best known for his comedy, however, and other comedians such as Jimmy Kimmel and Conan O’Brien paid tribute to his brilliance, originality and “devout silliness,” as well as his kindness and friendship, in comments after his death.

Reubens had an inextricable link to Israel through his father, Milton Rubenfeld.

Well before his famous son was born in 1952, Rubenfeld was a flier, teaching aerial acrobatics to those who dared learn the sport. When World War II broke out, he joined Britain’s Royal Air Force since the U.S. was playing neutral. Then, when America joined the fight two years later, he entered the American Air Transport Command instead, delivering military planes, supplies and personnel to overseas combat theaters until the war ended.

As Israel was gearing up for its fight for independence, it desperately needed experienced war pilots to found its nascent air force, and the Haganah found Rubenfeld in February 1948. According to his biography in the records of the 101^st Squadron – Israel’s first fighter squadron – he went to Czechoslovakia with nine other pilots in early May to train on fighter planes. Only he, two other Americans and two Israelis, including future president Ezer Weizman, graduated the very abbreviated course, cut short due to the Egyptian air force bombing Tel Aviv on the third day of the war, May 18.

On May 29, the IAF had all of four planes, and Rubenfeld as the fifth pilot had to sit out the IAF’s very first mission, against the Egyptians. Although the enemy was shocked that Israel had any air force at all, they managed to shoot down two planes during that initial sortie. Rubenfeld, together with Weizman, then flew the last two available planes the next day, their target being an Iraqi light armored column advancing towards Kfar Yonah, a settlement near Netanya. They dropped the two bombs they each had, but then both were hit – Rubenfeld by either antiaircraft fire or shrapnel from his own bomb, and Weizman by a bird smashing his windshield.

Weizman made it back to base, while Rubenfeld could only get his injured plane to the sea, bailing out at just 1,000 feet. His parachute barely had time to open and he hit the water hard, breaking three ribs and injuring his groin. According to the biography, he said he swam for several hours, not realizing that the water was only knee-deep and that the farmers on shore shot at him as he was coming out, thinking him an Arab. Luckily, they missed, and then took the time to find his Israeli ID in his coveralls.

It turns out that this was Rubenfeld’s last mission for the IAF. He returned to the U.S. for better medical treatment and did not return. However, his place in Israel’s history as a founding member of the country’s vaunted air force remains in place.

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3,000 years of Jewish history, not the Holocaust, inspired Israel’s soldiers to reclaim the Jewish historic homeland.

By TPS

Many see the creation of the modern-day State of Israel as part of a historical narrative, in which Israeli independence was a reaction to the Holocaust.

“The catastrophe which recently befell the Jewish people—the massacre of millions of Jews in Europe—was another clear demonstration of the urgency of solving the problem of its homelessness by re-establishing in Eretz-Israel the Jewish State,” the provisional government of Israel declared on May 14, 1948.

But when the Tazpit Press Service interviewed nearly 30 veterans of the 1948 War of Independence in Israel from October 2022 to January 2023, all of the octogenarians, nonagenarians and centenarians said that 3,000 years of Jewish history — and not the Holocaust — drove them to help reclaim the Jewish historic homeland.

TPS found the interviewees by visiting nursing homes, kibbutzim and other sites in Israel and abroad, often asking to speak with the oldest people present. The roughly 30 who agreed to talk about their experiences spoke with TPS — the majority in English with some Yiddish — for more than 60 hours collectively.

The veterans spanned Israeli-born sabras who were active in the Jewish militias Irgun, Lehi and the Haganah, as well as foreign fighters who came to assist what would become the Israel Defense Forces in Machal units.

Both the native Israelis and the foreign volunteers knew a great deal about the Holocaust, and many had lost relatives and friends. They met survivors who recounted their experiences. But invariably, the veterans told TPS that they were motivated in their service by a long cultural and historical memory rather than World War II itself.

On Israel’s Independence Day, TPS shares a few of those stories.

The Haganah Messenger

TPS spent some eight hours at kibbutz Gan Shmuel with Itzik Mizrachi, 90, who shared his story, gave a tour of the kibbutz where he lives and invited TPS to lunch at its dining hall. The Jerusalem-born Mizrachi said he was a messenger in Haganah’s youth wing, Gadna.

During the outbreak of the war in May 1948, Itzik and his family were in the Mount Scopus area, and Arabs blocked them from taking roads to other safe areas. A mob mobilized to try to kill them, he said, but the patriarch of an Arab family, Abu Mustafa, who shared their home stood guard at the door and told the mob it would have to kill him first.

Soon thereafter, Haganah members came in an armored truck and told the family it had half an hour to gather its things and come to safety.

Mizrachi, who remains in good health, and walks and drives on his own, told TPS that he is the seventh generation in his family to live in Israel, after his ancestors, Sephardic Jews, left Spain during the expulsion.

As a Haganah message runner, he studied KAPAP—an acronym for krav panim el panim, or close-quarter fighting—which the Haganah used to disguise its weapons training. Mizrachi later studied with Imi Lichtenfeld, founder of krav maga martial art. Mizrachi’s son Rhon is now one of the recognized experts in that form of combat.

Mizrachi told TPS that the Holocaust was only one chapter in Jewish history. “Why would we allow that moment alone to define us as Jews?” he said. “Long before the Holocaust, we said, ‘Next year in Jerusalem’ every year during the Passover seder [meal].”

The Holocaust was a motivator, but not the main one. “For generations, we yearned for our independence. There were many pogroms, massacres and expulsions in our history. We never let any of these define us either,” he said.

South African Zionism

“The South African Jewish community was very Zionist long before the Holocaust,” Ruth Stern, 97, a South African nurse who now lives in Jerusalem, told TPS.

The 800 South African volunteers in 1948 paled in number only to Americans (1,000). Due to the representation from these two nations in particular, English became the most spoken language among the “machalniks.” Most foreign volunteers, who were likelier to know Yiddish than Hebrew, first spoke in Yiddish with Israelis.

Stern, who went to Israel to volunteer over her parents’ objections — “Why can’t you be like your sisters and not go?” — said that she and her peers knew about the Holocaust and that many South African Jews of Lithuanian heritage lost relatives back home.

“The Holocaust wasn’t why I volunteered or why most other Jews did,” she insisted.

In 1948, she treated many patients who had survived the Holocaust before their injuries in the war. They experienced trauma on top of trauma, she said.

She accounted for her choice to go to Israel despite pressure from her parents with her spirit of adventurousness. It’s not every 2,000 years that one can see the Jewish state rebuilt, she said, adding that she didn’t want to wait another two millennia.

High-Flying Graphic Designer

Asked whether the Holocaust motivated him, the late Alex Zilony, who died at age 107 on March 3, replied: “No. What a question!”

Zilony, who was born in Poland and grew up in Israel, studied in the United Kingdom before becoming a Haganah pilot. He was one of the founders of the Israeli Air Force, and speaking from his home in Tel Aviv, he told TPS that he designed the IAF emblem, which remains in use today.

“We have wanted a state for over 3,000 years,” he said. “Maybe the possibility of building a state was higher after the Holocaust because we got many new immigrants and war veterans, but Jews had been migrating since the 1920s and even before this,” he said.

Zilony’s daughter, Ruth, who was present during the interview, was as surprised as TPS was at her father’s response. “This was not the answer I expected,” she said, highlighting generational differences in Israel today.

Despite the tendency of American South African and British volunteer pilots to pride themselves on the proclamation that they helped solidify a victory in 1948, Zilony was adamant that Israel would have prevailed without that help.

Stay Alive!

“They say three Jews, five opinions,” the late Tom Tugend told TPS in a phone call from his California home late last year. “This time, it was half a million of us, one opinion—stay alive! Pretty much the whole Diaspora or every Jew who could hold a gun sent someone to represent their community.”

Despite having fled Nazi Germany to the United States and later returned to Europe as a U.S. soldier, Tugend insisted that his desire to help create a Jewish state was a more significant motivator than the Holocaust.

Jews came from a variety of backgrounds, noted Tugend, from Jewish IRA (Irish Republican Army) arms smugglers to Indian Jews. Some, like Tugend, had served in the U.S. military, or in the British or French armies in World War II. Some were officers, while others lacked any military experience, he said, and a few even came from Kenya.

“The South Africans were among the most dedicated fighters,” he pointed out. “There was a Jewish Texan cowboy with a Southern accent. There was a Jew with a Scottish accent, and I recall one from Yorkshire whom nobody could understand! They all wanted to defend the new nation of Israel.”

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The find coincides with the celebration of Israel’s 75th anniversary.

By Pesach Benson, TPS

It’s easy for archaeologists to detach themselves from ancient finds, but the discovery of a brass compass from a massacre of 35 Israeli soldiers in 1948 left two researchers feeling like they were given a “punch in the stomach.”

The Israel Antiquities Authority announced on Monday the discovery of the compass from what Israeli history calls “The Battle of the 35” during the War of Independence.

The story of the compass begins on January 16, 1948, when a convoy of 38 men from the Haganah, the primary paramilitary organization of pre-state Israel, set out to deliver supplies to besieged Jewish communities in Gush Etzion, south of Jerusalem. Three men returned early after one sprained an ankle and couldn’t continue.

The activity was detected by the Arabs who cut off the convoy. After an all-day fight, the Jews ran out of ammunition. The Arabs killed and mutilated all 35 people in the convoy. The massacre and mutilation became known in Israeli history as “The Convoy of 35.”

After the war, the bodies were recovered and reburied at the Mt. Herzl Cemetery in Jerusalem.

The compass, as well as Bren-type machine gun pods, were discovered behind a rock at the top of Battle Hill, which apparently served as a shelter for one of the fighters. Forensic research done at the Israel Police laboratories concluded that the glass of the compass shattered after being hit by a bullet.

According to the researchers, the compass belonged to either division commander Danny Mass or to scouts Yitzhak Halevi or Yitzhak Zevuloni.

“This study is a kind of punch in the stomach,” said Eyal Marko of the Antiquities Authority who discovered the compass with Dr. Rafi Lewis from Ashkelon Academic College and the University of Haifa.

“It is unlike any archaeological research we have done. Even if the events we studied from the distant past included evidence of destruction and severe acts of violence, the study at Battle Hill is different,” Marko said.

“Although 75 years have already passed since the fall of the 35, here there are faces and names. There is an almost personal acquaintance with each of the characters. You wonder what happened to the warriors. Or did the compass — which has the marks of a bullet on it — pierce the heart of whoever held it in their pocket or hand? You do as much scientific work as possible, but it is very difficult to detach yourself from the emotional aspect.”

For the past two years, Marko and Lewis have been conducting an archaeological study of Battle Hill. The two met while serving in a reserve military unit tasked with finding missing soldiers. Marko and Lewis used archaeological methods to search for soldiers whose burial places are unknown.

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“Let every mother know that we will not stop until we return all the sons to the grave of Israel,” said the head of the IDF Personnel Directorate.

By World Israel News Staff

Following a lengthy investigation, the IDF spokesperson announced Friday that the bodies of the late Private Binyamin Aryeh (York) Eisenberg and the late Private Yitzhak Rubinstein were located in southern Israel.

It is now clear that the two soldiers were taken captive by the Egyptians just a few days after the announcement of the establishment of the Jewish state and were buried in a mass grave in Nitzanim, southern Israel, Hebrew-language N12 reported.

According to the investigation, which was conducted by the Missing Persons Branch of the IDF’s casualty department and lasted over a decade, the two were taken prisoner during Israel’s War of Independence and killed between May 23 and 24, less than two weeks after the establishment of the Jewish state was proclaimed on May 14, 1948.

Eisenberg and Rubinstein fought in the elite Palmach branch of the pre-IDF Haganah.

According to the findings, they were imprisoned together with late medic Livka Shafer.

In 1952, Israel’s late Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren declared all three dead, with the place of burial unknown.

Shafer’s body was found already in 2018, but it has only now become clear that Eisenberg and Rubinstein were also buried there.

The families were notified. In the coming weeks, a ceremony will be held, and the names of the two victims will be added to the memorial at Nitzanim, as was Shefer’s.

“Let every Jewish mother know that we will not stop until we return all the sons to the grave of Israel. And we will discover the burial place of our martyrs whose burial place is not known,” declared Maj. Gen. Yaniv Assor, head of the IDF Personnel Directorate.

The fighters of that generation “dreamed of the [Jewish] state…fought valiantly in fierce battles against Arab armies for the independence of the State of Israel. Determining a grave for the soldiers whose burial place is unknown, even 74 years after their fall, is a deep and authentic commitment of the people of Israel and the IDF, which stems from memories that span generations and connects the soldiers past and present.

“Today, the State of Israel and the Israel Defense Forces fulfill a moral duty in determining the grave of Binyamin Aryeh Eisenberg and the late Yitzchak Rubinstein in the grave of the brothers in Nitzanim,” said Asur.

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Fireworks cancellations were attributed to concern over veterans with PTSD, but some believe the decision was made for other reasons.

By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News

The Tel Aviv municipality recently announced that it was scrapping its traditional Independence Day fireworks display, attributing the decision to a desire not to trigger IDF veterans suffering from PTSD.

A press statement attributed to Mayor Ron Huldai said the fireworks had been cancelled “after much thought and consideration.” The decision was made out of concern for “soldiers struggling with PTSD” and “people living with disabilities,” he said.

Several other nearby cities, including Ramat Gan, Herzliya and Givatayim, followed suit. But while the decision has clearly been influential on other municipalities, the city of Tel Aviv has been less than transparent about the decision-making process behind the radical departure from decades of previous Independence Day celebrations.

World Israel News reached out to the municipality and asked for more information about what led up to the cancellation, such as city administrators’ discussions on the topic, how many IDF veterans with PTSD live in Tel Aviv, and whether the idea to cancel the fireworks originated within the municipality or came as a request from a veteran.

A spokesperson for the city of Tel Aviv responded that “there are no further comments on this topic at the present.”

Year-round ‘endless’ gunfire, but Independence Day silence

Liran Baruch, founder and chairman of the NGO Disabled IDF Veterans Forum for Security, said that opinions varied among members of his organization as to whether stopping the fireworks displays is the right thing to do.

“We do have forum members who say they are in favor of ending the fireworks, but on the other hand, we have others who say they would be upset by the cancellation and that it would ruin the joy of the day for them,” he told WIN.

“We welcome accommodations for veterans with PTSD,” he continued, “but it’s unacceptable that many of them live in mixed [Arab-Jewish] municipalities where there are random gunshots and fireworks constantly — and that’s much more shocking and likelier to trigger [PTSD] than fireworks with predictable starting and ending times.”

Baruch said he found it strange that there was a focus on preventing potential PTSD triggers strictly “on a Jewish, national holiday. But stopping fireworks and gunshots in normal times is not a priority.”

In mid-April, the Forum sent a letter to Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Public Security Minister Omer Bar-Lev that outlined their concerns about the fireworks cancellations, explaining that Israeli authorities should take year-round steps to mitigate PTSD triggers for veterans.

Gantz’s office sent the Forum a laconic response, which appeared to be a form letter, pledging that it was doing its best to assist disabled IDF veterans.

A hidden agenda?

The mayor of Lod, Chaim Revivo, told Hebrew-language media on Tuesday that he questioned the narrative around respecting the sensitivities of veterans with PTSD.

Revivo told Radio 103FM that residents of his city, which has a significant Muslim population, have been subjected to nightly “barrages” of fireworks during the monthlong Ramadan holiday.

“Therefore, I think it’s a bit ridiculous to come to the public and say. ‘Listen, today we can’t hurt the people with PTSD, but 30 days straight [of fireworks] is fine,” he said.

“I’ve made a principled and ideological decision: in Lod, there will be fireworks,” Revivo later wrote on Twitter.

“Stop hiding behind the veterans with PTSD. There is a foolish attempt here to cancel our Independence Day celebrations.”

Baruch said he agreed with Revivo’s comments. “Slowly, they’re stripping away our national symbols, and if people don’t understand and deal with it, it won’t end here,” he said.

Moving forward, Baruch said he thinks the best course of action would be “to inform [the public] as to exactly what time the fireworks begin, so they won’t surprise people, and maybe incorporate pyrotechnics that are less noisy.”

He emphasized again that there are veterans with PTSD living in Arab-Jewish municipalities where “endless gunfire and fireworks” are commonplace. He added that “their children are also growing up with that,” and that the violence and random explosions could instill trauma in the next generation.

“We haven’t done anything by stopping fireworks for two or three hours,” he said.

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A great Jew and a great intellectual: Dr. Erich Isaac, Sept 21, 1928 (7 Tishrei 5689) – Nov. 5, 2021 (1 Kislev 5782)

By Atara Beck, World Israel News

One of the last of the Jewish Fighters for the Freedom of Israel (Lehi) and first chairman of Americans for A Safe Israel (AFSI) passed away on Nov. 5.

Dr. Erich Isaac, born in Mainz, Germany, left his birth country with his parents for what was then Mandatory Palestine in 1938. Although he was only nine years old on arrival, he never forgot seeing the countryside on fire as the train took them to Tel Aviv. The conflagration was part of the ongoing 1936 Arab riots.

Isaac grew up in an Orthodox Jewish home. At around the age of his Bar Mitzvah, he became involved in the pre-state, underground Fighters for the Freedom of Israel, or Lehi.

Isaac was so young that he wasn’t allowed to participate fully in one of his first missions — a bank robbery (which is how Lehi raised its money) — and was told he could only be a lookout. (Reminiscing, he said with a smile that, fortunately, no one came.)

Lehi was misunderstood and vilified as a violent gang of thugs during its period of activity. It was referred to negatively as the Stern Gang, named after its founder Avraham “Yair” Stern, who was murdered by the British. The negative attitude toward Lehi persisted even after the modern Jewish state was established. One of its leaders, Israel Eldad — father of Aryeh Eldad, a prominent Israeli medical doctor and politician — was even forbidden by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion from teaching Israeli high schoolers lest he have a bad influence over them.

Over time, Lehi came to be recognized for its contributions, especially once Yitzhak Shamir, one of its leaders, became prime minister in 1983. After that, it won for itself a place in the pantheon of those who fought for the freedom of Israel.

“Once, when we were eating at a Middle Eastern-style restaurant in Jaffa – around 1982 — he walked up to a man,” his son David told World Israel News. “The blood drained from his face when he saw my dad. It was the restaurant owner. He’d been in the same Lehi cell as my dad. My mom, who witnessed this, said that the man was terrified that Dad would reveal that the owner had been in Lehi. Even in the early 1980s, it seems, being a former member of the ‘Stern Gang’ was bad for business…

Erich Isaac as a soldier in 1948. (Courtesy Family)

“Unfortunately, we only know bits and pieces of his time in Lehi. My eldest brother said that once, while walking with Dad in Givatayim [east of Tel Aviv], probably around 1970, he pointed to a wall with bullet holes and said, ‘You see those bullet holes? That’s where I was involved in a gunfight with the British.'”

“We know of one exploit where he snookered a kibbutz out of its weapons cache by pretending to be a member of the Haganah,” the main Zionist paramilitary organization before the establishment of the State of Israel, David said. “He joked that he never visited that kibbutz again.

“But Dad was careful in the few times it came up in conversation with me to say he wasn’t some big important member of Lehi, just one of the line. To me, that was impressive enough.

“His parents were very opposed to his being in Lehi – out of worry, not political disagreement.”

Isaac also fought in the War of Independence as a scout in Givati Brigade, an elite combat unit. He was wounded several times.

Isaac was very proud of something his own father had done, David said. “A German man — young and polite, as my dad described him — came to their door at 58 King George Street in Tel Aviv, offering reparations. His father, Otto, refused, although Dad says they were poor and really could have used the money.”

Love affair with America

After the War of Independence, Isaac went to study for his Ph.D. in the U.S. He loved America’s openness and opportunity. Going into academia in Israel was apparently not possible for someone of his political background during that highly politicized period, his son explained.

Isaac studied at the University of Colorado at Boulder and then at Johns Hopkins University, where he met his wife. He became a professor and taught first at Temple University in Pennsylvania and then at City College of New York until his retirement.

He specialized in the geography of domestication and wrote a book on the subject. He also wrote on topics like religion and science, the history of kashrut, and the geography of religion, including for general-interest, Jewish-oriented magazines like Commentary, Midstream and Conservative Judaism, as well as for scientific magazines such as Science, Diogenes, Landscape and professional journals.

He also wrote early on about the phenomenon of non-Jewish groups in Africa claiming to be descendants of Jews, specifically concerning what should be the Jewish attitude toward missionizing them.

“He once said that a geographer is someone who is interested in everything,” David told World Israel News. “He didn’t say it to be self-congratulatory, but it definitely applied to him.”

“While attending a geography conference at the University of Delaware, my eldest brother, who was attending the school, tagged along and was astonished at the fuss the participants made over him. They all knew who he was,” David said. According to a review of one of the books Isaac authored, titled Geography of Domestication:

“Erich Isaac, as one expects of him, has written a learned, scholarly, well-documented book and has drawn on a wide range of sources, including numerous German works that cannot be utilized directly by many American students.”

Judaism was central to Isaac. “He talked about Jewish historical events all the time,” David said. “They were fresh to him. He talked about them as if they had happened in the not-too-distant past. He was extremely well-versed in the Bible. I once asked him about a Talmud set on his shelf and he said his father had sent it to him. His father had high hopes that he’d become a Talmud scholar.”

When Isaac’s wife was writing a dissertation on the Land of Israel movement — opposing the land-for-peace movement — which became the book Israel Divided, he assisted her and accompanied her to meetings. His own sympathies were with the Land of Israel Movement, and at one of their meetings he suggested there should be a counterpart organization in the U.S. to lobby for retaining the territories liberated in the 1967 Six-Day War.

Sense of responsibility

Later, after he returned to the States, he was pursued by Shmuel Katz, a former member of the Irgun’s high command who was active in the Land of Israel Movement, (which was remarkable at that time for bringing together well-known figures from every part of the political spectrum.) Katz brought together a number of people who formed the base of the new organization, and thus Americans for a Safe Israel (AFSI) was born, with Isaac serving as chairman. A few years later he turned over the reins to Herbert Zweibon who led the organization until his death. Isaac would often say his greatest contribution to AFSI was recruiting Zweibon. The organization is active to this day.

“Dad, who possessed a deep political understanding throughout his life and a sense of responsibility to try and do something about the depredations of the radical Left, was also involved in other organizations,” David said. “He was vice chairman of SE2, Scientists and Engineers for Secure Energy, Inc. The group, which included many prominent scientists, advocated for the peaceful use of nuclear power and attempted to counter the anti-nuclear movement.

“Through his involvement with SE2 he became friendly with Dr. Edward Teller, father of the hydrogen bomb. He was also on the board of The University Centers for Rational Alternatives (UCRA), which was founded in response to the rise of student radicalism in the late 1960s.  The group published a monthly journal Measure.”

Isaac is survived by his wife, Rael; four sons, Gamaliel, Gideon, Raphael, and David; and five grandchildren.

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After the flight, he called the experience “incredible” and “absolutely” epic while grinning from ear to ear.

By Shiryn Ghermezian, Algemeiner

A former pilot who served in Israel’s War of Independence recently returned to the cockpit of an Israeli Air Force (IAF) plane and took flight to celebrate his 100th birthday.

South African-born Harold “Smoky” Simon, who was the IAF’s first head of air operations, flew around the Sde Te’eman airfield, near Beersheva, for 20 minutes in a vintage Tiger Moth that is considered Israel’s first plane, The Jewish Chronicle reported.

His sons Saul and Dan Simon, also ex- IAF pilots, flew in vintage planes beside him as friends and the rest of his family watched from the ground.

After the flight, he called the experience “incredible” and “absolutely” epic while grinning from ear to ear.

Watch footage of Simon’s 100th birthday flight below:

The retired insurance magnate was one of many overseas volunteers, known as “Machalniks,” who made aliyah to Israel in 1948 and fought in the War of Independence, according to the IAF.

“My wife and I were in the first group of South Africans to come to Israel” he told the IAF in a special birthday interview. “We saw the war clouds gathering over Palestine. I was engaged, and my future wife and I decided we would get married and go over to Israel together as volunteers. We arrived on May 9, 1948, and enlisted in the air force the next day.”

Simon, who flew in the South African Air Force during World War II, recalled: “I had the high privilege of being on the first operational flight of the newborn Israeli Air Force. The army asked us to do a reconnaissance flight and to report on the strength of the Jordanian army. This was a very memorable flight because when we took off from Sde Dov airbase, it was Sde Dov Palestine, and when we landed, it was Sde Dov, Israel. That is because, at the very time of our flight, Ben Gurion declared the independence of the state of Israel. It was a very historic moment.”

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Seventy years later take a look back at the battles Israel won to found the Jewish state.

The post WATCH: How Israel won military and diplomatic victories in 1948 appeared first on World Israel News.

Julius Stulman was the owner of the Lumber Exchange Terminal along New York’s East River and stepped in to help arm Israel for the War of Independence. His son Stephen relates the story.

The post WATCH: The American who helped arm Israel for the War of Independence appeared first on World Israel News.

The IDF was on high alert for possible clashes with Palestinian protesters on the occasion of Nakba Day as well as demonstrations in support of a hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners.

The Israel Defense Forces were on high alert Monday and have taken special precautions in light of Nakba Day, which falls on May 15, commemorating the “nakba,” or “catastrophe” of the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.

“In last two years, the region has been relatively quiet,” the IDF said in a statement. “The IDF is taking extra security precautions, particularly in areas that are prone to riots.”

While clashes with IDF soldiers have taken place in recent years, no such violence occurred last year. However, the IDF was prepared for any unrest spurred in part by a hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners, led by Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five life sentences for terrorism and murder.

Palestinian protesters blocked roads outside of Ramallah on Monday, for the second straight day in a row, in solidarity with the hunger-striking terrorists serving time in Israeli prisons.

According to the Palestinian news outlet Wafa, thousands of Palestinians took part in “Nakba Day” commemoration ceremonies in Ramallah. The participants first gathered at the memorial for arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat, former head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, responsible for countless deadly terror attacks since its founding in 1964.

Afterwards, many participants, wearing black t-shirts with the year 1948 written on the back, marched to the city center, where they stood for 69 seconds, each second marking a year since “the Nakba.”

The speakers at the gathering, Wafa reported, stressed that the “right of return” for Palestinian refugees, which according to the standards of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency includes descendants of those who left their homes in Israel’s War of Independence.

By: Jonathan Benedek, World Israel News

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